These days, we’re living in a very unsafe safe space.
In consideration of this decade compared to others, it seems we’re largely better off where safety’s concerned.
Yet, we’re constantly told safety’s something we must radically seek.
As for the reason, I’d point to a potent perspective revolution.
The stakes have drastically changed.
Across millennia, any day a human escaped being eaten was a good day.
I offer a contrast, via the scene at a contemporary Ben Shapiro speech:
A hungry animal/ideas, potato/puh-tah-toe.
And so, we wander wounded.
But healing now awaits.
As relayed by The College Fix, a group called Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Centers (TRH&TC) is installing “racial equity” healing locations on colleges campuses nationwide.
Nineteen will launch in the next few weeks, and twenty-nine are already in operation.
On its official website, TRH&TC touts “a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism.”
“The effects of racism,” the site says, “are evident in the social, economic and government policies all around us and the places in which we live, learn, work and play. People experience these effects when they take their children to school, when they apply for jobs, when they try to rent or buy a home, when they shop, when they interact with the police and more.”
[TRH&TC] seeks to unearth and jettison the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs created by racism — the main one being the belief in a “hierarchy of human value.”
This absurd belief, which has fueled racism and conscious and unconscious bias throughout American culture, is the perception of inferiority or superiority based on race, physical characteristics or place of origin. It is when we value one person more than another based on skin color or other physical, superficial characteristics and let those values affect the decisions we make each day in areas like policymaking, in job decisions, in how we teach children — to name a few.
As for implementation in secondary education, such is being orchestrated by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
In a press release, AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella recently expressed excitement:
“We look forward to partnering with these pathbreaking institutions in their efforts to promote racial equity and healing on their campuses and in their communities.”
Where hitting headlines is concerned, this isn’t healing circles’ first rodeo.
See:
New York School System Teaches Fourth Graders Antiracism, Puts Them in ‘Restorative Justice Circles’
School District Apologizes for Including White Students in ‘Support Circles’ After Chauvin Verdict
Of course, if someone is wounded, they should seek amelioration.
As for the racial healing movement, I can’t help but notice there’s no end game made clear.
When a cut mends itself, it’s easy to see.
When a broken bone heals, it’s simple to prove.
It appears institutions are telling us we’re broken, are telling us we’re cut.
College Schools Students and Staff on Microaggressions' 'Death by a Thousand Cuts' and the 'Myth of Meritocracy'
https://t.co/zVLKd6lrH2— RedState (@RedState) July 7, 2021
Are they only making us well, so we may return to togetherness?
Or are we arriving at a place of permanent separation, of perpetual segregation?
I hope the latter isn’t the case.
And if you doubt the stakes have changed, consider one bold university’s approach to nursing the deep injuries incurred in a world obsessed with skin:
"University Teaches Pulverized Pupils to Rumble With Racism – by Taking Naps"https://t.co/kZHVn3MuVd
— Alex Parker (@alexparker1984) March 1, 2021
Here’s to hoping all the healing helps.
-ALEX
See more pieces from me:
Harvard Hosts a Shakespearean Extravaganza — but Only for Black People
High School’s Halftime Gets Souped-up With Something Far More Fabulous
Winds of Change Bring a VP of ‘Humanism, Equity and Antiracism’ to an American Medical School
Find all my RedState work here.
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