It seems impossible these days to discuss any issue without being asked to check your privilege. Heaven forbid you have an opinion about something that has nothing to do with race; the privilege police want to ensure that you are made to care. Of course, it is important to consider the positions of others and the privileges that may influence the way we think (be they race, gender, class, the kind of family you were raised in, etc.) but this impulse has devolved into the absurd. Evidently the only way for a white person to check one’s privilege to an acceptable degree in 2017, for example, is to feel ashamed.
Recently, DNC chair candidate Sally Boynton Brown called on this shame to pitch herself for the job—a job she described as removing other white people from the conversation. “My job is to listen and be a voice. And my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt. My job is to shut other white people down when they want to say, “Oh no, I’m not prejudiced. I’m a Democrat. I’m accepting.’” Sorry, Ms. Boynton, but none of that sounds very “accepting.”
Indeed. Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is attempting to further weaken our thin teacher standards.