The Canadian government has funded a booklet for parents and teachers on how to teach children to be ”anti-racist” and suspicious of classmates who bolster ”free speech.”
The booklet, ”Confronting and Preventing Hate in Canadian Schools: a Toolkit,” was written by a nonprofit organization, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, or CAHN, according to Reclaim the Net, and published on June 30, after the Canadian government paid $268,400 Canadian dollars to the nonprofit.
CAHN Chairman Bernie Farber said the booklet would lead the campaign in educating children to ”fight and win against hate.”
”The point of this free toolkit,” Farber said, ”is to help parents, educators and the community identify and intervene when a young person is being groomed and recruited by a white supremacist movement before it is too late. It’s not just a free toolkit. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network is launching a whole education program.”
As Parliament member Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s minister of diversity, inclusion and youth, told reporters, ”This new resource will be delivered through workshops in schools across the country and it will help raise awareness with students.”
It will also ”teach core values to our kids,” he said.
The booklet states that its goal is to provide a ”comprehensive anti-racism education.” Though there are earlier mentions of the term anti-racism throughout history, it has been credited to Boston University Professor Abram X. Wendi, who wrote ”How to Be an Anti racist,” a New York Times bestseller.
Anti-racism is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of English as “the policy or practice of opposing racism and promoting racial tolerance.” It is listed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a subsection of critical race theory.
Though the booklet mentions anti-racism, it does not define it. The booklet does, however, recommend teachers reprimand a student if they are invoking ”advocacy for a white” or if they are promoting sensibilities that are ”anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, antisemitic … anti-Black” or anti-”2SLGBTQIA+ community” by letting ”the student know right away that behaviour is not acceptable and is harmful, and explain why. Educate the student if you feel the information is coming from a place of ignorance rather than malice.”
”If able, counter the student’s remarks with facts and create a teachable moment. If you are not sure how to counter, refer to resources to determine a good approach.”
As for free speech, the booklet states that ”hate-promoting groups will co-opt language about free speech and cultural identity to steer the dialogue away from the bigoted nature of who they are and what they do.”
Via Newsmax