EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: In Mandatory Training, CA Faculty Union Leader Says There's Nothing Good About 'White' Culture

Screenshot from CALFAC mandatory training, August 2021

During last week’s two-day mandatory “antiracism” training for members of the California Faculty Association leaders went just a bit further than many Critical Race Theory sessions – including laughing over the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

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The union, also known as CALFAC, is the exclusive collective bargaining agent for all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system, including lecturers, professors, counselors, librarians, and coaches.

As expected, its objectives were the same-old, same-old, according to screenshots provided exclusively to RedState by an attendee:

  • Understand the pillars holding up White Supremacy
  • Remind us of our nation’s history and how it has normalized racism in an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional, and interpersonal
  • Understand key definitions of racism (individual, interpersonal, structural, and institutional)

According to that attendee, the training session started out as such things normally do, but the discussion quickly turned to current events, and:

“One of the reps just mentioned the fall of Afghanistan, and laughed, saying it’s just another example of how the US ‘creates’ enemies so that they can conduct war.”

In conjunction with the antiracism training, union representatives mentioned the “attacks” on Critical Race Theory, dismissing those attacks as based on ignorance, saying:

“Critical Race Theory is under attack because it seeks to shed light on all of history. And people don’t even know what CRT is!”

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At the beginning of the second day, the attendee described a creepy group exercise CALFAC representatives led:

First, we were all asked to say where we *feel* our race in our bodies, and answers were solicited.

The attendee, who teaches courses in cultural and social competency, told RedState:

My general impression from the presenters is that they have very little knowledge on constructs and concepts of culture and race. Most of what they shared with us sounds like it was developed narrative points they were given, but lacked the ability to expound upon.

Most of everything discussed [simply] included the following messages, repeated:

  • We are living under a white supremacy
  • Certain groups (minorities) who don’t support these messages are actually just co-opted and attempting to act as “model minorities”
  • History is only taught from one side

The training was led by Audrena Redmond, who serves as the union’s Program Director for Anti​-​Racism Social Justice work:

Her work includes​ identifying policy and practice changes, developing and facilitating anti-racism workshops, organizing biennial equity conferences​ and hosting a podcast, Radio Free CSU​. For many years she also organized the annual Leadership Institute for newly elected officers and member activists.

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Redmond is also the co-founder of Black Lives Matter – Long Beach and the Director of Political Education for Black Lives Matter, which might explain her answer to questions from two – white – female members pushing back on her characterizations of “white” culture.

The first woman disputed Redmond’s assertion that there was just one “white culture.”

“…one thing you said that’s a common misconception is that white is a culture, and I think we put that on the board as the — one of the narratives is, if you’re white you’re viewed as being White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, so your, you know, historical kind of English, Catholic, right. And that is completely untrue, because there are subcultures within every white person, that — they are just grouped into this WASP kind of viewpoint, and it’s completely incorrect. Everybody is — comes from a different background.

Redmond affirmed her position, replying, “That would be — yes, that’s the dominant white culture in America — in America, is WASP.”

Another participant then followed up, asking, “Can I ask, then, what your definition of this WASP white culture is?”

Redmond replied (emphasis added):

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“I mean, I have my whole list of narratives, right, for me. And for me it is – it’s – none of it’s good, if you’re gonna ask me what my narratives are, for the most part. So — but if you think — remember yesterday I talked about the founding of “White” as — as codified into law, what it meant to be “White”? And so I’ll start — so I’ll stay with that. Which at that time it was — WASP was first, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, from England, from Britain, under the King, King James and those folks, and then everybody else who was acceptable enough was considered — was considered as secondary whites. So I’ll stay with that.

So in America, as “White” was codified into law, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant was at the top of what that means. So I could do my own list of narratives, but we’ll move to the next group. But is that good?

The woman who’d asked the question says, “It’s fine, thanks,” but the look on her face is one of frustration.

No, Ms. Redmond, it’s not good that none of your “narratives” about “white WASP culture” are good. Aren’t we told that unless we are part of a certain ethnic group we cannot take it upon ourselves to define that culture? Well, two white women were telling you that there are many “white” cultures in the United States but you were having none of it. What would have happened if they pushed back further? They clearly did not feel safe to, and they were forced to sit there and listen to that drivel as part of their job. Will they now be vilified and targeted as not being sufficiently anti-racist? Will white students on the 23 California State University campuses be pilloried if they refuse to accept your “narratives” about a culture they’re a part of? We already know the answer to that question, but this openly hostile attitude toward one race is despicable and morally unacceptable.

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And, the union’s 29,000 members spent two full workdays discussing this garbage.

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