landscape feels like watching a toddler trying
You’re supposed to be patient when it takes them 17 minutes to tie their shoelaces. You’re supposed to applaud their migraine-inducing attempts to play the violin. You’re supposed to give your undivided attention as they tell stories that somehow lack a beginning, a middle, and an end.
But worst of all is when a child wants to “help” you with something. You know that accepting their help will quadruple the time, energy, and resources required to get anything done. You realise that it’d be far simpler to do the job yourself. You’re aware that they’ll get bored halfway through and give up. But what are you supposed to tell them? They’re so enthusiastic, so earnest, so eager to contribute. So you take a deep breath, grit your teeth into a smile, and watch them make a mess.
If you’ve been watching the trajectory of anti-racism over the past few years, you can probably relate. It’s become an exercise in patiently explaining things that should be painfully obvious. It’s an endless parade of clickbait headlines and performative outrage. It’s dominated by people who seem as if they want to help but are hopelessly confused about how to do so.
For example, Los Angeles private institution Brentwood School recently announced plans to segregate parent-teacher meetings by race as part of its (and I’m not kidding here) “Inclusive Excellence Racial Equity” initiative. White parents will meet with White teachers, Black parents will meet with Black teachers, Latinx parents with Latinx teachers. I presume that interracial families will need to separate in the name of progress.
Watching these “allies” blunder their way around the anti-racism landscape feels like watching a toddler trying to perform open-heart surgery. The stakes are too high. The mistakes are too costly.https://www.getrevue.co/profile/the-Winter-Soldier-Season-1
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/the-Winter-Soldier-Season-1
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/The-Falcon-the-Winter-Soldier
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/the-Winter-Soldier-Season-1-Ep-1
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/The-Falcon-and-Winter
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheFalconandtheWinterSoldier
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/Zack-Snyders-Justice-League-2021
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/2021-Zack-Snyders-Justice-League
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/Full-Zack-Snyders-Justice-League
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/Free-Zack-Snyders-Justice-League
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/Zack-Snyders-Justice-League-720p
https://steemkr.com/aovmoveihsd/@teretyajeret/landscape-feels-like-watching-a-toddler-trying
https://cox.tribe.so/post/landscape-feels-like-watching-a-toddler-trying-60502f786da94c0379ffc55d
https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=846589
https://paiza.io/projects/pwhMWWNxe6FGY3evRhbORw
https://onlinegdb.com/sVXSOHLsN
https://jsfiddle.net/kalopesafujer/kbqxwzfa/
https://dumpz.org/bdSCPRNfd2R6
If a child had an idea this asinine, it would be easier to cope. You could explain in clear, age-appropriate language why racial segregation is not the best path to “inclusive excellence.” You could point out that while some parents may have issues directly related to their race, preventing other parents and teachers from hearing them is likely to make those problems worse. You could remind them in your gentlest, most tender-hearted voice that classifying people by race promotes racism, rather than — what was it again? Oh yes, INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE AND RACIAL EQUITY!
A few hours north in the Bay Area, there’s Meyerholz Elementary School, where eight-year-old children learn to rank themselves according to the power and privilege of their race, gender, and sexuality. It’s how you might reimagine Jane Elliott’s famous “brown eyes, blue eyes” experiment if you utterly failed to understand it.