WHITE DOE ADMINISTRATORS CHARGING REVERSE RACISM

Sue Edelman is an excellent reporter. Her latest NY Post article about the Department of Education is a rare look inside headquarters at Tweed.

An excerpt:
Whiteness has become “toxic” under schools Chancellor Richard Carranza’s regime, insiders charge.

At least four top Department of Education executives who have been demoted or stripped of duties under Carranza’s sweeping reorganization are poised to sue the city, claiming he has created “an environment which is hostile toward whites,” a source told The Post.

The women — all white, veteran administrators — contend they were pushed aside for less qualified persons of color.

“These decisions are being made because DOE leadership believes that skin color plays a role in how to get equity — that white people can’t convey the message,” said a source familiar with the complaints.

“There’s a toxic whiteness concept going on.”

DOE of course denies any of the promotions, demotions or early retirements are because of race. 

In my experience with the DOE, once Joel Klein left hiring up to whatever supervisor was responsible for filling a position without any regard for civil service norms, the hiring and firing culture became one where looking out for your own kind was often acceptable. The bias cuts in many different ways.

Further down in the Post article, we learn more about the Central DOE culture:
“Since Carranza took office, he’s brought in a lot of new people. As a result, it’s been bureaucratic chaos and backbiting, with deputies and their subordinates seeking better perches in the pecking order,” said David Bloomfield, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor.

“Racial tensions appear to be one manifestation of these internal battles.”

Sue then shifts her focus toward a different aspect of the race story as her piece continues:

Meanwhile, the DOE has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants to coach supervisors on how to “disrupt the power structure and dismantle institutional racism,” a supervisor said.

“There’s been a lot of discussion of white supremacy and how it manifests in the workplace, conversations about race, and looking at how the white culture behaves,” said a white executive who received the training.

“White supremacy is characterized by perfectionism, a belief in meritocracy, and the Protestant work ethic,” the exec said, adding that whites who object when accused of deep-rooted bias are called “fragile” and “defensive.”

“Can you imagine if we scrutinized blackness or brownness? We’re being trained in anti-bias not to stereotype blacks, but they’re fostering a stereotyping of whites.”

For those who wonder why white  voters often appear to vote against their own economic interest by voting Republican, look no further than this story for some of the answer.

Some of the folks who comment here and forced me to moderate might want to chime in as some of the usual stuff is fine with this story. Go ahead but please be careful. It is still a family blog mostly.