Teachers at New York City Public School 321 are taking Black History Month very, very seriously.
Kindergarten through fifth-grade students were treated to a special coloring book from the child “educators” in Black Lives Matter. “What We Believe” tells the story of the radical group’s founding and the 13 tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement.
What are those “13 tenets”? One tenet is “Queer Affirming,” Another is “Transgender Affirming,” and then there’s “Restorative Justice.” Principle number 2, “Empathy,” is described as “engaging comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.”
Don’t connect with a human being. Connect with their “context” or where their grievance is coming from.
The book also lists “national demands” from BLM, including “mandate black history and ethnic studies,” “hire more black teachers,” and “fund counselors not cops.”
One parent of a PS 321 fourth grader, whose grandparents fled Communist China before moving to the U.S., said she and her husband were “shocked” that the book used the word comrade—and that it appeared to promote political propaganda.
“Using the word comrades comes from Communist times,” said the parent, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the school, also known as William Penn. “They are using words that I don’t think are appropriate for elementary school.”
She said she first discovered the coloring book on Tuesday, February 13, when a snow day forced her daughter to learn from home.
Why is there such an enormous effort to keep parents in the dark about what their kids are learning? If they really believed that it was good for children to be radicalized like this, why not shout it from the rooftops?
Ultimately, these left-wing radicals are abject cowards who can’t stand the idea of anyone challenging their radical tenets. They exist in a radical bubble, only talking to fellow radicals, only reading radical treatises, and cutting themselves off from friends and family who might disagree with them.
They’re terrified of parents and children who are asking questions they’re unable to answer.
Lessons in the coloring book tell children to reflect on Black Lives Matter’s 13 principles. Some of the exercises, parents said, appear innocuous; a page about “Restorative Justice,” for example, asks students: “Why is it important to offer to forgive someone?” But another, entitled “Transgender Affirming,” instructs students to read the book When Aidan Became a Brother about a girl who transitions to a boy, and then answer questions on a worksheet like, “How do you feel when someone tells you what you can or can’t do based on your gender?”
Another principle, “Black Villages,” is described as “disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” Another, called “Intergenerational,” encourages a “communal network free from ageism.”
“The Western-prescribed nuclear family structure” is the basis of Western civilization. Well-meaning corporations and radical-left scholars alike have glossed over that BLM tenet. But it’s there and it’s being taught to very young children.
Another public school parent whose family left the Soviet Union when she was a teenager said the language in the book reminds her “of the songs we were made to sing as elementary school children. ‘Dismantling’ and ‘comrade’ and everything—it really reminds me of the word salad that was a part of those songs.”
She compared the Black Lives Matter movement to communism, saying: “same salad, different dressing.”
What’s old is new again when it comes to radical left politics. BLM, Antifa, and other radical groups are using the same tactics from the 1960s to organize and inflame people over racism and the war to advance their agenda.
They’re getting a helping hand from friendly school administrators who want to appear “hip” to students and their colleagues alike.