Blogs > Liberty and Power > Glenn Singleton's Cultural Revolution in Chapel Hill

Nov 24, 2007

Glenn Singleton's Cultural Revolution in Chapel Hill


by Liberty and Power


Forty years ago, state-supported bullies in China publicly humiliated dissenters by having them wear signs around their necks expressing shame for their"incorrect thoughts." Although China remained Communist, the government eventually apologized to the victims.

Unfortunately, methods of this type, now rejected as barbaric in China, have become standard practice in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools of North Carolina:

In an exercise called"The Color Line," they [teachers] answer 26 questions on a 0 to 5 scale, such as:

"When I am told about our national heritage or 'civilization,' I am shown that people of my race made it what it is."

Or"I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race."

Teachers who feel situations are"often true" put down fives. Threes are for"sometimes true" and zeroes are for"seldom true."

After tallying their scores, teachers write the number down, wear them around their necks and line up from highest to lowest.

The man responsible for this exercise is Glenn Singleton of the Pacific Educational Group. As King Banaian, Jesse Walker, Harry Brighouse, John Rosenberg, and Vincent Carroll have noted, Singleton's" courageous conversations" program is spreading rapidly.

He appears to have picked up the mantle from Jane Elliott, the most notorious of the"diversity experts" during the 1990s. Her film"Blue Eyed" shows a startling array of similar techniques of public intimidation.

In addition to Chapel Hill, the profit centers of Singleton's expanding financial diversity empire include the Cherry Creek school district in Colorado (which is paying his firm six figures), Bellevue Community College in Washington (secured courtesy of the Michelle Malkin and Wayne Perryman tag team), and many others.

This is all extremely depressing for those who value education and academic freedom. The worst part of it, however, is the groveling readiness of so many faculty to subject themselves to public degradation under the abusive eyes of Singleton's associates. Meanwhile, the same government schools and colleges that are wasting funds and time on this nonsense continue to dumb down standards and preside over the tyranny of low expectations for all students, black and white.


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Hans Bader - 12/11/2007

As I noted in a December 3, 2007 post at OpenMarket.org:

"Singleton recently embarrassed California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

"This year, he was hired by the gullible O’Connell to give diversity training. O’Connell then was publicly ridiculed after he repeated an offensive stereotype voiced by Glenn Singleton: that blacks, as a people, are loud, and need to have their loudness accommodated in the schools. (In fact, many minority students express dismay about how loud and disorderly their classes are, finding that to be a major impediment to learning. They want “simple, elusive quiet” so they can study).

"The head of San Francisco’s NAACP has demanded an apology from O’Connell for spreading this unfounded racial stereotype."

The above post can be found in its entirety at OpenMarket.org, the staff blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, at:

http://www.openmarket.org/2007/
12/03/exporting-racism-to-canada/

Hans Bader - 12/11/2007

It is amazing that school systems still hire Glenn Singleton given that his bizarre racial theories, such as equating whiteness and racism with individualism, were singled out for criticism in a landmark Supreme Court case.

Hiring him is a great way to embarrass any school system and cause it legal problems.

As I noted in a Nov. 20, 2007 post at OpenMarket blog,

Glenn Singleton's "racist theories drew criticism from four Supreme Court justices this year in the landmark court case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. . .In 2002, the Seattle Schools hired him to “educate” their students and staff about racism. Singleton promotes the crudest imaginable racial stereotypes, such as claiming that “’white talk’ is ‘verbal, impersonal, intellectual’ and ‘task-oriented,’ while ‘color commentary’ is ‘nonverbal, personal, emotional’ and ‘process-oriented.’” He incessantly complains about “the ubiquity of white privilege and racism.” To illustrate how white people should behave, he points to an ashamed, self-hating white teacher who said that “although I often try to seek counsel of colleagues of color, it is inevitable that times arise where it’s only after the fact that one of them points out some flaw in my reasoning. The flaws are often the result of my ingrained Whiteness and my own blindness to its perpetual presence.”

"Under Singleton’s influence, the Seattle Schools defined “individualism” as a form of “cultural racism,” said that only whites can be racist, and claimed that planning ahead (”future time orientation”) is a white characteristic that it is racist to expect minorities to exhibit.

"In June 2007, the Supreme Court struck down the Seattle Schools’ use of race in student assignment, and 4 of the 9 justices cited Seattle’s wacky, Singleton-influenced, definitions of racism in the course of their opinions. Justice Thomas, for example, cited those definitions in footnote 30 of his opinion to explain why the courts should not defer to school districts when they use race. Likewise, Chief Justice Roberts cited those definitions in footnote 14 of his opinion for the Court."

The above post can be found in its entirety at OpenMarket.org, the staff blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, at:

http://www.openmarket.org/2007/
11/20/arlington-schools-hire-race-baiting-diversity-consultant/

The Seattle Schools' obsession with "white privilege," which was promoted (and is shared) by Glenn Singleton, was also singled out for criticism in Justice Thomas's concurring opinion.

Hans Bader - 12/11/2007

Humiliating diversity training that scapegoats or insults whites or males can constitute illegal racial or sexual harassment. That's what a federal district judge ruled in Hartman v. Pena (1995), allowing a man to sue for harassment over diversity training seminar.

In another case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recognized the concept of a "hostile training environment" as a basis for a harassment claim.

And in Robinson v. Reed (1978), the court allowed a woman to sue under a privacy rights theory over invasive and instrusive questions she was asked during a race-relations seminar.

So Singleton himself could be sued if he pushes the envelope in a "diversity" training seminar, like the oddly named "courageous conversations about race" (which are more indoctrination than conversation).

And so, too, could a school system that hired him.

Hans Bader - 12/11/2007

Don't be so hard on Michelle Malkin.

She herself pointed out that Glenn Singleton is a racist "p.c. snake oil peddler" and "diversity huckster," on December 7, 2007.

She's not the only minority commentator to point out that what Singleton says about minorities (such as his claims that minority speech is not "intellectual" or "task-oriented" the way white speech is) is itself racist against minorities, just as his claim that all whites are racist is racist against whites.

If a white teacher said about minority students the things Singleton said about them -- that their speech is "emotional" and not "intellectual" -- that teacher would be disciplined. Yet Singleton gets paid six figures to promote just such racist stereotypes about minorities, and he gets away with it because he wraps these stereotypes up in an overall package that contains anti-white rantings as well.

Michelle Malkin wrote the following at her blog on December 7, 2007:

"Tracking a “diversity” huckster

By Michelle Malkin • December 7, 2007 01:13 PM

The blogosphere is monitoring the travels and travails of diversity training huckster Glenn Singleton. . .

He claims that “white talk” is “verbal, impersonal, intellectual” and “task-oriented,” while minority talk is “emotional.” He also blames white teachers for the minority achievement gap, saying that racism is “ubiquitous” among whites, even though the gap is equally present in classes taught by minority teachers, and even though Asians, who are non-white, have higher average grades than whites in many school systems. And he claims that Mark Twain was a racist, even though Twain fought racism in an era when racism was sadly popular.

But so deep is the politically correct rot in the schools that Singleton has been hired not only by U.S. school systems and colleges, but also by a misguided school board in Nova Scotia, Canada (the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board).

This is deeply ironic. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn’t have strong protection for free speech akin to the First Amendment, so racist speech in public is banned in Canada under its so-called “human-rights” codes. Any white school teacher who said the offensive things that Singleton says about minorities — that their speech is not “intellectual,” “verbal,” or “task-oriented” — would be subject to prosecution by a human-rights tribunal. The same might even be true for a minority teacher. Yet Singleton gets paid big money — “a six figure fee” — to promote these offensive, racist stereotypes.

More here and here.
(Hat tip - Orbusmax).

If you’re a parent get up to speed on this p.c. snake oil peddler.

He may be coming to a neighborhood school near you."

Michelle Malkin's blog post about Singleton can be found at:

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/
12/07/tracking-a-diversity-huckster/