Waterloo Oxford District School Staff Learn that “Family” is a Harmful Concept Rooted in White Supremacy

apparently family as a concept harms “racialised” students, nuclear family is apparently not the same for non-European humans

Clarification: Reader it seems there’s been a miscommunication about the source of these materials. To clarify, I will quote from the Juno News breaking story, which is linked in this piece, see below. “True North obtained internal training materials delivered to the staff at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation …”. I initially stated that WRDSB produced the material and that was a misstatement, I should have said that WRDSB staff received the bigoted training materials in a PD session from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation.

My apologies for the discrepancy. That said, it seems sketchy that the school board has or had no awareness about the material regarding which their staff has received training. It points to a profoundly disturbing situation regarding how education is managed and delivered.

Recently political announcements have been made regarding the Premier and Minister expressing an intent and desire to purge DEI from pedagogy and public education. Perhaps the left hand should know what the right hand is doing. Teachers federations and collectives seem quite radical in their views and approach to education and it makes me question whose interests they prioritise in their professional work and activism.

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Reader, I wish I was making this up. Sadly I’m not, it’s very real and it’s happening in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Reader, I present to you the work of American activist-advocate, speaker, and author, Caroline J Sumlin. Who’s Caroline J Sumlin? Well, her website provides the following introduction.

I'm an author, speaker, and educator on a mission to help you break free from toxic, oppressive systems that have destroyed our collective humanity.

I believe that: your worth is inherent, joy is a birthright, and that there is no such thing as a “standard.”

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Reader, before we go any further, please do check out the original breaking story at Juno News. We have their investigative journalists to thank for this great scoop. Please go and subscribe to support their work.

EXCLUSIVE: School board trains staff that the term ‘family’ is harmful, racist

SLIDE ONE

Dismantling Whiteness at W-O: Words Matter

“FAMILY”

• identified as harmful by our racialised students

Implies...

• values positions of (male) authority and hierarchy

• a nuclear family structure - not the same for everyone

Niceness:

asks for obedience; no room for questions or criticism

an expectation to prioritize family's needs and wants;
sacrificing personal boundaries

SLIDE TWO

Unpacking Whiteness

• Whiteness is a system

• We have been conditioned to be part of the system

• Whiteness is a construct that allows white supremacy to flourish

Characteristics of white supremacy culture:

• perfectionism

• individualism

• power hoarding

• either or thinking

• right to comfort

• worship of the written word

• quantity over quality, one right way

• progress is bigger

• defensiveness

• sense of urgency

• paternalism

• fear of open conflict

SLIDE THREE

Answering your questions about the Affinity Group...

• All BIPOC students are welcome to attend the affinity group.

• If you feel that you have established a relationship with a student, please feel free to recommend the affinity group.

• The reason it isn't advertised as a club is to protect the students.

• It is our hope that a shift in school culture will one day allow us to advertise the group.

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Reader, you’re probably asking, what the heck is a BIPOC Affinity Group? Well, Juno News describes it thusly:

“BIPOC affinity groups,” described as exclusive, invitation-only spaces for non-white staff or students. These groups are deliberately kept confidential, justified by the claim that school culture is inhospitable to racial minorities. Despite their private nature, the groups are cited in WRDSB board meeting minutes and equity reports as markers of institutional progress. — Melanie Bennet of True North writing for Juno News

On their website culturalheritage[dot]org, The American Institute for Conservation and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation describe the BIPOC Affinity Group as follows:

The BIPOC Affinity Group is a group for established professionals, emerging professionals, students, interns, colleagues, friends, and others within the conservation, preservation, and restoration of material culture who self-identify as a person of color regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, color, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability or any other attributes that people use to label others or divide communities.

The culturalheritage[dot]org website further states that POC Affinity Group prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. Okay, so reader, there is a right to comfort however it’s race-based. Privileged people don’t have the expectation of comfort, apparently. Privilege being anyone the BIPOCs feel jealousy towards? The organization’s equity doctrine states the following with respect to privilege.

EIC members recognize that there are existing power structures that inequitably privilege certain groups of people, which arise out of racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, homophobia, and ableism.

Reader, there’s that word, power. Remember one of the characteristics above, in the Waterloo School Board slides? Power hoarding. How much of this stuff can we chalk up to projection, reader? You can decide for yourself.

Anyway. Reader, can you see how this stuff is quasi-religious or cultish? Can you see all the ways they’ve expressed the very behaviours they purported to be opposing through their advocacy?

Reader, do you it interesting that the people who purport to want to dismantle toxic and oppressive systems that threaten to destroy collective humanity have essentially chosen to hoard power by adopting and enforcing and imposing attributes that people use to label others or divide communities? Reader, I find it very weird and disturbing. It’s hypocrisy.

Let’s return to Caroline J Sumlin, the woman credited in the Waterloo Region District School Board presentation slides.

Join the family, urges Ms Sumlin. But reader, wait. Didn’t we just learn from the WRDSB and the illustrious Caroline J Sumlin to think of family as a concept that’s part of toxic, oppressive system (rooted in white supremacy) that has destroyed our collective humanity, and is harmful to “racialised students”? Reader, can we surmise from this website call to action that Ms Sumlin doesn’t entirely believe in the cult of anti-oppression which she advances?

Let’s move on to the next bit of her website introduction. “I believe that: your worth is inherent, joy is a birthright …” Okay, wait. Because I thought the expectation of comfort was a characteristic of white supremacy. Worth is inherent and joy is a birthright sound like expectations of comfort, don’t they, reader? What’s going on here? Reader, maybe you can work it out, because I’m confused.

Anyway, let’s keep going to the last part of her introduction, “ … there is no such thing as a ‘standard’”. Reader, wow, that’s pretty radical.

Has Ms Sumlin never heard of engineering? Does she ride airplanes, public transit, or drive a car? Does she have a home? Because all these things require standards of engineering and construction and operational safety in order to function safely and securely. Has Ms Sumlin ever had medical care or surgery? Her website shows two children, we can presume they’re her progeny, that she’s experienced childbirth. So, there’s no such thing as a standard? Not even for the delivery of prenatal or intrapartum health care?

Reader, really? Wow. That’s wild.

Am I being a smart ass? Am I being flip?

Nah, reader, I’m trying to understand the esteemed Caroline J Sumlin’s edicts, so I can learn about toxic oppressive systems that have destroyed collective humanity. I’m trying to figure out how the establishment of standards destroys collective humanity. Reader, surely technological advancements have enabled humans to devise standards of engineering and public health and operational safety that preserve and promote collective humanity?

It’s all quite esoteric and silly, isn’t it, reader?

Let’s return to the main topic, family as rooted in white supremacy and harmful to “racialised students”.

Stork delivering a brown baby

That’s a terrible lie, reader.

It’s a misanthropic lie concocted by extremists who want to destroy humanity. First of all let’s define racialised student. Apparently that refers to black, indigenous, and students of colour. So, are we to believe that African and indigenous and other non white cultures don’t have any nuclear family at their core? Do they come from the stork, then, reader? How are non white babies and children raised and nurtured? Reader, I’m puzzled.

I come from an Indo-Caribbean family and the nuclear family featured prominently in that culture and reader, Hindu family culture is paternalistic as fcuk. Arab culture is similar. Many African cultures are similar. Asian culture places great importance on the family. In fact all of these cultures extend the family to include multi-generational members.

In addition to being dishonest and culturally insensitive, isn’t that racist, reader?

All cultures have the nuclear family at their core, it’s the human condition. The family has always occupied a position of importance as the basic unit of humanity, across culture and region of the world. Slavery and imperial persecution and classism have harmed human society because they destroyed the family. Removing children from parents harmed society because it severed familial attachments necessary for human survival. That’s widely accepted today reader.

So, what’s this about, then? Why are public school teachers learning that family is a harmful white supremacist concept?

Wokerati cultists need to pick one:

1. White supremacy gave them inter generational trauma because it destroyed family attachments needed for human survival

2. Family is a concept harmful to non-white humans and it’s rooted in white supremacy.

Wokeists, please decide. Because you can’t have both, they’re mutually exclusive.

Q: You know who saw the nuclear family as a source of oppression to the people?

A: Mao did. The dismantling and suppression of the family formed a core part of Mao’s cultural revolution and his Great Leap Forward.