The Arizona Department of Education reportedly created an “equity toolkit” that includes an infographic that shows how racism develops in children as young as three-months old, and recommended readings that suggest that white people are “ignorant, color-blind, and racist,” Discovery Institute scholar Christopher Rufo reported.
The toolkit shows a spectrum of children from birth to ages over six, with the title “They’re not too young to talk about race!” It cites a study that shows at birth, “babies look equally at faces of all races. At 3 months, babies look more at faces that match the race of their caregivers.”
SCOOP: The Arizona Department of Education has created an “equity” toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children “remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness” by age five.
Let’s review the resources in the toolkit. ???? pic.twitter.com/g4Sk6X0VuO
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
By 30 months old, children use race to choose playmates, and at ages 4 and 5, “expressions of racial prejudice often peak.”
“By five, Black and Latinx children in research settings show no preference toward their own groups compared to Whites; White children at this age remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness,” the graphic says, citing a 2008 study.
The document encourages adults to talk to children about race instead of letting children “draw their own conclusions based on what they see.”
“Silence about race reinforces racism,” the document says.
Specifically, white parents are urged to address “anti-racism” with their children before they can even speak, or their children will learn racism “from the world around them,” a document entitled “How White Parents Can Talk To Their Kids About Race” explains. Parents are encouraged to demonstrate “anti-racist” attitudes with children within months of their birth.
The Department of Education recommends a reading that claims babies are not “colorblind” and that parents must instill “antiracist attitudes and actions” beginning at birth, in order for their children to not “absorb bias from the world around them.” pic.twitter.com/6WsfMTKJMx
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
Another recommended reading, entitled “What White Children Need to Know About Race,” says white students can “change racism” by “seeing themselves in a larger radicalized context” that precludes them from experiencing disadvantages that people of color face, Rufo reported.
Another recommended reading claims that “all white people are white in the context of a society that continues to disadvantage people of color based on race.” The document teaches schools how to “change what it means to be white” and inculcate an “antiracist white identity.” pic.twitter.com/7Whc717K5q
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
The document also cites a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum that says there are “only three ways to be white: ignorant, color-blind, and racist.” Because these options may prevent people from wanting to identify as white, there need to be an “antiracist white identity.”
An additional recommended reading claims that white people use terms like “the race card, black-on-black crime, reverse racism, and colorblindness” to “alleviate some of their white fragility.”
“These are made-up terms that some white people use to feel better about themselves,” the article, entitled “You Can Have A Black Friend, Partner, Or Child And Still Be Racist,” says.
The Department provides additional resources for “families & community,” telling white parents that they “can have a black friend, partner, or child and still be racist.” The article claims that white people deny their own racism to “alleviate some of their white fragility.” pic.twitter.com/eCa6SSXx3x
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 2, 2021
The article claims that relations with colored people do not “give you a one-way ticket out of Racism Town” and that unless white people are changing their racist behaviors, they are proving that “white people cannot stand not to be at the center of every single conversation, policy, and action.”
The Arizona Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Numerous public schools across the country have reportedly offered trainings with similar “antiracist” messaging, often requiring students or teachers to participate, Rufo has previously reported.
In February, whistleblower documents revealed Buffalo Public Schools in New York reportedly required its kindergarten students to participate in a lesson on “racist police and state-sanctioned violence” which involved showing images of black children who have died. (RELATED: REPORT: Public School Requires Kindergarteners To Watch Video Of Dead Black Children To Warn Against ‘State-Sanctioned Violence’)
In the district’s middle school, students are reportedly taught that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism” and “white elites” play an outsized role in perpetuating racism, making them especially important to hold accountable.
At R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School, part of the Cupertino Union School District in San Jose, Calif., third-grade students were reportedly told to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities in order to understand “power and privilege.” At Cherokee Middle School, which is part of the Springfield Public Schools in Missouri, teachers were told to identify themselves on an “oppression spectrum,” and then watched a video of “George Floyd’s last words.”
