PBS NewsHour posted an AP story that described the chilling effect of anti-“Critical Race Theory” laws. Laws that ban the teaching of certain subjects and that ban books never end well. They are the path to censorship and ignorance.
New measures that restrict how race is addressed in classrooms have spread confusion and anxiety among many educators, who in some cases have begun pulling books and canceling lessons for fear of being penalized.
Education officials have nixed a contemporary issues class in a Tennessee district, removed Frederick Douglass’ autobiography from reading lists in an Oklahoma school system and, in one Texas case, advised teachers to present “opposing” views of the Holocaust.
At least a dozen states have passed measures this year restricting how schools teach about racism, sexism and other topics. While educators are still waiting to see how they will be enforced, the vagueness of some of the measures, coupled with stiff penalties including potential loss of teaching licenses, already are chilling conversations on race in schools and, in some cases, having consequences that likely go well beyond the intent of those approving the measures.
Matt Hawn, a high school social studies teacher in Tennessee, said he has heard from teachers concerned about how they will teach controversial topics since he was fired himself this spring as state lawmakers were finalizing new teaching restrictions.
“It’s certainly giving them caution, like, ‘What’s going to happen if I teach this?’ — because the penalty is so steep,’” Hawn said.
Hawn was dismissed after school officials said he used materials with offensive language and failed to provide a conservative viewpoint during discussions of white privilege in his contemporary issues class, which has since been eliminated.
Teaching around race and diversity has been on the rise alongside a broader acknowledgment that racial injustice didn’t end in America with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Those efforts have spurred a backlash, particularly among Republican voters.…
Some sections of the new laws would seem unobjectionable. Tennessee’s law bars the teaching that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex. But other sections are more murky, barring teaching that promotes division or causes children to feel psychological distress because of their race or sex...
In Tennessee, a conservative group of mothers in the Nashville suburb of Williamson County, Moms for Liberty, has challenged how schools teach the civil rights movement to second graders.
In a letter to the Department of Education, Robin Steenman complained that the texts and accompanying teachers manual imply that “people of color continue to be oppressed by an oppressive ‘angry, vicious, scary, mean, loud, violent, (rude), and (hateful)’ white population.” The books Steenman cited include “Ruby Bridges Goes to School” and “Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington.”
In Oklahoma, teachers in the Edmond Public Schools said books by authors of color were struck from a list of anchor texts, around which English teachers build their curriculum. A lawsuit filed by teachers, students and parents said the district also removed commonly taught texts by Black authors from the curriculum, including the autobiography of Frederick Douglass.
How is a teacher to know what is permissible?
Clearly, to comply with the law and to avoid arousing parent anger, teach children that racism happened long, long ago, but it doesn’t exist anymore.
Never mention anything happening today that suggests the persistence of racism (which doesn’t exist anymore), like the murder of George Floyd, Briona Taylor, Tamar Rice, or other persons of color.
Do not mention the 2020 election, so as to avoid discussing who won or lost.
Do not ever discuss gun control or gun rights (too divisive).
Do not discuss abortion (too divisive).
Do not discuss the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. or Martin Luther King Jr. (divisive).
Do not discuss immigration (divisive).
Perhaps what the legislatures should do is revise the laws so that they describe in detail what teachers are allowed to teach.
Best of all would be if legislatures agreed that they should not write curriculum.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A 1776 Curriculum
By jingo, by golly, by the dawn’s early light, freedumb!
Everybody sing!
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow
I am dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white
I’m dreaming of a red Christmas where the blood of Trumpists floods the gutters in every town and city.
!!!!!!!!
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
“I’m dreaming of a red Christmas where the blood of Trumpists floods the gutters in every town and city.” No surprise that this comment was written by someone who has often and lavishly praised Mao on this blog and who has never been bothered by his mass murders of Chinese.
The blood of many millions on his hands. The Counterrevolutionaries Campaign, the Stalinist Land Reform, The Great [sic] Leap Forward [sic] and the famine, the Cultural [sic] Revolution, Tibet. Millions and millions. No exaggeration. Horror after horror.
But you won’t learn about these in Chinese schools because they have–wait for it–an explicitly Nationalist curriculum.
This post comes at a critical time. I got up this morning, and CRT and Antifa had caused a leak under my kitchen sink.
It is actually an interesting question: To what extent do generally aggravating circumstances of life add to the body politic and its willingness to have a zeitgeist that points to blaming certain political leaders for the bad feelings. Does it generally profit those in or out of power if a large group within society are rising each morning to annoyances like leaky faucets and unpaid bills. Are troubled people more likely to react to their general state in life by accepting falsehood and xenophobia? Can we elect Hitler or Stalin because our car runs over a nail?
Trains on time… Hitler.
Did you mention that Antifa causes climate change?
Diane. Once agin have to set you strait. “Climate change is just weather.” –Donald J. Trump
It gits warm in the sumer n cold in the winter. Thats the only “climite change they is.”
I think Antifa causes mental illness to the (r)ight.
CRT use to stand for Cathode Ray Tube
Where is Roseann Rosannadanna when you need her? “What’s this I hear about cathode ray tubes in our schools? And what’s wrong with them anyway?”
“Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? . . . Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
-George Orwell, 1984
The past is what you fake.
The present is what you stake.
And the future is what you take.
So well said, SomeDAM. Perfect.
It was never about public school students.
They simply do nothing that benefits our students because their crusades are never ABOUT our students. At some point I’m hoping public schools will recognize this.
Look at the track record. Can anyone anywhere point to anything these people have done that actually provided some positive benefit to any public school student, anywhere?
That’s the measure public schools should be using.
Just yesterday, a collegue of mine said a student challenged his selection of literature on the basis of his telling the liberal side. The faithful are being taught to question authority. Well, some authority. Not so much other authority.
I am reminded of having a large 35-student class with only one White student who challenged my teaching when I spoke about the wearing of the traditional Irish Green as a protest against a dominating Orange. My non-White principal backed her up.
SMH!
Roy– I enjoyed the WaPo article about fired TN teacher Matt Hawn. One of his former students (who testified for him) said he refrained from actually taking Hawn’s current political issues course, but would frequently take the teacher aside and ask him questions between classes. This eventually led to a serial encounter, where the student would bring Hawn an elderly relative’s position [delivered to the kid with “see what he says about that!,” bring back the answer, come back with another point, etc. The student said this teacher helped him learn to think critically. [Without even formally teaching him the course!]
bethree5,
I saw below that we read the same article. It is heartbreaking that the students are losing this teacher, most likely because of a small number of vocal parents who have some exaggerated idea of this teacher teaching dangerous ideas.
Changing history. This is right out of the 1984 playbook.
and out of the WWII German playbook
Dear Repugnicans: 1984 was meant as a warning, not as a how-to manual.
This why I’m glad I live and work in Brooklyn.
OK, Mark. Rub it in.
Sorry. Sorry….
The real “tell”of the hypocrisy of ed reformers with these mandates they impose on public schools is they don’t apply the mandates to the PRIVATE schools they all lobby to fund.
Yes, the same folks who demand public schools conform to an ever-shifting list of politically motivated “transparency” demands and regulations exempt publicly funded private schools from all their “reforms”.
This is never even discussed in the ed reform echo chamber- the increasing incoherence and anti-public school bias that permeates the whole movement. No one questions it. They aren’t even consistent across whatever set of privatization laws they’re lobbying for at any given time, and it’s just accepted in the echo chamber as if it’s rational.
Ohio ed reformers will add a new set of punishing mandates to public schools IN THE SAME SESSION where they promote completely unregulated funding of the private schools they prefer. They write the voucher laws in my state- I’d be surprised if the lockstep ed reformers in the statehouse even read them before passing them. Why should public schools accept their gimmicky, politicized mandates if they exempt pubicly funded private schools? Why do our kids get stuck with this garbage?
Chiara– it’s not inconsistent, and it’s entirely intentional. The idea is to make pubsch life so unpleasant that it drives families to privatized “public” schools and drives pubsch teachers from their profession, or into lowpaid nonunionized versions of it. “Why should public schools accept their gimmicky, politicized mandates if they exempt publicly funded private schools?” They have no vote in those policies and no right to refuse implementing mandates promulgated by rwnj &/or corrupt members of state legislature & state DofEd. The question is, how do you turn the electorate toward voting for candidates who support pubschs?
“..teach children that racism happened long, long ago,…”
With regard to the Ruby Bridges book, this is exactly what is being done. Telling the story of the 1950s-60s civil rights movement plays perfectly into the idea that this is all past and gone, and that all is peachy now. So why do the book-burning crowd want to ban Ruby? The answer is that nothing in the attack on schools is required to make any sense. Confusion among the faithful is more helpful than logic. Arousing a generalized fear that what they have will be taken away is the actual aim of all conservative fear approaches.
Better be scared. The liberals will: take your guns, make your children queer, stir up the people who look different, outlaw your religion, CRT you, and on and on.
Important, what you have said here, Roy. And beautifully, perfectly said!
And regardin that, Roy, when I was a kid n worked as a news paper boy, back before we had Fox and OAN and Parler n The Daily Stormer n TruthSocial and BriteBart Simpson on line, I had to cary a slingshot in case CRT chased me on my bike! You thank Im making this up but Im not. Its as real as the Space Lasers, which we could have blown rite outta the sky if the Libtards had let Trump buy Green Land the way he wonted to n put Space Force defencive missies, uh missiles thar.
Roy– I disagree that “telling the story of the ‘50’s-‘60’s civil rights movement plays perfectly into the idea that this is all past and gone, and that all is peachy now.” Young students buy whole-heartedly into such tales of justice vs injustice, and many are sensitized to recognize, as they grow older, that the story still plays out in current times, maybe right into the lives of their schoolmates. I saw it with my youngest, who was exposed full-bore to that new generation of children’s books in the mid-‘90’s, and was the most aware of my 3 to what it feels like to be part of a cultural minority. [Perhaps more sensitized than some, as a musician drawn early to hip-hop, hence to our tiny AA community—but, chicken/egg…] THAT is why states influenced by white supremacy look to dump Ruby Bridges, MLK’s March [next will be Rosa Parks].
Hawn was dismissed after school officials said he used materials with offensive language and failed to provide a conservative viewpoint during discussions of white privilege in his contemporary issues class, ”
Konservative Views
Konservative views
The Fox of the news
A histr’y of whites
Of worthiest fights:
Like War for the Grays
And old southern ways
And masked KKK’s
The Good Olden Days
Another gem, SomeDAM!
Although his verse
Is sometime gory, it’s
true he’s the best
of our poet laureates.
Do I get the worst rhyme of the year award?
Behold, the gauntlet has been thrown down!
I threw in a little grammar error as well as a pièce de résistance. Who NOW, SomeDAM, will wear the Red Cloak?
TWO grammar errors!
“Confusion among the faithful
is more helpful than logic.”
Once conditioned to believe their
degrees cast a glow of superiority
over less titled mortals, the stage
is set for the cognitive dissonance
of the conditioned, as they realize,
to their horror, they wear the same
yoke as do the masses.
The infallibility of wanton ignorance is hard to refute.
❤
Whites and Yokes (An Eggsistential Crisis)
A yoke do they wear
That’s yellow in hue
And thoughts that they bare
Are racist in view
Wonderful!
I don’t know if this has been discussed already, but the Washington Post has an excellent article about Matthew Hawn, the Tenneesee teacher who was fired.
It includes interviews with some of his former students — many of whom were and still are quite conservative — talking about how much they got out of his class. He made a difference.
His firing is a huge loss for that Tennesee school. And I suspect that a silent majority of parents know that, but they are afraid to stand up to the right wing folks who have cancelled Matt Hawn and are censoring what can be taught in high schools.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/12/06/tennessee-teacher-fired-critical-race-theory/
From the article, conservative former students talk about their history teacher:
“Robinette remembers a similar moment during an argument about fiscal policy, when Hawn explained that Tennessee’s high sales tax led some in his family to do their grocery shopping just over the border in Virginia, where groceries are taxed less because the state also taxes income. Robinette, still a fervent Republican who voted for Trump in 2020, said that was the first time he considered there might be drawbacks to Tennessee’s disdain for an income tax.
And Thomas, who also remains conservative although he dislikes Trump, said he will never forget a debate with Hawn over whether the United States should welcome Syrian refugees. Midway through arguing against the idea, Thomas stopped talking. He realized he did not actually agree with what he was saying.
“It made me think, from that point on, that I can change my mind on issues,” said Thomas, who is majoring in history at East Tennessee State University because Hawn’s class inspired a love for the subject.
Before meeting Hawn, Thomas said, “I don’t know if I could have been the type of guy to listen to other people’s arguments, or see from their point of view.”
You’d beat me to it, nycpsp! Before reading your post, I plugged this article, citing another student influenced by Hawn.
It’s ironic that Republicans like to inveigh against “cancel culture” while they are its most fervent cancellers of dissent or even enlightened thought.
A lot of their complaints actually amount to psychological projection.
SomeDAM Poet,
That is intentional – they accuse their enemy of doing what they are doing.
Exactly, Diane!
It is all part of their deep hypocrisy.
I think this biz of projecting onto the other guy is typical of polarized discussions, & practiced by both sides. It’s just another version of, ‘well if I’m___, you’re ___!’ This is actually what has drawn me to daily watching of CSPAN’s daily call-in “Washington Journal” show. I noticed this strange parallel between the arguments between callers-in on Rep & Dem lines. Not in content, but in the way they framed their arguments.
History Class, with Mr. Shepherd
Good morning, class! I am taking very seriously the new state law against teaching divisive or disturbing material–stuff that might make you uncomfortable.
Therefore, I’m going to skip over telling you about how in 1624 a merchant named John “Mad Jack” Oldham was banished from the Plymouth Colony for writing letters to England slandering the Pilgrims, for refusing his duty to stand watch, and for pulling a knife on his superior (think Commanding Officer), Miles Standish, and threatening him with it.
And I’m not going to tell you how Oldham then robbed some Indians who retaliated by boarding Oldham’s ship and killing him.
And I am CERTAINLY not going to about how, in response to the killing, the Pilgrims, under Captain John Mason, surrounded a palisaded Pequot Indian village, blocked the exits through the wooden fencing, and set fire to the village, burning to death the approximately 700 Indian men, women, and children—yes, children—within and slaughtering with swords and muskets those who tried to escape by jumping from the walls or storming the exits.
And, of course, I won’t tell you that the Pilgrims’ actions meet the definition of genocide or mention that the nations of the world have since agreed upon and codified such a definition of genocide in a treaty called The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
That would be far too disturbing and uncomfortable, so I’m omitting it.
Greg, it’s against the law for you to take pictures in my classroom!
Back in my day, I doodled. Bringing it the 35 mm camera with lights was too cumbersome.
Back in my day, we just had shadow puppets.
Shadow puppets. What today we call “Senators.”
Thanks for the history lesson, Bob! Definitely didn’t get that one in my ‘50’s-‘60’s K12 ed. Sheesh, I don’t think we even got the Trail of Tears. And Pilgrims and Indians were just nice guys sharing Thanksgiving dinner
Bradford tells in his book about how on the first day after their arrival at Plymouth (in November, smack dab in the winter in New England; great planning), they went into an Indian village. The inhabitants had fled. They then proceeded to steal all the provisions that the Indians had laid aside for the winter, and Bradford went back and penned thanks to the Lord for so bountifully providing. No comment on the fact that he and his friends might just have condemned this village to starvation that winter.
omg. Can you just imagine that as a K Thanksgiving play !!
I used to think teaching about racial hatred was teaching history. That’s only partially the case. Teaching current events is just as much teaching about racism. It’s been a long time since, even in my blue state without anti-CRT laws, I could make any mention at school of the names of the concurrent president of the United States, Congresspeople, or Supreme Court justices without making someone upset. It’s like living in the 1850s. Like the 1850s, there is even violence in the Capitol again too. The country has gone mad. Today, the IT guy at school yelled at me to stop wearing a mask. Out of the blue. He was upset. I thought he liked me. Mad, I tell you, mad.
!!!!!!!!
There will be a LOT more of this. The Repugnican’s have decided that The Great CRT Scare of 2021 and “divisive” or “uncomfortable” history are the coming election season’s Willie Horton.
And here we are, Germany in 1932.
cx: Repugnicans or Repugnicants (emphasis on the cant)
They can and they will. For example, everything.
I will be missing, this year, Stable Genius’s annual CANTicle on The War on Christmas–you know, that holiday that you never hear anything about anymore because, Libtards.
You gotta watch out for those (normally quiet) IT types.
I know. I have worked with many of them.
I realize in retrospect that I was very, very fortunate to have had a great civics teacher in 9th grade. One of the things she did to make the class fun (and educational without having us realize it) was a regular Friday current events class. She used to divide the class into four groups and did a Jeopardy-style game show where we had to explain events from the past week. No homework, it was just an expected part of class. I peaked that year. It was all window dressing after.
My son has AP government and they never discuss current events. I honestly don’t know how that can be done. And I’ve concluded that it can’t. Teachers who exclude it are a) fearful for their jobs, b) don’t understand that government is a living subject, or c) have given up. And I guess there’s a d) right winger teachers who are probably wrestling and football coaches.
Don’t sell yourself short, you haven’t begun to peak.
Standardized instruction is worthless instruction.
This is truly chilling. I suspect that I would have, when I was teaching, toned it down A LOT had I been a young man with a family living paycheck to paycheck. But yeah, what you describe is sickening.
AP Government……What did you expect from a “product” that was purchased from the College Board which is tied to a standardized test given by the College Board? AP = Common Core at it’s finest. Read, cram, test and then memory dump…. no actual learning involved.
Scratch a member of the “freedom caucus,” and you will most lightly find a bigot.
Freedumb!
I question “most likely”
Just trying to make sure I understand you, LCT. I assume you teach high school – & presumably social studies, where names of govt officials crop up in regular content. And you’re saying just mentioning names of president, US Reps/ Sens, SCOTUS members triggers emotional responses. Did you find this started with GWBush admin? Or [more probably, given your context]– did that become a thing when Obama was elected.
Anti-bullying info pulled from Florida DOE website following complaint by right wing outlet about LGBT content. Note that a school safety office was established at the FLDOE after the Stoneman Douglass shooting. Additionally, students can use bullying as a reason for requesting a school voucher.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/477905-anti-bullying-page-including-pro-lgbtq-links-removed-from-education-department-website/
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/12/florida-dept-education-yanks-anti-bullying-resources-website/
“The bullying portal [FL DofEd website content until recently— pulled down when a rw newspaper challenged links to LBGTQ sites] included links to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ StopBullying.gov and its page addressing bullying in LGBTQIA+ Youth. Until this fall, the page instructed educators to protect children’s privacy, guidance that could run afoul of the Parents’ Bill of Rights .”
The fed DofEd links require teachers to keep lips sealed in case kids have come out at school before coming out to parents. FL govt action in pulling this down sends a clear message that ‘parents’ rights’ include putting the pubsch teachers in the middle between parents and children. Imagine: a student feeling rejected/ restrained at home confides their concern/ confusion to a teacher, seeking help. This leaves room for teacher to recommend school psych counselor, who perhaps recommends some kind of free county counseling for teens. But… in FLORIDA, looks like teachers are required to blurt it all out to parents upon hearing it!
Meanwhile, any kind of fed anti-bullying guidance is put in the freezer while DeSantis toadies mull over whether Flori-duh parent rights allow them to exert total control over their kids. Bullies: have it at—strike while the iron is hot!
“how schools teach about racism, sexism”
Are we just talking about teaching history? Who “teaches about racism”? Is there a class called “Racism 101”?
My g-d you are a bigoted moron.
Let me put that another way. I am sure you know you are engaging in legalistic sophistry that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed. I really am. But if you are not, you are a bigoted moron.
How so?
Ah, there’s that dastardly reading comprehension again.
I think that’s a good question, FLERP.
Others seem to have found it a mortifyingly offensive question.
Ponderosa,
Read the Washington Post article about the excellent history teacher in a very conservative school who was fired for teaching about racism.
I saw a great interview by a real reporter (in local news who the NYT would never hire since she actually believes reporting is more than being a stenographer for ‘both sides”).
This reporter asked an anti-CRT politician to explain how to teach the Three-Fifths Compromise without mentioning racism.
Do you know what the anti-CRT politician said? That the three fifths compromise really wasn’t about race because indentured servants were also considered 3/5 of a person and so were Native Americans. (She was wrong, but hey does that really matter?)
Maybe you and he who shall not be named can explain how to teach American history while avoiding the subject of racism.
I am looking forward to hearing how you teach American history without having any mention of racism come up.
In English instruction, many important works of literature have to do with race. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be important. In science, nature versus nurture involves race. In mathematics, who conceived of what idea involves race. In physical education and especially sports, race, race, race. In everything, race. Racism exists. Denial is the problem — in every subject.
I don’t think I knew you were an English lit teacher (if I did, I forgot). If you don’t mind my asking, what’s a specific example from a class you’ve taught? What was the book, what was the discussion?
It’s a common question nowadays. Sure. Right now, I’m using Chekhov, but ok. Mark Twain.
History teachers teach about racism. And very likely, English teachers do as well. Could a teacher include Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, James Baldwin or Toni Morrison without discussing racism? I don’t think so. I could see science teachers discussing the scientific basis of race and racial differences. Imagine a discussion of eugenics, which was supported by very influential people; how could it not discuss racism?
This is my question, in essence. Are we just talking about teaching history (which at points involves issues relating to “race” and racism) and English literature (which at points involves novels that implicate issues relating to race and racism)? We’re not talking about “teaching about racism,” right? Because I have zero problem with my son being taught about the history of the slave trade or American slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Crow. And I have no problem with my son reading and being taught about any novels by the writers you list. But I don’t want my son being taught “about racism.”
Possibly this is too fine a distinction to discuss in this format.
Exactly. Teachers teach about life, humanity, possibilities, where we’ve come from–good and bad, and where we might go. They use science, art, literature, history, mathematics, physical education and a whole lot of other things to convey those ideas. They do not compartmentalize into the idiocy that has been characterized by some of the comments here. Effective teachers hit as many notes and try as they can. The idea that they indoctrinate or have agendas is ludicrous.
Richard Wright is as good as an example as there is. Native Son should well be considered for any reading list about 11th grade through early college. It is essential American literature that is timeless about the most uncomfortable of subjects, one that is as strong today as it was when it was written. Now, you may agree or disagree with that statement, but it is a discussion I would hope is taking place in schools throughout the nation. Instead, literature like this is being banned for all the obvious, sinister reasons.
I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that a parent is okay with his son being taught about the history of the slave trade or American slavery or Reconstruction or Jim Crow as long as it isn’t teaching about racism.
“Teacher, why were there Jim Crow laws?” “Well I can’t really discuss why because that would get us into territory your parent prefers you aren’t taught about.”
What is an example of a student being taught “about racism” that would come up during a history class that a parent would want censored?
I suggest anti-CRT parents who are afraid of their son learning about racism in their history class read the Washington Post article about the Tennessee teacher who was fired for teaching about racism.
Is that the kind of teacher they don’t want their kid to have? What a shame.
Social studies and literature teachers are vulnerable targets of the anti-CRT zealots.
They always have been vulnerable targets of the folks who don’t want their dainty daisies exposed to uncomfortable truths about the world.
The primary difference is that now, there is an overarching “theme” for objection to teaching things that touch on the topics of racism. While in the past, parents were restricted to objecting to the teaching of this or that specific book because of topic, language and the like, now they can object more generally that it is all part of a diabolical plan to ” teach Critical Race Theory.”
But of course, they might be right!
The Diabolical Garden Plot
I see them, all the crazies,
They’re working on a plot
To infiltrate my daisies
With blight, disease and rot
To teach my little children
To follow evil views
And everything they’re plottin’
We simply must refuse
Flerp, I think it’s a good question. “Teaching about racism” is a broad-brush idea that sounds good to many on the surface, but carries a load of baggage. OK I’m bringing in the kind of nuance that good teachers already bring to their classrooms on a daily basis. To me, the way to “teach about racism” is simply to teach history and current events with all the warts, and encourage discussion around it. At the elemsch level, have your kids read books like Ruby Bridges and the MLK March and whatever about Rosa Parks etc—and ask questions, and let kids voice their feelings about fairness & injustice. We do not need to be preaching that US is a racist society, that white privilege is a thing, etc– that message comes through loud & clear from the curriculum
I voiced my opinion in the WaPo comment thread on Matt Hawn’s firing. Someone claimed “‘White Privilege’ is a racist term” and should not be used in a pubsch classroom. My response:
“I really think it’s more in the category of observation/ fact than racist slur. But I agree that the term is ‘loaded’– it definitely sounds like a condemnation. IMHO, that makes it unwise to use it in a high school-level class. There are just too many kids who will hear it as a slur/ condemnation. And it’s not necessary. The same lively classroom discussions can be led without it. ‘Racist’ is dicey as well, because in common parlance it implies intolerance by individuals toward other individuals because of skin-color. So the discussion gets off-track when you’re trying to examine whether longtime policies favor one group over another– intention may or may not be in play, and that’s another subject for discussion. Terms like this carry too many assumptions baked-in.”
How does one teach history (or many subjects) while avoiding now forbidden words like racist and white privilege?
I posted here about a local anti-CRT Republican politician explaining how one could teach the Three-Fifths Compromise while not using loaded terms like “racist.” It wasn’t pretty.
The very fact that we have a discussion about being so sensitive to people’s feelings that a word or phrase might be perceived as a condemnation is kind of an example of what white privilege is.
Do we ever think about all the ways that we teach history now that are insensitive to people who aren’t white? Does it ever occur to anyone to consider the feelings of students sitting there being told by their teacher about how wonderful the founding fathers were and how they believed “all men are created equal” when they know their ancestors were slaves? We don’t even begin to peruse history textbooks for how “loaded” the content is, because it isn’t loaded to white folks.
Weeks ago I posted some lines from a very well-respected middle school history by Joy Hakim, A History of US. There are many good parts. But because it is written in the 1990s, there are also some “loaded” parts – but not “loaded” for white people.
Does it matter if a white person feels triggered by some word if it accurately describes the reality but isn’t a personal insult to them? And what happens when someone who isn’t white believes that teaching history by tiptoeing around racism and white privilege feels they are being condemned?
The irony is that including perspectives like those from the 1619 Project are not particularly radical. They are just perceived to be radical because the right wing finds it convenient to portray them that way.
All good points nycpsp & agree re: 1619 project. I can see just thro our exchange here how challenging it is to put these things into words that communicate clearly. In the comment I was replying to at WaPo above, the person had suggested that students will bring up/ volunteer these terms themselves, and they will get discussed– teacher’s job to get them talking, not make pronouncements. I like that drift. But there’s no way any of this can be dictated– talk about micromgt omg. The new laws around this go way beyond anything I ever imagined would be “legislated”!!
It’s ludicrous that state legislatures are passing laws to dictate what may not be discussed in the classroom and which books must be removed from the school library. If we had a normal Supreme Court—not one dominated by hard right conservatives—I would predict that all such laws would be struck down as violations of the 1st Amendment.
It’s time for the NEA & AFT to stand up to this fascist, political bullying! There are numerous ways the millions of American teachers can stand up for the kids and their professions. Demonstrations, slowdowns (with paperwork, etc,) letters, phone calls, picketing, and finally striking. Everything is at stake!
In the ’60’s and ’70’s we teachers risked everything to build the quality educational programs–with strong unions. It can be done again. It must.
Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Yes. It must.
It’s time for unions to stop namby pambying this stuff. This is war on teachers and kids and truth and democracy, and it’s going to get a LOT worse between now and November 2022. The call for a whitewashed nationalist curriculum is going to be THE attraction on the carnival midway for the next while. Unless Putin invades Ukraine and/or China Taiwan, in which case it will be the Repugnicans calling Joe Biden “weak” because he is sane.
But then, I have stopped holding my breath waiting for the teachers’ unions to do anything about the ongoing ABUSE of children via federally mandated standardized testing. Their lack of action on that is revolting. They could, if they had any strength of purpose and character in their leadership, end this costly and destructive nightmare for U.S. K-12 education.
Collaborators.
Cx:
But then, I have stopped holding my breath waiting for the teachers’ unions to do anything about the ongoing ABUSE of children and profound devolution of curricula and pedagogy resulting from federally mandated standardized testing. The unions’ leaderships’ lack of action on that is revolting. These people could, if they had any strength of purpose and character, end this costly and destructive nightmare for U.S. K-12 education.
Collaborators.
See the recent statement by the U.S. Surgeon General, here:
https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2021-12-07/the-u-s-surgeon-general-issues-a-stark-warning-about-the-state-of-youth-mental-health
The testing ABUSE has to stop.
THIS. This thread!!! In general, really profound, probing comments. Thank you, Diane and contributors!
There are a couple I could have done without, ofc.
Revised
History Class, Grade 11, with Mr. Shepherd
Good morning, class! I am taking very seriously the new Republican-sponsored state laws against teaching divisive or disturbing material–stuff that might make you uncomfortable.
Therefore, I’m going to skip over telling you about how in 1624 a merchant named John “Mad Jack” Oldham was banished from the Plymouth Colony for writing letters to England slandering the Pilgrims, for refusing his duty to stand watch (something required of all the men), and for pulling a knife on Miles Standish (his commanding officer) and threatening him.
And I’m not going to tell you about how Oldham then robbed some Indians who retaliated by boarding Oldham’s ship and killing him. And I am certainly not going to describe how, in response to the killing, the good Christian Pilgrims, under Captain John Mason, surrounded a palisaded Pequot Indian village in the early morning hours when everyone was sleeping, blocked the exits through the wooden fencing, and set fire to the village, burning to death the approximately 700 Indian men, women, and children—yes, children—within. The Mystic Massacre.
I won’t tell you that when people tried to escape the flames consuming their homes by climbing over the fence of stakes around the village or storming the blocked gates, they were hacked to death or riddled with musket shot. I won’t share with you Captain John Underhill’s gloating, blow-by-blow account of this that he concluded by saying, “We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings.” I won’t tell you THAT, certainly.
And I certainly won’t tell you that the Pilgrims’ actions meet the definition of genocide or mention that the nations of the world have since agreed upon and codified that definition of genocide in a treaty called The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Oh, gee, I totally forgot to do the item from the Jingoist Curriculum about how before that the Pilgrims supposedly invited the Indians over for pie, and that was the First Thanksgiving. Sorry. Time’s up. Maybe next time. Very important.
Thanksgiving
The White man’s invitations
Were sent to Native people
The members of the Nations
Who trusted them like sheeple
And though they’d shared their crop
With woman, child and man
The White man made them drop
And slaughtered them like lamb
The first thing the Pilgrims did on the day after they landed in 1620, was find an Indian village (the inhabitants had fled at their coming) and steal all the provisions that the Indians had stored for the winter, which was upon them. Condemning them, of course, to starvation. John Bradford, their leader, then wrote in his journal, thanking God for so bountifully providing. John Bradford’s journal was entitled by him Of Plim̃oth Plantation.
It’s a riveting (and shocking) read.
Bradford should have called it the Pilfer Plantation
Enslavement of the Pequots was also one of the goals that the Puritans had in defeating them.
Turns out enslavement of Native Americans was quite common in colonial America.
And Native Americans also enslaved other Native Americans.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/01/native_american_slavery_historians_uncover_a_chilling_chapter_in_u_s_history.html
The popular story is that the Pilgrims left England due to “religious persecution.”
But seriously, can you imagine having people like John Mason for neighbors?
Or maybe it means the Pilgrims were religiously (ie, regularly and methodically) persecuting everyone around them?
Exactly. As the late, great Robin Williams put it, “And the Puritans. They were so uptight that even the English kicked them out.”
Having John Mason for a neighbor was probably a lot like having Osama Bin laden for a neighbor.
Extremist religious types are all very similar.
Give me Thomas Morton as a neighbor any day.
Give me Masonry or give me death!
Oh, wait…
LOL, SomeDAM! Crack me up!
One of the overarching aspects of human history has been one of conquest through abject brutality, cruelty, torture, enslavement, sexual assault, and genocide. History lessons like the one you describe here, when presented against the 21st century norms of the developed world, ignore the importance of historical context. Maybe its because the norms of conquest,colonialism, and war are too disturbing to comprehend.
Burning a Pequot village in retaliation (not a genocide) or stealing their provisions in order to survive the winter are good examples. However, they have nothing to do with race. Instead you are describing a clash of cultures, one in which the one with better technology (weapons) came out the winners. If the European settlers played nice, most of would not I hope your next lesson teaches about the savagery settlers and pioneers faced from many indigenous tribes. The Comanche would make for a much more uncomfortable lesson than that of the Pilgrims.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396760/How-Comanche-Indians-butchered-babies-roasted-enemies-alive.html
none of us would be here
nothing to do with race. LMAO!
and the whataboutist ending, that was quite the stroke
genocide. n. Targeting for killing in whole or part any group of people based upon the nationality, race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality of the group members
I think that’s pretty clear. They murdered 700 Pequots based on their being Pequots
And you can’t just say, oh, hey, but that was the norm back then. There were people, then, who stood against such behavior–Roger Williams, Bartolomé de las Casas
But I must say, yours is the first defense of an act of genocide I’ve read all day.
genocide. n. Targeting for killing in whole or part any group of people based upon the race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality of the group members
But, of course! How could I not have seen this! If atrocities were committed A LOT by some group of people, say the Eisengruppen, and thus “normal” in the sense of “the norm” for the perpetrators, then those atrocities were perfectly OK.
And if atrocities were committed for a long time by a lot of people, say European colonialists around the world, such as the Belgians in the Congo, that makes atrocities by the Eisengruppen normal behavior too.
And if some other group somewhere else, say the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, committed atrocities, that makes those Eisengruppen atrocities OK too.
Interesting “reasoning.”
And, of course, the ends justify the means. Gotta have that Lebensraum!
But gee, thanks. One doesn’t read a good old-fashioned justification of “not genocide” much anymore.
One might argue that it’s anachronistic to call the Mystic Massacre genocide, for the term “genocide” didn’t even exist at the time. But that would be equally irrational. The term “iridium” didn’t exist before 1804, but that doesn’t mean that iridium didn’t exist before then. LOL.
Of course, Rage, I don’t think that you, today, support targeted killing of innocent people because they happen to be members of a particular group. But excusing it in the past as just the way things were simply doesn’t seem, to me, acceptable, and I think it important to teach WHY it wasn’t and isn’t acceptable, including for reasons like, well, they wouldn’t have won and we wouldn’t be here. THAT argument could be used to “excuse” horrific atrocity. Well, we exterminated them all and that’s why we are here. Yikes.
And, of course, it was a clash of cultures, including race (a cultural concept) and religion (a cultural concept). That’s no excuse either. Technology is the application of knowledge for practical purposes. I suspect that one should look carefully at what constitutes the “better” in “better” technology, given that technology is any application of knowledge for practical purposes (such as the technology of “three sisters” planting–squash, beans, corn). Defining “better” as “more conducive to mass murder, to extirpation and expropriation,” seems a little off, like rotten meat.
Teach the students History”
Teach the students history
Not a tale of hers-
Not the kind of blackstaree
CRT prefers
Teach about the Fathers
Founding USA
Not about the mothers
What they had to say
Teach about the white man
Pushing to the west
Not about the Indian
(Killed at his behest)
Teach about our destiny
City on the Hill
Shining there for all to see
(Not about the kill)
Blackstory (pronounced blackstaree )
Blackstaree
Is backstaree
Ever in the shade
Slavery
Was labor, see?
Volunteer, not paid
Well done, again! Alas, the current GOP wouldn’t think these satirical at all.
Who was being satirical?
SAT ire. What Chad felt when he finished all the logic questions in 15 minutes and smugly sat back, watching the other students struggle, only to discover when the clock ran out that there were two more pages of them that he hadn’t noticed were there.
Other points of view on this:
“The number of people, including friends and acquaintances, who hear me say, “I don’t believe in racism,” when I really say, “I think CSJ does more harm than good,” is more than I can ever imagine, and I can imagine a lot.”
https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2021/11/16/what-to-do-when-youre-the-wrong-kind-of-black-person/
“A certain kind of person loves to stand and breezily say that there are swarms of people out there who don’t want kids to know about racism – and they say this with admirable oppositional poise but not a shred of evidence.”
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/you-are-not-a-racist-to-criticize
but not a shred of evidence
roflmao
Pay no attention to the deluge of Teacher Thought Control and Nationalist Curriculum legislation throughout the country!
You’ll enjoy things when The Party has the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and Presidency in 2024. We’ll make the trains run on time.
Well, OK. We’ll do away with the trains. But we’ll have nice, clean, clear slogans-as-curricula that don’t trouble people with thinking so that He Who Inherits the Golden Golf Club and Whiter House of Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange Than Does the Sun can do that for them.
You know, as The Party did in East Germany and in the Soviet Union, as The Party has in China and North Korea. In all places where ORDER is maintained.
Rasse und Seele!
Make sure to reTruth this on PravdaSocial! (If that’s not just another grift like Trump University)
But thanks for the McWorter article. I recently found out that CRT has been having an affair with my brother’s husband!
Bob,
Based on your response, I don’t think you fully read or absorbed the McWhorter article.
Also, this main post has roughly 100 comments. Literally, about half the comments are yours. It’s hard to believe you are truly open to other opinions when you are so often stating your own.
Sorry, Matt. I started to but had to run to an online meeting. I shall read both after, in about an hour. Thanks for your response. I shall bear it in mind.
I actually can’t wait to read this article. I have been greatly amused lately by all the articles about how THE GREAT CRT SCARE OF 2021 is actually about a real thing, seriously. You know, like crop circles and Bigfoot.
the takeover of schools by CRT
Such unintentional humor! I suspect that in the whole of the United States, when all this nonsense started, there were two K-12 teachers who had ever heard of Critical Race Theory. It’s like freaking out because of the invasion of our schools by Quantum electrodynamics or Deconstructionist Criticism or Post Sartrean Existentialist Onology.
In a dialogue premised on good faith, we can assume that when politicos and parents decry “Critical Race Theory,” what they refer to is the idea of oppression and white perfidy treated as the main meal of an entire school’s curriculum.
OK. This is as basic as it gets in logic: base the argument on a false premise (the main meal?!?!?!?!?), and everything that follows is FUBAR.
CRT=any subject that makes white people look bad
LOL!!! Bingo, Diane.
You’re a lexicographer, too! (Of course, I knew that from EdSpeak and Doubletalk.)
So, our schools are full of people for whom oppression is “a single hobbyhorse,” who are “disinclined to curiosity or reflection.” Yup. And caravans of rapists and murderers are being massed at our borders by George Soros. And shape-shifting aliens from ALpha Draconis are ruling the world. And surely you have read Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
What utter freaking nonsense.
It’s difficult to satirize because it is self-satirizing. It would be standup comedy if the author were standing up and if entertaining and spreading such fantasies weren’t tragic.
the fulcrum of a school’s entire curriculum
OMG. That’s a really good one. Inventive!
“Then, there are reports of school boards actively considering ideas like these nationwide.”
Nationwide. ROFLMAO!!!! It’s been entertaining to watch the CRT Scare mongers searching the internet to find one example of one Powerpoint slide at one Professional Development meeting that had a bulletpoint labeled “CRT” that was then not discussed at the PD meeting. Help! It’s taking over! Nationwide!!!!
“all matters reduce to binary oppositions”
YUP. THE operating principle of all schools and teachers now that the Socialist Indoctrination has begun!!!!
It’s like Trump claiming that stealth airplanes are actually invisible. It would be difficult to make stuff up this fanciful and ridiculous.
“this rule of terror”
Yes. We must stop the RULE OF TERROR in our schools.
ROFLMAO
Said Mr. McWhirley, maturely.
Well, that was fun.
The CRT Affair
The CRT’s a woman
Who’s having an affair
In secrecy of bedroom
To duck the public glare
She claims she has been libeled
By those with ill intent
And swears on Holy Bible
That roommate’s paying rent
Matt….These 2 articles state exactly what is going on and I 100% agree. You will likely get a “pile on” by many of those who post on this blog. Many of the retired teachers posting here don’t realize how quickly things have changed in schools over the past 3-5 yrs. Very poorly designed DEI/SEL curriculum has invaded classrooms K-12 and those pointing it out are deemed right wing trolls/racists etc. It’s disturbing to read what is posted here by intelligent people who clearly don’t know what is going on in many public school systems.
LisaM,
How do you know what is going on “in many school systems”? I’m willing to bet that 99.9% of teachers in K-12 never heard of CRT until Chris Rufo jumped on the issue to promote a backlash against public schools. Republicans want to impose propaganda on the schools. They believe that it’s racist to teach about racism. It is simply wrong for states to pass laws banning any particular book or subject.
Lisa,
Yes, I try to engage in constructive arguments. Sometimes it is not easy here.
“Very poorly designed DEI/SEL curriculum has invaded classrooms K-12 and those pointing it out are deemed right wing trolls/racists etc.”
As a parent, I have never seen how this “poorly designed DEI/SEL curriculum has invaded classrooms K-12”, so it would be useful to give a specific example to convince us instead of just warnings.
I always click on links provided by our frequent anti-CRT posters, and there is a huge disconnect with how the anti-CRT folks characterize what is being taught. There was a California media studies class — optional — that seemed like a terrific class once I actually looked at the details at the curriculum instead of simply accepting an anti-CRT person’s wildly inaccurate characterization of the class.
Sometimes anti-CRT folks cite things that are going on in private schools! I recall a wolnderful essay by a very conservative student who was graduating from LA’s Harvard-Westlake School to anti-CRT advocate Bari Weiss, when Bari Weiss wildly mischaracterized what was going on in his school. This was a conservative kid who urged an adult he admired – Bari Weiss – to stop reporting inaccurately and misinforming others of things that weren’t true and as far as I saw, Bari Weiss never apologized nor cared.
Because it’s not CRT! It is DEI/SEL and people like Chris Rufo have twisted the wording and the meaning. You should read the articles that Matt has posted and they will give a good example of what is really going on. Many parents are asking questions on numerous Substacks.
The reason I know what is going on in many school districts?
1. I had a child graduate out of public school 2yrs ago and things got “hinky” in the 11th grade. She came home with some pretty crazy ideas. I decided to find out what was going on.
2. I have many friends and acquaintances outside of my state and school district and some are talking about the same strangeness going on in their districts.
3. Many of the Principals and VP’s in my district pull their kids out of public and put them into private schools for HS. One happens to be my neighbor.
4. I know a few teachers who are having a problem with some of the DEI/SEL curriculum.
The final straw when I decided to pull my 2nd child out of public school was when he would send me pictures of “grit” and “growth mindset” dittoes that he had to do in his math class to try and raise the test scores.
Stop the banning of books. Teach history, warts and all. Talk about history and it’s relationship to racism when/where it’s appropriate, but stop making everything about racism.
Matt Metzgar,
I think you selectively quoted the article. Here is another quote in John McWhorter’s article from the link you provided:
“In addition to racist whites who disapprove of “wrong” Blacks, there are also racist whites who embrace them as proof that racism doesn’t exist or that white people are the real victims. These whites oppose anything broaching the subject of race. Consider politicians like Ron DeSantis who want to ban CRT outright, not just as dogmatic pedagogy. Consider Texas State Representative Matt Krauss who wants to ban 850 books for accurately depicting past and present manifestations of discrimination in America because they “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress.” I don’t condone the banning of any theory or of most books, but this won’t stop truly racist whites from twisting my criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.”
Matt, do you agree with John McWhorter and view Ron DeSantis and Matt Krauss as some of those racist whites that John McWhorter calls out?
John McWhorter calls out “truly racist whites from twisting my criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.”
If you can’t state for the record that you agree with McWhorter that Ron DeSantis is a racist, then you are doing exactly what McWhorter abhors and you certainly appear to be one of those right wing racists who is twisting his words to enact censorship and racist policies.
Your silence about racist Ropn DeSantis will speak volumes as to whether you are actually one of those racist people that John McWhorter calls out.
I read the article you selectively quoted and I was surprised that you didn’t even mention McWhorter’s calling out the racism of Ron DeSantis. I certainly hope that is not because you are one of those racist whites who twists McWhorter’s criticisms into a collective argument for racist policies.
McWhorter called out those racist whites. Are you one of them, Matt Metzgar? Or will you strongly condemn Ron DeSantis as McWhorter does as one of the racist whites twisting his words?
NYC PSP….What is wrong with you!
NYCP,
I don’t understand anything you are saying. Of course, it was selectively quoted. That’s what a quote is – where you select a portion of a text and quote it.
I don’t know what Ron DeSantis does or doesn’t do, and Matt Krauss I’ve never even heard of.
If you’d like to ask me whether I support a certain position or not, feel free. But all this stuff about condemning this person or that person doesn’t make any sense.
Matt Metzgar,
I knew you wouldn’t call out Ron DeSantis.
Matt says: “I don’t know what Ron DeSantis does or doesn’t do.”
John McWhorter just TOLD you what Ron DeSantis did. In the very article you selectively quoted from.
John McWhorter wrote this:
“In addition to racist whites who disapprove of “wrong” Blacks, there are also racist whites who embrace them as proof that racism doesn’t exist or that white people are the real victims. These whites oppose anything broaching the subject of race. Consider politicians like Ron DeSantis who want to ban CRT outright, not just as dogmatic pedagogy.”
John McWhorter also wrote this this:
“I don’t condone the banning of any theory or of most books, but this won’t stop truly racist whites from twisting my criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.”
John McWhorter – the guy you tell us should be listened to — just told you what Ron DeSantis did but you don’t believe him.
Why don’t you believe John McWhorter when he tells you about Ron DeSantis?
John McWhorter specifically wrote what Ron DeSantis did and strongly criticized the racist whites who twisted what McWhorter was saying for racist purposes.
Matt, since you won’t condemn “truly racist whites” like Ron DeSantis that John McWhorter cites, it seems that you are the one trying to twist McWhorter’s criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.
LisaM,
Unlike Matt, I suspect that you would have no trouble criticizing Ron DeSantis. As McWhorter clearly points out in his essay, it is possible to be critical of how CRT is used — as you do, LisaM — and still recognize how some racist white politicians twist legitimate criticism of CRT to enact racist policies.
But is not possible to be critical of the racist white politicians like DeSantis who twist McWhorter’s criticism of CRT to enact racist policies if you are one of the racist whites who McWhorter calls out in his essay. I think we can all decide for ourselves whether Matt is one of those racist whites.
NYCP,
Down the rabbit hole again…
Do you have a specific question for me about an issue (not condemning this person or that person)?
Matt…NYC PSP is unhinged. It must be really hard for one to wake up every day with that kind of anger and have to seek validation from people on an education blog by beating up on people who share the same values (mostly) but have a difference of opinion. I do not engage NYC PSP in the madness and incoherent “word sauce”. NYC PSP is like a child pushing for the parent to give a “time out”.
No ad hominem comments, Lisa M.
Matt says: “Do you have a specific question for me about an issue (not condemning this person or that person)?”
Matt, I read the article YOU posted and John McWhorter says this:
“In addition to racist whites who disapprove of “wrong” Blacks, there are also racist whites who embrace them as proof that racism doesn’t exist or that white people are the real victims. These whites oppose anything broaching the subject of race… I don’t condone the banning of any theory or of most books, but this won’t stop truly racist whites from twisting my criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.”
The issue that John McWhorter clearly brings up is that racist whites are twisting his criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.
Do you agree with John McWhorter that the issue of racist whites twisting his criticisms into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies is something we should also be concerned about?
It’s really an easy yes or no question.
Diane Ravitch,
This is one of many times that LisaM has launched personal attacks in which she uses truly abhorrent words. “unhinged”? “madness”?
I have strong opinions. Unlike LisaM, I try to convince people of them using arguments instead of snide remarks, legalistic sophistry or insults.
I don’t understand how LisaM can get away with such repellent language.
Matt Metzgar linked to an opinion by John McWhorter where John McWhorter specifically warns against racists who twist his criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.
John McWhorter writes: “I don’t condone the banning of any theory or of most books, but this won’t stop truly racist whites from twisting my criticisms of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.”
I think readers can decide for themselves if Matt Metzgar’s unwillingness to criticize DeSantis or any other Republican politician who is twisting McWhorter’s criticisms to enact censorship and racist policies tells us something.
NYCP,
“Do you agree with John McWhorter that the issue of racist whites twisting his criticisms into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies is something we should also be concerned about?”
Yes, I do.
Matt,
Thank you.
It is very important this this is discussed in good faith. Diane Ravitch and John McWhorter both note that some anti-CRT folks are not arguing in good faith and want censorship. John McWhorter specifically calls out Republican Ron DeSantis when John McWhorter warns us about anti-CRT advocates who are twisting his criticism of CSJ into a collective argument for censorship and racist policies.
I didn’t realize how much John McWhorter had recognized how Republican politicians like DeSantis are using their opposition to CRT to enact racist policies and censorship. Thank you, Matt, for bringing John McWhorter’s very strong criticism of Ron DeSantis to all of our attention.
nycpsp– what I am reading here between the lines is that you and Matt Metzgar have several points of agreement. Because he introduces other viewpoints which have a different take on the CRT issue does not mean he is ”anti-CRT.” He is simply pointing out that there are thoughtful critiques of CRT which are worth reading and considering. I would suggest he—like me—is looking for a nuanced middle way forward.
I for one welcome this approach. I am not happy with Kendi-in-the-classroom, nor with circa-‘80’s corporate HR DE&I training warmed over for the classroom. I see both as similar to Coleman’s dumbing-down/ warping ‘50’s The New Criticism grad-level poetry theory into natl stds for K12 ELA. Also reminiscent of fed Dept of Ed adopting already obsolete corporate Management by Objectives theory into the stdzd-aligned hi-stakes assessment accountability systems that have been plaguing pubschs for 20yrs.
Sure, “CRT” per se is not in the K12 classroom, but many [most?] pubsch districts adopted a DE&I mission statement post-Floyd murder in summer 2020 if they didn’t already have one [many did]. Some classrooms in some districts will flub this, & as you have correctly pointed out in the past, so what—or as somebody in the linked article said, join the 1001 grievances, step to the back of the line. But among educators & parents, a nuanced discussion around what works best in the classroom is worth having.
bethree5,
I can’t argue with your comment that “many [most?] pubsch districts adopted a DE&I mission statement post-Floyd murder in summer 2020 if they didn’t already have one [many did]. Some classrooms in some districts will flub this…”
I suspect – but have no way of knowing – that a lot of GOOD came out those public school districts adopting a DE&I mission statement and it got a lot of public schools to beginning a conversation and thinking about things that they never before thought of.
In fact, I suspect is was a lot more good than bad. But all I know after reading the discussion on here is the bad. Might be nice to hear the good, too, because I don’t think you realize how Matt’s efforts to make this discussion only a discussion about the bad is part of how propaganda works.
I have a post held up in moderation, but imagine this: The Republicans pass laws in many states banning teachers unions.
Diane Ravitch writes a post about the dangers of states banning unions.
NYC public school parent keeps posting links to articles about the problems that happen when there is a strong teachers’ union. Bad teachers can’t be fired. This teacher over here was found to be cheating. This other one harrassed his student. This union wasted a lot of money on some stupid professional development.
And everyone joined me in a discussion about whether it was the bad teachers who can’t be fired, or the bad union administrators that made the public hate the union so much.
Can you really not see how my constant desire to post links to discuss which bad thing the union did made the public hate them so much is propaganda? It stops cold in its tracks the discussion about the Republicans efforts to ban the union and how dangerous it is. It amplifies the very same justifications the Republicans use as to why their passing laws to ban the union are not nearly as dangerous as they appear and maybe some good will come out of it.
Despite my claims of supporting the union, you could identify me as a propagandist by the fact that I only want to talk about the bad things, not the good things abourt the union. And I’d tell you I only talk about those bad things because I just want to make the union better.
And if I were really successful, I could change the discussion so we are all talking about what the union does wrong to make Republicans want to ban them. People would not even realize they never talked about any reason to keep the union at all! It was all about what was bad about it.
Oh lord, I wish I had a college composition class right now. It would be amusing to give them the McWhorter article to critique. It’s such a compressed masterpiece of illogic and baseless hyperbole. Loads of fun.
Bob,
I do agree with you that McWhorter doesn’t present a very convincing argument for his views. In fact, mostly he is citing vague generalities to support his criticism of CRT.
On the other hand, unlike some of the other anti-CRT folks, McWhorter does correctly identify the way that Republican politicians like Ron DeSantis twist the anti-CRT criticisms to justify racist policies and McWhorter is extremely critical of DeSantis and other Republicans and doesn’t mince words in calling them “truly racist whites”.
A lot of hyperbole in his piece. Extreme overgeneralization. So much that it is farcical.
Matt Metzgar– These are important essays to read– by ‘these’ I mean this author [Erec Sm\ith, 1st link], McWhorter, Loury and others [Jesse Jackson too, back in the day] who push back against CRT & DE&I concepts because of an inherent condescension/ infantilism of blacks, discouraging individuals from striving to reach their potential. One really needs to read both ends of the spectrum to get a nuanced viewpoint. I would also recommend a re-reading of Audre Lorde’s poems and essays. She was one who pushed the early white-feminist movement to make an umbrella including black feminists, lesbians & gay men, global women of color. Following her general concepts moves us toward what we need to combat neoliberalism, which is a cross-racial workers’ movement.
McWhorter and Loury are long-time conservatives
bethree5,
I just came cross a well-researched article from The NYT Magazine, November 9, 2021, by Jake Silverstein: “The 1619 Project and the Long Battle Over U.S. History”
It is a meticulously researched (to me) article about the 1619 Project and its critics.
Anyone who believes that there is anything in the 1619 Project that presents “an inherent condescension/ infantilism of blacks, discouraging individuals from striving to reach their potential” should be obligated to cite very specific passages from the book.
I have taken a fair amount of time to read the specific criticisms by historians and they are generally disagreements on the different weight that is placed on various historic influences.
In fact, what was missing from all the bad media reporting of the 1619 Project controversy is that Hannah-Jones’ work was informed directly by well-respected historical works by prize-winning historians like Alan Taylor’s 2016 book, “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804” and Jill Lepore’s 2018 book “These Truths: A History of the United States”.
Taylor is the the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Chair in American History at U. Virginia. Lepore is the David Woods Kemper Professor of American History of Harvard.
Years before the 1619 Project came out, two of the prominent critics of that — Gordon Wood and Sean Wilentz — reviewed those histories that informed the 1619 Project and treated those histories with respect. Not once did they attempt to discredit the prominent historians whose work they were reviewing by attacking the weight that those histories gave to slavery in the founding of our country.
But when it came to the 1619 project, those same white historians who had previously positively reviewed these books by prominent white historians attacked Nikole Hannah-Jones for presenting US history from the same perspective Taylor and Lepore did!
It was okay when white historians Taylor and Lepore did it, but when Wilentz and Wood saw that perspective in the 1619 project, they threw a hissy fit. Why?
bethree5, I bring up the 1619 Project because the 1619 Project is absolute crux of the right wing’s attack on CRT.
Have you found anything in the 1619 Project that presents “an inherent condescension/ infantilism of blacks, discouraging individuals from striving to reach their potential”?
Do you think that is a legitimate criticism of the 1619 Project?
And if not, then why would the 1619 Project be the one work that the anti-CRT folks want to ban so often?
I don’t understand how we discuss CRT without talking about the elephant in the room. Who cares if McWhorter can cite some private school having a class that bothers a few white parents in it or someone can point to a power point teacher training slide that is eye rolling? The right wing is successfully banning the any teaching using the1619 Project all across the country.
If you think that’s a good thing, then I guess we will have agree to disagree.
nycpsp—I completely agree,and have never understood why the 1619 Project has been roped into the anti-CRT discussion, other than the obvious, i.e., know-nothings looking to denigrate a black female journalist’s well-researched take on US history.
bethree5,
The 1619 Project is the crux of the anti-CRT discussion!
There are 3.7 million K-12 teachers in the United States. In any group this large, one is going to find a few weirdos. There will be a few who hold fanatical extremist views and who have Maoist-style litmus tests for ideological purity. She has a recording of Beethoven sonatas! Poisonous Western culture! She must be a counter-revolutionary!
But we have faith, in a democracy, in the principle stated so eloquently by Milton: “Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” The idiot extremists are typically shouted down by their colleagues and bosses and communities pretty quickly. If there is some teacher out there who thinks that being successful and black is sufficient proof positive of collaboration with white oppression, who thinks that being punctual or thrifty or hard working is a sign of having internalized oppressive “white values,” who thinks that being white is proof positive of racism, then he or she is going to be laughed off (or worse) the scene. and the existence of that person is not proof that this is a nationwide problem.
Holding up such a person as an exemplar of “what’s going on in our schools is an absurd caricature. The views of such a rare wacko just aren’t indicative of schools generally, of what is to be found in TYPICAL school curricula. Let us agree that a truly terrible outcome of having identified some teacher somewhere who has extremist views would be to stifle all teaching that even mentions that such views exist. When I taught Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five to high-school kids, I gave them a short rundown of the history of the war, of what Nazis believed, of the bombing of Dresden–a little history as background. It would have been ridiculous to forbid me to tell my students what Nazis thought as part of that background because somewhere, once, someone found a public-school teacher who turned out to be a neo-Nazi. This is the kind of chilling effect that I and others on this blog are concerned about–that all this CRT-has-invaded-schools nonsense, and the legislation flowing from it will have such a hobbling effect on teaching of actual history. The Great CRT Scare of 2021 sounds to us teachers like put-up agitprop or like the parent who called my AP to tell her that “Mr. Shepherd is teaching demonology” because I had my students in a theatre class read the opening scene of Macbeth.
The expression of extreme positions by a few who are overreacting and belief that those extreme positions are common are BOTH typical of times when people are questioning old ways of thinking. That’s what happens in a democracy. Democracy is messy. People stand up in the Agora and say stupid things. And then others shout them down. But it’s illogical to think that because you once came across a duck who had been painted blue by delinquent kids, blue ducks are common.
I myself have done some shouting down of that “all whites are racists” but some are just so lacking in ability to do critical self-examination that they can’t admit their internalized bias as bs. There is such a thing as implicit bias, of course. And we all have implicit biases about things. That’s how we operate. Not much is fully conscious and examined. But I find that view extremist and stupid, though I don’t want to get into another long, long, long back and forth on why I do. I really don’t. I’ll just mention how loathsome it is to say, for example, of those young white men and women who GAVE THEIR LIVES fighting for Civil Rights in the 1960s were nonetheless racist because, of course they were. They were white and had implicit bias against black people. It’s shocking that they who paid the ultimate price for their beliefs would be so smeared. And I find it breathtaking that people have the chutzpah to think that they know my soul better than I do. I LOATHE racists and racism. I’ve given a lot of my life to putting my shoulder to the wheel in the fight against it. I know where I stand on this. I don’t even believe that race is a valid concept biologically, though it certainly has cultural meaning. And as an Existentialist, I have a deeply held philosophical commitment to the idea that we create who we are and are responsible for that creation.
Bob, thank you for this important perspective. As usual I agree with many of your points.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth either, but I just encourage you to consider a few things, and whether your reaction to people who talk about implicit racism might be a bit extreme.
Abraham Lincoln did many very good things, and the Emancipation Proclamation was an important document finally ending a horrible part of US history.
Does that mean that Abraham Lincoln held no racist views? Does that mean that it’s wrong to talk about the racist views Abraham Lincoln had, even though he also understood that slavery was wrong?
LBJ’s extraordinary accomplishment got Civil Rights legislation passed. But he also acted in ways that were racist, as his biographers have noted.
And on the subject of implicit racism – to me, implicit racism is often about people who don’t consider themselves racists not noticing racism in daily life or in history books or in the way institutions are run. It’s subtle. It’s white historians like Gordon Wood and Sean Wilentz heaping praise on white historians Jill Lepore and Alan Taylor’s works and wildly overreacting and trying to completely discredit Nikole Hannah-Jones when the 1619 Project presents the same perspective that Wood and Wilentz read in Lepore and Taylor’s books and simply accepted as an interesting, slightly different perspective than they had.
Do I think Wood and Wilentz intend to be racist? Nope. Do I think that the fact that the exact same perspective was fine when a white historian presented it but outraged them when Nikole Hannah-Jones did reflects some implicit bias? You don’t have to agree, but maybe think about it.
You are right that we all operate with implicit biases. I just don’t understand why you think that has anything to do with recognizing the admirable and extraordinary sacrifice of the young white men and women (and young black men and women) who gave their lives fighting for Civil Rights in the 1960s. They are two separate things. They made extraordinary sacrifices. I don’t think the ones who had no implicit bias sacrificed more than the ones who had just a little implicit bias or the ones who had more than a little implicit bias. Whatever implicit biases they had or didn’t have didn’t stop them from sacrificing their lives for civil rights and that is an extraordinary sacrifice.
People are complicated. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t honorable and sacrificing their life to do good. Even Mother Teresa’s life had complexities! She did a lot of good. But maybe it is remotely possible that she could have done even more good if she had been aware of some of her implicit biases. Maybe not. Or maybe you don’t agree with me that she had some biases.
Your comment above was excellent, so I hope you will forgive me expressing my thoughts. I respect that you don’t want to get into a back and forth and you don’t have to. You definitely don’t have to defend yourself because I already view you as a remarkable and very good person working to make this world a better place. Thank you.
If someone were to say, sure they gave the ultimate price in their fight for racial equity and equality, but they were white, so they had implicit racism and were, therefore, racists, that’s beyond the pale. Its defamatory, slanderous, cretinous. But that’s what follows logically from the premises “All white people have implicit bias against black people.” and “Ipso facto, all white people are racists.” I don’t know how much clearer I could be.
With regard to your comment about Lincoln, this has long been well known, I think. See my note at the end of this thread.
I have a couple other comments, made before this note, that is in moderation, a clarification of my views on implicit racism.
And don’t get me (or, Lord forbid, Linda) started on Mother Teresa.
There was nothing implicit about Lincoln’s racism. He was quite up front about it. He was convinced that white people and black people couldn’t live together. As racist as it gets, ust about, that. He was involved in a number of disastrous and ludicrous attempts to resettle black people elsewhere: http://blogs.britannica.com/2011/04/lincoln-blackcolonization-emancipation/
I hasten to add that implicit (and not so implicit and blatant overt) bias is real. Almost every racist says, in public life, “I am not a racist.” George Wallace. Donald Trump. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and. . . .
Bob comment @ 12/8 11:41pm– oh god, please do not invoke Tema Okun’s pathetic circa-‘90’s 1-p power-point, “The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture,” [being punctual or thrifty or hard working is a sign of having internalized oppressive “white values” etc], excerpted from a forgettable handbook for her DE&I training gigs—supported by no scholar anywhere. Absolutely granted it’s extremist, yet somehow this zombie list makes its way into every DE&I training in the country. Solution: school districts should not delegate DE&I staff training to zombie HR consultants.
I was referring not to Okun’s original list but to the points raised in the article that Matt asked us to read. I lifted them from there. And yes, they are repugnant, extreme, crazy. And when some zombie HR consultant comes in and repeats this nonsense, teachers will tend, as you or I would, to do what we so often do after PD, talk with our colleagues about what stupid and offensive @$&$@^@$^^$@ that was and what a waste of our time and of taxpayer money.
The bizarre thing, Ginny, is that the author of that piece makes, again and again, these breathless hyperbolic claims that each of these ideas has completely taken over our K-12 education system, to the point that kids are being subjected to “terrorism.” So freaking weird. And untrue. There is what is said by an occasional idiot consultant in some dumb PD, and there is what actually goes on in school. Different realities.
But how to insert my comment into your well-reasoned plea to let the democratic process be messy, as intended? Here’s my concern: the recent amp-up in our longtime politicization of pubsch ed. I attribute what I see as hasty & poorly-thought-out pubschdistr DE&I mission statements of recent years– & their predictable occasional misinterpretation/ misapplication in implementation—as being in the same vein as the absurd overreaction/ anti-CRT legislation. To me, it’s all part of the sad & sick delegation of fixing all social ills to the public school system—unsupported by govt/ society & thus a doomed mission. At this point it’s such a knee-jerk reaction that pubschdistricts are re-writing their mission statements within months of latest politico-cultural shifts whipped up by MSM.
Excellent point, Ginny!!!!
And it all goes back to the woeful removal of authority and autonomy from communities of teachers within schools that has happened from the 1980s on. Putting districts, states, and the feds in micromanagerial roles.
I have probably attended more than a hundred PD sessions over my lifetime, both as a teacher and as a textbook publishing editor, writer, and executive. These were almost always mind-blowingly stupid–worthless, blindingly obvious, error-filled, and/or strings of vacuities–airy nothings. Occasionally there would be some tiny bit of information that could have just been put in an email or that already WAS put in an email. Did you know, kids are sometimes bullied? Bullying is bad. The secret to studying is T.I.M.E. Time. Industry. Mastery. Effort. Now, let’s all get into groups and write a poem or choreography and interpretive dance on one of these key elements! I finally was totally fed up and would write critiques of them and copy these to colleagues and the administrators responsible for scheduling them. I think that I could write a very funny book, as could most any of us, on the sheer idiocy to which we are subjected in PD.
cx: or choreograph an interpretive dance
Harharhar-gasp- ROFL, Bob. Write it!! This will be a best-seller. A Dilbert take on the things that drive teachers [& admins] nuts.
bethree5 writes: “I attribute what I see as hasty & poorly-thought-out pubschdistr DE&I mission statements of recent years– & their predictable occasional misinterpretation/ misapplication in implementation—as being in the same vein as the absurd overreaction/ anti-CRT legislation.”
This comment and some of the discussion here is what worries me.
As Bob rightly points out, poorly thought out mission statements and stupid anti-whatever training have ALWAYS been a minor (or major) annoyance whether one works in education, the non-profit world, corporations, in a law firm etc. I’m sure there was bad anti-bullying training materials and bad anti-gay bashing training materials. People rolled their eyes and ignored it but there was no movement to legally forbid schools from working to stop bullying because of some stupid power point slide.
But the anti-CRT legislation is not in the same vein. Rolling your eyes at stupid DEI mission statements whose main harm is the hours or days or weeks (over a career) of wasted time spent in stupors is not dangerous to democracy. It made education worse, and made it harder for teachers, but it is not dangerous to democracy.
The anti-CRT effort is. And what I see here is a normalization of a neo-fascist effort to upend our democracy (as proven by the rash of laws passed by Republicans in states all over the country) and people equating it with being in the same vein the misapplication or misimpletation of DEI.
Bad DEI and the anti-CRT legislation are not in the same vein at all. And I am not going to sleep tonight knowing that some of the smartest commenters on this blog, who I admire tremendously, are unwittingly normalizing what the anti-CRT effort is about. Equating it with DEI is normalizing a neo-fascist effort that isn’t just about teachers rolling their eyes at idiotic power point presentations. Anti-CRT is about this country passing laws that are the precursor to fascism. There, I said it. But I believe it’s true, and I think from some of Diane Ravitch’s comments that she does do.
Badly implemented DEI has absolutely nothing to do with the Republicans anti-CRT effort to end democracy. If it wasn’t badly implemented DEI it would be something else — like bad teachers (it’s even easier to invoke a bad teacher than a bad DEI presentation). Imagine if progressives kept having loud discussions and debates about how the demonization of the teachers’ union was partly the union’s fault because the union should not have provided so much fodder that the right wing could use to demonize them? If the union hadn’t provided the fodder, they couldn’t have been demonized. Do you understand how that message would be a sign of people being unwittingly propagandized?
Why are the Republicans enacting neo-fascist laws? It is not because of bad DEI and it’s not because of bad woke students and it’s not because of bad union teachers. But we have been propagandized into having conversations or debates about whether or not each of those things is to blame and whether woke students or bad union teachers or bad DEI is MORE to blame as we cite all the examples of bad DEI or bad woke students or bad union teachers to help us make our arguments about which of those is more to blame.
And instead of the public hearing “NONE OF THEM ARE TO BLAME, THE REPUBLICANS WANT TO END DEMOCRACY”, they hear us having conversations where we amplify the littany of all the bad things about DEI or union teachers or woke students in debates about how much those bad things are part of the problem. Orwell would see the danger. We keep helping normalize the Republicans’ actions by scapegoating things that are not at fault. Bad DEI and bad union teachers and overzealous woke students are NOT to blame for the Republicans neofascist tendencies. We need to stop amplifying this useless and dangerous debate about which those annoying and sometimes problematic things are most to blame. None of them are. Republicans’ fascist desires are. Our helping them amplify their propaganda by talking about bad DEI is part of the problem, not the solution.
There is a danger here and normalizing this danger by invoking bad DEI — or even worse, blaming bad DEI for this danger — just gives a pass to the neo-fascists who would be doing this if the DEI was the most perfect, wonderful stuff in the world. This is not a reaction to bad DEI, which has been around for decades. This is a right wing effort with unlimited amounts of money and the support of the powerful right wing media arm once again propagandizing this country into suddenly caring about something that no one cared about until the right wing told them how bad it was over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then the NYT and the mainstream media picked up on the stories — it was now a concern! And Republican statehouses pass LAWS restricting what teachers can teach to what they want. Who is to blame? If only DEI wasn’t so bad.
Her e-mails. Suddenly a huge issue in 2016, right? I don’t have amnesia, so I actually remember that HRC was an extremely popular Senator and Secretary of State who willingly answered hours of questions by Republican Senators. But “her e-mails”. And then suddenly I watched so many smart people on the left normalize and legitimize the view that she was one of the corrupt people ever in politics. It was her own fault. She caused this. She was like bad DEI, and it is her own fault that she provided the fodder that the far right could use against her and we needed to amplify all that fodder that she provided and our conversations should be ab out how bad she is — very bad or just a little bad? We don’t acknowledge our own complicity in amplifying right wing propaganda. No wonder so many people were turned off.
And now they are doing it again because we never learn. Republicans aren’t ending democracy because people are too woke. They aren’t ending democracy because of bad DEI.
All I can say is that the fascists are winning and we fiddle talking about bad DEI or bad woke people and discussing how much or how little those is to blame for why the fascists are winning. Never realizing that by blaming everyone but the fascists for why they are winning, we are helping them win.
I so fear for the country.
(I apologize, I know this is repetitive and I tried to edit).
people equating it with being in the same vein the misapplication or misimpletation of DEI
No one did this.
blaming everyone but the fascists
No one did this either.
Bob,
I just noticed that a post about the extreme danger of anti-CRT laws — which was the subject that Diane Ravitch is bringing up — digressed into a discussion of how bad DEI is and all the idiotic things about it.
No one ever talks about the good things about DEI! I read yours and bethree5’s discussion and as an outsider, all I know is that stupid and ignorant people have completely taken over schools and DEI is a terrible thing.
Imagine if this discussion was about all of the GOOD things that came out of making educators more aware of how to make the curriculum or schools more inclusive?
But the entire discussion is about how awful and useless it is. I am left believing there is nothing worthwhile in these efforts to make schools more inclusive and that crazy people have taken over and are forcing educators to teach students these ridiculous ideas.
If I knew nothing about this issue, I would cite yours and bethree’s discussion as good evidence as to why it is no big deal that the Republicans are trying to get rid of this, because look how stupid and wasteful all this stuff is anyway. There is little to lose, and everything to gain, if we just make all this DEI stuff go away. That is all I know from this discussion. No one ever talks about anything good about it, so why wouldn’t I support the Republicans efforts — in fact, maybe I should admire those who want to get rid of it.
All I read here is an amplification of the bad. I am positive that there are GOOD things that came out of these efforts but if all I read was this discussion, I would assume it’s all a terrible thing that is ruining our schools.
It’s like if the Republicans wanted to ban teachers’ unions and a bunch of public school parents on here turned a discussion of the dangers of the laws Republicans are passing to ban unions into an “interesting” conversation about all the bad things about unions and union teachers that make them angry and they don’t like. And then when someone calls it out, they say “oh I support teachers’ unions, do I have to just say they are perfect all the time?”
And then those parents go off and say “I just don’t know why the public doesn’t support teachers’ unions, it is probably because of all those bad things that the teachers’ union does, and if only they would stop doing it the public might support them like I do.” It never occurs to those parents that they are a big part of the problem – amplifying all the bad and forgetting to mention that there also a whole lot that is good about them.
It is extraordinarily important that we continue to teach older children about racism and its history, here and elsewhere. As a teacher, I have seen first-hand the effects of this. I was a high-school teacher, until quite recently, when I retired, in Southern Florida. Racism in rampant in South Florida, but was rare among my students, who had strong antiracist beliefs, for the most part, and made friends and dated across racial lines. I attribute this to the teachers–to multicultural curricula, to abject lessons on the horrors caused by racism throughout history, and so on. It is for this very reason that racists push to end such instruction. And Republican politicians are more than happy to kill such instruction in order to feed red meat to their racist base. So, teachers, more than ever, have to step up to the plate, defy the cretins, and teach real history.
Some of the most virulent antiracists among my students were sons or daughters of good ole boy/good ole gal parents. This was both surprising and wonderful. I attribute this to the teaching they got. That teaching is invaluable, essential, and must be protected.
NYC, way, way back in the 1960s, U.S. K-12 literature textbooks contained almost exclusively texts by dead white men. And K-12 US history texts were completely whitewashed. They told a mythological version of American history, a history of an exceptional people who conquered and tamed a wilderness and established a nation based on principles of freedom and then went on to become the protector of the world. And over the decades since then, steady progress has been made in replacing nationalistic propaganda with actual history, in making the canon more inclusive, and in actually trying to live up to notions like the one that all people are “conceived in liberty” by teaching how far short of that we have always been. And EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, the right fought this. The Great CRT Scare of 2024 is the latest example, but do not imagine that before the murder of Mr. Floyd and these DEI PDs, that revolution in U.S. instruction wasn’t already happening. It was. We lambast that PD because it teaches untruths (being punctual is enacting “white” values; to be white is to be racist), it wastes time by preaching to the choir, it’s typically riddled with errors in fact, errors in reasoning, and moral absurdities. And it makes a mockery of the whole project of actually teaching history and representative literature from our many traditions that has been going on and opens schools to precisely the kinds of attacks that are now being made by the right wing. They’ve been making these attacks, of course, for a long, long time. Some of us here are old enough to remember the battles over “multicultural curriculum,” which was the CRT of the late 1980s and ’90s. But it’s all a lot more serious now, because there is a real and present danger of the emergence of fascism in this country. We are looking a LOT like Germany in 1932. We are repeating history. And the wedge that the Repugnuts are going to be using in the 2022 and 2024 elections is PRECISELY THIS: It is going to hold up some utterly stupid and usely and counterproductive PD as indicative of “what’s going on in schools.” They are going to win by telling parents that we are teaching white children to hate themselves, a lie, of course, but it’s working, isn’t it? The extremism and stupidity of that PD is a grave danger to U.S. schools, to the country as a whole, and to the world because it is fuel to the fire the right is setting to burn democracy to the ground.
Teachers sit in these sessions and think, rightly, nothing in this is going to reach a single person who needs to be reached, and a lot of it is simply wrong or just preaching to a choir that already knows this stuff a LOT better than anyone on the stage does and has been practicing it for years or decades.
Part of the reason why The Great CRT Scare has caught on is that Trump brought vast numbers of racists out of the woodworks and they are emboldened now and they have long been upset because schools HAVE BEEN extraordinarily successful in producing students who detest racism and racists. You seem to imagine that US schools need these idiot PD providers coming in to explain things to them. They don’t.
I recall Trump saying in 2016, before the election, that he was attracting people who didn’t turn out to vote because no candidate reflected their views. He was right. He finally gave the white supremacists and fascists a person to vote for.
Attitudes among young people in the US have changed, and they’ve changed dramatically, and this is one thing that I will agree with the right about: that’s BECAUSE OF WHAT SCHOOLS HAVE BEEN DOING. Their jobs. Teaching broader, more inclusive literature and teaching actual history instead of propagandistic nationalist myth.
A lot of older folks in the U.S., brought up on that previous nationalist mythology, can’t even fathom that there might be other democracies in the world, run in very different ways, and that the United States is not some sole EXCEPTION–the only place where there is FREEDUMB (or was before, say, Obama and Biden).
But look at the polls of young people in the U.S. Look at what they think, believe, know. It is precisely because the schools have been so successful at driving progress that the right is so angry and sees this as a wedge that they can use with the uneducated and semieducated older folk to achieve control of all three branches of government and leverage that to create the Fourth Reich.
If you are a teacher in the U.S. almost anywhere, you see this all the time, every day. Some kid makes a statement that can be construed as racist or sexist or homophobic, and the other kids all pile on, hard. I think, as does the right, that schools did that. The difference is that that makes me very, very happy.
With regard to your comment about being unaware of previous biases, I think that with me it was acceptance, when I was younger, of a lot of sexism (even though I was always a supporter of the feminist movement). I listen to or watch or read stuff from the 1960s and earlier that didn’t register with me then that now SCREAMS misogyny and exploitation.
So, I do want to honor and respect your awaking to the issue of race, but I want to say that a lot of folks in schools–the majority in my experience–have been fighting that battle for a long, long, long, long time. Without the “help” of people who think that teaching children to be hard working is racist.
Bob,
Thank you for your thoughtful replies. They reflect my views, too, except for just a few things.
“Without the “help” of people who think that teaching children to be hard working is racist.”
I think this could be a simplification of a much more complicated idea. I can’t speak for whoever you think is saying this, but I could imagine someone pointing out that teaching children that hard work results in success or that successful people are there because they are hard working is a perception that might not be seen as very true if you have been subject to years of discrimination because of your race.
Hard work isn’t a goal in and of itself. Imagine a slave owner “teaching” their slaves to honor hard work.
Hard work doesn’t get you ahead if you are subject to discrimination.
“He is hard working”. Is that really a goal? What is he working hard at doing? Is saying “What a hard working man!” praise for some person willing to work 18 hour days for little pay?
Practicing and working hard to get better at something will very likely help a student improve at doing that thing. That is true. But it very different than teaching students that “working hard is a worthy goal all kids should strive for”.
How many CEOs who exploit low-paid workers would gladly pay schools to teach low income students that working hard is a goal that they must always strive for? Work hard to work hard. Some white teacher just doesn’t understand why when she keeps telling her non-white students that working hard is really important, they just won’t listen. How dare anyone ever make her think about why telling students whose families have been exploited for generations by people with a lot more power telling them to “work harder”, anyone could think there could be any implicit racism in it? No one better tell her that she shouldn’t just keep teaching kids to work harder work harder and she certainly isn’t going to listen to some left wing “anti-racist” who says there is anything wrong with telling students from disadvantaged families that “working hard” is a very important value. Sure it is – when you are in a position of privilege where working hard always benefits you and having people without your privilege working hard also often benefits you, too!
Get it?
“I listen to or watch or read stuff from the 1960s and earlier that didn’t register with me then that now SCREAMS misogyny and exploitation.”
Bob, that happens to me, too.
When I got “woke”, so to speak, what happened to me is that I realized that there were likely things I listen to or watch or read NOW that are sexist or racist that aren’t registering with me. And maybe in 10 or 20 years when society changes it will register with me. Or, I can actively think about what those things are — and listen to people who are talking about them instead of having a knee jerk reaction that they are attacking me – and consider whether maybe I don’t have to wait 10 or 20 years to acknowledge it.
I don’t have to go back to the 1960s or 1970s. I watch things from the 2000s and can’t believe I didn’t notice it. I watch with my kid who sees that movie for the first time and notices it right away or I very likely might have missed it again.
My knee jerk reaction when my kid would wonder how I wouldn’t notice it was that I wasn’t racist or sexist, it was just that I didn’t notice that because I was a product of my time and no one realized this was bad. It took me a while to understand how lame of an excuse that was – I was denying I could have been racist or sexist by saying that because I didn’t know those things were racist or sexist and liked them, it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t have a racist or sexist bone in my body at the very time that I was enjoying movies with racist or sexist content that I didn’t notice at all.
So I finally realized I should be much more open to very likely possibility that there are things I don’t notice now that will make me grimace in 10 years. And I wanted to be the kind of person who didn’t wait 10 or 20 years to notice it.
Dear students: I thought of asking you to “work hard” on your research papers–you know, actually to spend some time knocking around the library and generating some topic ideas, to settle on a topic, to do the research, to prepare bibliography cards on the sources you were consulting (yes, much better than doing this on a computer), to take notes on note cards, to formulate a thesis based on that research, to outline your papers and organize your note cards to correspond to your outline, to do more research to fill in the gaps, to learn MLA form for parenthetical citations, to draft your papers, to do peer review, to revise and revise and revise some more, to prepare a Works Cited, and so on. BUT then I realized that this would be asking you to enact whiteness, so go ahead–spend the next few weeks doing whatever. –Mr. Shepherd
I think not.
I am glad, NYCPSP, that you had this epiphany. That’s an excellent thing. And thank you for sharing it. Might I make a suggestion regarding your rhetorical strategies? Don’t put words in people’s mouths. Don’t assume that they “must be” thinking this or that. Don’t ask them if they are capable of “getting it.”
Bob,
I will definitely make a point of watching my rhetorical language. Thanks for mentioning it in a kind way – I wasn’t aware of it and that wasn’t what I intended, but now that you have pointed it out, I get it.
(I am not trying to be snarky, I really do see what you mean and you said it very nicely. )
In any event, I see from your reply that what I was trying to say was completely lost to you. I know it’s my fault for not being a better writer.
“I thought of asking you to “work hard” on your research papers……BUT then I realized that this would be asking you to enact whiteness”
“people who think that teaching children to be hard working is racist.”
What if that is not the right characterization of the idea that you are invoking? It is much more complicated and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture was inundated by critics who had no interest in making even the slightest attempt to understand the nuance before attacking them. The NMAAHC did take it down after deciding the rabid attacks were causing more harm than good. But that’s only because we live in a society where people with loads of power get to find any little thing to attack and have their interpretation of what something means be so accepted that no one cares to discuss the nuances of what it actually means anymore.
I apologize that I did not acknowledge the important point about how ugly preaching work qua work to the poor can be: work as hard as possible so that I can appropriate your labor. It’s true that ugly authoritarians do that. Arbeit Macht Frei. And privileged folk love to think that their privilege is a result of their heroic virtues. Trump will tell you that he became a billionaire by working hard and being smarter than others are and conveniently leave out having inherited half to three quarters of a billion from Daddy. And I emphatically agree that No Excuses type schooling has faulty, sickening premises. You and I are probably a lot closer on this topic than you imagine or that I have conveyed.
And, to take my own example of the research paper, the instruction is going to work for an individual kid only if carrying it out is rooted in his or her own passion for learning about whatever it is that he or she is researching. That’s key. Authoritarians like for things to be a lot simpler than what they are and typically distort reality. That’s an essential, defining characteristic of the authoritarian/fascist mindset.
And, NYC, I think your writing admirably clear. And the lesson that sometimes one can have good intentions but be doing more harm than good is an important one.
The nuance does matter. This is a continual frustration to me with regard to fighting Education Deform. A lot depends on the details, and those are rarely, if ever, discussed. For example, the foundation of supposed accountability on which Deform rests is the validity and usefulness of the “data” provided by tests, but our state tests in ELA are invalid, which makes the whole thing an exercise in numerology. But demonstrating WHY and HOW these tests are invalid is a complex and, for most people, entirely boring process. It requires a lot of digging into the dirt of actual exam questions and how they are constructed and according to which procedures. When one does this, what one finds is pretty shocking. The whole thing is a scam, not because intellectual accomplishments can’t ever be measured or measured accurately, as some have falsely claimed on this blog, but because of the invalidity of the devices of the measurement–because of those being unequal to the task.
Bob,
Thank you for these replies which reflect so much of my own thinking. I definitely agree with you. It’s always enlightening and helps me reconsider my own positions (or clarify how I talk about them) when I discuss this with you, albeit in an online forum.
“This is a continual frustration to me with regard to fighting Education Deform. A lot depends on the details, and those are rarely, if ever, discussed.”
Yes! I believe this so much and feel the same way. I always want to look at the details myself, which (in the case of ed reform certainly) never ever live up to the hype. When I first heard about how great charters were 15 years ago, it never occurred to me to question the hype. The very first time I actually came across a relatively small contradiction between the hype and what I knew to be true, I assumed it was just a minor error by a reporter but it did make me stop taking claims at face value and within the first few weeks of actually looking at the details, I was shocked at the disconnect between the details and the misleading hype being reported as if it was unimpeachable truth supported by reams of data.
When I see links posted by flerp or dienne77 or the ed reformers admired and worshipped by certain NYT education reporters , I go to those links to read what is there. I want to see the details of the so-called “evidence” and it never holds up. I find the same thing happens in the anti-CRT movement – the “evidence” never holds up to what it is hyped to be. And sadly, instead of discussing how the details don’t hold up, too often the discussion is about how the person being criticized should not have invoked that idea that the right could use to mislead the rest of us, and therefore it is their own fault that the right is misleading us. Which is exactly what the authoritarians want — us focusing our criticism and blame on the people without power whose ideas are wildly misrepresented!
What I know is that the ideas of any good person can be wildly misrepresented, and authoritarians win when the far right propaganda machine gets the rest of us to discuss how much to blame the good person for offering up that misrepresented idea instead of blaming the far right propaganda machine for misrepresenting the ideas to sow outrage and hate and division. How different would the country be if Donald Trump Jr. was widely condemned in every media outlet for sowing hate and division by intentionally misleading the public about what the NMAAHC exhibit was really about. Instead, the media wrote endless articles where the blame was on the NMAAHC for having such an idiotic exhibit — the Donald Trump Jr. perspective that having that exhibit was bad was accepted as the starting point of discussion. it was bad, whose fault is it that it was bad? It was bad, was it very bad or just a little bad? It was bad, will that “badness” cause people to be more racist and make Republicans win elections or is there a way that the museum can “recover” from doing something that is so bad?
What was completely missing was a discussion of whether what Donald Trump Jr. was saying the exhibit was about was even an accurate characterization of what the exhibit was about.
I feel like that’s where the insidious propaganda machine is so successful. And they definitely do it with charters too. The discussion is never about whether the ridiculous hype about the “good”charters is even true. it is accepted that it is true, and that evidence proves that charters can perform miracles, and now the discussion must be about whether public schools can compete with these obviously very good charters and whether public schools will be harmed by competing with these obviously very good charters and whether it is a good or bad idea to have more of these obviously good charters.
The fact that they are very good charters is always stipulated as fact. There is no real discussion about whether that is even true because it is apparently just so obvious to reporters that it is true and “data proves” it is true.
But as soon as one looks at the DETAILS (as you pointed out), those supposedly “good” charters do not look very good. They look like magnet schools that dishonestly present themselves as regular public schools that perform miracles. It’s a shame that is never discussed by the media that fawns over them.
Ridiculous. I keep reminding those running for office in Nevada, K-12 does not teach CRT. We teach standards that are least a decade old.
CCSD did implment an anti-racism policy which we sorely needed. But a district wide policy to prevent bullying and abuse is different than instruction.
Reminder: 20% of students in CCSD identify as white. 80% identify as people of color.
We need to teach authentic history as best we can.
Thank you, Ms. Sullivan. Sanity.
As best we can
As long as we don’t mention slavery, Jim Crowe, segregation, black lynchings, the KKK, economic discrimination or racism generally.
But even without those, we can teach history pretty well, right?
Of course, SomeDAM! Here’s the curriculum:
My country tis of the dawn’s early light best ever nobody close perfect, under God. Freedumb!
That’s it. Simple.
And Thanksgiving pie with the Indians, of course.
To Serve man
When man is served
On silver plate
A fine hors d’oeuvre
Is human fate
While we are on the subject of the nationwide epidemic of CRT teaching, Big Foot, THe Soros Space Lasers, the Illuminati, Shape Shifting space aliens from Alpha Draconis with a space port under the Vatican, nefarious pizzerias where unspeakable things take place, and so on, I just wanted to point out that
the cube on the moon was supposed to deliver JFK Jr. to the Q faithful but got lost.
Soros
This was a test of whether the name automatically triggers moderation. I guess not.
Only Brett K. seems to do that.
He must be a very special person to merit such treatment.
Zoros
Just a test.
I guess not.
Oops
Zorros
Nope
Haa!!!
To your point above, NYC PSP: Consider the following quotations, each from a white American man of the nineteenth century:
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”
“On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self evident lie.’”
These are the same man.
Abraham Lincoln, Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, 1858
Abraham Lincoln, Letter to George Robertson, 1855
When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self evident lie.’”
Must be that we grew fat and lost all dread of being slaves ourselves over just the few short years between defeating the British in battle and adding the “3/5ths” verbiage to the Constitution.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of fat guys in those paintings of the Constitutional convention.
But I think we’d really have to really compare people like Ben Franklin in before (1776) and after (1789) paintings to establish Lincoln’s hypothesis as fact.
yeah, he got that wrong, too
Bob,
When people sacrifice for a good cause, like those who died in the civil rights movement, whether or not they have implicit racism is irrelevant to their sacrifice. The fact that Lincoln said these things does not diminish from what Lincoln did. It just truthfully addresses the fact that he had biases. If Lincoln were alive today from some magic time tunnel, we would acknowledge his sacrifices and also (I hope) think it might be a good idea for him to read some things and talk to some people to make him more aware of it.
Those civil rights workers made great sacrifices, but if they were alive today and still thought it was funny to watch Billy Crystal in black face, people would be recognizing their good work and hoping that they might open their mind to how some of their beliefs are changed.
Read Joy Hakim’s A History of US. That is a marvelous book. She is an admirable person. But it reveals that in the 1990s, this marvelous, talented, good person had some implicit biases.
I used to be more like you and had many long arguments with my teenager who grew up in a different, dare I say more “woke” America. I was absolutely positive I was right.
One day the lightbulb went off. I realized this wasn’t about ME. I didn’t have to be so defensive. Having implicit biases doesn’t making me a terrible person. But if I wanted to be a better person, I had the chance to think about how I didn’t notice all of my biases.
Here is a challenge for you, Bob. Watch some movies from the 1980s or 1990s or even early 2000s that you enjoyed. Or even a tv series. You may think that they are just as fine. But you may wince at things or portrayals that are problematic that you never even noticed before. You may notice that every main character is white except some barely seen stereotype played by someone who isn’t white. You may have never noticed it before but now you do. It’s shocking how many movies in “liberal, non-racist” Hollywood from that era have a lot of implicit racism in them that I was completely oblivious to. Many people would watch them and still be oblivious to it.Some would claim they always noticed those parts, but I doubt it. I would have read Joy Hakim’s book and thought it was fine. It is fine – it is excellent. But there are still parts that reveal the implicit bias most of us have and from what I read, she herself understands that what she wrote in the 1990s isn’t what she would write today.
It is truly astonishing to me how stupid and unaware you think others are NYC PSP.
Do you really think I have never watched a film from the 1980s and been shocked by some of its content? Seriously?
Excellent comment, NYC PSP. Same thing happened to me. When I let my defensiveness go away, I was able to be more open minded to different views. That’s why I like the 1619 Project. Twenty years ago, I would have denounced it. I changed.
Thanks, Diane.
Bob, I apologize if my reply came off that way. That is NOT what I was trying to say – I hope it is clear that I have the highest respect for you.
Maybe I misunderstood, because I thought you were saying that you don’t like it when the discussion is about how all white people have implicit racist biases. I was just trying to explain my perspective on that and why I now understand what being an anti-racist is about.
I truly apologize if this sounded condescending.
Diane,
I used to not understand what “woke” meant (although I thought I did).
And then when I left my defensiveness down, it was like an awakening! I couldn’t really go back to sleep again because suddenly I saw all the things I never noticed before.
I think you are woke. So am I. I didn’t use to be overly concerned about racism and inequality. I look back at who I used to be and I don’t understand that person. In no part of my life do I feel that I am a victim, yet I feel enormous empathy for all those who are victimized by poverty, racism, physical disabilities. I wish for radical change yet recognize that our society is conservative. Many people feel that their own economic and social status is insecure, and they fear losing what they have. Maybe it’s because I am in the last years of my life that I am awake to the sufferings of others. I just watched John McWhorter say on PBS Newshour that white people (like me, I suppose) who profess anti-racism are actually racist. I don’t think so. In any case, my views have evolved. I didn’t choose them.
Bob,
To clarify what I meant when I referred to watching movies from the 1980s and 1990s:
It’s not about being shocked at the content of those movies. It is about being shocked at yourself that you could ever have enjoyed watching this movie without noticing all of that questionable content.
Diane,
Wow, that is beautifully written and expresses a lot of the things I believe but have trouble putting into words without my bad habit of what my detractors call “word salad”.
Anyway, thank you for that moving post. I read it and I just don’t understand how anyone can see that view as even the least bit radical!
Not sure.
I did a little research and Ben Franklin looks pretty slim and buff in his kite-flying paintings which would have been from the earlier time, which would make good sense, cuz chasing kites around is very airobic activity — although he always seemed to be wearing a jacket, so it’s a little unclear.
And he looks pretty pudgy and jowly in his Constitutional Convention renderings.
So there might be something to Lincoln’s claim.
Although Lincoln said “we” not “Ben”, so I think I’d have to investigate several other individuals to say with any confidence that Lincoln was not just making stuff up that sounded good to earn debating points.
Suggested reading for all high school students who have been lead to believe that the practice of slavery was almost exclusive to the US. This really is as enlightening as it is disturbing. Two million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1900s; were those African slave owners “racists”? This would make for an interesting classroom discussion. Only 5% of African slaves brought to the Americas went to the US. This and other insights make tis an invaluable read and proper historical context. This is not about ” both siderism” just a very ugly side of human history.
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine the world if humans had never decided to enslave other humans.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery
I am sure there were some German teachers who have problems with how they were expected to teach about the awful things that happened under Hitler’s reign to their high school students in history classes.
I imagine those teachers would suggest some additional required reading for German high school students who have been led to believe that treating the Jews badly was almost exclusive to Germany.
Would you agree with those teachers that it is important for German students to read additional books so they can understand that lots of other countries in history have treated Jews badly, too, and massacred them. Sometimes Jews even treated other Jews badly in Palestine and it would surely be important that German students be made aware of the history of other places where Jews were treated badly.
Right?
What an odd post. You’re “sure”, you “imagine”? You literally made it all up. I doubt you have any idea what goes on in German HS classes so I’m not sure what your point is. BTW, while it’s true many countries have treated Jews badly, Germany is the only one that has tried to completely exterminate the Jewish people.
From your response it doesn’t seem as if you even bothered to read the article or bothered to open your mind enough to understand my point. The full scope and historical extent of the enslavement of humans by humans is mind boggling. Nothing I was ever taught about in any world history course. Please read it, think about the implications, reread my comment and apologize to the people you insulted with this crass comment.
What was the Spanish Inquisition, again?
You are right that I have no idea what goes on in a German hs classroom. But I hope I made you consider what the motives of a history teacher in a German high school might be if they professed to be very concerned about providing additional perspective to all the German high school students who might be led believe that the practice of massacring Jews was almost exclusive to Germany.
It would be the same motives as a US teacher who would be very concerned about providing additional perspective to “all high school students who have been lead to believe that the practice of slavery was almost exclusive to the US”.
I don’t know what the point is when someone invokes imaginary students who are supposedly taught that slavery was almost exclusive to the US or imaginary students in Germany who are supposedly taught that massacring Jews was almost exclusive to Germany.
Is the point that their teachers should feel obligated to teach them that other countries also massacred Jews and enslaved Blacks, too?
RageAgainstTheEdu-Meddlers,
That would be appropriate content for a WORLD history class. I didn’t understand what that has to do with what students are taught about the significant horrors their own country did to their people.
When we teach about the American Revolutionary War in American history, do we require all students to learn about all the other continents that European powers were colonizing and their treatment of the people that live there? Do you worry that there are surely students who are taught about the Revolutionary War who don’t realize that England was colonizing other parts of the world, too, and providing other readings so students don’t learn about the Revolutionary War without learning all about what was going on in other countries, too, in case they got the wrong impression that there was something unusual about what Britain was doing?