CRT. I don;t know from legislation, but I believe that CRT as it has existed is structural analysis. Marxism is structural analysis, that one's relation to the means of production--or social class--determines one's lot in life For CRT, one's race does the same thing. White people wallow in privilege while Black people continue gettin…
CRT. I don;t know from legislation, but I believe that CRT as it has existed is structural analysis. Marxism is structural analysis, that one's relation to the means of production--or social class--determines one's lot in life For CRT, one's race does the same thing. White people wallow in privilege while Black people continue getting the shitty end of the stick. The White race has sinned against the black race, and now the White race owes the Black race.
I had believed that none of this was being taught to school kids. A commenter in my local paper proved to me that it is, at least sometimes in some places, by referring me to consulting contracts signed and syllabi in use.
I oppose teaching any kids that White is some kind of original sin. Human beings have rights and obligations, races do not.
Original sin is a religious concept and therefore incompatible with modern teaching on race. In the end, kids are smarter than we give them credit for and they're perfectly capable of looking at their neighborhoods and seeing how segregated they are, and make some guesses on their own as to why that might be. What conclusions do they reach on their own? Should we address these conclusions in school or pretend there's nothing to see? I think we do our children a grave disservice if we keep pretending that everybody has an equal chance to make a living. They can see the difference between good schools and bad schools, good jobs and crappy jobs, neighborhoods where police are friendly and neighborhoods where they have their guns drawn. They are the ones asking for change. The question is how we adults will respond.
And who says that is what they are taught in school? The fact that Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in school should cause enough concern to find out what is actually being said in schools. You are being lied to by the ones who created CRT as an existential threat to white kids. Why do you believe it?
Reading a letter to my local paper regarding this, I took your tack in the comments, believing that simply teaching history in a clear eyed manner was being cast as teaching CRT. She replied in the comments. Her concern began when she attended a parents Equity, Inclusiveness session via Zoom, and was stunned at what she was hearing. She looked farther into it. The district hired consultants to teach teachers "Teaching History Through the Lens of CRT." I hate to be proven wrong, but in the is case I was. It i not true that no elementary schools are teaching CRT. That is not to say how many more are, if any.
Two thoughts - We need to know more, especially because there is a well-funded and coordinated campaign across the country to vilify any teaching about race in America. Is the letter writer known to you? Could she be making this up? Who organized this parents Equity, inclusiveness via Zoom? What district? Did you verify with the district? Who were the consultants and what were their qualifications? How many? Who chose that consultant? Is this part of the stated curriculum?
Secondly - There is a difference between teaching through the lens of a theory and teaching the theory. Not just a quibble especially in younger grades. What was taught? Was it used in actual classrooms?
A letter writer in a newspaper speaking vaguely about a parents Zoom meeting needs verification in these fraught times. I’m sure you have heard about Moms for Liberty, the Koch-funded group that has been targeting school board meetings and using dark money to campaign for election to the school boards - many successfully. They have made school boards political.
I looked into the letter writer. Not a crackpot; also not a hysterical letter. The district was Oak Grove, Santa Ross California. The consultancy, which apparently has other clients in in the county, is On the Margins, When all of this happened, I went to their website and found a resources pull-down menu, which, when I searched for "CRT," contained seven references to CRT and some pretty objectional (to me) language: White people have been "hoarding" the good jobs" was one example. When I went back today to get you a link, however, I couldn't find that particular page. It's possible that it was cleaned up a bit due to negative publicity. Looking at the rest of their web page, there is a lot that is just fine, and some available presentations that definitely would not be good for kids--though I don't know If they are presented to kids. As to what teachers actually taught, "through a CRT lens," I don't know.
Thank you for checking it out. I agree that “hoarding” jobs sounds negative but when you think about what happens in the real world, there is job discrimination that prefers white people, particularly in the higher-paying jobs, the same as some men discriminate against women in hiring. It’s why there are noticeably fewer Black people and women on boards and in the C Suite.
I’m a second wave feminist and I know that women of colour were not proportionally represented in the feminist movement until women of colour educated us. The same has to happen with people of colour and white people. There is an historical imbalance that must be changed. I believe our children need to know this. We do have to stop hoarding jobs. It won’t happen on its own. I don’t think anyone wants to teach white children to feel guilty about their race. I do think white children need to be educated about the historical imbalance of opportunity and resources between the races. There will be bumps on the road but we must work to improve what is happening now. We also need to resist concerted attempts to stop teaching this understanding.
Part of the history that needs to be taught is The Emancipation Proclamation , the desegregation of the US military, the Civll Right Act of 1964, Affirmative Action, all of which are progress for POC. At this point, all of the inequities to which you refer are illegal, and the laws provide for enforcement--EEOC--in recognition that there's work to be done. I still don't see what advantage there is in abandoning the language of anti-discrimination for that of White privilege. Do proponents believe that White people are not also taken advantage of by the power structure?
Being white is not an original sin. But slavery might be America’s original sin since slavery was part of the foundation when the country was formed. Slavery was also a part of Great Britain and most of the other European countries. Great wealth was derived because of the advantage it gave to the white people who benefited from the free labour of slaves and subsequently benefited all white people.
In the US, the advantage of slavery was obviously experienced by all white people, not just slave owners and that privilege and benefit is still part of being a white person in America. That, I think, is the contention. Many white Americans, raised on the philosophy that all Americans are created equal, aren’t willing to truly examine that belief and admit that it is not true. Race is the great divide followed by wealth or the lack thereof. To acknowledge that means you must decide whether you believe that should change... or not.
It is foundational to Americanism, that the US is the land of opportunity and that anyone can work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. To acknowledge that people of colour are at a disadvantage because of race is in direct conflict with the American “truism” that “all men are created equal”. That is what Ted Cruz et al are objecting to. It is so much easier to believe they have succeeded because they worked harder and not acknowledge that being white gave them an advantage. That is what those who oppose “CRT” are objecting to - that there is such a thing as white privileged and that they have benefited from it.
The fats cats have benefited from more than chattel slavery. There's feudalism, imperialism, indentured servitude, and shitty paying jobs--not all of which impacted only Black people. Let's talk about injustice and oppression, and helping the poor of any and all races, rather than obsessing about White people owing Black people.
What if we recall a time when people with names like Cruz, Rubio, and Fuentes, or any Catholics, did not merit membership in this alleged club? How do we explain the continuing degradation of Scots-Irish in America, or the successes of relatively recent immigrants from East and South Asia?
This is good in that you have distilled much discussion down to free will and determinism. That is a hard nut to crack, but most matters here are derivative.
Societal structures vs individual agency is an age-old debate. I think it's usually better for individual people to think in terms of the latter and policy makers to think in terms of the former.
CRT. I don;t know from legislation, but I believe that CRT as it has existed is structural analysis. Marxism is structural analysis, that one's relation to the means of production--or social class--determines one's lot in life For CRT, one's race does the same thing. White people wallow in privilege while Black people continue getting the shitty end of the stick. The White race has sinned against the black race, and now the White race owes the Black race.
I had believed that none of this was being taught to school kids. A commenter in my local paper proved to me that it is, at least sometimes in some places, by referring me to consulting contracts signed and syllabi in use.
I oppose teaching any kids that White is some kind of original sin. Human beings have rights and obligations, races do not.
Original sin is a religious concept and therefore incompatible with modern teaching on race. In the end, kids are smarter than we give them credit for and they're perfectly capable of looking at their neighborhoods and seeing how segregated they are, and make some guesses on their own as to why that might be. What conclusions do they reach on their own? Should we address these conclusions in school or pretend there's nothing to see? I think we do our children a grave disservice if we keep pretending that everybody has an equal chance to make a living. They can see the difference between good schools and bad schools, good jobs and crappy jobs, neighborhoods where police are friendly and neighborhoods where they have their guns drawn. They are the ones asking for change. The question is how we adults will respond.
I don't oppose teaching history as it was. I oppose first graders being told there is a kind of evil lurking in them because of their color.
And who says that is what they are taught in school? The fact that Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in school should cause enough concern to find out what is actually being said in schools. You are being lied to by the ones who created CRT as an existential threat to white kids. Why do you believe it?
Reading a letter to my local paper regarding this, I took your tack in the comments, believing that simply teaching history in a clear eyed manner was being cast as teaching CRT. She replied in the comments. Her concern began when she attended a parents Equity, Inclusiveness session via Zoom, and was stunned at what she was hearing. She looked farther into it. The district hired consultants to teach teachers "Teaching History Through the Lens of CRT." I hate to be proven wrong, but in the is case I was. It i not true that no elementary schools are teaching CRT. That is not to say how many more are, if any.
Two thoughts - We need to know more, especially because there is a well-funded and coordinated campaign across the country to vilify any teaching about race in America. Is the letter writer known to you? Could she be making this up? Who organized this parents Equity, inclusiveness via Zoom? What district? Did you verify with the district? Who were the consultants and what were their qualifications? How many? Who chose that consultant? Is this part of the stated curriculum?
Secondly - There is a difference between teaching through the lens of a theory and teaching the theory. Not just a quibble especially in younger grades. What was taught? Was it used in actual classrooms?
A letter writer in a newspaper speaking vaguely about a parents Zoom meeting needs verification in these fraught times. I’m sure you have heard about Moms for Liberty, the Koch-funded group that has been targeting school board meetings and using dark money to campaign for election to the school boards - many successfully. They have made school boards political.
I looked into the letter writer. Not a crackpot; also not a hysterical letter. The district was Oak Grove, Santa Ross California. The consultancy, which apparently has other clients in in the county, is On the Margins, When all of this happened, I went to their website and found a resources pull-down menu, which, when I searched for "CRT," contained seven references to CRT and some pretty objectional (to me) language: White people have been "hoarding" the good jobs" was one example. When I went back today to get you a link, however, I couldn't find that particular page. It's possible that it was cleaned up a bit due to negative publicity. Looking at the rest of their web page, there is a lot that is just fine, and some available presentations that definitely would not be good for kids--though I don't know If they are presented to kids. As to what teachers actually taught, "through a CRT lens," I don't know.
Thank you for checking it out. I agree that “hoarding” jobs sounds negative but when you think about what happens in the real world, there is job discrimination that prefers white people, particularly in the higher-paying jobs, the same as some men discriminate against women in hiring. It’s why there are noticeably fewer Black people and women on boards and in the C Suite.
I’m a second wave feminist and I know that women of colour were not proportionally represented in the feminist movement until women of colour educated us. The same has to happen with people of colour and white people. There is an historical imbalance that must be changed. I believe our children need to know this. We do have to stop hoarding jobs. It won’t happen on its own. I don’t think anyone wants to teach white children to feel guilty about their race. I do think white children need to be educated about the historical imbalance of opportunity and resources between the races. There will be bumps on the road but we must work to improve what is happening now. We also need to resist concerted attempts to stop teaching this understanding.
Part of the history that needs to be taught is The Emancipation Proclamation , the desegregation of the US military, the Civll Right Act of 1964, Affirmative Action, all of which are progress for POC. At this point, all of the inequities to which you refer are illegal, and the laws provide for enforcement--EEOC--in recognition that there's work to be done. I still don't see what advantage there is in abandoning the language of anti-discrimination for that of White privilege. Do proponents believe that White people are not also taken advantage of by the power structure?
Being white is not an original sin. But slavery might be America’s original sin since slavery was part of the foundation when the country was formed. Slavery was also a part of Great Britain and most of the other European countries. Great wealth was derived because of the advantage it gave to the white people who benefited from the free labour of slaves and subsequently benefited all white people.
In the US, the advantage of slavery was obviously experienced by all white people, not just slave owners and that privilege and benefit is still part of being a white person in America. That, I think, is the contention. Many white Americans, raised on the philosophy that all Americans are created equal, aren’t willing to truly examine that belief and admit that it is not true. Race is the great divide followed by wealth or the lack thereof. To acknowledge that means you must decide whether you believe that should change... or not.
It is foundational to Americanism, that the US is the land of opportunity and that anyone can work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. To acknowledge that people of colour are at a disadvantage because of race is in direct conflict with the American “truism” that “all men are created equal”. That is what Ted Cruz et al are objecting to. It is so much easier to believe they have succeeded because they worked harder and not acknowledge that being white gave them an advantage. That is what those who oppose “CRT” are objecting to - that there is such a thing as white privileged and that they have benefited from it.
The fats cats have benefited from more than chattel slavery. There's feudalism, imperialism, indentured servitude, and shitty paying jobs--not all of which impacted only Black people. Let's talk about injustice and oppression, and helping the poor of any and all races, rather than obsessing about White people owing Black people.
What if we recall a time when people with names like Cruz, Rubio, and Fuentes, or any Catholics, did not merit membership in this alleged club? How do we explain the continuing degradation of Scots-Irish in America, or the successes of relatively recent immigrants from East and South Asia?
This is good in that you have distilled much discussion down to free will and determinism. That is a hard nut to crack, but most matters here are derivative.
I'm anti-structuralism. I think it's de-humanizing.
Societal structures vs individual agency is an age-old debate. I think it's usually better for individual people to think in terms of the latter and policy makers to think in terms of the former.
Yeah, to way oversimplify, the diagnosis of the problem isn't where Marx fell down; it is the suggested solutions that ignore human nature.