Teaching For Social Change Justice Booklist For Families

The district offers Rocket Family Summer Camp. There are several boards offered, one of which is the "Diversity and Equity Board."

One of the boards is the "Teaching For Social Change Justice Booklist for Families." This board is a part of the Diversity and Equity board recommended in the Below are a few of the books recommended. Click on the pictures to get more information.

Description

Celebrate the right to resist!

Human rights belong to every single one of us, but they are often under threat. Developed in collaboration with Amnesty International, Rise Up! encourages young people to engage in peaceful protest and stand up for freedom. Photographs of protest posters celebrate the ongoing fight for gender equality, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, refugee and immigrant rights, peace, and the environment.

Click here to read full description.

"Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the foundational texts in the field of critical pedagogy, which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate.

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire’s work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing...." Click here to read more.

The Social Justice Booklist includes a section on Black Lives Matter

Click on the picture to go to the website.

Diversity and Equity Committee Recommended Reading List

Members of the Diversity and Equity Committee issued a resource reading list to School District personnel that includes books such as White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi.

Remember, the "Equity Initiative Action Plan" as outlined in the July 13, 2020 board meeting included a "Book study." Click here to review the Board Meeting minutes. This list represents the recommended reading. We received this list from a district faculty employee.

The full list contains over 20 books. Click HERE to view full list.

Now we'll look more in depth at some of the books that were recommended.

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

DiAngelo’s book has been criticized as being “… replete with claims that are either plain wrong or bizarrely disconnected from reality.” According to John McWhorter who is a contributor to “The Atlantic” and teaches at Columbia University, the book is an example of “The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility” (click here to see article).

Below is a quote from "White Fragility" which suggests that no white people can have a positive identity? That in order to be less oppressive, white people must be less white.

Stamped: Racism Antiracism and You
by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kindi

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, is a bizarre choice to be presented to our teachers as a resource. In Kini's book, “How to be an Anti-Racist” he is open about his extreme views.

Andrew Sullivan a contributor to the New York magazine exposes some important tenants of Kendi’s philosophy with direct quotes from “How to be an Anti-Racist”.

Kendi states that in order to promote his goals one should “Invent or find antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity.”

Kendi also states that “the most threatening racist movement is not the alt-right’s unlikely drive for a White ethno-state, but the regular American’s drive for a ‘race-neutral’ one.”

He believes that “An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change” This of course leads to the activist who will “Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy.”.

"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."

So to cure racism, we need more racism? Click here to read the full article "Is the Cure for Racism Really More Racism?"

Below is another quote from Ibram Kendi that suggests that any policy that does not produce EQUAL OUTCOMES between racial groups is in fact racist.

According to an article in New Discourses, called "Defining Racism Up: Ibram X. Kendi's Weird Definition of Anti-Racism", Kendi REDEFINES racism. According to Kendi, there is no longer not racist. There is only racist or antiracist.