BLM movement’s social justice politics and ‘queer, trans-affirming’ lessons delivered to kids as young as 5 in NYC school
A New York City elementary school is giving kids as young as 5 a woke Black Lives Matter coloring book that focuses on “queer and transgender affirming” lessons, revolutionary politics and demands to “fund counselors not cops” to teach them about Black History Month.
Students at PS 321 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope — which teaches children from kindergarten through fifth grade — were handed the “What We Believe: A Black Lives Matter Principles Activity Book” coloring book last week as part of a Black History Month lesson.
The book, which is based on the 13 “guiding principles” of the national Black Lives Matter at School curriculum, was reportedly assigned as coursework for the young kids. It includes dedicated pages with headlines like “transgender affirming” and “queer affirming.”
“When a person is born, their grown-ups generally decide whether to call them a girl or a boy. Sometimes that decision doesn’t match who the person really is, and that person is transgender,” a description on the trans page reads.
The book also lists off a slew of the BLM’s national demands and ways children can support the movement — including a push to “have counsellors in schools instead of police.” “use restorative justice” and “teach black history and ethnic studies.”
Some parents, however, insisted the coloring book didn’t actually teach their kids about black history and instead presented controversial ideas “as fact.”
“It’s not necessarily true. It’s not like every black person believes in these principles,” the mom of a fourth grader told The Free Press, which first reported on the woke coloring book Thursday.
She added the book doesn’t go “into enough detail and there is no mention of specific people. It just feels very vague.”
Other parents expressed outrage over the movement’s guiding principles, which are splashed across the website for Black Lives Matter at School, the Seattle-based group behind the coloring book. The woke org offers resources for schools across the country, including for “early childhood” lessons.
Under the “Transgender Affirming” section of the Black Lives Matter at School site, for example, the group spells out that “we are self-reflexive and consistently do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege.”
Some parents at the school also took issue with a section titled Empathy and its use of the word “comrades” — with some interpreting it as a political term and push to promote communist propaganda.
“Using the word comrades comes from communist times,” the mom of the fourth grader, whose grandparents fled China for the US, told The Free Press. “They are using words that I don’t think are appropriate for elementary school.”
PS 321, with 1,217 students, has a reputation as one of the best elementary schools in the city. It also has one of the highest portions of white kids — 67%. Only 3% of students are black, city records show.
While parents acknowledged that some of the lessons from the coloring book — and wider BLM curriculum — appeared harmless, such as the importance of forgiveness, they argued that others were rooted in revolutionary politics.
The “Black Villages” principle, for example, describes disrupting “the narrow Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” And the “Intergenerational” section calls for a “communal network free from ageism and adultism.”
Robert Pondiscio, a teaching expert and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, weighed in on the backlash, saying he wasn’t convinced the book was an attempt to indoctrinate kids.
“But the poor judgment and lack of common sense among educators in selecting material is sometimes jaw-dropping and inexcusable,” the ex-Big Apple teacher wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Phil Wong, a parent and former president of Community Education Council 24 in Queens, ripped the racial justice element associated with the coloring book.
“If schools really want to teach racial justice, then the materials should be about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglas or Harriet Tubman. Recent movements have erased these names from history classes,” Wong told The Post.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many PS 321 students were given the coloring book last week. One mom said she only learned of its existence when students were sent home for remote learning due to a winter storm last week.
Park Slope parents seemed in short supply in the neighborhood on Thursday, with schools closed for midwinter break. The kids who were out and about were mostly accompanied by nannies.
PS 321 on Thursday refused to comment on the distribution of the BLM coloring book until school resumes.
The city’s Department of Education confirmed the existence of the book, but declined to answer questions about whether officials knew of its dissemination – or if it was being taught in any other Big Apple public schools.
Instead, a DOE spokesperson only said: “Anytime parents have a concern about resources used in school, we encourage them to share their concerns to the school principal or district superintendent.”
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts
