Media

Karel | May 26, 2021

Prof Modiri’s straw-man defence of CRT

Professor Joel Modiri, a critical race theorist in academia, claims attacks on critical race theory are marked by aggression, bad faith, racist anxiety and ignorance. They aren’t, but his defence is.

The need to take racism seriously can no longer be ignored, writes Joel M. Modiri, associate professor and acting head of the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Pretoria. This, apparently, is a revelation.

‘Attacks on critical race theory (CRT) intellectuals and ideas,’ he writes, ‘are marked by aggression, bad faith, racist anxiety and ignorance – a toxic mix not easily appeased by facts or argument.’

As if to demonstrate those exact qualities, he begins by describing a ‘ferocious right-wing onslaught’ and ‘viral online conservative screeds decrying the pervasive influence of CRT and “identity politics”’, in which ‘white people increasingly, and without irony, claim to be the greatest contemporary victims of racism at just the time black people’s protest and critique against racial inequality and racial violence is gaining greater political visibility and impact’.

I recently wrote critique of CRT on Daily Friend, and the Institute of Race Relations has recently published a detailed report by Anthea Jeffery attacking CRT. Marius Roodt has written in these pages that racism is a problem in South Africa – but it is not the problem, and John Kane-Berman has written against ‘race hustlers’ who claim that racism remains ubiquitous and systemic in South Africa.

I can only suppose that Modiri is reacting in part to the IRR’s campaign on the subject when he refers to ‘right-wing conservatives’. Or perhaps the IRR is the ‘discomfited liberals’ to whom he refers.

His frequent use of such denunciatory labels suggests a level of aggression and bad faith that is unbecoming to a professor, but not surprising in a critical race theorist.

The IRR’s position

The Institute for Race Relations is a classical liberal institution, founded in 1929. It has the explicit objective to combat racism, promote equal human rights and non-racialism (which is the same policy that the ANC has always promoted) and to improve relations between South Africa’s races.

The political ideology it upholds, classical liberalism, is neither right- nor left-wing. Some of its economic views are more consistent with right-of-centre politics, while most of its social policy views are very much left-of-centre. It is certainly not conservative, although some of its members may be.

For most of its existence, the IRR was denounced as a left-wing organisation by the Apartheid state. Pigeon-holing it with ‘right-wing conservatives’ is a malicious lie.

Modiri has great disdain for anyone who isn’t a fellow-academic (although I have no doubt he would also disdain academics who disagree with him).

Here he is on CRT’s critics: ‘The degree of caricature, dishonesty and hysteria displayed by opponents of CRT illustrates that they do not even have a basic grasp of this field of academic study – developed over decades through careful analysis and critique of case law, legislation, literature and archival records, blending law, history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, to theorise race from a critical and emancipatory perspective.’

We, in our passionate ignorance, are not worthy of assailing Modiri in his ivory tower.

This would have been a great opportunity for Modiri to enlighten us mere mortals about the glories of CRT and what it really stands for, but unsurprisingly, he makes no such attempt. Perhaps he is not in possession of the facts or arguments to ‘appease’ the critics of CRT and answer the substance of their critiques.

‘We also know that, historically, lack of knowledge has rarely restrained white people from exercising the prerogative to impose their reality on the rest,’ he says. ‘So, the demonisation of CRT by an increasingly global network of white conservatives and liberals is not about intellectual debate and contestation of ideas. It is, as many commentators have pointed out, a full-scale, well-co-ordinated and well-funded political project against any form of racial equality and racial justice.’

Straw man

That’s a glaring straw man and an artful dodge. Modiri doesn’t want it to be about intellectual debate and contestation of ideas. CRT, after all, rejects things like facts and reason as instruments of white supremacy. In Modiri’s polarised world, the only answer for critics of CRT is that they’re hopeless, ignorant, white supremacists.

I, for one, and I’m sure I can speak for the entire IRR, do absolutely not oppose racial equality. We also don’t claim to be victims of racism, nor do we deny that racism is a problem.

The IRR’s view, documented by numerous surveys representative of South Africa’s population, is that addressing racism is not a top priority for most people, including black people. That is not ‘white reality imposed on the rest’, that is the lived experience of black people as expressed by black people.

To further shatter Modiri’s cheap caricature of CRT critics, when I wrote about the racism and the social justice movement five years ago, I explicitly acknowledged having benefited from Apartheid, albeit through no fault of my own. I also acknowledged that I continue to benefit from so-called ‘white privilege’ in many ways, but that I feel no personal guilt about this, though I do feel a sense of responsibility not to exploit that privilege, to empathise with people who don’t enjoy the same, and to do what I can to promote the ideal of a free, non-racial society.

Must learn from history

I also believe we ought to teach the history of racism, slavery, xenophobia, and all other manifestations of bigotry and oppression in schools. It is as critical that we learn from American slavery and Apartheid as it is that we learn from Nazi Germany, slavery in non-Western societies, Cambodia’s killing fields, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and the USSR’s Holodomor. History is full of lessons that we ought to heed.

But CRT does not merely advocate this. Even though I denounce racism, my anti-CRT position will be denounced as inherently racist by Prof Modiri; after all, how can I not be racist when I’m white? However, to the neutral reader, I trust that my views do not appear to be those of some kind of arch-conservative or right-wing extremist.

The late Walter Williams, Bob Woodson, Shelby Steele, and Thomas Sowell all disagree with CRT’s basic tenets. Woodson founded, and Shelby is a supporter of the 1776 Unites movement, which was created by black academics to counter The 1619 Project, which seeks to rewrite history through the ideological lends of CRT. Sowell described CRT as ‘revenge society’ and ‘racism under new management’.

Dismissal of black critics

Modiri, however, glibly dismisses black people who disagree with CRT’s basic tenets as ‘black junior partners’ of the aforementioned ‘right-wing conservatives’.

This is a typical slur critical race theorists aim at critics. If you’re a white and refuse to support CRT, you’re an unreconstructed racist and white supremacist. If you’re black but you don’t share the left’s obsession with identity politics, you’re either ignorant or a race traitor.

His ‘black junior partners’ dismissal is an inch away from saying ‘Uncle Tom’ or ‘house n*****r’, slurs which critical race theorists have certainly used against black critics.

If it sounds intensely patronising and arrogant, that’s because it is. CRT casts black people as victims of systemic racism by white people. It excommunicates as a race traitor any black person who refuses to accept perpetual victimhood status and instead believes in individual freedom and merit.

Modiri pretends that ‘CRT means no harm’, and that it merely seeks racial equality and redress for past wrongs. But that is a misrepresentation of what CRT really stands for. Not only does Modiri claim that laws and institutions remain systemically racist, CRT claims that it cannot be otherwise.

The paper by Prof Derrick Bell which Modiri cites in turn cites Prof Charles Lawrence, who Bell says ‘speaks for many critical race theory adherents when he disagrees with the notion that laws are or can be written from a neutral perspective’ (my italics).

He writes: ‘Lawrence asserts that such a neutral perspective does not, and cannot, exist –that we all speak from a particular point of view, from what he calls a “positioned perspective”. The problem is that not all positioned perspectives are equally valued, equally heard, or equally included. From the perspective of critical race theory, some positions have historically been oppressed, distorted, ignored, silenced, destroyed, appropriated, commodified, and marginalized – and all of this, not accidentally. Conversely, the law simultaneously and systematically privileges subjects who are white.’

There is not a shred of evidence that non-racial laws in fact cannot exist, or if they do, fail to be non-racial in their application. What’s worse, by ‘equally valuing’ all ‘positional perspectives’, CRT elevates subjective experience above objective empiricism as the superior, and perhaps only, valid form of knowledge. This is why CRT has such a problem with terms such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Because, that’s just your white supremacist opinion, man, and your opinion is oppressive!

Modiri entirely ignores one of the key critiques of CRT, that it is rooted in Marxist ‘class struggle’. In his view, one must assume, a perpetual conflict between the races is not only desirable, but necessary, in order to ‘take racism seriously’.

I, and I would wager most liberal critics of CRT, beg to differ. Conflict between races is what got us Nazism and Apartheid. One does not remedy conflict with conflict.

Yes, racism remains a problem. It should be opposed wherever it is found. Arguing that liberals deny this is the epitome of the ‘bad faith’ of which Modiri accuses critics of CRT.

But the future of peace and prosperity lies in promoting individual liberty, human rights, non-racialism and harmonious coexistence, not racial conflict and revolution.

The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR

CRT: the next challenge for schools to face

The Constitution should be the lodestar for transformation charters in schools. Teaching children to judge other children by the colour of their skin is is counter to the ethos of the Constitution.

The persistence of educational inequality –  with poor, primarily black, pupils continuing to attend under-resourced schools and receiving a substandard education – is highlighted in a recent article in Daily Maverick by Faranaaz Veriava, head of the Education Rights programme at Section27, a public interest law centre that advocates for access to healthcare services and basic education.

Veriava is correct in highlighting persistent inequality, but her article goes on to issue a ‘call to elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools to provide spaces where all our youth can belong’.

Referring to the ‘ongoing struggle of black learners attending elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools’, Veriava writes: ‘Because public interest organisations cannot always direct scarce resources to addressing the transformation issues at these schools, it is incumbent on parents and educators to do this more proactively.’

‘Black learners attending elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools experience racism, other forms of discrimination and alienation in myriad and often subtle guises,’ according to Veriava.

‘To survive at these schools, learners must assimilate to archaic cultural norms or risk having their identities and conduct questioned, if not pathologised, in ways that other learners do not experience.’  

Speaking from personal experience – I am a non-practising lawyer now, but with 17 years of practice, and I also spent 13 years of my children’s schooling on the governing bodies of their government primary and high schools – I believe that to address these concerns, readers need to understand the issues that Veriava talks about.

Particularly, readers who may be perpetrating these acts need to be given concrete examples of the racism, discrimination and alienation. White parents and children may not realise they are being discriminatory. They need to understand what may not be readily clear or better understand what issues are seen to be racial, discriminatory or insensitive.

Fraught disputes

Veriava is probably correct to say that at an unconscious level, black parents feel a gratitude that their children attend these schools. Might there also be an element of guilt because so many other black children are subjected to a substandard education? These issues need to be considered as well when dealing with the potentially fraught disputes that may arise.

Veriava then refers to situation where allegations of discrimination were made, but not whether discrimination was actually found. In this regard, she first refers to the 2015 Curro School incident, where it was ‘reported’ for racially segregating students.

The MEC for Education in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, appointed an independent firm of attorneys to conduct an in-depth investigation of alleged racial segregation. The investigation was later expanded to inquire into the possible existence of racial practices at all the Curro schools in Gauteng.

The attorneys found that Curro was not guilty of racial discrimination. The segregation of classes was not racial, but based on the division between Afrikaans-medium classes and English-medium classes. The practice has been changed.

In 2018 Curro again faced allegations of racial discrimination at Waterfall Castle (Pre-school). The South African Human Rights Commission conducted an investigation and found Curro not guilty of racial discrimination.

Veriava also refers to the infamous Pretoria High School for Girls controversy of 2016. Black students protested against ‘institutional racism’ at the school, their main complaint concerning the implementation of the Code of Conduct, in particular its policy on hairstyles. 

Lesufi literally helicoptered in to ‘sort out’ the problem, having pre-warned the media he’d be there. The incident became a cause célèbre in local and international media. I wrote about it at the time here.

The girls, and Lesufi, were interviewed by the media at the time.

Lesufi, however, prevented staff members from talking to the media.

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga found nothing racist about the school’s hair policy. Nevertheless, Motshekga came under fire for defending school hair policy that some ‘believe’ is racist – note the word ‘believe’.

The event that launched all this controversy occurred when a girl in Zuleika Patel’s class asked whether they could swop places because she couldn’t see the board beyond her afro. Patel cried racism. Patel’s hairstyle is pictured.

 

Then the matter exploded. Patel, 13 at the time, was a self-proclaimed activist.

The GDE appointed attorneys Harris, Nupen, Malebatsi to investigate claims of racism at PGHS. Their report found that there were instances of racism on the part of some teachers and recommended that disciplinary action be taken. The report did find that Patel had lied.

The report is too extensive to canvass in this article. What is disturbing, however, is that the report failed to examine the role of two political activist groups at the school in the crisis. A protest at the school with girls wearing ANC T-shirts on a civvies day should raise flags. That such groupings should even exist at a school is disturbing.

Veriava talks about statements and acts of unconscious bias ‘that shame our children’ and which ‘make them feel “less than”, which they struggle to name or understand.’  She doesn’t offer suggestions as to how unconscious bias should be handled.

Apparently, according to Veriava, when students challenge transformation in schools, black students tend to be punished more severely than whites. Again a claim is made without substantiation.

Veriava also refers to research into corporal punishment practices which occurred prior to the practice being banned. It reveals that –

  •  corporal punishment was used in both black and white boys’ schools;
  • white girls’ schools did not practice corporal punishment;
  • black girls’ schools did practice corporal punishment.

This research proves nothing and particularly nothing about the main thrust of the article.

Veriava is correct when she says that the Constitution should be the lodestar for transformation charters in schools.  

She cites the numerous prohibitions against unfair discrimination. This includes learners demanding accommodation for their religious and cultural practices in schools’ codes of conduct; learners with disabilities demanding accommodation and equal provisioning; and LGBTQ learners demanding accommodation in respect of uniform requirements. 

These examples are all open to discussion and different schools may have different responses, as not all discrimination would automatically be unfair. For example, not accommodating other religions in a private school based on a Christian ethos may not be unfair. The specifics of each case would have to be scrutinised individually.

What the article also suggests, without saying as much, is that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is becoming the basis for dealing both with issues of discrimination as well as the content of curricula at schools. This is a dangerous development.

CRT is the theory that rights are determined by a hierarchy of eternal victimhood that identifies blacks as victims and all white males (in particular) as eternal oppressors. The fact that a school child has not victimised another child matters not. A child is judged, literally, by the colour of his or her skin only.

CRT is illogical, intended to separate races (irony of ironies!) and create unaccountable guilt for which there is no redemption. It is the next challenge for schools to face.

[Image: Oberholster Venita from Pixabay]

Activist Teachers: the new priestly class?

A former pleads with teachers imbued with the spirit of Social Justice and Critical Pedagogy not to harm his child in the name of a new religious dogma.

Many parents will have become aware of a theory of social justice commonly known as Critical Social Justice (CSJ). However, many parents are unaware that CSJ has already taken root in their child’s school. The seeds of the worldview have been planted in official school policies and if parents do not take an active role in pushing back against it, its divisive and psychologically damaging doctrine will flourish. 

When I refer to 'activist teachers' I am referring to teachers who have been trained in 'social justice education' or 'critical pedagogy'. Teachers who believe the classroom to be a vehicle for radical social change. These teachers are usually the ones involved in writing social justice policies and who are in charge of making sure that nobody steps outside of the rules and regulations that they have written. They are in the minority but wield the majority of the influence on matters of social justice due to their credentials as ‘experts’. They are the arbiters of morality.  

To them, I write …

Dear activist teacher,

Your doctrine is sceptical of meta-narratives. Do you not see that yours is one? 

When I interact with you and hear you make the case for why your worldview should be treated as true, I can’t help but see myself in you. Your unwavering certainty was my certainty, too. Just like yours, my world was a battle between good and evil – an idea reified in an origin story carried forth in holy texts and vindicated by revelatory experiences and a profound sense of righteous purpose. Just like you, I knelt in supplication to something. I was Christian like you are woke.

Activist teacher, 

You are a member of a priestly class, tasked with spreading the Truth to those whose eyes have not been opened. I imagine that the Christian missionaries felt just as you do when they were sent forth to educate the heathens. Or is yours a nobler calling because it is right and theirs was not?

I disagree with much of your worldview, but I do not hate you. I cannot hate you. I know that you look at the world and see inequality, injustice and pain. I know that you think you have a simple explanation and a simple remedy. I know you want the best for my child and so you teach him your doctrine so that he may join your crusade.

When I was a young man, I’d meet in prayer groups and read John or the letter of Paul, or sometimes Job. I liked the simplicity of it all. I’d have my doubts but it helped that the pastor, elder or deacon understood more than I did. It helped when they assured me that the contradictions I thought I saw were, in fact, no such thing. That I just needed to understand the message and I’d see that. I never really understood the message completely. But they claimed to and I trusted them as my child trusts you. 

I wonder, do you gather with others and read what your prophets and elders have written? Does it keep your faith steadfast?  

Do you read Davis, Crenshaw, Marcuse, Gramsci, Foucault, Giroux, or sometimes even Hegel? When you have doubts do you turn to Kendi and DiAngelo?

I’ve never envied the work of apologists. It looks complicated trying to keep things simple. 

Do you feel vindicated when you hear the testimony of the lived experience of converts to your faith, like I would when the spirit healed somebody or turned a drug addict from his vice? 

I believe that you have the right to worship as you wish, to believe what you want. But, activist teacher, you do not have the right to force your worldview on our children no matter how much you believe it to be true. Maybe it is true. But let my child decide that for himself. 

My child respects you and believes what you say. Please do not betray him.

I’ve read some of your holy texts. I know some of what you believe and what you’re willing to do to reach your promised land – your Equity Utopia – and it concerns me. 

Why do you hide what your doctrine says behind nice-sounding words? I’ve read some of your anti-discrimination policies and your transformation plans. You use words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ but you fail to tell parents and governing bodies that what you mean to do is censor dissenting voices that dare blaspheme. Is it because you know that the majority of parents would push back against you indoctrinating their children? 

Why do you say that every individual is unique and should be treated as such, but then tell students that it’s racist for them to take a colour-blind view of society? Was Martin Luther King Jnr mistaken? Was his dream, in fact, your nightmare? 

You speak about ‘decolonising’ the curriculum and pretend it means including more black authors in the English reading lists. But what you mean to do, according to your doctrine, is peel away the systems that prop up oppression, imagining that some sort of liberation will follow. You’d like to get rid of ‘western’ concepts like equality of opportunity, neutral principles of constitutional law, and enlightenment rationalism. You imagine a pearl in an oyster that does not exist. 

Will telling a black child that mathematics, science, and reason are products of white supremacy, liberate him? What if he wants to be a scientist, lawyer, or engineer? 

Your policies say that students should not be burdened with any specific trait based upon the colour of their skin, and yet you teach children about ‘whiteness’ and ‘white privilege’. You say that you are teaching white children to be aware that the opportunities they have been afforded are often not afforded to black people. That they should be compassionate towards those who are less fortunate than they are. And then you turn around and teach white children that they have been born with the original sin of whiteness and that all they can do is try and be less white. To repent for their sins - to un-eat the fruit you think they have relished in digesting. 

Your doctrine says that a black child is doomed to live life as a member of an oppressed group – a perpetual victim. You give him that burden to carry. Your theory says that the white kid sitting next to him is complicit in his oppression whether he is aware of it or not. You are promoting tribalism. It will leave scars. 

Your mythology is over-simplified. History is complicated and cannot be reduced to good versus evil.

You offer no evidence for your claims but the lived experience of converts as if knowledge of this kind is epistemically sound. You rely on revelation just as I did when I had a god. 

My church thought it was teaching me the ultimate Truth, but where it faltered it was honest. It told me to have faith. That faith was part of the Truth. Your church is different. It pretends to have nothing to do with faith. 

My church taught compassion, love, and forgiveness. Yours teaches no such thing.

When I was a boy, I’d wonder fancifully whether God was as tall as that tree or as tall as that other tree. 

Must my child wonder whether that person is this amount racist or that amount racist? That doesn’t seem as fanciful.

Dear activist teacher,

Your eyes shine bright with some secret knowledge. Mine burned with it, too. I see your golden heart and hope it's not too heavy.

I had a god once. 

I felt him bubbling inside me when I joined the congregation with my hands up in the air. His love was in all of us at once. But then I went to a Metallica concert and felt Him there, too – bubbling in all of us as we held up our hands. The priest told me that this couldn’t be. But I don’t think he’d ever been to a Metallica concert.

I had a god.

One day a young church elder laid hands on my head and told me that the spirit was on its way. I waited, thinking it had someone more worthy to visit, like those around me who had fallen to their knees. I was patient, though. We were joined by more elders. They were younger than the first. They laid their hands on me – preparing the way. And then I felt it. The spirit. It felt just like hands and fingers on my shoulders and my stomach. It was heavy, getting heavier. I kept my eyes closed, wavering under the weight of it all. Unable to bear it, I fell to my knees. The elders left me there alone because I had been saved. The fingerprints have disappeared now but that night the spirit left human bruises on my shoulders.

But I was one of the lucky ones. Do not leave scars on my child that cannot be erased.

Stop Gaslighting Parents on Critical Race Theory

Some proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor. This is false - it has spread through to schools.

Proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor.

Some pundits claim that CRT is exclusively a school of thought taught in legal academia. On her MSNBC show, Joy Reid claimed that “law school is really the only place it is taught. NBC has looked into everywhere.” Former Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tweeted: “I don’t think critical legal studies should be taught in elementary schools, and I am ready to die on that hill[.]”

Some journalists, informed by other “experts,” contend that CRT is synonymous with “talking about racism.” NPR defined CRT as “teaching about the effects of racism”; the New York Times called it “classroom discussion of race, racism.” NBC News labeled it the “academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.” 

These definitions are, of course, mutually exclusive. But they both serve to paint parents into a corner. If CRT is defined just as talking about racism, then parental objections to it must be rooted in racism. If CRT is defined just as a thesis discussed in law schools, then parental objections to it must be rooted in ignorance.

There’s no doubt that CRT has become a politicized term. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo forthrightly explained his strategy on this issue as follows: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Liberal writer Freddie DeBoer has argued that CRT is now a “completely floating signifier.” Conservatives label a host of things they don’t like as CRT. Liberals, then, “feel compelled to defend CRT because conservatives attack it,” and defend it by claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the bad things conservatives say.  

But words have meaning. Parents and policymakers should understand CRT not as conservatives or liberals define it, but as it defines itself. Here’s a definition from a 2001 book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefanic, widely credited as key architects of CRT:

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline. Today, many in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, controversies over curriculum and history, and IQ and achievement testing. Political scientists ponder voting strategies coined by critical race theorists. Ethnic studies courses often include a unit on critical race theory, and American studies departments teach material on critical white students developed by CRT writers. Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It not only tries to understand our social situation, but to change it.  (Emphases added.)

Several points here deserve restatement: CRT defines itself in opposition to traditional civil rights and even Enlightenment rationalism. It defines itself not simply as a “Theory,” but also as movement of activists who seek to transform society. Many educators consider themselves to by Critical Race Theorists, and CRT ideology has had a profound impact on a wide range of education policy and pedagogical issues.

Anybody who tries to peddle the line that CRT is just “talking about racism” is either gaslighting or being gaslit themselves. And anyone who maintains that CRT is simply an academic theory discussed in law school, at best, is ignorant of what CRT really is.

By contrast, parent intuitions about CRT are spot on. Given that CRT informs so many aspects of education policy and pedagogy, the real crux of the issue for parents is, as Andrew Sullivan adroitly put it, “not teaching about critical race theory; it is teaching in critical race theory.” (Emphases in original.) 

Public schools may be commonly assigning Critical Race Theorists like Kimberlé Crenshaw. But they have embraced a host of policies and practices that are rooted in Critical Race Theory. When parents hear terms like: “Equity,” “Anti-Racism,” “Cultural Competence,” “Culturally Responsive Education,” “Restorative Justice,” “Ethnic Studies,” “Equitable Math,” “Whiteness,” they would be fundamentally correct to go to a school board meeting and complain about Critical Race Theory. All of these practices are influenced by and have the same politicized purpose as CRT, which – to reiterate – defines itself not merely as a “theory” but also as an activist practice.

School boards that are implementing CRT-infused programming should not follow the media’s lead and gaslight parents by claiming that they are “not teaching CRT” on the grounds that they are not assigning academic journal articles by self-avowed Critical Race Theorists. Because the more parents look into it, the more may realize that although their schools might not assign canonical CRT academic journal article, they are teaching “in” CRT.

That will further heighten alienation and distrust between schools and families – alienation and distrust that is unavoidable so long as schools educate students through a “lens” intended to train children to oppose the foundations of our liberal order.

Max Eden is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

 

 
 

[Video] Black father demolishes CRT at school board meeting. Video goes viral. Listen to this man.

Watch this parent absolutely obliterate Critical Race Theory at an Illinois school board meeting: “How do I have two medical degrees if I’m sitting here oppressed?”

He is absolutely right.

  • Critical Race Theory is poison.
  • It literally teaches division. It teaches children to segregate themselves by skin color and dislike each other.
  • CRT is incredibly patronizing toward people of color!

This dude really nails that last point. It's stunning to me that so many people can't see how racist it is to tell people of color, "Oh, you can't make it on your own, let the white people take you by the hand and help you and then maybe you'll be able to achieve something." BULL!

Original article here.

Black Mom Torches Critical Race Theory: It’s ‘Racist,’ It’s ‘Teaching Hate,’ Will Destroy America

A black mother in Florida unloaded on critical race theory during a speech to the Florida Board of Education, warning that the far-left ideology was racist and that it will destroy America if it is not stopped.

Keisha King, a Duval County parent representing Moms for Liberty, praised school choice and slammed the idea of dividing people on the basis on race 100 years after the Tulsa riots happened.

“Just coming off of May 31st, marking the 100 years of the Tulsa riots, it is sad that we are even contemplating something like critical race theory, where children will be separated by their skin color and deemed permanently oppressors or oppressed in 2021,” she said. “That is not teaching the truth, unless you believe that whites are better than blacks. I have personally heard teachers teaching CRT and we have had an assembly shutdown because a Duval County Public School System consultant thought it would be a great idea to separate students by race. This is unacceptable.”

“CRT is not racial sensitivity, or simply teaching unfavorable American history, or teaching Jim Crow history. CRT is deeper and more dangerous than that,” she continued. “CRT and it’s out working today is a teaching that there is a hierarchy in society where white male heterosexual able-bodied people are deemed the oppressor and anyone else outside of that status is oppressed. That’s why we see corporations like Coca-Cola asking their employees to be less white, which is ridiculous. I don’t know about you, but telling my child or any child that they are in a permanent oppressed status in America because they are black is racist, and saying that white people are automatically above me, my children or any child is racist as well.”

“This is not something that we can stand for in our country,” she concluded. “And don’t take it from me, look at the writers of these types of publications, our ancestors, white, black, and others hung, bled, and died right alongside each other to push America towards that more perfect union. If this continues, we will look back and be responsible for the dismantling of the greatest country in the world by reverting to teaching hate and that race is a determining factor on where your destiny lies.”

Original article here.

Interracial couple says critical race theory ‘hurts’ people of color

An interracial couple from Chicago has condemned the controversial critical race theory movement — arguing that it “hurts” the black community by victimizing people of color.

“When I hear the ideas of critical race theory, they don’t remind me of my experience here in Chicago at all,” Takyrica Kokoszka, a black woman and Chicago public school teacher, told Fox News.

Kokoszka and her white husband, Martin, live in the toney, liberal Illinois suburb, Oak Park, with their biracial children.

The couple spoke to the outlet about their experience living in the long-integrated neighborhood, where they say the local school administration tells teachers that “all schools are rooted in white supremacy” and that “racism… is truly all around us.”

Oak Park actively integrated in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to years of local activism. Now, the couple believes critical race theory is harming that progress and “dumbing down” issues around race and equality.

“Our school that our kids go to, there’s a lot of questions coming from the community about why not more black students are on grade level,” Takyrica said.

“We are looking to explain it away using critical race theory. Instead of us actually digging deep and looking into all the nuances that are involved with school achievement, we’ve watered it down. We’ve dumbed down the reason now to ‘It’s because the system is racist.'”

In fact, the couple believes the critical race theory movement underestimates and oppresses people of color.

“We believe that it hurts our black and brown community that the message is: ‘You’re a victim. You can never make it until we tear down all these systems and structures,” Martin said.

“Black people overcame slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow… and all of a sudden black people cannot succeed?”

The controversial ideology is also harmful and confusing to interracial children.

“Our kids, are they half-oppressor, half-victim? How does that work?” Martin asked.

Original article here.

[Video] Students Reject Critical Race Theory After Learning What It's Really About

American students are asked if they know what Critical Race Theory is and if they agree with some of its basic principles.

[Video] Father destroys Critical Race Theory in heartwarming video with daughter

A video, depicting a father educating his young daughter about the dangers of Critical Race Theory, has gone viral on the internet as Republican state houses across the country move to ban the academic theory.

Parents CAN beat critical race theory — by running for school boards

The battle to win control of school boards from the clutches of racial indoctrinators is high stakes. Lose, and a generation is lost.

The outcome will determine whether our children learn to see themselves and other people as ­individuals, instead of merely members of racial groups. Parents of all ethnicities who never thought they’d get involved in politics must step up.

Under the critical race theory pushed in schools, white kids are shamed as racists and oppressors. Black kids are taught to think of themselves as victims. And the ­nation’s history is being presented as something to despise.

When parents object to this brainwashing, school administrators respond with double-talk, ­insisting schools just want to be ­inclusive and diverse.

That’s why it’s time to shift from complaining to fighting for control of local school boards. These boards hire superintendents, set policies and have the clout to stop CRT. Except in large cities like New York, school boards are where the power is.

In Loudon County, Va., parents are organizing to recall a majority of the school board. They’re distressed that teachers are being ­required to learn about “systemic oppression and implicit bias.” One of the recall organizers explains that Loudon schools are focusing less “on individuals” and “more on identity groups and putting everybody into an identity box.”

Last month, parents in Smithtown Central School District on Long Island put up three school-board candidates and swept all three races. Organizers said they acted to stop the school from promoting the 1619 Project, which recasts America’s founding as driven by slavery. Voter turnout was nearly triple the usual turnout.

In Southlake, a Dallas suburb, parents against “divisive, race-conscious learning” ran candidates committed to promoting the ideal of colorblind fairness. They won, too. Hannah Smith, one of the winning candidates, explained the outcome. “By a landslide,” she said, voters “don’t want racially divisive critical race theory taught to their children.”

Even so, capturing a school board isn’t a cake walk. Unions have a grip on the process. Often, candidates are union members or their races are funded by union ­donations. In Fairport, NY, a suburb of Rochester, two opponents of critical race theory lost in May to candidates supported by the teachers’ union.

In Oregon, Sonja McKenzie, vice president of state’s School Boards Association, says she is disturbed to see board races becoming hotly contested political events. “School-board work is not political work. It’s community work.”

Don’t buy that. Incumbents are posing as nonpartisan, but it’s a ruse. Teachers’ unions give 94 percent of their money to Democrats. School boards tend to be pro-union, pro-Democratic Party and in favor of critical race theory.

Last month in Oregon, ColorPAC described its school-board candidates as living “at the intersection of multiple intersecting oppressions.” Opposing them were parents like Maria Lopez-Dauenhauer, who wants unity. She lost her race.

But there is help on the way. Last week, a national political action committee called the 1776 Project announced it will be supporting school-board candidates battling critical race theory. That could even the playing field somewhat against unions.

In many places, the fight for school boards actually started with parents frustrated that teachers’ unions wouldn’t allow schools to reopen. In Eastchester, NY, Jonah Rizzo-Bleichman never thought he would run for political office. But seeing that “hybrid learning” was “a disaster” for his daughter, he concluded “someone had to step up to fight for reopening the schools.”

Now schools are open, but the stakes in the school-board wars are even higher. Of course, schools should teach about America’s past failures, along with its triumphs, and probe racial injustice where it still exists. But of paramount ­importance, young people should learn that their character and deeds matter more than their race.

Original article here.

Media

The lie of CRT
Paul Trewhela
|
Jul 14, 2021

‘Critical race theory’ is a liar about the history of Africa, and of black people. It suppresses all reference to the thirteen hundred years of Islamic enslavement of black Africans

Prof Modiri’s straw-man defence of CRT
Ivo Vegter
|
Jul 14, 2021

Professor Joel Modiri, a critical race theorist in academia, claims attacks on critical race theory are marked by aggression, bad faith, racist anxiety and ignorance. They aren’t, but his defence is.

CRT: the next challenge for schools to face
Sara
|
Jul 05, 2021

The Constitution should be the lodestar for transformation charters in schools. Teaching children to judge other children by the colour of their skin is is counter to the ethos of the Constitution.

Activist Teachers: the new priestly class?
Caiden Lang
|
Jul 02, 2021

A former pleads with teachers imbued with the spirit of Social Justice and Critical Pedagogy not to harm his child in the name of a new religious dogma.

Stop Gaslighting Parents on Critical Race Theory
Max Eden for RealClear Policy
|
Jul 01, 2021

Some proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor. This is false - it has spread through to schools.

Nearly a dozen states want to ban critical race theory in schools

Earlier this month, Idaho Governor Brad Little became the first Republican governor to sign into law a bill that restricts educators from teaching a concept called critical race theory.

And more could follow: Nearly a dozen states have introduced similar Republican-backed bills that would direct what students can and cannot be taught about the role of slavery in American history and the ongoing effects of racism in the U.S. today. But critics say the legislation isn't aimed at what children are learning in the classroom.

Idaho's law prohibits educators from teaching "individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin." 

proposal in Rhode Island would prevent schools from teaching that Rhode Island or the United States "is fundamentally racist or sexist."

However, proponents of critical race theory say it does not teach that any race is inherently racist or is superior, but how race is ingrained in our history.

Critical race theory is not typically "taught in elementary and secondary schools because it is based in legal theory," Jazmyne Owens, of public policy think tank New America, told CBS News. She said the wave of legislation "is really aimed at erasing and whitewashing American history."

Owens pointed to a Texas bill that just passed in the state's House that opponents say bans any discussion of privilege and white supremacy. "In the long term, bills of this nature, and those that intend to censor the way that race and systemic racism is discussed in the classroom are way more harmful to students," she said.

"Protecting education means being honest about the parts of our history that hurt, particularly chattel slavery, and being proactive in ensuring that we end current reproductions of racism and inequity in classrooms and beyond," Owens said. 

Many of the state bills have similar goals as two executive orders former President Donald Trump introduced in 2020, one that called for patriotic education and a one that sought to ban diversity training and training on critical race theory for federal workers. President Joe Biden has revoked both.

In introducing his executive order on the 1776 Commission, which was created to reinstate "patriotism" in American schools, Mr. Trump blasted critical race theory and the 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Magazine project that details the history of America through a collection of essays and resources that look at how slavery shaped the country since the first slaves arrived. It is available to schools as a teaching resource.

"Critical race theory, the 1619 Project and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison, that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together, will destroy our country," Mr. Trump said.

Journalists on the project consulted with numerous scholars of African-American history, conducted research, and fact-checked, with researchers carefully reviewing with subject-area experts, the Times has said.

Mr. Biden has proposed a grant program that would fund curriculum about bias, discriminatory policies in America and the value of diverse student perspectives and would invoke lessons from the 1619 Project, a proposal Republican Senator Mitch McConnell pushed back on.

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil," McConnell said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona asking him to stop the program.

Republican Representative Ken Buck, who called the project "un-American," and Senator Tom Cotton each introduced bills last year that sought to prevent teachers from using the 1619 Project. Neither advanced. 

The National Council for the Social Studies denounced legislation to prevent educators from teaching critical race theory and "resoundingly reject any effort by the federal government to silence social studies curriculum that explicitly addresses the centrality of slavery in the historical narrative of the United States."

"In the National Council for Social Studies, we support social studies education and any legislation that is attempting to curtail our students' equitable access to the real truth, to all of history is problematic to us," Wesley Hedgepeth, a member of the council's board of directors, told CBS News.

The council has also defended the 1619 Project, saying teachers who use it "accurately depict the history of slavery in the United States, broaden the horizons of their students, and prepare citizens for a just democratic society."

Owens said while critical race theory "has been around, and debated for many years," Mr. Trump "seems to have made it a part of a political agenda, and now the subject of potential legislation."

Still, state lawmakers have joined the effort to block the 1619 Project specifically and critical race theory from curricula. 

"Policy happens at the state level and bills at the state level have a much larger chance of passing and remaining in place based on the makeup and power of their legislatures," Owens said. "The federal government can try and set the tone, but it's going to be up to voters and advocates at the state and local levels to ensure those bills do not pass." 

In Missouri, Republican State Representative Brian Seitz introduced an amendment that would specifically ban educators from teaching about the 1619 Project to a bill that would prevent critical race theory lessons.

He called the project "revisionist history, seeking to determine our national origins to be based on a negative act (slavery), therefore, everything that follows, including The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, Capitalism, our healthcare system, road systems, even the foods that we eat are fatally flawed and inherently 'racist.'"

In an email to CBS News, Republican state Representative Patricia Morgan, who sponsored the Rhode Island bill, said that critical race theory "seeks to find racism in every part of American society. It is poisonous. It should have no place in our schools." 

Morgan said Martin Luther King Jr. "looked to the day when all of us would be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin" in his 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech."

"America embraced that goal and we have made great progress," Morgan said. "Alarmingly, critical race theory does the opposite."

Critics pushed back against quoting Martin Luther King Jr. to argue against critical race theory.

"Utilizing civil rights-era figures to talk about equality" is "really insidious," said Ameila Moore, an associate professor at University of Rhode Island who submitted written testimony opposing Morgan's bill. 

"I think there is an intentional misunderstanding," she said. "And perhaps the people like Patricia Morgan are not aware that they are being manipulated by other powers who are trying to reframe what we're capable of discussing as Americans." 

A New History Curriculum or Anti-American Propaganda?

President Joe Biden wants educators to teach students that racism is endemic in America. He and his “woke” allies think students should learn that our nation was born of the desire to enslave other humans, not as a struggle for freedom. They also believe that the government should racially discriminate, today and in the future.

The president wants these things so badly he’s asked his secretary of education to prioritize grant funding for K-12 history and civics curricula that preach this revisionist history.

That would be a huge mistake. The vile, ahistorical teachings of critical race theory (CRT) should be consigned to the ashbin of history, not taught as sacred ideology in our nation’s schools.

Like other forms of Marxism, CRT teaches young minds to see the world as divided into two categories: oppressors and their victims. The only difference with traditional Marxism is that the CRT categories consist of immutable traits such as race, sex or national origin, not economic classes like the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

CRT eschews economic classifications because they are too fluid. People can change their stations in life—and under capitalism, they often do. Critical Theorists readily concede this point as being one of the downsides of trying to start a revolution with classes that are not immutable.

Critical race theory wants to solve this problem by adding race to Marxism. CRT teaches young minds to focus on nothing but skin color and power, and how one influences the other in public and private life. It promotes racial stereotypes and assumes that humans act according to their category, not as individuals.

This pernicious ideology is already making its way into classrooms across the country—even without the proposed stimulus of federal grants. One example is the Learning for Justice curriculum, a K-12 civics program created by an organization of the same name that operates under the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Learning for Justice curriculum teaches that “White supremacy culture…appears in any organization that is not actively and effectively working to dismantle it.” Educators, it insists, must acknowledge how racism “is embedded into the fiber of our nation and our schools.”

The proposed rule from Biden’s Education Department goes much further. For example, it recommends material created by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum’s website hosted a chart claiming that “hard work,” “objective, rational, linear thinking,” and following “rigid time schedules” are racist values, mere appurtenances of white culture rather than human practices that lead to success.

The museum, a Smithsonian institution funded through your tax dollars, didn’t remove this racist chart until officials received blowback for such propaganda.

The proposed rule also praises Ibram X. Kendi, one of the nation’s best known CRT trainers, who has written, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” This, one therefore assumes, is what the Biden administration wants American children to be taught.

The rule also approvingly cites the New York Times’s 1619 Project, a mendacious series of essays on race that historians spanning the ideological spectrum have denounced. The project derives its name from its misleading contention that America’s birthdate is not signified by the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but by the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619 on the shores of what would later become the United States. The project rejects the document that outlines America’s creed that "all men are created equal.”

The project couldn’t even meet basic standards of accuracy. Spanish conquistadors first brought slaves to what are today South Carolina, Florida, and New Mexico starting nearly a half-century before 1619. Another of the 1619 Project’s errors—one from which The New York Times later backed away—was its claim that the colonists fought the Revolution because they feared that Britain would end the practice of slavery. This is flatly false.

Let’s hope the president and his education secretary weren’t fully steeped in the tenets of CRT when they issued their proposal to subsidize this anti-American propaganda. If that’s the case, you can help straighten them out. If you agree that these pernicious ideas should not be taught to our children, you can submit your comments about the administration’s proposed rule (as we have) here

Original article here.

[Video] Concerned parent speaks out against critical race theory on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'

Concerned mother opposes the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the school of her child.

Joe Biden Wants to Take Critical Race Theory to the Next Level

If the Biden administration gets its way, the federal government will soon be alternatively bribing and threatening every school district in the country to push divisive and damaging curricula on race in the classroom.

It would come courtesy of a proposed rule from the Department of Education, available for public comment until May 19. In announcing the rule, the Department cited the historically debunked 1619 Project from the New York Times, as well as the “scholarship” of Ibram X. Kendi, whose many radical arguments include a suggestion that every law in the country should be subject to the approval of an unelected board of “antiracist” academics.

But the rule’s consequences would be more than academic. It would infuse critical race theory into the whole of the federal government’s primary governing law concerning K-12 schools, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. And if Congress standardizes state civics metrics, the rule will help shape the content of it (and do it with a billion-dollar-a-year cash infusion), unwittingly moved forward in a bipartisan way by Republicans.

Initially, the rule would apply only to a couple of small grant programs. But it wouldn’t stop there. Its introduction would follow a pattern similar to that of other unpopular national curriculum efforts, such as Common Core, which gained entrée to classrooms all over America through a carrot-and-stick approach.

Critical race theory is already engendering strong pushback from parents and state legislatures, incensed by an ever-growing list of outrages.

In New York City, parents lamented that white students as young as ten years old are learning that they are perpetuating the problem of racism and that their families are racist. In North Carolina, a teachers’ conference focused on “whiteness” and “disrupting texts.” In Oregon, teachers were encouraged to take “ethnomathematics” in order to “dismantl[e] racism in mathematics.” In California, teachers were taught to hide radical left-wing indoctrination from students’ families.

Now Washington proposes to do another end-run around parents through Department of Education bureaucracy, one that will add jet fuel to the already-burgeoning industry of radicals, grifters, and consultants all intent on hocking an ideology that drives a wedge between students of different backgrounds and divorce students of color from any feelings of patriotism for their country.

States are already responding to teachers’ union-led school closures against scientific advice by proposing school choice programs. No fewer than thirty state legislatures are considering new and expanded options that would empower parents to take their education dollars to whatever learning option best suits their children.

It’s imperative that parents be freed financially from dependence on public schools that will be tempted to take the grants offered under this proposed rule. However, school choice will be effective if parents are involved—and vigilant, because as recent events have demonstrated, private schools are not immune to this pernicious ideology.

In a recent open letter, Paul Rossi, a school teacher at a private school in New York City, walked through how his school has implemented “antiracist” teachings and how those teachings are impacting children. As Rossi explains, CRT and its calls to “undo history . . . lacks any kind of limiting principle and pairs any allegation of bigotry with a priori guilt.”

Or take the case of Brearley parent Andrew Gutmann. Brearley is a tiny $54,000-per-year private school that now requires parents to sign an “antiracism pledge” prior to admission. Gutmann recently pulled his daughter from the school and penned a scathing letter on the pernicious nature of CRT. “I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs,” he said in his letter.

The fight is everywhere. Critical race theory is turning Americans against one another by weaponizing what used to be the fantasies of tenured professors in dimly lit offices of the Ivory Tower, now transmitting it through colleges of education to teachers who carry it into the K-12 classroom. The Biden administration now plans to supercharge that effort through federal rules and regulations, access to billions in taxpayer funding, and the imprimatur of the federal government.

Children deserve better than to have the emotional distress of CRT inflicted upon them. Parents must make their voices heard at the more than fourteen thousand school boards across the country. Taxpayers must shout “no” to their hard-earned money being used to further this pernicious ideology. And people must have the courage to speak out against this great threat to the greatest country in the world.

Original article here.

Texas bans ‘woke philosophies’ from being taught in classrooms

Republican lawmakers in Texas are reportedly moving forward with an effort to prohibit teaching of “woke philosophies” such as critical race theory in favor of “traditional history” being taught in schools.

Two pieces of legislation, Senate bill 2022 and House bill 3979, making their way through the legislature would ban teachers from teaching anti-racist material, and from receiving private funding or material for teaching the controversial 1619 Project.

The Senate bill, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, says that “no teacher shall be compelled by a policy of any state agency, school district, campus, open-enrollment charter school, or school administration to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs.” 

In addition, schools would be barred from requiring “political activism” as part of a course or including as extra credit, and from teaching that people should feel “discomfort” or “guilt” because of their race or sex, according to the bill text. Students also would be prohibited from being taught that “meritocracy” or “hard work” are racist or sexist, the bill says. 

Creighton told the Texas Tribune the bills are meant to encourage schools to teach “traditional history, focusing on the ideas that make our country great and the story of how our country has risen to meet those ideals.” 

“Texans reject critical race theory and other so-called ‘woke’ philosophies that maintain that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex or that any individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement, according to the Texas Tribune. “These divisive concepts have been inserted into curriculums around the state, but they have no place in Texas schools.”

But a Texas State Teachers Association representative told the Tribune the bills would make schools paper over American “injustices” in their curricula. 

“These bills try to ignore or downplay the racism, sexism and other injustices in our state’s and nation’s history, but students must be encouraged to fully explore and understand those injustices if Texas is to provide an equitable future for a rapidly diversifying population,” said spokesperson Clay Robinson, according to the report. 

Original article here.

Critical Race Theory Drives Students Apart. Idaho Lawmakers Had Enough

Officials at an Idaho middle school tried pressuring teachers to judge students by the color of their skin. But state lawmakers rejected this application of critical race theory, a deeply divisive philosophy driving many federal, state, and local policies today.

Idaho lawmakers made the case that school officials should not force students to believe “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin is inherently superior or inferior.” This is a biased belief that would violate any reasonable interpretation of federal civil rights laws if students acted on it.

Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, approved the proposal this week. With the new provisions, “no public institution,” including colleges and K-12 schools, “shall direct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere” to the idea that “individuals should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, religion, color, or national origin.”

Lawmakers were right to be concerned that some educators were distorting the idea of equality under the law. The Idaho Freedom Foundation, a research institute based in the state, obtained a flyer posted by Meridian Middle School officials that says it is not enough for teachers to “treat ALL students the same” (emphasis in the original). Instead, school officials say educators must recognize students’ multiple identities based on race, sex, religion, and other immutable traits.

Colorblindness, according to the school officials, is a “myth,” a rejection of this once-cherished idea from the civil rights movement. The flyer, available on the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s website, says colorblindness “perpetuates the idea that ‘white’ is the norm and everything else is not.”

It goes on to say that teachers are biased, whether they know it or not. That’s why you should “be aware of the areas you may experience privilege based on your gender, race, and sexual or gender identity” and “acknowledge your role as a social activist,” even if you did not realize you had chosen to be one.

The flyer is a striking example of the woke mob’s attempt to control how people think and act. It tries to manipulate guilt (“you may experience privilege”) and rejects the idea that we are all created equal, and that legal and cultural institutions should treat us accordingly (“reject the myth of colorblindness”).

The critical race theory dogma on display in this Idaho middle school is a philosophy that originated in Germany in the 1920s among a group of Marxist intellectuals. Originally termed “critical theory,” it teaches that we must consider society as being inhabited only by oppressors and the oppressed.

This worldview influenced professors in American law schools in the mid-20th century, inspiring a generation of lawyers, legislators, and legal scholars to apply the idea to an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and legal system, arguing that American law is systemically oppressive. President Joe Biden even used this term in his speech before Congress earlier this week.

Still other intellectuals and academics in the U.S. expanded critical theory into what is now known as critical race theory, which believes that racial discrimination causes the constant state of oppression in society.

These ideas should offend the generations of Americans who have been taught that, as historian and former adviser to President John F. Kennedy Arthur Schlesinger said, “There are few better arguments for the Bill of Rights than the revolution in race relations over the last half century.”

What bizarre times we live in when lawmakers feel it necessary to remind teachers that students should not be taught to discriminate against other people based on immutable characteristics.

State lawmakers in TexasLouisianaNew Hampshire, and Oklahoma, to name a few, are considering proposals similar to what Little approved in Idaho, and for good reason. For example, in Louisiana, the Orleans Parish school board adopted a resolution that says “our country’s racist history” is “still pervasive in today’s systems” and calls this nation “an unjust systemic racist America.”

How are students to believe that the American dream could ever be within their reach if school officials are telling them that this nation that they call home holds no such promise for them?

As lawmakers consider such proposals, policymakers should be careful to protect free speech rights. Teachers, especially college professors, commonly assign students critical reading material such as the “Communist Manifesto,” but lawmakers should be prepared to prohibit teachers from telling students to apply critical ideas.

Educators should not treat colleagues or students differently according to skin color or any other immutable characteristic, nor should teachers tell students to do the same.

“Wokeness is a problem and we all know it,” progressive campaign strategist James Carville told Vox this week in an interview. Shortly after Vox posted Carville’s comments, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., responded to Biden’s address by saying, “Race is not a political weapon to settle every issue the way one side wants.”

It’s refreshing that we can still find such perspectives on both the right and left. Educators should be listening.

Original article here.

States Are Moving to Ban Toxic 'Critical Race Theory' in Schools—But Their Efforts Could Backfire

No matter how good our intentions are, government involvement in education is bound to create political struggles and choose winners and losers.

Amom in a Boston-area online parenting group posted earlier this week that her child’s public school chemistry class was replaced one day by some older students who gave an 80-minute presentation to the class on “white power” and “white aggression.” The parent was surprised that this occurred during her child’s science period and concerned about the racialized language and content of the presentation.

This is critical race theory, or the practice of viewing all social and cultural issues through the lens of race and racial identity and casting all human relations in terms of power structures related to that identity. It is pervading both private and public school classrooms across the country, and is embraced by the Biden administration, whose recent proposed federal rule would use taxpayer funds to award millions of dollars in American history and civics education grants that prioritize critical race theory.

I have argued that critical race theory, as it is currently implemented in schools across the country, is a harmful and divisive ideology influenced by Marxism that moves us further away from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a nation that focuses on individual character, not color. It is important to speak out against this ideology that places group identity above individualism and creates a binary conflict between “oppressor” and “oppressed” in relation to race.

There is an understandable urge to use public policy to prevent this toxic ideology from seeping into US classrooms, but it is also important to recognize the limitations of government regulation in addressing critical race theory.

One of the great virtues of our country is our framework of federalism that seeks to minimize the powers of the federal government to those narrowly defined by the Constitution, while giving states wide freedom to enact policy on a variety of issues. When the federal government meddles in education, it impacts all of us. We might cheer when our preferred politician or party is in power and initiates programs we embrace, but when the pendulum inevitably swings, the cheering inevitably stops.

This is why it is just as important to oppose the Biden administration’s support for teaching critical race theory in America’s schools as it was to oppose the Trump administration’s support for teaching “patriotic education” through the proposed “1776 Commission.” The key is to limit the power of the federal government and devolve that power to the states.

One state recently took on the issue of critical race theory.

The full Idaho legislature just passed a bill preventing critical race theory from being taught in the state’s public schools and universities. The bill uses neutral language that recommits to nondiscrimination and calls for public education to “respect the dignity of others, acknowledge the right of others to express differing opinions, and foster and defend intellectual honesty, freedom of inquiry and instruction, and freedom of speech and association.” This week, I joined the Idaho Freedom Foundation to talk more about this new bill, which the governor signed into law on Wednesday.

 

The bill may seem benign and affirming, but in its implementation it could prevent honest and important discussions about the history of American slavery and government-sponsored racism through Jim Crow laws and redlining.

It could effectively mandate that educators ignore or gloss over real examples of past and present American racism, or avoid books and resources that bring these examples to light. Indeed, one Idaho lawmaker, Rep. Heather Scott, stated in support of the Idaho bill that teaching Harper Lee’s classic book, To Kill A Mockingbird, in schools is an example of how critical race theory has been “creeping through our schools forever.”

To Kill A Mockingbird is a fictional story of actual racism in the Jim Crow-era South where a black man is falsely accused of raping a white woman. Statewide attempts to crush critical race theory in schools could go too far in responding to overly racialized classrooms by dismissing racism altogether.

State lawmakers can and should consider these issues when debating education policy, and be held accountable by their constituents. On Thursday, the Oklahoma House of Representatives also approved a ban on critical race theory in the state’s schools, and similar legislation is being discussed in several other states.

In Idaho, some people peacefully protested the newly enacted bill, and there are likely many parents who disagree with it. If Idaho parents don’t like the state’s policy response to critical race theory in schools, they should have the opportunity to leave their assigned district school. Similarly, if my state of Massachusetts passed a bill mandating critical race theory in public schools, then parents here who disagree with that curriculum approach should also have the freedom of exit. School choice policies such as education savings accounts (ESAs), vouchers, and tax-credit scholarship programs can help more families to do this.

The trouble with government involvement in education, even at the state and local levels, is that it creates political struggles and chooses winners and losers. This is why I ultimately favor a fully privatized education system, and why I advocate for the elimination of compulsory schooling laws.

But in the absence of that ideal, statewide school choice policies allow more parents to withdraw from a mandatory school assignment for whatever reason, including their possible disagreement over curriculum and classroom ideology. These policies allow per-pupil taxpayer funding to follow the child rather than the school in the same way that food stamps follow the grocery shopper rather than the store.

Government policy, even when implemented more locally and even when we might agree with the policy, is rooted in coercion. We can minimize that coercion by reining in government and limiting the power of politicians over our lives, as well as by creating off-ramps to allow those citizens who disagree with a coercive policy to more easily opt-out.

Original Article here.

[Video] What Is Critical Race Theory?

Have you heard of Critical Race Theory? If you haven’t, you will. It’s coming to a high school, college, or workplace diversity training session near you. What do you need to know about it, and what can you do to stop it?

Keep Racist Critical Race Theory Ideology Out of K-12 Classrooms

How would you feel if your child came home from school and said her teacher had told her that everything that happens in the world is “racist” and that she’s part of the problem because of the color of her skin?

That may sound far-fetched, but such disturbing ideas are coming to your children’s schools, if they are not there already.

In Michigan, an Educator Advisory Council to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer produced a report called “Social Justice and Anti-Racist Resources” that included an article in which the author says everything that happens today is racist and the only question teachers and students can ask is “How much racism was in play?”

In Buffalo, New York, the school district’s “Emancipation Curriculum” told children that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism.” That statement was eliminated only after investigative journalist Chris Rufo put it in a headline and embarrassed the school system.

The message that “anyone who does not believe in systemic racism is part of the problem” is sadly permeating all the literature on race in America today.

At the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, a Smithsonian institution funded by taxpayers, officials released a document last year intended for use in schools that claimed ideas such as “hard work is the key to success” and that trying to “be polite” are evidence of an oppressive society.

Here again, museum officials withdrew the document only after complaints.

Examples such as these are common in K-12 schools today. When educators treat students differently because of their skin color or say children are guilty of oppression because of their race, it violates existing law. It should go without saying, but such dogma is also dispiriting for all children, white or non-white.

These ideas of oppression and systemic racism come from a Marxist doctrine called “critical theory.” Over the past 40 years, college professors and activists expanded critical theory into what is now called “critical race theory,” a worldview that “questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

The curriculums and trainings cited above clearly belong to the Critical Race Theory discipline.

Last year, then-President Donald Trump blocked federal agencies and contractors from training federal employees to think that America is irredeemably racist, but President Joe Biden rescinded the ban on his very first day in office.

Now, state officials have the responsibility to make sure public school employees and those in other public institutions do not violate the Civil Rights Act or the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by calling for people to be treated differently according to race, sex, or national origin.

State lawmakers in New Hampshire, Louisiana, Florida, and elsewhere are considering proposals that reinforce federal law—and reject the “woke” culture of victimhood.

Because progressives have pounced on these moves as proof that conservatives are practicing cancel culture and intolerance, we released a report that explains why any reasonable interpretation of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 means that implementing critical race theory in the manner described in the examples cited violates existing laws. The Civil Rights Act specifically prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, or national origin.

Teachers have a responsibility to help students understand different perspectives on controversial issues, and we should not ban the teaching of critical race theory. But increasingly, parents, policymakers, and the media are uncovering instructional materials that apply critical race theory, proclaiming that America is systemically racist and that people should be treated differently based on the color of their skin or their national origin.

Those ideas will not create a national identity that the future lawyers, doctors, and lawmakers—not to mention parents, neighbors, and co-workers—can share. State officials, local school board members, and educators have the power—and the right—to prevent this new material from telling students that there is no America, only tribes competing for power.

Anyone living in a nation alongside people from different ethnic backgrounds should take seriously the issues of race and equality under the law, but Americans also need to recognize the difference between separate racist acts and a legal system stacked against individuals from certain ethnicities.

Racist acts are deplorable and should be condemned. Yet, declaring Americans to be systemically racist today is a sign of disrespect to those brave souls who marched in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, fought to defend our way of life overseas, or are protecting our streets and communities now.

State lawmakers and local education officials must make sure new K-12 lessons do not discriminate by race, sex, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic, because such discrimination violates federal law.

And after all who have sacrificed to help America live up to her promise, we should hope that teaching students to treat people differently based on skin color would be “far-fetched” again someday.

Original article here.

© South African Institute of Race Relations | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions