Palo Alto Unified School District’s ethnic studies course features a focus on examining students’ power and privilege, including ‘white privilege;’ uses a document which states that discussions and content will bring ‘discomfort’ and ‘anger’

Palo Alto Unified School District’s ethnic studies course features topics such as white privilege, oppression, power, and white supremacy. Course materials include an exercise on examining privilege and power and utilizes the “Wheel of Privilege.” Topics include “Black resistance” and the Black Panther Party Ten-Point program.

The unit titled “Power, Privilege, and Oppression” includes essential questions such as:

• “Can someone have privilege in one area of their life and experience oppression in another? (Intersectionality)”
• “How do our social identities influence the power and privilege we hold?”
• “How much power do I have in my society?”
• “How can privilege impact identity?”
• “How do power, privilege, and systems of oppression impact how we remember events?”

One of the weekly topics examines “structural power” and how it has affected various ethnic groups. Students learn about the “4 I’s of Oppression” and respond to a prompt connecting “White Privilege” to the “Wheel of Power/Privilege.”

The unit also includes a document listed as “Ethnic Studies Shared Understandings,” but is actually titled “Shared Understanding when studying and discussing Privilege and Power and other uncomfortable topics!”

The document states that students should be “uncomfortable together” because “it’s hard to talk about oppression in our society.” Another paragraph titled “People of privilege may be challenged by this course” states that students will “probably feel guilty at times” and “probably be defensive” but calls upon students to embrace these feelings and think of times they “have been oppressed or marginalized.” Students are asked how “can that discomfort be a means of empathizing with the pain of oppression.”

It also states that “having privilege does not mean that your life has been easy” and that privilege too can “cause life ‘troubles.'”

Another section titled “We are at different points on the learning curve related to structural oppressions” states that “some of us, by virtue of our skin color, class background, or awareness/experience, will be very aware of dynamics related to oppression” while “some of you will have no clue.” It also shares that “even straight white males can feel marginalized at given points in their journey through life.”

It concludes by stating that “anger is a completely appropriate response to injustice” and cautions students that it is “not useful to compare oppression.”

The unit titled “Resilience and Resistance” asks students how “different ethnic groups adapted traditional forms of resistance to contemporary situations” and how do “different acts of resistance create hope, healing, and spaces for positive change?”

Students learn about the Black Panther Party and its “Ten-Point Program” and are asked about what they think of the “use of violence as a form of resistance” and “if ever, is it justified? How effective is it as a tactic?”

The course concludes with a “Capstone Project” that includes the exploration of “civic engagement through a choice project.”

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Key definitions or terminology for the course include “intersectionality,” “power,” “privilege,” “oppression,” “institutional racism,” “settler colonialism,” and “white supremacy.”