The following is an excerpt from the book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything” by Christopher F. Rufo. It can be purchased here.
… in recent years, the underlying ideology of Portland’s radicals has become institutionalized. The city government has adopted a series of Five-Year Plans for “equity and inclusion,” shopkeepers have posted political slogans in their windows as a form of protection, and local schools have designed a program of political education for their students that resembles propaganda.
The schools of Portland have self-consciously adopted Paulo Freire’s “pedagogy of the oppressed” as their theoretical orientation, activated it through a curriculum saturated in critical theory, and enforced it through the appointment of de facto political officers within individual schools under the cover of “equity and social justice.” The internal documents from three local districts—Tigard-Tualatin School District, Beaverton School District, and Portland Public Schools—reveal this revolutionary shift. Administrators and teachers have combined theory, praxis, and power in service of left-wing political activism.
The results are predictable. By perpetuating the narrative that America is fundamentally evil, steeping children in the doctrine of critical pedagogy and lionizing the rioters in the streets, the schools have consciously pushed students in the direction of revolution. In the language of the Left, the political education program in Portland-area school districts could be described as a “school-to-radicalism pipeline”—or, more provocatively, as a training ground for child soldiers.
This is not hyperbole: some of the most violent anarchist groups in Portland are run by teenagers. Dozens of minors were arrested during the long stretch of the George Floyd riots. They have attached their political cause to climate change, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, and Black Lives Matter— whatever provides the pretext for violent “direct action.”
The movement is unmistakable: out of the schools and into the streets. And contrary to those who believed that the end of the Trump presidency would usher in a “return to normalcy,” the social and political revolution in Portland has not stopped with the ascendance of President Biden—it has only accelerated. On the day of Biden’s inauguration, teenage radicals marched through the streets of Southeast Portland, smashing the office windows of the state Democratic Party, and unfurling large banners with their hand-painted demands: “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge”; “We are ungovernable”; “A new world from the ashes.”
… This is an explicitly political project: at the early stages, the district encourages students to participate in activities such as “attending a training, joining an allies group, participating in a protest.” Later, white students are told to analyze their “covert white supremacy,” host “difficult conversations with white friends and family about racism,” and use their “privilege to support anti-racist work.” At the final stage, the trainers plumb the depths of the students’ individual psychology to ensure that pathological“whiteness” has been banished from their psyches.
Copyright © 2023 by Christopher F. Rufo. Reprinted by permission of Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.