by Michael Bielawski
Aaron Kindsvatter, a former professor in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont, currently in private practice, is helping to organize local chapters in Vermont for FAIR which is the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, a nationwide organization.
He suggested that left-wing groups are pushing “race essentailism” in America’s education systems, which is similar in themes to Critical Race Theory.
“I think FAIR is about to put some adults in the room when these conversations [about race and social justice] come up, people can remain calm and be secure in their views and address the issues of actual racism that remain,” Kindsvatter said in a phone interview with VDC on Thursday morning.
He said part of their goal is to “challenge race essentialists’ ideas and put the idea of ethical color-blindness or race transcendentalism out there and say look this too, please consider this if you are feeling like you have to make a choice between extreme left ideas that are race essentialists and extreme right ideas that would disregard that race or sexual orientation is not an important thing to understand.”
Kindsvatter first made headlines in Vermont for a YouTube video in which he questioned the promotion of critical race theory by his university, a system of beliefs that argues whites are oppressors and non-whites are victims. He’s spoken at public events across the state over recent years.
“You would not believe what the future teachers are being taught in their college education,” he said to a crowd at a church in Underhill during 2021.
He said that the organization FAIR is appearing throughout Vermont in new chapters, and he is helping to work on a formal website and meetings for the group to advance.
He said that what’s happening in education across the nation these days is the new educators coming out of college and into the schools are already indoctrinated in the belief systems of CRT.
“All the teachers graduate from colleges of education which are blatantly indoctrinating higher education students who are going to become teachers,” he said. “So the teachers that are flooding into the schools have been subjected to indoctrination.”
He said what makes confronting these people and their ideas sometimes challenging is they present themselves at a moral high ground working for justice and doing what’s right.
“So we’ve got these toxic ideas out there but they’ve somehow become fashionable,” Kindsvatter said. “And what’s really difficult about them is that they tend to come cloaked with the veneer of justice and harm reduction and so they are very hard to refute. The moment one begins to question those ideas one is accused of causing harm.”
He explained that he is largely trying to imitate the work of an African American man who would confront Klan members and advocate for them to give up their misguided ways.
“What’s really a shame about this is that racism and homophobia is actually something that the vast majority of people could actually come together around, and there’s guy by the name of Daryl Davis, he’s a FAIR advisor and he has shown us how. He’s a black man who has befriended dozens of Klu Klux Klan members and they have quit the Klan and given him their hoods.”
He said the reason for Davis’s success was because these racists were “desperate and lonely” and Davis was able to approach them with compassion.
“I would say that what FAIR is attempting to do is emulate the work of Daryl Davis,” he said.
He said what’s on the agenda next for FAIR is to get a formal website up and running for Vermont. There’s a national website that can be seen here. Plus they will soon announce meetings so that members can get together and have constructive conversations and plan to take more actions from there.
The author is a reporter for Vermont Daily Chronicle
Categories: Education, Vermonters Making A Difference
UVM “promoting” Critical Race Theory? Sorry, I didn’t see anything to back that up. We’re just to believe that because it gives us something to be riled up about? The article quotes the professor as saying: “You would not believe what the future teachers are being taught in their college education.” That’s about as far as it goes – all potatoes, no meat.
I invite you to investigate UNESCO, a UN entity that runs all education in America: k-12 and higher ed. Read their documents. For example, the UNESCO 2022 report called Knowledge-driven actions: Transforming higher education for global sustainability, starts off with a call to action to students and universities written by Marxist, Herbert Marcose called One Dimensional Man, 1968. He urged for a thinking that would show us alternatives beyond the universalizing forces of current rationalism. Universities, especially higher education, could pave the way for human (meaning socialist man) to develop independently of indistrialized society. He called on universities and students as they occupy those key positions outside productive society geared towards the processes of reproduction.
The last sentence is a call for students to stop the reproduction of the current society. The new society is one in alignment to the UN Agenda 2030, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Now for k-12. UNESCO has created many teacher resources with are propagated to school children. These include the k-12 Sustainable Development Goals Teacher Lesson Plans and concept of global citizenship. Equity and Social Justice are also being taught in k-12 via Social, Emotional, Learning as a tool to socialize children into the Social (Justice) component of ESG. These are also United Nations goals. Social Justice is an outcome which is achieved after forced Equity. Equity is defined by the United nations as the registration of wealth and resources to create more equal outcomes. The term Social Justice is trackable to a UN 2006 document titled Social Justice in an Open World (meaning open boards). I invite you to review these documents, they are enlightening.
Whites (especially men) as oppressors .. blacks, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) .. definitely being inculcated in future teachers.
I state that Christine Stone provided a very detailed one.
Whites (especially men) as oppressors .. blacks, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) as oppressed .. definitely being inculcated in future teachers.
Looks as though Ms. Christine Stone provided you with an awful (emphasis on awful with all of its definitions) lot of “meat” & no potatoes. Where’s yours?
Zzzzz…..
FYI…, The word “VINEAR” does not appear in my Webster’s dictionary. I think he meant “VENEER”. More important would be a cogent response to Dave Searles’ observations.
Noted. Thanks for the heads up.
I have talked to a lot of therapists, counsellors, etc., and a good deal see the problems with the PC status quo, but are effectively silenced and forced to abandon patients they want to help at the threat of unemployment…or worse.
As evidenced by what happened to Jordan Peterson in Canada recently. Truth no longer matters and your opinion must be kept to yourself. Re-education coming to a town near you.
The only intolerance I perceive in Vermont is a tremendous degree of intolerance by liberals/leftists/extremists/college & college-aged students/government officials against native/long-term/conservative/GOP/Christian Vermont residents. Insofar as “racism”, I view fairly little except by people of color being ILLEGALLY promoted/appointed/hired to employment positions based solely upon their race and African Americans from troubled inner cities/possessing criminal backgrounds/refugees being ACTIVELY RECRUITED into this state to force “diversity” by Lt. Governor DAVID ZUCKERMAN and his affiliated extremist organization called “RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY VERMONT” based in Burlington.
Based upon where you grew up, I am having trouble understanding the above. Please explain? (really, I’m not getting any of this)
Self explanatory.
I love Professor Kindsvatter. A lone voice in that arena. I got FAIR confused with FINE at first. Youknowhatimsayin.
Grifters gotta grift. I suppose that college degree pays for itself when astute skills in grant writing, federal funding, and creative accounting practices are the forte of many of these non-profiteers. If it wasn’t for non-profits, NGOS and bureacracy, a good many of these educated community activist organizers would have to subject themselves to earning wages ethically and legitimately. They may actually have to do some work, with their hands and their brains…Yikes! Carry on.