I will be a participant in a summer school program on Critical Race Theory. You are invited to sign up. I am part of the panel on July 20.
Greetings Friends and Colleagues,
The African American Policy Forum is so excited to be Teaching Truth to Power this year at Critical Race Theory Summer School! It is crucial that we prepare racial justice advocates to defend the right to teach truth in classrooms. This powerful and urgent program runs July 18 to July 22, 2022.
Seats are limited, so register here today! Events will be held daily between 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET throughout the week. Be sure to sign up for our listserv so that you don’t miss any updates.
CRT Summer School 2022 will include a variety of plenaries, breakout sessions, and networking opportunities aimed to inform, activate, and inspire. We’re inviting parents, educators, students, social workers, legal practitioners, media professionals and concerned community members from all walks of life, because there is something for anyone to learn from the sheer breadth of options available this year!
Daily Plenary Sessions
July 18 – Everyday CRT: A Commonsense Framework for Racial Liberation
July 19 – Public Schools, Private Agendas: How the Assault on Racial Justice Undermines Education
July 20 – Strange Bedfellows: The Left/Right Convergence that Enabled the Normalization of White Nationalism
July 21 – Define, Do Not Defend: How to Resist the Disinformation Campaign Against CRT
July 22 – Transforming a Moment to a Movement: Building A New Coalition to Secure our Multiracial Democracy
Discounts and Purchase Orders
Group sales (registration in increments of ten and five) are available and yield a 25% discount. For Purchase Orders please contact crt@aapf.org for more information.
Individual recipients of this email are eligible for a 10% discount using the following code during check-out: TSICAF-992000-IWANJ.
Full and partial scholarships are available. For more information visit our website: www.aapf.org/crtsummerschool.
On Demand Content
Great news! This year, all CRT Summer School content will be available to all registrants after the close of the event until Labor Day. You can watch anything you missed or revisit your favorites to ensure that you are a prepared racial justice advocate ready to defend the right to teach truth in schools.
We hope to see you at CRT-SS 2022! Please also share this email with your network – friends, colleagues, and constituents.
Onward,
African American Policy Forum
#TruthBeTold
Diane Ravitch's blog 
AWESOME!!!
Careful — Chris Rufo and Libs of TikTok may be on the line.
CRT, anti-CRT. Racism, anti-Racism.
Each forming a positive, self-reinforcing, interdependent feedback loop powered by the “race is real” lie produced and sustained by both CRT and anti-CRT and by both racism and anti-racism, which are real.
Will we ever see this and the folly of it all?
Martin Luther King, Jr., did:
“What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
In a word, interdependence, no matter the context.
So why can’t we see?
Want to speak true “truth to power?” Then let’s begin with “disrupting and dismantling” the “race is real” lie to include teaching about horrible consequences the lie has engendered and will continue engendering as long as the lie lives.
But now, “multi-racial democracy.” Really?
Very important. However, could you tell us how much it costs (before any discounts)? I never fill in all my personal information/register for any events until I have that information. Also, I want to forward this, & I know people will ask the same. Thank you!
I don’t know the cost. I will ask.
I tried to register and did not see the cost. It’s run by Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founders of CRT.
Thanks. If anyone here registers & pays, please let me/us know the cost. Thank you!
Although I wish I could attend, I see a problem with the agenda as it is written–or at least in how I read it. Let’s start with the positive, the topic of July 21. My only criticism is that it might well have been a better topic for the first day.
My overall problem, again as I read just this and these are my immediate thoughts as I read them, is that the critics who would define CRT as the myth they already have to drive policies being implemented right now with incendiary terms. I see the same problem in the choice of titles of topics for this program.
One the first day, should that not be “a commonsense framework for citizenship”? Racial justice and the reckonings we need to address as a polity are not a matter of “racial liberation” at all. They are lessons equally as important to every American citizen and while race is unquestionably (to me; this still has to be taught) the most important component and should take precedence, it is not the only issue. Women’s issues are just as much a part of racial liberation for all races. Second day, it’s not the “assault on racial justice”, it is truly an “assault on truth and facts”. Race just happens to be the biggest and most obvious lie. For the third day, it’s not the “left/right convergence” that is at issue, it is the “politics and public policies” that enabled it. In many cases, it’s about much more than any kind of ideological “convergence” as it has been about pure graft using ideology as a cover.
But the biggest disappointment, for me, is the choice of semantics for the final day. I would hope we strive for much more than a “multiracial democracy”. We should be striving for a pluralistic democracy that embraces changing demographics, connects them to the ideals of the Constitution and a devotion to its form of defined governing, and is able to adjust for unforeseen futures. If the past 50-plus years have taught us anything, it is that majorities and powers are not static. I guess one would have to come to an agreed upon definition of pluralism. That might be more elusive if we create a “democracy” that only entrenches new favored classes and surely increase the prospect of violence.
I hope the choice of language moving forward will be a major part of July 21’s proceedings.
In Texas, Dan Patrick’s crusade against his definition of CRT is largely focused on the University of Texas at Austin and within the institution, the man with the biggest target on his back is Leonard Moore, author of Teaching White People Black History, which I consider to be among the most important books of this century. It is simply understood and provides wonderful plans of action, all built around being truthful about verified, factual history. The most searing part of his short book, however, is personal, and to me is the best description of why we have to recognize race as the primary problem to be solved to become a pluralistic democracy. It’s worth quoting in full. Understand that if you are Black, Hispanic, or anything else people hate without knowing anything about those they hate, this is a normal, everyday fear:
I was stopped with my family in Bailey County, Texas, right inside the Texas border from New Mexico. It was me, my wife, and my three children, who were thirteen, eleven, and nine at the time.
“Officer, why did you pull me over?”
“Because when you changed lanes you didn’t give the eighteen-wheeler in front of you enough space. You are supposed to have two car lengths between you and the next car when you switch lanes.”
“That’s why you pulled me over?”
“Yes. May I see your license and registration, please?”
“Do I have permission to get my license out of my wallet in my pocket and to look in the glove compartment for the registration? This is a rental car.”
“Yes.” After he looked at my license, he proceeded to ask a bunch of questions. “Where do you work?”
“I work at the University of Texas.”
“You drive all the way from Round Rock every day to work.”
“Yes, it’s only about a thirty minute commute.”
“What do you do at UT?”
“I’m a history professor.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Ten years.”
“Are you tenured?”
“Yes.”
“When did you get tenure?”
“I was tenured when they hired me in 2007 from LSU.”
“So, you teach history?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of history?”
“US history.”
I knew he was going to dig deeper to see what courses I taught. There was no way I was going to tell this guy I teach a class on the Black Power movement and a class called Race in the Age of Obama. No way!
“So, you don’t have a specialization. Most history professors specialize in something.”
“Yeah, I teach Southern history.” I was hoping he wouldn’t go to his car and pull up my classes on his laptop.”
“You said this is a rental car?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“I have a Toyota Camry.”
“What about your wife? What kind of car does she have?”
“She drives a Honda Pilot.”
“What does your wife do for a living?”
“She directs a program at the University of Texas.”
Then, after the questioning was over, it was on to the next and most serious phase of the harassment.
“Mr. Moore, I’m going to need you to get out of the car and go sit in the front seat of my police cruiser.” Now, this is interesting. The dashcam points out of the windshield; it doesn’t show anything that happens in the car. I was directed to sit in the front seat, where he police gear is located, instead of the back, where most people are placed. There were two German shepherds behind me, and all I could think was, “Wow, all this officer has to do is pull out his gun and shoot me.” His defense could simply be, “Mr. Moore went for my weapon and I killed him in self-defense.”
I sat in the police car for fifteen minutes while my wife stood outside the rental car in tears. After fifteen minutes, the officer said, “You are free to go. Have a safe trip back to Round Rock.” That’s it. No apology. Nothing.