CNN published an excellent story about whites who grew up surrounded by racism, but turned against racism as adults.
You may recall the story of Matt Hawn, the high school teacher in Tennessee who was fired for teaching his students about racism and white privilege. He was a tenured teacher for 16 years. He never received anything less than a satisfactory rating. He was also a coach. He has appealed his termination.
Hawn became one of the most prominent casualties in an ongoing debate over how racism and history should be taught to students in the US. His plight has divided people in his conservative, heavily White city near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
But Hawn’s improbable personal journey is as dramatic as the headlines he’s provoked.
There is nothing in his background that suggests that he’d take such a public stand against racism. Hawn grew up in a White community and says he didn’t have a single nonwhite classmate from kindergarten through high school. He says he was surrounded by people who used the N-word, flew Confederate flags and wore T-shirts declaring “The South Will Rise Again.”
So why did he turn out differently?
The rest of the story probes that question by asking others who turned out like Hawn.
Hawn says he misses teaching and has financial worries now. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help him.
“What am I going to do for health insurance?” he says. “I’m a Type 1 diabetic.”
Matt needs our help while his appeal is pending. I gave $100 to his GoFundMe page. If you are so moved, I hope you will give whatever you can.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hawn was an “outsider” – as a juvenile diabetic – and early on, developed a sense of empathy, something sorely missing in modern society. Which is part of the reason Hawn is now struggling as he seeks health insurance in our broken, barbaric for-profit system.
Too many policy makers lack a sense of empathy or recognize that in an advanced, civilized society, we take care of each other. And that includes treating health care as a human right, not a delivery mechanism for boosting the profits of corporations and private equity firms.
I think you have identified the solution to the puzzle.
Lack of empathy is the primary symptom of antisocial personality
disorder, Which is overrepresented within our leadership class.
The problem is not so much that ordinary people lack empathy but that many of our leaders (in both business and government) do.
The people who rise to the top often do so because they are willing to do things that most people are not willing to do. Lie, cheat and step on other people.
Many of those Political leaders were elected precisely because of their lack of empathy. And strangely from some of the poorest states in the Union.
Joel, this is a continuing puzzle to me. Why do so many of the states with high poverty elect Republicans who will do nothing to improve their constituents’ lives? Or Democrats like Joe Manchin, who opposes programs that will help the people of his state.
If I may, amen SomeDAM.
Why do so many people in poverty elect people like Trump, who have zero empathy for them, but are eager to protect the 1%?
“The problem is not so much that ordinary people lack empathy but that many of our leaders (in both business and government) do.”
I respectfully and strongly disagree. Probably this lack of empathy gets concentrated by the process of climbing the ladder to power and wealth, but there are plenty of such people among the masses down here. I hear and read their comments every day, in person and in news media, locally and nationally.
Also, a large percentage of people are apolitical, either from ignorance or a belief that civic participation is futile.
Interesting short report on CBS yesterday evening on teaching empathy to medical students. Fits with this post.
dianeravitch
Must I quote LBJ or Dylan. Of course race has always been the easy one in which to demonstrate the behavior. But I would modify both. “Tell any man that he is better than another and he will empty his pockets for you”.
So a NYC Union tradesman many in Union trades that have had high unemployment for years; will repost a Facebook meme that ridicules those with college degrees who can not find employment or is working a low wage job.
Of course “It ain’t him to blame he is only a pawn in their game”
I suppose those in White Virginia can pretend that Manchin is talking about their neighbor and not themselves. Or a Black man they may never have met. (only a little Sarcasm noted).
Off topic as usual, but just as an fyi, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of students are either back in “remote learning” or not doing any learning at all.
So what? If the teachers are still being paid and part of their union dues are being kicked back to Democratic politicians all is good. If you’re going to keep commenting on this blog get with the program.
At Sammy Johnson: Money that goes to dues cannot be used for political action campaigns. There is a specific fund for political action and it is a voluntary contribution. I guess you believe that teacher unions have no 1st amendment rights and must not support Democrats. You believe that teacher unions must shut up and be banned from political actions of any sort. How fascist of you.
Flerp,
just as an fyi, anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are still spreading a virus that has filled up hospital beds and has created havoc for people who have ANY serious disease or need surgery.
I would rather schools be remote for a few weeks than hospitals be closed for a few weeks. How about you?
A few weeks, lol.
flerp,
Did it ever occur to you that some parents might prefer the remote option?
Take a look at the NYC absence rate the last few days — it is the schools that serve some of the least privileged who have higher absences, while schools with higher percentages of privileged folks who feel secure in their family’s ability to get health care even as others are turned away have higher attendance rates.
It appalls me that places like Florida will give their privileged, anti-vax, anti-maskers easy access to free monoclonal treatment no matter how crowded the hospitals are, while the most disadvantaged patients are the ones who are most affected by the scarce resources.
Stop living in a bubble of privilege and think about the bigger picture. Schools re-opened in September everywhere, but how many affluent white college educated folks still get to work from home? I assume you and your spouse ride crowded subways to go to your crowded offices every single day, without fail, correct? And your office requires everyone to be there all day in person, no exceptions, right?
and they say that there IS hope that this moment may sweep by: perhaps much less worry in March and after?
Many parents do seem to want remote learning. I think remote learning is terrible, and most terrible for the most vulnerable students, but I’m just some guy, nobody listens to me. Covid created a crisis that showed the world that, as terrible as remote learning may be, it was a heck of a lot more doable than anyone expected. It has a foothold now, the technology will improve rapidly, and there will be big financial interest lobbying for it. I think more and districts will adopt it as a cost-saving measure as time goes on, and there’ll be no going back. But again, I’m just some guy.
Yeah, I take the subway most days and I go into the office. My kid takes the subway to school. What heroes we are!
Covid isn’t going away. Omicron is the current variant. There’ll be more coming. The next ones may not be as mild. But we have vaccines and treatments. Teachers were the first in-line for vaccines. Anyone who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated. Anyone who wants to wear an N95 mask for more protection can wear one. It’s been two years. Life has to go on. We cannot keep failing children.
But again, I’m just some guy.
Flerp
With a virus as transmissible as measles how many of those schools that are closing do not have the staff to maintain in person learning.
Got it; they should all come to school without the masks you abhor and cough all over each other. 2366 died yesterday were they all Delta at this point?
Isn’t flerp opposed to mandatory mask-wearing in schools, too? Have you changed your mind about that, flerp?
Lots of the most disadvantaged public school students live in the same home with grandparents or other more vulnerable relatives and they don’t have the space to easily social distance if they should be exposed.
Maybe that’s another reason their parents aren’t as casual about them being exposed.
The countries that do harsh lock downs as soon as it even seems as if the virus is spreading also can do shorter lockdowns. But we live in a country where “freedom” (to expose others and spread any disease) is now paramount by right wingers who get all their science information from “experts” most of us would never trust if our own children’s lives were at stake and we needed good medical advice.
FYI,
Parents don’t “WANT” remote learning. They want in-person learning. But they understand that in the middle of a once in a lifetime pandemic made worse by science deniers, suffering through remote learning periods might be better than the alternative.
It’s like health insurance. Most parents will spend money, if they can afford it, to make sure their children have decent health insurance. Even knowing that it is much more likely than not that their child will not need to be hospitalized or treated for a severe illness. Even knowing that they could instead be spending that health insurance money on things that might more directly benefit their child – like tutors or special classes.
No doubt some parents would rather just roll the dice and not spend money on health insurance for their kid. And very likely the majority of them would be fine. No one “wants” to spend money on health insurance if they don’t have to. But most parents understand that sometimes you have to, because doing so might be be better than the alternative. Even if that alternative is relatively unlikely.
Off topic as usual, but just as an fyi, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Republicans are either back taking parasitic worm “medication” or not seeking any vaccination at all.
His high school course was entitled “Contemporary Issues.” He should have stuck with issues like the right to fly confederate flags and carry guns.
And not strayed into seditious propaganda like equal rights under the law.
Is it nature or nurture that makes some people compassionate and empathetic? Some rain scientists believe they can predict party affiliation from a brain scan. Democrats tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex which denotes the ability to resolve conflict and deal with uncertainty. Conservatives tend to have larger amygdala that enables them to perceive threats more easily. Who knows? It might just be hogwash.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-liberal-brains-might-have-some-real-differences/
I hope Mr Hawn gets his job back, if that is what he wants. If not, I hope he uses hhis Go Fund Me money to move to a community that will appreciate his services to young people.
I thought Republicans had an enlarged caligula, which increases support for Trump-like figures.
Good one!
I grew up in a culture of racial hostility. But there were many people, perhaps a majority, that did not accept the idea of racial stereotyping and overt hostility. There were even more who actively rejected the notion of racial prejudice. The presence of racial hostility does not preclude the presence of more positive influences.
I think this is the norm, Roy. It accords with my own experience and the experience of others close to me. Many people have an impression that racism and racial hostility are as bad as or worse than ever. But I think the opposite is the case.
Flerp,
I agree that racism is not as bad as it used to be. There are no more lynchings. People of different races can sit wherever they want on a public bus, eat at will in any restaurant they can afford, even run for president and win. But you know as well as I that racism persists. Read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law if you don’t believe your own eyes.
Diane, also attitudes about race as shown in polling, and inter-marriage rates, which continue to rise. Of course there is still racism. There will probably always be racism. But there has been a huge amount of progress and the progress continues.
Flerp: My own perception is that historically, there was hardly a European that did not believe in the myth of basic European superiority and the accompanying corollary, the inferiority of other humans. Most of the writings of Union soldiers during the American Civil War mirror this attitude. Many southerners I grew up with had a sort of history guilt about race relations.
Modern racists do not seem to have any understanding of the source of their attitudes, suggesting that the hostility they feel is caused by the objects of their spite. The good lives with the bad, pretty much as it always has. Thank God we have risen to the condemnation of racial violence. Or at least we were at that level before Trump refused to call out the extreme right at Charlottesville. May violence never return.
Roy,
I think the strong anti-CRT reaction by people who have no idea what CRT is but just know it is “anti-white” tells you a lot about the implicit racism that has been kept behind closed doors for the last few decades. What’s scary to me is that people aren’t ashamed to espouse racist views out loud anymore.
The extreme reaction to Nikole Hannah-Jones pretty much tells you where many Americans still are. Including those who post here who claim there is no way that they could ever have any implicit racist biases and yet reveal them in so many ways that they post.
I am still waiting for an acknowledgement that accepting Eva Moskowitz’ racist innuendoes about the violent tendencies of an extraordinarily high number of lottery winners who were kindergarten and first graders in Success Academy Charter schools makes one implicitly racist.
Although I think from the attacks that flerp directed toward me whenever I brought that up, he would disagree. flerp did not like at all whenever I mentioned how racist it was for anyone to accept without a question when a white charter CEO makes implicitly racist innuendoes about the disproportionately high number of violent children who won lottery seats and enrolled at Success Academy.
People like flerp can readily believe that if a white CEO says that 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds in one of her charter schools with virtually no white students deserved to get out of school suspensions because it was necessary to protect the other children, then that white CEO must definitely be believed.
Believing such nonsense about 5 year olds who supposedly “need” to be given out of school suspensions (some of them multiple times) when those 5 year olds happen to attend charter schools with virtually no white students is what makes someone implicitly racist. And attacking people who call out such nonsense because they don’t like anyone questioning a white charter CEO who invokes the violent natures of the youngest students during the very few times any education reporter questions it suggests that maybe that person isn’t completely unaware of his implicitly racist biases.
It’s hard to take seriously those who pronounce that racism is declining significantly when they are the same people who attack critics of high suspension rates for 5 year olds in charters that have virtually no white students. That idea would have a lot more credibility coming from someone who could acknowledge that those 5 year olds didn’t all need to be suspended and not coming from someone defending the outrageously racist innuendo made by charter administrators about how they sure did need to be suspended.
Still waiting for flerp to finally acknowledge the big lie about the disproportionately high levels of violence in 5 year olds who enrolled in Success Academy charters that had virtually no white students. Still waiting for flerp to finally acknowledge the implicit racism that was evident by those who didn’t challenge that ridiculously racist innuendo.
Still waiting for flerp to acknowledge that there might be something racist when a group of white people appointed to oversee charters doesn’t find it weird that a charter high school starts with 191 of the supposedly best educated students in the state in 9th grade and only graduates 98 of them 4 years later. But instead fawns over the charter.
NYC: Thanks for the long reply. I do not have any doubt that the reaction to the Hannah-Jones article strips the paint off deep racism. The paint was not very deep. As a generation of migrants North learned in the early 1900s following Plessey vs Ferguson, racism was not a geographical phenomenon then, and it is not now either.
I cannot comment on the charter issue. I am not familiar enough with that because it is chiefly urban.
You just typed “flerp” six or seven times in a single post. Triggered again, I see.
flerp,
LOL! I love when you get triggered!
You used to attack me whenever I pointed out that the justification for disproportionately high out of school suspension rates for 5 and 6 year olds in some of Success Academy’s charter schools with virtually no white students was implicitly racist.
It wasn’t that you vehemently disagreed with me about that. It was that you were so triggered by my criticism of Success Academy’s extraordinarily high suspension rates for 5 and 6 year olds that you had to attack me personally because you so strongly objected.
I never understood why you accepted without question that a charter school with virtually no white students might feel compelled to give the (in your mind?) violent 5 and 6 year olds out of school suspensions to protect the other students. I wondered what triggered your need to attack me for calling out that anyone who believes that is implicitly racist. Maybe it had nothing to do with your strong feelings that all of those kindergarten and first graders deserved their suspensions, but the strong trust you placed in Eva Moskowitz’ integrity. Moskowitz did publicly endorse Betsy DeVos when DeVos’ confirmation seemed in doubt, so clearly your faith in the integrity of Eva Moskowitz to run schools that (in your mind?) correctly identify and suitably punish all of those violent 5 year old lottery winners is not to be questioned.
I never understood why you got so triggered when I called out that someone had to be implicitly racist to believe the lie that all of those 5 and 6 year olds needed to be suspended (some multiple times!) You almost seemed to take it personally.
What did trigger you about that? Why did you immediately attack me instead of acknowledging that anyone who identifies 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds in a charter schools as so violent that the charter had no choice but to suspend them from school is expressing an extremely negative view about an extraordinarily high number of very young children?
Of course you don’t acknowledge you could have any implicit racism yourself. And I know you will never admit that your unquestioning belief in the violent natures of so many Success Academy 5 year olds has nothing to do with their race. Nothing at all.
I’m sorry, but I can’t figure out what you are going on about.
NYC public school parent
I agree 100% and you saved me a reply to Flerp about the 94% white Commack district going nuts about CRT led by the NYPD/ and Long Island PBAs. Another part of the equation I will spare you.
However you could have shortened it up a bit.
Joel,
Thanks and you are right that my replies are definitely too long and repetitive.
I will try a more concise version especially for flerp.
flerp, I often posted here about the fact that there is implicit racism when anyone accepts without question a white charter CEO justifying high suspension rates of 5 and 6 year old students as “necessary” using the outrageously racist innuendo about how dangerous those very young students are. It wasn’t a coincidence that the highest suspension rates for kindergarten (!!) and first grade students occurred in some of the charters that had virtually no white students.
flerp, you are one of those who accepted those high suspension rates without question. And to make it worse, you would often go out of your way to make personal attacks on me whenever I pointed out that people should not simply believe a white CEO about how violent so many of the 5 year olds who win lotteries for her charters are. I wanted to encourage people to question that — you wanted me to shut up.
flerp, I couldn’t figure out why you had such a vested interest in defending a charter that suspended so many very young children and invoked their supposedly violent actions to justify it. I used to assume you just had some connection to that charter network, not that you were implicitly racist and really believed all those kindergarten and first grade children “needed” to be suspended from school.
But maybe I was wrong.
In my opinion, there isn’t a lot of difference between people who believe that overly aggressive policing of African Americans is “necessary” and people who believe that aggressively disciplining and suspending even the very youngest students at a charter with virtually no white students is “necessary”.
What are you talking about?
flerp,
If I am wrong, you could have just said something like “you are wrong, I agree with you that Success Academy’s high suspension rates of kindergarten and first grade students was indefensible.”
If I am wrong, you could have just said something like “you are wrong, I agree with you that invoking kindergarten and first graders being dangerous to justify high suspension rates – especially when those high suspension rates are at a charter school with virtually no white students – is a classic use of racist innuendo.”
Or you could have said something like “how dare you criticize the great Success Academy whose CEO has done so much for children who are African American and is no more implicitly racist than I am.”
I will never understand why you are so disingenuous. You would never directly defend the abhorrent things that Success Academy did – you would just attack me personally for criticizing them.
I doubt your posting your confusion yet another time will fool anyone. Let’s just stop this discussion now. You are who you are.
Great suggestion.
Stop the exchange right now as it is descending to vitriol.
Stop. Or I’ll start deleting these posts.
To add to this discussion. Hawn hails from Sullivan County Tennessee, the first hotbed of abolitionism in the early 1800s. It was down the road at Jonesboro that Elihu Embree publisher The Manumission Intelligencer, the first abolitionist newspaper in the US.
During the American Civil War, the South held East Tennessee by force, a military impossibility in Virginia, giving us West Virginia as a state.
East Tennessee is a very conservative place in many ways, especially due to the effect of fundamentalism in the Twentieth Century. There are also several places that have a very poor reputation among my Black friends. The reputations are not altogether undeserved.
That said, East Tennessee also is home to other groups, most interestingly the Highlander School run as a union training center and later a place to learn civil disobedience. Rosa Parks and MLK both learned there.
My own opinion is that modern conservatism and widespread Trump support in the state come from a solid base of fundamentalist Christians paired with an increasingly conservative political migrant from a blue state somewhere. Seems like all the new people I meet are disgruntled migrants from California or Colorado complaining about all the democrats.
It’s also where the Scopes Monkey trial took place. Throughout the twentieth century East Tennessee dominated state politics and the conservative fundamentalism from that region has infected most of the rural counties. Much like the national political imbalance with rural states across the country, Southern states continue to be run by rural communities.
My ancestors settled in the South in the 17th century on both my father’s and mother’s side. Plantations with slaves are part of my heritage. My fathers Uncle was a Congressman for the first district in North Carolina from 1940-1966 as a southern Democrat. My mother’s family was from the low lands of South Carolina. Mary Boykin Chestnut, one of my ancestors, wrote “Diary from Dixie” while her husband served as one of Jefferson Davis’ chief advisors which was used as a significant source in Ken Burn’s Civil War series. My father was an Episcopal priest who was credited as the principal mediator with the black community as he helped negotiate the integration of lunch counters in Chattanooga and chaired the Human Relations Committee that got national attention for getting the city through the civil rights era with little violence compared to other southern cities. My mother was a staunch supporter of public schools who was an advocate for busing for integration and frequently went before the local school board to promote education equality. I have often wondered how my parents came to their progressive positions on race in the South given that they both came from families with strong Jim Crow sensibilities that in some cases continue to this day. In an oral history interview of my father around 1980, he said, and I paraphrase, we just can’t understand the slavery of 1950. He knew what he saw was wrong as he served his communities and he acted to right a wrong. It is such a witness that tells me that good can come from tribulation if we acknowledge the human cost of hate.
Interesting heritage, Paul. My experience with that generation was that Southern Liberals were heavily influenced by their churches, even as the Black Churches formed the basis for the Civil Rights movement. My own family was heavily influenced by liberalism in the Methodist Church. I once met a man who demonstrated against scrap metal sales to Japan after the 1931 invasion of Manchuria. These people were very much politically involved. Mainstream Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal Churches all contained a significant strain of Liberal philosophy even as many of the church members maintained conservatism. I do not doubt that this alienated many of the church members