When equity replaces liberty
Washington State Office of Equity has replaced the word "liberty" with the word "equity" in the phrase "with liberty and justice for all." It's now "equity and justice for all."
Each month during this past school year, the Tacoma Public School district has issued an “equity challenge.” The equity challenge for the month of June is Advocacy! 1
The question we are to ponder this moth is:
How can we center the experiences and voices of others to be better advocates for students, our colleagues, and families?
In context, it’s clear what the District is wanting to hear. They want to know how staff will work to make BIPOC2 and LGBTQIA people feel more empowered.
What they ignore, however, is the fact that the equity movement is in direct opposition to traditional cultural values espoused by a majority of kids in our classrooms. In my classroom, for instance, I have students who are being raised by Buddhists, Christians, Catholics and Muslims. All of these religions have prohibitions against, or at least limitations on, sexual relations outside of marriage between a man and a woman. All of them admonish adherents to live a life of sexual sobriety.
The equity sect3, however, seems dead set against sexual sobriety. June is the month that the LGBTQIA community has chosen to promote every form of sexual act as worthy of pride. All sexual relations to them are apparently something to be proud of. If you don’t like it, you’re a homophobe or a transphobe. Or worse. By so much as thinking things like “children should probably not have sex changes,” you could be guilty of a thought crime. According to Healthline, “A person doesn’t have to put these behaviors or beliefs into words for them to count as transphobia, either.”4
So what happens when you have two protected classes that are completely incompatible with each other?
Should be easy. You don’t promote either one.
The government must remain neutral on this matter. Schools cannot be allowed to promote either side. Parents who wish to raise their kids with traditional values have as much right to expect an education free of sectarian influence as LGBTQ familes have to expect an education free of religious indoctrination.
This is nothing new. We’ve been struggling to accomplish a balance among religious and secular seccts since compulsory education became a thing in the late 1600s. Only now, it seems the equity sect has forgotten that.
Perhaps the month of June is an opening for educators to be an advocate for traditional values. How can I center the experiences and voices of Christians and others who share traditional cultural values of the nuclear family, monogamy, and sexual sobriety to be better advocates for them in our schools?
I think it’s not a coincidence that when we force equity upon people, liberty is shown the door. The equity sect cares nothing about liberty, only imposition of their will on everyone else. And they need to get back in their lane.
From the TPS SharePoint site:
Advocacy
At times, we are the barrier to creating and maintaining a culture built on equity and inclusion. Silence is the barrier, and it is built from indifference and neutrality. We must own the role we play as advocates for those who are not being heard, who are powerless, and whose experiences are devalued or inferior to the majority. Being an advocate requires us to act with humility, listen with compassion, understand the experiences of others, and face our own discomforts.
Grounding Quote
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” - Delores Huerta
Question
How can we center the experiences and voices of others to be better advocates for students, our colleagues, and families?
Where and when do you have opportunities to solve problems together?
Cultural Deconstruction: Individualism
Use staff meetings as a place to solve problems, not just a place to report activities
Create a culture where people bring problems to the group
Closing Quote:
“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.” - Dakota Tribe Wisdom
Black Indegenous People of Color
Aren’t black people also people of color? Isn’t this redundant? It should just read IPOC. I suggest we add a W. WIPOC = people. There. Much better.
A group of people forming a distinct unit within a larger group by virtue of certain refinements or distinctions of belief or practice.
How to Identify and Stop Transphobia: 12 Examples, Next Steps.
Democrat lawmakers in Olympia this session voted to create expand the definition of a “hate crime” and also voted to create a hate crime hotline which will pay up to $2,000 to people to report their neighbors for saying things like what I’m writing here.
https://www.28thwa.com/blog-1-1/the-votes-bronoske-leavitt-and-nobles-dont-want-you-to-see