Steven Singer, a teacher in Pennsylvania, cannot understand why the word “WOKE” has become a term of derision, when it means being aware of racial and social injustice. Who wants to erase our sense of right and wrong?
He explains:
“I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there – best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”–Lead Belly“Scottsboro Boys”
How can you understand a problem if you are not allowed to name it?
How can you fight injustice if you are forbidden from learning its history and connection to the present moment?
These questions are at the heart of a well-financed war against a simple term – woke-ness.
Since the summer of 2020, oligarchs and their tools in the United States have been waging a disinformation campaign against that term – especially as it pertains to our schools.
Chiding, nagging, insinuating – you hear it constantly, usually with a sneer and wagging finger, but what does it really mean?
To hear certain governors, state legislators and TV pundits talk, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. But it’s not that at all.
In its simplest form, being woke is just being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.
That’s all – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present.
I’m not sure what’s so controversial about that. If we all agree racism is bad, why is it undesirable to acknowledge it exists when it’s demonstrably there?
More specifically, being woke means focusing on intersectionality – how issues of race, class and gender overlap and interrelate with each other. It means practicing critical race theory – not the made up dog whistle conservatives use to describe anything they don’t like being taught in school, but the study of how racial bias is inherent in many Western social and legal systems. It means using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.
Again, why is that a bad thing? If we agree that prejudice is bad, we should want to avoid it in every way possible, and these are the primary tools that enable us to do so.
Our society is not new. We have history to show us how we got here and how these issues have most successfully been addressed in the past.
But these Regressives demand we ignore it all.
Shouldn’t we protect hard-fought advances in human rights? Shouldn’t we continue to strive for social justice and the ability of every citizen to freely participate in our democracy – especially in our public schools?…
As public school teachers, being woke is not a choice. It is a responsibility.
For we are the keepers of history, science and culture.
Who will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression?
We, teachers, must help students understand what happened, what’s happening and why. And to do so we must protect concepts that emerged from decades of struggle against all forms of domination.
It must be us.
Please open the link and read the rest.
And stay WOKE.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Who knows…perhaps the ‘anti Woke’ folks have much to hide.
I am finishing a very ” woke” book on immigration. The only problem, it was written in 1955, “Strangers in the Land” Patterns of Nativism, 1860-1925. by John Higham
I mention it because if it were written today and it sure reads like it was. The author would be accused of being woke, of rewriting history. Unlike the prevailing view that we are discovering new historical evidence and becoming enlightened, perhaps it is more that we had the evidence all along and chose not to tell that story.
Joel,
Whatever you write will be new and different from Higham’s book. It is a source for you. You bring your own life experience plus knowledge of all that has happened since 1955 when he wrote.
The focus of the book was on Nativism with a strong analysis of economic and Labor issues in each decade. It was almost breathtaking to see the parallels to today’s arguments. Right down to the fear of replacement from the 1890s on. Perhaps the only difference were the immigrant groups.
We pretend that we were a melting pot and an accepting people that very much depended on the decade and other historical events. He barely focused on the Chinese Exclusion Act because it was a given. What is less appreciated is the resistance to every Immigrant group except Anglo Saxons and Nordics.
From the Irish Catholics, to the Italians, the Jews, Sothern and and Eastern Europeans and even the Germans as WW1 approached.
The unwoke (the brain dead) pay a little lip service to that history as they bury it in the myth of a warm accepting Nation of Immigrants.
The truth is that the words of Emma Lazarus rejected by the Right today were always rejected by a large portion of Americans.
Precisely because conservatives experienced books like this one, The Politics of Fear (about Nixon, Joe McCarthy, and that era), and a host of other good studies of conservative atrocity that were written during that time, we now have a concerted effort on the part of the oligarchs to quell this type of discourse. They know that the knowledge spread by these authors was poison to their plan for economic and political hegemonies.
Who wants to erase our sense of right and wrong?
exactly. So well said, Diane.
Can I hear an Amen up in here?
Thank you, Brother Singer.
Amen
Here’s what woke really means.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/03/how-to-define-woke/
The National Review is a rightwing publication.
Woke, in fact, means awake to racial and social injustice.
Which side are you on, Dana? Are you awake or asleep?
I’ll save you some time. Whenever the National Review mentions woke, what they really mean is “Whites Only Know Everything.” That’s what people like Dana don’t have the integrity to admit.
I am stealing that .
Just what I expected: pure ad hominem, no addressing the points the author made. Let’s employ the same type of reasoning to what National Review writers have said about U.S. aid to Ukraine: they favor it, with some of them advocating for giving Ukraine enough help to drive the Russians completely out of Ukraine. But NR is a right-wing publication, so anything they advocate Diane Ravitch and her groupies must oppose.
The National Review article says it all in its use of the phrase “performance gaps” instead of, say, “economic disparities.” The differences in outcomes for POC, according to these bigots, is due to their “performance,” i.e., their inferiority (the part that they imply but no longer directly SAY–white supremacists have gotten very good at this. So, for example, those differences in economic outcomes and current status wouldn’t have ANYTHING to do with the fact that federal, state, and local housing policy for over a century made it almost impossible for most black folks to buy and pay for a home–the primary means by which ordinary people in this country build generational wealth–and so pass that wealth down to subsequent generations.
It was difficult to read this equivocating trash from the NR without throwing up a bit in my mouth. Disgusting, racist defense of the indefensible and lying by omission. Just what one would expect of this rag started by the creepiest pseudo-intellectual in U.S. history, William F____er Buckley.
My discussion of the contents of the article is in moderation.
From Bob Shepherd: “Just what one would expect of this rag started by the creepiest pseudo-intellectual in U.S. history, William F____er Buckley.”
So because National Review was started by William F. Buckley, everything that NR authors write a generation after his death is automatically discredited. Let’s use that logic for two other topics:
(1) As I previously noted, almost all NR writers favor massive aid to Ukraine, with some writers advocating enough help to drive Russian forces out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
(2) All NR authors have a negative view of Donald Trump; several of them refused to vote for him in 2020. Several of them also supported his impeachment and removal from office for his appalling conduct on January 6, 2021.
However, by the Bob Shepherd rules, since NR is a discreditable rag, nothing they write has any value – it’s just a rag. So NR writers’ support for Ukraine and their support for removing Trump from office has no value. We should all automatically take the opposite position of what NR advocates. Silly me: I’ll just keep evaluating what people write on a case-by-case basis and avoid lazy ad hominem.
Rightwingers want everyone to imagine that there is no history (except for the mythological exceptionalist one they drag out for their love fests) that determined, in part, how things are now. Why? Because if people know this history, then they know that the CURRENT system, with its CURRENT inequities, WAS CONSTRUCTED to have those. And that leads people to want change–for example, to want estate taxes and increases in capital gains taxes and other means for providing the funds to ensure decent lives for everyone (e.g., Medicare for all or some other such system like those found IN EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED DEMOCRACY that are FAR CHEAPER and have FAR BETTER OUTCOMES than does our system of siphoning off healthcare dollars to fatten fat cats further).
So you don’t explain yourself and if we don’t to your satisfaction (if ever!), we are “ad hominem.” You’re too effing lazy to explain yourself, so you just post an “ad hominem” article. I doubt very much you read it yourself, much less a counterpoint. Why are you and your cult scared of real history and facts?
Here’s another essay about wokesters that I read in full. It could be personally addressed to this blog’s host and her acolytes who are infuriated whenever anyone dissents from the prevailing orthodoxy.
https://www.commentary.org/abe-greenwald/dear-wokesters-you-named-yourselves/
I used to write for Commentary when I was a conservative.
What a stupid article. There is nothing in to refute.
I am woke and proud of it.
I have read deeply into critical race theory and urge you to do the same. CRT is a valuable insight into understanding American history and law.
Have you read Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law”? I double dare you.
Wokeness is hardly an embarrassment. Being a sexist, homophobic, superstitious, racist, rapacious capitalist war monger. That’s an embarrassment. Or ought to be. But in certain country club locker rooms it’s the price of admission.
Dana Cohen,
Here is what woke really means.
https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/03/12/stay-woke-public-school-teachers/
Dana Cohen, I will be waiting to see if you do “Just what I expected: pure ad hominem, no addressing the points the author made.”
After all, those are YOUR words, and if you don’t address the points in the article above, you are clearly a hypocrite and I just thought I should make sure your blatant hypocrisy was clear to everyone here! lol! YOUR WORDS!
I expect you to make a “pure ad hominem” reply, which, according to YOUR OWN WORDS, is unacceptable.
^^To Diane Ravitch,
Apologies as you may find this reply unacceptable, but this is exactly the kind of comment here that outrages me. “Dana Cohen” could have engaged with the discussion and I would have respected her right to disagree with any of the points made by Steven Singer and elaborate about why she disagreed. But she didn’t do that.
Instead, she posted a link to something else and DEMANDED we engage in that discussion. It is a version of what someone else I shall not name does on here to hijack the discussion. Like posting a video of some hapless educator or changing the question.
It is about reframing the discussion to be ONLY on the terms that favor their view.
There is no point in engaging with or debating people who are here to hijack the conversation instead of engaging in it. But I do believe that calling them out is of vital importance.
I agree with you, NYCPSP. Sometimes a comment arrives defending Trump or attacking the blog itself (as Dana Cohen did). It’s good to defend and explain what you believe.
The blog as such doesn’t have a point of view, since readers disagree with one another and with me.
But I certainly have opinions and freely express them.
And if you don’t agree with me, that’s okay.
But as you have often said, don’t just make an assertion and stamp your feet. Make a reasoned argument. Dana Cohen posted two articles and he/she refused to respond to questions.
Thanks, Diane.
I don’t think “Dana Cohen” is stamping their feet or even particularly angry. I truly believe this is a form of trolling that conservatives have perfected and is often successful. An honest, angry conservative would explain why what Steven Singer wrote was wrong. They would WANT to refute Singer’s points in the hopes of convincing your readers he was wrong. I like it when someone points out what they believe is a flaw in an argument – it makes me re-read the essay to see if I agree with their point and whether it is valid. That kind of criticism is useful because it helps people to sharpen their own arguments to make them more convincing.
“Dana Cohen” didn’t do that. They wanted to hijack the conversation entirely, and then they wanted to impugn the integrity of you and everyone here for not engaging in the discussion that THEY wanted and they hope that no one noticed that they were the ones who are refusing to engage.
Accusing your opponents of the things you know you are guilty of is right out of the right wing playbook. It’s Orwellian. Unfortunately, it often works.
I posted my two comments between appointments on a very busy day for me. I don’t spend all day on this blog posting comments, but I have just enough time now for one more.
It’s a safe bet that Diane Ravitch and her readers favor woke things like this: shouting down non left-wing speakers as happened recently at Stanford and happens frequently all over the country; trying to destroy J.K. Rowling for dissenting from the transgender craze; silencing conservative, moderate, and moderate liberal professors on college campuses; social media companies censoring opinions posted by credible scientists that don’t conform to what CDC wants us to believe about Covid-19 (I’m double-vaxxed and boosted and still got Covid, so now I’m actually immune); and much else. Now back to work.
Dana,
I’m not sure what to make if this list of accusations.
I have shouted down anyone with whom I disagreed.
I have never tried to “destroy” J.K. Rowling (how does one destroy a billionaire?). I’ve never written anything about her.
I have never silenced any Professor on a college campus for any reason.
I do agree that social media should not post misinformation about serious medical conditions because people who follow bad advice might die. I don’t think it’s censorship if you refuse to post a quack telling people to drink bleach as a cure for COVID.
Why do you post such a stupid series of accusations?
Dana Cohen,
Your reply above was the textbook definition of “pure ad hominem, no addressing the points the author made.”
You made my case far better than I could have!
Thank you for offering more evidence that I am right about you by doing “just what I expected”. lol!
Ms Cohen: I am busy too. But that does not keep me from understanding that the term “woke” was deliberately negativised by the efforts of Chris Rufo after it became a sort of watchword for post-George Floyd unrest. In other words, he was, due to the extraordinary megaphone provided by deep pockets, to convince those who needed an excuse not to consider why people were upset that there was something wrong with public protest.
Ms. Ravitch,
Read my comment again. I don’t accuse you personally of doing those woke things; I say that you probably don’t oppose other people doing them. I’ll be happy to learn that you and your commenters don’t approve of what the Stanford Law students recently did in shouting down a federal judge and the other actions I cited. The few principled liberals that still exist do oppose actions like that.
I favor free speech. I don’t believe in shouting down speakers.
I don’t know why you arrive here to goad and accuse. Are you a Trumper? Do you beat your wife? Do you believe in white supremacy? Do you support laws banning drag queens?
As with most terms, there’s no single definition of “woke” that everybody will agree on. But the one in that National Review article gets at it well enough, in my view.
“I don’t understand “
I wish you were kidding about this.
There is a very good definition of WOKE on Wikipedia:
“In activism and politics, woke (/“/ WOHK) means “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.[3][4][5] Originating as an adjective in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), the word may also be used as a noun.
Refer to caption
United States Congresswoman Marcia Fudge holding a T-shirt reading “Stay Woke: Vote” in 2018
The phrase stay woke had emerged in AAVE by the 1930s, in some contexts referring to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in a recording by Lead Belly and later by Erykah Badu. During the 2014 Ferguson protests, the phrase was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After seeing use on Black Twitter, the term woke became an Internet meme and was increasingly used by white people, often to signal their support for BLM, which some commentators have criticised as cultural appropriation. Mainly associated with the millennial generation, the term spread internationally and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
The terms woke-washing and woke capitalism were coined to describe companies who signal support for progressive causes as a substitute for genuine change. By 2020, members of the political center and right wing in several Western countries were using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various progressive or leftist movements and ideologies perceived as overzealous, performative, or insincere. In turn, some commentators came to consider it an offensive term with negative associations to those who promote political ideas involving identity and race.”
Joel and Bob,
Why would you want to discuss the points that Steven Singer was making when we can discuss the National Review article instead? I mean, it’s Diane Ravitch’s blog and don’t we all agree that Diane posted Steven Singer’s essay in the hopes that the people who regularly read her blog and comment here would NOT discuss it, not even address any points that they disagree with, but instead just make some vague allusions to a completely different article in the right wing National Review that are never explained.
After all, isn’t the textbook definition of a “discussion” for all of us to simply post links to random articles we like and make vague allusions to something in the article “getting at it well enough.”
I don’t want to speak for Diane, but I doubt very much that she takes the time to read and post thoughtful articles so people who didn’t want to discuss thoughtful articles could hijack the conversation by posting links to right wing articles and offering vague allusions about how this article “gets at it well enough”.
If only everyone did that, why, this blog might just drive every thoughtful person away. Which is probably the intent.
Did you all take the time to read the NR article and try to address the points in it to start a discussion about that instead of the Steven Singer article?
Does anyone even know what two certain posters here who keep directing us to the National Review article thinmk about the Steven Singer article that Diane specifically posted so we could discuss it?
Of course we don’t know, because they don’t engage in any discussion that isn’t favorable to their view. That’s fine with me, but what is reprehensible to me is that they don’t like it when we discuss it and keep trying to hijack the discussion.
Imagine if I kept going to the National Review site where people were discussing the subject of the article that our resident concern troll believes “gets at it well enough” (whatever that means).
Imagine that all I did when I went to the National Review site was to post links to Steven Singer’s article with comments like “This article gets at it well enough”? And I did that over and over again.
Would the devoted National Review audience recognize my trolling and politely engage with me to discuss the Steven Singer article instead of discussing the article they started to discuss? What would my motives be in getting them to discuss Singer’s article? I know it isn’t going to change their mind, but it might stop them having the discussion I have decided I don’t want them to have.
And I suspect the National Review audience wouldn’t fall for it.
NYCPSP,
Great idea. Post Singer’s article in the discussion thread at National Review.
Diane, that’s also a decent definition
In Florida any issue that applies to “race” is automatically defined as CRT, and, therefore, illegal. With such a broad brush, the right can intimate, threaten and dismiss anyone they believe is in violation of their anti-woke legislation.
I’m busy, too, just returned from teaching a bunch of “woke” 10-year-olds in a “woke” POC school. So here’s what I gleaned from your list: you don’t like or agree with loud protests or perceived censorship, which is fine. None of which have anything to do with what “woke” means, and in case you haven’t noticed, both protests and censorship have been going on since the dawn of time. Did you miss the entire civil rights era? Boston Tea Party? Brown V Board? Ruby Bridge’s first day at school? Do you know what’s going on in Paris right now? (Are the Parisians all “woke”?) Have you attended a school board meeting recently in a red state? Like Florida? How about school board meetings during Covid? Have you seen how Moms of Liberty are recruiting people to shout down school boards and firing board members and are actively recruited specifically for that purpose? Does perhaps Jan. 6 ring a bell? Does it mean that these people are also “woke”? Unless you can apply that term to all potentially disruptive situations, regardless of people or party, it doesn’t mean anything and instead is being hijacked by the usual cast of characters, including the authors of your links. Right now, it seems like you are only applying it in the case of protests again conservative people/ideas. Because cognitive dissonance only allows you to do that.
Thank you, Oakland Mom!!! Well said.
Love it when a rant stays on point and hits the high notes just right. With substance no less!
I believe Dana is a brave person to try to show another perspective on this blog and then be attacked by so many and even called names.
I have learned so much from this blog over the years, but I’m reading it less and less because of commenters’ unwillingness to engage in civil conversations and unwillingness to be open to different perspectives.
I still vote with the liberals on almost every issue, but the one-sided righteousness shown by many on the left is starting to push me away. It makes me sad. I come to this blog to learn and grow, and to enjoy a good discussion, but instead I read people who seem to take pride in cutting down others rather than responding calmly to the content.
Montana teacher,
You are wrong. Go to this link:
https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/03/12/stay-woke-public-school-teachers/
Ms. Cohen has every right to her point of view. But a lot of us are asking her to use her own reasoning to explain it. Putting up links and using the same term “wokester” as Mr. Greenwald, isn’t exactly reasoning. It seems to parrot Mr. Greenwald. In the article, Mr. Greenwald cites a reference to a photo of a “woke” baby. I opened that link up. Sure enough, in that link, it defined “woke” as the “phrase that means staying aware of injustice.” So Mr. Greenwald actually cited a reference using that phrase. The one most of us agree with. But then Mr. Greenwald doesn’t accept that phrase, and simply pivots, saying well, that’s not what it is, and he knows more about it than Stacey Abrams. Really? That’s not logic at all, but he gets away with it because it’s an op-ed. So, be brave, and introduce other points of view. But be prepared to defend it, step by step, line by line. Deflection, whataboutism, and obfuscation don’t count. A simple example is “Abe Greenwald knows more about “woke” than Stacey Abrams because…”. Go for it.
Montana teacher,
I posted the link above because I was surprised that you were chiding us for not doing what “Dana” was doing and engaging in what you seem to believe is “civil conversation” – telling you that you are wrong and posting links so you can respond to those links. And then calling us names.
If you react to this post in any negative way, then you might reconsider your own double standard and your criticism of us for responding to “Dana’s” post in any negative way.
I also come to this blog to enjoy a good discussion, and it disappoints me to find people who refuse to engage in a civil conversation, like Dana, but who instead post links to random articles they prefer. If people challenge them to engage in a conversation, they take pride in cutting down others and attacking people for not responding calmly to the new content that they posted.
I think it is very odd that you admire what Dana just did because I don’t see how what Dana did leads to having the civil conversation you want. But I am doing what Dana did that you seem to approve of:
Here is the link. Please respond calmly to the content:
https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/03/12/stay-woke-public-school-teachers/
I hope if you don’t respond, it is because you now have a little more insight into why Dana’s posting was not civil nor brave nor part of wanting a discussion.
I modeled my response to be exactly like Dana’s – I ignored what you said and linked to an article. If that didn’t lead to you engaging in civil conversation — and I will wait to see if it does — then you should consider why you approve of that when Dana does it. If Dana’s actions are really your idea of a “civil conversation”, I am looking forward to you engaging with the link I posted. I wonder if you really do believe that.
I am so sick of this crap: “…one-sided righteousness shown by many on the left is starting to push me away. It makes me sad. I come to this blog to learn and grow, and to enjoy a good discussion.” Well then, discuss, explain, justify and be ready to defend yourself. Don’t curl up in a ball. Say what you mean. I see a lot of you complaining or stating a point with no explanations, just assumptions. That’s not “one-sided.” You make it “one-sided” by making nebulous statements say “engage” yet never actually do. This is not Twitter.
As much as many American crow about being the land of the free, etc., they don’t like to do the work of being citizens, much less engaged. With citizenship comes responsibility. When one is engaged with the history of this nation, one understands that the enslavement of Africans who were transported here and their descendants literally built this country. While we learn about elites, it was enslaving Americans that created capitalism and wealth for whites around the world. The descendants of those whites have benefitted immeasurably from the status quo and keeping status regardless of quo. Even those who weren’t direct descendants, yes even people who immigrated to the US in the 19th through 21st century have benefitted by virtue on not having immediately identifiable physical traits.
Those who continue to complain that they didn’t benefit from racism, who claim merit got them to where they are, conveniently forget that a large portion of the population never ever gets the chance to prove merit. And if they can, they are not promoted, they are paid less, and they are segregated to live in certain area. Those who claim merit are scared of real competition; they like the game rigged, one that gives them advantages before they even start playing and excluded everyone else. They may claim equal opportunity, but they see in “woke” a threat to their status. Even poor whites in West Virginia and Utah don’t realize they’re being played as pawns.
For Black History Month, I reread a classic on enslavement and found these two nuggets that help explain it all: “The willingness of many white southerners to unite around the idea of hanging on to racial power made the South a swing region, and white southerners a defined interesest group, willing to join whichever national party was willing to cater to its demands.” And, “…the unbending anger of former Confederates against Reconstruction morphed into their grandchildren’s suspicion of the New Deal, and the insistence of the part of white southern Democrats that measures against the Depression could do nothing to alleviate black poverty or lessen white supremacy.” That’s what they want to keep up.
” The free market will never stand up to political power if it is perceived as adversely affecting the bottom line. True education comes not from corporate academic standards or standardized test gatekeepers. It comes from teachers.”
Politicians should not be focused on micro-managing teachers. Criminalizing the act of free thought and speech is a repressive tool of right wing extremists. Educators must be free to do their job as they have a responsibility to help young people become reflective, responsible citizens that understand the past in order to avoid pitfalls in the future. Thanks for this excellent article.
First of all, there is no such thing as “the free market.” I guess that’s all of all.
I agree. The so-called free market is more like a rigged market in which the many serve the interests of a few.
It’s hilarious that markets closed to most folks are referred to as “free.” Only white, male economists could come up with such utter bullshit.
cx: well-stuffed white, male economists
Another take on this is –
Q: “How can you name a problem if you don’t understand it – or care what it means?”
A: Because it works!
The GOP answer is: It doesn’t matter what the term woke or others mean if it gets the base whooped up, gets donations, gets LOCAL news attention, and local right wing school board votes!
Using those terms spins the attack right back around on the people confronting us. “I’m not a racist – you’re just being ‘woke.'”
It’s not about being woke. Or anything else.
Abortion has been a fifty-year strategy.
Where’s wokeness, transgender issues, drag shows, 1619, “DEI”, “CRT”, LGBTQ, anti-racism been on their rallying cry list? Before 2016, no where!
The same place as Hunter’s laptop until it got the right all stirred up.
Racism, homophobia, and whitewashed history are real and should be called out. So they use coded language. They get to be racists, homophobic and history deniers hiding behind words that somehow make them the victim of the “liberal” culture.
If we want to talk about “racial and social injustice,” let’s call it… “racial and social injustice.”
If we want to talk about diversity, call it diversity.
Why do we validate their terms which have nothing to do with the actual term when they use it?
Wait,
That’s their strategy. Chris Rufo explained it in his Hillsdale speech. Manipulate language. Confuse the public. When they anything they don’t like, they will be programmed to think it’s CRT.
End game: make it respectable to be racist, homophobic, and historically ignorant.
Exactly –
Which is why the politicians and pundits who write about it shouldn’t use their terms. DEI should always be referred to as diversity, equity, and inclusion… CRT should be the “academic critical race theory” – it may be minor but a newspaper or blog excerpt or headline gives credence to the term if it’s used
Somewhat related to this post, for those of you who think the GQP won’t rally around the Idiot as presidential candidate, please note how they are all in lockstep with the same message in just the past 24-36 hours. They took one of their old, tired schticks, “rampant crime, especially in ‘woke’ cities and states.” And now they’ve merged it with persecution of the Idiot and all whites. They are literally reciting the same message: how can he spend all these resources when crime is everywhere? And they can go out and posit that the governor has the power to remove him, an elected official. I overuse the opening scene from The Terminator, when the separate parts quickly gel into a functioning killer, but it applies here more than ever.
I think this is why we are likely doomed. They’ve figured out what they need to do to cling to power: more resentment, distortion and lies. Democrats, a) can’t agree and have “allies” undermining them (see public education); b) will never get unified behind a message that matters, and; c) spend more time worrying about republicans than acting like Democrats with a purpose.
Alas, yes.
Now, the question is, whether enough young people and POC will go to the polls to stop this. And enough women will see through DeStalinist.
Don’t count on women who attend right wing churches to break with the politics of their priests and pastors. One of those women told me last week that women need not fear voting disenfranchisement because, “men wouldn’t let that happen.” Little thinking goes on in the heads of GQP voters.
My laugh yesterday was in response to a tweet by George Conway.
Republican leader Stefanik issued a press release denouncing the “illegal leak” about Trump’s pending arrest.
Conway tweeted: “Trump leaked it.”
Haaa!!!!
The term Puritan was invented by people who OPPOSED those who wished to further “purify” to Anglican Church by getting rid of ornate trappings. And what did the Puritans, so derided, do in response? They accepted the label with pride.
So, the troglodytes in the U.S. picked up the term “woke” from black vernacular and made it one of their all-purpose derogatory epithets (as when Trump, who has no clue what a Socialist is rails against the Socialist media). Of course they did, because they have an instinctive, racist aversion to anything black. I’m with Diane and Steven. Accept with pride the term meant as disapprobation. And understand that when someone like DeSalinist or some rag like the National Review uses the term “woke,” it carries the baggage of the racism that informed their adoption of it. It’s a tell. Makes one nostalgic for Bull Connor and Orval Faubus, who were at least honest, straightforward, about their moronic belief in white superiority.
cx: the Anglican Church
I was surprised and horrified to see a portion of I-75 named for Lester Maddox. Holy Cow! That made me forget all about the confederate statues. I remember when he was acting like a turd. What are these people thinking?
Roy,
That’s awful. Maddox was a racist goon.
!!!!!!!
My lord, Roy!!! What an abomination!!!
Many readers will recall he shut down his restaurant in 1965 rather than de-segregate. Pick handles, which Maddox touted as weapons against the heads of Black Folks, became his symbol. A bridge over the Chattahochie River and a stretch of 75 there were designated by the Georgia State Assembly in 1999.
Some years ago, we visited the Pullman, a community center in Atlanta that provides a venue for major exhibitions. I spent a good half hour discussing that part of Atlanta with an articulate young African Man, who explained that the Pullman repair shop had been the lynchpin of a rise of middle class Black culture in that part of the city. He was knowledgeable and proud of his community.
Suddenly, as I talked to him, I realized this was the person who symbolizes who Republicans want to disenfranchise. I thought of him when I saw the Maddox sign. Somehow Democrats need to introduce people like this young man to the country to highlight who the disenfranchisement of voters wants to get rid of. Right now the Republicans are capable of doing the Willie Horton on whole groups of voters. Their acolytes envision rapine and savagery where good citizenship actually resides.
College men
From LSU
Went in dumb
Come out dumb too
Steve Scalise went to LSU. The current House Majority Leader is ideologically today’s Lester Maddox.
Thank you from bringing up Maddox, Roy. Belongs in this thread to remind us who the people that want to fool us to hate by misrepresenting a term.
And when we are AWAKE. We see sleepy children who have been working the Night Shift at Tony Downs Food Company in Madelia, Minnesota,
Children children as young as 14 working overnight shifts at the meat processing plant.
MN Department of Labor DLI initiated an investigation.
During the investigation the state agency found that there were at least eight children working overnight shifts and engaging in hazardous work at the company. Including operating large machinery such as meat grinders, ovens and forklifts. The agency was also informed that Tony Downs was aware that they were illegally employing minors!
https://truthout.org/articles/kids-found-to-be-working-overnight-shifts-at-minnesota-meat-processing-plant/
The GOP prefers that you stay asleep
Taking advantage of migrant children is a disgrace. In Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a so-called Christian, changed the law to make it legal for more children to work.https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-child-labor/index.html
That you oppose this just means that you are one of those woke extremists. Just ask Salamander, uh, Slimy Amphibian, uh Newt, Gingrich. Or the grandfather of these creatures, Milty “Your Work will Make Me Free” Friedman.
When it is wrong to be aware of racial and social injustice, to want to erase our sense of right and wrong, to rewrite history, what does that say about Dangerously Deranged Despot DeSantis and his hate-woke mob?
Lloyd, exactly right.
How can anyone be proud of themselves for being indifferent to racial and social injustice?
Thank you, Diane, and kudos on coming through the ad hominem attack stronger and woker than ever. Everybody: I was intrigued by the Lead Belly quote and went to YouTube, on which I found a shorter recording and a longer one of “Scottsboro Boys.” The shorter recording is of the entire song, which does not contain the quote. The longer recording, from Smithsonian Folkways, includes parts of an interview, one preceding the song and the other following it. The quote Steven Singer used comes after the song, at the very end of the recording. Listen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrXfkPViFIE .
Thanks, Bill.
With apologies to Mr. Singer, Dr. Ravitch, and other like-minded people on the comments here, I’ll go ahead and make what a few years ago would have been the mild and unremarkable statement that I disagree that it is every public school teacher’s “responsibility” to “practice critical race theory” by “using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.”
I don’t disagree with you, FLERP. I don’t think that most teachers would agree that they have a “responsibility” to teach through those “lens.”
I do think that teachers should understand that they are living in a world where critical race theory is not a theory but a daily reality. It’s useful to understand the water you swim in.
👍
Well, on this, Flerp, you and I shall have to agree to disagree.
But then I am one of those nutcases who thinks that there is nothing wrong with being black or queer or a feminist, who understands that structural racism–racism that is baked into structures–is everywhere around us (e.g., in a “justice” system that makes blacks much more likely to be arrested and gives them longer sentences for the same crimes, that charges them higher interest rates than are charged to whites with the same credit rating, and so on–it doesn’t matter how much one multiplies the examples, it’s not enough to convince tighty whitey that systemic racism is real).
The horrific thing is that there was a time when people thought that adopting the POV of black people or women or queer people was a terrible thing. THANK ALL THE GODS and the ones people haven’t made up yet that people, especially young people, are AWAKENING from that backward view.
Just to be clear here, flerp! took fragments of DIFFERENT sentences from Singer’s essay to mislead again. So I can see why the apology was necessary.
Here is what Singer wrote:
“More specifically, being woke means focusing on intersectionality – how issues of race, class and gender overlap and interrelate with each other. It means practicing critical race theory – not the made up dog whistle conservatives use to describe anything they don’t like being taught in school, but the study of how racial bias is inherent in many Western social and legal systems.”
Does flerp! have a problem with any of that? We all remain in the dark about that, which makes me 100% confident that flerp! won’t prove me a liar when I say that flerp! wants to discredit all of that. (Happy to have you confirm you do agree with Singer about that, flerp!, and prove me wrong.)
FOLLOWING those sentences, Singer wrote “It means using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.” And unlike flerp!’s false innuendo, Singer’s discussion of “every public school teacher’s ‘responsibility'” was NEVER MENTIONED IN THAT PARAGRAPH. flerp! presents a total mishmash of what Singer wrote.
A few paragraphs down, Singer SPECIFICALLY references a public school teacher’s “responsibility”:
“As public school teachers, being woke is not a choice. It is a responsibility.
For we are the keepers of history, science and culture.
Who will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression?
We, teachers, must help students understand what happened, what’s happening and why. And to do so we must protect concepts that emerged from decades of struggle against all forms of domination.”
If flerp! objects to all of what Singer wrote above, which is when Singer actually describes the ACTUAL responsibilities that he believes teachers should have, then flerp! should be brave enough to say so. Instead of taking an out of context phrase from an earlier paragraph and professing not to agree with something Singer never said.
I also feel absolutely confident that flerp! doesn’t have the courage to just come out and say that he himself does not particularly care whether public school teachers teach “the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression?”
So flerp! found a sentence from three paragraphs back that he presented out of context, using phrases that came LATER in Singer’s essay about the responsibility of teachers, and then objected to what Singer never said!
flerp! didn’t engage in a thoughtful discussion — he took a bunch of phrases out of context, threw them together as a single sentence, and used that mishmash to discredit Singer.
I hope Steve Singer chimes in here, because he wrote a long, thoughtful essay that our resident concern troll (who had no criticism of the National Review article) falsely presents. flerp! does this by combining Singer’s discussion of various theories that address the missing history of those who have marginalized with a COMPLETELY SEPARATE discussion – that comes much later in the essay – about the responsibilities of public school teachers- which Singer elaborates on without ever mentioning “using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.”
It’s so gratuitously misleading. I really do hope Singer replies.
Singer wrote these wonderful words which clearly had no impact on flerp!’s understanding the issue (unlike the National Review, which apparently really spoke to flerp!):
“How can you understand a problem if you are not allowed to name it?
How can you fight injustice if you are forbidden from learning its history and connection to the present moment?
These questions are at the heart of a well-financed war against a simple term – woke-ness.
Since the summer of 2020, oligarchs and their tools in the United States have been waging a disinformation campaign against that term – especially as it pertains to our schools.
Chiding, nagging, insinuating – you hear it constantly, usually with a sneer and wagging finger, but what does it really mean?
To hear certain governors, state legislators and TV pundits talk, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. But it’s not that at all.
In its simplest form, being woke is just being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.
That’s all – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present.
I’m not sure what’s so controversial about that. If we all agree racism is bad, why is it undesirable to acknowledge it exists when it’s demonstrably there?”
If flerp! prefers the National Review take to what Singer actually wrote above that we can all read for ourselves, then that’s fine. flerp! should own it. But he should not mishmash phrases from throughout the essay to discredit the incredibly nuanced and carefully argued essay that Singer wrote.
If I were 40 years younger, I could go for Adam Kinzinger. He is brave, handsome, smart, and funny. Fearless too!
He’s the first Republican for whom I’ve had unconditional respect since Mark Hatfield. That’s quite some time!
Hey everybody! It’s me – the author of the original piece!
Thank you so much for posting this, Diane. I am pleased that my article has generated so many comments. However, I’m still kind of surprised that anything here is controversial. There is far too much here for me to respond to it all, but I’ll try to give a general comment.
Do teachers have a responsibility to use critical race theory? Well, critical race theory means looking at how the systems of our society perpetuate inequality. So I’d say, yes, we do have that responsibility. Just because Christopher Rufo and other Republican operatives are trying to weaponize that word doesn’t mean we should back away from what it really is.
Many of our systems are unjust. Is that so controversial? You think we live in a 100% just society? If so, that’s pretty gullible.
Should we “use the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality”? Of course we should. Black women have a lot of valuable things to say about how Black women have been treated. LGBTQ folks have a lot of valuable things to say about their own experience, etc.
We should listen, we should think, we should push our students to come to their own conclusions. Again not exactly controversial. It’s just that we’re told these words are EVIL by TV pundits and politicians. I refuse to apologize for using the English language and refraining from being terrified by these terrorists.
I stand by everything I wrote in my article.
Teachers need to take a stand. We need to stay woke.
Thank you for weighing in, Steven. Lots of interest in what you had to say.
I think we live in a day and age when critical race theory helps us make sense of the world and become active in changing it for the better.
The “unwoke” are like the undead. They don’t have ears to hear, eyes to see, or hearts that feel compassion for others.
I am woke. I strive to be woke. The alternative is awful.
Thanks for this comment and the original piece. Your posts are always insightful.
Thanks so much, Roy. Everyone is invited to pop on over to my blog for more of this kind of thing every week or so. Right now I’m working on something about charter school abolition. Don’t miss it: https://gadflyonthewallblog.com
Please try to read this with an open mind:
https://ifstudies.org/blog/2-5-million-black-men-are-in-the-upper-class
A few key take-aways:
Begin quotes>
Having a sense of personal agency also is linked to black men’s success. Black men who believed at a young age that they were mostly responsible for their lives rather than outside forces (measured by a locus of control scale) are more likely to flourish later in life.
However, focusing only on the negative side of the story for black men has its limitations. First, it renders millions of successful black men, and the paths they have taken to the American Dream, invisible. Second, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness for young black men. As Ian Rowe, the CEO of a charter school network in New York City has noted, with so much talk of “black failure” today, black boys may start to feel “why even bother when the odds are stacked against you?”
In order to engender hope for the next generation of young black Americans, we need to spotlight the many positive stories of successful black men that are out there and identify the routes that these men have taken to rise up the economic ladder. This is especially the case since the majority of black men who made it to the upper class in their mid-fifties came from lower-income households when they were 14 to 22 years old.
To those ends, our new research indicates that one-in-five black men have made it into the upper class, and it suggests that education, work, marriage, and military service provide paths that help black men achieve the American Dream.
< End quotes
And therein lies the downside of white wokeness.
Let’s rewrite that last paragraph a bit and see how it reads:
“To those ends, our new research indicates that one-in-five white men have made it to the upper class, and it suggests that education, work, marriage, and military service provide paths that help white men achieve the American Dream.”
Was going to add, but if this passes for research and conclusions for people who claim to be educated, no wonder we’re in a whirlpool of crap. What a load of condescending tripe.
So, you would prefer to teach young Black children that institutional racism presents insurmountable obstacles to their success? If not, how would you suggest teachers provide hope for their futures?
I don’t think anyone claims that Black children should be taught that “institutional racism presents insurmountable obstacles to their success.”
They should be taught the truth. They see it. Racism exists. We must develop interracial coalitions to eliminate racism in all of our institutions.
Don’t you think that Black children see racism in policing and in the criminal Justice system, and in other institutions? George Floyd. Brionna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Tyre Nichols. The latest headline, where a Black man who was shackled hand and foot was asphyxiated by 10 law officers and hospital workers piling on top of him.
We have many examples of Black men and women who succeeded.
Give students hope. But tell the truth.
I really don’t have the time to go into this idiocy. One of the most offensive posts I have read in quite some time here, and that’s saying a lot. You leave out the fact that education, work, marriage, and military service were denied Black Americans for centuries, even when the laws of the land were supposed to prevent that in theory. And still are. And “men”. Give me a break. This is not about who makes the upper class, but who has opportunity, fairness, and a future.
RageAgainstTheEduMeddlers,
You would prefer to teach young white children that addressing longstanding institutional racism presents insurmountable obstacles to their success?
You would prefer to teach young white children that including the history of Americans who aren’t white in their classes is the insurmountable obstacle to their success?
If not, how would you suggest teachers provide hope for their futures?
Look at your own, implicitly racist, double standard.
RageAgainstTheEduMeddlers’ quote applied to white people, so we can see how implicitly racist it is.
Having a sense of personal agency also is linked to white men’s success. White men who weren’t born rich who believed at a young age that they were mostly responsible for their lives rather than outside forces (measured by a locus of control scale) are more likely to flourish later in life.
However, focusing only on the negative side of the story for white men has its limitations. First, it renders millions of successful white men who don’t work at their family’s corporation or foundation invisible, and the paths they have taken to the American Dream, invisible. Second, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness for young white men who aren’t born rich. As (insert name of right wing Republican who wants to lower minimum wage, end Social Security and Medicare, and says that kids who come out of college $50,000+in debt should just ask their parents for money to start a business) has noted: “with so much talk of “white man failure” today, white boys may start to feel “why even bother when the odds are stacked against you?”
In order to engender hope for the next generation of young white Americans, we need to spotlight the many positive stories of successful white men that are out there and identify the routes that these men have taken to rise up the economic ladder. This is especially the case since some moderate percentage of white men from low income homes made it to the upper class, although the best way for those white men to be guaranteed to have a high income is to have parents who are very rich.
To those ends, our new research indicates that five-in-five white men who are born very rich remain very rich, and since most upper class Americans are already white and the median income of white Americans is significantly higher than Black Americans, it suggests that white people will continue to do well regardless of their education, work, or marriage.”
Rage, is it your belief that poor white people can achieve the American dream if they just stop scapegoating non-whites and start working harder instead of being so lazy?
Is that what you tell your low-income white students every day? Do you tell them to stop whining about anti-white racism and start working 100x harder because their failure is entirely their own fault?