"We don't intend to break the law"

But whiteness . . .

Consider a situation where someone tells you, “I don’t intend to break the law, so I don’t want you to feel discomfort when I do break the law,” and then proceeds to break the law. Does their telling you they didn’t intend to make you uncomfortable make it any better? I think it makes it worse. It means that they are either being deceptive or are culpably failing to know themselves.

ASU’s DEI training starts with “Module 0.” In this module, you are told that you will be taught about privilege and bias. In later modules, you learn about white privilege and the unconscious bias of whiteness. However, in module 0, you are told that ASU does not intend to create discomfort.

Module 0 itself offers a confused message. On the one hand, it tells the audience that it does not intend to assign blame to race. But then it gives a list of learning objectives that cover privilege, bias, equity, structural inequalities, and all the other buzzwords from this social philosophy. The creators of the module appear to have no self-awareness, and they are pushing one social philosophy that not everyone agrees with. This social philosophy presupposes a theory of justice and equity that I believe is unjust and simply false.

How can we reconcile the content of Module 0 with the later modules that do the very thing Module 0 says the training won’t do? How are we to understand such a direct self-contradiction? I don’t think there is a way to reconcile it. It is the problem at the very heart of DEI and why I object to it. DEI classifies people based on skin color and then assigns blame. They can say they don’t intend to be racist all they want. But this is the very definition of racism.

Arizona law prohibits any training paid for by tax money that relies on race blame. That Module 0 tells you they don’t intend to do so does not exempt later modules from this law. Where such modules teach race blame, they are in violation of the law no matter what Module 0 says.

Here is an image from “Module 0” about what is not intended and then another with a list of learning objectives. Compare what they do not intend to do with the learning objectives and the material I have shared in previous posts.