Matthew Thomas reports that charter-loving billionaires are funding critical race theory.
He quotes AOC, who asked:
“Why don’t you want our schools to teach anti-racism? Why don’t Republicans want their kids to know the tradition of anti-racism in the United States?”
And Thomas replies:
I can’t speak for Republicans, but how’s this for a reason: the models of anti-racism now dominant in the education sector are an outgrowth of the charter school industry, funded by billionaires, and deliberately minimize the importance of class analysis.
Charter advocates have long appealed to concern for black and brown students in underperforming public schools to legitimize their push for privatization. But as the power of identity has grown in liberal culture, the industry has become the locus of a growing network of consultancies, NGOs, and businesses sowing the politics of race reductionism throughout the professional class. Back in May, I reported on Dianne Morales’ deep connections to these segments of the charter industry, and how her particularly intense brand of identitarian rhetoric was a product of that milieu.
So yes, there really is an elite conspiracy to turn public schools into re-education camps for a poisonous racial ideology. But as usual, the right is too high on its own supply to grasp the true nature of this phenomenon. It isn’t the cultural Marxists who are behind it, working to the subvert the white imperium from within. It’s all the usual Draculas of the ruling class, looking to advance a goal the right itself has pursued for decades: the privatization of public education.
Please read the rest of the article. Thomas’s theory is that the billionaires prefer to get parents and the public focused on identity politics and ignore class analysis.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If you only can read one whole article in 2021, let it be this. We’re all a bunch of fools being led around by the nose, talking about social issues, while the billionaires commit economic crimes, while bankrolling the red herring. Diane, I have no problem with rereading this every day if you repost it every day for a month.
Cynicism toward anything and anyone embedded, propped up, or wrapped around ed-reform is the right attitude, no matter how sweet smelling and cushiony soft the agenda…
“bankrolling the red herring” is a wonderful new expression!
Ah The mixed metaphor!
Maybe not. Paying for a herring can be the vehicle.
I don’t know if I was literally being figurative. Of course, I was figuratively being literal. Could’ve been figuratively figurative. Who know? I certainly don’t.
Greaaat. Your entitledness is reduced to name-calling. No one can speak but you. I’m attentive? And you are??? You’ve sicced Diane on me and so I’ll go. Keep up the jawing though about this though i’m sure it pays the bills. Just like a phony passive educaplaytor troll to cry foul and limit conversation.
To quote a friend of mine, “The rich and powerful love to watch the battles between the Left and the Right (and between Blacks and Whites in majority Black communities), knowing full well the true battle is between the Top and the Bottom. In carefully screened forums on what’s working/not working in NOLA ed-reform, there’s always those privatization status-quo pundits and cmo’s that quip in about not tearing down the “infrastructure” that’s been put in place. It’s always okay to monitor a discussion of black/white things, so long as y’all don’t mess with OUR MONEY🤔. What that mean is, moneyed elites being in charge IS NEVER THE PROBLEM…..
Spot on. If there is not economic justice, there is no justice.
I really should have said something like, “I agree in part,” instead of “spot on”. I didn’t want to feed anyone by leaving it open during the heat of discussion.
It’s the ed reform “movements” focus on “choice”, too.
People now think they can go into a school and demand a set of options as from a menu. There’s no commonality or compromise at all- it simply doesn’t matter if there are other children in the school and they have needs too.
The consumer choice model of ed reform will make it impossible to run a public school. Everyone will demand their own individualized version of social studies, vaccine requirements, masks or no masks, the composition of sports teams, and on and on and on. Public schools are about community compromise. Ed reform says no one has to compromise- we can all demand the school exist to serve only our child. Why should MY CHILD wear a mask if YOUR CHILD is immunocompromised? Why should MY CHILD have to learn about enslaved people in the US? I never owned slaves!
The ed reform ideology and approach is inconsistent with a public system. It’s fundamentally a private sector approach – it elevates individual choice over anything else.
They’ll end up at universal vouchers and an unregulated, completely privatized system. The ideology won’t allow anything else. They’re lurching in that direction right now- in ten years they’ll all be promoting and marketing universal vouchers and eradicating the remaining public system. Once they all signed on to a private sector consumer model for public schools it was just a matter of time before they ended up here.
I genuinely worry about what will happen in rural areas like mine if they succeed in eradicating public schools. Public schools are the last remaining public entity in this county. They are the single entity where we work together. If they think the country is fractured now wait until everyone decamps off to their individual “pod” or private school or homeschool or Amazon marketplace of edu-product. We won’t have to encounter one another at all.
Precisely. They compare being educated to picking a food truck and ordering from a menu. Sounds great if you don’t think about it.
Interesting to note that while many in the mainstream media are pushing an attack on China’s policies toward minorities and dissidents–“re-education, we call it”–we in the States have been following a policy of re-directing our schools from the broader education values of the New Deal and after, to a more corporate oriented–test score driven model. Today’s young people have MUCH greater difficulty funding college. Meanwhile, they’re lucky if they learn the values and approaches of humanism in today’s test-driven, over-competitive schools.
“Today, how learning is organized and evaluated is still rooted in an acceptance of whiteness as “natural” and “normal.” The presumption that students from a culture outside this “norm” come to school with deficits—in their intelligence, families, culture, or communities—is built into the DNA of public education.”
This is the type of garbage is the impression they have of public education. These outsiders know nothing about public schools. Billionaires assume they understand public schools. Despite their lack of knowledge about public education, they assume they are racist. Charter schools are more likely to be segregated than public schools. Charter schools with high attrition rates for black and brown students are harming students, not empowering them. The standardized testing imposed on public schools hurts rather than helps poor students. The whole school choice movement has its roots in racism. Charter schools are separate and unequal schools, and being separate and unequal does not ensure equal access.
Billionaire funded projects banter around around the term equity. It seems to me that they do not truly know its meaning. Separate and unequal is not equity. Providing students with equal access and opportunity according to the needs is equity. Public schools may have some flaws, but they always aspire to give students the foundation and tools they need to be successful with services provided according to the needs of each student.
Billionaires are out of touch with reality. If they had been paying their fair share of taxes, they would not have so much money to try to destroy public education. They are obsessed with destroying something they don’t even know. Maybe they need a few lessons in training their “executive functioning.”
They don’t need a few lessons in training their “executive functioning”, they need a frontal lobe lobotomy.
Ha ha!
retired teacher: Neither of the writers of that little gem [LaShawn Chatmon and Kathleen Osta] is an outsider to public schools. I suspect there are still plenty of pro-charter folks [parents, and former teachers/ school social workers like them] who believe this line of baloney & are the willing tools of their cynical deep-pockets funders.
This is unfashionable to say, but how do these “the parents make all the rules in the school” paid activists think this is going to work in a public system? We don’t have “the parents” in public schools. We have a group of parents with differing opinions.
Every parent can demand an individualized program for each and every child? There’s no commonality at all? We’re all just solo consumers pursuing our own version of “education” with no regard at all for the other students or the larger community?
That’ll be GREAT! How’s it working out so far? What did public school students get out of this? They got ridiculous state laws punishing their teachers for mentioning Malcom X? They’ll now endure six months of screaming about vaccinations and masks?
Hey, ed reform told them that “choice” was the Holy Grail, that acting as private sector consumers was not only desirable, but literally the only thing that matters.
They made this mess. Their theory of education systems is an incoherent mess that will never work in a universal public system. I hope they enjoy it. God knows public school students aren’t getting anything out of it.
When I first started reading this blog, speaking of which, this article is a great catch, Diane, there were three things, and only three things I cared about fighting: annual high stakes testing, charter takeover, and Teach for America deprofessionalizing teaching. That’s it, just those three things. We engage in discussion of a wide variety of topics, but stopping testing, charters, and TFA is still what draws me to action. Gates, et al, eat all, pays sellouts to dangle shiny objects with bells and dog whistles before me all the time. The focus is testing, privatization, and the gig economy of TFA.
Please understand, the privatization scheme is also used to “rethink” how an urban citizenry should LOOK. In NOLA, ed-reform was used by neoliberals to funnel in thousands of newbies who were screened through the TFA/alt-cert teaching exercise and into EDUCATOR admin roles, non-profit leaders, school board members, city council members, dept of educ personnel, judges, state senate and house seats, etc, etc…essentially making smooth implantation of a rich/poor agenda in the new New Orleans. They only give a hoot about education as far as the length of a coin. They are not replicating successful schools (remember, there is no data supporting their claims, only the mess they re-label and manipulate), they are replicating how to displace Black control, the Black electorate, how to undemocracize all public input, and gaslight anyone who sniffs out their bs….
So agree. The post-Katrina NOLA conversion a classic case of sharks moving in whenever there’s blood in the water.
Is there a way to discuss class in America without discussing race? To say that focusing
on race is a diversion by Billionaires from class struggle is great . Does he propose that class struggle be taught in Public Schools, (I need an emoji for that one).
The history of race and class struggle in this country are inseparable in the past and the present .
“Critical race theory can be defined as an intellectual framework used in academia to explore and analyze racial inequality in society. A key element of the theory is that society’s legal, economic and educational institutions operate (often in subtle ways) to marginalize racial and ethnic minority populations. As such, this process of marginalization tends to benefit the white population, primarily the wealthy class.”
Emphasis “primarily wealthy”
The investments Matthew Thomas is describing sound like they are focused on diversity training. .Are we really using CRT to model our k-12 History curriculum anywhere ? If that were the case we would be teaching the history of class struggle. Which certainly those Billionaires have no intention of promoting . As race has always been the wedge used to keep poor whites on board. .
But that diversity training is used to induct sympathetic/unsuspecting teachers as “vectors” for “the cause”. What naive teacher doesn’t want some diversity training to create diversity/equity within the classroom? Sounds good on paper, right? It’s not CRT and they can honestly say that it’s not, but it’s also not good for the school atmosphere and parents are noticing. It’s also happening with Trans/Gender Ideology and I’m sure that the same group of wealthy folks (+ a few more) are behind it.
The Billionaires know how to blur the language lines to keep the money flowing in their favor. As I’ve said before, this isn’t about Left vs Right….this is about big $$$$ that doesn’t cater to any particular political party. This garbage isn’t good for kids and I’m curious how long it will take for the shootings to begin once schools reopen? G-d help us, but “they” have stooped so low as to go after the kids to advance their wealth agenda.
I beg to differ. It is not bad for kids . What it is not, is our actual history and teaching of class struggle in the this Country. A society which has always used race or ethnicity to divide the working class and still does to this day. One of the poorest and most Trumpian states in the Union is White Virginia a place where one has to struggle to find a minority in most communities. 94% white 3.6% Black . A State that would benefit most from progressive policy. A state whose 16.2 % poverty rate puts it among the poorest in the Nation . A State unlike the the other poor Southern States whose poverty is overwhelming White. Unlike the rest of the South where Blacks are a larger share of the population and the poor . There are not enough Blacks in West Virginia to skew the data.
The same Republicans who made the state Right to Work are ranting about CRT .
Joel says: “To say that focusing on race is a diversion by Billionaires from class struggle is great.”
It’s “great”? I think it is condescending and implicitly racist.
Focusing on race is because there is racism in society! Focusing on race is an attempt to stop that implicit racism in society that does exist. Try telling a mother whose son was just killed by police that it is a “diversion”, because it’s really about class.
Whether or not billionaires try to capitalize on something should have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it needs to be addressed.
Trying to minimize race issues by always saying “you can’t talk about race without class” is a recipe for division.
Saying we should ALSO talk about class is different than saying “you can’t talk about race without talking about class” — the second minimizes racism instead of thinking about how to address it.
Two different solutions — does racism magically disappear in Marxist societies?
NYC public school parent
Are you responding to the same Joel .
Did you finish the first paragraph or even the next sentence .
You are flippantly dismissing races role in the political economics of this country .
That black mother might not have lost a son had we not over policed the Black Communities with the war on drugs. Of course to do so was a racist politically driven decision starting with Nixon . Keeping an economic underclass to be exploited. A class of people where low wage or underground economy jobs both legal and illegal became the only option for many just when the Civil Rights act opened opportunity. Creating the perception that Blacks were inherently more criminal and in need of more policing . Willie Horton has always loomed large in American politics .
A position even adopted by some in the Black Political Class historically and currently as the likes of Clyburn and Sharpton rant against calls to de fund the police.
Which brings me to your hometown . Have any of the Local media taken note that since the city’s reopening shootings and murders in NYC are down 47,53,68and 69% in the last 4 weeks after being down 27% in June. AOC was brilliant last year when she called the spike the result of the economic collapse. Of course they were not robbing the local bodega for a loaf of bread as she implied . Workers in the underground economy not eligible for unemployment moved back into the drug trade sparking a war.
I guess all those retirements of “seasoned NYPD officers” have brought crime down. The point racism can not be separated from its economic roots.
As for Marxian economies and racism please name one Marxist Country . As Emma Goldman pointed out in the 30s Marx would have been repulsed by Stalin.
China has more billionaires than most of the world combined . We have oligarchies most are hybrid .
I don’t how Joel’s statement is any way “condescending and implicitly racist.” It’s the systemic big picture of which racism is a piece. That doesn’t mean we don’t teach about racism in our society. And yet reducing the entire question of rich/ poor, high vs low opportunity etc to racism is not an accurate picture, historically or now. I think the lens of “class struggle”, with all the ins & outs of race, labor, et al civil rights is a good approach. There is nothing about that that minimizes racism.
That billionaires try to capitalize on equity/ anti-racism training has everything to do with it. It’s the red flag that cautions us to unearth the profit motive behind it. The profit motive is privatization of public schools. That’s part of an overall movement going on for decades by $clouty policy influencers to squeeze public $ out of the economy, by eliminating public goods &/or profiting off them [win-win]. Racism thrives when there’s a huge rich-poor gap and zero social mobilization.
Minimizing racism is divisive. And I do think that those who are complaining that there is too much talk about racism and it is just part of the bigger class struggle are not doing the progressive movement any good.
Joel, I probably misinterpreted what you meant, so I apologize. I don’t think that every time racism is talked about, we need to also talk about the class struggle. I don’t think that supporting anti-racist ideals is damaging to the class struggle. Neither does AOC. But I do think that pushing the narrative that talking too much about racism is damaging to the class struggle is actually damaging to the class struggle!
I keep waiting for the “liberal” ed reformers to break with the larger echo chamber but they never do.
It’s ludicrous. Biden’s school subsidies benefitted charter schools as much or more than public schools yet they speak about school funding as a “windfall” and all chant that public schools will just waste it.
The overarching goal is so anti-public school they’ll oppose pro-public school policy even if it benefits the schools they support.
It becomes more incoherent with each passing year. They’re now in a position where they’re punishing public schools for “critical race theory” WHILE frantically lobbying for public funding of private schools which have NO SUCH restrictions.
None of it hangs together. The one and only common theme is “anti public schools”
Notice you never hear AOC, nor the “Squad” saying anything about public school privatization…why…probably because most dems and neoliberals go hush-mouth on Red-agenda when pushback may affect their money too. After all, their districts are likewise infected with billionaire-supported non-profs, and charter schools, thinktanks, etc. What else would a ivy-league, liberal arts-educated, completely unemployable in the 21st century 20-year old be doing these days for money anyway…working at Starbucks???
Representative Ocasio-Cortez met with Diane and discussed their mutual support of public schools against privatization. I think Rep Ocasio has a full plate right now. I admire her ability to laser focus powerful attacks on Congress and the President when they rob from the paycheck taxpayer to give to the investment tax evader.
LCT
AOC and the Squad could have gained power with the election of Nina Turner. Hillary Clinton and Clyburn decided to back the fossil fuel- funded candidate and the choice of Republicans instead (Shontel Brown).
Yes. I’ve heard Nina speak, opening for Bernie, many times. She is extremely fiery, which is a strength and a weakness.
Fossil fuel lobbying is “fiery”, it DESTROYS the planet. Their speech is acceptable because its low key style enables discussions where issues should be non-negotiable.
Here’s a perfect example of ed reform incoherence.
They all point to Florida as the ed reform promised land. Florida will ban public schools from having mask mandates. But Florida publicly funds anything that calls itself a private school! No bans on mask mandates.
It’s an anti-public school “movement”. That’s the only coherent portion. If you want to know what ed reform will do next just ask yourself “what’s worse for public school students and promotes and expands charters and vouchers?” That’s next.
A complete raw deal for students in public schools. No upside.
Correction:
How “learning” is organized and evaluated is still rooted in an acceptance of RANKISM as “natural” and “normal.” The presumption that SOME are better than OTHERS and
by what measures do we assess the differences.
In reality, all the dynamism is a function of the PTB,
the overseer of certification, licensing, funding, et all.
Emerson seemed to touch on systematic irrationality…
I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to
badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
Eric Garner was selling single cigarettes outside a convenience store before he was choked to death by the police. Police in high poverty neighborhoods are pressured to make arrests so that admin can show statistically that they are making an impact on crime. I’m doubtful that teaching critical race theory is going to address the poverty that is at the root of the problem.
Actually it does if it is CRT that is taught. I am a bit skeptical that it could be incorporated on the K-12 level except as a correction to some of our Historical Myths .
Is not CRT
” that society’s legal, economic and educational institutions operate (often in subtle ways) to marginalize racial and ethnic minority populations.”
Is that not what happened to Garner, when the decision is made to go after him for selling loose cigarettes and not the store owner for selling un taxed cartons. Or keeping two sets of books.
Teaching CRT was directed at those who would become the decision makers. In order for them to understand the implications of their decisions in a racial context. The cop who crushed the air out of Garner is not the decision maker.
The decision to toss a million men and boys up against a wall in NYC stop and frisk operations was not made by the cops doing it . Nor the sentencing guide lines for drug offenses.
Here’s where they attempt to make some sense out of the complete incoherence of the “movement”:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/public-education-sucks-weak-argument-school-choice
The argument seems to be “although we don’t support public schools or actually contribute anything positive to them at all other than criticism, we should be allowed to direct what goes on in them and police them, but we won’t be policing our oiwn schools because they are “choice” schools so therefore ideologically privileged”
If public schools buy this they’re nuts. Find people who value and support your schools to set policy for your schools. This “movement” doesn’t. They’re in the business of privatizing schools. You’re in the public school business. Those are two different things.
There are people who value public schools AS public schools. Find them and hire them.
It should be interesting to watch how “the movement” deals with the inequitable system they’ve created here.
Public schools are now subject to all ed reform mandates and directives but the private system they all lobbied to fund is not.
They’ve created a preferred system of publicly funded private schools and a disfavored public school sector. We’re stuck with their CRT panics and mandated tests and teacher measuring schemes but they’ve exempted the private schools they all lobbied to fund.
What about facilities and programs? Public schools are required to offer those to public school students. In the ed reform ideological dream of privatized systems are private schools required to reciprocate? The public is now funding private school facilities- are they open to the public? Why not?
They set up a system that disfavors they schools they disfavor, and offers advantages to the schools they favor and public school students, as usual, will be the losers in this transaction. That’s what happens when your “movement” includes NO advocates for kids who attend public schools.
They don’t care about all that. Now that they control the conversation, the politics, the MONEY, and legislated out the noisy public voice, they will gladly fund the watercarriers running the nonprofits to STUDY and REPORT THEIR FINDINGS, and PONTIFICATE, endlessly until the end of time, on the mess they’ve created. No reason to end/change that which pays them handsomely. Oh, and they of course get huge tax breaks and write-offs on all that charitable philanthropic giving. Money,money, money…..
I don’t really understand the point this writer is trying to make. I think he points out some very important and under reported facts, which is great. But then he seems to be making sweeping conclusions that aren’t supported by the facts: “the models of anti-racism now dominant in the education sector are an outgrowth of the charter school industry, funded by billionaires, and deliberately minimize the importance of class analysis.”
I have no doubt that there are some very flawed models being used, and people trying to capitalize on it, but when that fact seems to be intended to minimize the entire movement, which is how he answered AOC’s very important question, then something feels very off.
Some white Marxists want to minimize the importance of race analysis and they mistakenly equate truthfully and honestly recognizing that all races in this country have never been treated equally with saying that all races are not equal. They mistakenly believe that recognizing that all races have not been treated equally undermines the ideal that all races are equal.
That is just as false as trying to undermine all progressive views by saying “every person has the chance to get ahead in capitalism, and if you recognize any starting disadvantages for one group, it is the same as favoring that group because you know they are not as good.”
This isn’t a choice, and I think the writer wants to divide just as much as the billionaires do. You don’t have to choose between recognizing the serious racism in society and believing in the progressive agenda and supporting public schools.
I am not a fan of Dianne Morales because she is wrong on charters — I was concerned about Bernie being wrong on charters in 2016, too. But my recollection is that she is a pretty strong supporter of workers, too. A progressive on many issues. (Correct me if I’m wrong).
I may be alone here because my issue with charters has nothing to do with whether billionaires love them or hate them. My issue with the charter movement is because it has lied and misled the public and their goal is not to have an honest discussion using facts but to push their agenda with lies. And that goes for all the “good” charter supporters who are complicit because they don’t even have the minimal integrity of a Liz Cheney to speak the truth when the lies are so blatant. Cheney believes in the same right wing agenda, but she isn’t condoning lies to get it.
When the anti-racism training starts pushing lies to keep the billionaires happy, that is important. But the examples here aren’t very convincing. We need to be wary, but drawing conclusions that aren’t there is designed to divide us, just like the billionaires do.
Anyone who says that a discussion of racism undermines a discussion of class is trying to divide the progressive movement far more than billionaires are. Because those who talk about the racism in society – like AOC – are also talking about class. The only people making this a false choice are those on the right and a few on the left who are doing what the right does and using a few examples to mischaracterize an entire movement.
But it does undermine both the progressive and the anti-racist movement if you insist that education about the racism must always be presented as a class problem, when it is not. That is what is divisive.
This is a very good argument and is well constructed. I must confess I do not know whether you are correct, but it is well argued. I salute you.
Agree with Roy.
Adding- There are sufficient numbers of voters to topple the ruling oligarchs. A coalition of women, youth and people of color should have enough strength to usher in progressivism but, recent history shows that it doesn’t gel with enough voters. (Women like Hillary Clinton and Black men like Clyburn undermine the cause by backing establishment DINOS.)
It appears that the race issue alone has difficulty garnering a majority of voters to oust men like Trump. In certain geographic areas, racists win because they are racist.
FDR’s victories suggest clashes based on class may have better odds but, he wasn’t the victim of media with a reach like Fox and he didn’t have the two major conservative religions working against him.
The electoral college can’t be ignored.
NYC public school parent
“Because those who talk about the racism in society – like AOC – are also talking about class” You contradict that 3 lines later
“But it does undermine both the progressive and the anti-racist movement if you insist that education about the racism must always be presented as a class problem”
They are inseparable . I agree with you about the article. Yet I maintain
the author is not talking about CRT. Diversity training and anti racism programs which I am all for are not CRT. CRT which I am all for, implies that there are economic effects of policy that effect races differently . That there are historical precedents that bring us to where we are now. Whether we are discussing the Criminal Justice system or income inequality . Those effects are on the minority community but they are also affects both positive and negative on the “Dominant Cast”.
At what level in K-12 education would you see a discussion of the War on Drugs and policing in America. Or for that matter race and Unionization in the South. Or the Charter industry de-funding the public schools who serve the majority of minority students . Not to mention what happens in the Southern theocracy where charters are a vehicle for segregation.
They are inseparable, indeed. Curiously Blacks don’t like to talk about money, and power. It’s like Blacks have an addiction to strife. Can’t admit that all this could be about…GREEN. Maybe still afraid to be ratted on….we will speak passionately on race disparities all day, and how what affects one affects all…but don’t come around talking about working together to build economic power, to fund political power, to have more influence…..we beyond that, that was in the 60’s, we have arrived…
No….like most….you just don’t see the big picture. And, that too, was intentional. School board forums now are carefully curated to not discuss billionaire created privatization infrastructure of charter school districts like NOLA. Only discussions using dogwhistle terms about race, inequality, etc are allowed. Candidates are so clueless that this is only about POWER AND MONEY. Oh, and that’s not a “difference of opinion.” That’s a FACT.
This is not about race versus class. Follow the money. This is about billionaires funding debate about race in order to sidestep the backlash against their growing oligarchic power to turn widely public services from rights to scarce private privileges. They want us to argue so that we don’t notice privatization and testing creep.
Billionaires are funding the debate UNDERMINING anti-racism teaching. Maybe some are also funding anti-racism teaching.
But ultimately, what is it you are saying about anti-racism education? That it is bad because the billionaires fund some programs? That the people who understand the implicit racism in how K-12 history is taught should shut up? That those people are controlled by billionaires?
To me, reducing the anti-racism movement to a “billionaire-funded movement” is divisive. Look at how ICALLBS just posted the following comment:
“Notice you never hear AOC, nor the “Squad” saying anything about public school privatization…why…probably because most dems and neoliberals go hush-mouth on Red-agenda when pushback may affect their money too.”
Divisive. ICALLBS (who is possibly a troll trying to divide) is basically saying we shouldn’t teach anti-racism ideas because it is all a billionaire plot to divide us. if that isn’t divisive, then I don’t know what is.
So what is it we should do? Ignore race? We should also teach labor history and about working class movements, but making this an “either /or” is divisive. So is insisting that anti-racism shouldn’t be taught without talking about class.
One thing that bothered me in 2016 is that there were some in the Sanders camp that seemed to be saying that the progressive movement would have a better chance of success if anti-racist talk was minimized. And I don’t think that is either true nor helpful to the progressive movement.
I think it is better to teach white working folks that their economic interests will be better served if they aren’t racist, rather than to tell Black folks that their economic interests are better served if they stop talking about racism and working to make society less racist.
And I do think there are some on the left – especially those who are white – who do too much of the second, and avoid doing the first. They work overtime to “understand” white working class racism instead of loudly condemning it.
What? Did you click the link and read the article?
LeftCoastTeacher,
I read the article.
Quick question – do you know anything about Diane Morales? Do you believe the writer’s characterization of her?
Oh, and about trolls, I’ve been thinking. Seems to me the best way to deal with them is with subtly backhanded flattery. Arby’s did it when Jon Stewart said their “food” was like shock and awe for your bowels, the Hannity of roast beef sandwiches. Arby’s sent him a thank you note and “roast beef” sandwiches. He thanked them back on air and exclaimed about the “gift”, “That’s awesome!” Gotta love Jon Stewart. Gotta excrete Arby’s.
Think someone might be a troll, maybe because their choice of username includes “BS” and is a overly aggressive in too general a sense, thank them for visiting and sharing their opinions — and for their dedication to the discussion, as evidenced by their attentive commenting. Thank them for paying attention. It debases no one, including yourself. It works on class clowns.
Now then, do I know anything about Morales? A little. Thanks for asking! Do you know anything about Bill Gates?
Even Ray Charles can see that….
The look on Black intellectuals’ faces when enlightenment suggests their entire “grassroots” nonprofit existence is a front to bamboozle the community while entrenching the billionaire creep is priceless. They almost choke on the silence of truth swallowed.
I am unclear about how anyone “sicced” me on you. I don’t recall ever answering anything you wrote.
I appreciate that you, …BS, bring your full attention to caring about Black people being taken advantage of by white billionaires. Thank you! I hear you, and I see what you’re saying. You’re absolutely right that is stinks, what Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Cheryl Sandberg are doing. Very insightful of you to feel the pain that you, well, you didn’t really see anyone’s faces, but that you felt the pain that you imagined would be there. It’s a pleasure talking to a sensitive person. Welcome to the Left! Good to have you with me, partner.
LCT,
Why are you changing the subject to Bill Gates? The writer of the article presents Diane Morales, who actually got a lot of support from progressives because of her other positions, as if she is simply a tool of the billionaires, and then proceeds to present anti-racist teaching and AOC’s view of it as if AOC is some naive kid unwittingly doing the work of billionaires. Maybe you buy it. I don’t. One thing I have noticed about AOC is she is far more intelligent than most of her critics, and that is true not just of her critics on the right, but apparently some on the left, too.
The title and subtitle are:
These Billionaires are Bankrolling the Booming Anti-Racism Racket
Woke consultancies are weaponizing identity claims to fight for the expansion of charter schools.
Pictured are:
Reed Hastings, some billionaire I don’t recognize, and Bill Gates.
And Rep Ocasio-Cortez certainly seems far more intelligent than I. I admire her intellect greatly. Yugely.
“Without question, we’re in a moment right now that lends itself to taking advantage of disruption and discontent with schools, whether over Covid-related interruptions to in-person instruction, mask mandates, or fights over critical race theory in schools. It’s no coincidence that legislation expanding school choice is on the march, with measures to offer or expand choice options gaining traction in dozens of states. It would be foolish for advocates not to feed the growing appetite for school choice”
Just amazing. We have somehow ended up with a “public education policy” that offers absolutely nothing to students who attend public schools.
“Those fights we started in your schools over masks and “critical race theory”? Look at the bright side! They promote our anti-public school choice ideology!”
Public school students do not exist in this “movement”. The more chaos and discord they create in our schools, the better it is for the ideological project.
The limited reading I’ve done of Matthew Thomas’s work convinces me he is among the best reporters, education policy analysts and investigative journalists writing today.
A Pahara co-founder, Kim Smith, said when interviewed about the goal of charter organizations, “…brands on a large scale”.
What a difference a couple of days make. On July 5, the Boston Globe posted an opinion titled, “There’s cause for concern in teaching CRT.” Two days later the same author ‘s opinion about CRT posted in the Times of Israel carried the title, “Teaching School Children the Evil of Whiteness”.
The title on Mathew Thomas’ article is most appropriate: “These Billionaires are Bankrolling the Booming Anti-Racism Racket.”
And so is the subtitle: “Woke consultancies are weaponizing identity claims to fight for the expansion of charter schools.”
I have offered here once or twice before that I summarily reject anti-racism and CRT ideologies for the sole and simple reason they convey legitimacy to the purely social construct called “race.” As I read them, anti-racism and CRT aim to sustain and promote ways of thinking that produce “racism” that then produces and reproduces “race” as distinct categories of human beings arranged hierarchically from superior to inferior, from oppressor to oppressed. Anti-racism and CRT seek to radically interrupt, dismantle, and replace win-lose structures with lose-win structures that embed vicious cycles of racial selfishness, competition, and adversarialism. Thus I suggest anti-racism and CRT are anathema to the MLK Jr way that seeks to transform win-lose structures into win-win structures that embed humanness, cooperation, peace, and love. Those who speak of the Memphis garbage workers’ strike might go take a close look at the signs the strikers carried. The signs read in big, bold print: “I AM A MAN.” The signs do not read: “I AM A BLACK MAN.”
So, of course, CRT and anti-racism are a racket.
So, of course, CRT and anti-racism invigorate the fight for the expansion of charter schools.
So, of course, CRT and anti-racism are but the latest iteration of billionaires’ and corporatists’ racial entrapment that follow on from their “diversity” ideology.
So, of course, on amazon, Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist” would have nearly 19,400 5-Star Reviews out of 22,800 (85%), while Dorothy Roberts’ “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century” would have only about 165 5-Star Reviews out of a measly 221 (75%).
So, of course, MLK Jr needed to be gotten ride of.
It’s interesting that nowadays it seems a surefire way to elicit an angry emotional response is to tell someone he is not this or that “race” when he believes he is because he is more deeply tied to that belief than to the truth of his humanness, which is he’s simply a variation on the universal humanness theme that is a continuum and not any discrete “racial” categories. However, his belief that he is, in fact, this or that “race” is just fine with the deformer class of corporatists, billionaires, and would-be oligarchs and plutocrats because it allows them to attract attention away from their ongoing efforts to destroy public education.
United Way of Greater Atlanta, a New Equity Project client, huh. Why am I not surprised?
Yeah, it’s amazing the # of “woke consultancies” that exist to profit off the “perplexity” in how to educate minorities. All these so-called EDUPLAYTORS with advanced degrees even….and absolutely none of them would step two inches inside a classroom….
I think you have it backward. And that plays right into the billionaires’ hands.
If this country was woke, and institutions stopped being so racist, there would be a lot more progressive legislation.
You blame the people who are trying to make the country less racist (and I don’t mean the billionaires) when you should be blaming the white folks who are fine with the status quo because it doesn’t affect them.
Indeed, “people […] are trying to make the country less racist.” But some people, perhaps many, a majority of people are trying to do that with a deeply internalized belief in the lie that “race” is real and divides human beings into naturally distinct racial categories–White, Black, you name it. If one is unwilling or incapable to accept the taproot truth and reject the lie, then one unwittingly contributes to sustaining racist thinking that produces racism that then produces and reproduces the lie that race is real. The more people believe “race” is real, the more racist thinking hence the more racism. It’s a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop I suggest the billionaires and their kind understand and use well, but many people “trying to make the country less racist” do not, unfortunately. MILK Jr understood and tried to help us all to also understand.
There can be no authentic, progressive movement that would actually “make the country less racist” based on the lie or any lie. There can only be the psychological satisfaction of having competitively checked and made “white” people the losers, according to them, not us. And people made losers invariably figure out how to win again. Cannot one see this happening, already?
Ed Johnson,
You confuse “racism is real” with “race is real”. They are not the same thing, and your confusing them just happens to be exactly what the right wing wants people to do.
Racism is real. If you don’t believe that, we have nothing to talk about because you should certainly vote for right wing Republicans as they agree with you that racism doesn’t exist and the only reason that people of some races are treated differently by police or by the courts or by voting legislation that targets their neighborhoods is because they simply deserved it.
Saying that racism is real is an answer to people who believe there is a difference between races and white people’s superiority is the reason they are treated differently in this country. Saying racism is real is not a justification for white supremacy, as you seem to believe.
If your point is that we are not allowed to say that racism is real because by saying that we are saying that there is a difference between the races, then I feel that you are being disingenuous and I wonder what your agenda is. There is a difference in how people of some races ARE TREATED in this country. Doesn’t that bother you?
Not sure how you made to grand leap to contending I “confuse ‘racism is real’ with ‘race is real.’”
In any case, kindly let me try to be clear: Racist thinking, which is real, produces racism, which is real behavior, which then produces race as a structure to justify racism and racist thinking. But race is an intentionally untrue structure hence a lie, an illusion, and not real.
Thus people who deeply believe the lie that race is real, and I sense you do, and that they are this or that race, yet base what they do in “trying to make the country less racist,” won’t and indeed cannot succeed. As has happened before à la “diversity,” for example, they will only prop up racist thinking and racism and so give comfort to the deformer billionaires, et al., just as you are arguing, apparently, should be done. Then after this vicious, self-reinforcing cycle plays out again, racist thinking, racism, and race will be more strongly entrenched than ever before.
If, as you, antiracism, and CRT would have it, the first order of business is “trying to make the country less racist,” instead of trying to lead the country to first give up the lie that race is real, then your first order of business is well-intentioned but will prove futile.
If you do, in fact, believe race is real, and that you are this or that race, then, granted, this may seem counterintuitive. Or even the defensive emotional trigger I mentioned earlier.
But if I’m clear now, great. If not, your questions, please.
Sorry, but your blaming AOC for racism because she believes that the racism in society should be talked about instead of denied isn’t a convincing argument.
The only people to blame for racism is people who are racists. Stop blaming those who are telling the truth about racism and stop claiming that those who tell the truth about the racism in society are the ones who are causing it.
Racism is real. Teaching about racism doesn’t make people more racist. Stop scapegoating those trying to fight racism and recognize that people with racist beliefs don’t have those racist beliefs because of CRT.
I see this as more evidence of why there should be no billionaires. I now think that the maximum wealth anyone should be allowed to have is $10 million and that is gross worth, not just what one earns.
It is economic policy decisions that has created that wealth. It could be economic policy that reverses it.
A simple one : Would Gates or the Pharma moguls huge fans of “free markets “, be quite as wealthy with out their Government enforced monopolies.”
Another: Why are gains and dividends taxed at a lower rate than earned income. I don’t need an answer on that.
Why do bankruptcy proceedings put investor obligations above employee obligations.
……
The whole tax code benefits the ultra wealthy. Public employees have to pay taxes as incomes are always reported, and they have no loopholes or tax credits. I don’t mind paying taxes, but I would like to see the ultra wealthy paying their fair share.
The same can be said for how the charter lobby has a big impact on education policy despite the fact that nothing they promote has proven value. We live in an oligarchy where the wealthy count more than working people.
What’s the cost to American citizens for all of the money Gates, Zuck and Walton heirs sheltered from taxation for their failed initiatives?.
As Bernie would say Huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Suggesting that the Charter industry is responsible for CRT ignores that there is really no CRT taught in high schools. The ideas relating to systemic racism are too complex to explain to a group of students who are just trying to understand how the major historical events line up.
The teaching of CRT is actually an invention of conservatives as the latest thing to try to scare scare people and divert attention from its true agenda.
Exactly, Roy. It’s the Conservatives’ latest two-minutes hate.
CRT = Emmanuel Goldstein
I think it might be helpful if some of the African Americans who read and comment on this blog would talk about their lived experiences.
Charters appeal to the savior platform and helping “… students in ‘those’ zip codes’…”
(and the profit of privatizing and destroying public schools and unions.”
Ha! Now – how do they rationalize their diversity trainings and taking on social justice and, uh, teaching history? Do they deny that what they thought they were fixing was a systemic issue, not just circumstances in the 21st century detached from anything that preceded.
Well, pair that with the actions and stories of constraint and their methods (walk in a line and expand your cheeks (because you can’t talk when you do that) ….
Consider Carter G. Woodson quote: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”
Yes, we need to address disparity related to socioeconomic level–to class–in the United States and not lose focus on that.
No, attempting to end systemic racism will not distract from this.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. In the 19th century, there were plenty of advocates for temperance or women’s suffrage or both who were aghast about the introduction of discussions of abolition into their meetings because they felt that concern about this would take eyes of their issue/s.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Don’t fall for this lie again, folks. Please.
Look, billionaires can both be committed to some good causes AND be doing a lot of evil. And some might be doing the occasional good for the wrong reasons–e.g., as PR or to assuage their own consciences so that they can tell themselves what capital chaps they are.
And, ofc, the use of racial outcome gap to argue in favor of charter schools and vouchers is preposterous, sickening, wrong. Hey, billionaires: It’s the economic disparity, stupid.
And consider this: Hitler was as vile a human as ever lived. A monster. He also liked puppies and threw his enthusiastic support behind physical education programs (calisthenics and the like)–undeniably a good thing. So, he was a monster AND he did this thing that wasn’t horrible. That he did in no way changes the fact that he was a monster. And, in fact, he did the much smaller good thing for a TERRIBLE reason–because he wanted to spread the mythology of a perfect Aryan Volk made up of blonde, blue-eyed young warrior men and healthy young women for making babies.
We need to teach, in our schools, about the horrific history of racism in this country, up to and including the systemic racism of today, AND the horrific history of economic inequity here. These are NOT, emphatically NOT, mutually incompatible.
Two sides of the same coin.
BTW, uniting the two was why the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Memphis–to support the sanitation workers and link racial and economic injustice–to build upon and VASTLY EXPAND what he had so successfully started.
And this is why the powers that were killed him.
When the two–antiracism and economic equity are united–when poor whites and POC stand together–the exploiters will tremble and then fall.
But isn’t this a chicken or egg thing? Poor whites seem far too easily swayed by appeals to their racism. If we lived in an anti-racist society, they might not be so susceptible to appeals to scapegoating non-whites and might place the blame where it belongs, on the billionaires who are buying themselves the government that does their bidding.
And I do think that young people are far more likely to recognize the racism in today’s society and be less fearful of the idea of anti-racism. They don’t buy into the narrative that if you talk too much about racism and try to do something to make this country less racist, it hurts the progressive movement or it makes people even more racist. AOC’s response that Matthew Thomas criticizes is probably more typical of the younger generation. As much as I like Bernie, I think he didn’t get it the same way many young folks do. That’s why he made his comment after the 2018 midterm elections that “I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American.” Can you imagine AOC or her squad saying that a white person who feels uncomfortable voting for an African-American candidate isn’t racist? I know there are many exceptions (especially among this blog’s author and her readers) but I do think it is a generational thing. Older folks (and I include myself) need to recognize the implicit racism in the way we think. And to his credit, I believe that Bernie Sanders did just that and his understanding of what it means to be anti-racist changed.
The writer of this article says “the models of anti-racism now dominant in the education sector are an outgrowth of the charter school industry, funded by billionaires, and deliberately minimize the importance of class analysis.”
This writer’s definition of “dominant” is suspect. He cites a few examples of charter promoters using that language for their own benefit. That doesn’t have anything to do with what most people fighting for anti-racist education want. And there is no evidence that using the 1619 Project content and other anti-racist content would do anything except correct the previously incorrect presentation of America as a country where all races are treated equally, due to the important work of many white men and MLK Jr. There is no evidence that most anti-racist teaching is about pushing a pro-charter narrative.
It is one thing to rightly be opposed to billionaires pushing the privatization of education. It is one thing to rightly point out when billionaires are co-opting the anti-racist movement for their own benefit. But it is another thing altogether to make such sweeping attacks which seemed designed to do nothing but undermine the entire anti-racist movement.
This is the kind of argument that has helped empower the right. This writer basically smears the entire anti-racist movement as if anyone who supports it must then be considered suspect and a tool of billionaires.
If anything, the writer is doing what he accuses others of. He is deliberately minimizing the importance of race analysis, and presenting a model of class analysis that deliberately minimizes racism. Does he realize that deliberately minimizing racism is going to hurt the progressive agenda? Just because there may be some anti-progressives who are also anti-racist is not evidence that the anti-racist agenda is an anti-progressive agenda. Pushing that false narrative is the kind of crap that got us Trump, 3 right wing Supreme Court Justices, and set the progressive agenda back at least a decade and likely even more.
BTW, uniting the two was why the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Memphis–to support the sanitation workers and link racial and economic injustice–to build upon and VASTLY EXPAND what he had so successfully started.
When the two–antiracism and economic equity are united–when poor whites and POC stand together–the exploiters will tremble and then fall.
Very curious about why this comment should have gone into moderation.
No reason why comments go into moderation. You didn’t mention Brett Kavanaugh
Another attempt. An experiment.
BTW, uniting the two was why the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Memphis–to support the sanitation workers and to link racial and economic injustice–to build upon and VASTLY EXPAND what he had so successfully started.
When the two–antiracism and economic equity are united–when poor whites and POC stand together, then we shall be making progress.
Wow. Still in moderation. Bizarre.
As a parallel to the point that Thomas makes- the progressives’ agenda is to lessen corporate dominance and the political influence of the wealthy. It is logical to think that when the conservative religious saw ads from corporations and TV programming that showed LGBTQ story lines, their opposition would lead them away from the party that serves corporations and the wealthy. But, instead, it led them to a holy allegiance with the GOP.
I don’t doubt that Thomas is correct. The billionaires’ seeming progressive move for CRT is a further attempt to drive conservatives away from the economic agenda that would benefit those in the middle and poorer classes.
Just today, here’s an example of antiracism folly running amok, predictably so. It exemplifies how antiracism props up racism and recreates it in a “Black” context. The “race-conscious public health” thing should scare the bejesus out of us.
“WATCH: Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) advocates for the ‘Anti-Racism in Public Health Act’ that ‘will require the federal government to begin developing race-conscious public health approaches through two programs within the CDC.'” It seems she’s in conversation with “How To Be An Anti-Racist” ideologist Ibram X. Kendi. He appears briefly in the clip.
In one of his books, Kendi characterizes antiracism as one end of a rope and racism as the other end of a rope. The characterization posits a tug-of-war between antiracism and racism. In other word, a competition. But we know the inherent nature of competition, don’t we? No, why would anyone, even if racist, want to be made a loser by antiracism? The whole antiracism thing is just a whole bunch of senselessness.
Ed,
Summer of 2020-
In the context of Covid, Ohio state Senator Steve Huffman (a school privatizing advocate) stated, at a congressional hearing, his racist view about people of color and infection. He was fired from his job as an emergency room doctor by his private employer because of his comment.
Disparate outcomes are proof that medical care in the U.S. is racially discriminatory as is policing.
Before you criticize those offering solutions you should explain what you have done or plan to do to fix the problem.
Linda, sorry but the way of thinking that says “don’t bring me a problem without offering a solution” holds no water with me. Solving problems generally doesn’t work like that. A problem’s solution generally results from a confluence of various contributions.
Now, of course, there are disparate, racially discriminatory outcomes in medical care. However, social justice activist and Penn U. Professor Dorothy Roberts makes clear such outcomes generally arise from…wait for it!…”race-conscious” medical policies and practices.
Here is Roberts delivering Emory University’s Emory Law Martin Luther King Jr Lecture. You might watch. A human being-conscious “solution” will/should become apparent…
Ed-
“A confluence” would include Dr. Dorothy Roberts. Your views
impede progress. Roberts, as example of her point, clarifies the wrongness of assuming Black people can endure more pain because of traits inherent to their race. Too many erroneous conclusions made by Whites in the medical field, which use race as basis for decisions, deliberatively advantage the white race and male gender.
Ed Johnson,
Given that your are spreading the propaganda of right wing propagandist “MythinformedMKE”, who also has tried to sow rabid hatred against perfectly nice classroom teachers and administrators like the people who post on this blog by implying that they are teaching students to hate white people, I have to question anyone who is spreading that teacher-hating troll’s propaganda.
Now I understand why I previously read your completely false characterization of Ibram X. Kendi’s book. Your characterization of it wasn’t true – I wonder if whatever caused you to think Kendi was saying things he was not was also propaganda that originated from from MythinformedMKE.
In fact, this act, is supported by many admirable politicians, including Elizabeth Warren. From the press release way back in early February when this was first announced:
“Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13) reintroduced the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act, a bicameral bill to declare structural racism a public health crisis and confront its public health impacts through two bold new programs within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
…
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it impossible to ignore how centuries of structural racism have created deep disparities in health outcomes for Black and Brown communities: Black and Brown people are nearly three times more likely than white people to contract COVID-19 and one to two times more likely to die from the disease. People of color are also disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions such as diabetes, asthma, hepatitis, and hypertension; infant mortality; maternal mortality and morbidity; and police brutality — and also less likely to be insured and have access to health care providers.
The federal government’s failure to adequately collect and publish race and ethnicity data on COVID-19 testing, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccinations has also demonstrated why comprehensive research is needed to study the health impacts of structural racism and to develop race-conscious public health approaches and reverse disparities that have plagued our nation for too long.”
This act is actually something that has long been needed — gathering accurate research and data.
Furthermore this act was introduced 6 months ago! The fact that Ed Johnson says “just today” actually means that just today, right wing teacher-hating propagandist MythinformedMKE got traction in his attempt to get willing people to spread his disingenuous right wing propaganda – often attacking teachers but this time attacking Kendi and Pressley.
FYI, I hope everyone who isn’t a right wing tropll on here realizes that “The Post Millennial” is far right and presents right wing Republicans in Congress who support Trump as honest and smart (although it does criticize Republicans who do things like vote for legislation supported by Democrats.)
This is like posting links to Breitbart, Newsmaxx and OANN as a news source and anyone who regularly reads this for their source of news are similar to other Americans who regularly read and believe those news sources. Presumably, they also believe the insurrection was peaceful and that Trump won the election.
We know it’s fake. We know she’s just an actress. That’s the point. The video shows someone from a far-right studio expounding a far-left agenda. It’s been obvious for many years that there’s something collaborative going on. Now, as the OP has shown, we finally have proof.
Love the article. Thank you, Diane.