Why I’m a Mad Mother

As a child in the 1980s, I remember seeing commercials for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). As the clever acronym suggests, these moms were mad. They were mad that family members were being killed by drunk drivers. They were mad that laws to prevent these tragedies didn’t exist. And they were mad that no one was doing anything about it.

Anger can often be misguided, but in this case, it was exactly what was needed. The organization is largely credited with changing the mindset of an entire generation when it comes to driving while intoxicated. They were mad, they did something about it, and it worked.

Today, in the midst of the current culture wars about race and racism, a lot of moms are mad again. They are mad about what is happening in our schools and to our children. I happen to be one of the “mad moms” who hate to see what the culture war over race and racism is doing to the education of our children.

Why are we mad?

We are mad because our children are being taught that who they are as individuals, and the choices they make about how to treat others, matter less than the color of their skin.

We are mad because, while many of us have taught our children to respect and value difference not just when it comes to race, culture, and religion but also when it comes to different points of view, children are now being taught to shun viewpoint diversity and embrace closed-mindedness. They are told, emphatically, that anything short of parroting and performing the empty slogans disseminated by a small but aggressive group of activists renders them nothing short of racists.

I have been mad since last November, when my 8-year-old son’s private school in Hollywood brought in an “anti-bias” facilitator—first to train teachers, and then parents, in how to be “anti-racist.” In the parent session, antisemitism was given a pass and white parents (some of whom have non-white spouses and biracial children) were forced in some cases to admit that they contribute to racism by living in neighborhoods that are more than 50% white. Reciting the simplistic equation of racism coined by Ibram X. Kendi, the facilitator told white parents they are either “racists or anti-racists.” I still wonder what this meant to the many biracial parents in the session.

In the teachers’ session, a preschool teacher suggested that regularly sharing stories about people of different races and religions with young children was a great way to teach them to value difference. In response, the facilitator disparaged literature as “low-hanging fruit,” as too easy and not powerful enough. Instead, confrontational rhetoric about “white fragility,” anti-racism, defunding the police, and how “silence is violence” is the preferred way to handle the issue. The problem is that these one-sided slogans do more to divide than to bring children together. They reinforce racial difference and resentment and promote the very racial divide they purport to fight, although I am growing less and less convinced that the political activists pushing this toxic rhetoric are actually interested in racial healing. Perhaps, in fact, they want the opposite.

The problem is that these one-sided slogans do more to divide than to bring children together.

As both a mother and former professor of literature, I’m mad that my child’s teachers are being told that literature has little influence. There is nothing more powerful than story when it comes to teaching empathy, to exposing children to people who don’t look like them, and to giving young minds tools to think through issues in critical and nuanced ways. But perhaps that’s why the facilitator warned against it. She wants political obedience, not free thinking. Activism now comes before academics at many schools. I’m mad about that.

I’m mad that each time I write about this issue, parents and teachers reach out to tell me they agree, but that they can’t publicly say so. I’m not mad at these people; I’m mad at the Soviet-style doublethink culture that makes them feel as if they have to publicly agree with things they despise.

I’m mad that ideologically charged issues are now the backbone of many educational institutions, which are no longer bastions of critical thought and learning, having fallen prey to the indoctrination of identity politics.

I’m mad that ideologically charged issues are now the backbone of many educational institutions, which are no longer bastions of critical thought and learning, having fallen prey to the indoctrination of identity politics.

And I’m mad because while many of us understand that racism still exists and we must teach our children the complicated history of racism in America, we also believe that here, in America—unlike so many other places—most everyone is capable of living a life that transcends race and religion. Yes, we still have plenty of work to do in order to ensure that the playing field is more level, and we should all be committed to that work. But the new dogma tells children that the U.S. is a place where opportunities exist only for white people and that every part of our society operates as a conspiracy to subvert the ability of racial minorities to succeed (they never explain how it can be possible that Asians are by far the most successful racial group in America). And never mind the countless Black heterodox voices pushing back against these ideas.

Most parents—Black, white, Asian, Latino, Jewish, etc.—encourage their children by telling them that here, in America, you can be anything you want to be. But the new narrative is, for children of color, that you can’t get ahead because there are systems in place to prevent you from achieving your dreams. No matter how hard you work, they claim, you will never get out from under the structures of white supremacy that are designed, precisely, to crush you. Where is the audacity of hope in that?

Ironically, this pessimistic stance is taken primarily by white progressives, who tend to be “more left wing than Black and Hispanic Democrats on pretty much every issue,” including and especially when it comes to “racial issues or various measures of ‘racial resentment.’” This may explain why non-white voters are trending away from the Democratic Party.

But that doesn’t stop groups of predominately white progressives from telling racial minorities what is best for them. It doesn’t stop them from obliterating opportunities that have the potential to elevate non-white communities.

The idea that merit-based programs are racist, and that they should be expunged from academic institutions in order to fight racism, is an extension of this logic. Merit is racist, and therefore the standards must be lowered. But what about immigrant and non-white people who have, as Angel Eduardo says, been “fighting like hell for centuries to be seen as equal,” people who have fought their way into gifted and honors programs, or highly-selective universities and academic institutions, and who deserve to be evaluated on the merit of their work? Behind many of the students in these programs are immigrant parents who sacrificed everything to give their children the opportunities offered in America, who taught their children to work hard so that they could earn a spot in one of these programs. And now we are telling them that their hard work and their success are racist; that their sacrifices merely serve the institutional racism endemic to American society. Asian American families in particular are targeted by these racist policies.

It’s time to attack the outrageous and offensive canard that anyone who pushes back against this “anti-racist” indoctrination is secretly a racist. It’s time to recognize these attacks for what they are: an attempt to intimidate people into silence and manipulatively exploit their desire to be seen as good people.

It’s time to attack the outrageous and offensive canard that anyone who pushes back against this “anti-racist” indoctrination is secretly a racist.

But in a world where virtue signaling and proving we are “woke” or progressive is more important than actually doing the real work of improving communities and bringing them together, the billion-dollar Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion industry is the quick fix for everything, even though it rarely fixes anything.

Finally, I’m mad because I have worked hard to teach my son to love and respect others, to value differences, and treat people as individuals, not as members of groups. I have worked hard to teach him that we are all human beings who want the same things, who dream the same dreams. I’ve worked hard to teach him to be the child who stands up and speaks out when he sees injustices being committed against others.

I’m mad because none of that seems to matter anymore. He is simply reduced to his skin color.

Recently my son heard two of his closest friends (who are biracial) referred to as Black. He was shocked. “Are you sure?” he said. “But they’re just like me.”

“They’re just like me.” Isn’t that what we fought for in the civil rights movement? That all people be seen equally? But this is the newly racialized America—a place where the dreams of black and brown children can be hijacked by a political movement that needs them to see themselves as inferior, and most chillingly, that is invested in their failure, just as it tells white children that no matter what they do, they will always be seen as the oppressor.

That is not the way to equality, and it’s worth being mad about. And if the backlash of “mad moms” across the country continues to grow, I certainly won’t be mad about that.

Monica Osborne is Executive Editor at the Jewish Journal. She is a former professor of literature, critical theory, and Jewish Studies, and is the author of “The Midrashic Impulse and the Contemporary Literary Response to Trauma.” Follow her on Twitter @DrMonicaOsborne