The New York Times is launching a podcast series that appears to blame “Nice White Parents” for longstanding issues with the US public school system, deflecting responsibility off incompetent officials onto the bogeyman du jour.
The paper of record debuted a sample of its “Nice White Parents” podcast on Thursday, promoted as a miniseries “about the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block.” Spoiler alert: the white parents are the bad guys.
Set to upbeat music, the teaser tells the story of a group of white New York City parents who lobbied heavily in 1963 for the Board of Education to move a planned new school from the proposed site, close to a housing project, to a new site closer to a white neighborhood so kids of all races could attend school together. This was less than a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision struck down “separate but equal” and rendered segregation effectively illegal, and “integration” was one of the hottest issues of the day.
However, integrating schools was easier said than done, as the New York school board episode proved: when the school was finally built, close to the white neighborhood as those “nice white parents” suggested, they (according to the podcast, at least) refused – every single one! – to send their own kids there. Host Chana Joffe-Walt cheerfully ends the segment by posing the question “What is getting in the way of giving each child an equal opportunity, an equal education?” and hinting the answer lies not with the schools themselves, but with Whitey.
I think you can’t understand what’s broken [in our school systems] if you don’t look here, at one of the most powerful forces shaping public education: white parents.
There were eye-rolls across social media as people wondered if there was anything the Times wouldn’t blame on white people.
When everything is racist, nothing is racist. Congratulations to progressives for rendering the word, and actual acts of racism, utterly meaningless.
Others suggested the Times was using “white” as a stand-in for the real culprits.
Could also analyze the role that powerful teachers union bosses play in stopping all attempts at serious reform or Democrats blocking school choice legislation…
Some substituted other ethnicities for “white,” hinting at the Times’ hypocrisy.
To understand what’s wrong with our public education system, you have to look at what’s arguably the most powerful force in our schools: Jewish parents. Listen to the trailer for “Nice Jewish Parents,” a new series from @serial, brought to you by @nytimes.
Stop race baiting you bigots. Substitute anything else and it reveals your hatred “nice Muslim parents are the problem ” “nice black parents are the problem” “nice Jewish parents are the problem” “nice Asian parents are the problem”. Stop spreading hate it beneath you
Even some who claimed to “not care for” white people claimed to be fed up with the frenzy to blame them for all societal ills.
I don’t cape for White people, but the demonization of whites in this country is out of control. There’s a certain group who wants revenge and it’s not Black people.
None, however, attempted to argue that American schools were doing well. US students underperform across the board when compared to their peers in other countries, and minority and poor kids fare badly when compared to their whiter, wealthier American peers, who are more likely to be enrolled in private schools. Pinning this dysfunction on racism, however, absolves teachers’ unions that make firing bad teachers impossible, bureaucratic bloat that sucks up education dollars for administrative salaries, and incompetent officials who mandate detrimental programs like Common Core from responsibility for American students’ failure.
Since all the reporters/editors/owners of the @nytimes send their kids to private schools, it's okay for you to criticize parents who are involved in their kids public schools. Good to know.
