The “elite” Bank Street School for Children in Manhattan’s Upper West Side utilizes a “novel approach to fighting discrimination” — it separates white students from students of color, and teaches that white racism is inherent, showing up at even the earliest stages of childhood.
The school’s “Racial Justice and Advocacy” curriculum, parents claim, teaches “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” holds in disdain the concept of colorblindness, and professes that European heritage automatically confers “privilege.”
Bank Street has a “dedicated space” for minority students where (minority) instructors “encourage them” to “share experiences about being a kid of color.”
The curriculum is run by “director of diversity” Anshu Wahi who, according to the New York Post, contends the solution to racism is “teaching white kids to see race in everything — a process called ‘white racial socialization.’”
Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it.
“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.
Under Bank Street’s “Racial Justice and Advocacy” curriculum, parents say, teachers push white kids to grapple with America’s history of racism. Then they indoctrinate them into thinking “systemic racism” still exists, and that they’re part of the problem and must hold themselves accountable even for acts of racism committed by others.
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“One hundred percent of the curriculum is what whites have done to other races,” said another Bank Street parent. “They offer nothing that would balance the story.”
Added the parent, who also asked to go unnamed: “Any questions they can’t answer they rationalize under the pretense of ‘institutional racism,’ which is never really defined.”
The program, these parents say, deliberately instills in white children a strong sense of guilt about their race. Some kids come home in tears, saying, “I’m a bad person.”
Wahi maintains the segregation in the school is necessary for non-white students, noting it “empower[s] children of color who feel ‘alienated’ and ‘devalued’ in a ‘dominant white culture.’”
In the 2013 aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, Wahi had sent an email to the school community linking to an article titled “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.”
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