Woke SBCC’s $11,000 E-Book Scam
by Celeste Barber
In a key scene from the Broadway musical The Music Man, traveling salesman Harold Hill has just arrived in idyllic River City, Iowa. His goal is to hoodwink the local “boodle bags” into believing that their town is in desperate need of a boys’ band.
Suddenly, he spies the new pool hall across the street.
There’s the grift!
By the end of “Ya Got Trouble,” Professor Hill has convinced the good folks of River City that unless they buy into his scheme to create a band (and incidentally purchase uniforms and equipment for that band), the boys of River City will surely be corrupted by the lurid attraction of the pool hall.
Like Music Man’s townsfolk, parents today have been fed a horrific lie about themselves, their communities, and our national identity: The lie that the United States is hopelessly racist.
In his important new book, School of Woke, investigative journalist Kenny Xu lays out the massive hoax perpetrated on America’s families through the schools entrusted with their sons and daughters: Critical Race Theory.
Instructors, rather than teaching students how to think, are now trained to be facilitators who encourage their students to explore “feelings” through programs like “Social-Emotional Learning.”
School of Woke opens with an overview into the history behind Critical Race Theory, including its roots in Marxism and how opportunists (Capitalists!) came to recognize that the industry of victimhood could be lucrative.
Xu introduces Alexander “Xan” Tanner (Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law), a Yale graduate who partners with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to develop “a student-surveying platform that focuses on the mysterious concept of ‘social-emotional learning’” (xi).
As Xu details: “Tanner’s pitching strategy was to convince schools that they needed data on ‘racism’ at their institutions to help children with their ‘social-emotional health’” (xiii). His firm was awarded contracts in the millions from targeted Progressive school districts across the nation.
This approach spread rapidly and infiltrated school districts across the nation – including our own Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD), profiled in the book.
In chapter 9 (“Queer Theory’s Endangerment of Children”), we are introduced to Jennifer Freed. Freed runs AHA! (Attitudes, Harmony, and Achievement), a non-profit organization that has been awarded lucrative contracts from SBUSD, with no accountability required, and which was championed by then board member and now Santa Barbara County Second District Supervisor Laura Capps.
Chapters 7 and 8 are the most compelling, as they provide chilling detail of how the classroom has been taken over by those hawking the “oppressed-oppressor dichotomy,” and profiting handsomely.
Chapter 7 (“Critical Race Theory’s Assault on Merit”) details San Francisco’s replacement of traditional math – Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus – with “Real-Life Math,” the intent being to “refocus” the curriculum on student-based relevancy. Or as one student discloses: “Every time in school, [calculus has] always been about memorization. School isn’t built the way it needs to. I don’t need no calculus. I have to go home and help my family with the house” (100).
Thus, the hawkers of DEI perpetrate the racism against which they rail, through the lowering of expectations for minority students.
Chapter 8 (“Critical Race Theory’s Assault on Identity”) cuts straight to the endgame: control of students through their identity, and not simply racial or ethnic, but sexual. Here, AHA’s contract with SBUSD is examined through its technique of “Social-Emotional Learning” (SEL). In small groups, students are compelled to share their most intimate concerns with fellow students, including sexuality.
SEL facilitators prey on students at precisely the moment in their lives when questioning one’s evolving identity is part of the normal process of adolescent emotional growth. Thus, vulnerable students become susceptible to sexual predators feigning as teachers and counselors.
Kenny Xu relates the story of Santa Barbara High School history teacher Matef Harmachis. Students reported his inappropriate behavior numerous times. The complaints were glossed over by SBUSD administrators, until one student, “Maria,” filed a lawsuit. As Xu documents, when AHA! was eventually audited by the District, Laura Capps came to the defense of Freed’s organization – despite the facts displayed before her at the open school board meeting. Here, Xu documents the incestuous relationship between DEI hucksters and those who control the public-school purse strings.
School of Woke closes with hope. Kenny Xu argues that the battle for our children is not yet lost. Chapter 11 (“Fight Back Against Tyrants”) presents two key strategies for rebuilding America’s schools: Set high expectations and hold people accountable for everything. Indeed, the book profiles two local champions doing just that: Sheridan Rosenberg and Christy Lozano.
Sheridan relates her daughter’s experience of an AHA! group circle in which Santa Barbara High students were compelled to disclose personal experiences, including sexual, in a public setting. Currently, Sheridan Rosenberg is a leader in the local parents’ watchdog organization, Fair Education, an organization that demands high expectations and accountability.
The book also profiles Christy Lozano, the former local teacher who ran for County Superintendent of Schools against an entrenched incumbent. She lost the election in this heavily Democratic-controlled region, but she voiced what many were afraid to express and drew extensive support. Both women shook the Woke power structure that controls our Santa Barbara schools.
Santa Barbara City College has posted on the upcoming Board of Trustees agenda, under Consent Item 11.21: A requisition order for the purchase of ten ProQuest E books.
The book, Racial Formation in the United States, 3rd Edition, lists at $1,100 each, for a total cost of $11,000.
Yes, you read that right: $11,000. for ten e-books. Non-returnable.
Think about that figure, and then consider Kenny Xu’s challenge: This Thursday January 18th, you are invited to show up at City College to speak against Consent Item 11.21. 4 pm at SBCC MacDougall Administration Center room A211 and on zoom.
Chaucer’s Bookstore has hardcover copies of School of Woke on the shelf. I checked. Price? $29.00.
Bravo. Thank-you for shining a light on the craziness and corruption. Any wonder that enrollment at SBCC is down 50% "? Students are "voting with their feet." Meanwhile, the faculty push for a four day work week.
W Naylor
We are playing the long game, and we must not give up and continue to expose the corruption that plagues our communities and our nation. We must fight this on a local level, and in this article, Celeste Barber punts one hard down the field and we need the team to show up to catch the ball for a touchdown at the SBCC meeting on Thursday. Great Article Celeste!