It’s time to stop the woke takeover of our institutions. Now, even local parks are becoming battlegrounds in the culture war.
Key Takeaways:
- NYC Parks Department is pushing “antiracism” training.
- Supervisors are told to police “microaggressions.”
- Training materials promote divisive books and ideologies.
- All this while the department faces budget cuts and staff shortages.
Parks Department Turns Woke Police
The New York City Parks Department, of all places, is now instructing its supervisors to become “antiracist” activists. They are supposed to police “microaggressions” and push conversations about race in the workplace. This is according to documents obtained that show the city’s Parks Department has gone completely off the rails.
The department’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI) provides “Microaggressions” training. It’s all about helping leaders and employees find “subtle” insults people feel “due to their group identity.” Can you believe this?
Reading List for Radicals
A resource guide from the same DEI office recommends books that paint white people as inherently racist. This includes the historically flawed 1619 Project, Ibram X. Kendi‘s How to Be an Antiracist, and Robin DiAngelo‘s White Fragility. This is not education; it’s indoctrination.
The guide features a “Becoming Anti-Racist” graphic “inspired by Dr. Kendi.” It divides people into zones, pushing them toward becoming “Anti-Racist.” The final “Growth Zone” encourages supervisors to “yield positions of power to those otherwise marginalized.” This sounds like a call for reverse discrimination.
Supervisors are encouraged to reflect on race. They are prompted to ask, “Have I explored my own biases and fears?” and “Do I create opportunities for discussing race and racism?” What does this have to do with running parks?
Real Problems, Fake Solutions
The Parks Department faces a $33 million budget cut and staff shortages. An executive for Citizens’ Committee for Children testified to the New York City Council that the parks department is “chronically underfunded and understaffed.” Instead of fixing these problems, they are focused on woke nonsense.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is poised to cut the agency’s budget, despite promising to allocate one percent of the city budget to the parks department. The director of the parks department’s DEI office, Iyana Titus, who earned a salary of $200,000 in 2024, appears to have created the training materials.
During his campaign, Mamdani proposed raising property taxes on “whiter neighborhoods” at a higher rate than other groups. In June 2020, Mamdani said, “the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” and that “what we need to do is #DefundTheNYPD.”
The Broader Impact: Is Anything Safe From Wokeism?
This is more than just a local story. It’s a symptom of a larger problem. Woke ideology is infiltrating every corner of our society, from schools to corporations to, now, the Parks Department. This divisive ideology teaches people to see each other as members of different groups, rather than as individuals. It encourages resentment and division. We need to push back against this toxic ideology.
What happens when the focus shifts from maintaining safe, clean parks to policing thoughts and feelings? Will our parks become political battlegrounds?
