North Carolina mother Amber Pabon was shocked when her second grader brought home an excerpt from Jon Greenberg’s “11-Step Guide to Understanding Race, Racism, and White Privilege.”
The handout lists statistics on the disproportionate number of white people in positions of power, such as in government and entertainment, and includes a link to a video that discusses the different ways black people are treated differently based on skin color and “black sounding names.”
It is important for children to learn about racism and white privilege, says Pabon, but these are the sort of things you learn from your parents – not from your teachers. “If she’s teaching him the way she knows, it could be completely different from the way I know. And me being part of the black community, I know different from how the white community sees it.”
Pabon’s son is 8 years old and attends Hunter Magnet Elementary in Raleigh, North Carolina. The school’s enrollment is 40% white, 36% black, 10% Asian, and 9% Hispanic.
Pabon, who has black and Hispanic ancestry, says her son learned about white privilege in his class. “My son asked me if white people are better…The way the school did it was inappropriate.”
Hunter says white privilege is not part of the school’s curriculum and that the handout is part of an optional PTA program intended for parents only. The program, which began during Black History Month, is designed to generate awareness, empathy, and understanding in order to create a safer community.
“We live in a world where we need to have greater empathy and understanding of people’s experiences,” says PTA member Juliette Grimmett. “Because Hunter is so racially and ethnically diverse, these issues are so important for families…We know there’s a lot of data on the impact of race on education.”
Pabon is one of only two parents who decided to opt out of the PTA program on white privilege.
Editor’s note: If you think about, this PTA program is promoting racial divisiveness. How are the non-white kids thinking about the white kids when the teachers show them how the white kids are bad? It may be unintentional, but kids are sponges at that age. And they don’t understand that this is B.S. liberal propaganda promoting a divisive and false narrative.