Dr. Ann Gillies (00:13):

Hello everyone. Welcome to Truth Talks with Dr. Anne. So today we are continuing our series with Chanel Pfahl, and Chanel is going to be talking to us today about the issue that really started the ball rolling for her and got her suspended from teaching, and that’s critical race theory. So welcome Chanel. Thank you for coming back and talking about this because we are talking about really everything that’s happening educationally within the public school system and critical race theory is definitely one of those hot buttons educationally that’s on steroids for our kids. So let’s talk about that.

Chanel Pfahl (00:56):

Thanks for having me. So this first slide that we see here, is it visible? Yeah. Okay. I had posted this not too long ago. It’s just about students who are drawing identity, they’re drawing self-portraits using markers of all the skin tone colors and all that. And it says we are connecting this to larger concepts of identity, oppression, allyship, equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-oppression. So I posted this recently and as well the replies came in. There were a lot who said, how could you ever oppose this? Why would you ever oppose teaching about oppression and inclusion and all this stuff? It sounds so good. Yeah, I agree. It does sound good. But the reality is, as with the gender stuff that we talked about before, what we’re doing is we’re making students be hyper aware of these traits that group them into tribes kind of, and it puts them against their peers. It confuses them about, well, really the values of our society, which we’re supposed to be colorblindness, where we don’t treat people differently based on the race, and it’s not a big deal what color you are. That really doesn’t matter because what matters is your character. This is how it was before, and it’s so sad that now you can see this is in grade 6, 7, 8.

Dr. Ann Gillies (02:34):

Yes,

Chanel Pfahl (02:35):

But it starts younger than that. I’ve seen pictures of kindergartners comparing their skin colors and trying to find the right shade for their skin color. And you might say, well, why not? If they’re going to draw themselves, they have, they by want to get the right skin tone, okay, that’s fine, but maybe it looks sort of innocent. But the reality is, in that classroom, they’re having discussions that you’re not privy to, and those probably include discussions on power and privilege and things like this. Maybe in kindergarten they won’t go into much detail, but the kids are not stupid and they can sense when this subject is a big deal. And it’s important to classify everyone by race.

Dr. Ann Gillies (03:22):

It obviously is a big deal because look at all the hashtags instead of being a simple, okay, let’s talk about the beauty of skin color, which that sounds pretty good. I like my skin color. If I was black, I’d be happy too, but okay, the beauty of skin color and then it’s aspects of their visible identity. So then you immediately start subcategories and then you get to the hashtags and you go, okay, what is it really about? It’s not just a simple exercise of coloring a picture. It’s so much more than that. So let’s go to the next one because this is another one. Quite a challenge. This one? Yeah, this awesome

Chanel Pfahl (04:11):

Book. I can’t remember the name of the book, but I think it’s just one of the pages in the book where it compares whiteness to basically a deal with the devil and wow, we can see the whole picture. You’ll see, I think if I remember correctly, there’s a devil and there’s shaking hands, kind of like a deal where if you’re white, you get, well, it says at the top you get stolen land, stolen riches and special favors. So no wonder kids are running away from it if they could identify as black. Well, apparently some can. Now, as you said last week, some teacher was doing that, but most kids aren’t going to do that, but they can’t identify as some other race, and what they’re going to do instead is run from their gender because all they’re trying to do run from this nasty label of privilege and power that was imposed on them.

Dr. Ann Gillies (05:18):

When I read this, whiteness gets to mess endlessly with the lives of your friends. This is so demoralizing to children. It’s so demoralizing to me because I’m white, I mess with my friends and loved ones for the purpose of profit? It is just how do educators validate this kind of teaching?

Chanel Pfahl (05:51):

Yeah, I have no idea. I don’t know how any sane human being, especially someone who was in teaching 20 years ago and knew what it was like when things were fairly normal and now they’ve accepted this. I really can’t understand the new teachers who have never known anything different. I mean, maybe fine if you learn this in teacher’s college, and you think that this is the way to go. But even then when you’re telling children that whiteness is bad, and this is how they explain it, they say, well, whiteness isn’t about your skin color though. We’re talking about an ideology, so we’re allowed. It’s like to, well, we don’t do the same thing with blackness. Imagine saying, oh, blackness is this terrible thing. People would freak out.

Dr. Ann Gillies (06:41):

And that you’re endlessly punishing your friends or your loved ones just because you’re black and you’re doing it for a profit. If you turned it upside down, that’s exactly what it would say and this kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, how do children pull all this apart? It is just to me, well, radical indoctrination. What about when we look at this next one, FLS leadership team? What is FLS?

Chanel Pfahl (07:16):

French as a second language.

Dr. Ann Gillies (07:18):

Ah, okay. Okay. Okay, awesome.

Chanel Pfahl (07:22):

There’s two ESL, so English as a second language and French as a second language. There was another one I posted this summer that was an ESL PD day. So teachers are learning to help newcomer students who weren’t proficient in English, and it was all just about whiteness, white privilege, interest, equality. So the teachers did not discuss English basically at all. Maybe 10% of the day was actually talking about English language.

Dr. Ann Gillies (08:00):

That is something I actually have heard about. And you think, okay, so most of these individuals who are learning English, a lot of them, I won’t say most, but a lot of them are recent immigrants as well. And a lot of recent immigrants do not cave to this kind of ideology. They’re just astounded. They came to Canada and they come to an English class to learn English, and then they’re being subjected to this kind of foreign behavior. They often are vehemently opposed to it, and yet they’re stuck in it just like the children in our schools. Wow.

Chanel Pfahl (08:52):

Well, this is being pushed on kids. So I guess they just take advantage of that. The parents would not align with these values. I’m sure they came here for a better life, everything, but the kids, they don’t know any better. So I don’t know exactly how much of this is being pushed on kids, but I think the whole premise here, why this gets tied into language is because they figure, okay, one of the most important skills is kids need to learn to read and write, right? Technically. Yes. So how do we get to that goal? And then the theory is, well, the kids have to see themselves in the learning, so they have to feel affirmed in their identity. So we have all of these beliefs about groups and their relative oppression, and we think, okay, well the brown kids, they’re not going to learn to read unless we read them books about brown kids.

(09:55):

And so we have to talk about privilege and oppression and blah, blah, blah, if we want them to succeed academically. Now the thing is, we never get to the actual goal because we just get tied into all these politics, like this political stuff. It’s like Paolo or whatever, it’s his handbook. He was a Marxist and this is what he did. Literacy was inherently political. It wasn’t about teaching kids to write and to read. It was to teach kids to view the world through a certain lens where groups are divided into, or people are divided into multiple groups. Some of them are oppressed, some of them aren’t. yeah. I mean, actually there was something I posted just a few days ago. It was at the, oh, I’m going to get the board wrong, so I’m not going to say it, but it was so blatant. Oh, it was the Toronto District School Board. It was so blatant. Oh,

Dr. Ann Gillies (11:00):

well, there you go.

Chanel Pfahl (11:00):

It actually sat in it that literacy is not just about learning to read and write, but learning about equity and diversity or something like that. And there was many different elements in this list. It was describing what literacy is, and it was all about how literacy is actually political indoctrination. And this was taught to educators at a high school in Toronto.

Dr. Ann Gillies (11:33):

Well, I think I’m right that we cannot change this education system from the inside out. It has to collapse because this is just so prevalent in every aspect of education from as we saw last week from kindergarten all the way through university. And that’s why I’m so glad to be involved in a group that is seeking to provide classical education from kindergarten to the end of university because we get them through, even if we get them through somewhat unscathed, that means you take their cell phones until they’re old enough to understand how to use them, and you have had parental input into their lives and they’ve had a good education. Then they go to university two weeks in a university. And my goodness, these young adults are just swarmed and swamped with all of this diversity, equity, and inclusion and it’s, there’s no way around it. So we have to change the whole system. Well, talking about that, go ahead.

Chanel Pfahl (12:46):

How would you go about doing that? Are you pushing for charter schools or?

Dr. Ann Gillies (12:54):

I did actually this week my interview with Bruce Friesen went up. It just came out yesterday. And so we talk about a lot about that and what’s happening in other countries, what other countries are doing. And the new schools that are happening, many of them are actually coordinating with churches. And it’s not about teaching religion, it’s about providing access and providing the venue in order to teach a classical education formed on a foundation of moral substance, a Judeo-Christian perspective. But even then, yeah, anyways, but last week and he’ll be on again next week. So your show’s going to be after his. But yeah, it’s very helpful to understand

Chanel Pfahl (13:51):

Because the parents, so many parents I know don’t want their kids in the public school system, but they also are out of options because they work so they can’t pull their kid. And we need an option for those parents who don’t want their kids brainwashed, but also can’t homeschool. And charter schools, to me seems to be the answer, but we don’t have that option here in Ontario. I think the only province that has that option is Alberta.

(14:15):

Alberta has good charter schools, but you know what? We still have option to start private schools and that we will push more and more for. And so we get into that. Bruce and I talk about that. Also, Scott Masson, I don’t know if you know Scott or not, but he’s also involved in this group. Anyways, I don’t want to get sidelined onto that because I want to stay with what your focus has been on exposing what’s going on in the public schools. But I will say this before we go on that, I read recently that in the last year in Ontario, there’s a 52% increase in enrollment in private education. So that’s incredible. That’s a momentum we have to keep moving toward. And Bruce has ideas, and we’re working with others who will fund provide funds for parents who can’t afford these options. So I mean, this is long-term. It’s not happening tomorrow, but there is some hope on the horizon. So let’s go back to critical race, and let’s look at the next slide also of human rights and equity advisor. Tell me about her.

(15:48):

Yeah. Well, I don’t know too much about this Layla Saad person, but there are so many of these people just getting money off racial division causing racial division. So if I remember correctly, it was with the York Catholic District School Board. And what they did was they sent out an email to all admins. You can see there. It says if you have been a newly commissioned principal or vice principal in August, 2022 or August, 2023, and you have not yet received a copy of the two resources, so it’s this Me and White Supremacy book, and then there’s a guided journal with it. You are asked to email them so that they can get it to you. And basically the idea is that they’re going to do a group study or whatever. They’re going to be reading it together and obviously talking about it and all this. So you cannot be a principal or a vice principal at the York Catholic District School Board if you’re not willing to go along with it.

Dr. Ann Gillies (16:55):

And this is a Catholic school system. I, and I know a lot of Catholics who are really disturbed about the stuff that’s being taught in the Catholic schools. I mean gender identity and critical race theory. I mean, it’s no different really than many public schools. So I’m reading this, and so this is her personal story. I think that my book on Damaged by the Predators among us would be a great personal story for every single teacher to read. I think that would be a good one. Let’s talk about some real truth about some pedophiles in our society that are right front and center. Anyways, I digress. Okay, let’s go to the next one. So this is grade eight.

Chanel Pfahl (17:46):

Oh yeah, that was a recent one. This is, so what I wrote was I think the race Grifters are tired of only having February to talk about Black History month and all that to push. And obviously we’re not talking just about history, black history, we’re talking about politics and what it means to be black and with a very biased lens. So they have decided now that in order to be really, really good allies, they’re going to have to extend this black history month into other months. So now the York Board decided, or at least at this school, I don’t know, this is just a parent at the school who messaged me this email that she got this group called Black Excellence 365 is going to come into their class for the whole month of November once a week to teach them about anti-racism of anti-oppression and all of this stuff. So not only is it taking away time from actually learning in class with their teacher, but it’s infusing this toxic ideology into the minds of this grade eight students. Yeah, I remember being 13, I’d never thought about someone else’s race or what it meant, and I had friends of all colors and of all backgrounds and not just go back to that. Wasn’t that a great time? Isn’t that something worth striving towards a society that doesn’t put it these superficial traits first?

(19:30):

That is so true. And once again, painting every black student, every black person with the same brush, it’s just like, and the other thing here, and this goes along with the whole gender ideology, is this whole aspect of victimhood. It’s like, how can you be the best victim in our society and not how you become a survivor, not how you thrive through the difficulties of life. We all have difficulties in life no matter what they’re caused by or how they’re caused. And instead of teaching children to be overcomers and to be resilient, we keep pounding them over the head with this idea that you need to be a victim in order to be recognized. You have to be a victim of something or someone. And that’s just so, so sad. I have, sorry, I have one last slide. I quite like this picture, how inventive it was. I love it. It’s beautiful. But

(20:50):

If you zoom in, there was some pretty, I don’t remember what was written, but I think it was on that right side. There’s some posters there where it’s, I don’t know if it’s possible to zoom in there. So show up in an authentic way, own your privilege. So white kids have to recognize their privilege and accept this label, accept feedback. So basically don’t trust your own intuition and your own judgment. You have to always be open to learning and to being told that you used the wrong language, you had the wrong opinion. There’s only one way to think about these issues. Become a confidant, whatever that means. Bring diversity to the table. See something, say something. So this is whole, you have to be an activist forever and always thing. You have to report your teachers who do something wrong, report your peers. Schools often have anonymous systems now for reporting events at school, racist events. So that could be telling someone, Hey, I like your hair. That’s apparently racist. Now you can’t comment on a black person’s hair.

Dr. Ann Gillies (22:08):

Oh, so I already did this. I really liked this picture of this woman.

Chanel Pfahl (22:13):

You’re going to be canceled.

Dr. Ann Gillies (22:15):

Oh, hey, can I ask you something about this? How can a white child be authentic and then to themselves be their best self and then have to agree with everyone else? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Chanel Pfahl (22:35):

It’s all a contradiction. It’s like they want to sell it as being authentic, but really what it is is just being a pushover person who has no personality of their own, and they become an ally. They always say, oh, ally is not a noun. It’s a verb. It’s something that you do on a daily basis and you have to be willing to keep doing it. It even says at the top here, as an ally, you are there to be supportive, not to be the hero of the story. So stop trying to center your own ideas. You have to accept what everyone else is telling you and just shut up. Commit to the continued time and effort it will take to become a better ally. It’s perpetual. There is no point at which these people will stop. There’s no, okay, we’re going to do this for a year. We’re going to see how it is. And then if everything, if we see a positive change, then we can go back to normal society. Uhuh. This is not how a cultural revolution works. It’s a perpetual striving towards a kind of utopia, which will never be attained and can’t even be described. The whole premise of it is that you can never stop striving towards it. That’s all.

Dr. Ann Gillies (23:54):

Well, and you know what? That’s kind of where I was going is as we finish up here, I was going to ask you, where does this all end? And I think you’re describing it. It doesn’t sound very good.

Chanel Pfahl (24:09):

Yeah, no, it can never end because they just keep problematizing more things and it just gets crazier and crazier and harder also to speak against it. Had we known where this was going to go 10 years ago, probably a lot of people would’ve spoken up, but I think everyone kind of justified it because they thought, oh, well, it’s just a little thing. It’s just one little word that they want said differently. It’s just one activity they want done differently. And then it just kept going, kept going, pushing the limits. Now we have programs that are only for black students. We’re actively, I would call that segregation when you’re saying an event and if you’re white, you can’t come. Now we’re doing this, and teachers are in this position where they’re like, holy moly, how did we get here? We’re back to

Dr. Ann Gillies (25:05):

The whole thing. Diversity is really about separating, isn’t it? One from another.

Chanel Pfahl (25:13):

If we went back 20 years to the year, I don’t know, 2000, and in a school we said, Hey, we’re going to do an event next week, and it’s going to be only for black kids. I guarantee all this teachers would say, are you crazy? That’s not how we operate in the society. We don’t do that. All races are the same. But now you have teachers who just see this happen and they can’t speak because for years and years they have held back. And honestly, I don’t think that they really, courage is a habit. Where is that from? There is an organization called Courage is a Habit, and I really believe that to be true. If you just silence yourself over years and years, you start to lose even your ability to find the courage inside. You lose touch with it. You lose part of who you are, you lose self-respect.

(26:14):

And then if you don’t have any self-respect, how are you going to stand up for yourself? You don’t even respect yourself. So I think that’s where we’re at. And we’re at a place where a lot of educators are not only feeling cowardly and not respecting themselves, but they’re also demoralized. And every day at work is really tough, and they’re surrounded by, they can’t speak their mind and they want to leave teaching, but they have no plan B and they can’t talk about it with anyone. I talked to someone recently and a teacher in Alberta who we chatted on the phone for like a half hour, and the next day she said to me by email, she said, thank you so much for chatting with me. I feel like I can breathe again.

Dr. Ann Gillies (27:05):

Yes.

(27:06):

And t,hat is the point, imagine you just were able to talk about your situation for a half hour, and that’s how grateful you feel. It’s just really sad.

(27:18):

Well, just when you were talking about courage was reminded about Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the end of the Second World War who was imprisoned because he chose to stand and speak truth and try to awaken. Well, he was trying to awaken the Christian Church. At that time. There were 12,000 Christian pastors in Germany, and only 3,000 chose to speak out against what Hitler was doing to the Jews and to annihilating Christians as well. It wasn’t just the Jews, but it was special groups. It was all about special groups, really, when you get right down to it and his quote, and I didn’t want to misspeak it, so here it is. Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act. And he was subsequently martyred. He was murdered by the Germans in the prison.

(28:24):

And there’s a cost to be paid for speaking out. And I think that we have become such a complacent society and so used to our own comfort that we hesitate to speak truth, especially in the marketplace, even amongst our friends. And I notice this regularly that people are afraid to even address these subjects with their family, with their friends, because as soon as you do, you’re labeled as something. And yet, if we do not speak now, if we do not speak now, our children will be silenced. We will lose generations. In fact, we probably lost in some ways, two generations to this whole ideology. And so I really thank you Chanel because what you said is so important and courage. Courage is something that grows, I believe, as you feed it.

(29:35):

And as you spend time with other courageous people who are to take on the establishment like you’ve been doing, I have a motto that says, stand firm, walk cautiously and live courageously. And I think every day I try and think about that. I don’t want to take two steps back. I want to stand firm in what I believe. I want to walk cautiously because I’m not purposely trying to offend anyone, but I won’t back away. And we must live courageously in these times. And I thank you Chanel, because that’s what you’re doing. You’re living courageously. And I thank you so much for speaking up and speaking out on behalf of our children. Thanks for joining me. Any final things you’d like to say?

Chanel Pfahl (30:29):

Well, I just want to say thank you to you as well. For all you do. You were just so productive when it comes to this. I see the books you write and the videos you do and everything, you’re unstoppable. So thank you for that. And to all the other people standing up, because I am certainly not alone. And there’s a really great crowd of people who are speaking up and hopefully changing a lot of minds of the process and inspiring others to do so as well. So

Dr. Ann Gillies (31:00):

Absolutely. And we’re bringing others with us, right? That’s inspiring others because that’s really what it’s going to take is an army of others to come alongside to change the culture and take it not back to archaic times, but to remove the evil influences. Thank you again for joining me.

Chanel Pfahl (31:21):

Thank you so much.

Dr. Ann Gillies (31:26):

Well, that’s it for Critical Race theory this week. What a deep dive kind of into understanding what your children are being taught consistently in the public schools and how our children’s minds are being governed by an ideology that seeks just to, not to actually bring people together, but actually to divide. So I hope that you’ll rewatch this again because I think it’s worth rewatching and that you as parents will consider what your next steps are. And I really appreciate Chanel coming on today. Please visit her Twitter account. Also, visit my website RestoringTheMosaic.ca, where you’ll find my books and lots of other information. You can sign up for my newsletter. And I would appreciate if you thought of donating to what we’re doing here. That would be a wonderful thing too. Thanks a lot. We’ll see you soon.

Narrator (32:31):

You’ve been listening to Truth Talks with Dr. Ann. Thank you so much for joining us today. You can find Anne’s books, blog, and sign up for the newsletter by going to RestoringTheMosaic.ca.