Indoctrination in Your State & District

Racial Healing Handbook

Virginia Beach City Public Schools, Virginia

Submitted: 2021-06-28

Story:

Since October 2020, teachers in Virginia Beach being led by their Assistant Principal have been doing a monthly book study on "The Racial Healing Handbook". E-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that approximately 27 teachers participated in the book study and the book was provided to the teachers by administration.

Excerpts from the book on the topic of Christianity:
Religious identity (sometimes called spiritual identity) refers to the extent to which you identify or don’t identify with religion or spirituality—in essence your belief in whether God or some other higher power exists. Christian privilege is a hallmark of religious/spiritual privilege
In addition, people can enact religious privilege when they assume those under the atheist umbrella (e.g., agnostic, nonbeliever) are “wrong” or “misguided.”
Practice exercise for the reader: As you work to reduce religious privilege—either as a White person by using your racial privilege or as a person of color by using your own and others’ experiences of racism—what experiences, knowledge, or understandings do you need to keep in mind in terms of your religious identity intersecting with your race?
Excerpts on the topic of White Privilege and White Supremacy:
White supremacy is real, and the amount of melanin that you have in your skin signals something to the world about the societal norms that will be applied to your presumed race.
If you are a person of color, you have internalized negative messages and beliefs about your race, and if you are White, you have internalized a sense of dominance related to your race.
For White people, the phrase “internalized dominance” may be more accurate; racism, with its assumption of White supremacy, can lead to ignorance and disregard of other cultures and blindness to their own privilege.
When you are born, racism is already in place.
Denial about racism can look like White folks enacting White supremacy
Because racism is pretty much everywhere…. you will unexpectedly find yourself in what I like to call the “flow of racism.” (author’s words)
Excerpts on Adultism:
Adultism is the oppression of children, adolescents, and those who are perceived as young in society. Adultism manifests in the idea that children and adolescents must be controlled and don’t have agency over their own bodies and decisions

Apparently, when information about this book study was made public, the study was then cancelled. 16 of the teachers then signed a letter and sent it to the School Board indicating their displeasure with the cancellation.

Supporting Documents: