Head of the Teachers Union: Going Back to School is 'White Supremacy,' Concern Over Suicide is 'White Privilege'

Washington state is fighting racism.

Last week, Pasco Association of Educators President Scott Wilson made notable announcements on reopening for in-person instruction.

Turns out, the whole thing’s about “white supremacy.”

Furthermore — as relayed by The Daily Wire — he asserted concern over students’ mental health is a form of “white privilege.”

In the view of KTTH 770’s Jason Rantz, Scott “made a series of unhinged, controversial remarks during a Pasco School Board meeting.”

Said remarks were captured via video:

A WA teacher's union president says reopening schools is an example of "white supremacy," concern over a child's mental health or suicide risk is "white privilege," and push to reopen schools is like rioters pushing to enter the U.S. Capitol.

READ: https://t.co/QxFazq2Taz pic.twitter.com/ny50MEZG7p

— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) January 13, 2021

Scott related reopening to January 6th’s chaos at the Capitol:

“There are decisions to be made. You stand on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol as people break down barriers and head to the doors. Do you follow? You stand at the governor’s mansion. The crowd breaks down barriers to enter the grounds. Do you follow? Or do you choose a different way?”

That is, in this case, do you go the way of the KKK?

“We must not ignore the culture of white supremacy and white privilege.”

He broke it down:

“We speak of equity, we speak of care of all students, yet we listen and attend to voices saying ‘Reopen everything, I’m free to breathe,’ supporting white privilege.”

Meanwhile, as I covered Sunday, the nation’s 5th largest school district — Clark County, Nevada — is reopening due to a pandemic possibly more pulverizing than the virus on the young: Suicide.

I quoted The New York Times:

Superintendents across the nation are weighing the benefit of in-person education against the cost of public health, watching teachers and staff become sick and, in some cases, die, but also seeing the psychological and academic toll that school closings are having on children nearly a year in. The risk of student suicides has quietly stirred many district leaders, leading some…to cite that fear in public pleas to help mitigate the virus’s spread.

From County Superintendent Jesus Jara:

“When we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives, we knew it wasn’t just the Covid numbers we need to look at anymore. We have to find a way to put our hands on our kids, to see them, to look at them. They’ve got to start seeing some movement, some hope.”

Scott has firsthand experience: Heartbreakingly, he lost his son to suicide.

Still, he called out ignorance:

“[Parents] complain their children are suicidal without school or sports. As a father, daily surviving the suicide of my son, I find these statements ignorant and another expression of white privilege.”

The union head indicated that many children in multi-generational homes could contract the virus and bring it home to their elderly relatives.

To Scott, reopening stands in the face of equity:

“We speak of equity, we speak of care of all students, yet we listen and attend to voices saying ‘Reopen everything, I’m free to breathe,’ supporting white privilege.”

Per Jason Rantz, Wilson compared “his fight to keep schools closed to fighting for civil rights for Black Americans.”

Additionally, his “statements come as the union pushes for total remote learning for elementary schools, even with near-consensus from the medical community that it is safe to reopen schools with mitigation policies in place. The petition the union promotes baselessly calls in-person learning ‘unsafe and unsustainable.’”

Apropos, a recent study claimed in-school transmission as “extremely rare.”

Either way, Washington is leading the way where race-conscious education’s concerned.

Last month, Seattle told its white teachers to “bankrupt” their privilege and acknowledge their “thieved inheritance” (see my article here).

The trainers tell white teachers that they "must commit to the journey" of anti-whiteness, even if their "lizard-brain" makes them "afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ‘ism.’" pic.twitter.com/hfU94v4Rjy

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 18, 2020