The Splendid Spectrum of Humanity: Why Identity is Blurry, not Binary
The first “theory” about diversity that I remember learning in school was in 9th grade. Until recently, I didn’t know it was a very whitewashed version, though I’m not shocked.
I remember standing in the hall outside my French class talking to a classmate. Because our freshman health teachers were planning to use some newer, progressive sex ed info, some parents were pissed. It was the first time they’d be teaching the controversial “Rainbow Curriculum” in our school, which this kid supposed was pretty rad.
For both the bougie public high school and broods of suburban teens, The Rainbow Curriculum was edgy. Where I grew up, most adults were fiscally conservative, i.e. privileged Brads, Chads, and Karens.
My education was quite solid, thanks to astronomically high property taxes, upper-middle class parents with advanced degrees, and a large population of reform Jews. No doubt our religious “diversity” helped this edgy concept eek through.
After digging into its origins 30 years later, I learned of the “‘explosive’ arguments and drama in New York City schools over these new lessons.” (New York Times, 1992) As the Schuyler Sisters sang in Hamilton, “History [was] happening in Manhattan. And we just happen[ed] to be in the greatest city in the world”……
