After the election, I posted an article from the Charlotte News-Observer/AP that suggested that attacks on critical race theory was not a decisive factor in many local school board races.
But since there are thousands of local school boards, no one knows for sure whether the issue changed minds and votes.
Axios reports that the anti-CRT crowd made many gains in their effort to win school board races.
Mike Allen writes:
A new PAC focused on electing conservative candidates to public school boards — by raising fears about how racism is taught — won three-fourths of its 58 races across seven states on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Those wins for the 1776 Project PAC, and Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial victory in Virginia, underscore the political potency of culture wars and COVID-related issues in schools this year — and how GOP candidates are seeking to ride the trend to new majorities.
- Founder Ryan Girdusky told Axios: “My PAC is campaigning on behalf of everyday moms and dads who want to have better access to their children’s education.”
But, but, but: School officials are concerned there’s been intense hype and misinformation around the U.S. about what’s actually being taught in most schools.
- They also worry politicization of school boards is sometimes translating to violence against teachers, and poorly informed decision-making.
By the numbers: Thirteen Pennsylvania school board candidates backed by the group won their races, along with 11 in Colorado, nine in Kansas, four in New Jersey, three in Virginia and two each in Ohio and Minnesota.
- They’re not just winning in Republican areas; several candidates won in solid blue counties: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; Passaic County, New Jersey; and Johnson County, Kansas.
Between the lines: Critical race theory is an academic movement focused on systemic racism, especially in U.S. law. It’s largely remained in graduate school settings as opposed to public secondary schools.
- But “CRT” has become a potent political buzzword among conservative politicians and parents upset about schools introducing new lessons about racism and the history of slavery in the U.S.
What to watch: Expect more Republican candidates up and down the ballot to pick up CRT along with the rest of Youngkin’s political playbook.
- The education issue “seems to be trending in our direction, whether it’s school lockdowns, curriculum or critical race theory,” one national GOP strategist told Axios.
If the attacks on CRT continue to stir animosity and spread lies about teaching history, this will cause teachers to self-censor whatever they teach about race and racism. This chilling effect will hamper efforts to think critically and honestly about some of the most important issues in American history. The attacks have also targeted any efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The anti-CRT crusaders say they want to restore “patriotic education.” That is, an education built on lies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
CRT Is The New Willie Horton
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To hell with free speech. There oughta be a federal law mandating that a truthful explanatory sentence be written in full caps or loudly spoken out loud at every mention of the term “critical race theory.” Something such as: “Critical race theory is a theory of the law that is known to have been taught in a public school exactly never.”
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Then why is it on the Virginia Department of Education website: https://www.yahoo.com/now/virginia-dept-education-website-promotes-212129317.html
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Because people the department brought in are using the term loosely or misusing it entirely in communicating with educators. Do you have an example of critical race theory being taught in a Virginia public school?
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Yes. Look at Part 3:
https://www.acps.k12.va.us/Page/3095
All the usual CRT stuff. The evidence is in plain sight.
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I opened the link you provided and found nothing about “critical race theory.” Please identify the specific language that alarmed you.
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Thank you for the reference. Part 3 carries the heading “Resources for Your Personal and Professional Development.” The word “Your” refers to parents (and other adults), not students. There is nothing curricular here. Furthermore, there are two words conspicuously absent from the entire page headed “Teaching Racial Justice”: “critical” and “theory.”
You are certainly talking about something, but it’s not critical race theory.
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It says “we encourage our staff and families to use the resources listed” right there on the website. That is curricular. Unless you want to debate the meaning of “staff”.
And since you seem hung up on the term:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory
“Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
This is exactly what Kendi and the others on the reading list are saying.
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This is my last comment on this string. I reiterate: Part 3’s heading is “Resources for Your Personal and Professional Development,” and the webpage’s text refers to “your child.” The MacArthur “genius” Ibram X. Kendi certainly knows what “critical race theory” mean, and he conveys the correct meaning of the term.
Even if the writers of this webpage were dealing with curriculum–they are not–they provide no examples of teachers teaching critical race theory in their classrooms. I’m still waiting for one. Just one will do. Please don’t disappoint me again.
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Thank you, Bill, for demanding evidence.
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It’s written right into the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, for one example: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp
And since you’re so hung up on that magic phrase “critical race” theory being there, there it is:
“Teachers and administrators should begin with a careful, deliberate analysis of their own personal identities, backgrounds, knowledge base, and biases. They should familiarize themselves with current scholarly research around ethnic studies instruction, such as critically and culturally/community relevant and responsive pedagogies, critical race theory , and intersectionality, which are key theoretical frameworks and pedagogies that can be used in ethnic studies research and instruction.”
Please don’t disappoint me again by moving the goalposts.
And you’re also still wrong about the previous website. If it says ““we encourage our staff and families to use the resources listed”, then that is curricular. Staff is curricular.
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Matt, you just moved the goalpost. You said CRT is taught in Virginia schools and you provided a link that has no mention of CRT. When called out to provide evidence that CRT is taught in Virginia, you offer a California document that includes a reference to CRT.
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Because if you’d read the entire powerpoint presentation you would see that the topic was not CRT. It was about a multi-tiered system of behavioral supports that are effective in reducing inappropriate discipline procedures & suspensions. CRT was mentioned at the end of the presentation to suggest using race as a lens to consider school structures that lead to excess suspensions.
Try learning about the context of this issue instead of lazy thinking.
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Diane,
Nothing “alarmed” me. I simply pointed out the reading list on the website is a who’s who of CRT proponents.
jcgrim, yes, I read the whole powerpoint. That was just one example. Here it is on video being promoted: https://youtu.be/KmoxhdCHkX8
Watch at around the 2:18 mark.
Again, the evidence is in plain sight.
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Diane,
Bill’s original statement was ““Critical race theory is a theory of the law that is known to have been taught in a public school exactly never.”
That is what I was addressing with the California link.
It is being taught in Virginia, specifically Fairfax County:
https://youtu.be/KmoxhdCHkX8
Right around the 2:18 pm mark.
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The California Department of Education, since you mentioned it by the way, encourages teachers to be aware of who we are and who our students are, and support them through difficulties, to understand our students for the improvement of our practices, not to teach the students CRT. The California Department of Education has curriculum frameworks that guide instruction. You will not find any controversial issues in the frameworks.
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And the ethnic studies curriculum is a single class called for by the Legislature.
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Matt Metzger, admit it. CRT is about Black people and you don’t like that.
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These anti-CRT folks are of two camps. One is the manipulators using this in the same way that The Party did in Orwell’s 1984 when it created the specter of Emmanuel Goldstein and the corresponding Two-Minutes Hates–to rile up the morons. And the second is the morons.
Critical Race Theory is a concept advanced by Derrick Bell and some other law professors many years ago. The claim of that group of law theorists was that the legal framework deriving from the Brown decision has not been successful in rooting out racism in America because racism is too endemic to be so rooted out. This was never a thing in K-12 schools. There probably weren’t two K-12 teachers in all of the United States who had ever heard of it until the extreme right-wing hit upon using this–a fantasy–to rile up their base white supremacist base. It’s like the George Soros-sponsored caravans or, going further back in the history, the claims that Jews were poisoning the wells used to justify pogroms.
But it works, witness the comments of this Mat Metzgar here on this blog. Millions of ideologues are believing this nonsense because they want to. But hey, we live in a time when the ex-president of the United States can claim he won the last election and people will believe that. This is religious cultism.
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Bob,
I’ve never said if I was for or against CRT, so you must be a mind-reader. The issue is whether it is being taught in public schools.
I posted a link from the California Department of Education showing it is part of their Model Curriculum.
Your comment below “So, the “CRT is poisoning the wells” gambit is working with the morons” shows you do not respect others who have a different opinion than your own.
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Just as I don’t have respect for folks who think that shape-shifting reptilian aliens from Alpha Draconis are secretly running the world or that the dead JFK Jr. is going to materialize and become IQ45’s running mate, I have nothing but utter contempt for those who spread this vicious, divisive nonsense about the CRT epidemic in schools. It’s Jews Poisoning the Wells/Soros Caravan stuff. It DESERVES utter contempt and derision.
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I would go so far as to say that it REQUIRES utter contempt and derision. Why? Because it is fundamentally dishonest. It’s propaganda to rile up latent (not so latent in recent years) white supremacist and feelings of threat among the uneducated. Negative social sanction is an effective tool against propaganda, but in times of economic difficulty, its a peashooter, alas.
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Bob,
So if someone disagrees with you, it’s because of propaganda. And since they disagree with you, they are dishonest as well.
Got it. Have a nice day.
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If it quacks like a duck and steps like a goose, . . .
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That Matt’s a tetchy one. Let’s hope he comes back if he actually has something substantive to add. I’m so glad he posted this quote above: “Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
Now, take “Critical race theorists hold that”, read it again, and please explain to me what is wrong about that. When we teach slavery to children, should they also learn about stealing people and deporting them to an unknown world, should they learn about smells, sounds, pain, and casual death in the holds of the ships. I could go on. Or would you rather they go no deeper than the traingular slave trade?
Should they learn about the actual effects of Jim Crow on real people? Or is knowing that the story of Redemption is as much as we need to do? Should they understand the extent of lynching, some intricate descriptions, pictures and films of actual lynchings? Or is knowing that Birth of Nation was shown in the White House enough?
And please do go on how racism has not been hardwired policy to block access to housing based on skin color from the earliest settlers west to the racial manipulation of the New Deal, the Federal Housing Authority, and tens of thousands of local laws and codes. This one I really want to here. Same with segregation in education. Same with transportation policy. Same with policing policies since records have been kept.
Now, I’m sorry that there are unprovable lies and anecdotes about a few (if they exist at all) incompetent teachers who supposedly make little Bobby and Sally feel sad because they’re white and somehow guilty. But you know what, those teachers don’t exist and, if they do, I bet you can count them on one hand. Let’s not go about smearing an entire system based on contrived lies and fanciful anecdotes. Oh wait, Matt and his allies have built a whole “philosophy” and political mob around those. And hiding racist motives in convoluted language ain’t gonna work on some of us any more. We see through you.
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…take out “Critical…” from the sentence…
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Matt Metzgar,
Your entire argument that “CRT is being taught in public schools” is that if teachers are learning about CRT, that means they are teaching children CRT? But you can’t give even a single example of that in an public school except that you support the parents who want to ban “Beloved” from high school AP classrooms.
It is so appalling that we have to have these irrational conversations that only serve to legitimize the far right’s attempt to sow hate and outrage about things that don’t happen. The only actual example of something very dangerous being taught in public schools that the anti-CRT folks can cite is that Beloved was taught in an AP class of high school seniors.
You know that having TEACHERS learning more about Critical Race Theory is very important when people like Matt Metzgar support Trump-supporting parents who want Beloved banned simply because they are white and the anti-CRT folks “know” that whatever white people – especially white people who know the election was stolen from Trump – think is important is what public school teachers must teach.
Because Critical Race Theory is something that helps TEACHERS understand that white parents who want Beloved banned from high school AP classes should not have final say because they are white.
If Critical Race Theory itself was being taught to students, Matt could come up with an example besides his attempt to normalize the outrage that anti-CRT parents feel because their students read Beloved.
Teachers also learn techniques for teaching students to read. Matt Metzgar’s questionable logic would have him claiming that means that first grade teachers all over the country are forcing their students to read academic books about how to teach children to read!
It does outrage me that these kinds of manufactured events are promoted by right wingers who post here. These propaganda purveyors should be marginalized. They don’t want a discussion, they want to sow hate and outrage with lies.
I am waiting for Matt Metzgar to come up with a memo about elementary school reading techniques that teachers can use, which Matt Metzgar would then offer up as “evidence” that second grade teachers were forcing their 2nd graders to read college level texts about how reading is taught.
Matt Metzgar says that we should do what he does and assume that every memo that discusses different approaches teachers can incorporate in how they teach is clear evidence that the students in their classes are being forced to learn about the different approaches teachers can incorporate in their learning.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true — and Matt Metzgar likely knows it isn’t. it matters whether people can sow more hate in this country.
The angry faces of the parents who, like Matt, want Beloved banned from high school AP classes says it all. Still waiting for Matt to come up with another example besides Beloved. A “memo” is not an example, except to people who believe first grade teachers have stopped teaching students how to read and instead are teaching 6 year olds what their college professors taught them about different approaches to teaching a 6 year old how to read. How absurd. But, according to Matt Metzgar, any discussion of how to teach reading means that 6 year olds are now being taught how to teach reading to other 6 year olds!
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GregB,
Something of substance to add. Let’s see, I was told that CRT is not taught in public schools anywhere. I posted a link showing it’s part of the California Model Curriculum. No response.
And now “Matt and his allies”. Paranoid much? I have still never even said if I was against CRT.
“We see through you”. What are you talking about? Do you not know how to have an argument?
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The history of 20th-century federal housing regulation and its effect on generational wealth is a really revealing one raised by Greg. There are reasons why extreme economic disparity by “race” exists in the United States. It was policy.
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NYC Public,
I don’t read your comments anymore. So whatever you said, I’m sure you must be right. But keep repeating the same thing over and over, just to be sure.
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Matt Metzgar,
I noticed that when you have to make a special post about how you don’t read the comments of someone so you aren’t replying, it is clear that you are not able to defend your ideas against criticism, and you know it.
If you thought I had no point, you would just ignore me. Let my response to you stand without comment. Why are you so afraid of criticism? Because you know that your arguments are weak propaganda?
I have interesting discussions with people who can defend their comments.
And the ones who can’t defend themselves go on the attack like Trump.
But I see many other good people calling out your dishonesty on here, which makes me quite happy.
You have no good defense of your position. Will you be attacking them, too?
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Matt, you’re obviously a racist troll using CRT propaganda for cover as some sort of “argument.” There is no substance to anything you write or imply (wrongly) with the links you post. We see right through you.
You’re also a moron for reading “They should familiarize themselves with…critical race theory…” as a mandate. What exactly about “should familiarize” don’t you understand? Is that not a primary task of an educator?
Now go tuck in your robe and put away your hood.
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Down below Matt Metzgar links to this California CRT curriculum that he wants to ban from high schools.
It is an elective ethnic studies class for high school juniors and seniors.
If that elective ethnic studies class for California high schools is the only example of a high school class that mentions CRT that Matt Metzgar can come up with, then all Matt Metzgar did was convince us all that CRT leads to very interesting classes that apparently some racist white people want to forbid all students – regardless of their ethnicity – from taking.
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Matt,
I watched the Fairfax County Public School video that you referenced, at the 2:18 mark. What I saw was a bullet point on a slide that said, “Critical Race Theory.”
When they got to that point, the speaker started of with, Critical Race Theory has been very much in the news. This is what it is.
At no point that I heard did the speaker say, this is what we’re teaching in the public schools.
What did I miss?
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This sort of statement destroys the credibility of anyone who utters it, the moral equivalent of Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
It’s true that CRT started that way in the 60s, but the theory was rapidly adopted by loads of academics outside of law, who combined it with postmodern ideas. This mutated theory spread outside of academia over the next few decades.
I first encountered this new CRT when working at a school district, where it was incorporated into our DEI training. At the time, the term “Critical Race Theory” was totally unknown to the public and it took many hours on my part to track down the source of the ideas and put a label on them.
As long as left-of-center people keep selling their souls to defend this “you can’t believe the videos” narrative, they will be damaging the prospects of Democratic candidates everywhere. It makes me ill to think that pro-Trump candidates might get elected because of it.
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You are correct.
The endless arguments about what CRT is and is not are ultimately beside the point. “CRT” has become the brand term for a basket of concepts that many parents (rightly, in my view) think are divisive and inappropriate to be “taught” in the sense that one teaches generally accepted facts and theories. These concepts include things like:
it is not possible to be “colorblind” and in fact it is actually essential to consider the race, gender, and sexuality of the people we interact with.
“equality” is an inadequate concept for civil rights because it assumes each individual has the same resources, whereas “equity” is essential for civil rights because it allocates resources to each person or group based on their need.
there is no such thing as biological sex
racism is part of the “DNA” of this country
racism is the ordinary state of affairs in the U.S., baked into every system and institution
everyone has anti-black biases, even if they are not aware of those biases, and denying the existence of one’s biases is proof of those biases
there is no such thing as a non-racist policy, because all policies are either racist or anti-racist.
It may seem hard to believe for some commenters here, but many parents who are not right-wing racists object to their children being “taught” these things as factual matters, rather than arguments that have legitimate counter-arguments. And call me a right-wing lunatic if you want, but it is my opinion, and the opinion of millions of other American parents, that children do not need to be aware of and discuss their “group identities” in pre-K or kindergarten. These are legitimate objections, and they’re not the same as objecting to teaching the history of the slave trade, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow. I took the time to type this out, but these are obvious points that everyone recognizes. Denying them just burns credibility.
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Here’s an attempt to clean up the bullet point list that WordPress murdered above:
it is not possible to be “colorblind” and in fact it is actually essential to consider the race, gender, and sexuality of the people we interact with.
“equality” is an inadequate concept for civil rights because it assumes each individual has the same resources, whereas “equity” is essential for civil rights because it allocates resources to each person or group based on their need.
there is no such thing as biological sex
racism is part of the “DNA” of this country
racism is the ordinary state of affairs in the U.S., baked into every system and institution
everyone has anti-black biases, even if they are not aware of those biases, and denying the existence of one’s biases is proof of those biases
there is no such thing as a non-racist policy, because all policies are either racist or anti-racist.
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A fascinating list of topics, Flerp, well worth public discussion and debate.
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I would make quite a few additions to your list, Flerp. Here’s one:
“Biological sex” and “gender” are two different concepts.
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Or, rather, replace it with this. Has anyone ever made a claim that there was no such thing as biological sex? There are, of course, phenomena don’t fall under a lifelong biological sex binary distinction. Intersex babies, for example. Plants and animals that change their biological sex. Plants that have more than two sexes. And so on.
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For excellent discussion of these phenomena, see Roughgarten, Joan. Evolution’s Rainbow. U of CA P, 2013.
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I noticed that flerp didn’t include the counterargument to the ideas he objects to. I think that is because flerp would have a very hard time doing what he claims he wants to do and discuss why he believes that the following ideas should be taught in school:
It is possible to be completely colorblind and in fact, it is actually essential that one does not consider that the experience of people who are of a different race, gender and sexuality could possibly be different than the experience of white heterosexual men.
“equality” has been an absolutely perfect concept for civil rights because in this country, each individual starts with the same resources and it is clear that in voting and policing and courts and education, all are already perfectly equal. Whereas “equity” is dangerous for civil rights because people who start out with the most resources should always retain the most power to insure they can continue to have the most resources.
There is no racism in this country anymore and it was never part of our country’s “DNA”, which has always been that all men are created equal.
White folks who say that they have no anti-black biases don’t have anti-black biases. There is no such thing as implicit racism because anyone who says that they aren’t racist, is by definition, not racist. There is no such thing as being unaware of one’s biases because anyone who has biases would be aware of them.
Pointing out that people who deny being biased can still be biased is proof of anti-white racism.
There is no such thing as a racist policy if white people say that the policy is not racist.
Is this the world as flerp sees it?
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Biological sex v. gender
This is the influential distinction that the breathtakingly brilliant and original and Simone de Beauvoir (from whom Jean-Paul Sartre “borrowed” many of his best ideas) made in The Second Sex (1949) when she wrote, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Sex: a biological inheritance of certain primary and secondary phenotypic traits related to roles in mating and reproduction. Gender: a presentation of the self in society in keeping with learned cultural norms traditionally but not necessarily associated with persons of one sex or another.
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I should note that as a small step in a mental health initiative, I deleted my WordPress account and the WordPress app, so I am (thankfully) no longer notified when I get a response or when my name is mentioned. And I also am no longer able to respond directly to comments that are more than two levels deep in a thread. So I may see a comment addressed to me, but if I can’t respond directly to it, I probably won’t respond at all. (And of course generally speaking I don’t read the walls of high-pitched text that are NYCPP’s comments, to save myself from becoming even stupider than I already am.)
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Gender: a presentation of the self in society in keeping with learned cultural (socially constructed and transmitted) norms traditionally but not necessarily associated with persons of one sex or another.
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I didn’t address any comments to flerp.
I addressed my comments to everyone who read flerp’s two overly long bullet points about the ideas that offend him so much.
The opposite is what flerp demands students be taught? That white people who believe they aren’t racist cannot be racist. That our society is perfectly colorblind and all racism is caused by people who keep saying that there is racism in our society. That there is no such thing as a racist law or policy because if it affects races differently, it is the fault of the races who are affected differently.
I get that was fine in the 1970s. It isn’t fine anymore.
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I’m not a right wing parent, but…
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Greg Esres,
You and flerp! never give examples. You think that “left-of-center” people keep “selling our souls” because we don’t act like Trump voters and say that any opinion we hear on Fox or other right wing news sources is true. We ask for facts. You offered a completely unsupported opinion about how you encountered CRT and deemed it bad, and we are supposed to take your word for it.
On occasion, flerp links to videos that I watch in their entirety instead of just doing what most people do and taking the word of folks like you and flerp who clearly don’t want a real conversation.
It turns out that what those videos do is demonize perfectly nice educators and cause people to threaten them with harm. There is nothing dangerous in them. Taking a sentence out of context while ignoring the rest of the content of what is being said is not “evidence”. It is dishonest propaganda designed to hurt our country.
I believe the videos because I watch them in their entirety. They prove the opposite of what you and flerp claim. That’s why I know that you and flerp have an agenda.
You told us you thought CRT was bad but you didn’t tell us why. Did it make you feel like you might have some racist beliefs. Did you learn that police might treat white people differently than people who are not white? Did your white supremacy feel threatened?
Right leaning people like you and flerp are selling your souls to the neo-fascist white supremacist movement. You may think that a “victory” for your side will make your family feel safe and happy because they are white. But most of us understand that living under lies is not a healthy society.
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“The anti-CRT crusaders”… sigh. You make it sound like it’s a fringe group, when it’s actually the majority of people:
https://amac.us/big-majority-of-americans-reject-critical-race-theory-and-favor-parents-rights/
And it’s the same results across race:
“According to the survey, 81% of whites, 81% of blacks, and 87% of Hispanics believe that “the best place for kids to learn to take pride in their ethnic or racial identity is at home,” and the same percentage said that “school is where they should be learning about what it means to be an American” was very or somewhat close to their view”
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OMG! CRT is poisoning the wells!
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Help! CRT is organizing caravans of murderous immigrants!
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Tip: Tin foil hats are great protection against CRT Space Lasers!
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Is CRT leaving socks on your floor and not helping with the dishes? Our family therapists can help!
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Socks on the floor or socks on your ears,
take your pick…
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Did you know that CRT is second in command among the legions of darkness after Lucifer himself, maker of certain vaccinations?
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And all children’s books are secretly encoded with subliminal CRT! So, don’t teach your children to read! They will grow up to be transgendered Socialists!
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But Benito Mussolini and Joseph Kennedy secretly married in 1943 and had two children, Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy, Jr., who will in 2024 return to lead the Army of the Faithful against the forces of CRT and establish the New Jerusalem–Ivankalandia!
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You forgot to mention that the CRT controversy was totally manufactured by a right wing operative. The anti-CRT folks have been duped.
ttps://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory
“Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote.
He thought that the phrase was a better description of what conservatives were opposing, but it also seemed like a promising political weapon. “Its connotations are all negative to most middle-class Americans, including racial minorities, who see the world as ‘creative’ rather than ‘critical,’ ‘individual’ rather than ‘racial,’ ‘practical’ rather than ‘theoretical.’ Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.” Most perfect of all, Rufo continued, critical race theory is not “an externally applied pejorative.” Instead, “it’s the label the critical race theorists chose themselves.
“This entire movement came from nothing,” Rufo wrote to me recently, as the conservative campaign against critical race theory consumed Twitter each morning and Fox News each night. But the truth is more specific than that. Really, it came from him.”
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There it is! I was waiting for this.
So if someone disagrees with you, they’ve been “duped”. And your comments are dripping with contempt – those poor, crazed right-wingers, they just aren’t smart like me.
Is it possible that parents with children in school, actually understand the issue and have a different and legitimate position? Is that possible in your worldview?
And people wonder why they US is so polarized…
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JC, he quit reading after “duped”, which might be too generous and forgiving. These are willing, begging ciphers. “Thank god for CRT, otherwise I’d either have to keep stewing in my resentments or join my local klan/militia/Republican Party,” they think to themselves.
Grand Wizard, please explain to us what you mean by “understand the issue”. Please give us some more of your “facts.” Wait til I get my popcorn and get settled in. This should be entertaining in its own way.
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Matt Metzger, The person who manufactured this agit-prop takes full credit for generating fear & anger in white parents. He admits as much right here:
“it [CRT] also seemed like a promising political weapon.” “This entire movement came from nothing,” Rufo wrote to me recently, as the conservative campaign against critical race theory consumed Twitter each morning and Fox News each night.”
Admit it. Political operatives threw in the hook and you took the bait.
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“when it’s actually the majority of people”
Those mobs with pitchforks who don’t know what they’re upset about tend to be majorities until people figure them out or they destroy everything and find themselves lost. Lemmings all.
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Then all those people who voted for Biden are lemmings? That was a majority.
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That’s a good point, although you don’t see it. President Biden’s votes could be counted. How do you determine and why are you so sure “it’s actually the majority of people”? What’s your metric? If “the majority of people” are duped to believe something that has absolutely nothing to do with the truth and verifiable fact, does the number of people that hold that false opinion matter other than to stifle legitimate debate?
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It’s NOT CRT that parents are reacting to! Parents are reacting to DEI (a purchased “curriculum in a can” ) and “HOW” it is being presented to children in public schools. It may not be happening in all school districts, but it IS happening. There is a “sorting” of children (hormonal bundles of ooze at the MS and HS levels) into boxes with hard lines instead of letting children organically form Venn Diagrams….this is the best way that I can describe it. “Most ” parents want real history taught, “most” parents aren’t advocating for the banning of books, “most” parents are fine with the 1619 Project used as a lens for teaching about slavery. The problem is that when the sane parents have concerns about the DEI (or any other educational malpractice), they are labeled as right-wing, nut-job, Nazi book burning zealots and so we just choose to walk away and keep our mouths shut….leaving the crazy parents to blow everything up. This won’t end well for the children or for public education.
I guess today is my day to be torched by a certain poster or 2…..so let it begin. I won’t stop telling the truth about this.
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[👏 👏 👏
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“There is a “sorting” of children (hormonal bundles of ooze at the MS and HS levels) into boxes with hard lines instead of letting children organically form Venn Diagrams”
Glad that flerp is going on record in opposition to the sorting of students by ability.
““most” parents are fine with the 1619 Project used as a lens for teaching about slavery.”
Glad that flerp is going on record applauding the use of the 1619 Project as a lens for teaching about slavery.
I am a parent and I wish you would provide more detail about how my kid is being taught DEI in a can. I usually pay a lot of attention to what my kid is learning, and I haven’t seen any of this DEI in a can. But you say you have.
Can you cite a few examples of the horrible DEI ideas your own child was taught in school that outraged you?
You aren’t “telling the truth”. You are just ranting. If you give examples of (anti-white?) things your own children were taught in their public schools that have outraged you so much, I would like to hear them so I can look out for them.
I assume that flerp must also have children who were taught horrible things about diversity while they attended NYC public schools and perhaps flerp can also give some specific examples of the terrible harm his own children experienced from the DEI curriculum that apparently caused so much damage to students.
I’m open to real evidence from both of you. But if you just want to rant louder instead of enlightening me to what I am supposed to be so frightened about that you and flerp’s children are suffering through that I am missing in my own kid’s education, I would like to know what it is.
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^^^and crickets….
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To add somewhat to NYPSP’s comment, please be specific about why you assume parents who have concerns about DEI are sane. What makes them sane, and carrying this to its logical conclusion, what’s insane about the people who disagree with them? And while we’re at it: what concerns? I really don’t know. You’re assuming quite a lot here.
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LisaM posted “Parents are reacting to DEI (a purchased “curriculum in a can” ) and “HOW” it is being presented to children in public schools. It may not be happening in all school districts, but it IS happening.”
GregB., this is it. This is the sum total of what LisaM and flerp are angry about me not fearing. It’s something scary. It’s something very, very scary. And it’s happening. I can’t help questioning the credentials of any lawyer who applauds this as a convincing evidence-based argument. I haven’t been scared by anything my kid learned in a supposedly “woke” Brooklyn public school. But LisaM tells me to be scared of something that’s coming to get us all. It’s going to ban sorting by ability and going to force sorting by ability. Or something like that.
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Critical race theory is unrelated to “learn[ing] to take pride in … ethnic or racial identity.” As for “parental rights,” please read the October 28 post on this blog titled, “Schneider and Berkshire: Parents Do Not Have the Right to Decide What Their Children Learn.”
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So you think it’s a survey wording issue? These polls specifically ask about CRT:
https://www.ocpathink.org/post/oklahomans-strongly-oppose-critical-race-theory-in-schools
Or on page 46 here:
Click to access HHP_October_12PM_vF.pdf
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So, the “CRT is poisoning the wells” gambit is working with the morons who voted for the guy who thought we should inject disinfectants and buy Greenland and send astronauts to the sun and take pride in our actually invisible stealth airplanes.
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Don’t forget falsifying an official map with a Sharpie (and violating Federal law in the process) in a hapless effort to cover up a lie, Bob.
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CRT controversy is totally manufactured agitprop. It’s taken hold as the latest right wing boogey man because that’s the purpose of agitprop- scare large numbers of people into a frenzy. Just because large numbers of people believe it’s a problem, doesn’t make it real. Nixon was an expert at this trick & the Republicans have followed in his footsteps since the 1960’s.
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Matt-
You’re not laboring under the mistaken notion that Harvard opposes colonialism, are you? The school was/is entrenched in privatization campaigns. Media reported that Jared Kushner bought his way in. The school was led by Larry Summers. Taking money from Jeffrey Epstein (lots of connections to Harvard) was fine with one or more departments/labs at Harvard. McConnell learned about tribalism at a Kennedy School of Government seminar.
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Let’s see if they get anything productive or positive or worthwhile accomplished for public schools.
It’s easy to attack public schools. It’s harder to contribute anything positive to them.
The jury’s still out on this new batch of ed reformers. They’re very effective at bashing public schools in the context of their political campaigns, but that’s all they’ve done.
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What are their plans for public schools? Anyone know? Or are we getting yet another group of full time, professional public school critics?
Once they’re on a school board they’ll have to actually govern public schools- they won’t just be dealing with the parents who all agree with them and elected them. They’ll have to run the schools for the whole community. If it’s more difficult than it looks from the outside will we get any recognition that maybe just banning “CRT” or a list of books or certain speech doesn’t solve any of the really difficult issues public schools deal with in trying to serve all the people in the community?
Let’s give it a year and see how they do. Right now they’re only talking to people who agree with them. If that were the actual job of a school board member it would be easy. The test wil be whether they can run schools that serve all students.Judging by how they have reduced these complicated issues to slogans and sound bites and wholly negative portrayals of public schools they’re better politicians than they are working school board members.
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One perhaps positive outcome is when they are on the school board they will no longer be able to attack the school board without being accountable for anything.
They say running schools is easy and any parent can do it. Let’s see how easy it is. Let’s wait for the first community conflict or debate where 20% or 50% or 70% of the community doesn’t agree with the NEW board. That’s the hard part. It should be interesting to watch how the people who were screaming at the school board react when they’re the school board and people are screaming at them.
I’m wary of any group or politician who say they have this whole thing figured out and all the people currently running schools are idiots and if we just put the new group in charge there’s easy fixes for issues like “equity” or “how to teach government”. It just isn’t true. These are really hard problems. Political sloganeering on “CRT” or “wokeness” isn’t going to make them go away.
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Beautifully said, Chiara.
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Agree.
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It really IS interesting though. I guess public schools are fashionable again!
After 20 years of an exclusive focus on opening charters and distributing vouchers – with annual forays into public schools but only to test and rank public school students- we finally, finally get a focus on public schools. It’s 100% negative and includes no plans for contributions or support of any kind, but at least it mentions public schools so maybe that’s progress.
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Alas. Thank you, Chiara, for your insightful comments. I read them, always, with great pleasure and don’t say this often enough.
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My comment is in moderation. I didn’t think I was too immoderate in my response. LOL.
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Help! CRT is causing cracked iPhone screens!
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OMG, CRT is having an affair with my married cousin!
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Breaking News: CRT is organizing caravans of space lasers!
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Since there are thousands of local
school boards,AND no one knows for sure
whether the issue changed minds and votes,
a nation wide “casting-call” has been issued
for DIVINATORS, oracles “gifted” with
the phenomena of clairvoyance.
Applicants who have NOT had their
crystal balls recalibrated within the
last election cycle, need not apply.
Those claiming to have the ability
to unveil the future MUST
validate their “prowess” by submitting
proof in the form of their Lotto wins.
If you know the future, you’ll know
what numbers to play.
Applicants must prove they are
“sound of mind”. They must explain
how the director of their latest
nightmare is a divergence of their
core.
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Even though CRT is non-issue in public schools, the whole “controversy” highlights how quickly and easily conservative lies spread and cause damage. Some school board members are being threatened by irrational parents.
Democrats should take this time to improve their messaging. Most people do not know how Build Back Better will improve their lives. The left needs to pass legislation, and they need to move on voting rights before they run out of time.
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Indeed, on all counts. Re voting rights: In 2006, the Senate voted 98-0 to reauthorize (and amend) the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Among the “Yea” votes were those of Senators Lindsey Graham, James Inhofe, John Cornyn, Charles Grassley, and Mitch McConnell.
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Since that vote was taken, Republicans are trying to maintain minority rule by suppressing the vote. Democrats need to resolve disagreements and get the bills done ASAP.
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Agreed, Retired Teacher. The CRT controversy did not exist until Trump issued a statement in late 2020 about subversive activities in the schools and the need to return to “patriotic education,” the happy story of American patriots and triumphs.
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So, where did the “theory” part of the term Critical Race Theory come from? Well, as many of the regular commenters on this blog know, CRT emerged in the 1970s from the work of Derrick Bell and other legal scholars who were challenging the notion that the legal framework that emerged from the Brown decision had made significant inroads into eliminating racism in the United States.The term “theory” was very much in the rarified academic air at the time–part of the Postmodernist revolution in literary criticism. One of the leaders of that revolution was Jacques Derrida, and one of his ideas was that our words and phrases carry a trace of their exact opposite, which paradoxically gives extended life to, promotes, the opposing thing–the opposing binary in an enormous number of such binaries that structure our thought (male/female, human/animal, gay/straight, and so on). So, for example, a Postmodernist critique, following Derrida might argue that the art movement known as Surrealism challenged conventional thinking, but melting clocks and flaming giraffes actually reinforce the notion that clocks don’t melt and giraffes don’t burst into flames because it is the very fact that these things don’t happen that gives a Surrealist work its power. I have advanced this notion myself. The idea advanced by Bell was that putting in place certain laws governing racial discrimination gives people the false belief that the problem has been addressed, when these are actually aspirin to a cancer victim. The term “theory” became shorthand for Postmodernist critiques like these.
Of course, all this happened in the extremely rarified air of academic discourse about the effects of laws, and none of this was known by K-12 teachers. As I have said many times here, I doubt that there were 2 K-12 teachers in the United States who had ever heard of Critical Race Theory before the extreme right-wing decided to use this as the name for a boogeyman to scare the undeducated white rabble.
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See Diane Ravitch’s GREAT backgrounder on CRT here: https://dianeravitch.net/2021/07/01/diane-ravitch-time-for-honesty-about-critical-race-theory/
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Imagine a TERRIBLE parent who has chemicals for control of household vermin stored in the garage and decides to tell her child not to go into the garage because there are monsters in there. Well, elected officials and broadcast “news” talking heads spouting off about CRT are that parent. It’s made-up nonsense meant to scare those who don’t know any better.
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If anyone is interested in learning more about this approach to “theory,” here’s a little primer: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2020/04/23/questioning-the-accommodations-of-the-terrarium/
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“CRT isn’t taught in public schools”
From the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum posted online by the California Department of Education:
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp
From Part 3:
“Teachers and administrators should begin with a careful, deliberate analysis of their own personal identities, backgrounds, knowledge base, and biases. They should familiarize themselves with current scholarly research around ethnic studies instruction, such as critically and culturally/community relevant and responsive pedagogies, critical race theory , and intersectionality, which are key theoretical frameworks and pedagogies that can be used in ethnic studies research and instruction”
“Critical race theory (CRT) is a practice of interrogating race and racism in society. CRT recognizes that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It acknowledges that racism is embedded within systems and institutions that replicate racial inequality — codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy.”
From Part 6:
“Students will be introduced to the concept critical race theory as they highlight and discuss the Morris reading in small groups.”
“One of the main focuses of ethnic studies is translating historical lessons and critical race theory into direct action for social justice.”
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I went to the link to “Part 6” you provided instead of just reading your selected quote.
Matt Metzgar is going on record here as wanting to ban California high schools from teaching this perfectly fine elective courses on ethnic studies to juniors and seniors?
Matt Metzgar is so desperate to “prove” that CRT has “infected” all of public education that he found a framework for a perfectly acceptable elective class for high school juniors and seniors and demands that it is banned because the word “CRT” appears.
“Ethnic Studies courses operate from the consideration that race and racism have been, and continue to be, profoundly powerful social and cultural forces in American society. ”
Will Matt Metzgar only be happy when ethnic studies textbooks are burned and ethnic studies lessons are banned from high school?
Matt Metzgar, your post tells parents like me that you and your anti-CRT folks demand that all high school students must be taught that “race and racism have never been and never will continue to be, profoundly social and cultural forces in American society”.
I hope you are aware of how racist your attacks on an elective ethnic studies class for high schoolers is. This is the example of CRT that you demand be banished from all high schools? Wow, just wow.
I hope you are aware that white students whose parents want the discussion of racism in America banned from their education don’t have to take this elective ethnic studies class.
But the fact that the anti-CRT folks want to ban students who may not be white from taking elective ethnic studies classes and learning that there is racism in society because white people like Matt Metzgar don’t want that taught is truly appalling.
You didn’t know that I actually read the links that propaganda purveyors like yourself and flerp provide to justify their faux outrage.
And I always turn that outrage around because it is very revealing when racist folks object to reasonable content that anyone who isn’t a white supremacist would find perfectly acceptable.
Any non-racist person who did what I did and read through the curriculum of the elective ethnic studies class that Matt Metzgar demands be banned from all high schools would say “if this is what including CRT in teaching means – more elective ethnic studies classes like this one – then the people who hate CRT are clearly racist.”
I challenge anyone to read the coursework in the elective ethnic studies class that Matt Metzgar wants to forbid all high school students from taking. Because it is clear that while white parents who are certain that there is no racism in society anymore might want that course banned, that doesn’t mean that Matt Metzgar is right that the course is evil and must be banned. In fact if anything, it proves that CRT leads to a very good approach to teaching an elective ethnic studies class.
Matt Metzgar, I am still appalled that you presented that elective ethnic studies class as something that needs to be banned from public high schools because it mentions CRT. If that class is an example of using CRT in advanced high school classes, it makes CRT look good and the people who want to ban CRT and ethnic classes like this seem racist.
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“Students will be introduced to the concept critical race theory as they highlight and discuss the Morris reading in small groups. (Morris, Wesley. “Fast Forward: Why a movie about car thieves is the most progressive force in American cinema.”). This essay will serve as a model for each student’s subsequent critical analysis of stereotypes in various mediums. Students will then learn how scholars and critiques deconstruct Latino (Latino Images in Film), African American (Ethnic Notions, Good Hair, Madea’s Witness Protection trailer) and Native American stereotypes (Video clips: The Savage, Arrowhead trailer, Avatar trailer, Dances with Wolves trailer, The Last Samurai trailer, trailer) and evaluate the validity of these critiques (in regards to their autobiographical essays from the previous unit) in large and small group discussions. They will examine the intersection between the representation of gender and ethnicity (Miss Representation) and then compare these portrayals with examples of films directed and starring underrepresented groups (Smoke Signals) and understand strategies to disrupt the negative effects (such as internalized oppression and the justification of violence) caused by stereotypes (Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Burrell; “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Hughes) through a foldable activity that compares and contrasts these strategies. Students will then use the readings and coursework as a model for critical analysis. Students will select an example from contemporary popular culture and then write a 500-word analysis of how it either perpetuates or subverts stereotypes.”
This elective course is what Matt Metzgar wants to ban any student from taking because it is CRT teaching which Matt Metzgar implies is a bunch of evil lies that are very dangerous and must be banned from all high schools.
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I don’t have much confidence in the Democratic Party’s ability or anyone for that matter, the traditional media included, to counter the lying misinformation campaign behind CRT in time to reach enough voters to make a difference in 2022 or even 2024.
The Democrats do not have a winning track record to counter any of the major BIG misinformation campaigns the Republican Party has been using to win elections in the states and Congress starting when Reagan was president. That includes fake threats to the 2nd Amendment and that any abortion for whatever reason, even rape or the high risk of the mother dying if she carries the fetus to term, is the same as murdering babies.
Every major issue the GOP has focused on is based on lies and misinformation, but that isn’t all they have done. After President Reagon got rid of the Fairness Doctrine requiring the media to show both sides of each issue, the GOP started to focus on eroding trust in the mainstream, traditional media’s ability to report the news.
Today almost half of Americans don’t trust the traditional news media and have switched to getting most of their information from social media sites that should not be trusted by anyone to report factual news.
I do not see any way out of this mess short of a blood-drenched Civil War between the deplorables and those that do not buy into the deplorables false dystopian view of the world that would result in millions of deaths and our cities burning.
Still, even if there was a horrible 2nd Civil War, there is no guarantee that rational people would win against the insane deplorables that support the BIG LIE traitor.
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he Democrats do not have a winning track record to counter any of the major BIG misinformation campaigns the Republican Party has been using to win elections
all too true
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Well, the way fascists work is that they feed the flames until a country becomes ungovernable by democratic processes. Then, they step in as saviors. What’s happening here is all too familiar.
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A number of years ago, the lunatic fringe on the American right was in a huff about the supposed teaching of Sharia Law in K-12 schools. Where this preposterous idea came from, who knows? Perhaps someone came across some idiotic reference to it somewhere in something prepared by one of the MILLIONS of teachers and administrators across the country. The Great CRT Scare of 2021–same beast.
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And then there was the mayor in a town in Flor-uh-duh who wrote a proclamation banning Satan from the town.
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I’m so frustrated by current administrators forcing their political views and “we know best” attitudes on experienced teachers. I was told by my principal that the Joy Hakim”series of American History books, “A History of US”, didn’t meet the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion standards…I was also told that the chapters were nationalistic and were too slanted towards American exceptionalism. To me, this series gives a voice to all, and among other great qualities, shows how America has made mistakes but is striving to make ‘a more perfect union”. Talk about attacking your allies….
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Allies? I suggest you read what Joy Hakim herself says about her books before you accuse her of attacking herself.
“Danielle Blake, parent of a then-fifth grader at Capitol Hill Elementary, complained about A History of US to her daughter’s teacher, Christopher Naze, in 2019 when she noticed how the books inaccurately depicted Indigenous and Black people and immigrants. WW first reported on her concerns earlier this spring (“Missing History,” March 3, 2021.)
“There’s a lot of stereotypes presented in these books and inaccurate history,” Blake says, “and this book sets the benchmark on how students should be developing academically.”
On page 82 of Book 7, for example, Hakim writes that “peaceful settlers who moved west to farm were often innocent victims of angry Indians.”
Assistant professor Shanté Stuart McQueen of Portland State University’s College of Education says she’s encountered a lot of questionable and generic textbooks, both personally and as an educator. This book still shook her.
“To me, when I read that, even though I can’t be surprised, I still read it with my jaw open,” McQueen says. “How can somebody write this with their fingers knowing what really took place? The quotes not only dehumanize slaves and have no connection to their humanity whatsoever, but they humanize the slave owners.”
Hakim, the books’ author, tells WW via email that while her series has been generally well received, she thinks the books need a major revision. They were first published in 1993, she points out, and have received only minor tweaks since then.
“No question, I want the books to be without bias. But they were written some years ago; we have changed as a nation since then,” Hakim writes. “I have been talking to Oxford [University Press] about an update of the series, and I am not only open to comments and suggestions, I’m eager for them.”
It is sad that a 90+ year old author has a lot more insight into how implicit bias can affect how her own textbooks were written than white parents and teachers do.
Do you think kids in the 1990s should have been using textbooks written in the 1950s, with only a few minor tweaks?
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Thanks for that. I was unaware of Hakim. Those passages you selected are appalling. They are pure indoctrination to a fantasy.
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lmbleck, this is your definition of how “allies” teach:
“As Blake was helping her 12-year-old daughter with her homework, she noticed that the texts distorted the history of slavery and the suffering of Indigenous peoples during colonization.
Blake documented dozens of examples from the book, first published in 1993 and updated in 2005. Among them:
“To run a plantation well, you need to be intelligent and industrious. A plantation owner is like a business executive. He is responsible for the work and the workers,” reads one passage.
In another, Hakim writes: “But most slave owners – even if they were cruel – thought of their slaves as valuable property. They might beat them, but they tried not to do them serious harm. They needed to keep their property healthy.”
The texts also call Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, a “model slave owner,” and describe Harriet Tubman as having unusual traits. “[She] was tiny – just five feet tall – but this Harriet was stronger than most men. She could lift great weights, withstand cold and heat, chop down big trees, and go without food when necessary. She had been trained, in childhood, to take abuse. That was part of what it meant to be a slave.”
Darrell Millner, former longtime director of Portland State University’s Black studies department, says the passages Blake flagged offer simplistic, often factually wrong and racist descriptions of Black figures. But, to Millner, it comes as no surprise.
“Rather than humanizing them and making them a connection that we can share across racial lines,” Millner says, “we set them apart, and they’re almost unrecognizable as human beings.”
This is an example of why I get offended when some teachers here insist that as long as they decide they are “allies” who have no implicit biases, they should be trusted to decide what to teach students.
If Mate and/or ponderosa is reading this, I hope they reconsider their belief that anyone who is an “ally” and says they aren’t racist has nothing to learn.
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Here is another “ally” who thinks he isn’t racist:
“Blake first raised concerns with her daughter’s teacher in October 2019. “I object to the history text for so many reasons,” she wrote to Naze. “Can we discuss?”
Naze responded that Blake’s daughter could skip the readings but declined to speak to her. “Hundreds and hundreds of my students and families have been educated by ‘A History of US’ over the years,” he wrote. “My sense is that meeting on this would waste time.”
When a teacher’s first response is that the text book has been fine for students for many years, and they refuse to listen to anyone who says otherwise, then that teacher is badly in need of some kind of continuing professional education that helps him to understand their own implicit bias.
This parent, who happens to be white herself, nailed exactly what the problem is:
“We’re telling children that the white perspective is the only one that matters.”
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All this stuff is symptomatic of Late Stage Oligarchical White Supremacy, which is going to hit a tipping point when the current crop of young people becomes middle-aged, voting adults, should current trends continue.
Like Cuchulain, the right-wingers are waving their swords about against the tide that is rolling in against them (left-leaning young people, changing demographics, changing attitudes about national healthcare, guns, abortion, gay marriage, wealth taxes, democratic Socialism, etc.), and they are building dikes–legislation to suppress voting and to create fundamentalist Christian madrassas funded with taxpayer dollars via vouchers to indoctrinate kids in jingoistic nationalism and to convince them to continue, as their parents did, voting against themselves. And OF COURSE, they are going great guns with the agitprop nonsense about migrant caravans and CRT and whatever. Trump even tried to field brownshirts nationwide and tried to instigate a Reichstag Burning moment, but his own people wouldn’t go that far.
Darkness before the dawn, I hope. But these are troubled and troubling times.
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Off topic, but if anyone wants to vomit, there’s this.
https://twitter.com/sodabah/status/1456527328016801793?s=21
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This is awful.
Are you willing to send your children who are 18 (and the ones who aren’t as soon as they are 18) to fight in Afghanistan to stop this? Or do you want to send other people’s 18 year old sons and daughters to remain in Afghanistan forever to stop this?
This is awful. It would be preventable if only more American parents wanted their teenagers to be sent to Afghanistan indefinitely as military personnel who the Taliban could target for terrorist attacks.
I sure hope you aren’t trying to blame CRT – although it won’t surprise me if that is the next right wing false narrative that is posted here.
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“I pray the people who brought this day to Afghanistan never sleep in peace.”
Who are the people who “brought this day to Afghanistan” who should never sleep in peace again? Trump? The Taliban? All of us?
Are the only people who should sleep in peace the neocons who were demanding yet another huge surge of American troops sent to Afghanistan and ordered to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely?
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According to my cousin in DuPage county, there are Plainfield (different district) zealots showing up at meetings
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Responding to the list by Flerp, above:
it is not possible to be “colorblind” and in fact it is actually essential to consider the race, gender, and sexuality of the people we interact with. Is this somehow controversial? There is a difference between supporting laws that are “colorblind” in the sense that they insist upon equality and not discriminating against people because of their race, gender, and sexuality, which surely all but extremists would agree with, and being sensitive in our everyday interactions to the extremely different experiences of the world had by people of differing races, genders, and sexual orientations, which should also be, I think, noncontroversial. There’s also the issue that some laws OBVIOUSLY need to recognize race or ethnicity–those that recognize the sovereignty of native American nations, for example, within the contiguous United States.
“equality” is an inadequate concept for civil rights because it assumes each individual has the same resources, whereas “equity” is essential for civil rights because it allocates resources to each person or group based on their need. Does anyone who is not completely blind to the consequences of dramatic economic disparity think that equity is not essential to civil rights? Seriously? We in the US have one of the highest GINI coefficients for both wealth and poverty of any industrialized nation, and yes, this economic disparity falls out by both race and gender. Oh, but don’t worry about this, black person in poverty. If you are arrested and can’t afford a lawyer, much less a highly skilled one, this is NO PROB because this won’t have ANY consequence for the outcome of your case because that public defender is just as good as the one that is keeping Trump from turning over a DNA sample and there are papers that say you are equal under the law. Surely, no sane person believes this. One can easily multiply examples. Ability to maintain life and liberty and pursue happiness without healthcare, for example. The words over the entrance to the Supreme Court of the United States are, “Equal Justice for All.” The dramatic economic disparity by race in the US and the dependence of our system on personal wealth makes a complete mockery of that idea.
there is no such thing as biological sex. Has anyone ever made such a claim? If so, please point me to it. I think that something else was intended. See my comments about biological sex versus gender elsewhere in this thread.
racism is part of the “DNA” of this country. What a preposterous statement about a country that was founded based on wiping out the indigenous population and enslaving and committing horrendous other crimes against another! And, ofc, those POC to whom encounters with racist comments, behavior, etc, are quotidian experience might, oddly, tend to agree with this.
racism is the ordinary state of affairs in the U.S., baked into every system and institution. Surely the term “every” was not intended. The actual issue is whether there is systemic racism in the United States. There are, ofc, many obvious examples of SYSTEMS in the US that operate in racist ways. Blacks with credit scores identical to those of whites pay higher interest rates on mortgages. Blacks get longer sentences than do whites for the same crimes. Blacks are more likely to be stopped by police than are whites for the same behaviors. These are SYSTEMS with clearly racist outcomes (differential outcomes based on race). One could go on and on citing examples, but I’m trying to keep this brief.
everyone has anti-black biases, even if they are not aware of those biases, and denying the existence of one’s biases is proof of those biases. There are interesting cognitive science studies of this very question of implicit bias. They tell us that it is extremely common and, indeed, almost but not quite universal. It’s loading the question to say “everyone.”
there is no such thing as a non-racist policy, because all policies are either racist or anti-racist. Again, this is a loaded wording of the issue. However, is the intent of stating this as an issue to support our making a practice of NOT considering whether a given policy has racist or anti-racist origins or effects? What on Earth would be wrong with that?
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I will be happy to be proven wrong. But I have seen no evidence that flerp wants to have a real conversation about any of this. Usually flerp’s excuse is that I am the one challenging him and my replies are too difficult for flerp’s delicate constitution to handle. But thank you for challenging flerp even though flerp will probably reply with some snarky and very short attack that does not address any of your very good points. And that speaks for itself.
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Bob, we do agree on this part: “There is a difference between supporting laws that are “colorblind” in the sense that they insist upon equality and not discriminating against people because of their race, gender, and sexuality, which surely all but extremists would agree with”
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Bob,
This is an example of the non-responsive reply I have come to expect.
Was it helpful to you? You wrote an interesting and thoughtful response and got that. You really think flerp is interested in a conversation?
flerp reminds me of Ted Cruz and some other supposedly “smart” Ivy League Republicans (like Hawley) who like to state their provocative “truths” but when challenged to defend their statements with facts or argument, change the subject. Or call nasty names.
I have never seen AOC do that. I became a fan when I saw some “both sides” journalists asking her questions and she addressed them brilliantly, without using slogans or lies.
The other person I have seen doing this brilliantly is Pete Buttigieg.
They are the anti-Ted Cruz, the anti-Josh Hawleys, the anti-flerps.
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Bob,
There are a number of people that argue the idea that there are two biological sexes is mistaken. See, for example,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
And folks might be interested in reading the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on the sex gender distinction (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/) . Section 3.2, “Is sex classification solely a matter of biology?”, might be of particular interest.
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I mentioned intersex persons above, TE.
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What I said is that no one argues that there is no such thing as biological sex.
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Here’s what I said, so you don’t have to track it down: Has anyone ever made a claim that there was no such thing as biological sex? There are, of course, phenomena don’t fall under a lifelong biological sex binary distinction. Intersex babies, for example. Plants and animals that change their biological sex. Plants that have more than two sexes. And so on.
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Bob,
Perhaps you did not have time to read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry I linked to above. If you had you might have seen the rather long discussion of Judith Butler’s (they are the Maxine Elliot Professor at UC Berkley and the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School) position that both gender and biological sex are socially constructed and thus “the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all”.
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Mr. Metzger looks across the entire landscape of K-12 education in the United States and finds a Powerpoint in ONE professional development session for Social Studies teachers in ONE school district that raises the issue of Critical Race Theory. The ONE speaker who is supposed to address this issue then basically says that it’s one of a great many frameworks that academics have used and then completely avoids the issue for the rest of her talk and comments at the end that social studies is quite visible and that people “come in” with really varying amounts of knowledge and with stories to tell–probably an oblique reference to parents showing up at school board meetings to scream about the indoctrination in CRT that’s going on because of the hysteria in the right-wing media.
That’s it. That’s the great CRT Threat to American Parents. LOL.
The real issue, ofc, is that this is a professional development meeting that calls for ensuring inclusion in the curriculum, that students of varying racial and ethnic backgrounds hear those stories told.
That’s the real issue. This is what causes the Tucker Carlsons of the country to do their puffer fish imitations.
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As of the 2001-18 school year, there were 130,930 K-12 schools in the US.
There were in the same year 3,652,000 teachers and 938,000 school administrators.
And Mr. Metzger was able to find ONE (count them, ONE) video of a professional development Powerpoint in which the words Critical Race Theory appeared as a topic (doubtless because of all the hoopla) in which the topic then was NOT discussed by the ONE person who had the allotted time in which this was a listed topic.
This reminds me of an old sight joke in which there is a five-gallon jar with two jellybeans in it for a “guess the number of jellybeans in the jar” contest.
Well, guess the amount of CRT in the K-12 jar, folks.
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Oh, and ONE suggested assignment in ONE curriculum framework for ONE elective class for high-school seniors and juniors that suggested that ONE reading be looked at through the lens of Critical Race Theory.
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Mr. Metzgar also linked to the curriculum for a single elective ethnic studies class for California high school juniors and seniors that provided an excellent example of how ideas from CRT can be used to create a terrific upper level elective high school course.
Instead of this excellent elective course convincing Metzgar of how important and useful the ideas from CRT can be, Metzgar attacked the course as something so terrible that it must be eliminated from all high schools!
I read this CRT-based course curriculum and thought “what a terrific class – this is clear evidence of how useful CRT can be.”
Metzgar looked at the course curriculum and presented it as an example of how dangerous a course using CRT was to him and he demands this be banned from all high schools.
Both Metzgar and I agree that this is the kind of high school level class that incorporates CRT ideas, but while I think the class is excellent, Metzgar wants classes like this banned.
“Students will be introduced to the concept critical race theory as they highlight and discuss the Morris reading in small groups. (Morris, Wesley. “Fast Forward: Why a movie about car thieves is the most progressive force in American cinema.”). This essay will serve as a model for each student’s subsequent critical analysis of stereotypes in various mediums. Students will then learn how scholars and critiques deconstruct Latino (Latino Images in Film), African American (Ethnic Notions, Good Hair, Madea’s Witness Protection trailer) and Native American stereotypes (Video clips: The Savage, Arrowhead trailer, Avatar trailer, Dances with Wolves trailer, The Last Samurai trailer, trailer) and evaluate the validity of these critiques (in regards to their autobiographical essays from the previous unit) in large and small group discussions. They will examine the intersection between the representation of gender and ethnicity (Miss Representation) and then compare these portrayals with examples of films directed and starring underrepresented groups (Smoke Signals) and understand strategies to disrupt the negative effects (such as internalized oppression and the justification of violence) caused by stereotypes (Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Burrell; “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Hughes) through a foldable activity that compares and contrasts these strategies. Students will then use the readings and coursework as a model for critical analysis. Students will select an example from contemporary popular culture and then write a 500-word analysis of how it either perpetuates or subverts stereotypes.”
Metzgar says that 17 year olds may not elect this class because he, as a white person, doesn’t want them to take it.
If anything tells you what is wrong with these anti-CRT folks, it is Metzgar’s desire to ban this fantastic and excellent class. It is Metzgar’s extreme hatred and anger that high school students would get to take this excellent CRT-based class that he, as a white person, doesn’t want them to take.
If it wasn’t for CRT, this class wouldn’t exist. Metzgar wants this excellent class that uses CRT not to exist. Why? Because this class refutes Metzgar’s claims that any high school class that uses CRT is evil. This class proves that CRT has a place in higher level classes for high schoolers.
Racist California parents can rest easy knowing Matt Metzgar would ban this class. Parents of students of different backgrounds who might think this CRT-based class should not be banned as Matt Metzgar insists would oppose him.
I would be interested in seeing a poll of parents in different public high schools to see how many read this curriculum and agree with Matt Metzgar that this elective course must be banned from their high school because white people like Matt Metzgar don’t like it.
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Bob, you’re off base. Don’t get caught up on the term CRT. As FLERP points out, the concepts behind it are permeating many institutions including public schools. I know –I’m a practicing teacher in CA and I see it everywhere: in our professional development, in how administrators talk, in the way our schools are rated (disparate impact on certain racial groups in discipline, special ed identification, etc.), in the California Council of Social Studies conferences and communications, and now in the mandated Ethnic Studies program in HS, which is loaded with CRT type indoctrination. Chris Ruffo may brag that he fabricated this controversy out of thin air, but he didn’t. CRT is in the air, and I feel it. Just because you don’t see courses labeled “CRT” doesn’t mean its influence isn’t in our schools.
What I dislike about it is that it’s the One True Way of talking about race. Any dissent is seen as crypto-racism. You see that here.
I also dislike the Woke style of discussing race–haughty, self-righteous, quick to condemn, close minded. Our recent mandated diversity training focused on the RIR protocol: Recognize the heretical “racist” thinking in colleagues, Interrupt it –stop it in its tracks. Then Repair it –explain to them the correct way of thinking. I felt like I had been recruited into the Thought Police. Meanwhile they go on and on about the need for “dialogue” and “conversation” –but what I think they mean is “flush out Thought Crime and crack down on it.” It reminds me of the community meetings in Maoist China that I read about in Fanshen.
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I posted the description of the ELECTIVE ethnic studies class for high school juniors and seniors in California that uses CRT.
If you can’t tell me why what look like an excellent class needs to be banned from high schools, then how can you convince me?
Did you watch Billy Crystal doing his Sammy Davis Jr. imitations on SNL in the 80s and early 90s and were you completely disgusted and offended? Or did you laugh?
You call “wokeness” — people coming to an awareness that behavior that they enjoyed in the past was actually offensive — as if it is something bad! Why?
I found that when this is discussed, there are lots of white people who are very defensive and use terms like “guilty” and “innocent” and treat this as them being under trial instead of an education.
It’s hard for people to acknowledge that there are passages in Joy Hakim’s “A History of US” that – like Billy Crystal in blackface – reflect attitudes that were acceptable in the early 1990s that aren’t now. It doesn’t matter that Billy Crystal is a nice guy and didn’t mean to be racist if Crystal’s response is to attack everyone who criticizes him and insist that there is nothing wrong with him wearing blackface and he will continue to do so and anyone who criticizes him is guilty of censorship.
But Billy Crystal responded the way that good people trying not to be racist respond. He did not want to keep performing an act that was very offensive to many people although he was free to cite his freedom to be offensive and continue to do so at gatherings of racist white folks who enjoyed it. Joy Hakim responded the way that good people trying not to be racist respond and acknowledged that her book was written in the 1990s when times were different and her book needed real changes and not the small edits that were made over the past 20+ years.
Teachers can have careers spanning over 30 years. I am sympathetic to your view that many of these professional development classes are bad.
But you raise a red flag when instead of wanting to talk about the kinds of approaches that might be better to address implicit bias, you seem to reject the very idea that you would be asked to think about it or acknowledge it. The point of implicit racism is that people don’t see it. I think you are a woman so surely you understand how this plays out in implicit sexism. Surely you know men who claim to be the world’s biggest feminists who casually treat women in ways that they don’t treat men. Surely you understand that when men say they don’t have a sexist bone in their body and how dare anyone try to educate them about how some of their views might be implicitly sexist and they just refuse to listen, it makes people doubt that they really are the feminists they present themselves to be. Men who “help women get ahead in their careers” can still be sexist. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I have known lots of men who are feminists who are not afraid to look at ways that they might have some sexist attitudes. And I know men who are feminists who present themselves as knowing better than anyone else whether anything they do is sexist, and the answer is that they are not sexist and that’s that. And I know that the second type are the ones who need educating the most. And the thing that makes them even worse is when their view of themselves is validated by those in power who reinforce to them that their actions are absolutely perfect and how dare anyone ask them to think about their own biases or inappropriate comments or actions because their own view about their actions is what matters and if someone is offended, it is them who should be silenced.
Sometimes I wonder if the defensiveness of the participants makes those professional development classes much worse. Maybe if people came in with more of an open mind, they’d laugh off the stupid and obvious parts and think more about the parts that lead to them reflecting on their own implicit biases.
Isn’t that what all professional development is? Seems to me I have heard teachers talking about the boring/ridiculous parts of some session about teaching writing or reading or math, but other parts had some value. The bad professional development didn’t lead to a call for unions to give up their professional development perks that are part of the union contract. I assumed teachers fought for that, but if you are saying that what the union wanted is for teachers to never be excused for professional development and be in classrooms at all time, then I am wrong. Teachers acknowledge some value to professional development (at least I hope it’s just not an excuse not to teach). That doesn’t mean all professional development is worthwhile, but it is an acknowledgement that even the best teachers can benefit. But what I seem to understand is that your view is that you see no value in diversity education at all, at least for teachers like yourself who supposedly don’t need it. But if I have misunderstood, then I would like to understand.
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I would rather be “woke” in the daylight than asleep all the time.
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I am sympathetic to your view that many of these professional development classes are bad.
Many? Of the hundreds that I have attended over the years (as a teacher and as an ed publishing exec at conferences), I can think of one or two of any value. Almost all of them that I’ve attended have been mind-blowingly bad–especially the ones given by district-level administrators. Often spreading educational malpractice. Often going on and on about the obvious. Often transparently attempting to justify an onerous or stupid new policy. Often nothing but vague feel-good stuff with zero News You Can Use for teachers and administrators. Often treating teachers like idiots who have to have the simplest matters explained to them. (The Internet can be a valuable source of information! But there is false or dangerous stuff out there!) Often reading from a Powerpoint that could simply have been sent as an email. Often just time-filler to meet a requirement for x number of PD hours to be delivered and logged per semester or year.
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Or the perennial favorite among deliverers of PD: hyping a new magic elixir such as an unvetted online learning program recently adopted at a cost of millions of dollars. On Track to the Empyrion Reading, now with customizable Study Avatars; a fresh, lemony scent; and new scrubbing bubbles!
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Ponderosa, here’s a training from the National Association of Independent Schools that looks great for kindergarten teachers! It’s called “Small Activists, Big Impact: Cultivating Anti-Racists and Activists in Kindergarten”
The summary:
“In the current climate, it is especially important and necessary to delve into social justice with some of the smallest learners. This workshop aims to expose, offer, and create a new lens for teaching social justice to kindergarten students. Learn how to begin teaching social justice in your classroom, incorporate books and vocabulary into lessons, and discuss the “-isms” with your students. Expect to leave with examples of practical lessons to use in the classroom as well as long-term projects to culminate at the end of the year. Get a roadmap to take your anti-bias and anti-racist teaching to the next level.”
https://pocc.nais.org//Workshops
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Yuck. It’s brainwashing.
It’s dawning on me that a lot of this movement sounds exactly like the program Paulo Freire described in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Tear down the whole culture and rebuild from scratch. This book is a staple of teacher ed programs. I think Freire was one of those South American Maoists. Like Kendi’s manifesto it’s intellectual garbage and very popular.
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Let’s note that flerp is linking to a PRIVATE school workshop offered at a specific conference for PRIVATE school educators:
“The mission of the conference is to provide a safe space for leadership and professional development for people of color, and networking for people of color and allies of all backgrounds in independent schools.”
I know it isn’t surprising when white people are so disdainful of any part of education that they feel is utterly useless to them. If it’s not important to white people, it just isn’t important.
This is being offered by a lead Kindergarten teacher at a small K-8 California private school who also happens to be Coordinator of Diversity and Inclusivity. She’s not white. She might have some insight, but not for white teachers who already know any insight she has to offer is a waste of time.
You may note that flerp could have posted links to other “workshops” that this same private school organization has at their general conference — but presumably those are workshops that affluent white private school parents prefer their child’s teacher takes:
Building Effective Relationships with Difficult Parents Through Positive, Proactive Communication
Do you have challenging parents at your school? Do you want to learn how to turn them from adversaries into partners? Of course you do! Learn proven strategies that can help you build positive relationships with even your most difficult parents. Learn how to break down the “wall of mutual distrust,” remember the “child in the chair.” apply “the 4 Cs,” turn listening into your superpower, and learn how to use “surprise and delight.” Learn and apply these principles and you will transform your relationships with the parents at your school!
Caveman Brains in a Digital World: Disrupting Implicit Association in the Classroom
Calling all educators with the courage to expose and examine their own vulnerabilities! In today’s charged political climate, we must recognize and neutralize implicit associations: unconscious, automatic assumptions. These snap judgments date back to our time as cave-dwellers when we needed them to survive, and yet they’ve stayed with us into the digital age, fueled by cultural norms and media-driven perceptions. Join this session and learn to collaborate in safe, equitable learning environments where stakeholders are empowered to spot, analyze, and disrupt the impact of unconscious bias. Get demonstrations of classroom-ready activities and free digital tools.
Or here’s another one white parents would prefer for their private school faculty:
Solicitation Savvy = Fearless Fundraising
It doesn’t take a lot to learn how to approach “The Ask” with unfailing confidence, realistic expectations, and thorough preparation. Get tips, techniques, and case studies from this session to inform your solicitation strategies, help you prepare better to deal with donor reluctance, and strengthen your volunteer recruitment and training.
It’s easy to make fun of workshops, but implicit bias is evident when the only workshops that someone wants to make fun of and present as useless are those that white people believe aren’t important.
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People need to wake up, pull their heads out of the sand, and recognize that this is a long-term problem.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/virginia-election-wakeup-call-democrats/620595/
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That rampant misinformation and disinformation about a supposed Great Critical Race Theory Threat to K-12 Schools are both real and indeed problems for educators to deal with is, ofc, true. The agitprop purveyors are effectively spreading disinformation, and the Trumpetistas are lapping it up and doing their citizen militias/brownshirts bit in response, and these are creating real problems both for school systems and for politicians sucked into the agitprop vortex. And then there is the problem that “CRT” has become a generalized hate label used by racists for any ideas they don’t want their kids being taught, such as the notion that “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,.” Perhaps it is moot that this use of CRT is as though the beef lobby had decided to use the term “chicken wing” with the meaning “all dangerous things ingested by people”and it was becoming difficult as a result to use the term at all in keeping with its actual meaning. That CRT is being used to refer to all the perceived, generalized threats to their racism felt by racists who have no idea what CRT means is clear. In this sense, it is like the term “Socialist” as used by Donald Trump, who has no clue what a Socialist is and could no more define the term than he could run a Marathon. And, ofc, when a legion of morons shows up at a school board meeting screaming about their kids being indoctrinated in CRT, that’s quite real.
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Yup
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Bob, this is what the Atlantic article says:
“This was the case in Virginia as late as September, when voters who prioritized education favored McAuliffe by 33 points. But, especially after McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” the wind turned.”
flerp’s argument is that parents were very concerned about this for a long time, but up until late September they favored McAuliffe by a wide margin.
Organic, parent-driven movements don’t happen in a few weeks because some right wing politician is supported by a vast media network and the voters suddenly change their mind. But appeals to white people who fear racism do, and I find it offensive with the innuendo that democrats better make racist white parents happier.
The anti-testing movement was a REAL movement of parents. There weren’t ads running and politicians getting parents riled up because their kids were taking tests. That’s why it had so little power — becaus it represented parents and not rich people.
If Virginia parents were concerned as flerp claims they were, they would have been opposed to McAuliffe from the start.
I do love the right wing narrative that it is always the fault of those who don’t have power – supporters of public schools — for why people who want to destroy public schools win. It’s the same right wing narrative I heard about how it is black people who better figure out how to act differently so that police stop manhandling them and treating them aggressively.
The only reason the Republicans won in Virginia is that the right wing racist base was more motivated than those who are moderates or progressives.
When white people lecture to democrats that they need to do things that make white racists vote for democrats, I wonder what it is they want democrats to do. Ignore science? Celebrate white supremacy?
I know flerp was angry about school mask mandates and schools not being open when hospitals were in crisis mode and social distancing was vital to slow down the spread.
But the notion that the way to get votes would have been to kill many more Americans like Republicans did or spew racist nonsense like Republicans do is abhorrent.
The Republicans get the votes of white people without a college education. if those people are drawn to racism over their own economic interests, then there is nothing democrats can do except hope that they eventually realize they have been played for fools. But unless Democrats can take over the media the way the right wing has, there is little we can do to stop white people without college degrees who are drawn to appeals to their racism and ignorance to vote for Republicans.
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Interesting article. Reminds me of why I dislike Republicans and Democrats.
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Wow. Joy Hakim cancelled by some of the readers of this site! Her work, overall, is excellent and teaches why America just might be the greatest nation on the planet. ( It surely is in my opinion…).
So typical of some to ignore the good in her work and focus on passages that meet their agenda. Teachers will pick and choose passages to share with their students, and I have never used the passages pointed out by those above. Oh, well.
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I am unaware of Joy Hakim being “canceled” by readers here.
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“Teachers will pick and choose passages to share with their students, and I have never used the passages pointed out by those above.”
Wait, so you are using in your class a textbook with passages that you already know are implicitly racist and offensive to people who aren’t white and also offensive to people who are white but are shocked at that content?
And you think that’s okay because you have decided which of the offensive passages you won’t use?
And if other teachers want to teach those offensive passages in reading assignments and tell parents who are concerned that they should shut up because this is the textbook they have used for decades, that’s okay, too?
Joy Hakim clearly understands that times change. Her book didn’t.
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Race is a fiction, a lie. It is produced by racism.
Racism is a way of thinking. It produces race and structures race as an insidious and vicious form of competition. The competition is rigged or otherwise concocted to justify assuming that variation in a select few human features can be deemed discontinuous and therefore rendered as diverse, discrete, and well-defined categories of race. The rules of the competition then put race categories into fixed win-lose positions in a linear hierarchy, with one particular race category always the top winning superior position and one particular race category always the bottom losing inferior position.
People who believe the race lie, that race is real, that they and all other human beings fit neatly into this or that fictitious race category, help keep us “trapped in an endless loop” of racism and antiracism, like this:
The more racism, the more antiracism.
The more antiracism, the less racism.
The less racism, the less antiracism.
The less antiracism, the more racism.
Go to 1.
Racism manifests analytical thinking. And so does CRT. Analytical thinking yields mostly data and information about the parts of a system and what the parts do taken separately or diversely or discretely. Analytical thinking cannot yield understanding of why a system does what it does.
In contrast, humanism manifests synthetical thinking. Synthetical thinking yields knowledge and understanding—even wisdom à la MLK Jr and others—of why a system does what it does in terms of the interrelationships between the parts of the system and what all the parts do taken together or unitedly or continuously.
Unlike analytical thinking, synthetical thinking is not puzzled by those who oppose CRT nor by CRT’s activation à la Ibram X. Kendi-ism, for example.
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Nailed it re what “race” is, Mr. Johnson! I would add only this: it has no biological meaning, though it does have cultural meaning because of the long adherence to the fallacious concept, much of that meaning being extremely counterproductive and even dangerous.
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“I would rather be ‘woke’ in the daylight than asleep all the time.” –Diane Ravitch
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I loved that comment, too!
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I like what Bill Maher said: Democrats do need to study critical race theory—the theory that it’s critical to win races.
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A poster who agrees with you about critical race theory says that democrats should have kept all schools opened throughout the pandemic and stopped mask mandates for students. Then they would have won elections. Do you agree?
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