Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, urges parents to speak out against fake conspiracy theories that are being cynically used to undermine public schools, their teachers, and freedom to teach and learn.
Perry writes:
Power-hungry politicians and bigots have always appealed to white supremacist values to achieve their political goals. In the 1950s, politicians latched onto white resistance to desegregation by turning busing into a trigger for white aggression. Children had been bused since the 1920s. But after the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the subsequent rulings to enforce it, busing became synonymous with a court-ordered invasion of white privilege. White women fought on the frontlines of the racist resistance to Black families integrating white schools. Politicians and right-wing activists amplified their fury and turned it into a movement.
School busing — not the fact that adults were attacking school buses with rocks and spitting on children — became the supposed threat to democracy. The practice of manufacturing fear around integration has been repeated ever since, with every advance in the Civil Rights Movement facing a racist backlash, including the current uproar over critical race theory, as inaccurately depicted, following the Black Lives Matter protests of the last two years.
Many of the mama bears coming out to protest now are direct political descendants of the white evangelicals who felt embittered about Supreme Court decisions and state policies around school desegregation, the teaching of evolution, the expansion of the curriculum to include multicultural voices, comprehensive sex ed, and the removal of compulsory, school sanctioned prayer. A recent article in the Christian Post lists the grievances for these parents: “We’re fed up with the pollution of our children’s minds with LGBT pedophilia and porn, racism, colorism, anti-capitalism, religious bigotry, anti-free speech, and other anti-American propaganda.”
Expanding civil rights isn’t anti-American. Discriminating against Black people, curtailing the pursuit of truth by Black students and scholars and maintaining a racial hierarchy are the actions that undermine our nation’s ideals — especially when these hateful acts are wrapped in democratic terms like “school choice” and “parent rights.”
Conservatives are currently using bans on critical race theory — a term they inaccurately define as any effort to teach about systemic racism or cultural sensitivity — as a pretext for eliminating from history lessons topics like slavery, Jim Crow racism, voter suppression, and housing and school segregation — all significant aspects of American history with long-lasting impact. In addition, conservatives are attempting to assuage or eliminate any feelings of guilt or accountability their white followers might have for this troubling past: White politicians seemingly don’t dare allow children to know that their ancestors and the U.S. government created these policies…
I truly feel badly for the children of right wing fanatics. Their worlds are propaganda.
sad documentary on children whose parents/grandparents died with the virus exposing that many kids have much anger that their adult refused masks and vaccines
“How SCOTUS case Carson v Makin can unravel freedom from religion” (The Atlantic, 10-14-2021)
“The religious right wants states’ tax dollars and SCOTUS is likely to agree” (Vox, 12-2-2021 about Carson v. Makin case)
“Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative files amicus brief in SCOTUS school choice case” (Carson v Makin)
It’s certainly true that busing was used by white racists, bigots, and others to stir the pot over a variety of issues. But not all opposition busing kids to achieve racial balance was based on racism. As one who struggled to end discrimination in Columbus, Ohio and elsewhere, and as a leader in the Columbus Education Assn., I felt torn because I knew well how discrimination hurt everyone, especially our minority students. But, as a black school board member said, black schools created a power center for black communities– a place to meet, a place to admire when the schools were big and beautiful, such as East High in Columbus. I also believed that moving kids out of their neighborhoods and keeping them on buses for a large part of the day–plus spending large sums of money on buses, was not a good idea in the abstract. Ohio State University studied segregation in the Central Ohio area and recommended the City use it’s powers to require builders and real estate companies to sign pre-construction open housing agreements–since the real problem was housing discrimination, not decisions by the school district. Also, many of us favored developing “magnet” schools which would draw pupils from the entire district. We did, in fact, create such schools by using collective bargaining to that end. But the magnet schools were not enough, the pre-construction agreements were never mandated, and busing was ordered by the federal court. I supported the court action, as the only alternative to continued desegregation, but one can see that decades later the Columbus schools have shrunk, and the “white flight” of parents–tacitly encouraged by real estate actualities. In summary, not all opposition to busing was based on bigotry–though much was. Today our schools seem as segregated or more so, as the problem was not mostly with the schools, but with the greater society–and with a real estate industry that would use the tool of bigotry for greater profit.
Opportunities for integration must be planned for to provide maximum benefit to poor students. I taught in a small integrated school district in New York. Each of the three elementary schools had about 25 to 35% minority enrollment by design, and nobody spent hours on a bus. Integration benefited poor students tremendously, and everyone attended a well resourced school.
I’ve retired to the Pensacola, FL area. Eastern Pensacola is mostly white, and western Pensacola is mostly Black. The schools are largely segregated, and couple of the black majority schools were in danger of being closed for “failure.” I sent the superintendent an email suggesting that he redistrict along east-west lines to racially balance the enrollment so that no school would have low enough scores to close. He never answered me, and two minority majority schools were shut down. I guess he didn’t like my “New York ways.”
We bused kids out of the wrong neighborhoods. The courts could have ordered white children to ride buses across town for hours and become disconnected from their communities. Gee, why didn’t communities do that? Oh.
You are so right about the real estate industry. The financial industry plays a role, too, by their biased valuation of properties. Zip codes determine home values that rise or fall depending on the racial makeup of neighborhoods. Banks will appraise property in white areas thousands of dollars higher than in black neighborhoods. Zoning boards and politicians are fine letting parents fight with schools over fake controversies, provided they can ignore systemic racial bias in the real estate and the financial industries.
Jack– Re: magnets: I’m guessing the only way this can accomplish integration is for a town to be 100% magnet schools. There may be only a handful of these districts in the US; the one I’m familiar with is Montclair, NJ. They’ve been doing it for 45 yrs.
Montclair is only about 40k population [school enrollment roughly 7k], & just over 6sqmi area. School buses are used for elem/midsch students over 1mi from school [2.5mi for hisch]. It was suited to that approach, as the city is one manageable-sized district, but has long been divided into Upper Montclair (white wealthy & middle-class) and Lower Montclair (black middle/ working/ poor classes). There are no zoned/ nbhd schools. Children have ‘school choice’ except that admission is limited not just to capacity but to maintain an integrated balance [by income-level, not race].
To do this for a large city would be much more challenging, given the comparatively larger size of ethnic/ SES ‘ghettoes.’ I keep an ear to the ground on SF, as I have young nephews in the pubschs there. They do something similar—not magnet curriculum, but school choice limited by integrated balance of SES. There is some parental frustration & complaint online, but the boys so far are happy despite not having ‘neighborhood schools.’ This is probably because they have a tight-knit immediate nbhd with lots of kids; could be different for others.
Seeing this interesting article in The Atlantic on William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale,” I’m led to wonder how the whining criticisms from privileged white conservatives about Marxist professors in the Ivy League might be related to the endless right-wing war against our public schools:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/buckley-gamay/620811/
Many of the privatizers including some from TFA have an Ivy League background. Some of them think that privatization is “socially responsible capitalism.” The reality is generally separate and unequal schools with increased segregation.
It’s an uphill battle to push back against scripted, planned, conspiracy theories and lies intended to mislead and trigger fear.
Until Social Media sites on the internet are held accountable for all of their content, this isn’t going to change.
“The storming of the U.S. Capitol Building on Wednesday by a mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists was shocking, but it was not surprising to anyone who has followed the growing prominence of conspiracy theorists, hate groups, and purveyors of disinformation online.”
https://hbr.org/2021/01/how-to-hold-social-media-accountable-for-undermining-democracy
Agree, Lloyd. Social media allows fringe to find each other and form a loud minority– and makes it simple as pie for political groups to foster/ fund/ grow them.
Anti-CRT’s link to intolerant Christians who want the Republican Party and “Christian” heritage indoctrinated into students-
The superintendent of Starkweather school system in North Dakota sent out an e-mail about which major news media have reported over the past two days.
“N.D. school superintendent slams CRT, calls to teach Christian heritage.”
Excerpts from the superintendent’s letter include, “Time to move away from godless corrupt woke leftwing ideology…racism is the project of the godless Democratic Party that has rejected god, family and faith…and embraced Marxism.”
The real gripe of the right wing’s ditto head in N.D. is that a White, sexist, racist, patriarchal system will be uprooted.
In every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot.- Jefferson
The bumper stickers on a car I saw today, “Don’t blame me I voted for Trump”. “Jo and Ho Gotta Go.”
Women who vote GOP are____.
The Christian right isn’t interested in freedom or democracy which is why they’ve built over decades, an infrastructure of mistrust of our public schools. The cynical use of CRT reinvigorated the emotional reactions from
Frederick Clarkson, senior research analyst with Political Research Associates, discusses in this podcast how the Christian Right is targeting school boards and other local elected offices.
Clarkson’s recent Religion Dispatches article is headlined, “The Christian Right Revolution Starts Small and Local.” ttps://stateofbelief.com/segments/the-christian-right-revolution-starts-small-and-local/
Check it out for a detailed history of this movement. Republican operatives are speaking in Baptist and Evangelical Churches all over the country to keep their base angry at and fighting at public school boards.
Thank you for the comment. I look forward to reading the linked article. Would I be correct if I assumed that there is no mention of the state Catholic Conferences which take credit for school choice legislation in their states? (Similarly, there are taboos against identifying Leonard Leo, Paul Weyrich and the 6 conservative judges on SCOTUS as conservative Catholic.) Then, there’s Ryan Girdusky who founded the PAC that funds school board candidates opposed to CRT. Girdusky’s interview with Pat Buchanan, posted at Buchanan’s site is worth a read.)
Frederick Clarkson’s tweet, “Help Frank Cocozzellii make a film about a Catholic hero of social justice….”
Journalists giving cover to one specific religion- there are legions of them.
Btw- Clarkson didn’t write about John Eastman’s role on Jan. 6, despite naming others from the “Christian Right” who were involved. I tell you I’m shocked.
Linda [@8:13pm 12/4], you’re jerking our string again.
Starkweather ND: population under 100. School district enrollment: 60 students K12 (2 buildings). 9 teachers, 6.6 staff– one of which is Larry Volk, Supt, who recently emailed a fiery 3-pp anti-CRT tirade to “a large mailing list run by the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders,” per the Grand Forks Herald 12/3. The Council’s director said Volk sent her the same email last June, protesting that their upcoming summer conference’s “keynote speaker” was “a proponent of critical race theory.” She advised the reporter that Volk was “very incorrect,” & that CRT was not a topic of discussion. [Only hit on google news: Grand Forks Herald, circulation: 7,500]
be three
You are correct, the people at this blog largely see no links between conservative religion and CRT, school choice legislation, abortion and LGBTQ rights. Congratulations to you and those who agree with you. Counter messaging has not and will not be developed. Again, kudos.
Yes, Starkweather is small. The e-mail was sent to 700 administrators. Journalists asked the school superintendent and a state legislator who had served for two years as the N.D. Speaker of the House about the e-mail. Both people opined that they agreed with the letter.
As you suggest there is no point in telling readers that state religious conferences publicly take credit for school choice legislation, no point in telling people about the Pat Buchanan connection to the founder of the PAC that enables the election of anti- CRT candidates to school boards and, no point in telling readers the reality in Mexico and around the world (“The new official contents of sex education in Mexico,: laicism in the crosshairs” 3-3-2021″).
Good for you, Be three, to recognize no neon sign on the wall from Paul Weyrich and from Leonard Leo, the latter who received an award from a religious organization for his judgeship appointments.
It’s lucky that the Democratic Party agrees with you, be three it makes losing so much more predictable.
The Hill, Newsweek, Daily Beast, Washington News Day, etc. all
posted the Starkweather story, as well as the local outlets.
Just curious, be three-
Who is the Freedom from Religion Foundation going to give its award to for shepherding 200 judges through confirmation to federal benches, including 6 SCOTUS jurists?
Linda, don’t misunderstand me. All the facts you list above are important. You are pretty much the only voice here raising our consciousness on this issue, and it’s appreciated. I just felt this particular story was too teeny to attach to the big theme. However– looks like I can’t count on google news search to tell me where all it was reported. Your facts on that show the media made it a story, so you’re correct to add it on the pile.
be three-
I appreciate your comment. Regards, Linda
The Starkweather story has legs because, in my reading, it is the first direct link, publicly proffered by ordinary citizens, between “Christian” legacy and anti-CRT sentiment. A second value to the story is the claim that conservatives make about the left as godless, although that is not new.
Readers of this blog, mostly Democrats, remain silent as does the Party.
Thanks, Linda, I hadn’t noted that angle. Come to think of it, all the anti-CRT flack has focused on “racism” [ i.e. whites claiming examination of racist history is ‘racist’ by supposedly making whites “feel bad”], or on parents’ “rights” to determine what’s taught in pubschs. I suppose at some level I’d made the connection between evangelist culture and anti-CRT and racism; it’s obvious… But this guy in Starkweather puts it right out there: CRT—which in his mind means any discussion of racist roots of US culture—is somehow anti-Christian. By what tortuous mental flip-flops I can only imagine. But I expect they are widely shared. The mental connection may be to Marxism/ socialism—the fear that any hint of govt-imposed ‘equality’ threatens the individual’s compact with the Almighty. The irony being that all Democrats/ progressives are trying to do is to dial us back to the sort of trammeled—regulated—capitalism that stood us in good stea for decades of the 20thC.
Excellent points, Be Three
I was taught in teacher college how to deal with people who have discriminatory views. Research suggests that by age nine or so, racism has been irrevocably learned or not learned. After that, it’s near impossible to change someone’s mind. Therefore, instead of directly addressing what a student or parent says, the best way to handle racism is to teach using literature and information that confronts racism, without directly confronting the racist. Inform instead of lecturing. I don’t know how my training relates to today’s political climate other than to say that the best idea in general is to just keep on teaching, to the “mama bears” and to everyone. I affirm it daily, just keep teaching.
Integrated schools provide all students with a variety of interactions with diverse students during their formative years. In kindergarten Black, brown, Asian and white children play together. They see color, but their “friends” tend to be children with the same interests and temperament, not necessarily color. Then, children will understand diversity from living it.
retired teacher– very true. I wrote way above that 100% magnet schools can create integrated schools in a small [pop 40k pop] residentially segregated city– that one [Montclair NJ] is 1/3 black but all living on one side of town [the side bordering Newark]. Of course I’m talking about Northern small cities, where many don’t border giant majority-minority urbs, and their minority population is likely to be more like 10% or less, and always residentially segregated. But the beauty of such small towns is that– though some white kids may attend elemschs where they rarely if ever meet a non-white, there will be at most two midschs & only one hisch, so—integration! 😉 No busing required.
My upstate-NY hometown was 30k pop, & so is the NJ town where I raised my kids. In both my and their experience, just having a couple of African American kids in all your midsch classes (& usually a couple of Indians & Asians too, in my kids’ experience), & many more that you meet in phys ed, cafeteria, band, et al curriculars, & then a larger proportion in hisch– makes a huge difference in social attitude. It’s not about who are your best friends, or even that it’s some fantasy bubble of egalitarianism. More likely they’ll become aware of subtle discrimination as it plays out IRL– but those involved are real people whom they know as individuals, not some “other” faceless figures on the street or in the media.
I went to eight different public schools by grade nine. It wasn’t until I attended a nearly all-white, all boys Catholic school that I understood I had been attending integrated schools my whole life up until then. Put kids in those schools, they won’t realize they’re integrated either. It’s adults who do.
Catholic schools walk on water, ask the Koch network.
I have about a dozen Jason Reynolds titles in my classroom library. He was on The Late Show with Colbert on Thursday. I hope education defamers watched. I found myself enriched by the interview. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/jason-reynolds-talks-books-with-stephen-colbert/
I’m skeptical about the article’s suggestions on how to change minds. The author suggests letting them air their fears… on the whole, this makes sense from, say, a therapist’s POV, but it’s not like you’ve got them relaxed on a couch in your office, consulting your expert advice. Besides, they’ve just told you their fears quite plainly, if perhaps cloaked in non-factual claims. That leads me to author’s suggestion, which seems to be countering their claims boldly with actual facts. That’s basically calling them stupid for having such fears; they’ll dig in. This is a conversation I’m not sure I’d like to have with someone I will be running into regularly on the block, at PTA, at town council meetings. But OK, I’ll bite.
I think I’d follow up their statements with neutral “mirroring” questions, e.g., “So you figure this is leading to some mandate?/ What makes you think that?” [or, to some “licensing for parents,” etc]. Then ask “Well, do we have any mandates yet?” Let them tell you about Biden upcoming vaccine mandate for employers of 100 or more, w/option to test wkly instead– if they actually know that much. Me personally, I would then confide that I’m not sure that needed to be mandated; employers already have incentives biz-wise, etc; then note you can work anyway if you just test weekly… one still has choice… a discussion like that focuses on common interests like getting economy back to normal.
Or, if they want to get into the so-called parent-licensing thing, point out 10th Amendment prevents that, & maybe note how Cupertino 3rd-gr classroom project was shut down with just a couple of parents bringing it to attention of principal… Here, I would bring in how in my own town there are objections to xyz book for kids & it’s being discussed in open forum, etc. Emphasizing that discussion at local level among immediate stakeholders is how these things get worked out– no need for state legislation that may produce unintended consequences…