Bizarre NSW education department ‘white privilege game’ brainwashing children

Official lesson plans provided by the NSW Education Department teaching schoolchildren about ‘white privilege’ and ‘unconscious bias’ have been condemned as ‘indoctrination’.

Official lesson plans provided by the NSW Education Department teaching schoolchildren about “white privilege” and stating that everyone has “unconscious bias” have been condemned as “indoctrination”.

The NSW Department of Education-run website called ‘Racism No Way’ provides lesson plans to combat racism, but includes a bizarre “privilege for sale” game that the education bureaucrats admit “can be deeply triggering” for children and “create feelings of shame”.

Education bureaucrats also warn students might need to “seek the help of a counsellor” after studying an indigenous rap song I Can’t Breathe and being told Australian institutions are racist, with other lesson plans questioning the Australian flag.

The content has been slammed for creating “mini social justice activists who will grow up hating Australia because they believe it’s racist”, but NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell is resisting calls to pull the plug on the website.

"Got White privilege?" video, part of a lesson plan video for NSW students on the NSW Department of Education managed website RacismNoWay.

The student worksheets also claim governments want to “subvert or silence the true history of Australia” because they don’t want to face “uncomfortable truths about the past” and promote the “stereotype Australia is the Lucky Country when in fact it’s only lucky for a select few”.

Institute of Public Affairs Western Civilisation researcher Dr Bella d’Abrera says it’s “extremely racist” itself to teach the “false idea” of white privilege because it tells white children they are bad people because of the colour of their skin.

The official website states “the first step to addressing your unconscious biases is to acknowledge that everyone has them”.

Still from the"Got White privilege?" video lesson plan which tells children “white people get perks”.

The “privilege for sale” lesson plan designed for Year 9 to 10 states that “race is a social construct” with students given slips of paper representing $100 vouchers to buy “privileges”.

Lesson notes say children the activity can be “deeply triggering or frustrating” because children can’t access privileges.

Other students“may be emotional” during the game because “it will bring up “feelings of guilt or even feelings of shame for taking things for granted”.

Lesson plan NSW students on how they are “privileged” on the NSW Department of Education managed website RacismNoWay.

One of the sale items is the “privilege” that any “flesh-coloured, skin-coloured or naked product will more or less match my skin tone”.

Another privilege is turning on a TV and seeing people of their race represented in a positive light, or visiting a hairdresser and finding “someone who can cut my hair”. Another so-called “privilege” is visiting a music shop and finding “music of my race represented”.

A separate lesson plan called Got White Privilege? students watch a US video called “You don’t have to be racist to have white privilege” which tells them “white people get perks”.

The materials state “White Australians” have European, British or German ancestry and that privilege means an “unearned advantage or entitlement” and recommends “identifying “individuals who due to their privilege are granted unearned advantages”.

Students study the song I Can’t Breathe and are taught Australian “institutions are rooted in racism” and the “Lucky Country is only lucky for a select few” on the NSW Department of Education managed website RacismNoWay.

“It is important to identify these inherent advantages in order to reject them so that they do not continue to reinforce our present hierarchies,” the notes state. They also state “privilege is invisible to those of us who have privilege”.

After watching the video about white privilege the children have to answer questions about Aboriginal communities and whether the treatment of different groups correlate to their “whiteness or shades thereof”.

One Nation MP Mark Latham, who campaigns to remove political material from school lessons, said “political voodoo theories” such as white privilege and unconscious bias were not only confusing children but destroying the innocence of childhood.

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham. AAP Joel Carrett.

“Visit a public housing in Sydney and you can see white people in pretty desperate circumstances,” he said. “And unconscious bias is like a medieval superstition – that people somehow don’t have control of their faculties, their own thought processes.”

Ms Bella says children as young as four should not be “indoctrinated” with radical race theory teaching white people are racist and that Australia is a racist country.

“There is absolutely no place for Critical Race Theory or Unconscious Bias training in Australian schools,” she said.

Dr Bella d'Abrera

“The idea of white privilege is not only demonstrably false, but it is also extremely racist because it is tells white children that they are bad people because of the colour of their skin.”

“Children need to be taught the basics of literacy and numeracy by their teachers, not turned into mini social justice activists who will grow up hating Australia because they believe it’s racist.”

She called on NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell to “do everything her power to protect children from this rubbish”.

Ms Mitchell did not answer questions about the controversial content, with a spokeswoman saying it was a national site managed by the NSW Department of Education for all Australian schools.

“The website was established in 2000 as part of the broader Racism. No Way project responding to racism and its impact in Australian schools,” she said.

Originally published as Bizarre NSW education department ‘white privilege game’ brainwashing children