Expensive PGUSD class to argue why white people are failing their responsibilities
Open letter, March 6, 2024
As part of the district’s Cultural Proficiency Plan, the Pacific Grove Unified School District is offering a special class through the Pacific Grove Adult Education Department. The class will be based on a recent book, COMBINED DESTINY, by local authors Ann Jealous and Caroline Haskell. The proposed budget for these classes is not to exceed $15,000.
Based on a recent interview of the two authors, Ann Jealous and Caroline Haskell (Ann is Black and Caroline is White), White people have failed to accept their full responsibility for the racist oppression of Black people. This failure has led to a kind of “emotional insecurity” and immaturity in the White population.
Author, Ann Jealous, also stated that Black men in particular end up in prison because street crime is the only avenue open to them for creativity and ingenuity.
Nowhere in this interview is there a suggestion of parenting (or lack of) as a reason for crime and violence in poor Black neighborhoods. Nor is there any suggestion that paternalistic but well-meaning government programs contribute to dependency and dysfunction in these same neighborhoods.
If the Pacific Grove School District is willing to spend as much as $15,000 to teach White people not to be racist and to take responsibility for their biases, I think they should fund other worthy organizations that have books to sell and that teach a similar lesson.
These organizations include LULAC (League of Latin American Citizens), The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), The American Indian Community Council, and the Anti-Defamation League. All of these organizations have recently published books that offer lessons and advice to White people who seek to become more socially aware and emotionally mature.
Certainly, this additional $60,000 outlay would greatly benefit the 73% of the population in Pacific Grove who consider themselves to be Caucasian in ancestry.
Carol Marquart, Pacific Grove