I sure hope the New York City Teachers union doesn’t have a funny and much-loved comic strip syndicated in hundreds of papers. Because saying racist things gets your comic strip canceled. 
Wait, scratch that. That only happens when a white person says racist things. I’m sure the Big Apple’s fine educational professionals will be fine, because their target is white people.
According to the New York Post, the union is putting on a virtual seminar on the “harmful effects of whiteness in our lives.” Because a finely honed sense of race resentment is one of the most important tools dedicated union teachers can acquire. It’s called “Holding the Weight on Whiteness.” Not sure what weight has to do with it. Maybe they’re going after white fatties.
Anyway, the union teachers and their $25 registration fee will be in good hands because, The Post says, they “will be hosted by Queens-based psychotherapy consultant and self-proclaimed 'Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Leader”\' Erica Sandoval.”
As a Diversity and Inclusion Leader myself (Chico’s College of Diversity, Inclusion and Automotive Insurance Adjusting, fall semester 2006), I know that having a trained leader talking about diversity and inclusion makes diversifying and including much easier.
All the more important because this workshop covers some heavy material, including “key cultural themes … related to the Latinx/e communities,” including “internalized racism, privilege, [and] white identity.”
You see? I bet you didn’t know they’d added a “/e” to “Latinx.” That’s the kind of invaluable diversity and inclusion info you only get from a real Diversity and Inclusion Leader like Erica Sandoval, or me.
The Instagram post about the seminar lays out the concrete goals of the evening:
Participants will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how to center ourselves as a form of resistance against the harmful effects of whiteness in our lives, the organizations we work for or direct, and the communities in which we serve.
Center yourself to resist Whitey, brothers and sisters! That will be $25.
Of course, like any other brave act of resistance to whiteness, the seminar has its detractors:
Maud Maron, a public school parent activist, said the workshop isn’t just “unnecessary,” it’s also “racist and bad for students whose education and well-being should be top of mind for everyone, including the teachers’ union.”
But Maron isn’t a Diversity and Inclusion Leader, is she? Heck, for all we know, she’s one of those fat white people who keep bringing NYC’s noble union teachers down with her whiteness.
