Another example of Critical Race Theory being promoted in public school education was brought to light after New York City parents voiced their concerns over a children’s book that described racism as a way for “white people” to “get more power.”
In 2021, NYC’s then-Mayor Bill de Blasio had incorporated the concept of Universal Mosaic Curriculum into the Department of Education’s (DOE) fiscal year 2022 budget. By way of the DOE’s suggested reading list promoted on the website TeachingBooks, schools within the five boroughs are encouraged to include “Our Skin” in their classrooms.
“Racism is also the things people do and the unfair rules they make about race so that white people get more power, and are treated better, than everybody else…” co-writers Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli write in the illustrated book aimed at kindergartners. “It’s all around us, even if we don’t always notice it.”
Madison, a trainer with the Center for Racial Justice in Education, and Ralli, a coordinator at the Brooklyn Public Library, further write, “A long time ago, way before you were born, a group of white people made up an idea called race. They sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better, smarter, prettier, and that they deserve more than everybody else.”
The nonprofit Madison works for, as reported by The New York Post, is contracted through the DOE to “empower educators to dismantle patterns of racism and injustice.”
However, Brooklyn parent leader Vito LaBella argued, “That page alone in my mind is just preaching hate,” and later added of a shipment of the books being delivered to a school within his district, “There were no instructions or curriculum guide with them.”
The Universal Mosaic Curriculum is described as a “rigorous, inclusive, and affirming curriculum” that reflects the “variety of histories, languages and experiences that make up the City.”
Included with the official announcement for the investment, Natasha Capers, director of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, was quoted as saying, “This unprecedented investment in Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education (CRSE) aligned Universal Mosaic Curriculum, is particularly historic because it signifies NYC taking a stand against racism and other forms of oppression during a time when conservative, racist forces across the country are trying to write people of color out of this nation’s story.”
The DOE claims the book is “not part of our prescribed curriculum,” and that schools were free to choose to buy the book, another way of saying that they were not officially endorsing it though they were integral in every step to get it into the classroom.
When a Manhattan dad found a copy in his kindergartener’s school, he told the Post, “The book itself is fine and a lot of what is said in the book is productive and I think very helpful in a discussion of race. However, there’s just an excerpt from it that I think is so damaging that it should disqualify the whole book.”
“Racism should be talked about, but it should be talked about correctly,” he went on. “I think that telling 5- and 6-year-olds that white people are all responsible for all racism is not helpful. It’s going to be very traumatic for many 5- and 6-year-olds who are going to blame themselves and blame their parents.”
In their own defense of the content, the activist writers stated, “We know that the harmful ideologies that these books push back against are dominant and powerful in our society…But we’re not scared. We are firmly grounded in our professional and ethical responsibilities.”
As for the DOE, a spokeswoman told the Post, “Our public schools do not shy away from books that teach our students history and can be used to deepen their understanding of the world around them. We value and honor our students’ perspectives and identities, and we provide opportunities for family voices to be heard on topics including school book lists.”
“Our Skin” had previously drawn criticism in a New Jersey school during the fall of 2021 where even Westfield, NJ Schools Superintendent Raymond González conceded slightly after pushback, “It should not be placed in the general classroom library. Rather, this book is best to use as an interactive read aloud where educated professionals can skillfully present this information.”
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Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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7 thoughts on “Book in NYC schools: Whites ‘sorted people by skin color and said white people were better’”
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This book is clearly about fomenting racial division and hatred. The political left are the racists in our society.
Someone share with them the history of Japan, or China. Racism has sadly been prevalent throughout human history from EVERY race, against others. Our struggle is to see the glory of God within one another, and rise above this basic human failing.
Unfortunately, this has a modicum of truth, but of course, it’s not the whole story. Africans were/are tribal, as are Middle Easterners and many indiginois peoples. This is actually where “race” originates. Slave-traders, be they white, Portuguese, Moorish, turks or Muslim, used this tribalism to their advantage, with the coastal African tribes capturing & selling/trading their prisionors.
There are no groups of people that did not use some sort of enslavement, be it for debt relief, POWs, to raise youngsters for sacrifice to gods or what have you, but chattel slavery became part of the American Southern way of life. Of course, this had to come with some sort of “reason” so along came such thinkers as Darwin and Galton giving humans the “scientific proof” that there were races and that some humans were superior and others were barely human.
Humans always have and always will “discover” ways to be mean, cruel and evil to others. It is inborn into our nature, as history clearly shows.
Our Creator God made us good, beautiful and to be one with Him. Generally, mankind has generally chosen evil over good, rejecting God’s free gift of “rightness” – Salvation through the blood of His son Jesus Christ. No, this doesn’t guarantee that each of us will do good all the time, we still have humanness to deal with, too, but that each of us as sincere, “real” Christians, little Christs, try our best to live as Christ would want – we’re each brothers no matter, color, birth, or past.
The modern rejection of God’s Right & Truth continues in this extreme evil that is raring its head today. Tribalism is rampant. The alphabet gang, BLM, Antifa, the extreme liberals, the extreme ultra-conservatives… and it’s all being fueled by extreme monied people who basically see people – God’s ultimate creation – as their minions to do their bidding as they wish. AND the horrible part? So many humans are WILLING to be those minions! I don’t care what the reasons, it’s not right, period.
I had to get this off my chest, so if you’ve actually read all this, THANK YOU!
Everything today is taken out of context of The Times. When colonial powers first encountered sub-Saharan Black tribes they were mostly hunter gatherers, with no written language or architecture, great literature, no technology, the wheel, great art, NOTHING. Savages with a tribal mentality that were killing and enslaving one another. That is why advanced colonial powers from Europe viewed them as almost sub-human, barely above animals. It was blacks who first sold their own race to the Arab slave traders, who then sold them to the Portuguese, Dutch, French and Britain – America did not yet exist – North America was just a colony of the British Empire until 1776, almost 2 hundred years after slavery began with the colonial powers. Actually the first LEGAL slave owner in North America was a former Black indentured slave himself, a man named Robert Johnson who refused to free his own black slave John Casor when his indentured servitude was up – and sued in British court and won the right to legally own a slave, thus becoming the first legal salve owner in what would much later become the USA. Also, there were over 3,000 Black slave owners in America, before and after 1776. Facts matter when arguing with uneducated Liberal/Democrat idiots. Now you know the whole story-LOL
And barely 20 years after we became our own country, the slave trade was banned as our founders were against slavery. America led the way in abolishing slavery in western countries.
I think I remember reading something like this in southern schools in the 1960’s. The only difference is the blacks were the bad guys, and it was produced by the KKK. If blacks continue to make these sort of books, MLK needs to be erased from America. His statue needs to be removed from DC, all streets with his name on them need to be renamed, and the holiday named for him eliminated. He dreamed of a society where a man is not judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. The black leadership of today only wants to judge people by the color of their skin. This is a total repudiation of MLK’s dreams, so he accomplished nothing, and should not be celebrated. FJB
Using historically incorrect and purposefully reductive propaganda that places blame on a group who is discerned by no factor other than skin tone is the embodiment of the racism that is purportedly being fought against. Hmm, wasn’t a version of this undertaken sometime close to the middle of the last century, possibly in Westen Europe? It didn’t work out all that well then either.