There are moments in politics when a single sentence tells you everything you need to know about a worldview. Kentucky Democratic State Representative Sarah Stalker delivered one of those moments when, during a legislative hearing on K–12 education, she calmly announced, “I don’t feel good about being white every day.” Not quietly. Not sheepishly. But confidently, while arguing that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs must remain in Kentucky schools so children can “reflect” on how their skin color affects their place in the world.
And just like that, the mask came off.
This wasn’t courage. It wasn’t empathy. It wasn’t leadership. It was performative guilt dressed up as moral superiority, delivered by a lawmaker who somehow believes her personal identity struggle should be converted into curriculum for other people’s kids. Welcome to modern progressivism, where adult insecurity becomes public policy and children are the collateral damage.
When Guilt Becomes the New Moral Currency
Let’s start with the obvious point that no one in elite liberal circles ever wants to acknowledge: people who genuinely feel shame don’t announce it proudly at a microphone. They don’t leverage it politically. They don’t turn it into an argument for expanding government programs. Stalker didn’t confess anything. She performed. Loudly. Confidently. And with the expectation of applause.
This is the left’s favorite ritual. Take guilt, strip it of humility, inflate it with self-regard, and present it as virtue. Then use it to justify policies that divide people into racial categories and rank them accordingly. The louder the confession, the higher the moral standing. The more dramatic the self-loathing, the greater the authority to lecture everyone else.
Stalker didn’t say, “I’m trying to understand different perspectives.” She didn’t say, “We should treat kids as individuals.” She said she doesn’t feel good about being white — and that children should be encouraged to sit with those same racialized feelings. That’s not reflection. That’s indoctrination with a smile.
DEI Isn’t Education — It’s Ideology With Homework
This all happened during an Interim Joint Committee on Education meeting, where Republicans were pushing legislation to remove DEI programs from Kentucky public schools. These programs have been funded, expanded, and entrenched nationwide for years, yet consistently fail to show meaningful improvements in academic performance or achievement gaps. What they have produced is resentment, division, and a generation of students taught to see themselves primarily as members of racial groups rather than individuals.
Stalker didn’t defend DEI with data. She didn’t cite improved test scores, graduation rates, or literacy outcomes. Instead, she argued that eliminating DEI would be a “missed opportunity” for children to reflect on how the color of their skin allows or prevents them from navigating the world. Translation: before kids learn to read fluently, they must learn to self-categorize and self-criticize.
Greg Gutfeld nailed it when he mocked the idea that racial guilt should take priority over basic education. Forget phonics. Forget math. Forget critical thinking. Let’s make sure six-year-olds understand which demographic box they belong in and how guilty or aggrieved they’re supposed to feel about it.
That’s not education. That’s political grooming.
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations, Rebranded
One of the most dishonest elements of DEI ideology is how it claims to uplift minorities while quietly lowering expectations for them. Stalker’s worldview assumes that non-white children need constant reminders that the system is stacked against them and that success is largely out of their control. That message isn’t empowering. It’s paralyzing.
Panelists on Gutfeld! called this out directly. Teaching kids that the world is rigged against them doesn’t inspire resilience — it discourages effort. If success is predetermined by skin color, why bother working hard? Why strive? Why believe personal responsibility matters at all?
This is the soft bigotry of low expectations in its purest form. It tells minority students they are fragile, disadvantaged, and in need of perpetual protection, while telling white students they should feel guilty simply for existing. It divides children before they even understand division and then pretends the damage is compassion.
Teaching Shame Isn’t Service
Even Kat Timpf, hardly known for hyperbole, cut through the nonsense. Teaching kids to help others is admirable. Teaching kids to hate themselves is not. Shame-based morality doesn’t produce generosity, service, or gratitude. It produces resentment and confusion.
Real character is built through responsibility, effort, and kindness — not racial self-flagellation. Feeling bad about yourself isn’t a virtue, especially when it doesn’t translate into action. And forcing children to inherit that guilt isn’t compassion. It’s abuse wrapped in academic jargon.
This Is Why Parents Are Pushing Back
Sarah Stalker may think she’s on the right side of history, but parents across the country are waking up. They don’t want their children taught to see themselves as oppressors or victims before they’ve even learned multiplication. They don’t want schools turning into ideological laboratories for adult political theories.
Republican State Senator Lindsey Tichenor summed it up clearly when she argued that DEI reinforces division rather than unity and encourages groupthink instead of independent thought. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs — and that includes policies that advantage or disadvantage students based on skin color, no matter how “inclusive” the branding sounds.
Final Thoughts
Sarah Stalker didn’t accidentally reveal something uncomfortable. She revealed exactly what DEI is about. It’s not inclusion. It’s not equality. It’s not education. It’s about elevating guilt into a moral hierarchy and teaching children to see themselves — and each other — through that distorted lens.
And the reason this ideology is finally facing resistance is simple: Americans are tired of being lectured by people who confuse self-loathing with virtue and division with progress.
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JIMMY
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