“Anti-racism” is being taught to schoolchildren across Canada, and some parents say their kids have come home distraught. The reason is they feel a wedge between them and their friends driven by an ideology that divides them into two groups: white oppressors and non-white oppressed.
Dan Brooks, a parent in Vanderhoof, B.C., told The Epoch Times about the experience of his daughter Rachel. It’s an experience similar to those reported by others across the country.
Rachel has an older sister who is indigenous and never imagined anyone would group her with “racists” because of her white skin. Then an “honouring diversity” course came to her school.
“Honouring diversity seems like such a laudable goal, who could disagree,” Mr. Brooks wrote in an email to the school district’s superintendent, which he shared with The Epoch Times.
“However, Rachel came home upset about what was being taught, so much so that she walked out of class. She felt that as a white person, she was being attacked and shamed because of her whiteness,” he wrote. “To perceive she was being labeled as a racist or privileged oppressor was deeply offensive and contrary to both Rachel’s experience at home and her values as a person.”
Mr. Brooks said he’s sure the teacher, who he knows cares about Rachel, didn’t intend to hurt her. But the anti-racism content can easily cause anger, guilt, and shame, especially in someone “not mature enough yet to respond to this discussion.” This was two years ago; she was 13 at the time.
Mr. Brooks said he has felt anguish at watching his older daughter, as an indigenous person, struggling with her racial identity, but the answer to racism isn’t to then have his white daughter in a similar internal conflict.
“We feel the concepts of white guilt are incredibly toxic,” he said.
Some have also raised concerns about the effects of anti-racism teachings on non-white students.
Ideological Foundations of Anti-Racism
Anti-racism is essentially the neo-Marxist ideology of critical race theory going by a different name (though it has, at times, openly been called “critical race theory” by some leading anti-racism thinkers in Canada and abroad).Although various definitions of critical race theory (CRT) exist, it is generally characterized by its assertion that racism is systemic and that race is an important part of a person’s identity. This latter point is often contrasted with the idea of a colour-blind society that treats all people equally as individuals rather than identifying people based on race.
Although Canadian parents hold varying opinions on such matters, the anti-racism view is being widely disseminated in schools. Many consider the ideas presented to be radical, with controversial thinkers such as Ibram X. Kendi cited in anti-racism materials.
Mr. Sey described the book as the “kids version” of Mr. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.”
Some U.S. states have banned CRT in the classroom. This year, many Canadian parents have increasingly voiced concerns over gender and sexuality teachings in schools, and rumblings over CRT are growing as well, Mr. Park said.
British Columbia
Before anti-racism took hold, according to a former B.C. teacher, schools were already addressing racism, but they were doing it without CRT. “If there was anything to do with race that was in any way insulting or pejorative to others, then it would be, of course, banned,” Jim McMurtry of Abbotsford told The Epoch Times.“There was a lot of attention for decades to Martin Luther King, and not to judge people on the colour of their skin, but on the content of their character,” he said. “And then something happened.”
He was a teacher on call, working for schools all around the city, when he started to notice the word “privilege” popping up in classrooms, even at the elementary level. “I started to challenge colleagues about this.”
Many white children at the schools live in poverty, Mr. McMurtry said. “So how dare you assume that every white child is privileged?” he would say to his colleagues.
They would argue back, he said, and “start to create the assumption that I was somehow racist.”
Toward the end of his career, he saw phenomena such as “equity marking” and “equity backpacks” in schools.
“There are many classes now where there’s equity marking, where teachers have to give more attention to kids who are not white-skinned,” Mr. McMurtry said.
He noted an “equity backpack” initiative started by a Grade 6 social studies teacher in Abbotsford who has a master’s degree in equity. She started it in 2021 and it spread across the province and into Alberta.
They also include messages steeped in CRT language. “I promise to challenge my biases,” one student says. “I promise to stand up for what is right, when the time is right, and become an activist if needed,” another says.
Engaging teachers and students in “social justice” activism is often part of anti-racism teachings. The honouring diversity course taught to Grade 8 students in Vanderhoof, for example, culminated with having students “make a claim” in front of the class about their new commitment to diversity and social justice.
The most “privileged” are at the centre, where terms such as “rich,” “white,” “settler/colonizer,” “property owner,” “heterosexual,” and “able-bodied” converge.
The father asked not to be named because he holds a position in the local school board and could face repercussions for speaking publicly on the matter. He said that when his daughter objected to being defined by her skin colour, she was told that being white put her in the “oppressor” group.
Students had to leave their anti-racism workbook in the classroom, he said, and he suspects it’s because the teachers didn’t want the parents to see the material.
Alberta
In Alberta, too, CRT is prevalent, Mr. Park said. He has had parents come to him after their children were asked to place themselves on the Wheel of Privilege. He said there’s some denial around how much of it is presented in the classrooms.“They tend to say anti-racism training is only used as training for teachers, we’re not teaching it to the students, but I just find that a little hard to believe because, first of all, there are lots of resources being produced to help teachers bring this into their classrooms,” he said.
Mr. Park pointed to a 2012 article Mr. Brokenleg wrote, titled “Transforming Cultural Trauma into Resilience.” In it, he positively quotes Mr. Friere, saying “it is impossible for the oppressor to liberate the oppressed.”
Teachers Pay Teachers and other online educator marketplaces are selling materials to bring CRT pedagogy to the classrooms, Mr. Park said. “Certainly a company that sells lesson plans as their business model isn’t going to produce things that people aren’t using.”
Ontario
An Ontario teacher was recently in the spotlight for a video he posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he called parents “snowflakes” for disagreeing with his CRT and other controversial teachings. The video has since been removed.“I teach about Marxism, I teach about socialism, I teach about trans rights, I teach about LGBTQ history, I teach about black history, I teach about the racial history of our country and the genocide that we have inflicted upon indigenous people,” Frank Domenic Cirinna of Craig Kielburger Secondary School in Milton said in the video.
He called parents who oppose any of this “antiquated dinosaurs” whose children will eventually turn away from them and adopt his worldview. His school board, the Halton District School Board, did not reply to an Epoch Times request for comment.
In the York Regional District School Board (YRDSB), teacher trainings for math and for English as a second language (ESL) have been dominated by CRT, according to former teacher Chanel Pfahl, who receives many communications from teachers and parents about such things and posts them on X.
The YRDSB didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
The Peel District School Board (PDSB) and Durham District School Board (DDSB) are the two boards with the largest number of high-earning equity staff.
It said, for instance, that white British colonizers are to blame for “homophobia” in the Muslim world.
Although he didn’t actually have his kindergartner watch the seminar, he was upset it was billed as appropriate for all students. The parent wished to remain anonymous to protect his daughter’s privacy. He sent The Epoch Times his communications with school board staff. Superintendent Shannon Smith told him, “We don’t agree that the term ‘whiteness’ is harmful language.”
He said he took the matter to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which told him white people cannot be considered the target of racism.
A Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision (in the case of Lisikh v. Ontario, 2022) states: “It is important to note in the Tribunal’s jurisprudence that an allegation of racial discrimination or discrimination on the grounds of colour is not one that can be or has been successfully claimed by persons who are white and non-racialized.”
Lindsay, a parent in Waterloo, Ont., who chose to give only her first name to protect her daughter’s privacy, said her 8-year-old came home saying she was told not to say “two plus two equals four.” Her young daughter had a hard time explaining precisely the logic behind it, but Lindsay said it sounded like it had to do with CRT’s view of Western math as colonial and oppressive. This view is called critical mathematics pedagogy.
Farther east, some are pushing for CRT to take hold in schools.
Federal, Other Institutions
Anti-racism has spread into many Canadian institutions, including other places meant for youth. Hockey Quebec requires its coaches to undergo anti-racism training that cites Mr. Kendi. Pediatric surgeons are urged to be anti-racist.The issue of CRT’s identity politics and the CRT-derived idea of “decolonization” has also been part of anti-Israel rhetoric across Canada since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and Israel’s counterstrikes at the group.
“Most parents still have no idea about what’s going on, even though I try to spread the word,” the B.C. parent who works in his local school board said. “They’re not familiar with all the different terms that are used. ... They sound good, but I believe they’re pretty harmful.”