MIT researchers 'infiltrated' a Covid skeptics community a few months ago and found that skeptics place a high premium on data analysis and empiricism.
MIT researchers ‘infiltrated’ a Covid skeptics community a few months ago and found that skeptics place a high premium on data analysis and empiricism.
“Most fundamentally, the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution.”
“Indeed, anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries, who espouse naรฏve realism about the โobjectiveโ truth of public health data.”
“In other words, anti-maskers value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over โexpertโ interpretations.
“Its members value individual initiative and ingenuity, trusting scientific analysis only insofar as they can replicate it themselves by accessing and manipulating the data firsthand.
“They are highly reflexive about the inherently biased nature of any analysis, and resent what they view as the arrogant self-righteousness of scientific elites.”
“Many of the users believe that the most important metrics are missing from government-released data.”
“One user wrote: ‘Coding data is a big dealโand those definitions should be offered transparently by every state. Without a national guidelineโwe are left with this mess’.”
“The lack of transparency within these data collection systemsโwhich many of these users infer as a lack of honestyโerodes these usersโ trust within both government institutions and the datasets they release.”
“In fact, there are multiple threads every week where users debate how representative the data are of the population given the increased rate of testing across many states.”
“These groups argue that the conflation of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases therefore makes it difficult for anyone to actually determine the severity of the pandemic.”
“For these anti-mask users, their approach to the pandemic is grounded in more scientific rigor, not less.”
“These individuals as a whole are extremely willing to help others who have trouble interpreting graphs with multiple forms of clarification: by helping people find the original sources so that they can replicate the analysis themselves, by referencing other reputable studies…that come to the same conclusions, by reminding others to remain vigilant about the limitations of the data, and by answering questions about the implications of a specific graph.”
“While these groups highly value scientific expertise, they also see collective analysis of data as a way to bring communities together within a time of crisis, and being able to transparently and dispassionately analyze the data is crucial for democratic governance.”
“In fact, the explicit motivation for many of these followers is to find information so that they can make the best decisions for their familiesโand by extension, for the communities around them.”
“The message that runs through these threads is unequivocal: that data is the only way to set fear-bound politicians straight, and using better data is a surefire way towards creating a safer community.”
“Data literacy is a quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created.”
“Arguing anti-maskers need more scientific literacy is to characterize their approach as uninformed & inexplicably extreme. This study shows the opposite: they are deeply invested in forms of critique & knowledge production they recognize as markers of scientific expertise“
“We argue that anti-maskersโ deep story draws from similar wells of resentment, but adds a particular emphasis on the usurpation of scientific knowledge by a paternalistic, condescending elite that expects intellectual subservience rather than critical thinking from the public.”
“And yet in the conclusion they lament “the skeptical impulse that the ‘science simply isnโt settled,’ prompting people to simply ‘think for themselvesโ to horrifying ends.”
They then compare it to the January 6 Capitol riot.
"the group who is most likely to purposefully choose to #not#vaccinate are #highly#educated. In speaking with them, these are people who have read the primary literature themselves, & theyโre correctly interpreting it, so itโs not a misunderstanding."
Usually I enjoy reading Mona at the Feminist Giant. She is out kicking trash every day for women all around the world.
She is fearless about confronting injustices in places that few Americans even know about, much less think about. I subscribe to her Substack because I want to hear the stories of those who are suffering real aggression rather than the micro aggressions that American Women are always complaining about. I am an anti-feminist, but I recognize the contribution of the Emma Goldmans of our day and I thought Mona was one of them.
When I opened her recent email blast titled Unmothering, I was shocked to read the words that she had penned.
I am childfree by choice.
My paternal grandmother had eight children. My maternal grandmother had 11 children (she was pregnant 14 times). My mother is the eldest of those children and she has three children of her own. I am the eldest of those children and I am glad to have none of my own.
It is still a taboo to say that.
I vowed to myself at 16 that I would never allow myself to be in a situation that I could not walk away from. The year before, my family had moved to Saudi Arabia where, as soon as we moved there, I felt like I had been sentenced to a lifetime in prison. There, I was traumatized into feminism. There, I promised myself that I would always be free enough to beย able to walk away anytime because being in Saudi Arabia was so suffocating and stifling. Without actually saying โIโm never going to have childrenโ — without thinking about children at all — I had already vowed to myself not to have children.
As I read her screed I felt this increasing sense of unreality. And as she finished with these complete contradictions, I just felt sad.
If I had a child, it would be a daughter so that I could tell her about my lovers. She would hate it, I am sure. But we would slay shame and taboos and I would kick her out into the world with the exhortation: LIVE.
So, because I am childfree by choice, I will instead tell my unmothered daughter about my lovers and we would slay shame and taboos in a book I am writing: Feminist Giantโs Guide To Losing Your Virginity.
If I had a daughter, I would have taught her to disobey everything I taught her. I wrote this poem for her.
To My Unborn Daughter
I would not have known how to love you.
I would have taught you to be too big to be a wife.
I would have taught you to disobey everything I taught you.
What could I teach you when Iโm still unlearning everything I was taught?
The revolution came too late for you, my love;
I fight for your unborn daughter.
Mona and I are both fifty three years old. As I am looking forward to a small family gathering in a couple weeks where we will meet our new grandson, Mona is writing a book for girls to learn how to ruin their lives and any chance for permanent happiness.
Perhaps the truth is in her poem where if she taught her daughter to be sexually promiscuous, and then charged her with disobeying everything she had taught her, perhaps she really would want a daughter who knew better than to trade her body for money, status, war stories, or whatever token of bravery is the current wage being paid to feminist activists.
I am ALL IN with women taking control of their fertility, their lives, their hopes, dreams, and manifesting that reality with hard work and common sense, but I cannot go to the dark and dreary place where Mona appears to sit so comfortably and I would defy her at every turn if she were to attempt to come into my life and try to teach the women who I have gestated and nurtured into sexual deviants.
There is almost no happiness in the realm where she currently resides. And one day she will stand accountable before God for all of the young people she influenced and taught to cheat on their forever loves. When a person engages in sexual conduct with anyone to whom they are not legally and lawfully wedded, a series of tragic and horrifying events begin to happen. Sexual organs that are abused have a tendency to fill with cancer, shrivel up, and fall off the body. Mental Illness often accompanies these behaviors and the never ending circling of STD’s, unwanted pregnancies, and true loves betrayal begins to churn.
Mona, I want to call you to repentance. Repent of your sins, come unto Jesus Christ and be perfected in Him. Then make amends to the woman you have seduced with your awful ideas of what it means to be a woman and help them to hold on to their virginity as the most precious and sacred possession they own.
If you teach them to fling it away into the darkness, the pool of endless torment waiting for you in the afterlife just grows bigger.ย You can find peace in this life with repentance. But there will be no peace for you now or forever if you persist in teaching this evil to the young people in your sphere of influence.
When the census came out last month there were a series of articles lamenting the demographics of birth, which is in steep decline in America.
While the left tends to blame this on a lack of Euro style social programs, I always look to the birth machine as the culprit. Birth in America is so overpriced and crazy dangerous, that it is a wonder our moms and babes do as well as they do. Economics are a huge factor in whey young people are not having babies.ย Many of them are infertile and desperate to have a child.ย And others are so freaked out with the idea of climate change that they believe it is selfish to give a child life.
When thinking about the long term ramifications of the decline of the west because we are not reproducing ourselves, I think about those activists who in the early part of the twentieth century determined that babies needed to be culled from society. These Eugenists set out to make parenting as expensive, difficult, fraught with danger and difficulty and something only rich people could do.
The work on my blog is dedicated to teaching couples the skills they will need and the lifestyle they can choose to live if they want to raise a healthy family on one income.
I pray as the Antinatalists and feminists continue to attempt to brainwash our children, that those who are wise will stand up to the lies and nonsense and gift our young people, especially our daughters with the pathway to happiness which is most likely to be achieved by getting married and having a family.
How many women out there right now would gladly hand in their PhD for a houseful of children?
Thereโs a reason they REALLY donโt want to answer this question about Fauci and his role in funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab of virology before Covid-19 may have leaked from the lab. I think we all know why… Great work @EmeraldRobinson! pic.twitter.com/nR2N3RZzzl
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 7, 2021
The Democrats are now caught in their terrible lies. On the one hand, they tell you with a straight face that Biden got 88 million votes. On the other hand, they tell you Biden's DOJ will arrive very soon to stop an audit authorized by the state of Arizona.
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 7, 2021
Guess what: @ggreenwald agrees with me about Ben Collins at NBC. A large number of corporate journalists are so dumb and incurious that they think the Wuhan lab leak theory is a right-wing conspiracy. https://t.co/M5tZp9JxEB
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 7, 2021
Corporate journalists to their audience when the truth is inconvenient:
Stage 1: It's a conspiracy theory!
Stage 2: Ignore it! It's misinformation!
Stage 3: That's old news that's been widely reported….
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 7, 2021
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 8, 2021
hypothesis that covid came from a lab in Wuhan — which, yes, was getting funding from NIH — has been entertained (and not ruled out) by like the whole international scientific community.
it could be wrong (many smart/honest people think it is) but it's not "cuckoo conspiracy" https://t.co/gStquUT1sW
Here's a "disinformation" reporter who pretends to be the authority truth and falsity, and who agitates for internet censorship based on his superior judgments, maligning as a "conspiracy theory" something which health experts around the world are investigating as possible: https://t.co/GPYZKmvkI2
Which part is a conspiracy theory? That NIH funded bat coronavirus research done in conjunction with the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Here's a report affirming that from that crazy right-wing MAGA fringe conspiracy outlet, National Public Radio. https://t.co/nD6LDEtcW3pic.twitter.com/ashizwY8Fi
— Leighton ๆ Woodhouse (@lwoodhouse) May 7, 2021
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 8, 2021
2020 Election Integrity: Arizona-Michigan Forensic Audit Common Issue Arrives
Michigan claim machine tapes & machine totals can match for voter canvas but PHYSICAL paper ballots will not match due to unauthorized activity / software – same issue MAY be being explored in AZ now https://t.co/gQpdw9uEmMpic.twitter.com/sqG2GeYXpm
New discoveries and filings today: (1) 1,061 phantom ballots discovered in Antrim (2) nearly 100% turnout between ages 65 and 80 (3) 20.3% of all ballots sent to PO boxeshttps://t.co/IYzEsT5E7d
— Matthew S. DePerno, Esq. (@mdeperno) May 8, 2021
So it was okay for the routers to be looked at when the County did their "audit" but now it's not okay for the state to get the routers? Makes zero sense. https://t.co/B4Bb2t174z
1/2 Green Bay entered into an agreement with Center for Tech & Civic Life, funded primarily by Mark Zuckerberg, whereas grant money was given to affect the November 2020 election. In this provision, the CTCL could take back all of the grant $$ for any reason or no reason. pic.twitter.com/TnH6gkAeW5
Documents obtained under the Wisconsin Open Records Act confirm that Kenosha received $10,000 from the left-leaning CTCL as an enticement to join four other cities โ Racine, Madison, Milwaukee, and Green Bay โ in requesting substantial election funding from CTCL.
The American scientists who assisted with the #Wuhan cover up – and enabled its โgain of functionโ research are banking on the truth never coming out… because just imagine… https://t.co/KpYTpLnYKq
Itโs clear from the context here that @EmeraldRobinson and @ggreenwald are right and Ben Collins (@oneunderscore_) – who is supposedly a real journalist for NBC – had no idea that the possibility of Wuhan lab leak is much more than a โcuckoo conspiracy theory.โ pic.twitter.com/rwbs902Zv3
— Emerald Robinson โ๏ธ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 9, 2021
A heavily-armed SWAT team just took down a Christian pastor heading home from church. Police say heโs charged with โincitingโ people to go to church. This is the second pastor jailed this year. Weโre crowdfunding his lawyers at https://t.co/bMwAj1iNfPpic.twitter.com/RZ913cQns3
How many Americans have died after taking the Covid vaccine?
Tucker part 1Tucker Part 2Tucker Part 3
How many Americans have died after taking the COVID vaccines? Not Americans whoโve been killed by the virus, thatโs a huge number, but how many Americans have died after getting the vaccines designed to prevent the virus? Do you know the answer to that question? Do you know anything about the downside? We know a lot about the upside of the vaccine. Weโve been completely in favor of vulnerable people taking vaccines.
But what about the potential risks? Youโd think you would know more about that than you do. We talk about vaccines constantly, not just on this show, but in this country. Joe Biden was on TV yesterday talking about vaccines. He wants you to get one. Everyone in authority wants you to get one. In fact, youโve probably already had your shot, and good for you. If you havenโt had your shot, youโre under enormous pressure to get your shot.
You understand that soon you may not be able to fly on commercial airplanes or go to work at the office or send your children to school if you donโt have the shot. Meanwhile, the social pressure is enormous. Friends may have already informed you that youโre not welcome at their parties or weddings if you havenโt been vaccinated. There is a lot of pressure to comply. At some point, you probably will comply. Itโs just too difficult not be to vaccinated in this country.
But before you make the appointment: do you know anything about the potential risks? Probably you donโt know much. We all assume the risks are negligible. Vaccines arenโt dangerous. Thatโs not a guess, we know that pretty conclusively from the official numbers. Every flu season, we give influenza shots to more than 160 million Americans. Every year, a relatively small number of people seem to die after getting those shots. To be precise, in 2019, that number was 203 people. The year before, it was 119. In 2017, a total of 85 people died from the flu shot.
Every death is tragic, but big picture, we donโt consider those numbers disqualifying. We keep giving flu shots, and very few people complain about it. So the question is how do those numbers compare to the death rate from the coronavirus vaccines now being distributed across the country? Thatโs worth knowing.
We checked today. Hereโs the answer, which comes from the same set of government numbers that we just listed: Between late December of 2020, and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccines in the United States. Three thousand, three hundred and sixty-two โ thatโs an average of 30 people every day. So, what does that add up to?
By the way, that reporting period ended on April 23. We donโt have numbers past that, weโre not quite up to date. But we can assume that another 360 people have died in the 12 days since. That is a total of 3,722 deaths. Almost four thousand people died after getting the COVID vaccines. The actual number is almost certainly much higher than that โ perhaps vastly higher.
The data we just cited come from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System โ VAERS โ which is managed by the CDC and the FDA. VARES has received a lot of criticism over the years, some of it founded. Some critics have argued for a long time that VARES undercounts vaccine injuries. A report submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 concluded that โfewer than one percent of vaccine adverse events are reportedโ by the VARES system. Fewer than one percent.
So what is the real number of people who apparently have been killed or injured by the vaccine? Well, we donโt know that number. Nobody does, and weโre not going to speculate about it. But itโs clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal. Itโs not even close to what weโve seen in previous years with previous vaccines.
Most vaccines are not accused of killing large numbers of people. The Menveo vaccine, for example, is given to people around the world, often children, to prevent bacterial meningitis. In this country, only one person died from that vaccine in the entire period between 2010 and 2015. One. So, compare that to whatโs happening now. In just the first four months of this year, the U.S. government has recorded more deaths after COVID vaccinations than from all other vaccines administered in the United States between mid-1997 and the end of 2013. Thatโs a period of fifteen and a half years.
Again, more people, according to VAERS, have died after getting the shot in four months during a single vaccination campaign than from all other vaccines combined over more than a decade and a half. Chart that out. Itโs a stunning picture. Now, the debate is over what it means. Again, thereโs a lot of criticism of the reporting system.
Some people say โwell, itโs just a coincidence that someone gets the shot and then dies, possibly from other causes.โ No one really knows, is the truth. We spoke to one physician today who actively treats COVID patients. He described what weโre seeing now as the single deadliest mass-vaccination event in modern history. Whatever is causing it, it is happening as we speak. So youโd think someone in authority might want to know whatโs going on.
If the vaccine injury reporting system is flawed โ and it clearly is flawed โ why hasnโt it been fixed? And more to the point, why has there not been an independent vaccine safety board to assess whatโs happening. And reassure people who stumble across official government numbers on the internet. But amazingly, none of that has been done. No one even mentions the numbers. And in fact, youโre not allowed to. Youโll be pulled off the internet if you do. The people in charge do not acknowledge them. Instead, they warn us about what might happen if we donโt take the vaccine.
โPeople who are not fully vaccinated can still die every day from COVID -19,โ Biden said. As a factual matter, that is true. But itโs also misleading. Not all Americans are at a similar risk of dying from COVID-19. Some are at relatively high risk: the old and the sick. They might want to get vaccinated, and most do. Some are at very low risk of dying: the young and the healthy. Others appear to be at essentially no risk at all: anyone whoโs had COVID and recovered.
Virtually all of those people are immune. Thatโs true for many viruses. Those second two categories โ the young and healthy, and the previously infected โ may add up to hundreds of millions of people in this country. The funny thing is, the White House โ the official policy-makers who are designing the vaccine rollout โ do not acknowledge that those categories even exist.
Health Authorities are pretending that everyoneโs health and risk potential is exactly the same as everyone elseโs. Thatโs why Joe Biden has demanded that 70 percent of all American adults โ regardless of age, regardless of health condition, regardless of pre-existing antibodies โ get the COVID shot by the Fourth of July two months from now, or else.
This might be an acceptable policy โ it would never be an ethical policy โ but it might be acceptable to the country if COVID vaccines we could show conclusively came with no risk, and if we truly understood the long-term effects of those vaccines. But neither one of those things is true. We know that according to the government reporting system, thousands of people have died after getting the shot. That is true in this country, where itโs hotly debated when itโs talked about at all, but itโs also true in European countries, whose record-keeping is, if anything, more reliable than ours.
Many thousands of other people appear to have been injured after getting the vaccine. VAERS records nearly 900 non-fatal heart attacks in people who just received the shot. 2,700 people reported unexplained chest pain. In all, the vaccine, according to the government reporting system, appears to have contributed to at least 8,000 hospitalizations.
Some of the side effects defy explanation. Researcher Alex Berenson has noted that coronavirus vaccines now account for almost one-third of all tinnitus reports in the VAERS database. Thatโs the ringing in your ears. The American Tinnitus Association says itโs received โmany questionsโ on the link.
Researchers at Oxford and UCLA have begun tracking coronavirus vaccine side effects across eight separate countries. They found, that โWomen aged 18 to 34 years had a higher rate of deep vein thrombosis than men of the same age.โ They also found that heart attacks were โcommonโ in people aged 85 and older who had taken the vaccine. They found serious potential side effects in some children, โanaphylaxis [and] appendicitis were more common in young people.โ
Vaccines are complicated medicines, and as with any drug, it can take a long time to get it precisely right. The dosage, for example. And this is not the first time people have been hurt during a vaccination campaign. That is bound to happen. Whatโs different this time, and so striking, is the reaction to these numbers. Hereโs a contrast for you: in 1976, the U.S. government vaccinated 45 million people with a vaccine for the swine flu. Fifty-three people reportedly died after getting that shot. The U.S. government immediately halted the vaccination program. Authorities decided it was too risky, it wasnโt worth it.
Contrast that with what is happening now. This time, our health authorities have reserved their energy for anyone who dares to question vaccines. LifeSiteNews, a nonprofit news organization, just found itself permanently banned from Facebook. Why? Because it reported government numbers from the VAERS database.
When Joe Rogan asked whether healthy young people ought to get the vaccine, the media treated him like a criminal.
Almost everything they said was a lie that obscured a very simple and potentially relevant question that he asked, which is: should healthy young people receive the vaccine? Weโre not precisely sure what the risks are. It is a lie to say there are no risks. There are risks in everything, including in getting a vaccine. So why not rationally weigh the risk/reward ratio, as we do with every decision we make. For that, he was denounced as an anti-vaxxer kook. A danger to public safety.
One of the very few elected officials in the country who has said a word about any of this, who has asked the obvious questions, not attacking vaccines, wondering about their effects, is Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Last week, Johnson asked Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, why so many Americans seem to be dying after the shot.
Maybe thereโs a good answer for that, Collins wouldnโt even acknowledge that was happening. Instead, Collins fretted if the population focused too much on the harm from vaccines, people might be hesitant to get them.
โI challenged his use of the term โVaccine Hesitancy,โโ Ron Johnson told us in a conversation today. โI told him that based on the VAERS deaths, and my conversations with people who have chosen not to get vaccinated, a better description would be: โPeople who are hesitant to be coerced into participating in the largest drug trial in history.โโ
Exactly. Thereโs a reason many states have more vaccine doses than they can use. Some people just donโt want the vaccine. Thatโs their right. Period. Not all of them are crazy. Health decisions used to be considered personal choices. We didnโt ask about them. They were considered personal as recently as last fall. In September of 2020, at the height of the presidential campaign, a CNN reporter asked Kamala Harris whether sheโd be willing to take the coronavirus vaccine once it became available.
โWell, I think thatโs going to be an issue for all of us,โ Harris responded. โI will say that I would not trust Donald Trump.โ A month later, at the vice presidential debate, Harris was if anything more emphatic on the subject. โIf Donald Trump tells us we should takeโ the vaccine, she declared, โIโm not going to take it.โ
Kamala Harris has, of course, since changed her mind. Sheโs no longer skeptical of the vaccine, nor does she tolerate the skepticism of others. Instead, sheโs an enthusiastic participant in COVID theater.
Just today, Harris and her husband made a point of kissing each other in front of photographers while wearing masks. They did this despite the fact theyโre married, that they live together, that they were standing outside at the time and despite the fact that they both have been vaccinated.
It doesnโt make you laugh. It makes you nervous. Why are they talking to you that way? Why are they giving you the finger on TV? No matter how many fingers they give you, it doesnโt change what remains true for the country:
If American citizens are going to be forced to take this vaccine or any other medicine, they have an absolute right to know what the effects of it might be. And they have an absolute right to ask that question. Without being silenced or censored or mocked or given the finger. No amount of happy talk or coercion or appeals to false patriotism can change that. Period.
I have been watching this interview off and on all day. At times I found myself weeping right along with the two men who are talking about what they have given up for speaking up and making their voices heard.
I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated
Children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school. Thatโs why I am.
I am a teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan. Ten years ago, I changed careers when I discovered how rewarding it is to help young people explore the truth and beauty of mathematics. I love my work.
As a teacher, my first obligation is to my students. But right now, my school is asking me to embrace โantiracismโ training and pedagogy that I believe is deeply harmful to them and to any person who seeks to nurture the virtues of curiosity, empathy and understanding.
โAntiracistโ training sounds righteous, but it is the opposite of truth in advertising. It requires teachers like myself to treat students differently on the basis of race. Furthermore, in order to maintain a united front for our students, teachers at Grace are directed to confine our doubts about this pedagogical framework to conversations with an in-house โOffice of Community Engagementโ for whom every significant objection leads to a foregone conclusion. Any doubting students are likewise โchallengedโ to reframe their views to conform to this orthodoxy.
I know that by attaching my name to this Iโm risking not only my current job but my career as an educator, since most schools, both public and private, are now captive to this backward ideology. But witnessing the harmful impact it has on children, I canโt stay silent.
My school, like so many others, induces students via shame and sophistry to identify primarily with their race before their individual identities are fully formed. Students are pressured to conform their opinions to those broadly associated with their race and gender and to minimize or dismiss individual experiences that donโt match those assumptions. The morally compromised status of โoppressorโ is assigned to one group of students based on their immutable characteristics. In the meantime, dependency, resentment and moral superiority are cultivated in students considered โoppressed.โ
All of this is done in the name of โequity,โ but it is the opposite of fair. In reality, all of this reinforces the worst impulses we have as human beings: our tendency toward tribalism and sectarianism that a truly liberal education is meant to transcend.
Recently, I raised questions about this ideology at a mandatory, whites-only student and faculty Zoom meeting. (Such racially segregated sessions are now commonplace at my school.) It was a bait-and-switch โself-careโ seminar that labelled โobjectivity,โ โindividualism,โ โfear of open conflict,โ and even โa right to comfortโ as characteristics of white supremacy. I doubted that these human attributes โ many of them virtues reframed as vices โ should be racialized in this way. In the Zoom chat, I also questioned whether one must define oneself in terms of a racial identity at all. My goal was to model for students that they should feel safe to question ideological assertions if they felt moved to do so.
It seemed like my questions broke the ice. Students and even a few teachers offered a broad range of questions and observations. Many students said it was a more productive and substantive discussion than they expected.
However, when my questions were shared outside this forum, violating the school norm of confidentiality, I was informed by the head of the high school that my philosophical challenges had caused โharmโ to students, given that these topics were โlife and death matters, about peopleโs flesh and blood and bone.โ I was reprimanded for โacting like an independent agent of a set of principles or ideas or beliefs.โ And I was told that by doing so, I failed to serve the โgreater good and the higher truth.โ
He further informed me that I had created โdissonance for vulnerable and unformed thinkersโ and โneurological disturbance in studentsโ beings and systems.โ The schoolโs director of studies added that my remarks could even constitute harassment.
A few days later, the head of school ordered all high school advisors to read a public reprimand of my conduct out loud to every student in the school. It was a surreal experience, walking the halls alone and hearing the words emitting from each classroom: โEvents from last week compel us to underscore some aspects of our mission and share some thoughts about our community,โ the statement began. โAt independent schools, with their history of predominantly white populations, racism colludes with other forms of bias (sexism, classism, ableism and so much more) to undermine our stated ideals, and we must work hard to undo this history.โ
Students from low-income families experience culture shock at our school. Racist incidents happen. And bias can influence relationships. All true. But addressing such problems with a call to โundo historyโ lacks any kind of limiting principle and pairs any allegation of bigotry with a priori guilt. My own contract for next year requires me to โparticipate in restorative practices designed by the Office of Community Engagementโ in order to โheal my relationship with the students of color and other students in my classes.โ The details of these practices remain unspecified until I agree to sign.
I asked my uncomfortable questions in the โself-careโ meeting because I felt a duty to my students. I wanted to be a voice for the many students of different backgrounds who have approached me over the course of the past several years to express their frustration with indoctrination at our school, but are afraid to speak up.
They report that, in their classes and other discussions, they must never challenge any of the premises of our โantiracistโ teachings, which are deeply informed by Critical Race Theory. These concerns are confirmed for me when I attend grade-level and all-school meetings about race or gender issues. There, I witness student after student sticking to a narrow script of acceptable responses. Teachers praise insights when they articulate the existing framework or expand it to apply to novel domains. Meantime, it is common for teachers to exhort students who remain silent that โwe really need to hear from you.โ
But what does speaking up mean in a context in which white students are asked to interrogate their โwhite saviorism,โ but also โnot make their antiracist practice about themโ? We are compelling them to tiptoe through a minefield of double-binds. According to the schoolโs own standard for discursive violence, this constitutes abuse.
Every student at the school must also sign a โStudent Life Agreement,โ which requires them to aver that โthe world as we understand it can be hard and extremely biased,โ that they commit to โrecognize and acknowledge their biases when we come to school, and interrupt those biases,โ and accept that they will be โheld accountable should they fall short of the agreement.โ A recent faculty email chain received enthusiastic support for recommending that we โโofficiallyโ flag studentsโ who appear โresistantโ to the โculture we are trying to establish.โ
When I questioned what form this resistance takes, examples presented by a colleague included โpersisting with a colorblind ideology,โ โsuggesting that we treat everyone with respect,โ โa belief in meritocracy,โ and โjust silence.โ In a special assembly in February 2019, our head of school said that the impact of words and images perceived as racist โ regardless of intent โ is akin to โusing a gun or a knife to kill or injure someone.โ
Imagine being a young person in this environment. Would you risk voicing your doubts, especially if you had never heard a single teacher question it?
Last fall, juniors and seniors in my Art of Persuasion class expressed dismay with the โGrace bubbleโ and sought to engage with a wider range of political viewpoints. Since the BLM protests often came up in our discussions, I thought of assigning Glenn Loury, a Brown University professor and public intellectual whose writings express a nuanced, center-right position on racial issues in America. Unfortunately, my administration put the kibosh on my proposal.
The head of the high school responded to me that โpeople like Louryโs lived experienceโand therefore his derived social philosophyโ made him an exception to the rule that black thinkers acknowledge structural racism as the paramount impediment in society. He added that โthe moment we are in institutionally and culturally, does not lend itself to dispassionate discussion and debate,โ and discussing Louryโs ideas would โonly confuse and/or enflame students, both those in the class and others that hear about it outside of the class.โ He preferred I assign โmainstream white conservatives,โ effectively denying black students the opportunity to hear from a black professor who holds views that diverge from the orthodoxy pushed on them.
I find it self-evidently racist to filter the dissemination of an idea based on the race of the person who espouses it. I find the claim that exposing 11th and 12th graders to diverse views on an important societal issue will only โconfuseโ them to be characteristic of a fundamentalist religion, not an educational philosophy.
My administration says that these constraints on discourse are necessary to shield students from harm. But it is clear to me that these constraints serve primarily to shield their ideology from harm โ at the cost of studentsโ psychological and intellectual development.
It was out of concern for my students that I spoke out in the โself-careโ meeting, and it is out of that same concern that I write today. I am concerned for students who crave a broader range of viewpoints in class. I am concerned for students trained in โrace explicitโ seminars to accept some opinions as gospel, while discarding as immoral disconfirming evidence. I am concerned for the dozens of students during my time at Grace who shared with me that they have been reproached by teachers for expressing views that are not aligned with the new ideology.
One current student paid me a visit a few weeks ago. He tapped faintly on my office door, anxiously looking both ways before entering. He said he had come to offer me words of support for speaking up at the meeting.
I thanked him for his comments, but asked him why he seemed so nervous. He told me he was worried that a particular teacher might notice this visit and โit would mean that I would get in trouble.โ He reported to me that this teacher once gave him a lengthy โtalking toโ for voicing a conservative opinion in class. He then remembered with a sigh of relief that this teacher was absent that day. I looked him in the eyes. I told him he was a brave young man for coming to see me, and that he should be proud of that.
Then I sent him on his way. And I resolved to write this piece.
CORRECTION: The anecdote about Glenn Loury was originally attributed to the head of Grace Church School. In fact, those statements were made by the head of the high school. Apologies for the error.
I am extremely proud to publish this piece by Paul Rossi. If you are a teacher who finds yourself in a similar situation; if you want to speak out but are afraid to risk your job; if you believe that political indoctrination has no place in schools, Paul would love to hear from you.
