Bless Her Heart

If you know anything about the South, you know that phrase, "Bless her heart." It's a passive-aggressive way of speaking of someone you a) pity, b) think is not that bright and/or c) tries very hard but isn't all that and a bag of chips (another great phrase).

Tracy Castro Gill is NOT a "bless her heart" case, although I did think that for some time.

I have been asked why I am calling out Woodland Park Zoo for "sponsoring" her "academy" for youth activism. I suspect that WPZ is doing nothing more than giving her the space to host her class. Because if there was linkage with the Zoo's stated mission of education for kids and WPZ was actually proud of this sponsorship, they would have it on their website along with ALL the other summer offerings for kids and teens. And it isn't there and they have not put out a press release nor tweeted about it. Plus, I would think some of the members of WPZ's Board who are Jewish might give pause to think if this is how they would like the zoo to be represented.

That's not usually how a sponsorship works.

It is troubling that entities - including quasi-public ones like WPZ - would want to associate themselves with her. What is she? She's a toxic, aggrieved pot-stirrer and she loves nothing more than figuring out how to rile people up. Is it for attention or does she truly think she's helping the cause of ethnic studies? It's hard to tell.

A good start towards understanding the danger for public entities in listening to her can be found in my previous post about her creating a public persona that seems unlikely to be grounded in her past.

On the surface her mission is the teaching of K-12 ethnic studies. I'll just pause here to mention that you can look up the term "ethnic studies" and find most definitions saying that it includes race and ethnic background. And today, in teaching at both the high school and university level today:

Within the broader category of ethnic studies are more specific disciplines, including African American or Black; Asian; Hispanic, Latino, Latina or Latinx; and Native American studies.

I would have no problem if Seattle Schools chose to shape their ethnic studies curriculum around those four groups. Indeed, SPS says:

Ethnic studies is a curriculum program and a discipline of study in all grades and content areas focused on the experiences of people and communities of color with an emphasis on indigeneity.

This appears to be true for OSPI as well.

Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary and comparative study of the social, cultural, political, and economic experiences of ethno-racial groups. Ethnic Studies recovers and reconstructs the counter-narratives, perspectives, epistemologies, and cultures of those who have been neglected and denied full participation within traditional institutions. Ethnic Studies also examines and amplifies the contributions Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities have made in shaping U.S. culture and society.

I'd bet Castro Gill already knows this. 

So here's her post from her struggling group, Washington Ethnic Studies Now, entitled Jewishness and Ethnic Studies. She asks:

This first installment centers around the identity of Jewish folks. Are Jews white?

Jews are an ethnic group but if Washington State appears to be using the more narrowed focus of groups largely made up of people of color, why is she going after Jews and their skin color? 

The Pew Research Center has a lengthy article about this topic:

When given these choices, 92% of U.S. Jews describe themselves as White and non-Hispanic, while 8% say they belong to another racial or ethnic group. This includes 1% who identify as Black and non-Hispanic; 4% who identify as Hispanic; and 3% who identify with another race or ethnicity – such as Asian, American Indian or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander – or with more than one race.

Part of the issue, she said, is that the traditional Jewish heritage categories – Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi – do not cleanly map onto U.S. categories of race and ethnicity: Being Ashkenazi doesn’t necessarily mean being White, and being Sephardic or Mizrahi doesn’t necessarily mean being a person of color.

A great follow-up story is from Think on a legal case about Jews and race:

What's interesting about Hornsby's ruling, though, is the way that it specifically sets aside the question of whether Jews can be defined as a biological race, and instead focuses on whether they are treated "like a racial or ethnic group." Hornsby specifically notes that, "Modern sociologists and anthropologists, especially with advancements in DNA studies, debate whether Judaism is a people, a religion, or both. There is no doubt, however, that many people have and continue to view being Jewish as a racial identity."

Ultimately, civil rights laws shouldn't be used as a way to decide which people do and don't actually belong to a different race. Instead, civil rights laws should protect all marginalized people who are falsely treated as if they are biologically different. The brilliance of Hornsby's ruling is that it acknowledges the fact that racists aren't concerned with science, but with hatred.

But back to Castro Gill:

So, for some context, this blog post is being written as a conversation between myself and Jeff in response to some criticism I’ve received from some Jewish folks recently over my insistence that most Jews are white, my view of Israel as a settler-colonial state, and my support of Palestinian Studies in ethnic studies programs.

Bringing politics into the discussion certainly will send it off in a different direction. But I think she knows that.

As a non-Jewish person, I want to be sure I’m not missing anything, and that I’m listening to reasonable Jewish people with a deep understanding of Jewish history and contemporary concerns about the recent rise in antisemitism. I say, “reasonable,”because there is a trend of white Zionists shutting down and working against anti-racist scholars of color. 

 

Oh boy, that dog whistle of "Zionists" was no accident.

I asked a couple of Jewish friends for their reaction to her blog post. I received some thoughtful replies and here's one:

I think particularly in urban/blue areas, most Jewish Americans enjoy the same white privilege that others do -- I certainly would say I do. And most Jewish Americans are quite liberal and supportive of ethnic studies and lifting up voices of color. That said, we are also aware of a long history of exclusion in America (Jews had to create their own clubs, resorts, neighborhoods, etc. -- restrictive covenants targeted us too, for example) but also aware that it is not appropriate nor correct to create any sort of analogy with the Black American experience.

I would personally say that presently Jewish Americans are not oppressed the way other minority groups are but that antisemitism is a very real concern with hate crimes and the dog whistles of "those nefarious people who allegedly control the media and the banks" and what-not.

What's probably most problematic about this particular post is the references to Israel and Palestine -- the relationship there is incredibly complicated but also kind of irrelevant if the goal is to discuss how to teach American Ethnic Studies, what that means, and who should have what seat at the table.

Again, I have zero background on any of this. 

 

So why is Castro Gill making this political? Because she wants to create conflict. She wants to call out so-called white Jews for her belief that they are not welcoming to Jews of color.

She also really lets loose on Twitter:

4/5/22

The fact that some Jews get so worked up about the critical dialogue around the actions of the Israeli State and Jewish identity is evidence Jewish Studies isn't ready for #EthnicStudies. I reckon with my positionality, proximity to Whiteness, and light-skinned privilege daily.

I'm sure she does, given she's three-quarters white.

Then she replies to herself (a weird thing to do in the Twitter world):

If Jews - particularly white Jews - can't do the same without shouting, "Antesemite (sic)!" at everyone, they're not ready.

So sayth Tracy. 

What's interesting is that her article is a discussion with a Jewish man but most of Castro Gill's contribution is to slam other people especially anyone who does not entirely agree with her. That's her MO so no surprise there. 

Here's she's talking about an interaction she had with a woman on an OSPI committee on ethnic studies:

In her piece, she claims I bullied a Jewish member of the state workgroup on ethnic studies simply because she was white and Jewish. The fact is, the member in question, Linda Clifton, repeatedly admitted her ignorance of ethnic studies. Alhadeff says, “Clifton challenged the use of the term ‘Indigenous epistemologies,’”because Clifton admitted she doesn’t know what it means. Indigenous epistemologies are the foundation of all ethnic studies curriculum. Why was she on a committee to create a curriculum she knew nothing about? I was told it was to, “make sure we didn’t have another ‘California’.”

That's not what the author said at all about the incident with Clifton. 

As well, I've been on committees where my experience was more important and not so much my knowledge base of a particular subject. What Linda Clifton said was:

Clifton challenged the use of the term “Indigenous epistemologies.” “I said, ‘I have a PhD and I don’t understand this phrase.’” In the same conversation, Clifton challenged the use of the word “replace,” because it reminded her of the march on Charlottesville, where white nationalists chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

“And that’s when I was called out for being white,” she says. It was Castro-Gill, she says, who shut her down. (Castro-Gill denies this.) The room fell silent. “And what’s most upsetting was that nobody said a word. Not a word.” 

Just to note, Castro Gill was taken off that OSPI committee. Not a surprise because her attacking nature puts her at odds with working with others in a civil manner. That's partly why she was exited from SPS; basically, she "doesn't play well with others." 

Castro-Gill expresses perplexity as to why Jews seem to take up so much space in discussions about oppression. 

“I’m always confused when it comes to the Jewish question, as if Jewish people have the monopoly on these types of unique experiences and unique oppressions, right? That’s not the case, and people of color have suffered genocide 10 times the rate of Jewish people,” she says.

That statement kind of takes your breath away - it's not a contest. 

“A lot of white Jewish folks will claim person-of-color status and not recognize or own their white privilege,” she says. 

She talks about California's ethnic studies curriculum that was being developed in 2019:

As the nation’s first state-level K-12 curriculum in ethnic studies, California’s curriculum is poised to be influential in classrooms not just in California, but around the country.

However there was a firestorm around the initial proposal:

The curriculum is a 500-page-plus tome including an overview and course outlines. Suggested course units and activities included the study of the “systems of power such as white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy” and of social movements such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.

An accompanying glossary of terms included “cisheteropatriarchy,” which it defined as a system of power “based on the dominance” of men whose gender identity matches their biological sex, and “hxrstory,” defined as “history written from a more gender inclusive perspective. The ‘x’ is used to disrupt the often rigid gender binarist approach to telling history.”

The package riled thousands of people. Even the lead author of a bill to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement came out against it. More than 13,000 people signed a petition alleging the curriculum was anti-Semitic. Conservatives attacked it for being anti-capitalist. More than 5,000 comments poured into the state public-comment portal.

Why were the Jews in the California legislature unhappy?

“We cannot support a curriculum that erases the American Jewish experience, fails to discuss antisemitism, reinforces negative stereotypes about Jews, singles out Israel for criticism, and would institutionalize the teaching of antisemitic stereotypes in our public schools,” the caucus’ letter said.

Here's an irony:

The need for ethnic studies typically arises when marginalized groups feel excluded from course studies. And yet, “what was presented by the model curriculum did some of the things we had in the past criticized: failure to include” all groups, he said.

The LA Times weighed in:

The Los Angeles Times lambasted the model curriculum for jargon and political correctness. Good ethnic studies courses are crucial for students, it said, but this draft—an “impenetrable melange of academic jargon and politically correct pronouncements"—is “in bad need of an overhaul.”

“Too often the proposed ethnic studies curriculum feels like an exercise in groupthink, designed to proselytize and inculcate more than to inform and open minds,” the newspaper said.

That's what I think Castro Gill is trying to do - proselytize about ethnic studies in a manner purely developed to create conflict within the classroom. That's not educating, teaching, or informing.

That's pot-stirring.