164. Teaching and the Voice of Conscience ｜ Paul Rossi
Summary
Paul Rossi is a high school mathematics teacher and writer. His essay, "I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated," was published on Barry Weiss's Substack, Common Sense with Barry Weiss, and is definitely worth a read. Jordan and Paul discussed the controversy surrounding a recent article Paul wrote about an anti-racism curriculum being introduced in schools across the U.S., and that doesn t initially sound like anything but a positive change. However, after working in one of the schools implementing it, Paul had a different perspective. In this episode, he shares his concerns about this anti-racist curriculum and why it needs to be implemented in public schools across America. This episode is brought to you by Self-Authoring, a suite of exercises developed to organize your thinking and plan for the future. It has past authoring, allowing you to write out your past and identify flaws that you can work on figuring out in the future, and future authoring which helps you make a plan for your future. If you don t have a goal, you have nothing to aim for. This helps fix that. Self Authoring, also known as a personality course, is available. Over 5 hours of video content + written content on how to understand personality. It s helped me understand people and relationships better. It helps me understand myself better. I m a personality. I ve also got 10% off at code MPP, you get 10% OFF at Self-authoring, you re getting 10% of the future you re-designing your life. I d also like to help fix that! Enjoy the episode! Thanks to my dad, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson - code MP and a free course available at SelfAuthoring . by code MP. by Dr. B.P. Peterson, who is a former New York Times journalist who resigned over differences with her employer and began to function as an independent investigative writer on Substack. and has a course available to help me understand who she deserves a brighter future you deserve by becoming a better version of herself. Enjoyed the episode? at Selfauthoring by Code MP? and is a 5-hour video course that helps me make the brighter future that you deserve to be a better person by helping me understand me understand herself better by being kinder, more like me by me and I can help me
Transcript
00:00:00.940
Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.480
Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
00:00:12.740
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00:00:20.100
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00:00:27.400
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00:00:35.360
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00:00:41.800
Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.
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Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
00:00:50.980
Welcome to the JBP Podcast, Season 4, Episode 17, with Paul Rossi.
00:01:02.580
Paul Rossi is a high school mathematics teacher and writer.
00:01:09.320
I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated,
00:01:12.940
was published on Barry Weiss's sub-stack, Common Sense with Barry Weiss.
00:01:18.780
Jordan and Paul discussed the controversy surrounding a recent article Paul wrote, that article.
00:01:24.240
It's become apparent that an anti-racism curriculum is being instituted in schools across the U.S.,
00:01:29.720
and that doesn't initially sound like anything but a positive change.
00:01:33.780
However, Dad had Paul on to share his concerns about this anti-racism curriculum
00:01:38.540
after working in one of the schools implementing it.
00:01:41.720
This episode is brought to you by Self-Authoring.
00:01:43.900
Self-Authoring is a suite of exercises developed to organize your thinking and plan for the future.
00:01:48.780
It has past authoring, allowing you to write out your past.
00:01:53.740
Although I'd recommend writing about trauma at minimum a year after it's over,
00:01:59.520
It has present authoring, which helps you write out your present
00:02:02.280
and identify flaws that you can work on figuring out.
00:02:05.300
And future authoring, which helps you make a plan for the future.
00:02:07.980
With code MP, you get 10% off at selfauthoring.com.
00:02:13.380
If you don't have a goal, you have nothing to aim for.
00:02:19.100
I'd also like to remind listeners that my dad has a personality course available.
00:02:22.640
If you haven't checked it out, it's at jordanbpeterson.com slash personality.
00:02:26.740
Over five hours of video content plus written content on how to understand personality.
00:02:32.140
It's helped me understand people and relationships better.
00:02:55.800
I'm pleased to have with me today Mr. Paul Rossi.
00:03:01.760
Paul Rossi is a high school mathematics teacher and writer.
00:03:06.240
He graduated from Cornell University with a BA in French literature in 1992
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and from Hunter College in New York City with an MA in educational psychology in 2010.
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He's been teaching mathematics, including algebra 2 and calculus,
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at Grace Church High School in Manhattan since 2012.
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His April 2021 essay, I refuse to stand by while my students are indoctrinated,
00:03:35.120
was recently published on Substack's Common Sense with Barry Weiss.
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Ms. Weiss is a former New York Times journalist who resigned over differences with her employer
00:03:45.920
and began to function as an independent investigative writer on Substack.
00:03:50.460
Thank you very much for agreeing to talk with me today.
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Well, I have a little more time than usual at this point.
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You know, I would have, you know, up to three classes a day,
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but they've taken my classes away and assigned them to some other folks.
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And so I basically have no more teaching duties right now.
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Um, so I have a lot of time for volunteer work and some other, other things like this,
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uh, which has been, you know, a good chance to, to tell my story.
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So you're working at, at Grace, um, at, sorry, it's Grace, Grace Church High School.
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You, you're a mathematics teacher there and you published an essay with Barry Weiss, uh, last week.
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Well, we're, uh, we're K through 12 school that opened up a high school in 2012.
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So that, um, well, it was, it was K through eight and then they opened a ninth grade.
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And then as the ninth moved to the 10th and they brought in another ninth grade.
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And so we were, we had a complete high school by 2016.
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And, um, you know, our high school is, um, it's a prep school.
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Um, but over, over the course of the, you know, particularly the last five years, we've,
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you know, five, six years, we've been implementing, um, an anti-racist, uh, curriculum programming,
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uh, for our students, as well as, you know, because as we were told in 2015, diversity, equity,
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And, uh, we needed to move towards a so-called anti-racist, um, pedagogy and program.
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So that was beyond diversity, inclusivity, and equity.
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Uh, well, our high school has about 340 students in it.
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And I, you know, I didn't, I got into teaching math late.
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Um, but it's, it's something that I really enjoy.
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Uh, this year has been hard because we've been teaching.
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I've been teaching hybrid, which means I teach both on Zoom.
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Um, or, you know, I guess until recently, uh, and to students in the classroom simultaneously.
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And it's also been, you know, a challenge to keep, you know, everybody engaged and also
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to, to focus my attention where it needs to be.
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Um, would you have considered your relationships with your faculty peers and the administration
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Was that essentially positive during the duration of your tenure as a teacher there?
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Yeah, I, I mean, I would say it, it has been positive.
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I mean, my colleagues, um, um, they sort of know where I stand.
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I haven't, I haven't sort of, I haven't taken great pains to hide my thinking.
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Um, in some cases I've gotten into some spats with, with them over, you know, differences
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in the way that the programming has been delivered.
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Um, and, you know, the, essentially the foundations, the, the belief, the system of belief, which
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Um, but I will say, you know, I've had very cordial relations with, you know, the Dean
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of Equity and Inclusion and the Office of Community Engagement as people, you know, I find, um,
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So, and with the students and the students, you know, I had a difficult first couple of
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I did, took me some time to really settle on a personality that worked for me, but I kind
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of, you know, by hook or by crook, uh, you know, worked out a kind of performative self
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that, that functioned well, well enough, uh, you know, to, to teach, teach pretty well.
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I mean, I won't say I'm, I'm, I'm excellent teacher.
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I'm pretty good by now, but you know, it has taken a while.
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And is this something that you had planned to continue pursuing?
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Did you see yourself apart from, let's say this incident, did you see yourself in the
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Yeah, I, yeah, I could, I could, um, I was thinking that I would, I would want to be a
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teacher for the duration, you know, and, uh, and I, I didn't really ever consider leaving
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Yeah, I, I like the energy of the students and I like to, to, um, you know, communicate
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with them about, you know, what I find true and beautiful about mathematics.
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Mathematics is, was for me personally, when I, when I got back into it and teaching, I
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found that it was a sort of island in the storm, uh, the storm of the culture wars and
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the sort of general epistemological, um, chaos, which, you know, which I find, you know, in,
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Right, because you had a, you have a B, a BA in French literature and I, I can't, I don't
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presume that your MA in ed psych was math focused, but I could be wrong.
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Okay, so it's interesting that you, that you ended up teaching math and also it's interesting
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that you founded an island in a storm and I suppose that the way that you talk about
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Um, well, uh, it's, it's, it's a bit of a long story.
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I had a history major, English major and French lit major as an undergrad and me and my, my
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merry band of friends and cohort of, of, uh, you know, compatriots, we were really into
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Um, we really loved the, the paradoxes of language.
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We studied Derrida and Foucault and, and Leotard and Baudrillard.
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And there was a certain like enthusiasm, even a lust for paradox that we had.
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And I, I personally had, um, reading texts and sort of finding out how words can mean
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their opposite, how meanings can be, um, seem to be taken different ways.
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And, uh, I guess I would say that my, I guess I had a kind of a breakdown, um, from that and
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that I didn't really, once I realized I didn't want to become a professor or go into, um, you
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know, the academic world, because I found that even then it was, I was being pushed to say
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things I didn't believe, I, you know, I kind of drifted for a decade, uh, with, I would
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say, trying to find something that was meaningful.
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So back when you were an undergraduate, you found the postmodernists emotionally, motivationally,
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And you talk about that as, as something that was also true of the people that you were
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So I get the sense that there was some, uh, sense of intellectual adventure and what was
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it, what, what, what did postmodernism mean to you and why do you think you were attracted
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In fact, um, you know, the, the true materialist Marxists that, you know, that were sort of in,
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They would, they would sort of scoff at us and say that we were bourgeois.
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So, you know, we were just playing with language and there really was no there, there.
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And actually what, what would, what would deliver, deliver us, um, from our current predicament
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was some revolution in terms of material circumstances.
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And so, um, but I was really, you know, I was really drawn to the creativity of reading
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I looked at it as a way, like I, I wasn't talented enough to be a writer, but I could
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critique something in a creative way and sort of get my, get my revenge in a sense, like
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Because that's a hell of a way to, that's a hell of a way to put it.
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When did you figure out that that's what you were doing?
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Um, but later on reflection, I felt when I tried to be a writer in my thirties and got
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nowhere, um, and became very frustrated and despondent and depressed, I thought back at
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And I realized that a lot of criticism itself is a kind of, the kind of criticism that we
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were doing is a kind of shaking your fist at the creative process and sort of gaining,
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gaining power over, over art by, by interpreting it in a way that, that you found, you know,
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And so it, it, it is, you know, what do you think the pleasure in, I mean, you're, you're,
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you're making a case for the pleasure in that you said to some degree that you think it was
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born out of, well, it's something like frustration at, and I don't want to put words in your mouth.
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I'm trying to extract out exactly what you're saying.
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You, you had, and perhaps this is not rare among people who were studying literature at elite
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colleges. I mean, you, you, you'd have some desire to think philosophically, to be seen as a
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philosophical thinker, to be seen as a creative writer, to be a creative writer. There's a
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romanticism about that. And of course, that ability is what the whole enterprise depends on.
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So it's sort of at the apex, but you describe what you were enthralled by, at least to some
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degree as revenge against not only the text, but against the creative process itself as, as a
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consequence of, of what, what would the emotion be?
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I guess it would say like, I didn't, I wanted to be creative, but I just couldn't, you know, I, I
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didn't feel like I had anything to say. And I felt that my, my authority was deeply compromised
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just by my privilege or my place in the world. But I could actually, I could reach back into
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Shakespeare and reinterpret Shakespeare in a way that, you know, made me feel powerful.
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You know, I could say, I could, I could expose the contradictions of,
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Was that also true, do you think, of, of your, of your peers? And what about your professors?
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You know, I, I think it was, I think it, I mean, I, I don't know their state of mind, but I,
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I feel like a lot of what animated that high postmodernism, it was, you know, but it also
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had an element of appreciation, you know, just like in the way that Marx admires capitalism.
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It was also, it was, there was an element of, you know, wow, this is amazing, but it's kind of
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actually saying the opposite and, and is just dwelling in that.
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Right. You wouldn't be attending to it at all if you weren't in some sense in awe of it, right?
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Because why, why attend to that and not something else? So that has to be there at least implicitly.
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So, and, and then you, after you, you were finished with college, you said you,
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you weren't sure exactly what direction to go in and you tried writing and, oh, you also mentioned,
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let's get back to that a minute, but you also mentioned that you discovered that you didn't
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have anything to say. And also you felt that your authority was compromised. Okay. So those are two
00:16:04.280
different things they're worth delving into. It's not that surprising that you didn't have anything
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to say in some sense, because I mean, you were an undergraduate and what, what do you know when
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you're an undergraduate? I mean, there are staggering geniuses that come along who,
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who, who seem as an intrinsic part of them to just overflow with brilliant creativity, but
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that's pretty damn rare. And it's, it's hard to have anything to say when you haven't lived much
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yet, but then, so, so it sounds like you were hard on yourself because of that, but also your
00:16:37.820
authority, you said you thought it was compromised. What do you mean by that exactly?
00:16:41.260
Well, even then, I mean, there was in my, I took some creative writing classes and
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even then there was a conscious of consciousness of identity politics and that the, the real stories
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that would advance society would not come from a, a white male perspective. So I kind of bristled at
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that and, but I didn't feel like I could experience wasn't, um, of what would you call interest? It
00:17:08.860
wasn't of redemptive interest. Right. Like I didn't have, I had things to say, but, but the,
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you know, the people, people didn't really seem to value my perspective. So I kind of swallowed what I
00:17:23.540
had to say. Hmm. Uh, I had a friend, I wrote about him extensively in my, not this last book I wrote,
00:17:31.480
but the previous book, and he was very guilty for his existence as, um, this is years ago as a white
00:17:38.960
male. Um, and he virtually refused to participate in society at all because he had swallowed hook and
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sinker. I suppose the proposition that any manifestation of ambition on his part was to be
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viewed as part of the world destroying force. Now it eventually killed him there. It was complicated,
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but that was certainly, uh, uh, a motivational, let's put it that way, or anti-motivational
00:18:05.320
in a very profound way. So some of that was his own cynicism, but some of it was a certain emotional
00:18:12.540
sensitivity to the potential impact his existence had on oppressed others, let's say, at least that's,
00:18:20.260
that's how he came to view it. So. Yeah. I mean, and I also had a lot of rage in that,
00:18:27.060
you know, I felt like I, when my friends were do, were organizing things like, or, you know,
00:18:33.040
Greenpeace and so on, I would be kind of a, a LARPing and they would call it LARPing today,
00:18:37.980
but I would, I would say, you know, Oh, well, you just tell me when you're ready to throw a bomb.
00:18:42.640
You know, and I was obsessed with things like, you know, uh, violent revolutions. I wanted, you know,
00:18:49.700
I was, I wanted to learn how to hack and freak with phones and, you know, without, without any real
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goal in mind other than to, to, to disrupt and break things. Um, and so I, I guess, you know,
00:19:03.320
I'm actually lucky there wasn't an Antifa back then. I probably wouldn't have been a part of it.
00:19:07.120
And what, what do you think, what do you think attracted you to that? I'm very curious about
00:19:13.820
this because Antifa, for example, I, I understand the attraction. There's a romantic attraction to
00:19:19.160
revolution. You know, I was, I, I had a debate with Slavoj Zizek about hypothetically about
00:19:25.820
Marxism, although it didn't really go that way. But when I was unpacking the, the communist manifesto,
00:19:32.240
and I've mentioned that it was a call to bloody violent revolution and the crowd, which was a very
00:19:37.880
poorly behaved crowd in many ways, broke out laughing and clapped, which, which really took me aback
00:19:44.720
because I wasn't promoting violent revolution in any positive sense. And I knew exactly, or know
00:19:50.800
exactly where those revolutionary sentiments got us in the 20th century. But by the same token,
00:19:57.620
there is a romantic attraction to rebellion, right? I mean, and, and it's linked to something very deep,
00:20:04.840
which is the sense that we all have to some degree that we are, um, a minority of one against a
00:20:13.640
faceless bureaucratic tyrant, hell bent on at least shaping us into this, into the form that it
00:20:20.580
demands and commands. And that that structure is to be viewed, even realistically, with a certain
00:20:28.700
degree of skepticism and regarded at least to some degree as an arbitrary tyrant. And, and to stand up
00:20:34.500
against that, well, that there is something intrinsically heroic about that, although it can go very
00:20:42.040
dreadfully wrong. And it's something that, I mean, young people are called to that, I mean, that the
00:20:49.380
developmental psychologist Jean Piaget pointed out that there's a messianic stage of late adolescent
00:20:56.080
development where not everyone hits it, but a certain number of people hit it. And that manifests
00:21:02.980
itself in a laudable, perhaps concern with broader issues in the world as part of identity formation,
00:21:10.480
that all supposed to be catalyzed and shaped in universities. So it doesn't find channels that
00:21:17.940
are fundamentally destructive psychologically and socially. So anyways, back to you. So
00:21:25.220
you were stymied to some degree in your creative endeavor, and you found some outlet for that
00:21:31.300
frustration with postmodernism. But then there was also this, this deeper and darker attraction
00:21:37.320
to some degree that you just described. How have you made sense out of that in the intervening years?
00:21:48.660
I think it really was a resentment at not being able to be creative in my own life, not being able to
00:21:56.440
have a generative, healthy, creative life. I mean, a way to, to deal with certain impulses and channel
00:22:04.860
them productively. And why do you think you believe that that was the appropriate destiny
00:22:09.840
for you to begin with? Well, you know, the great thing is that, you know, I was able to, to work out issues
00:22:17.700
with my father. And, you know, if you have problems with, with authority, there's nothing more attractive than
00:22:25.620
I'm, I feel for myself anyway, like it is a moral, a blank check morally, because then if you're, if
00:22:32.880
you're doing things for the benefit of the world, well, then you can, you can take out all kinds of
00:22:37.880
debt, you can, you can say, well, I'm, you know, I'm, I don't have to be a good person, because I believe
00:22:42.820
in all the right things. And I can do whatever I do is instrumental to the, the coming of a better
00:22:47.960
world. So I, you know, I could, I made my mother's life miserable, I would argue my father, I was,
00:22:53.420
you know, I was posing, but I was inhabiting the pose so deeply that I would be that I would give
00:23:00.040
myself some, you know, I could justify anything by by the fact that everyone else was wrong, and I was
00:23:06.620
right. And, you know, I found that as a, as a way to, to deal with things. And I, it was, it's a real high, I
00:23:14.380
mean, it's a really wonderful, thrilling, um, thing to inhabit. Um, even though, you know, now
00:23:24.960
today, I look at it, I look at it very, I'm very embarrassed by it. Um, but it's understandable. I
00:23:31.520
mean, I don't, you know, it could have been no, no other way, really.
00:23:34.940
Why, why do you think you, why aren't you like that now? What changed for you?
00:23:42.980
Well, you know, um, I went through, uh, I would say teaching, teaching changed me a lot, because
00:23:51.320
teaching was a way for me to, to express myself creatively, and be engaged in the world in a
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regular, habitual, productive way where I could tangibly see the benefits of my efforts. And it
00:24:03.920
was a social pro it's a social thing, teaching, and it's a performative thing, teaching, and it's
00:24:08.440
very creative. And, you know, every day would be different, there would be new kids, and they would
00:24:12.680
have different problems. And, you know, they would bring to me, um, you know, their own cultural
00:24:18.100
reference points. So it's almost, it's just constant renewal. Teaching is just a constantly renewing and
00:24:24.280
self-renewing endeavor. So I, you know, I, I realized that with other jobs that were technical,
00:24:29.640
or, you know, that were wrote, those became boring very, you know, within three or four years. But
00:24:36.640
after teaching for over, you know, six, seven years, I was like, this is, this still isn't boring. I
00:24:42.540
could do this forever. You know, I love this. So you found a way to, to contribute that was concrete
00:24:48.280
and habitual and regular and routine. And that actually suffice to satiate your creative impulse.
00:24:54.980
And that removed your resentment, would you say, or?
00:25:00.140
I would say it just, it just kind of, um, it tempered it and, and, uh, made me not worry about
00:25:07.800
it so much. I can't say it evaporated totally. I mean, I still have an oppositional, I guess I'm an
00:25:12.580
oppositional guy in some sense, but, um, as far as institutions go, but, um, I, I was able to just
00:25:20.720
focus on, on my work and on the kids and trying to be good at what I do and enjoying it, you know,
00:25:27.820
And were you teaching before you went back to, to Hunter College or after?
00:25:33.180
No, I had, I had, um, I had been tutoring for a while before that. And, you know, I turned to
00:25:38.680
teaching when I, you know, the, the reason why I actually got the degree in educational psychology,
00:25:44.780
it's a story in itself. And that was one where it was a jet, it was, it was a desperate attempt to
00:25:51.960
avoid suicide, essentially. Like I, I was so depressed at that point in my life that, um, I
00:25:59.140
felt just compressed into this tiny little ball and there was no way out. I was just,
00:26:05.000
you know, how I got to that point is all the other thing, but I, I just went on the internet and I was
00:26:10.540
like, what is the last thing that I remember enjoying in my life? What is the last time I
00:26:14.980
actually felt a part of something? And it was when I was tutoring, uh, kids in, in, uh, you know,
00:26:23.860
I had done some light tutoring and I was like, I, okay, that's really crucially important. So,
00:26:28.100
so, because what you just said is, you know, you were, you were in despair and then you were looking
00:26:33.820
for something that was genuinely redemptive and you were searching your memory for that.
00:26:38.580
And you found that in mentoring. Okay. Why, what was it about mentoring that had enough value that
00:26:48.300
it pulled you out of that pit or that you could see that as a pathway out?
00:26:54.620
It was just the experience that I remembered of being with someone and being able to give them
00:27:01.500
something that they could use and having, having that exchange be rewarding.
00:27:06.740
See, I've been, I've been very struck by the postmodern insistence that hierarchies are predicated on
00:27:17.260
power and are to be viewed with contempt as, as the manifestation of tyranny and as self-serving,
00:27:25.120
selfish institutions. And I believe that that is true when the hierarchies become corrupt, but
00:27:31.560
what I've observed as the appropriate counterposition is that the people that I've seen who I've admired the
00:27:39.100
most, who are working diligently in institutions, find the biggest pleasure in their life in mentoring.
00:27:46.900
And it's a profound pleasure. There's something about allowing the best in you to serve the best in others
00:27:55.700
that can't be beat by any other form of reward. And a hierarchy that's functioning properly,
00:28:03.420
I think, has the central aspect of a benevolent father, which is something like encouragement.
00:28:10.780
It's certainly not exploitation by power. And it's unbelievably cynical to make the case that
00:28:18.000
that's the central aspect of functional institutions. Having said that, I understand that institutions can
00:28:26.260
become corrupted by tyranny and power and deceit. But I don't, I do believe that the basis upon which
00:28:36.160
a stable and productive hierarchy must be instituted is something like the paternal care for the upcoming
00:28:43.700
generation. And I also believe that we do take the most intense pleasure in that. So it's very
00:28:49.020
fascinating for me to see that that when you were scouring your memory and, and inhabiting a place that
00:28:56.100
was quite cynical and resentful, that that turned out to be the doorway that you could pass, pass through.
00:29:01.980
And, and then you went to, you went back to university and it was a consequence of your
00:29:06.940
experiences with tutoring. Do you remember any particular episodes when you were tutoring that
00:29:14.800
You know, it's just sort of an image that I have of being with, um, you know, with the, with the young
00:29:21.180
person and, uh, you know, having, having them focused on what they're doing and me feeling connected to
00:29:27.860
what they were doing and just that it wasn't even a specific image. It was just sort of a, you know,
00:29:33.980
something in my body that felt good. I mean, and I really wasn't thinking about it any more than that,
00:29:39.340
at that point. Like it was just, it was literally just totally selfishly. When was the last time I felt
00:29:46.560
Right. Well, that's a, that's a dead serious empirical question. You know, if you're, if you're
00:29:52.260
seeing a good therapist, if you're depressed, one of the things that therapist will ask you to do is to
00:29:58.240
watch your life and see if there's anything that lifts you out of your miasma. And it's not a matter
00:30:06.180
of thinking about it exactly. It's a matter of paying attention. And it's often surprising. You
00:30:11.380
stumble across something and you think, oh, that makes me happy or that alleviates my misery. And,
00:30:17.740
and I really didn't notice that before. It wasn't part of my theory. You know, it just happened to
00:30:22.680
be a fact that I was overlooking. It's dreadfully important to, well, it can be life-saving as you,
00:30:28.940
as you found out. So, okay. So you went back to, you went to Hunter College and you, you, you,
00:30:36.280
you did an MA in educational psych. What was that like?
00:30:40.120
Oh, it was, you know, I, I almost, I almost bailed out of the application process. Well, I, you know, I,
00:30:45.540
I had, I had chosen education in the Google search, but then I think, well, I got to pair
00:30:51.140
it with something else that I like. So I just put psychology down. I was interested in psychology.
00:30:55.320
And I, the first thing that popped up was educational psychology degree. And I found like,
00:31:00.040
oh, it's, there's something here. It's a city college. It's, I can get the degree. And, you know,
00:31:04.540
if I spend $10,000, which I saved up for my previous job, I could get this thing. So I go,
00:31:09.720
I, I, I almost fill out the application and then I kind of, kind of get wobbly and tell her,
00:31:16.700
what's the point? I'm not going to, it's not going to do anything. And then, you know,
00:31:20.800
I remember calling my mother, my mother called me and she, you know, they worried about me because
00:31:25.840
I was, you know, really lost, you know, in my thirties and forties. And she said, you know,
00:31:33.720
you got to go through with this. You, you, you know, she kind of got hysterical because I think
00:31:38.100
she just couldn't, couldn't handle like another failed endeavor on my part or just getting my act
00:31:46.080
together. And I, you know, just to calm her down, I, I went through with it, you know, because just
00:31:52.160
to sort of, because she was getting hysterical and, um, well, it's good to have people around that
00:31:58.380
will actually support your attempts to move forward, especially when you're fighting with
00:32:02.800
yourself. And, and, you know, I've seen so many people, they're 51, 49 about moving forward,
00:32:09.760
you know, or 49, 51. And so they're not doing it and someone else can come behind them and give them
00:32:14.900
a little tap, but there are lots of people who don't have that. And so then they don't get that
00:32:19.200
little tap and, you know, it wouldn't have taken much to push them over the threshold. So.
00:32:24.080
Yeah, I was lucky. Um, so, you know, I got in, I, and then once I started moving, you know, I would go
00:32:32.540
to, I would go to classes. I was tutoring on the side and making money that way. And I was able to do
00:32:38.120
that. And then, you know, I was going to class, I was making friends. I was, I remembered how much
00:32:44.340
fun school was and I was doing assignments and I was like, Oh my God, I mean, I, I just have to write
00:32:49.580
this paper. Um, life made sense again, because it brought back sort of all of the, the enjoyment of,
00:32:56.440
of undergraduate life that I really liked, which is social. And so it really was just a momentum
00:33:03.540
thing, like just getting back into it. Um, and then, um,
00:33:10.880
And what was the curriculum like at that point?
00:33:13.520
Oh, it wasn't, um, yeah, it was, it was a little bit, um, you know, I guess
00:33:19.360
educational psychology, it was, uh, more of a research focused thing rather than an education
00:33:27.060
degree. So we were considered more, you know, a science, a sort of a science oriented research
00:33:33.960
thing, like, you know, um, but, and, you know, we studied research methods, you know, it was fairly
00:33:40.460
rigorous, uh, you know, compared to some education degree programs. So we didn't, you know, I didn't,
00:33:47.140
we were sort of, you know, insulated from a lot of the, the nutty stuff that was going on.
00:33:52.600
Right. So that's like an Island too. And in the same way, the STEM fields are, or were somewhat of
00:33:59.520
an Island. So, okay. So you came out of Hunter college and you were in better shape, I presume by
00:34:07.780
that time. Yep. Yep. And then, uh, I applied to some various teaching positions I teached, I kind
00:34:14.500
of made my bones, uh, you know, so to speak at, at some different places. Like I worked at a Hagwon,
00:34:22.360
uh, at a, um, I think it's called the Hagwon, a Korean, uh, summer school, eight hours a day,
00:34:28.540
drilling SAT, um, stuff. Um, I worked at a, at a failing school teaching, you know, tutoring SAT,
00:34:35.640
ACT, uh, for a while or ACT. Um, and that was, you know, really, really heartbreaking because,
00:34:42.040
you know, those kids, they hadn't had the same math teacher for longer than six months and they
00:34:47.420
were, they were seniors and they couldn't add fractions. It was heartbreaking. Um, and then I,
00:34:54.840
I applied to Grace Church school. It was a new school that was starting up and they,
00:34:59.520
I was able to sort of tell a little story. Um, you know, I had, I had also published a book out
00:35:05.940
of high school, um, called Up Your Score, The Underground Guide to the SAT with, with two friends.
00:35:12.600
And, um, you know, that was, uh, uh, that was kind of a fun little project and that, that book was still
00:35:20.120
selling a little bit. So I was sort of able to piece together a kind of out of my hodgepodge
00:35:24.680
life, um, make a little package and then I did a demo lesson and then they liked me and then I got
00:35:30.500
hired in the, uh, the inaugural faculty for the, for Grace Church school. And so what was it like
00:35:36.420
going to teach at Grace, at Grace Church school? Well, it was, it was really nice because, you know,
00:35:42.660
I was used to a corporate environment, I guess. I, you know, because of my time that I had done in a
00:35:47.640
previous job at HBO, um, I was a technical manager, it was a whole other career. And, you know, I, my,
00:35:55.440
I was, I was very concerned that I reported to the right people or, you know, what's the org structure,
00:36:00.120
you know, and they were just like, well, you know, just, you have colleagues and you can discuss
00:36:03.600
things with them and we're not going to make you do anything. You can, you can talk to us. It was,
00:36:08.100
it's a very friendly, um, environment. I mean, there were serious expectations like, you know,
00:36:14.560
uh, and, and everyone took their jobs very seriously, but there really was a sense of
00:36:19.720
belonging and community. They were very, that was, that was very welcoming actually. And very
00:36:25.920
energizing, I will say, because I wasn't used to that. I didn't expect it. And so I would be,
00:36:31.440
remain aloof from it, you know, at the beginning, like what's, what are these people? Why are they
00:36:36.100
always smiling at me? Like what's going on? You know, like, I don't know why I just, but gradually
00:36:40.800
loosen up and you, you know, I, it was kind of corny, but I would kind of go along
00:36:44.480
with it. And I, I, it's a good kind of corny. Yeah. And I did actually, you know, I warmed
00:36:50.460
up a little bit. I felt, I did feel like I was a part of things and I was able to sort
00:36:54.920
of transmit that to others too. And so what happened over time? Um, it was a very gradual
00:37:05.440
change that, you know, I would say, well, the, within the first three years, one of the
00:37:11.600
tenets of our, our school was that you, every employee and every faculty and staff member
00:37:26.060
Yeah, it was, it was a, you know, it was a mandate from the Dean of faculty at the time.
00:37:32.880
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, um, so I went to that and that was a very interesting experience.
00:37:40.680
You know, it's hard to, um, what would you say? Refuse a call to anti-racism.
00:37:46.700
Sure. No, I mean, what kind of monster? Yeah. Um, and I, you know, you, I went into it and
00:37:52.860
I actually felt energized and I was converted. You know, I had a sort of, you know, I am white
00:37:58.800
and I'm privileged and you're right. We need to take care of this. And there were people in a circle
00:38:03.340
and people of all different races and backgrounds and it was facilitated. And, you know, later I
00:38:09.180
looked back on it and I, I realized sort of how they, how they did it. They did it in a very
00:38:15.220
interesting, seductive way. Um, and what way was that? Well, you know, as I recall, they, they started
00:38:24.580
out, um, well, it was sort of two parts. The first part was the history since, you know, the slave
00:38:31.520
ships landed on American soil and then throughout time leading up to the present. And then they
00:38:38.980
focused for the second half of the session, they focused on, you know, how to help a community
00:38:44.200
that has been shaped by all of this. And very early in the, very early in the session, they said,
00:38:50.320
we want you to withhold any judgment of anyone's choice or agency, anyone, you know, any of, you
00:38:58.640
know, the, the minority black populations that we're talking about here. We, we want you to simply
00:39:04.640
bracket or put, you know, hold, hold, withhold any analysis of the choices that people make, because,
00:39:12.700
you know, they, that will often lead to a misunderstanding or insensitivity towards what's
00:39:19.120
happening. So why do you focus on that specifically, that issue specifically? Well, because, you know,
00:39:25.620
it was as, as they retold the history and as they talk about the present circumstances, they never
00:39:30.760
actually revisited that. So you, you know, you're, you're constantly focused on the oppressed population
00:39:38.880
in, in terms of what is acting upon it, acting upon those individuals. And, you know, to me, that's
00:39:47.640
like denying a certain agency, right. And that, but they never actually lifted the blinders off at the
00:39:55.000
end. Like they, they would put these, everyone sort of acknowledged that they were going to go along
00:39:59.080
with this at the beginning. And I was like, really, we're going to do that. We're going to treat people
00:40:02.900
as less than human. Well, okay. I just, it must be like a temporary thing.
00:40:07.760
And why did you see that as treating them as less than human? I mean, I presume that the people on the other
00:40:12.540
side of the fence would say, well, you know, we're, we're, we're all caught like corks on the sea and
00:40:19.740
in the throes of vast social movements over which we have little or no control. And, and who are you
00:40:26.020
to cast judgment on people who have been the relative, relatively deprived in that regard compared
00:40:32.840
to you? It's possible to make a fairly stringent moral case that that's the appropriate mode of
00:40:39.260
behavior, but you were, there was something in you that objected to that. And you remember that now.
00:40:45.820
Yeah. Despite the fact that you said that you were energized by this and pulled in by it. Why do you
00:40:50.720
think, why do you think it caught you as well? Well, it was a social thing, right? It was, it's a people
00:40:58.960
in a circle and people are talking about their experiences and people are saying as a black person,
00:41:04.500
I have, this has happened to me. And at one point they asked, they actually, you know, and they it's,
00:41:10.100
it's empathy, right? You, you care about people. You, you feel if you're sitting face to face with
00:41:15.580
someone, of course, you're going to be, I'm going to be sympathetic and empathetic and, and people are
00:41:20.040
narrating. You know, but the problem I think is generalizing that to groups and, you know, getting
00:41:27.400
you to make a different set of assumptions about those groups based on a sort of, you know, selective
00:41:33.260
way that the empathy is leveraged, I would say. Well, there's also the implicit, there's the
00:41:39.200
implicit, what would you say, the implicit perceptual and categorical structure that comes
00:41:46.180
along with it, which is the a priori assumption that the appropriate classification for human
00:41:51.400
beings is by group. Yeah. And, and that, that, that's so implicit, but so pervasive that it in
00:41:58.140
some sense never needs to be stated. And as soon as you assume that the group level is the appropriate
00:42:04.380
level, then you're bound to minimize or even forbid discussion of such things as individual agency.
00:42:12.740
So there's something, if you believe in individual agency, there's, there's something. Yeah. I mean,
00:42:18.800
I guess I do. Yeah. And I don't, you know, I, um, I remember at one point they said, you know,
00:42:27.160
what, what do you like about being white? That was, that was sort of a gotcha question that they asked
00:42:32.760
the white people. Hmm. How did you answer that? Well, I mean, I'm trying to think of how it's some
00:42:39.920
of these questions, these questions seem to come up in our society right now that, that no one's ever
00:42:44.640
asked, you know, like, well, justify marriage. It's like, well, wait a sec. I don't know how to
00:42:49.100
justify it. We just sort of took that for granted and maybe that was appropriate. Right. Right. And
00:42:54.740
so it's very hard when you're put on the spot like that. Okay. So you're white. What's so great about
00:42:59.780
that as far as you're concerned? Well, I kind of knew what that, I kind of knew what they were
00:43:04.440
expecting. So I kind of tried to play games with it a little bit because I, you know, they,
00:43:08.840
they, what they were trying to do, they're trying to go through the embarrassment of saying, well,
00:43:12.660
I have, there's nothing special about me being white. There's nothing special, but I was just
00:43:15.880
like, no, it's great. I walk into a room and everyone pays attention to me and everyone thinks
00:43:20.060
I'm an expert. And I said it because I knew that they, it's kind of what they wanted. Um, but you
00:43:27.740
know, I, I don't usually feel that way, but I knew that's kind of what they wanted, but then I said it
00:43:33.520
to like proudly. And then I made some other people upset. Like some people like, sounds like you
00:43:38.820
really, really like being white. And I said, well, you know, I, I'm not, that's just how I've
00:43:44.520
been socialized. And then it was turning to kind of an argument. And then the facilitator had to defend
00:43:48.780
me because I actually had told him what he wanted to hear. And, uh, it turned into kind of a, uh, a bit
00:43:55.780
of a difficult moment. Um, so I had to, I had to say that, that it was good to be white, but not be too
00:44:03.100
happy about it. Do you think it's a, is it a reasonable question? I think the, I think the
00:44:11.600
unreason, the unreasonable part is more interesting. Like it's reasonable. If you take certain like a
00:44:17.400
true postmodernist, if you take it, if you take racial identity as well, this is gets into a whole
00:44:27.280
identity thing that I, I could talk about, but please do. Okay. So, so, you know, we know that
00:44:33.540
race is a folk taxonomy. Okay. It's not, it has, you know, groups as, and it correct me if I'm wrong.
00:44:41.040
This is my understanding. You know, I'm not an expert. I'm a math teacher. So this is what I've
00:44:44.740
learned. No matter what you say, you're wrong. I'm sure I'm wrong. Um, but take it for what it's
00:44:49.440
worth is if you don't like it, just stop watching now. Um, you know, as I understand it from my
00:44:56.300
racism, folks like taxonomy groups or individuals vary more within the groups and between the
00:45:02.820
groups. Um, it doesn't correspond in any meaningful way to, you know, I guess IQ changes over time and
00:45:10.040
things. It just doesn't have a lot. It's a, it's, it's not a true thing. It's not a true thing.
00:45:17.760
So when people say, you know, you know, what do you like about being white? It requires you to
00:45:22.760
accept resemblance category. And so a family resemblance category, it's a very strange sort
00:45:28.940
of category. So imagine that there's a category of 11 items. And if you have four of them, you're
00:45:34.660
in that category. What that means is that two P two things in that category can have two different
00:45:40.960
sets of four attributes and still be in the same category. Psychiatric diagnostic categories are like
00:45:46.520
that. So maybe there's 11 symptoms. And if you have four, you're in the category. So it's kind of,
00:45:52.760
it's got edges like a, like a proper set, which are the categories that we usually use in science,
00:45:59.360
like triangles, you can define completely and you can tell what is and what isn't a triangle.
00:46:04.720
There aren't shades of triangle, essentially. And they're very distinguishable from squares,
00:46:10.620
but family resemblance categories, we use a lot, but they're, they're not scientific categories.
00:46:15.340
They have their utility and we use them a lot. So, okay. So anyways, back to race.
00:46:22.440
So, you know, there, it's something that's not true. And if you require someone to identify with a
00:46:30.500
lie, you are, you are creating this sort of fundamental distortion. Now I understand that racism is
00:46:37.700
real. That is it. This lie is instantiated in the world. And it's as a social construct, people
00:46:44.540
have had tremendous effects on history. But I've often wondered, what is the utility?
00:46:54.460
It's not even that obvious that racism exactly is real, because it's hard to distinguish from
00:46:59.380
in-group preference, for example. You know what I mean? And, and fear of novelty, for example,
00:47:05.160
it's complicated. I'm not saying that there's, obviously, I'm not saying that racial bias has
00:47:12.320
never existed, but when you delve into it, it becomes extremely complicated. And it's very
00:47:17.140
important. If you look at things like the, the hypothetical racism that the implicit association
00:47:23.000
test measures, it's by no means obvious that what it's measuring is only, well, racism at all,
00:47:28.940
but only racism, because of all these other issues. And it is different, difficult, we, we tend to be in
00:47:37.140
favor of in-group favoritism in certain situations, and they're very, and very violently opposed to it
00:47:42.220
in others. So it's complicated and murky. But your fundamental point is, well, there's, there's an
00:47:49.300
insistence, perhaps that race is socially constructed and arbitrary, and yet it's the most fundamental
00:47:54.180
attribute that defines a person. Right. And, and that, you know, in our school, after we adopted a
00:48:00.920
curriculum, you know, in sixth grade, and maybe even earlier, but I happened to notice this in the
00:48:07.240
curriculum, there is, there is an exploration of identity where, you know, and I would actually
00:48:13.000
really like to hear your thoughts on this. You know, the individual identity is sort of acknowledged,
00:48:18.800
right, your interests, you know, preferences, dreams, aspirations, personality, character, all of those
00:48:24.820
things are really important. And you are also have a social identity. And your social identity is how
00:48:31.340
other people see you, and you're born into this world where certain social identities are valued more
00:48:36.480
than others. And so they kind of lead you outside the house of your self-understanding into this
00:48:43.920
world of social, you know, social impinging. And, and gradually, you sort of become separated. I think
00:48:51.980
that the effect of this is you should prioritize how other people see you when you, when you have a
00:48:58.960
self-concept. Before you even really know who you are, you've been, you really have developed
00:49:05.840
yourself, you're, you're supposed to sort of, I think the kids are supposed to sort of hold it in
00:49:11.180
abeyance and then, um, prioritize, you know, how other people view you. And I don't think that's
00:49:17.380
healthy. What did you see the, what did you see the, what did you see as the consequences of that
00:49:24.140
in the school? I mean, obviously this is starting to bother you as this, you buy into it to begin with
00:49:31.240
and, and you're enthusiastic about it to begin with. And you attribute that to, well, the mechanics of
00:49:37.060
the initial, uh, education, let's say, um, it's, it's a, it's a group phenomenon. It capitalizes on
00:49:44.680
empathy. It, and it sounds benevolent, certainly. Um, in fact, it's, it's the very essence of benevolence
00:49:52.280
in some sense. So it's, it's, it's a, it's going to be seductive regardless of whether or not it's
00:49:59.980
correct, but you, you become uncomfortable with it. Well, the first thing you're uncomfortable with
00:50:05.260
is that you were implicitly asked to produce a falsehood in relationship to your own identity,
00:50:15.680
which was when you were asked the question about what you liked about being white and you said that
00:50:21.400
what you said wasn't right exactly, or wasn't correct, wasn't true. It was something that you
00:50:27.160
whipped up on the spot because of the nature of the demand of the situation. And you remember that.
00:50:32.500
So obviously that's significant. I think I was just meeting what I thought was an absurdity with
00:50:37.320
an absurdity. You know, like I felt the question was a little bit absurd. It's sort of like a hot,
00:50:43.520
the premise, right? The premise is what do you call it? Like how, how long have you been beating
00:50:48.060
your wife kind of question? You know, so the premise of whiteness is you're supposed, you have to
00:50:54.960
accept the premise in order to answer the question. I really have never been comfortable with the
00:50:59.360
premise period because I don't think that it, you know, I understand. Right. And it takes a lot of
00:51:03.140
presence. It takes a lot of presence of mind when you're asked to question, to question the question,
00:51:10.480
especially when you're the student and it's the teacher that's, so to speak, it's the authority
00:51:15.780
figure that's posing the question because you immediately have to rebel and you have to do it
00:51:20.000
in an extremely sophisticated way. Yeah. And, you know, this could get back to the school and I might not
00:51:26.040
have passed the class and, you know, I'm, I'm white. So that would have been problematic. And why are
00:51:30.820
you, why are you, and that would, might, might've had job repercussions or, you know, promotions or
00:51:35.420
whatever, you know, you just, you realize that to question the question, mandatory. Yeah. And to
00:51:41.080
question the question in these circumstances is, you know, the, the risk of that is so much greater
00:51:47.100
than the, the triumph of, of dismantling the question that you're just not, you're never going to,
00:51:52.120
and you may see, you may even fail at dismantling the way, like your little, your little rebellion
00:51:56.580
may lead nowhere and you may be wrong, you know, which is the hesitation that anyone would have
00:52:01.380
with an objection, just that you might be wrong. And so, of course, you're just going to fall on that
00:52:05.680
side of the equation. I mean, that's what I did. Some people don't, but that would, you know, I know,
00:52:10.040
most people do. Yeah. And no wonder. Right. It's hard, not like you, you outlined a bunch of reasons
00:52:16.220
why it's difficult to, you know, come up with exactly the right response at that second. It's not like
00:52:21.320
it's a question you're prepared for. Right. Right. And, you know, um, I think the, I think the
00:52:26.940
students do it all the time, you know, because there's tremendous social cost to challenging any
00:52:33.060
of the assumptions of our anti-racist programming or the, the manner in which it's delivered.
00:52:39.180
And what are the costs for the students? Um, yeah, social, you know, social opprobrium. Um,
00:52:47.840
you could have, you know, teachers write recommendations for them if they get a reputation
00:52:54.660
that there's a fear that it could affect their applications. Um, students have, have come to me
00:53:02.240
with, you know, concerns and examples of papers that they wrote. They, you know, on, on taking a
00:53:09.420
position that went against the orthodoxy and they've, you know, suffered a grade hit from it. And I've,
00:53:16.340
I've asked them, like, are you sure it just wasn't a good paper? You know, are you sure? And then
00:53:20.900
like, like, no, I actually cited this, this, and this. And I said that, you know, and so I think,
00:53:26.820
um, I think they're real. I think that they're real. And there's actually been, you know, stories
00:53:34.740
that I've, that they brought to me that are, you know, someone defends capitalism or something,
00:53:40.360
and then they have a big talking to after class or something like that, which is just,
00:53:43.760
well, yes. I mean, how could you possibly defend capitalism while you're going to a $55,000 a year
00:53:49.880
private school? Right, right. Um, I mean, what's the probability that your parents are capitalists?
00:53:57.380
A hundred percent. Very high, very high. So basically you're, you're being, you're being set to task
00:54:03.420
because you have the goal to defend the very attribute of your parents that enabled you to go
00:54:09.900
to the school in the first place. And that of course enabled the school.
00:54:14.160
Right. And it's so, it's such an ironic thing that both the administration and most faculty
00:54:18.940
have such contempt for the very thing that makes them have a job. You know, like they,
00:54:30.100
Why do you think they have contempt for that? Given that it's the very thing that allows them to have
00:54:34.820
a job. I mean, this is associated with the question we discussed earlier, right? About
00:54:39.140
you being resentful back when you were an undergraduate. It seems to me, and I, well,
00:54:44.200
let, let me let you answer. I won't, I won't push.
00:54:47.600
Yeah, no, I think that's a good connection to make. I mean, we all, you know, if you, if you have
00:54:52.780
baked in a resentment of authority and, and, and see all order as tyrannical, well then,
00:55:01.660
you know, even the hand that feeds you is going to be a tyrant. And so.
00:55:05.960
Well, it's also so convenient, you know, I've watched among my professorial peers. I've worked
00:55:11.220
with business schools, for example, quite frequently, and I have my own companies and did
00:55:16.300
while I was a professor. And, um, I'm not an anti-capitalist and many of my colleagues would
00:55:22.600
sneer at my involvement with the business school. And I thought, okay, so what's going on here?
00:55:30.720
It's like, I know lots of businessmen and like, look, there's plenty of businessmen who have
00:55:34.840
contempt for academics. So it's not like it's a one-way street. And, and I feel just as dubious
00:55:41.300
about the capitalists, let's say the entrepreneurs who sneer at the ivory tower, as I do about the
00:55:48.420
ivory tower inhabitants who sneer at the capitalists. But my sense always was, it was something like,
00:55:53.220
well, look, I have an IQ of 145. And I'm not getting paid $700 an hour, like my corporate
00:56:02.120
counterpart on Bay Street and or Wall Street. And I work just as hard, which is true, by the way,
00:56:08.360
because top rated professors work, you know, 60, 70, 80 hour weeks to keep on top of the research,
00:56:15.360
just like the high end lawyers do in, in, in, in corporate law offices, but they're not
00:56:22.080
rewarded financially to nearly the same degree. And so to me, it was always just a matter of
00:56:27.520
straight out envy. It's like, well, if this society was structured properly, professors would
00:56:32.340
make a hell of a lot more than corporate lawyers. It's like, well, yeah, except you have tenure and
00:56:38.240
complete creative freedom. And, you know, that's actually worth something. So, and how dare you
00:56:45.140
complain when you're a tenured professor, because you have the best job in the world. So anyways, so
00:56:52.500
back to the back to the faculty at the high school. Yeah, you know, I think, well, you know, I, this is not
00:57:01.940
the case for all of them. And I really don't want to generalize too much. But it does seem that in
00:57:07.600
certain of the humanities subjects, it tends to be more, you know, radical questioning of,
00:57:18.480
you know, the, the, the foundations of, you know, what, what creates inequity in the, you know,
00:57:26.280
over at these schools, which are, you know, it's almost like the more, the more opportunity schools
00:57:32.880
offer, the more they're part of a problem, I think, is the view, in the sense that, you know,
00:57:38.940
it's, if you're offering some opportunity, right, like, if you're offering this opportunity to these
00:57:43.420
elite kids, well, then what about all the other kids, which is a good question. But then, you know,
00:57:50.040
instead of sort of figuring out, you know, the best ways to, to help the people that need it,
00:57:56.040
the focus is on sort of, you know, questioning and interrogating the, you know, the, the, the,
00:58:07.600
Well, it's an interesting moral conundrum, right? If you're working at an elite private school,
00:58:12.060
and you're, and your conscience is bothered by inequality. And I mean, virtually everybody's
00:58:18.060
conscience is bothered by inequality. There's very few people that walk down the street and celebrate
00:58:22.800
tripping over a homeless person. You know, the typical person would rather set the world up so
00:58:29.440
that people didn't fall out of the system in such a painful manner. So you have that plaguing your
00:58:35.740
conscience, but it seems like, and so maybe that does provide a way out is you can continue doing
00:58:41.560
what you're doing, but you can also critique the system as a whole and regain some ethical
00:58:46.300
equilibrium in that manner. Yeah, I think that's a bit, that's a lot of it. Yeah, for sure.
00:58:51.040
Um, all right. So you're initially a, uh, an advocate of this, you're excited about it,
00:58:57.860
but what happens, what, as it rolls out over? And so when did that start? How many years ago about?
00:59:05.180
I kind of kicked in 2015, I believe. Okay. So it's about six years we're talking about.
00:59:10.480
Yeah. And so, you know, that the, the word came down, there was a diversity, as I understand it,
00:59:15.720
this is, you know, um, pieced together, but there was a dive, there's a diversity task force on the
00:59:20.720
board. There was this, there was a, a retreat, a board retreat, um, that was led by, uh, something
00:59:27.300
called the Carl Institute. Um, the Carl Institute, um, is, um, this outfit, one of these outfits that,
00:59:37.140
uh, that stands for critical analysis of race in learning and education.
00:59:40.960
And, you know, they're, you know, influenced by critical theory, I believe. And then they,
00:59:48.180
you know, they, they sort of pitched their tent with anti-racism as, uh, as a philosophy.
00:59:54.820
And they started to, you know, talk to the faculty a little bit, um, you know, the, what,
01:00:01.920
what later became the office of community engagement, or, which is the sort of the bureaucratic
01:00:09.240
arm that, you know, is essentially a sort of ethical priesthood, uh, of how to behave
01:00:15.740
properly in, you know, the school environment and, you know, how to be a good anti-racist.
01:00:22.220
Uh, but they would ask, they, they had meetings, but they would ask us things like, well, what does
01:00:26.020
anti-racism mean to you? And that's a perfectly innocuous question. And me, you know, to me,
01:00:30.480
I was like, it means not being racist. It means not differentiating, you know, individuals based
01:00:35.620
on the color of their skin and treating people with respect and dignity, no matter, you know,
01:00:41.500
what their, what their skin color is. And, and, and, and, uh, they said, well, that's interesting.
01:00:48.260
You know, well, you know, that's very interesting, you know, okay. Well, they, and then they just heard
01:00:53.300
people out and some people had more, you know, I guess I would say advanced ideas about, you know,
01:00:59.780
being aware of systemic oppression and understanding different perspectives based on how you might
01:01:05.540
assume a child had been, you know, had developed given their circumstances and those were rewarded,
01:01:12.040
you know, much more. And those are not bad ideas. You know, we haven't, we haven't got to the bad
01:01:17.060
stuff yet. Um, uh, but it started to become apparent to me. I sort of had the realization that
01:01:24.520
this was really going in the wrong direction when we, we had a professional development meeting and
01:01:29.900
they, they passed out the, you, I'm sure you've seen it, the pyramid of racism, also known as the
01:01:36.880
pyramid of white supremacy. And it, it had this, a schema, it was a schema arranged in the form of a
01:01:42.860
pyramid with genocide at the top of the pyramid. And then various layers that had categorical names
01:01:49.740
like overt racism, covert racism, minimization, indifference. Um, and then various, there must
01:01:58.120
have been about 50 or 60 things sprinkled on the pyramid at various levels. And some of the things
01:02:04.000
on the pyramid, um, I actually thought were, you know, in many cases, virtues. Uh, so things like,
01:02:13.860
um, being apolitical or things like, you know, um, um, you know, there are two sides to every story.
01:02:21.460
Um, things that were contradictory, like, um, you know, not believing POC, but also thinking,
01:02:32.700
well, my black friend said dot, dot, dot. So the idea that these two things were next to each other
01:02:40.380
seemed interesting to me. Um, also things that were just, um, you know, political party plat,
01:02:48.380
you know, platforms, things like. Minimization. We all belong to the human race. Right, right. That
01:02:54.800
was, that was a big one. Post-racial society. Why can't we all just get along? Prioritizing
01:03:02.400
intentions over impact. That's a nice one. Yeah. Yes, we could, we could talk about that for about
01:03:08.980
three weeks. Yeah. Not believing experiences of people of color. Two sides to every story.
01:03:19.560
Right. Yeah. Well, it's very interesting when you look very carefully at the words that are
01:03:24.320
lumped in with the other words, let's say. Right. Guilt by association. Okay. So you had this pyramid
01:03:32.980
of white supremacy. And I was asked, you know, what do you, how do you respond to this? What do you
01:03:37.160
think about this? And I just, I said, I think this is extremely destructive and horrible schema
01:03:43.160
to put in front of a child and I will never do it. And I think that it's, I just, no. And
01:03:49.160
I said, I went to the office, I said, I'm not teaching this. And so this was when you were
01:03:53.620
teaching math. Well, you know, uh, yeah, I should explain it at our school. All the teachers,
01:03:58.860
teachers, um, have other duties that are really important. Like you have an advisory and the,
01:04:05.120
the advisor shepherds, you know, maybe eight to 10 kids through the four years. So they come to you
01:04:12.460
with problems and you can help them out. You can help them out academically. So this would have been
01:04:16.980
something that I would needed to share with, with the advisory. And I think they actually,
01:04:23.140
so you, you registered your objections. I did. This is, this is the first time I kind of registered
01:04:28.120
my objection because I felt, why did you do that? I mean, look, look what you just told me.
01:04:32.420
I remember what you just told me. You said that at one point in your life, you were like dangerously
01:04:38.480
lost and you found your way out through mentoring that put you into the education field. Then you got
01:04:44.500
a good job that you liked with people you cared for that was meaningful to you and it structured your
01:04:50.060
life. And then you bought into this anti-racist, uh, movement, let's say. And, but now you decide
01:04:57.840
you're not going to do it. So like why you have a lot at stake at this point, a lot. So what, why,
01:05:05.340
what, what's bugging you about this so much? Yeah. I, I think it, I think some things that happened
01:05:11.680
before this, where I had spoken to the head of school, um, prior to this and, and warned him, I,
01:05:21.420
I, cause I immediately thought of, I was just thinking about anti-racism, anti-racism. Why does,
01:05:26.880
that should be a good thing. Why, why does that bother me? And I, what bothered me was that I knew
01:05:31.540
that racism was a concept that had undergone enormous creep, that the people had very different
01:05:37.300
ideas about what was and wasn't racist. To some, the American flag was racist, uh, things that were,
01:05:45.040
you know, perhaps, um, innocuous to some would have been considered racist to others. And then how
01:05:52.400
would you, how would you adjudicate what you were actually against? And I saw this as a real threat
01:05:57.600
because it would lead to real problems in determining what it was that you should be anti. And if you,
01:06:05.540
if you frame, if you frame in your mission, something which is anti something vague,
01:06:11.240
you're really setting yourself up for a witch hunt. And I just sort of, especially look, especially,
01:06:15.500
so we look at this pyramid of white supremacy, right? And at the top we have genocide.
01:06:22.740
So it's like the ultimate evil. Okay. So that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the
01:06:28.440
ultimate evil. Okay. So then you might say, well, maybe your definitions matter when you're talking
01:06:35.160
about the ultimate evil. And so maybe being vague about exactly what that evil is, especially if
01:06:41.780
it's convenient for you to be vague, perhaps that's a little bit ill-advised, perhaps particularly when
01:06:48.800
you're teaching children. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, I, I said, well, is this the, is this the
01:06:57.440
comprehensive list of things that belong on the pyramid? Are there other things that we don't know
01:07:01.280
that are on the pyramid? And they said, well, you know, there could be, I said, well, that's nice.
01:07:06.200
So now we have other stuff that's just in the margins that could be thrown onto this pyramid.
01:07:11.660
Who knows what they'll be? Um, maybe, maybe. And who knows who will decide. Exactly. Like this is,
01:07:19.240
okay. So this list is not exhaustive. Um, and that actually scared me more. Um, well, because it meant
01:07:26.860
that no one could anticipate where the lines were, I mean, kids need boundaries. And so how are the kids
01:07:33.900
supposed to know what is and isn't if they just have this grab bag of all these possible things that
01:07:40.180
could be, you know, associated with the ultimate evil, um, you know, that it just setting up this
01:07:47.260
whole tripwire situation where they're just, how are they supposed to know how to trust, um, what is and
01:07:55.020
isn't falling into the schema that comes out of their mouth or they have a thought that they didn't
01:08:00.740
want to articulate it, how, how you're just setting that you're setting them up to, for anxiety and,
01:08:06.000
and tension and, you know, who it means that you're really, you know, and I began to see this in actual,
01:08:15.180
in actual, um, discussions people have about it. People, kids were restricting themselves to a very narrow
01:08:22.240
set of things to say that they felt were okay to say, you know, and it was all the jargon,
01:08:28.920
you know, it was saying, well, then, you know, we need to acknowledge our privilege. Yes, we are
01:08:33.880
privileged. You know, that privilege makes, makes us unable to understand. Okay. So what you saw,
01:08:40.820
what you saw as people's attempts to deal with the ambiguity was that they just stopped saying
01:08:46.940
anything that wasn't approved. Yeah, exactly. Because that is the way out of it, right? If,
01:08:52.920
if what's negative is ill-defined, but what's positive is listed, then you just stick with the
01:08:57.460
list. You stick with the list. Yeah. You stick with the list. Um, and, um,
01:09:05.600
and then there were... And so what's the problem with that exactly? So the kids stick with the list. Why,
01:09:09.660
why is that bothering you? Well, it's, it's, it's because it means that, you know, events,
01:09:17.560
the, the multiplicity of possible reasons for things that, that change, that are different
01:09:21.840
depending on the actual incident, get reduced to this script of, of explanations. And only those
01:09:28.500
explanations, you know, fit the paradigm and only those explanations will be considered. And, and
01:09:34.400
that means that you're not making sense of the world for yourself. You're following a script.
01:09:42.120
I don't think that's right. Okay. So now you're, you're watching this. It's having an impact on you.
01:09:49.000
It's having an impact on the students. What's the impact on the students?
01:09:52.000
Personally too. I felt, okay. Some of it was personal, but also I was seeing it in the students. Um,
01:09:58.240
um, and particularly in the most recent years, it, it, um,
01:10:05.160
it's sort of like when you go to a meeting and, you know, everybody is the people, there are people
01:10:15.620
that are silent and there are people that are, that are talking and the people that are talking
01:10:20.440
are saying all the right things. And the people that are silent are listless and disengaged
01:10:25.700
and just waiting for it to end. And then that listlessness and disengagement is being framed
01:10:33.700
as resistance by the people who are running the meeting of the people that are in charge of
01:10:39.140
delivering the anti-racist programming. And then there's, there are meetings about how to get,
01:10:43.840
because that's indifference. Yeah. And so they actually call it pyramid of white supremacy that
01:10:49.860
in a pyramid, every brick depends on the ones below it for support. If the bricks at the bottom are
01:10:55.480
removed, the whole structure comes tumbling down, which means that if you face down indifference,
01:11:01.780
you eradicate genocide. Right, exactly. And so it's, it's a way to use a structural metaphor
01:11:08.480
to transfer all of the, like all of the, the weight of genocide onto all the little things.
01:11:18.620
Um, I am not saying it very well, but I think, you know what I mean? Um, so white, so we would
01:11:25.320
get, we've got an email. I remember getting an email from the office of community engagement
01:11:30.140
that said, we were looking for ways to target white, white disengagement and white was in brackets,
01:11:38.180
right? It's almost as if I'm, we were embarrassed to say it, but it's, it's white, it's white disengagement.
01:11:45.020
Right. And that's sort of like, we're going to say it, but we don't really want to say it.
01:11:51.220
And that just made me a little bit even more upset because it meant that if you're not, you're not
01:11:57.360
even going to be honest about what you're calling it, you're going to try to have it both ways. Um,
01:12:04.180
so. And what's happening among your colleagues at this point, you're, you're becoming dissatisfied.
01:12:10.140
Yeah. What's the nature of your private conversations? Are you starting to be isolated?
01:12:15.600
No, I mean, I, I, I, I still getting along well with, with the colleague, with my colleagues. And,
01:12:20.780
you know, there are, there are some that I have conversations with and they'll, you know,
01:12:24.980
they'll say, well, I won't go as far as you, but I definitely think there's something not so great
01:12:29.480
about this. Um, you know, I think it's, you know, they, other, other colleagues were concerned
01:12:35.840
about the same things I will, I was, I think free expression and the ability to entertain,
01:12:41.420
to have different ideas and to talk about the framework and, you know, and maybe challenge
01:12:45.880
it, the whole thing. Um, so yeah, I was, I wasn't alone in my doubts for sure.
01:12:54.180
Did you ever wonder if it was you going off the rails?
01:12:57.280
Sure. Sure. I mean, I, I still felt, um, you know, I still felt like it was perhaps me,
01:13:10.080
you know, in the way that, um, you know, cause I have had privilege in my life. I've had,
01:13:17.880
I've had substantial privilege in my life. Uh, I would call it, you know, opportunity and I'm
01:13:23.780
grateful for it. And one of the things that I learned about studying the aftermath of the
01:13:30.140
Russian revolution was that privilege creeps too, because it's very, very hard to find someone who
01:13:36.960
isn't privileged in some manner. Like the only person who isn't privileged in some manner is
01:13:42.560
the person in the world who's suffering more than anyone else. And there's only one of him or her.
01:13:48.460
Everyone else is privileged. And so you can expand the net of guilt indefinitely by
01:13:55.100
focusing on privilege. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't like the way that it was being used to discount
01:14:02.340
people's, people's ideas. You know, I mean, if you're, if you're, if you have an educational
01:14:06.740
institution, ideas are the whole, are everything, you know, and, and the, there should be,
01:14:14.000
you should be talking about ideas based on what make ideas sound or unsound, not a, not the person
01:14:21.100
who's saying them. So I was seeing situations where, um, you know, white students would make
01:14:29.560
a claim and then that claim was discounted by someone else because of their privilege.
01:14:34.700
Right. But you're making, of course, the white supremacist assumption that there are such things
01:14:39.280
as ideas and that they can be rancored in terms of quality and that the purpose of discursive
01:14:44.240
speech is precisely to do such things and et cetera, et cetera.
01:14:48.320
Yeah. And so the whole solipsistic nature of it, I was like, this is, you can't even have a
01:14:53.180
conversation. This is not, this is not a way to have a functioning. You're not, you're not preparing
01:14:59.120
people to function in a, in a truly vericiated world of ideas. It's not.
01:15:04.580
Well, it's, it's worse in some sense is that the claim, fundamental claim is that there's
01:15:08.740
no such thing as a conversation. There's just different discourses of power. There's no
01:15:14.660
conversation. Conversation assumes ideas and the free flow of ideas and the, and a rational
01:15:19.780
individual actor and the capacity for logos and, and the individual as the central unit and,
01:15:25.400
and so on and so forth. People who hold the critical race position, let's say, don't, uh,
01:15:33.000
it's not that they avoid confrontational conversations. They don't believe that there's
01:15:38.340
such a thing as a conversation. It's not part of the system. So it's a fundamental dispute.
01:15:44.980
Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, and I, I, and then the little things, like I remember talking
01:15:50.700
to a colleague about a new, about a new hire. And then, and, and she said, um, I said, well,
01:15:57.460
well, what's he like this new guy? And she said, well, he's like you, he's like me. Well,
01:16:03.720
what do you mean by that? And she was like, oh, he's white.
01:16:06.460
I was like, okay. All right. You know, this is not a person that's a total stranger to me either.
01:16:14.640
And I kind of walked away and like, really? So, okay. And, you know, I also, I also hear the
01:16:21.420
objection to my, to my objection, which is, you know, see how it feels white man, see how it feels
01:16:27.080
to be treated as your race. That is, it's, it's a, you know, she might've been trying to teach me a
01:16:33.020
lesson in some sense, like now, you know, how it feels, but that's not, you know, okay. That's,
01:16:41.820
that's a point that you're making, but that's not, that's not a healthy thing. And that's not,
01:16:48.380
that's not good because it doesn't actually, um, reduce the sum of misery in the world.
01:16:55.260
Yeah. I mean, yeah. Um, all right. So you're starting to get, feel disquiet and you
01:17:02.740
actually make this known. Yes. And I, I make it known in 2019. I make it known in, in 2020. I
01:17:12.280
talked to the assistant head. I talked to the head of school. You're married. I I'm recently
01:17:18.540
married. I was, I've been married over a year, just over a year. Do you, do you have any children?
01:17:23.460
No children, no children, but you are married and okay. So I'm just wondering what you have
01:17:28.200
resting on your job. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I didn't, you know, I'm, I'm, I have to say that,
01:17:33.760
you know, not having kids is, is a, is a huge part of why I feel like this is happening,
01:17:40.400
that I've been able to, to stick my neck out. Um, and you know, I'd not, not, um,
01:17:51.060
I don't judge anyone for, for, for balancing their duty to the truth and their duty to their
01:17:56.960
family in whatever way that works for them, because both of them are important, um, or to
01:18:03.860
put things at risk. You know, that's, that's a personal choice and that's, I can, I can't speak
01:18:10.340
to any of that, but I think it definitely not having mouths to feed and, and, you know, having,
01:18:16.980
having some savings from my previous job and, and things, um, being smart with my money and not
01:18:24.100
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01:18:33.180
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01:21:25.000
All right, so how are you being treated by the administrative officials to whom you're
01:21:30.000
registering your objection? Are you doing that in writing? Are you doing that in person,
01:21:34.760
you know, mostly in person? And, you know, I'm not writing anything official. I'm,
01:21:39.120
I'm in the grumbling in my beard phase, I guess. I'm in the griping phase,
01:21:43.000
where I would go and I would say, you know, this is wrong. Like, why, why can't we teach,
01:21:48.180
you know, a broad range of viewpoints? Why do we always have to teach this ritualistic thing?
01:21:52.800
That's just a litany of, you know, basically far left ideas. And, you know, some of, some,
01:21:59.600
some of the administration were very sympathetic, like even overly. So like, I remember talking to
01:22:06.940
the assistant head, he pulled down a copy of Jonathan Haidt off the, off the bookshelf and was like,
01:22:11.740
I'd love to teach this in my closet. You know, I, I really want to make this happen. I want to teach,
01:22:16.000
you know, so, you know, more, more than I was sort of, or maybe just modeling it or humoring me or
01:22:21.380
something. But he had the book. He had the book. That's right. And he knew the book and he knew where
01:22:26.560
it was on his shelf. I know, I know. So like, but, you know, then in public, you know, or in,
01:22:31.300
in public, in the, in front of the community, you know, not saying nothing about it. Right. So I think
01:22:36.280
there's a tremendous amount of preference falsification still going on there, you know,
01:22:41.440
well, you, you outlined why. I mean, you lost your job. Yeah. So, you know, these are high stakes
01:22:49.560
games and you make a mistake and, and a mistake, you, you veer outside the, the realm of acceptable
01:22:57.500
behavior, let's say. And what happens? Well, you get disproportionately punished for it. And there's a
01:23:05.420
moral element to it too, which is, well, there's no bloody way someone like you should be teaching.
01:23:11.000
So not only did we fire you, but we're right to do so. Yeah. So, and you know, that's very hard
01:23:17.140
thing to withstand, which is something I also want to talk to you about. I mean, you know, confident
01:23:22.660
though you may be, or anyone may be when your institution sheds you and surrounds that with
01:23:31.360
accusations about the nature of your character, if you're not a complete psychopath, it tends to
01:23:36.780
strike you to your heart. Because there's always the possibility that you're wrong.
01:23:43.220
Right. Right. But I, I really, I really knew I wasn't because, you know, coming out, there was this
01:23:49.480
meeting and I referred to it in the article or my essay, the self-care through an anti-bias lens meeting,
01:23:56.360
which is what kicked off the whole past two months for me. It was a, it was a meeting where
01:24:05.440
students were ostensibly going to learn how to take care of themselves during the pandemic,
01:24:10.320
how to manage their emotions, how to take deep breaths and cope with things. And in that meeting,
01:24:20.720
you know, after some, some mind relaxing exercises like meditation and, and stuff, they put up the
01:24:27.900
white supremacy, you know, aspects of white supremacy culture slide.
01:24:32.920
And that's different than the pyramid or this is different than the pyramid. And this is,
01:24:37.260
you know, this is elements of white supremacy. Right. Right. It's actually, um, you know,
01:24:41.620
they, there's different forms of it, but essentially, you know, it's, it's fairly common in this,
01:24:53.440
yes. So here's some professional and transactional relationships versus relationships based on trust,
01:25:04.280
care, and shared commitments, protecting power versus sharing power, culture of overworking
01:25:09.280
versus culture of self-care and community care, competition and struggle for limited resources
01:25:14.740
versus collaboration and working to share resources. That's all white dominant culture. So
01:25:20.860
yes, yes. And so some of the things that were on this particular slide were objectivity,
01:25:28.220
individualism, um, either or thinking. Right, right. And, uh, I know that one there was, um,
01:25:37.960
you know, the, the thing that rankled me the most was right to comfort
01:25:42.080
because, you know, how, how are you giving a self-care workshop where the 200 kids that are in
01:25:51.720
there in this racially segregated workshop are challenged that they might not, you know, that
01:25:59.140
having, imagining that you have a right to comfort is associated with a, you know, genocidal evil.
01:26:04.180
So Kenneth Jones and Tima Okun, Dismantling Racism Workbook, 2001. God only knows what that is,
01:26:10.960
but it's everywhere. The characteristics of white supremacy culture, perfectionism,
01:26:15.640
which is an element of conscientiousness, which is a fundamental trait, sense of urgency, defensiveness,
01:26:21.780
quantity over quality, worship of the written word, paternalism, either or thinking. Notice this
01:26:28.200
is all written in words, by the way, power hoarding, fear of open conflict. Um,
01:26:34.180
individualism, which seems to be run somewhat counter to the fear of open conflict. Progress
01:26:39.800
is bigger and more. Objectivity, right to comfort. Yeah, it's, uh, it's quite the grab bag of
01:26:46.580
conceptually unrelated items. It's incoherent at every possible level of analysis, as well as being,
01:26:54.200
it's, it's, it's impossible to parody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I saw it and I, you know,
01:27:02.640
I had been thinking for a couple months prior to this because there had been some meetings that
01:27:07.200
really upset me and I was thinking, well, and my head of school had actually said that if I was in
01:27:13.320
an appropriate forum, I should feel free to ask questions. By this point in the meeting, I think
01:27:19.700
maybe 30 minutes in before this popped up, other faculty had been saying things in the chat area of
01:27:25.260
the zoom meeting. So, you know, is that anonymous? Is that anonymous in the zoom? No, it's, it's,
01:27:31.140
they were, oh, so they were under their own names, under their own names. Yeah. Um, and so I thought,
01:27:37.640
well, why, you know, when the, when the facilitator had mentioned that if you looked at this slide,
01:27:44.620
I think she said, I think she said, you know, you might have some white feelings. Um, and I said,
01:27:52.220
I just kind of blurted out. I didn't, I didn't blurt it out angrily. I didn't blurt it out. I,
01:27:58.060
I don't think I was too upset. Of course, you know, I, I don't know how it was perceived of course,
01:28:02.960
but I said, well, what do you mean? But what is a white feeling? What is a white feeling?
01:28:08.120
And I, you know, what came back was, I think she said something that defensiveness was a white
01:28:13.020
feeling. I said, well, these feelings can belong to people of any race. And, you know, I think that
01:28:18.200
it's, I don't know whether it's, I don't understand why it's being attributed to a particular
01:28:24.600
white people. Um, and, you know, I had that kind of opened the gates a little bit and kind of
01:28:34.940
broke the ice, I think, because in the chat, other kids started to ask questions. There was a debate
01:28:40.780
about whether I should be allowed to ask the question. Um, there were some other,
01:28:45.580
you mean the question about the white feeling question. Um, there were also some, there was a
01:28:51.360
lot of capitalism bashing in the chat. And I said, you know, I believe capitalism is anti-racist
01:28:56.260
since it's done more to, to lift people of all races out of poverty, um, than any, any alternative.
01:29:03.860
Um, and, you know, I, I wasn't monopolizing the chat. I was dropping in little things and there
01:29:10.500
was a lot of activity in the chat. And then, um, the, the, the facilitator actually went with me and
01:29:18.600
she, she explained stuff, you know, her perspective on it. And I thanked her and, you know, she moved
01:29:24.480
on some more. And, um, I think I, I asked another question, but I really, as, as she said later in a
01:29:31.820
meeting about the meeting in front of the whole faculty, she felt that I, you know, I was asking
01:29:37.140
out of curiosity. It didn't, I wasn't, you know, on a rant or saying it, you know, to, to be
01:29:42.520
antagonistic. I think some of the, some of my faculty members felt that I was, but the facilitator
01:29:48.480
herself didn't feel that way. So, and she was the one I was talking to. So I think that definitely
01:29:53.420
counts. No, that's quite remarkable. I would say, because it's very difficult in a group like that,
01:29:57.620
when you know, the implicit ethos to be able to say something that's questioning without
01:30:05.100
having anger build up as a motivation, right? Cause you need something to break through your
01:30:10.420
resistance. Yeah. So to be able to say it without upsetting the, the, uh, yeah, I mean, I was
01:30:17.420
passionate, but I wasn't, I don't think I was like enraged or anything like that. Um, it's, you know,
01:30:22.800
I was trying to modulate what I was really upset at was the, was the either or thing, because I was
01:30:27.060
like, well, if either or thinking is a, is a characteristic of white supremacy, well, then
01:30:31.840
Ibram Kendi has got to be the whitest person in public life because his entire philosophy is so
01:30:37.220
Manichaean. I mean, anyway, so, but I didn't say that of course, cause that would have been
01:30:43.080
inflammatory, but, um, what I really wanted to do, I've been thinking about an opportunity because I
01:30:49.520
wanted to model for the students that you could ask questions that someone who, who was a teacher
01:30:55.420
or someone who was an authority figure could ask a question and it was okay. And, and did, and how
01:31:01.620
did the students react to, it was, it was phenomenal. I mean, I was really gratified in that they confirmed
01:31:07.000
that my, it confirmed that I was doing the right thing because things came out in the chat. They
01:31:13.360
started to ask a broader range of questions. I received the transcript later and, you know,
01:31:19.300
it was like night and day kids were asking questions like, well, I don't feel like I'm
01:31:23.020
ignorant just because I'm white or, you know, I don't like to be reduced to my race. And then
01:31:27.100
faculty joined in. So several faculty members also started to ask questions. Um, you know,
01:31:33.320
and I don't think the point was that they, people even necessarily wanted their questions answered
01:31:38.120
in the forum. They just wanted to ask them. I got, you know, and they don't know what your
01:31:43.360
question is until you ask. Exactly. Like this, this, that's why I think intent is so,
01:31:49.400
it's kind of a silly thing because you never really, it's only an ex post facto explanation.
01:31:55.440
If you're called on it, I think like a true question, there may be no intent.
01:31:59.700
Like it just bubbles out of you. If you're, if you're truly in a, in a conversation, I'm not
01:32:04.560
thinking about, okay, I'm not, it's not like I'm plucking this little thing out of the inside of my
01:32:09.200
head and like, well, I intend this to be, you know, that's not communication. That's not,
01:32:13.900
if it's a genuine conversation, no, you don't have time for that in a genuine conversation.
01:32:18.400
No, yeah, of course not. And so, you know, but I was really gratified. I was on a natural
01:32:24.220
high from the experience. Um, why? Well, because I felt that I had, you know, I had done something
01:32:31.300
good. Like it was just self-evidently good to me. Like it just, when I reflected on it,
01:32:37.320
this is a positive thing. Um, now there were one of the, my colleagues got very upset with me,
01:32:43.120
with my influence on this. And, um, because at one point I did say, you know, why, you know,
01:32:50.000
I don't identify as white. Must I internalize society's delusions about me? Um, which is,
01:32:59.880
you know, like, it's kind of like the neutron bomb to this entire belief system. But I, I was on a,
01:33:06.480
I was on a, you know, I felt like it was something that I wanted to put out there
01:33:09.420
so that kids could see it and, you know, understand, you know, that maybe this is a
01:33:14.720
point of view, you know, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm at, I'm asking a question. Um,
01:33:20.260
and you know, the, the feeling was that this was, you know, anti-racism 101.
01:33:24.860
Give them some defense. Yeah. Like I could, I was just morally obligated to accept these
01:33:31.020
characterizations. Right. Which is kind of the whole point of anti-racism is that you're not
01:33:36.060
obligated to accept arbitrary racial categories that are unrelated to the task at hand.
01:33:42.880
Yeah, it should be. Um, but, uh, you know, then a colleague got, got upset with me and said,
01:33:51.600
kind of got on his high horse and said, uh, you know, I can't believe that I may be miss,
01:33:56.740
you know, paraphrasing here. And if I am sorry, but he said, I believe, you know, I can't believe
01:34:02.920
that a member of our, you know, or one of my colleagues doesn't understand that we are white,
01:34:07.320
that we are white since birth. I am white since birth, that this has carries with it implicit
01:34:11.440
biases that are unavoidable. And we must affirm that, you know, and, and that's who, that's who we
01:34:17.800
are. And that's who I am. And I just, it kind of interrupted him because I felt like he was
01:34:20.940
kind of making me look, I don't know, he's being kind of, kind of a jerk. So I interrupted him and
01:34:27.380
said, um, you know, I'm sorry, you're stereotyping yourself. I think it's sad. Uh, and, you know,
01:34:36.260
that kind of was a very awkward moment because it was in front of students. And he said, you know,
01:34:42.080
he expressed his dismay. Um, and I remained silent. And then after the meeting, I said, I apologized to him.
01:34:49.580
I said, you know, that was unprofessional. Was it? Well, you know, I, I understood, I felt it.
01:34:56.240
I felt that there might've been a better way that I could do it. Maybe wait till he finished and then
01:35:00.980
asked, you know, to respond. I, I, I'm, I'm also suspicious of my own, you know, because I am,
01:35:09.540
I have been somewhat oppositional. I'm not exactly like a Mr. Go long and get along guy
01:35:14.360
with this stuff that I don't always have the best reality check on my own behavior.
01:35:19.660
And so I, you know, I, I, I was just saying, well, okay, if I, if I did cause offense, then,
01:35:27.340
you know, I, I feel like it's okay to apologize. And there probably was a better way for me to do
01:35:31.180
this. And so I did apologize and, you know, thought about it, you know, nothing against that,
01:35:37.100
nothing wrong with that. And then he accepted. And, um, you know, I figured that was, that was it.
01:35:42.340
There was a lot of processing after the meeting, I think that went on for hours afterwards. My phone
01:35:48.180
died. It was on my phone. And so when I went home, um, you know, I logged back into the meeting and
01:35:53.280
people were still there talking. So I talked to them, but I, I underestimated the effect of this
01:35:58.540
because apparently, um, some of my, some of my comments, you know, were leaked or may work or
01:36:05.100
transmitted to other people that weren't in the meetings, people that were in the, the BIPOC
01:36:09.260
meeting, you know, particularly my, my BIPOC is a black and indigenous people of color.
01:36:17.100
So they were having their separate meeting of faculty and students where they received different
01:36:21.760
content. And why was it separate? Um, the rationale as I could, as I can understand it is so that
01:36:30.500
the groups that have been marginalized won't be exposed to, you know, they'll have their own
01:36:36.920
things so that they're not exposed to the, uh, I think the insensitive, possible insensitivity of
01:36:43.680
the, uh, oppressors. It's the best I can understand the rationale. Um, but it wound up happening
01:36:53.440
anyway, because it would be rude of me to point out that that's somewhat paternalistic, you know,
01:36:59.960
just as an observation. That's a good one. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, totally. Well,
01:37:06.720
I guess that is a characteristic of white supremacy culture though. Paternalism.
01:37:11.340
Yeah. So I, I guess it's quite accurate. Well, as long as it's in a good cause,
01:37:15.900
then I guess it's forgivable. Yeah. Okay. So that was how long ago that meeting?
01:37:20.780
That was February 24th. Oh yes. Okay. So things are starting to snowball.
01:37:26.420
Yeah. This year. And that was referred to after the fact as the events of Wednesday. Like they
01:37:32.160
couldn't even really, it was sort of like nine 11. They couldn't actually, they had to come up with a
01:37:37.400
euphemism for it, I guess. Um, so the events of Wednesday, and so they had meetings about the
01:37:43.640
events on Wednesday. Well, the office of community engagement, coupled with the Dean of student life.
01:37:48.780
And there, there, there are Dean level positions that exerted a lot of effort and energy because I
01:37:57.620
did not make their lives easy, um, to, to address the things that were said and raised in the meeting,
01:38:05.680
not just by me, but by, you know, lots of different people on students, students, you know, spoke up as
01:38:12.080
well and faculty. And so, um, what I found it so interesting because the day after the meeting,
01:38:20.160
there was an email that was released that said healing resources, you know, healing resources
01:38:26.600
that will help you come to terms with what happened. And the first healing resource
01:38:33.560
on the list was a CNN interview with a poet named Damon Young. Um, and, um, Damon Young, uh, you know,
01:38:47.880
in this interview said things like, you know, we, we need to get rid of all of capitalism.
01:38:54.540
Um, we will have to do a carpet bombing, not a carpet cleansing of society. And it was incredibly
01:39:01.660
radical statements that were, I would imagine would be frightening to, to many people. And that
01:39:08.380
was listed as a healing resource as well as long as the carpet bombing only targets the malevolent
01:39:13.940
people. Well, yeah, I guess. And then things, there was a Robin DiAngelo article that said, you know,
01:39:19.940
what white people need to be made or kept uncomfortable. Um, how can we become more
01:39:25.560
uncomfortable? Um, also, you know, really kind of, I would just say racist characterizations of white
01:39:33.200
people in these links. Um, things like, you know, all white people have never had to be guests in this
01:39:40.460
country. And, uh, like the Irish, for example, they weren't really white to begin with though. So
01:39:48.080
yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I found this very ironic and then I had a series, I had two meetings. I had
01:39:55.700
a meeting with my head of high school and the assistant head, and I had a meeting with the head
01:40:01.960
of the whole school. And then, you know, I, the head of the meeting with the head of high school,
01:40:09.560
they called you in at that point. Yeah. I mean, they, what's happening around you is this is
01:40:13.920
growing. This is this. Well, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of agitation. There's meetings
01:40:18.020
about meetings. There's student diversity council meetings. Um, there are, um, there's just a lot of
01:40:25.980
agitation in the community, I would say, uh, and, and meetings about meetings. So some of the things
01:40:32.640
that would happen would be in the week in the end, as the week continued, there was a faculty meeting
01:40:38.200
about it. Um, I had some advisory circles, circle practice was taken away because they felt that it
01:40:47.660
would be, the students would be upset if I was a part of it. So the team is what? Um, well, it was,
01:40:55.980
it's a, it's a practice that we've started this year where, um, activities, um, where you,
01:41:05.100
you put up a slide and you talk about an issue and then everyone has to go around and speak
01:41:09.300
one by one about a question and then you kind of do it around twice. And then, you know, this is to
01:41:15.360
sort of manage discussion. Um, and I've done a couple of these.
01:41:20.240
You're not your persona non grata at this now because of your toxic influence on the students.
01:41:25.660
Right, right. And so, you know, I got a, I got an email saying, you know, under current
01:41:30.020
circumstances following yesterday's meeting and your role and what transpired, you, you know,
01:41:34.300
I've asked you to recuse yourself. Um, then, you know, there were subsequent meetings. There was a
01:41:42.700
faculty meeting. Uh, I think at that faculty meeting, uh, a colleague said, well, this is,
01:41:48.160
this could be terrible. This could undo everything we've ever taught them,
01:41:51.460
which I thought to myself, please, please. I hope so. Um, but, uh, the, uh, and there were,
01:42:05.440
Well, I'm on a natural high. I mean, I, I know that I feel like this is something that I've finally done
01:42:10.840
to, to, to open up something like some daylight. And I, all of this churn is going on around me,
01:42:20.940
but I'm going about my day and I'm teaching my classes. Uh, I am, you know, I, I did feel the
01:42:29.740
need to address my classes. So I said at the beginning, you know, I am an anti-racist. Um,
01:42:36.240
you know, I want you to feel safe. And then I would just sort of teach the class. And then I
01:42:40.380
was told not to address it with the class, with anyone in the classes I had written. I had sort
01:42:45.940
of had a sort of, I guess, a manic kind of outbreak at this point. Like I felt so much energy and,
01:42:52.240
and enthusiasm that I was writing in my notebook a lot. And I developed a kind of,
01:42:57.380
I had a sort of creative outpouring through all of this. Um, I, I don't know whether it's maybe like
01:43:03.960
a cyclothemic reaction or something to it because I felt like my soul has kind of awakened. No,
01:43:10.920
I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I was, you know, maybe getting three hours a night and I
01:43:14.560
would wake up, I would wake up at like four in the morning, just being like wide awake. And I'd go
01:43:20.080
and I'd start writing and I'd write a lot of ideas down and I felt like it was really productive.
01:43:26.560
And what do you think of the ideas that you were producing during that time?
01:43:29.660
Um, I've, this type of thing has happened before and I've, I've looked at them with later eyes and I
01:43:37.920
don't think that I I've kind of felt the despair that they weren't, um, that there wasn't much value to
01:43:43.840
them, but this time, one thing I might point out is that, you know, writing, writing is overproduction
01:43:49.860
followed by culling. Right. And so you'll have periods of overproduction and you probably throw
01:43:56.360
90% of that away, but maybe you keep 10% and that's a lot more than zero.
01:44:04.020
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, mostly what I was doing was illustrating a kind of geometry. Like I had,
01:44:08.680
I had, um, these two axes and I was sort of laying things out on them because I was trying to make sense
01:44:14.300
of, of the whole problem of, of racism and, um, the difference between reality and truth
01:44:22.160
and, um, how those things are kind of orthogonal. And I kind of laid out a schema that made sense to
01:44:28.800
me that would, that was kind of explaining the whole problem. And, you know, I, it still does make
01:44:34.600
sense to me and I still think that there's a tremendous value in it and I just need to want to keep
01:44:39.320
working on it. Um, but yeah, well, it's common that those, those, those periods of, of creativity,
01:44:45.600
you know, they're, they're revelatory thinking and that can be over-emotional and somewhat tangential,
01:44:52.180
but, but it's, it's grift for further milling. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it did grist for further
01:44:59.120
grist. Yeah. Grist, great gristle. Um, so I, all of this was happening around me, but I felt like a
01:45:07.780
kind of stoic indifference to it because I, I felt a sort of awakening in me that, that,
01:45:12.280
that made all of the hubbub, uh, sort of irrelevant. Now, it sounds like you had decided to do this.
01:45:22.380
Yeah. I think I, I think I had been waiting, sort of unconsciously waiting for an opportunity. And
01:45:28.300
when it happened, when I blurted things out and it's, it, it happened, then I embraced it. And I
01:45:34.000
realized that I had, I was not ashamed and I was not contrayed and I was proud. I was actually proud.
01:45:42.700
And when, so now, and then when did you write the essay that, that, that, that was, oh yeah,
01:45:47.580
Barry Weiss. Um, I don't want to rush you if there's more to unpack. I'd like to hear it.
01:45:51.760
I, I realized that, you know, I don't want to, you know, tax you as either, but, um,
01:45:57.980
I had, um, I knew I wanted to write about the whole thing. So I, I, I had taken a lot of notes
01:46:08.100
over the years. And so my first draft was about 5,000 words and it contained a lot of information
01:46:15.680
centered around the actual zoo meeting. And then, you know, the effects on the students, um, and,
01:46:23.600
you know, what had happened to me. And then I realized like, what, the reason why I did, why I
01:46:28.680
said the thing in the meeting in the first place was because I was trying to model for the students
01:46:32.680
and that was what was animating me. And so I, I, you know, I, I handed it off to a friend who edited
01:46:40.440
it and really hacked it way down, you know, cut out a lot of the, this, the stuff. And then I did
01:46:45.680
another draft where I was really trying to get to the main ideas and boil them down as crisply as I
01:46:52.440
could. And then Barry took a look at it and, and she made a few changes through the fair, through fair.
01:46:59.440
Cause I had been volunteering with them, um, for a couple of months now and fair, just so everyone
01:47:05.040
knows is, is a foundation against intolerance and racism. And, you know, we, you know, I was in the
01:47:11.860
process of, I still am, you know, helping to build the organization and, and select chapter leadership
01:47:19.380
in various States so that we can really, we're in this sort of networking phase because I'm calling
01:47:25.000
people have given us their names and I'm calling people. And, and what I'm finding is that everyone
01:47:30.700
has a story. So I can't just be on the phone with them for 15 minutes and all of the volunteers are
01:47:36.580
finding this, that there's a tremendous outpouring. It's very emotional. They'll talk about what's
01:47:41.620
happening with their kids. They'll talk about the data. They didn't suspect that anything was wrong
01:47:45.920
in the culture until maybe a year ago. And now it's clear to them and they want to do something.
01:47:50.800
And so you really have to do, you really have to listen before you can, you know, just operationally
01:47:56.800
try to plug people in. And, you know, a lot of times it's, it's, it really feels like I'm not a
01:48:02.860
therapist, but it feels like at the peak, I was making like five calls a day and each of those were
01:48:08.580
about an hour and you, you wind up really having, having an engagement with another human being.
01:48:15.260
So this is starting to inform your writing as well and the way you're thinking about what's going on
01:48:19.560
at the school. Yeah. And so I'm starting, I'm starting to feel like I have a lot of people that
01:48:26.960
I'm, you know, that are, that this is something that's becoming kind of a duty, like almost a moral
01:48:36.720
duty. So, yeah, so that's kind of the, the background to that. And then, and then the article
01:48:48.660
came out and I, I waited and there's just a tremendous, I've had an email at the bottom
01:48:57.940
of the article and I was expecting like 50% positive, 50% negative. I would be happy if it
01:49:05.220
was 50% positive. Now I realized later it's on Barry Weiss's Substack and it's mostly her fans,
01:49:10.360
but I put, I put the email on some other places and, and I was just amazed that, you know, maybe
01:49:18.740
500 emails in the first two days and, and long emails, like people writing, you know, some of them
01:49:26.700
are just a word or a subject line, but people had a lot to say, a lot of stories. And I've spent
01:49:33.260
a couple hours each day since then going through them and responding to everyone because it's really
01:49:40.800
important to do that. I think that, you know, I feel, I feel like it's just, I can't just, you know,
01:49:47.900
ignore them or just give like a one sentence thing because some of these, some of these,
01:49:53.320
uh, I try to, you know, I try to respond in at least one or two sentences in a way that addresses
01:50:00.340
their particular situation. And then I, and I try to direct them to FAIRs as, as, you know, as,
01:50:06.140
as an organization that can help. Um, and all people of all different backgrounds, uh,
01:50:13.420
people wrote in from other countries. And what are they telling you in the main?
01:50:18.740
They're just a lot of what I'm getting. I'm just getting a lot of pats on the back,
01:50:22.600
just like, yes, you know, good for you. Bravo. Like, you know, this is amazing. Keep doing it.
01:50:29.680
I keep doing what you're doing. I support you, you know, a hundred percent. This is a huge problem,
01:50:34.920
you know, and you're standing up for it and what you're doing is right. And,
01:50:45.360
Okay. So you publish this in Barry Weiss's substack and the school reacts.
01:50:55.560
Well, they make the claim that, um, um, that I, you know, some of what I've written is,
01:51:08.260
you know, they're not trying to, you know, they, they, I think it's a little blurry to me now,
01:51:15.040
actually, because so much has happened since. So I kind of have to reconstruct what happened, but,
01:51:21.380
um, uh, in this time. So the article came out on the, I believe on the 13th
01:51:31.240
and, um, you know, I had a contract assigned for the following year.
01:51:37.700
And part of that contract, my contract is up. This current contract is up at the end of August,
01:51:43.480
but the deadline for me to sign next year's contract was April 15th. And as one of the
01:51:50.640
stipulations of my contract was that I had to attend restorative justice practices designed by
01:51:55.780
the school to address the harm that I had caused students of color and other students.
01:52:02.300
I see. So you were obliged to be guilty enough to go to be retrained.
01:52:05.680
Right. And, you know, the details of the, of this process would be revealed to me after I signed.
01:52:12.520
So I was signing something that I didn't, you know, I wouldn't know what I was signing.
01:52:19.340
Apart from an admission of culpability and guilt.
01:52:24.880
Right. And now participation, I thought about, I was like, well, participation doesn't mean
01:52:29.860
that I have to, you know, say mea culpa, I can participate in it.
01:52:35.680
Um, maybe it's an opportunity for me to engage, you know, um, and I thought about it, but then I
01:52:40.620
said, well, that would mean that I was signing onto it mean that I was legitimizing it by signing
01:52:45.920
it. And so I decided not to sign it because if I, if I put my word on it, then it would mean that I
01:52:51.300
was saying that that was an appropriate request to make of someone.
01:52:55.580
How in the world did you manage to make that decision?
01:53:01.880
Well, I just really just delayed it and thought about it.
01:53:08.320
And then I, I realized that, no, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna let it lapse because,
01:53:14.920
you know, I'm, I'm, uh, I've reinvented myself before.
01:53:24.440
I figured, you know, if I didn't work for grace, I could find, I could land on my feet
01:53:31.540
So there, there were, I had, I felt like I had options, you know, I felt like no matter
01:53:36.380
what happened, I, I had faith that I would be okay.
01:53:41.040
Um, so I, you know, I felt like I could kind of decide whether this was, this was right for
01:53:47.820
And I could teach somewhere else, maybe not, you know, in New York, maybe I could find
01:53:52.820
like a private boarding school or something that was more aligned with my views or my values.
01:54:00.920
I mean, since the article, uh, you know, places in Coral, Coral Gables was like, come to Coral
01:54:06.820
We'll give you, you know, we'll, we needed someone for our math program, Texas, Arizona,
01:54:12.640
Oh, well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, oh, I'm very pleasant and surprised to hear that.
01:54:17.260
And, you know, I, my fears of being canceled are completely obvious, you know, blown away
01:54:25.120
because, you know, that it's the opposite of that.
01:54:29.100
I would say, um, now I'm sure, I'm sure there are people that wouldn't touch me with a 10
01:54:36.440
I mean, it's sort of like a self-selecting thing.
01:54:39.000
Now, you know, I did this thing, the world has sorted itself out.
01:54:47.760
Um, and so those are the people that I will, that I could work with.
01:54:52.100
And then what's, what do I need to, why do I need to worry about people who don't want
01:55:00.980
So, and I, and also have to move forward on false pretenses.
01:55:07.540
And, um, but I think my main, my main gratitude that I feel is that, uh, is that I made, you
01:55:24.120
know, I made my dad proud and, uh, and my mother is not with me, not with us anymore, but she
01:55:31.820
Um, well, you know, he's, uh, I consider him to be very important person and, uh, he
01:55:45.020
He taught me how to think he's, uh, he's a law professor.
01:55:52.020
And, um, he was a great, he was a real teacher.
01:55:57.480
He was a teacher and he was very popular, um, very talented.
01:56:04.480
And, uh, and he would always engage me in Socratic discourse.
01:56:12.700
And, um, you know, I did, I do feel like I've probably been a disappointment, um, more
01:56:20.200
than months to put it, to put it mildly over the years.
01:56:23.500
And so having the opportunity, you know, he's 88, having this chance to sort of do this
01:56:33.340
thing, you know, maybe this one act, maybe I won't write anything ever again, but at least
01:56:39.420
I've done this thing, um, and talking to him about it and it's, uh, it's a good feeling.
01:56:48.220
Um, now the school has stopped you from teaching apart from the fact that you've not signed the
01:56:58.040
They had, they offered me, um, they offered me something I thought was kind of creative.
01:57:02.660
They offered me the chance to participate in a subcommittee of the institutional culture
01:57:08.720
committee, um, which is a committee that's centered around designing an anti-racist culture
01:57:15.500
Um, now I would work on the direct supervision, uh, supervision of the assistant head.
01:57:21.920
Um, but it would, they, they wouldn't let me teach math.
01:57:29.080
And that's basically what I would do for the next, um, you know, the next five months
01:57:36.880
Um, so I thought of that, I, I think that what it really is, is just a way to co-opt me
01:57:44.940
and to sort of put me in a kind of rubber room.
01:57:47.860
I mean, I don't have any confidence whatsoever that any of my, you know, any of my, um, suggestions
01:57:55.540
or, or contributions would be taken seriously, um, which would involve like complete upending
01:58:02.260
of the entire program, um, to account for free expression and a viewpoint diversity and, you
01:58:09.220
know, different, completely different epistemology.
01:58:14.000
Um, I don't feel that they're going to take that seriously.
01:58:16.340
And so if, you know, I'm not sure if my, my continued, um, employment, you know, I, I don't
01:58:24.480
And what were the grounds for stopping you from teaching?
01:58:31.680
So I received a threat from a member of the community.
01:58:36.840
It was a menacing threat that was centered around my, my employment, my livelihood.
01:58:44.540
You know, it said a lot of things like, don't dare come back to the school.
01:58:50.700
Your future is, you know, you're going to be canceled.
01:58:54.680
You're, you're never going to be able to work anywhere.
01:58:56.940
You know, the, this, we will see to it that you're.
01:59:02.520
So I reported this email to the school and, um, you know, the school got back to me or
01:59:09.120
the head of school got back to me and said, well, you know, if you don't feel safe as you
01:59:15.140
Um, we don't ask that we, we, we, you might, we think it's a good idea if you stayed home
01:59:21.100
and taught remotely, you know, only over zoom and don't come onto the school grounds.
01:59:26.760
And I wrote back to them and I said, well, actually I do feel safe.
01:59:36.040
Um, and you know, I, I expect, I was simply bringing this to your attention so that you
01:59:44.140
Um, and then they wrote back saying, well, as you know, we will be polling the students
01:59:51.360
and, and community members to find out whether this opinion is shared by other people.
01:59:56.680
So they treated this menacing email as an opinion and, and they said, you know, subsequent
02:00:02.080
to that, they said, well, since the school, you know, community feels that they can't participate
02:00:08.620
in your classes because they were probably objecting to your right to comfort.
02:00:12.860
Yeah, probably, you know, and I, I said things like, well, I fully expect you to maintain
02:00:18.500
I mean, that's, that's something that you should.
02:00:21.020
And I find it rather odd that if, if, you know, someone who sent a menacing email,
02:00:26.680
to me should not have to stay home, but I should have to stay home.
02:00:30.300
What is the, you know, why am I the one that has to stay home?
02:00:35.960
So, but they didn't have much sympathy for that point of view.
02:00:38.520
So rather it was this, this threat was taken as a kind of, um, you know, example of people's
02:00:48.080
feelings of, of insecure, unsafeness around me.
02:00:58.040
Um, now you also exchanged an opinion or two publicly with the, if I've got this right,
02:01:06.260
with the headmaster, you said that in a conversation, he had indicated his agreement with your proposition
02:01:13.220
that white people, but children in your formulation to begin with, were being demonized by the curriculum.
02:01:21.680
And you made that claim and he said that was not true.
02:01:28.000
Which I reviewed and which seems to clearly indicate that he did in fact say exactly what you said he said.
02:01:40.600
Well, I have no idea because I haven't heard anything in the, in the two days since the audio
02:01:46.360
So it's, so he's been radio silent as far as you know, as far as I know.
02:01:52.680
Um, I'm, I'm not privy to, I mean, I still have email.
02:01:56.880
My email account is still active, but I don't, you know, I, I haven't seen any communications
02:02:10.100
There hasn't been any statement from the school at this point.
02:02:14.040
So a couple of things that we should cover before we stop.
02:02:17.360
Um, what do you, what are your feelings about the importance of what is transpiring around
02:02:29.820
Let's, let's start with that, with, with, with regard to teachers and students in private
02:02:36.100
and public institutions, high schools, junior highs, elementary schools in your state and
02:02:43.800
What, what do you see this, if anything, what does this indicate?
02:02:49.940
Well, I have hopes, you know, I, I feel that if, if students can, if I, if, if the type of
02:02:58.220
you know, willingness to ask a question, it, in response to some of these, you know, what
02:03:07.380
I consider to be indoctrination, frankly, at other schools.
02:03:11.120
And you think that's happening at other schools?
02:03:13.920
I mean, I, it's no question because of the, the calls that I've received in the conversations
02:03:18.560
I've had with people all over Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, you know,
02:03:24.220
their, their parents are very concerned with their children and they've seen it because
02:03:27.860
of the pandemic through their, through the zoom, zoom classes, they've witnessed what's
02:03:33.420
being taught to their kids and they're very, very concerned and they have specific receipts
02:03:45.620
So, you know, I, I have, this is not simply a, a, a rarefied independent school problem.
02:03:54.020
This is happening at, you know, school boards and districts all over the country.
02:04:00.660
A lot of it spurred by the, you know, the George Floyd killing and the reaction to it.
02:04:06.700
Um, I believe it was taken as an opportunity to, you know, redress, um, that with a misguided.
02:04:18.420
It's like, I'm trying to figure out, I keep trying to figure out cause I've been concerned
02:04:22.280
about this for long time and, uh, I still can't get to the bottom of it.
02:04:31.200
I know there's a resentment element to it, but I can't understand exactly what's driving
02:04:35.500
this and, and why it's, despite the fact that it's clearly the view of a very small minority
02:04:45.940
I cannot understand why it's making the headway that it's making at the rate that it's making
02:05:00.560
Yeah, I think I have a sense why, and maybe it's a theory.
02:05:06.180
It's not just my theory, but it's, I've seen in other places or hinted at in other places.
02:05:11.360
I think when you sort of, you know, over the past few decades, you have a gradual sort of
02:05:19.380
leeching from the soil of society of sort of a moral sense, a moral tradition, moral grounding
02:05:27.600
and, you know, long, long religious traditions, essentially, when they depart from the public
02:05:36.600
And, you know, wokeness is, is a way to sort of, sort of paint by numbers, moral righteousness,
02:05:43.400
and it gives people the sense that they're good people.
02:05:46.360
I think people have an almost, you know, I don't know whether it's evolutionarily based,
02:05:50.720
but they have a need to have a moral character and sense of themselves.
02:05:55.120
And if, and if something comes along, which is going to offer that and give you that thing,
02:06:01.640
well, then there's a, there's a tremendous hunger for it.
02:06:06.260
And so you can have, you know, a very small percentage of the population that's pushing
02:06:11.340
it can have a real powerful outsized influence.
02:06:14.660
Do you, do you have a traditional religious belief of any sort?
02:06:31.660
You know, I have a joke that I, I use sometimes, you know, I'm so lapsed, I'm prolapsed.
02:06:36.340
But basically, I, you know, was a functioning agnostic, then atheist.
02:06:44.180
Uh, and, um, but I, I don't feel like I really need a lot of God, but I do need to have something
02:06:58.820
I believe in some little mirror of the divine, which sort of is, is in me.
02:07:04.740
It's not like above me or around me, but it is within me.
02:07:07.820
And so it's sort of like a reflective thing that I can, and it's sort of reactivated,
02:07:16.660
So I can, I can take in the world and the world of reality, but I can reflect it against
02:07:31.540
You know, like what comes back is something that I should attend to.
02:07:35.100
It's something that is, it is, it is something important.
02:07:38.100
And that is the, you know, and, and now that I feel like I have that or own awareness of
02:07:43.600
that, you know, I, it's just like, you know, ah, you know, okay.
02:07:53.220
I want to say thank God, but I don't, I don't, I don't know.
02:07:56.100
I don't know that there's a God with a capital G.
02:07:59.880
I just know that there's something which is, which is not of this world, but is in
02:08:16.280
The first question is why did you, one of the questions is why did you agree to talk
02:08:21.280
And the second question is what do you have to say to teachers who are wrestling with
02:08:29.260
their conscience in relationship to this issue?
02:08:37.880
With the, with the teachers, what do you have to say?
02:08:40.300
I mean, you already said you're not interested in judging people for their decisions, but
02:08:48.320
Like what's your conclusion and what, and your, your hope, or if it's not a recommendation,
02:08:55.920
I would just say, you know, stand up for the truth and in whatever way you can, if you,
02:09:00.360
if you feel, if you have that same reflective process within yourself, or you, if what I'm
02:09:06.540
saying makes sense to you in terms of your, your sense of right and wrong, if you feel
02:09:12.120
that what you're being asked to teach or what your students are being, are going through
02:09:17.900
is wrong, then weigh that, like, like do it smartly, but, but really take it seriously.
02:09:25.820
And, and, and why, why, why, why, because, because it's crucial.
02:09:31.260
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's what will save us.
02:09:37.320
That's a hell of a word to use in that context.
02:09:43.560
Um, you, you, you, you know, the, you're being asked, you're being called to do something
02:09:53.360
and, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to like run around and, and, and proclaim,
02:10:05.580
It just means that you have to do something in a way that is constructive and well thought
02:10:10.140
out and, and will, that will help the immediate circumstances in which you find yourself and
02:10:23.080
And if you don't, and if you don't, um, well, then it's, you're leaving it up to the next
02:10:38.180
What you can teach is the words on the appropriate list.
02:10:45.780
You know, I mean, the thing that's so wonderful about teaching is that you get to make contact
02:10:52.400
And so if that's being whittled away in favor of the approved list, then there isn't a hell
02:11:00.980
And it's kind of hard for me to say, see how you could take any, derive any source of meaningful
02:11:08.660
If you've been reduced to a set of moralistic platitudes, especially when extreme punishment
02:11:19.140
So that's the thing I always noticed when I was a clinical psychologist, I always brought
02:11:22.980
up because I don't practice now for a variety of reasons.
02:11:28.480
There's a price to speaking, but there's a price to remaining silent when you have something
02:11:46.380
Well, I wanted to talk to you because, you know, you've, you've been a pretty big influence
02:11:55.020
I followed you from the, you know, from the Bill C-16 video and your, your biblical lectures
02:12:04.820
I mean, I, I had never thought of, I never imagined even that there was a way to sort
02:12:12.060
of harmonize, you know, evolution and religion in that way.
02:12:19.480
It seemed just like a remarkable achievement to, to sort of kind of find a third way out
02:12:28.780
of the, you know, along another dimension from the, the conflict of, you know, is it true?
02:12:44.540
And, and, you know, what, I don't know the way you did it.
02:12:53.020
And it, it sort of reframed it in a way that I couldn't, that I couldn't ignore and that
02:13:02.200
it, because I was raised with these stories, but they didn't really make sense in the modern
02:13:08.760
paradigm that I've been, you know, that, that I experienced as a kind of drifting away.
02:13:14.460
I think that my, my experience in, in relating to your work is quite common.
02:13:20.080
I think a lot of people have this experience listening to your work and your lectures.
02:13:23.940
Um, and that finding a way to sort of connect with myself as, you know, when I, when I was
02:13:34.280
You know, these were things that, that were important to me, but I didn't understand them
02:13:39.920
and finding a way to understand them in a, in a new and better way.
02:13:46.600
And that, that it would have meaning for me as an adult is something I never would have
02:13:53.140
Um, so, you know, that was very important to me.
02:13:57.400
And also that the importance that there is, you know, I don't, I don't know, it seems that
02:14:06.300
I don't, it almost doesn't matter what your religious thing is.
02:14:11.180
Um, but it, it is important that there's something, there's something important about truth.
02:14:17.720
The truth is important and it's not the same as reality.
02:14:23.620
And a lot of it is, but there's some of it that's not.
02:14:26.940
And that you, and that being able to say, I don't know whether this is something that,
02:14:30.400
that, that I'm getting from you or that you actually said, but I thought that you might,
02:14:35.600
you might be someone that kind of understood that where I was coming from about that.
02:14:44.840
And that's why, that's why it was really important for me to go on your show.
02:15:11.180
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