Williamson County Schools: ‘White People Have the Privilege of Seeing Their Skin Tone Reflected Daily in the Goods and Public Spaces Around Them’

Dr. Mike Looney, superintendent of Williamson County Schools, wants to make sure every teacher in the system knows how to teach students about “white privilege,” a left wing concept that, while it has no standing in law,  has been pushed to indoctrinate public school teachers and and students alike in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of American civics and American exceptionalism.

Towards that end, Looney has taken steps that began with the creation of a “cultural competency committee” in January 2018, the hiring of a WCS diversity officer, and the creation and development of a series of in-service training videos known as the Williamson County Schools Cultural Competency Series.

The series has at least three modules, and possibly four.

According statements Looney made to The Tennesseean, Williamson County Schools launched system wide in-service training based on these “cultural competency” videos in August.

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Education told The Tennessee Star that the department has not reviewed or approved this series.

The Star secured a copy of Module 3 of this series last Tuesday, a 26 minute video which can be seen in its entirety here.

Because the video advances so many alarming concepts, The Star will be presenting a series that breaks the 26 minute video. Williamson County Schools Cultural Competency Series: Module 3, into one to two minute videos that feature specific topics.

One topic which we identify in this article is the origins of the left wing concept of “white privilege.” We have included the full transcript of that portion of the WCS in-service training video here:

 

In general, white people have the privilege of seeing their skin tone reflected daily in the goods and public spaces around them.

The foundational piece of literature and a great starting point for further reading on the power of normal is Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay, White Privilege and Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. In the discussion portion of this module, you will have the opportunity to review some of the norms that Dr. McIntosh outlines as evidence of the systematic advantages afforded to members of the dominant culture.

These subtle examples are symbolic of the dominant culture’s needs while marginalizing the needs or tastes of people of color. McIntosh’s examples are particularly important to consider because they are independent of class, socioeconomic status, or education background.

The reality is, regardless of the ways privilege can be present in our day to day interactions, it exists because of historic and enduring biased racism. (emphasis added)

You can watch this portion of the video, Williamson County Schools Cultural Competency Series, Module 3, here:

 

Notably, in his State of the State address delivered on March 4, Gov. Bill Lee said that “whatever may be going on in other states or in our nation’s Capital, in this state, our children will be taught civics education, character formation, and unapologetic American exceptionalism.”

“Privilege theory is based on a 1989 essay by Peggy McIntosh, in which she lays out the subtle ways in which white people have advantages that they often don’t even realize,” David Marcus wrote at The Federalist in 2015:

[P]rivilege theory does not argue that we should atone for the sins of the past. It argues that those sins never stopped. In fact, it argues that they aren’t even sins, but rather the predictable manifestations of evil brought about by the American political and economic model. . .

Make no mistake, privilege theory is a fierce and effective threat to basic American values. Privilege theory is the means by which equality, enshrined (albeit imperfectly) in the Declaration of Independence as the cornerstone of our nation, is turned on its head. Under privilege theory, we and our speech are no longer equal, even in theory. While previous generations of liberals longed for a day when people’s contributions and ideas were not judged on the basis of their skin color, privilege theorists insist that they must be.

In short, the privilege theory being promoted in the WCS Cultural Competency Series is entirely incompatible with the “unapologetic American exceptionalism” Gov. Lee said Tennessee children will be taught.