Forsyth County Georgia Board of Education - Jere Krischel - 9/14/2021

Last month, I extended an invitation to all those who disagreed with me about DEI to have lunch with me, and talk about it. I'm grateful to report that someone actually took me up on my offer.

The young man, Declan, was actually the son of one of the speakers last month - a math teacher, who praised the children who have spoken here in support of the DEI program, and who eloquently expressed his desire, to be a support for all the children he encounters in school, even though he's a straight white male.

Now, I don't think our lunch changed anyone's mind, but I did learn a great deal about Declan's point of view.

Declan was very concerned about bigotry, and was thoroughly convinced that conservative bigots that he had met throughout his life, were largely representative of all conservative thought.

He was also an outspoken and dedicated marxist and communist, but thankfully was unwilling to condone the use of violence to impose his vision of utopia on the world.

It struck me that Declan was incredibly sensitive to the many corruptions one can find in our systems, and truly believed that a properly constructed system of marxism and communism would eliminate the possibility of corruption.

When the subject turned to capitalism, in what was probably the most ironic part of our conversation, Declan was surprisingly, incredibly supportive of Big Pharma, the epitome of capitalist corruption. He truly believed that it was impossible that any corners had been cut in bringing Trump's Operation "Warp Speed" for vaccines to reality. Where he was otherwise willing to be incredibly skeptical about capitalist systems and the corruption that can happen in them, he was absolutely positive that the systems of big pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, the CDC, and peer reviewed literature, could not possibly be corrupted. For any of you who have been touched by the opioid epidemic, and know anything about the big pharma corruption that created oxycontin, it can be difficult to imagine someone trusting Big Pharma so blindly.

But more importantly than our discussions about politics or economics, I learned that Declan loved and admired his father, and refused to put him in the "straight white male" box when it came to diversity. Though he cited studies that suggested that people of color cannot perform as well as white people if they don't have teachers that look like them, he was adamant that people of color, taught by his father, would not suffer any disadvantage.

When my father used to buy me and my brother a candy bar, he'd make one of us split it, and have the other one choose which half to take. It was a system of checks and balances that kept things fair.

I'd like to suggest the same sort of check and balance system for our Diversity, Inclusion and Equity program - if we are going to promote something that is mostly a left-wing political point of view, let's put right-wing people in charge of its implementation. Make sure that the staff who are running the DEI program have impeccable conservative credentials, rather than social justice bona fides. Make sure that the DEI programs chosen are approved by conservative stakeholders, as well as liberal ones. There are anti-racist trainings out there that don't demonize white people, or insist our country, or schools, or white people are inherently racist.

I look forward to working with the Board and the school district to bring true diversity, equity and inclusion into our institutions, focusing on individuals rather than groups.

Thank you very much, and my offer for a talk over lunch to anyone who disagrees with me is still open.