The Communist Politics Behind the “Culture of Divisive Hate” in U.S. Education
Pictured is the University of California, Berkeley campus.
On March 18, the California Department of Education adopted the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), which is considered to be based on critical race theory. The movement, which has been underway for nearly five years, has released four versions of the model curriculum syllabus before and after.
Dr. Wu Wenyuan, one of the leading opponents of Referendum 16, said, “The first edition was the most radical and strongly advocated racial division and violence. What is even more alarming to me is that the culture of division and hatred and Marxism that has been derived and disguised from communist countries has now made its way to American campuses.”
As this movement rippled through the education system throughout California and the United States, Wu Wenyuan compared the critical ethnic studies ideology in California with the Chinese government’s attitude toward ethnic minorities and concluded, “While the former exaggerates racial contradictions and the latter deliberately emphasizes the commonwealth of all ethnic groups, both use ideology to promote and fortify political preaching. “
The following is a translation of the article written by Wu Wenyuan (translated by Saga Zhou).
For a long Time, I believed the “beautiful” lie that modern China is a beautiful multicultural country, where the 56 ethnic groups “love each other” as Family and worship the motherland infinitely. This so-called “patriotic belief”, cemented by years of training in Marxism and Maoism, was slightly shaken when I met my best friend from college, a Yao who spoke the same way as me, enjoyed the same Food, and celebrated the same cultural traditions as I did.
I discovered that the “integration” movement, controlled by the Chinese Communist government in the name of social harmony and national rejuvenation, had hijacked the ancient tradition of Chinese ethnic studies. China’s originally rich ethnic Life has become a symbolic joke. Sacralized historical relics and top-down political indoctrination have obliterated any ethnic differences. And the so-called Great Ethnic Reunion is just a showcase topic at the annual Spring Festival evening. Those dissenting voices that dare to highlight the differences in life among minorities are quickly dismissed or drowned out.
On the other hand, the “ethnic studies” trend I experienced in the United States was the opposite, where differences based on race and ethnicity were elevated to the forefront of group identity, power and privilege. Ironically, however, this is similar to my experience in mainland China, where political indoctrination also played an important role in the simplification of American ethnic studies. The ethnic studies sweep movement in California is a prime example of ethnic tribalism and political indoctrination.
California’s current form of ethnic studies movement, the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), exacerbates racial division and hatred by placing our society in a binary, race-based perspective and distorting America’s complex history with a narrow framework of political identity. Racial Balkan geopolitics (Racial Balkanization) contributes to this same pattern with its harmful practice of dividing individuals into different hostile races and ethnicities. The movement also invokes Marxism to exaggerate the differences between races in order to achieve a clear, race-based “oppressor-victim” dichotomy.
For example, the historical portrayal of Asian Americans in ESMC is full of victim mentality and divisiveness, and the example lesson on “Chinese railroad workers” in the ESMC curriculum assumes from the outset that the contributions of Chinese workers (especially those involved in the strike movement) to American infrastructure are ignored as a way to “exemplify the view of white supremacy in American history.” Students are then advised to learn about the interplay between the construction of well-connected rail projects and power through a “power system” and a “racist and exploitative” mindset.
The curriculum goes even further, accusing the Golden Spike Foundation in Utah of not representing all Chinese railroad workers. For this purpose, the ESMC model class points to isolated incidents such as the 1867 Chinese railroad workers’ strike and the absence of Chinese workers at the 1869 Promontory Point workers’ meeting.
“The ESMC course authors criticize the Golden Spike Foundation, an organization dedicated to recognizing and honoring the contributions of Chinese Americans to the railroad, for not highlighting the experiences of Chinese strikers and labor organizers. In fact, the foundation has advocated for a course in Utah that would highlight the stories of Chinese and Native American railroad workers. “The Golden Spike Foundation is not being supported because it is not involved in persecution or promoting labor confrontation.
There is no denying that Asian Americans have experienced too much marginalization and injustice throughout history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the xenophobic attacks on Korean Americans in the early 1990s, and the current anti-Asian discrimination in education. But instead of being defined by our past or collective grievances, we have chosen to cherish the vibrant diversity, rich historical experiences, and important contributions to this country. A true ethnic studies curriculum should reflect a comprehensive understanding of our proud cultural heritage and meaningfully address racism, prejudice and misunderstanding by building bridges.
Generally speaking, the so-called “ethnic studies” movement in California has taken a three-pronged approach. On the administrative side, on March 18, the State Board of Education adopted a revised fourth edition of the Model Curriculum for Ethnic Studies that, while eliminating some anti-Semitic elements, continues to be framed in terms of critical race theory advocacy.
On the legislative front, the California Assembly is reconsidering an AB101 bill that would require the Model Curriculum for Ethnic Studies to be a required course for high school graduates. At the local level, the original authors and supporters of the initial draft of the ESMC have launched an aggressive campaign to lobby individual school board members to pass resolutions adopting the most radical, unmodified version of the first version of the curriculum.
It is with this strong support that ethnic studies curricula across the state are being revolutionized, embracing political agendas under the guise of advancing “racial justice” and combating the ubiquity of “systemic racism.
Third graders from an affluent minority community in Cupertino participate in an (ethnic) math class in which they are asked to “deconstruct” their racial and social identities based on “power and privilege”. San Diego public school teachers were forced to undergo a training course on “white privilege” to recognize Native land rights and atone for the “spiritual murder of black children.
R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, one of the originators of the ESMC curriculum, led a group of hundreds of Los Angeles high school students in chanting and worshipping Hunab Ku, the Aztec deity who accepted human sacrifice and ate people, in an ethnic studies class; the San Mateo County Office of Education, in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Education, offered a program on “ethnic math. The San Mateo County Office of Education, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Education, offered a workshop on “Ethnomathematics” to eliminate the “culture of white supremacy” in math education.
The movement took a strange turn when ethnic curriculum authors, including Cuaudin, threatened to have their names removed from the revised ESMC curriculum because the latest version was not radical or “liberated” enough. In response to the growing grassroots opposition, supporters of critical ethnic studies launched a smear campaign calling the opposition “white supremacists, right-wing, conservatives” and “dishonest activists.
Contrary to these flippant accusations, the two main groups opposed to the ESMC curriculum, the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies (ACES) and the Alliance for Excellence in Ethnic Studies Educators (AEOSE), have launched a smear campaign calling the opposition “white supremacists, right-wing, conservative,” and “dishonest actors. The Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies (ACES) and the Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies (E4EES) are diverse grassroots coalitions of Parents, educators, and concerned citizens from a wide range of ethnic, political, and professional backgrounds. Through thorough research and meticulous analysis, these groups revealed significant problems with the draft curriculum’s divisiveness and indoctrination related to ethnic studies. rather than attempting to improve the curriculum by going into dialogue with critics, the original authors of ESMC used unfounded denigration and demonized, dehumanized, and minimized critical voices in order to eliminate opposing viewpoints.
As a New American, an Asian, I volunteered for this Counter-movement movement out of a deep moral conviction that even though there are extraordinary differences between races, we are all connected as human beings. So I believe in the kind of ethnic studies that encourages individual empowerment, mutual respect and historical nuance, rather than the zero-sum racial tribalism currently being promoted as the new social norm in public education. But apparently, according to the so-called “czars” of the ethnic studies movement in California, people should not support me because I point out the divisive and discriminatory nature of ESMC.
**This article has appeared in Minding the Campus and the National Association of Scholars. The author, Dr. Wenyuan Wu, is the executive director of the California Coalition for Equal Rights (CFER). In California’s November general election last year, 57% of California voters, led largely by CFER, voted down the racially charged Referendum 16 (Prop 16).
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