The Woke Endgame: Evergreen State College

I didn't want to be spending so much time writing about Wokeness, but it has become clear to me that this is an ideology that reverses many of the hard-earned gains we have made through the Civil Rights Movement and that Wokeness ideology leads to endless societal dysfunction. Because human flourishing important to me, I have no choice but to speak out, at a time where many of my friends and acquaintances have the exact same concerns I do, but are afraid to speak out. Their fears is are based on these things:

1. They don't want to get into yelling matches with activists, which they see as inevitable;

2. They fear being called names like "racist"  for things that are not racist.

3. They fear mobs of people following them, threatening them and their families or damaging their property;

4. They fear loss of their reputations based on false accusations by mobs, and

5. They fear the loss of their jobs and/or careers based upon mass-cancellation techniques.

I realize this all sounds hyperbolic, but my conclusions are based on the many dozens of occurrences on which I have written about at this website, as well as many other articles by many other writers. Common responses to my writings have been A) ad hominem attacks, B) scoldings that I have no right to discuss certain topics, as though only certain people have the right to talk about certain things, and C) Whataboutism - Why am I not writing about something else that they would rather I write about, e.g., white supremacist groups? In response to this last point, I already see widespread ridicule over white supremacy. It is not taking root in any of our sense-making institutions such as schools (including prestigious colleges), media outlets (including STEM journals and magazines) and government offices.

I see the opposite happening with Wokeness, and it seems to be spreading logarithmically with only scattered voices having the courage to stand up and cry out, "Emperor Has No Clothes." Those voices include Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, Seerut K. Chawla, Glenn Greenwald, Brett Weinstein, Heather Heying, Eric Weinstein, Bari Weiss, Sam Harris, Jesse Singal, Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Benjamin Boyce, Jonathan Kay, Claire Lehman, John McWorther, Glenn Loury, Caitlin Flanagan, Heterodox Academy, Colin Wright, Joe Rogan, Buck Angel, Peter Boghossian, Coleman Hughes, Bill Maher, Peter Rufo, The 40 Black Intellectuals who recently spoke out against the racism by Smith College, and the plucky crew at Quillette Magazine. There are others out there and I am not excluding any of them intentionally.  Most of these people lean significantly to the left on many social issues, yet Woke advocates commonly call them "conservatives," which is a modern version of an attempted ad hominem attack.

I want to give special attention to James Lindsay's excellent Woke Encyclopedia at New Discourses, so very helpful in that the Woke onslaught always involves long streams of highly suspect terminology.

What provoked this article?  I just finished watching several episodes of "The Complete Evergreen Story," by Benjamin Boyce.  As described by James Lindsay, 

Benjamin Boyce was a student at The Evergreen State College as it melted down, thanks to the applications of critical race Theory on campus. There, not only did he have a first-person view of the mayhem the campus descended into as it happened, he was responsible for filming and documenting a great deal of the footage that has since come to light and found a home in documentaries. Ever since, he has been on a quest to further understand what happened at Evergreen and to document it in full, not to mention similar issues as they crop up in the surrounding Washington state communities.

Boyce has presented this Evergreen tragedy in 23 chapters. His story covers the destruction of what was, and what could still be, an excellent college. What happened in 2017, however, left Evergreen in intellectual and social shambles and resulted in dramatic reductions in the number of students attending Evergreen.

It turns out that students aren’t clamoring for the privilege of paying for an education in such a hostile environment. Evergreen accepts 97% of applications, but enrollment dropped to 2,854 full-time students last fall, compared to 3,810 the semester of the protests. Enrollment increased over the same period at other Washington universities.

The story of Evergreen College was entirely ignored by most left leaning media powerhouses.  The New York Times has yet to write a single word about the 2017 Woke-triggered implosion at Evergreen College.

I am writing this article to provide the above links to the writers I have found most informative and instructive about the Woke movement.  I am linking to these writers with the hope that those who are fearful of speaking out can read these works as an aid to finding their own voice.  I am also writing this article as a warning and a prophecy that Evergreen State College was not simply an occurrence but a vision for where we are headed unless we all find the spine to stand up and draw a line in the sand.  Unless we do these things together, everything will become Evergreen State.

Here are episodes 1, 2 and 3 of Benjamin Boyce's comprehensive documentary regarding Evergreen State.

I'll end with some deep pessimism. I fear that conversation is no longer productive with the Woke. This is clear in many places today as I have documented at this website. it is abundantly clear in the Evergreen videos, as numerous students demonstrated that they are incapable of having a meaningful conversation with the clear-headed, patient, politically liberal Evergreen College biology professor, Brett Weinstein.


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The Intended Audience for John McWhorter’s Online Book: The Elect

John McWhorter is self-publishing his new book, The Elect, chapter by chapter, on his website at Substack, It Bears Mentioning. His intended audience is instructive. His book is not necessary medicine for people who are actively self-critical, skeptical and enthusiastically open to facts that challenge their world views. Rather, McWhorter's new book is especially intended for those who have fallen into world views where these things have become forbidden and scary and where independent thought on certain matters is prohibited by one's tribe. McWhorter explains:

I am not writing this book thinking of right-wing America as my audience. I will make no appearances on any Fox News program to promote it. People of that world are welcome to listen in. But I write this book to two segments of the American populace. Both are what I consider to be my people, which is what worries me so much about what is going on.

One is New York Times-reading, National Public Radio-listening people who have innocently fallen under the impression that pious, unempirical virtue-signalling about race is a form of moral enlightenment and political activism, and ever teeter upon becoming card-carrying Third Wave Antiracists themselves. I will often refer to these people in this book as “white,” but they can be of any color, including mine. I am of this world. I read the New Yorker, I have two children, I saw Sideways. I loved both The Wire and Parks and Recreation.

The other is black people who have innocently fallen under the misimpression that for us only, cries of weakness constitute a kind of strength, and that for us only, what makes us interesting, what makes us matter, is a curated persona as eternally victimized souls, ever defined by the memories and injuries of our people across four centuries behind us, ever “unrecognized,” ever “misunderstood,” ever in assorted senses unpaid.

Continue ReadingThe Intended Audience for John McWhorter’s Online Book: The Elect

Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language (NECTFL) Goes Full Woke for 2021

A foreign language teacher's role (and any teacher's role, for that matter) is to teach the relevant subject matter, not to politically indoctrinate students. Fair enough?

Did you take a foreign language class while you were in school? If so, I assume that your classroom experience was a lot like mine. We intensely studied words, phrases, idioms, grammar and other language conventions to prepare us to communicate with other speakers of that foreign language.

Did you know that foreign language instructors have their own organizations? One of those organizations is the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL), which “serves educators in all languages (including classical, less commonly taught, and ENL), at all levels from kindergarten through university, in both public and private settings.” This is from a webpage titled “Learn More about NECTFL.”

The NECTFL Bylaws confirm that the purpose of NECTFL is to assist in the teaching of foreign languages:

Section 2. Purpose. The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages is a not-for-profit proactive regional organization that serves a broad constituency including language learners, educators and the larger community and is dedicated to the belief that all Americans must have the opportunity to learn and use English and at least one other language.
According to these bylaws, the teaching of foreign languages should be geared to the “larger community.” NECTFL purports to offer foreign language instructions to “all Americans.”

The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language will hold its big annual conference April 22-May 1, 2021. For many years, the theme of the NECTFL conference has been focused on the teaching of foreign language. The conference themes for the past five years reflect this:

2020: Languages for All: Envisioning Language Learning Opportunities for Every Learner 2019: Authentic Language, Authentic Learning 2018: Unleashing the POWer of Profiency [SIC] 2017: Strengthening World Language Education: Standards for Success 2016: Developing Intercultural Competence through World Languages

This year, the NECTFL conference theme is strikingly different: “Finding our Voice: World Language for Social Justice.” Instead of focusing on the pedagogy of teaching foreign languages, NECTFL has decided to aggressively push a particular political position. Based on the sessions to be offered this Spring (see below), NECTFL is doing something dramatic and new: trying to impose a controversial political ideology upon its members (and their members’ students). Even more disturbing, this year’s conference theme has nothing to do with NECTFL’s Mission Statement: 

What is the mission statement of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages? • offer both established and innovative professional development in support of language teachers and learners; and • provide opportunities for collegial interchange on issues critical to the profession; and • anticipate, explore, respond to and advocate for constituent needs.

NECTFL’s Mission Statement page describes a mission of helping language teachers to teach foreign languages to their students. Not one word of NECTFL’s Mission Statement suggests that NECTFL should be advocating any particular use of any foreign language for any particular political end. Therefore, this year’s conference theme is no more in keeping with NECTFL's Mission Statement than “Teaching Students to speak Foreign Languages to Advocate for the Abolition of Gun Control” or “Helping Students Use Foreign Languages to protest abortions.”

Here are the titles and descriptions of some of the “Featured Sessions” for NECTFL’s upcoming (April 2021) conference (from the NECTFL 2021 conference website):

108. Talking Social Justice: Conversations That Matter Saturday, April 24, 2021, 12:30 PM–1:30 PM Teachers don’t have to be afraid of controversial topics in our classrooms. We can engage students in collaborative discussions using thoughtful protocols and help them deepen their understanding of history, develop literacy skills, and build social and emotional competencies at the same time. In this session, participants will explore structures for facilitating class discussions on complex, controversial texts and topics; participate in a collaborative discussion; and plan for how to incorporate these techniques into their own curricula. (Best for grades 6-12.)

111. Becoming Agents of Change: The Work BEFORE the Work! Saturday, April 24, 2021, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM WHAT? You want students to be agents of change. SO WHAT? You want to teach through a social justice lense! [sic] NOW WHAT? Come explore two critical building blocks for effective social justice work: emotional literacy and perspective taking. Gain practical tools that help your students wash away the seeds of assumption and fear. Instead, plant seeds of curiosity and wonder that will be nourished through emotional connection and perspective taking.

120. Reframing Your Teaching of Culture to Emphasize Justice and Equity Sunday, April 25, 2021, 10:00 AM–11:00 AM Social justice issues related to fairness, human rights, and equity are inherent in the cross-cultural, reflective, and analytical nature of studying world languages and cultures. In this session, we provide a framework and instructional strategies for adding a layer of social justice to the cultural products, practices, and perspectives you currently teach. We will emphasize ways to transition your traditional or typical culture topics to include current issues, such as justice and equity issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Materials and resources will be shared that can be immediately incorporated into your curriculum and instruction.

Here are the titles of a few other “Featured Sessions” for the upcoming NECTFL conference:

136. Focusing Lesson Design Through Social Justice, Standards & Can-Do Statements

148. Sustained Inquiry of Social Justice Issues Through Project Based Learning

156. Going to the Movies: Developing Social Justice Units Using Film

163. Social Justice Can’t Wait: Engaging Learners from the Start

166. Elles, Muxes, and Identities in WL classroom.

The titles and descriptions of these conference sessions suggest that the teaching of foreign languages has become irrelevant to NECTFL or, at most, an afterthought. Titles like these make me wonder about the content of the handouts and PowerPoint presentations that NECTFL intends to share at its upcoming 2021 conference.

Is it possible to teach a foreign language without aggressively pushing a particular political ideology? Presumably yes, based on the fact that foreign languages have been successfully taught for centuries without any need to inject fringe politics into the classroom. Many people familiar with NECTFL’s long-standing mission will be surprised to see NECTFL advocating for these controversial political positions, all of them crammed onto the far left side of the political spectrum.

I know for a fact that more than a few foreign language teachers are concerned about NECTFL’s decision to try to indoctrinate language teachers and students with these Woke ideological positions. They consider NECTFL’s efforts to turn this year’s conference into a Woke Education Camp to be insulting, presumptuous and contrary to the Mission Statement of NECTFL. These language teachers are reluctant to speak out in public.

I am writing this post to speak on their behalf.

Continue ReadingNortheast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language (NECTFL) Goes Full Woke for 2021

Introducing FAIR: Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism

This is what I believe: No person should ever be judged based on how they look. To judge each other by the way we look destroys trust and hurts innocent people. To treat people differently based on any irrelevant factor is to embrace the bizarre "logic" of astrology and phrenology. There is only one human family and it consists of millions of exquisitely complex individuals who should be judged only on their individual merits. To all of the Dividers out there, we need to say "No More!"

For this reason I welcome the creation of FAIR: Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism

FAIR's Mission Statement:

Increasingly, American institutions — colleges and universities, businesses, government, the media and even our children’s schools — are enforcing a cynical and intolerant orthodoxy. This orthodoxy requires us to view each other based on immutable characteristics like skin color, gender and sexual orientation. It pits us against one another, and diminishes what it means to be human.

Today, almost 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education ushered in the Civil Rights Movement, there is an urgent need to reaffirm and advance its core principles. To insist on our common humanity. To demand that we are each entitled to equality under the law. To bring about a world in which we are all judged by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin.

That’s where FAIR comes in.

If you agree with these principles, I invite you to sign the FAIR Pledge. 

Continue ReadingIntroducing FAIR: Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism