Written by David Limbaugh

Can you believe anyone even organizes a “white privilege” conference these days — seven years into Barack Obama’s presidency? Well, you’d better believe it, and you should also know that at least one of the speakers at this conference is militantly Christophobic.

The 17th annual White Privilege Conference was held in Philadelphia from April 15 to 17. Blake Neff of The Daily Caller attended the conference and reported that “activist and author actually claimed that “almost every dysfunction in society, from racism and sexism to global warming and a weak economy, is united by the ideology of ‘Christian hegemony.’”

What’s the problem, you ask? Well, in the United States, according to Kivel, between 7,000 and 10,000 predominantly white Christian men run the major institutions and “colonize our mind” with Christianity’s core ideas, which leads to most of the world’s problems.

Kivel identified three particularly severe problems in the modern world that are caused or worsened by Christianity. First are wars in the Middle East, which he says are a result of Christianity’s effort to spread Western ideas and influence.

The Bible does direct Christians to spread the “good news” to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20). But Christianity started in the Middle East and spread outward from there. By A.D. 100, the Christian church had been established in regions throughout the Mediterranean, largely because of the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys (Acts 16-20) and the evangelism of Peter, John and others.

The Middle East has switched hands countless times throughout history — Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Ottomans, British, French, Italians and others.

Perhaps Kivel had in mind America’s wars with Iraq in the past quarter-century and our effort to plant self-rule in the region. Though the wisdom of our nation-building effort can certainly be debated, our involvement is hardly the reason for the age-old conflicts in the Middle East, which, in all likelihood, will continue as long as the world does.

The second problem Kivel attributed to Christianity is the economic destruction it has caused because, wrote Neff, “it provides that God-like ‘invisible hand’ that supposedly drives market forces within a flawed capitalist system.”

It is tragic that the left has successfully rewritten history to demonize capitalism as the source of poverty rather than the great engine of unprecedented prosperity it has been for the United States, the Western world and beyond.

Kivel identified the third problem as Christianity’s conflict with “global warming,” wrote Neff, “because under Christianity mankind has dominion over the Earth, rather than requiring that humans treat the Earth itself as ‘sacred.’” Interestingly, Kivel is lexiconically challenged, as he failed to use the proper terminology for this vexing menace — “climate change.”

The Bible gives man dominion over all other living things (Genesis 1:28), but it does not sanction man’s abuse of the environment or other creatures. The Bible does not exhort mankind to deify “Mother Earth” as radical environmentalists do. But it does promote prudent stewardship, from the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) to God’s commanding that the fields and vineyards be sown and harvested for six years but left fallow in the seventh year to replenish the soil’s nutrients (Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:1-7).

Christianity, argued Kivel, also orients us to distinguish between good and evil, which forces us to adopt a “with us or against us” mentality. “There’s nothing inherently good or bad about the weather or about people,” Kivel insisted.

I’ll concede that though the weather can be a destructive force, it is not capable of good or evil. But yes, the Bible definitely distinguishes between good and evil, and it is quite clear that all men are fallen.

Next, Kivel made the irrational leap that to distinguish between good and evil leads to condemnation of various things as worthy of destruction. From my perspective, however, it is not Christians but leftists such as Kivel who are most intolerant toward people and ideas of other religions or secularists.

Finally, Kivel castigated Christianity’s “hierarchical” views that place “God over people, men over women, parents over children, (and) white people over people of color,” which, in his view, inevitably leads to systems that justify or glorify oppression.

The Bible does — big surprise — place God (the Creator) over man (the creature), and it places parents over their children for the purpose of raising them through their formative years — an idea no doubt shocking to such leftists. But it does not teach that there are differences in human dignity; all people (male and female) are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), which is intrinsically irrespective of race. It is rich for Kivel to argue that the Bible glorifies racial oppression when Christians were the leaders in the anti-slavery movement.

Before you dismiss all this as the thinking of a fringe leftist, please consider that it is a logical extension of “progressive” thinking that liberals, especially in the universities and the media, engage in every day. Indeed, it would be intellectually dishonest to deny that leftist race- and gender-baiting, as well as capitalism-bashing, permeate our university curricula throughout the United States. Everything involves identity categories — race, gender, income and the rest. Ironically, the left’s obsession over race, gender and the like tends to diminish, rather than promote, human dignity and individuality.

Despite the skewed thinking and propaganda of leftists such as Kivel, Christianity, as abundant evidence demonstrates, has been a force of good in this world and continues to be.

This article was originally posted at the Stream.org

Many Americans find President Obama’s obsession with income inequality troubling. Many think the goal of equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity is misguided and harmful. Many are concerned with his hyper-focus on race, class, gender, and the dubious classification “sexual orientation.” Well, get used to it, folks, because the government is breeding a new generation of Obamas, chiefly through public education.  

This indoctrination occurs in schools, colleges, and departments of education that train teachers and then through them, filters down into our high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. 

One of the scores of ways the Obama/Bill Ayers/Peggy McIntosh/Paulo Freire worldviews are promulgated is through the annual “White Privilege Conference” being held this March 26-29 in Madison, Wisconsin. And one sure sign that this conference is up to no good is that the morally impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be participating through its ironically named “educational” project: Teaching Tolerance. Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies the Family Research Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, and IFI as “hate groups” because of our orthodox Christian belief that homosexual acts are immoral thinks of itself as the teacher of tolerance. 

The documents for this conference include a glossary of terms for the uninitiated in which the term “Christonormativity” is defined: “The system of oppression which assumes Christianity as the norm, favors Christians, and denigrates and stigmatizes anyone that is not Christian. Equates Americanness with Christianity.”

Oddly, I couldn’t find the term “Christophobia,” which is the system of oppression which assumes Christianity is the source of all evil and stigmatizes anyone who is an orthodox Christian.

To give you a clearer picture of the ideologies that infect public education, below is a sampling of bios and workshops from the White Privilege conference. (Remember as you read the following that when the terms “racism” and “bias” are used, they do not refer primarily to actual racism and bias, but rather to “institutional racism” and “bias” which are horses of an entirely different color—definitely not white. Just know that if you’re a white, male, heterosexual, orthodox Christian you’re automatically guilty of racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, Christonormativity, and hegemonic practices):

Paul Kivel: “The Roots of Racism in Christian Hegemony: Decolonizing our Thinking, Behavior, and Public Policy”: Before Europeans understood themselves as white they thought of themselves as Christians participating in a cosmic battle between good and evil against all those labeled Other. Today, Christian hegemony punishes the poor, destroys the environment, and contributes to our seemingly endless “war on terror.” As our crises of financial meltdown, war, racism and environmental destruction intensify; it is imperative that we dig beneath the surface of Christianity’s benign reputation to examine how it undermines our interpersonal relationships, weakens our communities and promotes injustice. Join me in a discussion of the impact of dominant Christianity on our lives and on how Christians and those who are not Christian have resisted oppression and built communities of healing and justice. 

Emily Chiariello: The Teaching Tolerance Anti-bias Framework, “Understanding Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action,” will orient participants with the first-ever road map for anti-bias education. Organized into four domains: Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action, the framework represents a continuum of engagement in anti-bias, multicultural and social justice education, moving anti-bias educators from prejudice reduction toward collective action….Participants will walk away with a copy of the complete framework and strategies for integrating the framework into classroom instruction.

Rosemary Colt and Diana Reeves: “Examining White Privilege and Building Foundations for Social Justice Thinking in the Elementary Classroom”:  Learn how to design and implement curriculum around concepts of power, justice, relationship and community building. How does white privilege impact our society at a community level, a global level? …In this session, we will share curriculum that allows children to construct an understanding of how race and privilege have determined what our neighborhoods look like. Even young students can learn to understand and think critically about white privilege and power, as well as detect bias, assume perspectives different from their own, and take social action.

Christine Saxman: “Saxman is an English teacher [at Deerfield High School, Deerfield, Illiniois], Equity leader, Pacific Education Group Affiliate and “Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity” facilitator. She works for racial justice inside her classroom, school district and community….She will be co-facilitating “Interrupting White Privilege at WPC and Beyond: How Interruption Can Strengthen Relationships and Build Community Relationships and Build Community.” What do you do if you see white privilege asserting itself at WPC? What do you do when someone shares that you’ve been asserting privilege and you didn’t realize it? This workshop, facilitated by a Woman of Color and a White woman, will examine how to recognize privilege and how to interrupt it in the service of relationships, community, and justice.   

Andrea Haynes Johnson: Johnson is a Black, female anti-racist leader and educator. Currently she serves as the Director of Diversity and Grants for [Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools], and she is an Affiliate with Pacific Educational Group. She will be the co-facilitator of “Moving K-12 Public Schools to Anti-Racist Action,” in which Participants will engage in a vibrant conversation about the paths and pitfalls to transforming Public Schools into spaces that interrupt White Privilege and promote anti-racist practices. Strategies for accountability, staff development and student engagement will be shared. The dialogue will empower participants to return to their home schools armed with language and concrete practices that can foster a more inclusive environment for all stakeholders.

White Privilege Conferences are attended by public school teachers who will take these controversial ideas about race, gender, class, “sexual orientation,” and bias into the classroom in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There is no reason for teachers to attend this voluntary conference other than to bring the dubious ideas they ingest back to the classroom. And folks, we often pay for it. 

Take ACTION: Contact your local high school and ask if any teachers are speaking at or attending this dubious conference, and if so, ask whether the school district is footing the bill.

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You can bet your bottom dollar that if there’s a way to use public money to promote leftwing political or educational theories, District 113 (Highland Park and Deerfield High Schools) will find it.

Superintendent George Fornero and Director of Diversity Andrea Johnson have managed to waste thousands of taxpayer dollars to promote Critical Race Theory/Critical Pedagogy under the guise of “Equity and Excellence.”

Last month District 113 — along with many other school districts around the country — used public money to send district employees to yet another “White Privilege Conference,” this time in Minneapolis.

In an article for the Minnesota Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten, offers this description of the conference:

To find out (what parents and taxpayers can expect), we can peruse the keynote address for the 2009 conference. It was delivered by “social justice educator” Paul Kivel and appeared in the conference journal, “Understanding and Dismantling Privilege.”

Kivel begins with what passes these days as a prayer: “I want to acknowledge the creative spirits in the world that nurture and sustain us and that connect us to each other and to the plant and animal life around us.”

Then he winds up for a fire-and-brimstone sermon. We Americans “are completely dependent on U.S. imperialism and war to sustain our daily lives.”

Our schools, too, are riddled with racial bias. “Our school system has been set up … to perpetuate white supremacy and white privilege.” Poor and minority students “do not drop out — they are pushed out.”

What’s gone wrong? For one thing, Christianity has far too much influence. It “has played a key role in developing and justifying sources of oppression” such as “violence and genocide,” Kivel tells us, and is “the beginning of modern or biological racism.”

But don’t despair, he counsels. We must look beyond our “declining empire” to “exciting progressive developments” in Hugo Chavez’sVenezuela — among them, “land reform and redistribution of wealth, neighborhood committees, recognition of women’s unpaid labor, end of spanking.”

In addition to Kivel, who spoke again this year, here are just a few of the other 2011 speakers whose livelihoods we taxpaying chumps subsidize and whose feckless ideas permeate public school curricula:

Z! Haukeness (yes, that’s actually his name): Haukeness is a “transgender” who admits to looking “pretty masculine” and asserts that he is “gender queer, gender non-conforming.” He explains that he became involved in working for racial justice after having a radical seventh grade teacher who told his class that “All of you are racists and your parents are too.” (Read more HERE.)

Jessica Vasques Torres: According to diversity consultant Jamie Utt, who loved the conference, lesbian Torres asked “Why do we, as queer folks want to join an institution with a 50% failure rate? Shouldn’t our goal be to deconstruct the very destructive, sexist, and heterosexist institution of marriage itself?” (Read more HERE.)

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: According to Utt, Dunbar-Ortiz said that “‘The colonists who came to this country might as well have been wearing Nazi uniforms,'” in that “Their effect was the same on the indigenous people of this land.”

Waziyatawin: Utt learned from Ms. Waziyatawin that “Many people don’t want to hear the truth about what has been done to black, brown, and red people on these lands because it challenge the very system of supremacy on which our lives are built. The United States itself is built upon oppression. That can’t be reformed. The only antidote to a colonial government is to end the colonial government.”

In a speech given in another context, Waziyatawin argues that Minnesota’s celebration of its sesquicentennial was “really a rationalization for pretty horrific crimes” including “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”

Since I’m a District 113 taxpayer, I emailed the administration with a few questions about district participation in this conference, and demonstrating their usual commitment to transparency, the administration told me I would have to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to get my questions answered. I complied.

What I learned is that District 113 applied for a grant through the federal “Title II Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting Fund” which provides “funds to increase student academic achievement by elevating teacher and principal quality through recruitment, hiring, and retention strategies and to hold local educational agencies and schools accountable for improvements in student academic achievement.”

In the application, Diversity Director Andrea Johnson wrote that the district’s goal was to “work toward eliminating the racial predictability of which students fall into the highest and lowest achievement categories by continuing our Equity and Excellence work.”

In answer to the question on the grant application regarding how the district will evaluate the success of the programs on which they spend federal funds, Johnson wrote: “Through classroom walk-throughs, equity audits, and focus groups, we will assess our progress toward this goal. Additionally, we will administer the Intercultural Development Inventory assessment and collect data on the cultural competency of our staff who have gone through the training.”

Remarkable. The administration received a grant to increase student achievement, and yet there is no evaluation of student achievement whatsoever. Instead, they will test staff on their “cultural competency.” For the uninitiated, that means the district will test staff to determine their ability to regurgitate Critical Race Theory/Critical Pedagogy assumptions.

They will also walk through classrooms, perform equity audits (whatever that means) and have focus groups in which they will “assess” their progress. In the 1970s, I think that was called navel-gazing.

My FOIA revealed that the district received $10,000 for “Equity Staff Development Stipends” and $7,227 for “Equity Conferences” like the “White Privilege Conference.” It also revealed that one of the four district employees who was sent to the White Privilege Conference in Minnesota was the secretary for the Counseling Department, Judy Tentes. Someone needs to explain how — even in theory — having a secretary — who has no instructional responsibilities — attend a White Privilege Conference will improve student academic achievement.

Since District 113 has over the course of a decade spent well over $100,000 of taxpayer money on Critical Race Theory — I mean, “equity and excellence” — isn’t it about time to provide some objective data to prove it has closed the racial achievement gap? The administration doesn’t need to test employees for their “cultural competency.” The administration needs to prove that the money they’ve spent promoting Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy through Peggy McIntosh’s SEED program, Lee Mun Wah’s Stir Fry Seminars, Glenn Singleton’s Courageous Conversations, and the White Privilege Conferences has had a measurable impact on student achievement (I can’t help but wonder what the Hispanic parents of District 113 students would think of the district spending over $100,000 of money that is intended to help their children score better on standardized tests to instead teach staff and faculty that whites, males, and heterosexuals are oppressive and often genocidal).

It should come as no surprise that a district so enamored of Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy that it would annually ship employees all over the country to attend the White Privilege Conference would also have a teacher who presents at it. Deerfield High School English teacher and Critical Race Theory disciple Christine Saxman has been a presenter at the 10th, 11th, and 12th White Privilege Conferences.

To my knowledge, none of Deerfield’s or Highland Park’s many well-educated community members demand any evidence to justify years of expenditures on workshops, conferences, seminars, meetings, and “diversity” consultants. Thousands of dollars of public funds have been swallowed up by efforts to convince district employees that the racial achievement gap is centrally caused by the whiteness of white people. While skipping along the primrose path to “equity and excellence” Nirvana, our Critical Race Theorists stuff their pockets with the hard-earned money of people whom they accuse of being racist, sexist, homophobic oppressors.

One curious phenomenon continually overlooked in District 113 — a district that prides itself on fostering critical thinking, tolerance, diversity, and intellectual rigor — is that not once has the administration offered a professional development opportunity to staff and faculty in which they study the work of scholars who criticize Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, or the intellectual assumptions of what’s euphemistically called “teaching for social justice.”

“If a million people believe a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing.”
~ Anatole France

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