Tuesday, October 31, 2023

One to read from Newton

 ...where the reporter clearly has been working for a bit on a story on the pushback on the district's work on diversity and inclusion work. 

A small but vocal group of parents are spreading the idea that declines in standardized test scores in Newton are the result of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programming in the schools. And they are drawing from the rhetoric of national far-right groups that have sprung up in the past few years to push an “anti-woke” agenda that’s being highlighted in the Republican 2024 presidential campaigns now taking flight.

I do want to note, though, that the idea that this is "unlikely" or surprising is ahistorical.

 
It first leaves out the point that Lily Geismer made in her book Don't Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party  that--and this is my summary--white suburbanites of metro Boston were all for equity right up until it started to hit at home. See, for example, the more than 50 years we have of METCO, without ever taking any steps towards actual desegregation as a state. 


It also leaves out the pushback that has happened throughout America history of "Nice White Parents" and Mothers of Massive Resistance pushing back on what is perceived as threats to white children. 

Filling in a bubble next to the Democratic candidate for president does not define someone. We need to work harder on knowing the landscape. 

 

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