Racist Barbarians Operate Seattle Schools

Nicholas at Rule of Reason has a post about the Seattle Public School's definition of racism. It is the sort of thing one can expect from self-loathers with graduate degrees in "education." This document yet again demonstrates why "education" schools and colleges at American universities are rightfully viewed as the intellectual slums of those institutions. The definition for "racism" is an interesting bit of projection by those who are only concerned about the relative power levels of collectives:

The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.

And just in case the militant collectivism of the above statement isn't clear enough, there is this definition of something called "cultural racism," no kidding:

Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as "other," different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

As it has been pointed out many times, such cretins as those responsible for the above statement are unable to discern the difference between culture and race. The truth or validity of individualism is not their concern, just as ideas as such are not their business.

In reality, racism is just one form of collectivism. The only alternative to endless tribal warfare is the recognition of the morality of individualism with its political corollary of individual rights.

One could ask the Seattle School Board (rhetorically, since they are impervious to reason): Why is racism morally wrong? If the individual is just the non-entity cipher of the group, then why privilege one form of collectivism over others? All are equally bad.

Morality implies the freedom to choose one's values and associations. Collectivism denies the individual has the power to make these choices. If people insist they do, they'll be accused of suffering from "false consciousness." As Ayn Rand noted in her essay "Racism" in The Virtue of Selfishness:

Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

When men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group -- the inevitable consequence was that men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify -- particularly for people of limited intelligence -- the least demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is: race.

It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism, the "humanitarian" advocates of a "benevolent" absolute state, have led to the rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism in the 20th century.

This is the poison being taught to school children in Seattle, with no-doubt the approval of their "liberal" parents. Rand wrote her essay on racism in 1963. In many ways things have improved since then while, intellecually many have returned to the Dark Ages.

Crossposted at The Dougout

Update, 5/20: Amritas has more on this.