Segregation has a new brand name: racial “affinity groups.” Race-based “affinity groups” have exploded in prevalence across the United States over the last few years, moving from workplaces into schools, religious congregations, and other organizations all across the country. Affinity groups can also be organized around other identity categories such as gender, sexuality, disability, and religion, but affinity groups were first created around racial identity.
I was thinking about this last week. If I were a racist, white supremacist, the tactics used by the progressive left in the past 7 or so years would be exactly what I would use to make sure everyone knew their place in society. I am not, so it's all a bit disgusting, divisive, and inhumane to me to continually cite race as an us vs them issue. Oppressor vs oppressed seems like a way to make people feel less than and victimized always. But, who am I to say anything? I'm white.
The pressure is real. My 9 year old biracial child was approached by a 5th grade ‘activist’ who encouraged her to join such affinity group. My daughter declined politely. She was then followed around the school for three days and called a racist, a hater and a bigot by black and white racial justice ‘activists’. She was told she was lying about her heritage and that her dad wasn’t black enough. We finally contacted the school and the parent of the so called activists. The badgering stopped although we were told by the principal that we potentially violated some laws by contacting the parent directly. That’s Oakland, CA in 2023 for you.
Couldn’t agree more. My kids’ K-12 school pushed affinity groups down to the Lower School this year, after having them in place in Middle and Upper Schools for some time. I call it what it is when I speak to the school administration--needless to say, it’s not well-received.
This is a sad example of 'late-stage academia' (LSA) - fields of study which are increasingly irrelevant are grasping at straws to remain relevant. It is an offshoot from the post-modernist movement which sought excuses for continuing generating literary critique well after volumes written about classic works exceeded the works in quantity but not quality.
One sign of LSA is the lack of new ideas accompanied by repacked old ideas. The repackaging often contains tortured language such as excessively obfuscatory verbification for the expression of simple/old ideas or gratuitous changex in spelling of old termz. Sometimes these academic folx will viciously enslave and violently oppress words into usages in which they would not freely engage if those words were granted agency and self-determination.
It seems like they are trying to say something but damn-all if anyone can figure it out. (BTW: The lack of consensus over the meaning of CRT is an example of LSA - if folx had written clearly about it then we wouldn't have had to guess WTF is CRT!)
Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Joseph (Jake) Klein
Racialized affinity groups are toxic and they breed toxic organizational communications and patterns. At De Anza College a public community college in California, racialized affinity groups have now been embedded into their shared governance structures including the Academic Senate which formerly was representative of academic disciplines and is now a bizarre concoction of racialized affinity groups, gender ideology affinity groups, and academic disciplines; it seems that schools are no longer focused on academics but also racialized and gender ideology-focused tribalism... it's a sad state for the students who attend such institutions that have lost their way. I raised many questions and concerns about this, but they were all ignored and I was accused of attacking racialized affinity groups for asking critical questions. You can read more about those questions at my communications archive: https://tinyurl.com/OESJMEFacDirectorComms When they want to take your organization or school down the same dead end, push back and ask questions.
I recall in the 1980s in the Los Angeles School District they had Project 10, which offered on-campus social support for gay and lesbian high school students. It started at Fairfax High School. I attended a meeting once. This was nearly a decade before the first Gay Straight Alliance, which began in salt Lake City, UT. My Psychology of Sexual Orientation professor (Janice Bohan) was instrumental in this achievement. I also recall attending the first Lavender (LGBT student) Graduation at my college Metropolitan State College of Denver in 1999. The idea was we could be "visibly gay" there. We wore rainbow cords with our black gowns. This all seemed so innocent back then.
I do not understand how anyone can refer to this development of racial affinity groups as "well intentioned". Separating people by any identity, whether it be race or gender, is intended to separate people and, as we have seen, no good will come of that. Those who have power to make a difference should seek to unify and not divide us.
Reading the stories from parents of children being harassed by junior activists, I am reminded of the social status cliques from my day, the "mean girls". They'd actively disparage other girls for not having the right clothes, make up etc. Today's mean girls appear to actively disparage people for not having the right opinions or melanin. Unfortunately they cause alot of damage. Surprising how little society has learned. Need to shut that stuff down.
Maybe we should start assigning colored triangles to these "affinity groups" so people could understand what they really are. The blindness of so many to the origins of their methods is truly disturbing. It's all simply repackaged National Socialism.
Folx? That thing, whatever it is, that teachers are supposed to take seriously, that children are being abused with, is as racist and harmful as any KKK organizational materials were in the last century. The antipathy toward one race, the hatred, the disparate treatment, the lies; its all there. And it leaves us terrible "white folx" filled with rage against the perpetrators (not any peaceful citizens of any race at all). If this crap continues, a civil war seems inevitable.
The Democrat Party has been slicing, dicing and pandering to these affinity groups going back to the 1960's. It's the party's raison d'etre. The Democrats only know how to divide and conquer. It's their modus operandi (MO).
I was thinking about this last week. If I were a racist, white supremacist, the tactics used by the progressive left in the past 7 or so years would be exactly what I would use to make sure everyone knew their place in society. I am not, so it's all a bit disgusting, divisive, and inhumane to me to continually cite race as an us vs them issue. Oppressor vs oppressed seems like a way to make people feel less than and victimized always. But, who am I to say anything? I'm white.
As Justice Roberts it in 2007, ""The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Full stop.
The pressure is real. My 9 year old biracial child was approached by a 5th grade ‘activist’ who encouraged her to join such affinity group. My daughter declined politely. She was then followed around the school for three days and called a racist, a hater and a bigot by black and white racial justice ‘activists’. She was told she was lying about her heritage and that her dad wasn’t black enough. We finally contacted the school and the parent of the so called activists. The badgering stopped although we were told by the principal that we potentially violated some laws by contacting the parent directly. That’s Oakland, CA in 2023 for you.
Couldn’t agree more. My kids’ K-12 school pushed affinity groups down to the Lower School this year, after having them in place in Middle and Upper Schools for some time. I call it what it is when I speak to the school administration--needless to say, it’s not well-received.
This is a sad example of 'late-stage academia' (LSA) - fields of study which are increasingly irrelevant are grasping at straws to remain relevant. It is an offshoot from the post-modernist movement which sought excuses for continuing generating literary critique well after volumes written about classic works exceeded the works in quantity but not quality.
One sign of LSA is the lack of new ideas accompanied by repacked old ideas. The repackaging often contains tortured language such as excessively obfuscatory verbification for the expression of simple/old ideas or gratuitous changex in spelling of old termz. Sometimes these academic folx will viciously enslave and violently oppress words into usages in which they would not freely engage if those words were granted agency and self-determination.
It seems like they are trying to say something but damn-all if anyone can figure it out. (BTW: The lack of consensus over the meaning of CRT is an example of LSA - if folx had written clearly about it then we wouldn't have had to guess WTF is CRT!)
Racialized affinity groups are toxic and they breed toxic organizational communications and patterns. At De Anza College a public community college in California, racialized affinity groups have now been embedded into their shared governance structures including the Academic Senate which formerly was representative of academic disciplines and is now a bizarre concoction of racialized affinity groups, gender ideology affinity groups, and academic disciplines; it seems that schools are no longer focused on academics but also racialized and gender ideology-focused tribalism... it's a sad state for the students who attend such institutions that have lost their way. I raised many questions and concerns about this, but they were all ignored and I was accused of attacking racialized affinity groups for asking critical questions. You can read more about those questions at my communications archive: https://tinyurl.com/OESJMEFacDirectorComms When they want to take your organization or school down the same dead end, push back and ask questions.
I recall in the 1980s in the Los Angeles School District they had Project 10, which offered on-campus social support for gay and lesbian high school students. It started at Fairfax High School. I attended a meeting once. This was nearly a decade before the first Gay Straight Alliance, which began in salt Lake City, UT. My Psychology of Sexual Orientation professor (Janice Bohan) was instrumental in this achievement. I also recall attending the first Lavender (LGBT student) Graduation at my college Metropolitan State College of Denver in 1999. The idea was we could be "visibly gay" there. We wore rainbow cords with our black gowns. This all seemed so innocent back then.
Thank you for this very sensible explanation of a very large problem.
I do not understand how anyone can refer to this development of racial affinity groups as "well intentioned". Separating people by any identity, whether it be race or gender, is intended to separate people and, as we have seen, no good will come of that. Those who have power to make a difference should seek to unify and not divide us.
Reading the stories from parents of children being harassed by junior activists, I am reminded of the social status cliques from my day, the "mean girls". They'd actively disparage other girls for not having the right clothes, make up etc. Today's mean girls appear to actively disparage people for not having the right opinions or melanin. Unfortunately they cause alot of damage. Surprising how little society has learned. Need to shut that stuff down.
Maybe we should start assigning colored triangles to these "affinity groups" so people could understand what they really are. The blindness of so many to the origins of their methods is truly disturbing. It's all simply repackaged National Socialism.
Just say no to racial affinity groups.
Folx? That thing, whatever it is, that teachers are supposed to take seriously, that children are being abused with, is as racist and harmful as any KKK organizational materials were in the last century. The antipathy toward one race, the hatred, the disparate treatment, the lies; its all there. And it leaves us terrible "white folx" filled with rage against the perpetrators (not any peaceful citizens of any race at all). If this crap continues, a civil war seems inevitable.
The Democrat Party has been slicing, dicing and pandering to these affinity groups going back to the 1960's. It's the party's raison d'etre. The Democrats only know how to divide and conquer. It's their modus operandi (MO).
How they don't see this...