Seattle English Students Told It’s ‘White Supremacy’ to Love Reading, Writing

Students in a Seattle English class were told that their love of reading and writing is a characteristic of “white supremacy,” in the latest Seattle Public Schools high school controversy. The lesson plan has one local father speaking out, calling it “educational malpractice.”

As part of the Black Lives Matter at School Week, World Literature and Composition students at Lincoln High School were given a handout with definitions of the “9 characteristics of white supremacy,” according to the father of a student. {snip}

The Seattle high schoolers were told that “Worship of the Written Word” is white supremacy because it is “an erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other.” By this definition, the very subject of World Literature and Composition is racist. {snip}

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The worksheet labels “objectivity,” “individualism,” and “perfectionism” as white supremacy. If students deny their own racism — or that any of the nine characteristics are legitimately racist — is also white supremacy. Denialism or being overly defensive is a racist example of an “entitlement to name what is an [sic] isn’t racism and that those with power have a right to be shielded from the stresses of antiracist work.”

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Another aspect of the white supremacy lesson at this Seattle school involved a video titled “Getting Called Out: How to Apologize” by Franchesca Ramsey. It’s reportedly presented in the context of white students expressing what the teacher views as “white supremacy.”

“Getting called out, in this context of this video, is when you say or do something that upholds the oppression of a marginalized group of people,” Ramsey says.

Ramsey says her advice is about becoming an ally and “doing the right thing.” She explains you shouldn’t “get defensive” by denying you’re oppressing marginalized people, even if you’re not actually oppressing marginalized people.

“What you really need to do is listen because this is where the other person is hopefully going to explain to you what you did wrong and how you can explain it,” she says.

In the context of the worksheet on white supremacy, it seems clear that students must merely accept that they are upholding oppression. Using the worksheet, if a student defends independence or a love of reading and writing, that student is supposed to accept that it’s white supremacist thinking and stop acting independently or loving to read and write.

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