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Friday, February 4, 2022

Professor Refuses To Comply With Covid Vaccine Demand

An adjunct math professor gave this public response to the Covid vaccination booster shot requirement at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts in January this year. The email is addressed to the Human Resources VP. In response, his scheduled spring class was taken and his school internet account has been locked.

 

Jan. 14, 2022

 

Dear {Human Resources VP},

 

In response to the university’s request for proof of a booster shot, I will not be complying with the demand.

Attached is my Statement of Refusal, containing a full explanation, somewhat hastily prepared and apologies for the incomplete reference citations (I will be happy to provide any of them to anyone who requests them).

In short, here are the reasons for my refusal to comply with the booster mandate, detailed in the Statement:

1. The demand for private medical information is illegitimate and, I believe, illegal.

2. The demand to submit to injection of an experimental drug, none of which are FDA approved (the Pfizer Comirnaty, the only one that is FDA approved, is not being given in the U.S.), is unethical, immoral, illegitimate and in my opinion unconstitutional.

3. The present national state-of-health is a pandemic of the vaccinated -- not a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

4. The mRNA vaccines and booster shots are harmful, capable of causing death and a host of disabling medical conditions.

5. The mRNA vaccines and booster shots provide an accelerating deterioration of the immune system, which explains the alarming number of deaths and severe medical conditions climbing throughout the US population.

6. The vaccine mandates are a precursor to the establishment of an authoritarian tide sweeping the western democracies, for which the first step is a digitized medical passport that will be used to control the ability of citizens to participate in normal social and civic activities.

Finally, I have taken the liberty of making this response public because of the extreme seriousness of this issue. I assume full responsibilities for the consequences. I understand that posting this publicly will irritate many in our community, and I apologize in advance to any who take offense at having to see this email in their inboxes. 

 

Thank you.

MC

 

STATEMENT OF REFUSAL

Jan. 14, 2022

With all due respect, I will not comply with the demand for the booster shot. I believe Covid vaccine mandates are unethical, immoral and unlawful, and FSU is engaging in illegal discrimination in requiring them. The Supreme Court has just shot down the OSHA, 100+ employee vaccine mandate.

No one has the right to demand information about my medical history -- let alone require me to inject a drug that is not a vaccine in any conventional meaning of the word. It doesn’t prevent getting Covid, nor does it prevent spreading the infection, as evidenced by the huge proportion of the vaccinated among the newly-infected with the Omicron variant.

There are zero long-term studies of the adverse effects of these experimental “vaccines.” But there is mounting data on known serious and fatal adverse reactions...  all for a virus with a fatality rate of at most 0.5% for those under 65 and 0.008% for our students aged 20-24. That translates to 1 fatality per 12,500 students who potentially contract Covid (and for younger students under 20 the fatality rate is a miniscule 0.003%, corresponding to 1 fatality per 33,333). Flipping the percents gives survival rates of 99.5% for 60-64 year-olds, 99.992% for 20-24 year-olds, and 99.997% for those under 20.[1]

The choice of whether or not to vaccinate is not a straightforward one-to-one comparison between the health risks associated with contracting Covid versus the probability of an adverse reaction from the vaccine -- it is (1) the probability of contracting the virus multiplied by (2) the rate of serious consequences from the virus, measured against the probability of suffering a serious heart condition, paralysis, blood clot, fertility problem, damage to the immune system etc. or even death, after taking the jab.

Regardless, navigating between the two choices is a decision that is mine and mine alone to make. Not a teachers’ union, not a college president -- nor a mayor, governor, president or bureaucrat such as Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky or Francis Collins.

We are a constitutional republic, and only our elected representatives have the power to legislate such an edict.

None of the vaccines being administered in the U.S. have been FDA approved. The only one that has, Pfizer’s Comirnaty, is not being used here.[2]  Rather, it is the BioNTech vaccine (which is not FDA approved), the precursor to Comirnaty, that is injected into the arms of Americans.

Current news reports of Covid infections, hospitalizations or deaths often no longer include the breakdown of vaccinated versus unvaccinated, because the truth of the vaccine’s effectiveness is an embarrassment to the vaccine mandate narrative. The New York Times however, provides an exception. In their “The Morning” email news blast on Jan. 11 they led with evidence of a growing gap in cases, hospitalizations and deaths between the vaccinated and the “unvaccinated” since the emergence of Omicron in December, using data sets from Seattle and New York City. In fact, what their report actually provides is a textbook example of the abuse of statistics.

“Lies, damn lies and statistics,” is the famous quote usually attributed to Mark Twain but reputedly borrowed from British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli – and the NYT produced a whopper of an example. In each of 6 graphs below, curves of “unvaccinated” lie above (i.e., more of)) curves for the vaccinated, and show a marked uptick when Omicron emerged in December. Five out of the 6 show an extremely steep rise in the “unvaccinated” curves.



   

“The Morning,” New York Times email blast, Jan. 11, 2022

Why is ‘unvaccinated’ in quotes, but not ‘vaccinated,’ you might ask?

The labels on the curves are not “unvaccinated” and “vaccinated” – they are “not fully vaccinated” and “vaccinated.” Without a definition for “not fully vaccinated” the data is meaningless. Clearly, if the comparison were between those who have taken a vaccine shot and those who have not, the first label would be “unvaccinated” – not, “not fully vaccinated.”

Who are included in the deceptive substitute for “unvaccinated”? Those who got their double-dose of Pfizer but haven’t yet taken the booster? Those who haven’t had any shot in say, the past 30 days? Who knows? One thing is it clear, it must include some people who have taken at least one vaccine shot – otherwise there is no need for the “not fully…” qualifier.

Statistical chicanery such as this is used to justify President Biden’s continued assertion that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” That is a lie. We are now in the “pandemic of the vaccinated” phase. The vast majority of patients contracting the Omicron variant are vaccinated.

This fact alone invalidates the justification for the vaccine and booster mandates. If anything, the unvaccinated are at risk from the vaccinated. The vaccine does not prevent getting the virus and doesn’t prevent transmission of the virus. Period.

Unfortunately, this is not the worst of it.

* * *

The vaccines are repeatedly called “safe and effective.” They are neither. Not only are they manifestly ineffective, they are dangerous.

The following file contains links to 1,000 peer-reviewed studies showing harmful effects of the vaccines:

https://www.saveusnow.org.uk/covid-vaccine-scientific-proof-lethal/

Not only does the mandate leave FSU open for a discrimination lawsuit, the deadly effects of the vaccines puts the school in much more serious legal jeopardy. Since 1986 Big Pharma has been shielded from liability for their vaccines by federal legislation -- but schools and businesses enjoy no such privilege. FSU potentially faces criminal charges if any employee or student dies or suffers medical harm as a result of being forced to take the vaccine to attend classes or work here.

FSU has now been put on notice of the dangerousness of the vaccine that they are mandating.

VAERS is the CDC’s reporting system for adverse reactions to commercial drugs. Analysis of any VAERS data requires calculating an “underreporting factor,” the URF. Only a fraction of adverse reactions to a medication get reported, for various reasons. One rule of thumb holds that counts for an adverse reaction represent only 1 percent of the actual total number of incidents. According to MIT-trained Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, CDC provides rules for calculating the URF. Using them he arrived at a URF of 41 for the Pfizer vaccine.[3] Two other specialists have reported estimates of 20 and 30. The number of deaths worldwide through end-of-year 2021 from Covid vaccines in VAERS now stands at over 21,000 (approximately 10,000 in the U.S.)[4]. Note that it took only 32 deaths in 1976 to halt the swine flu vaccine program. This was before Big Pharma was granted its liability shield.

Applying the lowest URF factor (20) to the 10,000 reported U.S. deaths from the vaccine yields 200,000 deaths. Another approximation of the number of deaths resulting from the vaccine is “only” 150,000.

Here are VAERS counts for some of the adverse reactions to the vaccines worldwide[5]:

FDA Listed Symptom

Non-Lethal Occurrences

URF (20) Applied

Guillain-Barre Syndrome

2,035

40,700

Convulsions/Seizure

12,917

258,340

Stroke

12,205

244,100

Anaphylaxis

42,978

859,560

Acute Myocardial Infarction (heart attack)

3,665

73,300

Myocarditis/Pericarditis

15,200

304,000

Miscarriages

3,319

66,380

Venous Thromboembolism

18,935

378,700

Arthritis and Arthralgia/Joint Pain

66,233

1,324,660

 

If you still think this is conspiracy theory nonsense, there is another source pointing to vaccine fatalities, one that cannot be accused of having a political axe to grind. Speaking at a virtual press conference held by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on Dec. 30, Scott Davison, the CEO of insurance company OneAmerica, reported startling data emerging from the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021.[6] OneAmerica provides group life insurance for businesses and state employees. Their customer base includes mainly working-age (18 – 64) vaccinated employees.

Accurate actuarial data is the very lifeblood of the insurance industry. Insurers cannot fudge data if they expect to remain fiscally sound and competitive. Davison revealed that the death rate had increased by 40% over pre-pandemic levels, and most of the death claims submitted were not classified as Covid deaths. He notes that death rates are remarkably constant year-to-year and a change of just 10% corresponds to 3 standard deviations from the mean. That means that the 40% increase in death claims is 12 standard deviations from the mean. This statistical anomaly cannot be explained by Covid deaths. “We’re now seeing the highest death rates we’ve ever seen in the history of this company -- not just in OneAmerica,” he said. “The data is consistent across every player in the business.” (He also notes an uptick in long-term disability claims in the same period, but no numbers are provided in the news reports.)

The data on deaths and serious reactions to the vaccines is readily available. Yes, all such data on harmful effects of the vaccines are represented as “misinformation” and even “dangerous misinformation” by those that wish to keep everyone in the dark. The indoctrinated have been conditioned to reflexively dismiss any information that contradicts the official narratives contrived by the spokespeople of our federal regulatory agencies and parroted in the mainstream news media and enforced by Big Tech. Such “misinformation” must come from Q-Anon conspiracy theorists, “Trumpsters,” “anti-vaxxers,” and the other various and sundry “deplorables,” and hence, only a gullible fool would pay any attention to it. Unfortunately, there are far too many people with this affliction.

* * *

Looking to the future w/r to variants of the virus, it appears the fears of prominent scientist/physicians such as Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA technology (rwmalonemd.com) are coming true. The mRNA vaccines can induce pathogenic priming, which renders those who take the shots more vulnerable to future variants.[7]

Pathogenic priming, or antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), is the process whereby healthy cells are attacked by the antibodies synthetically manufactured by the mRNA process in mRNA vaccines. Future exposure to a Covid variant triggers inflammation which can manifest as stroke, paralysis, convulsions/seizures, anaphylaxis, encephalitis, birth defects and other severe conditions.

Recent data from the UK shows a negative vaccine effectiveness (VE) for the vaccinated – highest for the doubly-vaccinated in all age group except for under-18[8]. A positive effectiveness means exactly what you’d expect: the vaccine prevents getting the virus by some quantifiable percent. One with a negative effectiveness actually increases the chances of infection. (For the specifics, the VE number was -66.2 for the over-30 age group, meaning that vaccinated individuals were 66% more likely to get infected than the unvaccinated.)

The government’s solution is to double and triple-down on mandatory vaccinations and an ever-accelerating treadmill of booster shots. Because of the pathogenic priming inherent in mRNA shots, new booster shots will be required for every new variant because the immune systems of those on the booster treadmill are weakened with each subsequent shot.[9] Furthermore, they will suffer worse symptoms. The boosters wear off in months, we are told. Each booster shot gives protection for the current variant, but weakens the immune system to combat all other health threats. It is expected that on the government’s present track, Americans will eventually be ordered to receive booster shots perhaps every 30–60 days, until … forever?

Going back to “dangerous misinformation,” the suppression of the truth about the vaccines is only possible with the collusion of news media, Big Tech, and social media. Dr. Robert Malone, the aforementioned inventor of mRNA technology, has spoken out against the danger of the vaccine. He has been silenced. Every credible voice that dares to speak out against Dr. Fauci and a medical establishment that has been captured and corrupted by Big Pharma has been deplatformed – meaning, kicked off social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and even censored in medical journals.

Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins have been caught (email trails) colluding to viciously discredit several prominent doctors, particularly some of the brave doctors who are among the 60,000 who have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which at last count had over 900,000 total signatories (gbdeclaration.org). The Great Barrington Declaration holds that the vaccine approach to Covid was wrong from the very first, and that energy and resources should have been spent on “focused protection,” promoting cheap and safe therapeutic remedies. Hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved had not their efforts been squelched by Fauci, Collins, Big Pharma and the medical establishment.

These police-state tactics extends to your personal GP and the pharmacy that fills your prescriptions. In order to control the prescribing and dispensing of the expensive drugs from which Pharma profits such as Remdesivir, medications that are off-patent, costing literally pennies a dose and proven to be effective in treating Covid in early stages (Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine), have been prohibited. Medical licensing boards threaten the licenses of any doctors who engage in “misinformation” about Covid, just as social media closes the accounts of anyone who posts information that contradicts the official disinformation dispensed by the CDC, NIH, NIAID, etc..

* * *

Vaccine mandates are the tip of the spear. Using the pretext of a health emergency, a state of medical apartheid is being implemented -- handmaiden to a vile authoritarianism rapidly sweeping over the western democracies in Europe, Australia and North America. This should terrify anyone with a lick of common sense. Freedom and liberty is being snuffed out right before our very eyes. European nations enforcing vaccine mandates and lockdowns are no longer even bothering to justify their actions with claims of scientific data. Holland is in full lockdown simply because “Omicron is extremely contagious.”

On Jan. 11 Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser dictated that residents cannot leave their homes without a mask, proof of vaccination (ages 12+) and a photo ID (ages 18+)[10]. The Premier of Quebec announced also on Jan. 11 that a “significant” financial penalty will be imposed on residents who refuse to be vaccinated. Proof of vaccination will be required for liquor and cannabis stores beginning Jan. 18; shopping malls and hair salons are next. Numerous cities in blue states across the U.S. are invoking vaccine mandates to work, shop and just basically participate in civic and social life. The freedoms that we all grew up with and took for granted will, one by one, become privileges, to be granted or revoked by the State.

This is Austria today, which recently implemented the following:

1. Vaccine mandate for everyone by Feb. 1.

2. A penalty of 3,600 Euros (about $4,000) for failing to comply, to be repeated quarterly. (The median salary in Austria is 3,790 Euros/month.)

3. Increase to the maximum prison sentence for contempt-of-court from 6 weeks to 1 year. (An amendment to exempt those thus charged for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate voted down.)

4. Those found in contempt of court for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate to be housed in separate facilities from the regular (vaccinated) prison population –i.e., internment camps for the unvaccinated.

In the UK, the government is preparing to roll out their digital identity tracking system (IDVT – Digital Identity Document Validation Technology) enforcing, believe it or not, “right-to-rent” and “right-to-work” provisions, following a vaccine passport mandate rushed through Parliament in December in response to the Omicron “crisis”.

It shouldn’t be that hard to connect the dots. Authoritarianism, with its requisite scapegoats – the unvaccinated – is establishing its foothold here after stomping its way across Europe. Digitized vaccine passports, new special “healthcare” enforcement police forces, internment (quarantine) camps and a 24-hour surveillance, social credit system are all in various stages of development in different parts of our country, as they are already in various stages of implementation in Australia and Europe.

The vaccine mandates, and what they portend, are repugnant to America’s foundational political values of self-government and individual liberty.

This is America. We don’t do fascism. We do freedom and liberty.

Though the Australians, Brits, Canadians, Dutch, Austrians and Germans etc. may have surrendered their liberty cheaply -- more resistance is expected from us. There’s a historical reason for this. The nations of Europe were conceived in feudalism and serfdom. Their centuries-long evolution to democracy recognizes rights granted by the State to the individual. In the U.S., this principle is reversed. Our founding constitutional documents recognize a nation conceived in individual liberty -- our “God-given natural rights.” We, as citizens, grant to the government only certain restrictions on those rights that we deem necessary for the protection, health, and prosperity of the commonwealth – for our “common weal.”

This usurpation of liberty arises from the transference of authority from elected representatives to unelected bureaucrats. Who is this Dr. Fauci who dictates where we should shop, where we can work, and even who we can invite into our homes? I didn’t vote for him. Did you?

The shifting and shaky sandcastles to deception are slowly collapsing into the sands of reason. The lies of Dr. Fauci are finally being exposed to the cold light of truth (thank you, Rand Paul and RFK, Jr.).  Covid vaccine mandates are an assault on liberty and freedom, and in the final analysis may constitute a crime against humanity.

FSU must do the right thing now, before the start of the spring semester, and revoke its vaccine and booster mandates.

-- MC

 



[1] https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/18/covid-infection-fatality-rates-sex-and-age-15163

[2] https://georgiastarnews.com/2021/12/23/pfizers-comirnaty-available-abroad-not-in-u-s/

[3] https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/latest-vaers-estimate-388000-americans

[5] ibid

 

[7] https://www.minareport.com/dr-malone-covid-vaccines-are-helping-the-virus-to-become-infectious/

[9] New studies show that the COVID vaccines damage your immune system, likely permanently

[10] https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/youll-need-papers-to-leave-your-house-in-dc/

Monday, January 3, 2022

End The Vaccine Mandates Now

Marcus Clintonius

My teaching career in Massachusetts is about to come to an end. I’m not retiring. Rather, I am now one of the “refuseniks.” I refuse to show proof of vaccination (or booster shot) to the two schools where I have been employed for over 20 years.

I have not requested an accommodation on religious or medical grounds because that would implicitly acknowledge the legitimacy of their demand. Instead, I have sent a statement of my refusal to comply containing the reasons why and declaring my intention to continue teaching. Their demand is unlawful and doesn’t even deserve lip service. The substance of my statement is contained in this commentary.

COVID vaccine mandates are indeed unlawful, and will be struck down by the Supreme Court in the days to come (hopefully). No one has the right to demand information about my medical history -- let alone require me to inject a drug that is not a vaccine in any conventional meaning of the word. It doesn’t prevent getting COVID, nor does it prevent spreading the infection, as evidenced by the huge proportion of the vaccinated among the newly-infected.

There are zero long-term studies of the adverse effects of these experimental “vaccines.” But there is mounting data on known serious and fatal adverse reactions...  all for a virus with a fatality rate of at most 0.5% for those under 65 and 0.008% for our students aged 20-24. That translates to 1 fatality per 12,500 students who potentially contract COVID (and for younger students under 20 the fatality rate is a miniscule 0.003%, corresponding to 1 fatality per 33,333). Flipping the percents gives survival rates of 99.5% for 60-64 year-olds, 99.992% for 20-24 year-olds, and 99.997% for those under 20.*

The choice of whether or not to vaccinate is not a straightforward one-to-one comparison between the health risks associated with contracting COVID versus the probability of an adverse reaction to the vaccine -- it is (1) the probability of contracting the virus MULTIPLIED by (2) the rate of serious consequences from the virus, against the probability of developing a serious heart condition or suffering a stroke, paralysis, blood clot, fertility problem, or damage to the immune system, etc. (it’s a long list) from taking the jab.

Regardless, navigating between the two choices is a decision that is mine and mine alone to make. Not a teachers’ union, not a college president -- nor a mayor, governor, president or bureaucrat such as Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky or Francis Connors.

We are a constitutional republic, and only our elected representatives have the power to legislate such an edict.

Using the pretext of a health emergency, a state of medical apartheid is being implemented -- handmaiden to a vile authoritarianism rapidly creeping over the Western democracies in Europe, Australia and regions of the U.S.

This is Austria today, which recently implemented the following:

1. Vaccine mandate for everyone by Feb. 1.

2. A penalty of 3,600 Euros for failing to comply, to be repeated quarterly. (The median salary in Austria is 3,790 Euros/month.)

3. Increase to the maximum prison sentence for contempt-of-court from 6 weeks to 1 year. (An amendment to exempt those thus charged for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate voted down.)

4. Those found in contempt of court for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate to be housed in separate facilities from the regular (vaccinated) prison population –i.e., internment camps for the unvaccinated.

In the UK, the government is preparing to roll out their digital identity tracking system (IDVT – Digital Identity Document Validation Technology) enforcing, believe it or not, “right-to-rent” and “right-to-work” provisions, following a vaccine passport mandate rushed through Parliament in December in response to the Omicron “crisis”.

It shouldn’t be that hard to connect the dots.

Though the Australians, Brits, Austrians and Germans etc. may have surrendered their liberty cheaply --more resistance is expected from us. There’s a historical reason for this. The nations of Europe were conceived in feudalism and serfdom. Their centuries-long evolution to democracy recognizes rights granted by the State to the individual. In the U.S., this principle is reversed. Our founding constitutional documents recognize a nation conceived in individual liberty -- our “God-given natural rights.” We, as citizens, grant to the government only certain restrictions on those rights that we deem necessary for the protection, health, and prosperity of the commonwealth – for our “common weal.”

This usurpation of liberty arises from the transference of authority from elected representatives to unelected bureaucrats. Who is this Dr. Fauci who dictates where we should shop, where we can work, and even who we can invite into our homes? I didn’t vote for him. Did you?

The vaccine mandates, and what they portend, are repugnant to America’s foundational political values of self-government and individual liberty. This is America. We don’t do fascism. We do freedom and liberty. I refuse to “show my papers.”

To the schools: This should be a no-brainer. There is a clear right and wrong here, and one clear course of action: Do the right thing… and stop doing the fascist thing.

* * *

*[https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/18/covid-infection-fatality-rates-sex-and-age-15163]

* * *

Saturday, August 14, 2021

Do you have Whiteness?

 Mark Charalambous

“Existential threat” is a much overused term. But what is about to be unleashed on the nation’s schoolchildren is the real deal.

No, I’m not talking about authoritarian vaccine and mask mandates. I’m talking about the cultural epidemic of “wokeism” currently sweeping the country, infecting every single institution in our nation, from the arts to the military.

As a result of the BLM/Antifa riots of last year, most schools have been working furiously over the summer assembling “anti-racism” programs for their teachers and staff under the auspices of recently minted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) regimes.

The “equity” in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion supersedes the tired notion of “equality.” Just a couple of letters, but a whole world of a difference. We all agreed a long time ago that everyone should be treated equally. Equality under the law is one of the cornerstones of Western democracy. Equality recognizes that everyone should play by the same rules. It strives for a laudable goal: meritocracy.

DEI looks at results and sees glaring racial disparities. It holds that these disparities must be due to systemic racism. It mandates that the outcomes must be equal. This is a very different kettle of fish than demanding equality of access.

Built upon Critical Race Theory (CRT), these teaching paradigms are being implemented in every nook and cranny of the educational system. All departments from the humanities and social sciences through to mathematics and the physical sciences, are being purged of their racist foundations and “de-colonized.”

“Whiteness,” “white privilege, and “white fragility” are some of the operational thought contagions of CRT. “Whiteness” is both the physical racial characteristic that those of the “melanin deficient” community exhibit, as well as a cultural construct that exists apart from the people unfortunate to be afflicted with it from birth. These are some of its toxic qualities: self-reliance, emphasis on scientific method, nuclear family, quantitative emphasis, hard work being the key to success, work before play, respect for authority, majority rules, be polite, etc.

These dreadful behaviors and beliefs are now topics of academic inquiry, as if this was actually some kind of legitimate field of study. Don’t look now, but your child’s teachers have been trained in this racist cultural demagoguery. Many parents discovered it by accident last year during school lockdowns when they happened to look in on their kid’s Zoom class. They are outraged that their children are coming home from school being told that they are oppressors if they are White, and victims of systemic racism if they are Black or Brown. What a message for the latter: if you failed a math test, it’s not your fault! You are systemically oppressed by a racist math pedagogy.

What is happening in our schools is incredibly divisive. It is the reason why many parents are raising holy hell at school board meetings across the country, and rightfully so.

Two names that are frequently associated with the DEI/CRT movement are Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. The former is the author of a book that is guaranteed to have been on every teacher’s mandated summer reading list, “White Fragility.” In a recent interview, DiAngelo described the moment of epiphany when she discovered her “whiteness”:

“I… It was a very abstract sense. I honestly believe I was 34 years old. I was college educated. I was a parent… umm… and someone handed me Peggy McIntosh’s article (a Wellesley College academic). And I read through that list and I had an out-of-body experience. I could tell you where I was sitting.

“I… I’m not ever going to forget that moment where all of a sudden I was like, “Oh my God... I’m white!” And I felt so loudly white that I remember being hesitant to go outside. I don’t want to go outside, because everybody could see that I was white.”

That is how someone might describe receiving a cancer test result. “Whiteness”… a disease.

If, as with Robin DiAngelo, this hatred is self-directed, does that somehow excuse it? Exactly what twisted psychological need—or mental illness—can explain this self-othering?

Ibram X Kendi might be called the Louis Farrakhan of academia. This Boston University professor was celebrated as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020, and is, like DiAngelo, a campus darling raking in tons of money doing the college guest speaker circuit. He proposes the creation of a Department of Anti-Racism to be promulgated by an “anti-racist amendment” to the Constitution. This soviet style, Central Committee-like agency would be “comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees,” and needless to say would operate impervious to any electoral oversight. These commissars would be responsible for “preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity,” further, to “monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas… empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.”

Whatever happened to taking people at face-value? What about judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin? Of what value is the vaunted wisdom accrued from academic credentials and innumerous professional development credits if our teachers succumb so easily to such pseudo-scientific racist drivel?

It is so sad to reflect on the pivotal role that public education once played in preparing youth for participation in the civics of the Great American Experiment while providing the passport to prosperity for all Americans (especially immigrants)—and to now bear witness to this perversion of its purpose. To wit: the deconstruction of our history and culture and the disembowelment of all societal norms, traditions and values.

Our schools have lost their “mandate from heaven.” A great swathe of normal Americans are reaching these same conclusions and voting with their feet, rejecting their schools and teacher-union “family values,” stripping them of their power to corrupt their children, and moving away from Democrat-controlled states and urban centers where these poisonous policies have found fertile breeding ground.

###

Monday, April 19, 2021

Two Plus Two Equals Five: 1984 or Math "Equity"?

Mark Charalambous

“Equality” is so sixties. Insufficient—and indeed, wrong—by the new calculus of “equity.” Equality of opportunity has failed to produce equal outcomes. The only possible explanation is… systemic racism. Hence, the replacement of equality—which implies nothing about equal outcomes—with equity, which does.

What might be unthinkable to past champions of civil rights such as MLK has now been normalized. Skin color as a valid discretionary criterion is promoted not only by the usual suspects in academe, but also by their comrades in Hollywood and mainstream media. Naysayers are “de-platformed”—i.e. silenced—by the woke oligarchs of social media whose control over the public square have made them the ultimate arbiters of reality.

And now, the “decolonization” of the liberal arts in academia breaches the once-sacred halls of mathematics.

For those with no idea what this is about, a movement is afoot across the country to transform education as we know it. A radical thought contagion, Critical Race Theory, has taken hold of the Brahmins of higher ed., those who determine the shape of education in your child’s classroom. Whites, we are told (no further derivative of national origin or ethnicity is required—color of skin is sufficient), wield an imperialist, white supremacist worldview which bulldozes over the timeworn fabric of other,  “oppressed” cultures, creating a “systemically racist” educational system in its own image.

A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, a training guide for math teachers developed in California, seeks to redirect all facets of mathematics pedagogy through a transformation matrix of “dismantling racism in mathematical instruction.” Math teachers are instructed to “engage, reflect, plan and act” to dismantle white supremacy culture in math classrooms, and become “anti-racist” math teachers.

The introductory paragraph to the first of the five components in the “toolkit” (“Stride 1: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction”) explains its purpose.

“The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by visibilizing the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.”

More edu-speak jargon follows:

“In order to embody antiracist math education, teachers must engage in critical praxis that interrogates the ways in which they perpetuate white supremacy culture in their own classrooms, and develop a plan toward antiracist math education to address issues of equity for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students.”

How does “white supremacy infiltrate math classrooms”? The toolkit includes these examples:

·         “Getting the ‘right’ answer”

You may have thought getting the right answer to a math problem was important… like, that was the whole idea? But you would be wrong:

The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Up­holding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

·         Students are required to “show their work”

This tried-and-true method to determine a student’s mathematical reasoning ability (as well as to preclude cheating) is, we are told, evidence of white supremacy culture:

“Asking students to show their work … becomes a crutch for teachers seeking to understand what students are thinking and less of a tool for students in learning how to process… requiring students to show their work reinforces worship of the written word as well as paternalism.

·         “Addressing mistakes”


Even correcting errors comes under fire:

“Teachers often treat mistakes as problems by equating them with wrongness, rather than treating them [as] opportunities for learning—which reinforces the ideas of perfectionism (that students shouldn’t make mistakes) and paternalism (teachers or other experts can and should correct mistakes).”

·          “Teachers are teachers and students are students”

Recognizing the different roles teacher and student play in the learning process “reinforces the ideas of paternalism and powerhoarding. When students bring a different approach to doing math, teachers often get defensive and see it as a challenge to the power structures in the classroom.”

Instead, the training directs the teacher to “Learn to shift your position to a facilitator, rather than a knowledge giver, by having someone observe your classroom specifically to identify the way that power is distributed.”

That last instruction is ominously reminiscent of communist re-education camps where Red Guards preside over the indoctrination of the “bourgeoisie.”

This intent is further reinforced in the “Reflect” sections where teachers are required to fill in “Reflection Notes” in response to prompts such as: “In what ways have I incorporated antiracist practices into my classroom? How can I incorporate more antiracist practices into my classroom? Do I see myself as the holder of authority in my classroom? In what ways can this power imbalance affect students’ ability to learn math? How do I or can I share the classroom’s authority and autonomy with students?” and tellingly, “ _________________ will hold me accountable for this plan in the following ways:”

The teacher-training component of the training is explicitly addressed in the Stride 5 component, “Sustaining Equitable Practice.” The compliance directions read like an instructional manual for 1984’s Thought Police or something devised by L. Ron Hubbard.

* * *

The modern history of education in the U.S. has been the march of one pedagogic theory after another, usually purposed to address long-standing disparities in educational achievement by Blacks. The “self-esteem” fad lasted for decades before common sense finally set in. Next, the “multiple intelligences” and “learning styles” theories to explain embarrassing race-differentiated standardized test results. More recently we have the whimsical “flipping” the classroom. In algebra, there’s been movements to re-focus the introductory teaching through application problems first (not as the dreaded word problems that come at the end of the exercise set), rather than starting with the nuts-and-bolts teaching of the grammar of algebra. More often than not such “new” reforms revert back to the previous mode once the novelty has worn off or the grant has run out, and enough time has elapsed. There's a good reason why the college campus has become the national joke that half the country still doesn't get.

Despite their intent, these “reforms” usually end up just further dumbing-down educational standards. (If you don’t believe this, compare primary and secondary school math tests over the last 150 years or so.) But the equity movement’s anti-racist math is far more destructive. None of the previous reform movements specifically targeted one segment of the population, singling them out as villains directly responsible for the failures of others. That many of the people promoting the demonization of “whiteness” are themselves self-othering Whites does nothing to diminish its malignancy.

* * *

Critical Race Theory’s infiltration into the curricula requires discrimination. By race. Yes, by that crudest of measuring rods: color of skin. Consider Columbia U.’s six different identity-dependent graduation ceremonies this year. This is not unique. The segregation by race of graduation commencements, dormitories, freshmen orientations and more is becoming the new normal on campuses across the nation. Apply large angular momentum to the grave of MLK.

This new zeitgeist is some unholy paradoxical combination of diversity-worship with pure racial scapegoating. The woke Left has, indeed, made everything “all about race.” The guiding light of anti-racist teaching is Ibram X. Kendi, a celebrated author and academician who has made a nifty business out of it and is referenced throughout Pathway. He believes literally everything is racist. According to Kendi’s celebrated best-seller, How to Be an Anti-Racist, “there is no such thing as a not-racist idea, only racist ideas and antiracist ideas.” Thoughts inform ideas, and in the realm of government, ideas inform policies. “Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity,” he claims.

Kendi’s hatred of whites is so deep he confesses to once believing they were aliens. His totalitarian worldview presents a terrifying Stalinist vision of a future for the U.S. where a Department of Anti-Racism promulgated by an anti-racist amendment to the Constitution, “comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees,” would operate impervious to any electoral oversight. It would be responsible for “preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity,” further, to “monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas… empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.”

Kendi proudly admits that affirmative action is inherently discriminatory—and justified: “racial discrimination is not inherently racist.” How’s this for Orwellian ‘doublespeak’: “The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist. . . The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Orwell’s 1984 redux:

“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past.”

Kendi is a professor at Boston University, a #1 New York Times best-selling author and celebrated as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020. Sadly, what he is selling, Americans are clearly buying.

These racial-equity-in-education programs are in the works across the country. Here in Massachusetts, Professional Development Institute on Racial Equity in Pedagogy and Practice is currently in development by the Department of Higher Ed and UMass-Boston.

The reflexive property of mathematics holds that a thing is equal to itself. Ibram Kendi is a racist. A Pathway to Equitable Mathematics Instruction is racist; as are any efforts to deconstruct and “de-colonize” “white supremacist mathematics.” Stop it now.

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