I saw this clip from Bill Maher featuring Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance, hoping it would somehow help define just what Critical Race Theory is. I'm convinced more than even that there really is no single, decisive definition of CRT, and that it is generally open to several interpretations. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it all but useless. Watch and see if you agree:
I saw this clip from Bill Maher featuring Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance, hoping it would somehow help define just what Critical Race Theory is. I'm convinced more than even that there really is no single, decisive definition of CRT, and that it is generally open to several interpretations. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it all but useless. Watch and see if you agree:
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I saw this clip from Bill Maher featuring Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance, hoping it would somehow help define just what Critical Race Theory is. I'm convinced more than even that there really is no single, decisive definition of CRT, and that it is generally open to several interpretations. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it all but useless. Watch and see if you agree:
CRT should not be taught to anyone who isn't an adult and can logically form an opinion on such a complex subject. And as far as I know, it isn't. That is a right wing fear mongering talking point. it should be taught at the college level which it is.
Ben Shapiro is a fucking loon. Bill Maher needs to stop hosting these assholes, but I guess, being an asshole himself, he's gonna do what he's gonna do.
on CRT itself, it is absolutely a valid theory and adults should be exposed to it and realize their white privilege. And stop being afraid of acknowledging that; that doesn't mean you are all of a sudden going to be legally compelled to give up your home to a minority. CRT is a gateway to improving our society as a whole. So of course there's going to be resistance to it from the bigoted right.
I saw this clip from Bill Maher featuring Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance, hoping it would somehow help define just what Critical Race Theory is. I'm convinced more than even that there really is no single, decisive definition of CRT, and that it is generally open to several interpretations. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it all but useless. Watch and see if you agree:
CRT should not be taught to anyone who isn't an adult and can logically form an opinion on such a complex subject. And as far as I know, it isn't. That is a right wing fear mongering talking point. it should be taught at the college level which it is.
Ben Shapiro is a fucking loon. Bill Maher needs to stop hosting these assholes, but I guess, being an asshole himself, he's gonna do what he's gonna do.
on CRT itself, it is absolutely a valid theory and adults should be exposed to it and realize their white privilege. And stop being afraid of acknowledging that; that doesn't mean you are all of a sudden going to be legally compelled to give up your home to a minority. CRT is a gateway to improving our society as a whole. So of course there's going to be resistance to it from the bigoted right.
Ben Shapiro is a fucking loon...with a nice fluffy pillow filled with cash because he is so awesome.
I saw this clip from Bill Maher featuring Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance, hoping it would somehow help define just what Critical Race Theory is. I'm convinced more than even that there really is no single, decisive definition of CRT, and that it is generally open to several interpretations. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it all but useless. Watch and see if you agree:
OK, I'll agree "useless" is not the best descriptor. And yes, I have read that definition and others.
But here's the thing, is something important that regards issues related to systemic racism that hasn't been well defined within the culture going to be effective on a practical level? I'm often interested in the established scholarly definition of something important because that's how my interests trend. But a scholarly definition of something, and actions applied in a practical manner that are useful on a social level- those are rarely the same thing. The average person is not going to be as interested in an intellectual understanding of something such as CRT as some of us are. If we can't put something like CRT into a more understandable format in terms besides a highly scholarly definition, then at best you end up with a group of people intellectualizing on a thread like this, or studying in a classroom- all well and good- but not likely to also be making concrete efforts to resolve social problems by practical means that are better defined on a social level.
When the black power movement of the late 60's and early 70's was in it's prime, shit was happening. People were getting organized. Attitudes were changing. Lives were improving. There was a good amount of scholarly discussion, of course, but there was a lot of direct action.
The problem is, society got lax again, thinking things were OK. You had a certain number of rising black actors and musicians and sports figures being highlighted in ways through the media that made things seems like the problems had been solved. White privilege still kept whites in the driver seat but it was so not obvious and it got overlooked.
But the reality of the situation for black and other minority groups being far less privilege began to fester in the public eye again and a new wave of black activism arose. But- and this is just my perspective, I'm no expert- movement toward improving the situation seems less focused today than it had been during the Black Power era. Maybe I'm wrong, and I hope so. I just don't see how a concept that on a social level is as vague as CRT- something that, outside intellectual circles, is not understood well at all- I don't see that hold a lot of high hopes for things moving forward.
Of course, I'm not opposed to CRT, I just don't see it as a practical route to solving the racial problems that persist.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
I don't find CRT to be vague; I think the general public are confused by what it actually is because of right wing misinformation fear mongering tactics to do exactly that-keep the public confused so it can't effectively organize.
but honestly, if people really want to know and understand what it is, all they need is an internet connection.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I don't find CRT to be vague; I think the general public are confused by what it actually is because of right wing misinformation fear mongering tactics to do exactly that-keep the public confused so it can't effectively organize.
but honestly, if people really want to know and understand what it is, all they need is an internet connection.
Yeah, I hear you, the right wing in general certainly doesn't want progressive movement regarding systemic- often, even, blatant- racism. But by focusing on a theory that is not easily understood by the average person, I think the movement stifles itself. You can't even get a lot of well educated people to agree on the topic, let alone the not-well educated (in the U.S., anyway) average person to grasp the concept.
I don't believe I'm alone in this thinking. But rather than argue that point (and why, anyway?), maybe I can suggest there be a focus on a more understandable explanation of CRT. For example, which of these two explanations would be most easily understood by the average person?
THIS:
Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the intersection of race and U.S. Law and to challenge mainstream American Liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the Unite States.
...the basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial
outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social
and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional
prejudices in individuals. CRT scholars also view race and white supremacy as an intersectional social construction. which serves to uphold the interests of white people at the expense of marginalized communities. In the field of legal studies, CRT emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways A key CRT concept is Intersectionality
which emphasizes that race can intersect with other identities (such as
gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and
disadvantage.
(And while were at it, lets make sure our grade school kids understand that Intersectionality is "the interconnected nature of social
categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given
individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and
interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.")
OR THIS:
These super smart scholars identified 5 basic tenets** of Critical Race Theory –the core components.
1. The centrality and intersectionality of racism. Racism
exists everywhere in American life –from within our own thoughts, to
our personal relationships, to our places of work, to our educational
and judicial systems. CRT says that racism isn’t just the actions of
individuals but that it’s embedded in our institutions, systems, and
culture. It is our way of life.
2. The challenge to dominant ideology. In
law and other arenas there is a belief that concepts like neutrality,
objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy can be fully actualized.
CRT says, “not so fast, how can one be truly neutral on issues of race
when racism is baked into the fabric of America?” (Ummm, it can’t).
CRT pointed out that claims of objectivity and colorblindeness can be
ways in which dominant groups camouflage their interests in order to
get what’s best for them—check out housing and education in this country
if you don’t believe me.
3. The commitment to social justice. CRT as
a framework acknowledges how all oppression interrelates and focuses on
eradicating racism and other forms of oppression by centering People of
Color and taking a stance on issues of social justice. People of Color
have been fighting before this country was formed for justice and this
has never stopped in some form or fashion.
4. The importance of experiential knowledge. This
is huge y’all, CRT says that the lived experiences of People of Color
however expressed (storytelling, family history, biographies, scenarios,
parables, cuentos, chronicles, narratives)** are crucial to
understanding racism and oppression, that they are necessary in our
quest for liberation. From the academic, to legal, to activist arenas
lived experience must be taken seriously.
5. The use of an interdisciplinary perspective. CRT
draws from many different fields in order to create a powerful and
nuanced framework for engaging with race and racism. There is no one
answer, no one discipline, no one path to freedom. CRT says let’s use
all the tools in the toolbox to help educate folks so we can get free.
Of course CRT is more theoretical then I have described but this is
it boiled down at its core. CRT is the education that most of us never
got—or we did not get until after we left school. It is an education
that values challenging the status quo and prioritizing lived
experiences.
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
CRT isnt bring taught in grade or hs.... truer elements of history may be but they are two distinctly different things.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
CRT isnt bring taught in grade or hs.... truer elements of history may be but they are two distinctly different things.
CRT is law school shit.....
Not true. Alternative schools are teaching this. I posted one of them above earlier. They start at Kindergarten. They post their teachings and that is where the negatives are stemming from.
It is amazing how the right is making CRT their new outrage point. I'm seeing my FB feed flood with idiots talking about how horrible it is and I see no one promoting it.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018) The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
I see your point, but how do you teach the how's without the why's. the why's are a very important element of it. I mean, we teach they why's of nazism and communism. But we don't currently teach the why's of systemic racism and oppression in the US and Canada.
I'm 47. My history class never taught us about how the native americans here were slaughtered by europeans. It wasn't long ago that Louis Riel was thought of as a traitor. Now we have a stat holiday in his name, he's heralded as the founder of Manitoba, and people wear Che Guevara-like t shirts with the slogan "Keepin' It Riel".
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
I see your point, but how do you teach the how's without the why's. the why's are a very important element of it. I mean, we teach they why's of nazism and communism. But we don't currently teach the why's of systemic racism and oppression in the US and Canada.
I'm 47. My history class never taught us about how the native americans here were slaughtered by europeans. It wasn't long ago that Louis Riel was thought of as a traitor. Now we have a stat holiday in his name, he's heralded as the founder of Manitoba, and people wear Che Guevara-like t shirts with the slogan "Keepin' It Riel".
I agree with what Bill Mahr said about it. Now how you go about that and hit all the talking points I am not sure. Someone would have an issue with it I'm sure from either side of the aisle or maybe both. It's not my area of expertise.
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
I see your point, but how do you teach the how's without the why's. the why's are a very important element of it. I mean, we teach they why's of nazism and communism. But we don't currently teach the why's of systemic racism and oppression in the US and Canada.
I'm 47. My history class never taught us about how the native americans here were slaughtered by europeans. It wasn't long ago that Louis Riel was thought of as a traitor. Now we have a stat holiday in his name, he's heralded as the founder of Manitoba, and people wear Che Guevara-like t shirts with the slogan "Keepin' It Riel".
Going back a little further, all the history I was taught in school came out of textbooks and mumbling teachers mouths. Those books were boring as hell (and probably inaccurate anyway) and between them and the droning on of my history teachers, I figured history was all just dates and places anyway, so paid little attention and literally learned nothing about history until my last year in high school. At that point, I had a very history conscious girl friend who was a person of color and very aware of how history impacted her people (Japanese). She caught me up on a lot of history! I learned more later in college and beyond, reading on my own.
I really hope kids are getting taught history better than I was. If we were at 1 or 2 on the a scale of one to ten, with ten being totally great teaching of true history, I wonder what are kids today getting?
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
I've read many a thing from different scholars, writers, observers, etc. My first question I asked when I started this thread was "are teachers teaching it wrong?"
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
I see your point, but how do you teach the how's without the why's. the why's are a very important element of it. I mean, we teach they why's of nazism and communism. But we don't currently teach the why's of systemic racism and oppression in the US and Canada.
I'm 47. My history class never taught us about how the native americans here were slaughtered by europeans. It wasn't long ago that Louis Riel was thought of as a traitor. Now we have a stat holiday in his name, he's heralded as the founder of Manitoba, and people wear Che Guevara-like t shirts with the slogan "Keepin' It Riel".
Going back a little further, all the history I was taught in school came out of textbooks and mumbling teachers mouths. Those books were boring as hell (and probably inaccurate anyway) and between them and the droning on of my history teachers, I figured history was all just dates and places anyway, so paid little attention and literally learned nothing about history until my last year in high school. At that point, I had a very history conscious girl friend who was a person of color and very aware of how history impacted her people (Japanese). She caught me up on a lot of history! I learned more later in college and beyond, reading on my own.
I really hope kids are getting taught history better than I was. If we were at 1 or 2 on the a scale of one to ten, with ten being totally great teaching of true history, I wonder what are kids today getting?
I honestly kind of feel jipped by the school system of the 90's. there was so much that wasn't taught, and obviously that was by design. My kids are being taught way more about actual history than I was, which I'm thrilled about.
I honestly don't remember much of what I was taught in K-12 related to US history. I had a few good history teachers but most were gym teachers that also taught history to give them something to do. We would likely have been taught whatever the book said.
In college I took world history and that's it...all that was required.
I do remember talking about how the Indians got the shit end of the stick though.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018) The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Truthful history should be taught without making students feel guilty. It's only in learning from our past that we can correct our future. Racism is NOT a one way street.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has decided that next month’s off-year election is a referendum on something called critical race theory. CRT, he says, is a sinister force working to divide Americans by injecting race issues into education. “To judge one another based on the content of our character, not the color of our skin,” he told a rally in Ashburn, Virginia, in September, “means we’re going to ban critical race theory.”
It is fashionable these days for progressives like myself to sneer at the hue and cry against critical race theory in the schools. But let’s get real: some textbooks taught to Virginia children have contained virulent antiwhite propaganda.
Consider this passage from a Virginia public school textbook: “From the first recorded landing of Negroes at Jamestown in 1619 until the end of the colonial period, Virginia opposed a mixed population of the two races,” it says. “Above all, the colony was determined to preserve the racial purity of the whites. This determination is the foundation upon which Virginia’s handling of the racial issue rests, and has always rested.”
Can we at least agree that such divisive rhetoric should not be allowed in schools? It can have bad effects. I know because the passage above, along with a lot of other racist bilge, was taught to me in 1961 in a state-mandated elementary school course in Virginia history; the textbook from which that quote comes, A Hornbook of Virginia History, edited by J.R.V. Daniel, was published in 1949 by the Virginia State Library for use in schools.
Youngkin and I are (as we don’t say in the South) paisan—I grew up in Richmond, and he is from Norfolk. He is younger than I, but similar state-sponsored textbooks were used at different grade levels until 1972—the year Youngkin would have entered school—and longer in some places. The bad effects are still being felt—and indeed, some of the rage against CRT comes from people who as children absorbed, from textbooks or teachers, the commonwealth’s official creed of racism.
The original “crits”—the first to see everything in American history through the lens of race—were Southern whites themselves, who were proud to espouse the superiority of the white race and made sure that no schoolbook or teacher was permitted to question it.
One Youngkin supporter told the Washington Post that CRT is “just such a focus on race. My children weren’t raised that way. I wasn’t raised that way. We have friends of every religion, creed. They’re well traveled. They just don’t view the world through that lens. And I think it is so unfortunate and sad and so divisive for anybody to put that lens in front of them.”
That brings up two points: First, politicians (and even some newspeople) are using the term critical race theory the way Vizzini in The Princess Bride uses the word inconceivable. They seem to think it means something like “Trotskyites,” whose malice Stalinists blamed for every shortcoming of the Five-Year Plan. It does not even mean “every use of the concept of race in history classes that might make an older white person uncomfortable,” which appears to be what Youngkin means by it. In fact, its use in politics was originated by a right-wing “journalist” looking for a handy weapon to attack any attempts to combat racism in education and the workplace.
n thirty years as a legal academic, I got to know CRT and its proponents well. I have read many papers and attended many academic panels where their views are presented. I found some electrifying and others to be over-the-counter sleep aids. CRT is an academic movement, born in law schools, with all the virtues and limitations that name implies. It has a lot to offer, and it generates some very interesting disagreements among people who take the trouble to learn what it is. What it is not is a disease or a conspiracy hovering behind any teacher or book that suggests that racism is a problem in the twenty-first century.
The second point is that even if critical race theory were exerting some massive influence on K–12 education in America (it isn’t), and even if critical race theory had as its aim the instilling of shame in white students (it doesn’t), none of its efforts would compare in scope and determination with the systematic and successful seventy-five-year campaign by Virginia and other Southern states to control what was taught to students, and what students, black and white, were allowed to read and think about race and racism. When we consider Virginia parents complaining that they “weren’t raised that way,” this history needs to be considered.
In fact, a rigorous program of ideological conformity has been a part of Southern culture since the 1831 Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia. On the excuse of preventing more slave revolts, not only were antebellum schools and universities purged of antislavery teachers and books, the very mails were censored to ensure that no antislavery publications reached Dixie. The historian Clement Eaton christened this process of ideological purification “the intellectual blockade,” and it survived intact at least until Appomattox.
The blockade briefly fell after the Civil War, but as the historian Fred Arthur Bailey of Abilene Christian University wrote twenty years ago in “Textbooks of the ‘Lost Cause,’ ” the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, newly energized by the triumph of Jim Crow, began a successful campaign during the 1890s to require the teaching of “state histories” written by neo-Confederates. These textbooks explained that slavery was a benign system, that secession was legal and justified, that the Confederacy’s Lost Cause was noble, and that Confederate leaders were American patriots.
But eternal vigilance is the price of racial conformity. In 1948, a few weeks after President Harry Truman announced a modest federal civil rights program, Southern leaders began to worry anew whether schoolchildren were learning the proper attitudes toward race and the South. In Richmond legislators created the Virginia History and Textbook Commission. That commission was dominated by segregationist politicians—most prominently including state senator Garland Gray. (Gray, a Southside planter, a few years later would chair another state commission, this one studying Brown v. Board of Education. That “Gray Commission” would recommend a voucher plan under which no white student would be required to attend a school with black children.)
The Textbook Commission ordered (and extensively edited, rewrote, and censored) its own set of textbooks, whose use was required in schools. These textbooks, only slightly revised in 1964, weren’t “withdrawn” by the State Board of Education until 1972; even after that, as the William and Mary history professor Carol Sheriff explained in 2012, some school systems defiantly continued their use.
One of the three, Virginia’s History and Geography, explained that the Lost Cause was inspired by state’s rights and pure altruism: “Virginians love the United States and did not want to leave it. But Virginians wanted people in every state to have their rights.” After the war, it said, “Robert E. Lee, because of his greatness, his bravery, and his love for Virginia, would always be a hero.” Another, Virginia: History, Government, Geography, explained that slavery “made it possible for the Negroes to come to America and make contacts with civilized life.” They were lucky to live “far away from the spears and war clubs of enemy tribes” in Africa. Plantation life was “happy and prosperous.” True, there was a teeny, tiny bit of whipping, but “whipping was also the usual method of correcting children,” and anyway, “all slaves were given medical care.”
A third, Cavalier Commonwealth: History and Government of Virginia, explained that Virginia’s slave masters “regarded themselves as benefactors of a backward race,” and “indeed in some respects they obviously were.” Slaves were given “plentiful food…warm cabins, leisure, and free health care.”
Finally, the book I quoted at the outset, A Hornbook of Virginia History, told students: “The debt the Negro race owes to Virginia and the South has never been less recognized than it is today. Virginia took a backward race of savages, part cannibal, civilized it, developed many of its best qualities.”
Please remember: These textbooks were prepared by a state commission using tax dollars and taught in public schools in courses students were required by law to attend—black students as well as white. Parents worried about how textbooks will affect white students need to cope with the fact that three generations of black students were subjected to these books.
The issue is not whether Youngkin read these books as a student; it is that he and I both grew up white and privileged in a society profoundly shaped by this shameful state-imposed racial ideology. Many of my teachers—and undoubtedly many of those who taught Youngkin at his tony prep school, Norfolk Academy—believed implicitly in these myths, spoke of them often, and would not tolerate dissent from them.
In other words, we were “raised that way.” And the moral stature of the Youngkins of the world to invoke Martin Luther King as a way to shut down racial dialogue is, shall we say, slight.
In fact, the entire hue and cry against CRT is not about ending division; it is about preserving it. It is not about racial reconciliation; it is about inspiring racial panic, of the kind that swept the South in the 1830s, the 1890s, and the 1950s. That this phony scare is active in states outside the South is a sign of the success the conservative movement has achieved in exporting the religious, political, and racial values of the South to states in the heartland. It is no longer only in the old Confederacy that questioning of the racial order is seen as next to treason.
Glenn Youngkin is simply the latest in a line of mountebanks willing to stir race hatred and fear to gain power.
He knows how it is done; like me, he learned it in school.
Comments
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Ben Shapiro is a fucking loon. Bill Maher needs to stop hosting these assholes, but I guess, being an asshole himself, he's gonna do what he's gonna do.
on CRT itself, it is absolutely a valid theory and adults should be exposed to it and realize their white privilege. And stop being afraid of acknowledging that; that doesn't mean you are all of a sudden going to be legally compelled to give up your home to a minority. CRT is a gateway to improving our society as a whole. So of course there's going to be resistance to it from the bigoted right.
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but honestly, if people really want to know and understand what it is, all they need is an internet connection.
www.headstonesband.com
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
These super smart scholars identified 5 basic tenets** of Critical Race Theory –the core components.
1. The centrality and intersectionality of racism. Racism exists everywhere in American life –from within our own thoughts, to our personal relationships, to our places of work, to our educational and judicial systems. CRT says that racism isn’t just the actions of individuals but that it’s embedded in our institutions, systems, and culture. It is our way of life.
2. The challenge to dominant ideology. In law and other arenas there is a belief that concepts like neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy can be fully actualized. CRT says, “not so fast, how can one be truly neutral on issues of race when racism is baked into the fabric of America?” (Ummm, it can’t).
CRT pointed out that claims of objectivity and colorblindeness can be ways in which dominant groups camouflage their interests in order to get what’s best for them—check out housing and education in this country if you don’t believe me.
3. The commitment to social justice. CRT as a framework acknowledges how all oppression interrelates and focuses on eradicating racism and other forms of oppression by centering People of Color and taking a stance on issues of social justice. People of Color have been fighting before this country was formed for justice and this has never stopped in some form or fashion.
4. The importance of experiential knowledge. This is huge y’all, CRT says that the lived experiences of People of Color however expressed (storytelling, family history, biographies, scenarios, parables, cuentos, chronicles, narratives)** are crucial to understanding racism and oppression, that they are necessary in our quest for liberation. From the academic, to legal, to activist arenas lived experience must be taken seriously.
5. The use of an interdisciplinary perspective. CRT draws from many different fields in order to create a powerful and nuanced framework for engaging with race and racism. There is no one answer, no one discipline, no one path to freedom. CRT says let’s use all the tools in the toolbox to help educate folks so we can get free.
Of course CRT is more theoretical then I have described but this is it boiled down at its core. CRT is the education that most of us never got—or we did not get until after we left school. It is an education that values challenging the status quo and prioritizing lived experiences.
https://adawaygroup.com/critical-race-theory/
I believe therein lies the problem. Every teacher will have a different take on what it means and express it in their own way and some of it might come out wrong to someone and they will have a problem with it.
They mentioned the scalping of natives here to clear land. I do remember learning about that in HS along w the anti-Chinese act.
History should be taught, not skipped over. Can you teach kids history and let them draw their own conclusions as to why these things happened?
Some good back and forth here everyone.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I'm 47. My history class never taught us about how the native americans here were slaughtered by europeans. It wasn't long ago that Louis Riel was thought of as a traitor. Now we have a stat holiday in his name, he's heralded as the founder of Manitoba, and people wear Che Guevara-like t shirts with the slogan "Keepin' It Riel".
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In college I took world history and that's it...all that was required.
I do remember talking about how the Indians got the shit end of the stick though.
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
right , because its the past repeating itself....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Some context as to the "Why?"
What Garrett Epps Learned in School
The racist propaganda in history textbooks.
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has decided that next month’s off-year election is a referendum on something called critical race theory. CRT, he says, is a sinister force working to divide Americans by injecting race issues into education. “To judge one another based on the content of our character, not the color of our skin,” he told a rally in Ashburn, Virginia, in September, “means we’re going to ban critical race theory.”
It is fashionable these days for progressives like myself to sneer at the hue and cry against critical race theory in the schools. But let’s get real: some textbooks taught to Virginia children have contained virulent antiwhite propaganda.
Consider this passage from a Virginia public school textbook: “From the first recorded landing of Negroes at Jamestown in 1619 until the end of the colonial period, Virginia opposed a mixed population of the two races,” it says. “Above all, the colony was determined to preserve the racial purity of the whites. This determination is the foundation upon which Virginia’s handling of the racial issue rests, and has always rested.”
Can we at least agree that such divisive rhetoric should not be allowed in schools? It can have bad effects. I know because the passage above, along with a lot of other racist bilge, was taught to me in 1961 in a state-mandated elementary school course in Virginia history; the textbook from which that quote comes, A Hornbook of Virginia History, edited by J.R.V. Daniel, was published in 1949 by the Virginia State Library for use in schools.
Youngkin and I are (as we don’t say in the South) paisan—I grew up in Richmond, and he is from Norfolk. He is younger than I, but similar state-sponsored textbooks were used at different grade levels until 1972—the year Youngkin would have entered school—and longer in some places. The bad effects are still being felt—and indeed, some of the rage against CRT comes from people who as children absorbed, from textbooks or teachers, the commonwealth’s official creed of racism.
The original “crits”—the first to see everything in American history through the lens of race—were Southern whites themselves, who were proud to espouse the superiority of the white race and made sure that no schoolbook or teacher was permitted to question it.
One Youngkin supporter told the Washington Post that CRT is “just such a focus on race. My children weren’t raised that way. I wasn’t raised that way. We have friends of every religion, creed. They’re well traveled. They just don’t view the world through that lens. And I think it is so unfortunate and sad and so divisive for anybody to put that lens in front of them.”
That brings up two points: First, politicians (and even some newspeople) are using the term critical race theory the way Vizzini in The Princess Bride uses the word inconceivable. They seem to think it means something like “Trotskyites,” whose malice Stalinists blamed for every shortcoming of the Five-Year Plan. It does not even mean “every use of the concept of race in history classes that might make an older white person uncomfortable,” which appears to be what Youngkin means by it. In fact, its use in politics was originated by a right-wing “journalist” looking for a handy weapon to attack any attempts to combat racism in education and the workplace.
n thirty years as a legal academic, I got to know CRT and its proponents well. I have read many papers and attended many academic panels where their views are presented. I found some electrifying and others to be over-the-counter sleep aids. CRT is an academic movement, born in law schools, with all the virtues and limitations that name implies. It has a lot to offer, and it generates some very interesting disagreements among people who take the trouble to learn what it is. What it is not is a disease or a conspiracy hovering behind any teacher or book that suggests that racism is a problem in the twenty-first century.
The second point is that even if critical race theory were exerting some massive influence on K–12 education in America (it isn’t), and even if critical race theory had as its aim the instilling of shame in white students (it doesn’t), none of its efforts would compare in scope and determination with the systematic and successful seventy-five-year campaign by Virginia and other Southern states to control what was taught to students, and what students, black and white, were allowed to read and think about race and racism. When we consider Virginia parents complaining that they “weren’t raised that way,” this history needs to be considered.
In fact, a rigorous program of ideological conformity has been a part of Southern culture since the 1831 Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia. On the excuse of preventing more slave revolts, not only were antebellum schools and universities purged of antislavery teachers and books, the very mails were censored to ensure that no antislavery publications reached Dixie. The historian Clement Eaton christened this process of ideological purification “the intellectual blockade,” and it survived intact at least until Appomattox.
The blockade briefly fell after the Civil War, but as the historian Fred Arthur Bailey of Abilene Christian University wrote twenty years ago in “Textbooks of the ‘Lost Cause,’ ” the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, newly energized by the triumph of Jim Crow, began a successful campaign during the 1890s to require the teaching of “state histories” written by neo-Confederates. These textbooks explained that slavery was a benign system, that secession was legal and justified, that the Confederacy’s Lost Cause was noble, and that Confederate leaders were American patriots.
But eternal vigilance is the price of racial conformity. In 1948, a few weeks after President Harry Truman announced a modest federal civil rights program, Southern leaders began to worry anew whether schoolchildren were learning the proper attitudes toward race and the South. In Richmond legislators created the Virginia History and Textbook Commission. That commission was dominated by segregationist politicians—most prominently including state senator Garland Gray. (Gray, a Southside planter, a few years later would chair another state commission, this one studying Brown v. Board of Education. That “Gray Commission” would recommend a voucher plan under which no white student would be required to attend a school with black children.)
The Textbook Commission ordered (and extensively edited, rewrote, and censored) its own set of textbooks, whose use was required in schools. These textbooks, only slightly revised in 1964, weren’t “withdrawn” by the State Board of Education until 1972; even after that, as the William and Mary history professor Carol Sheriff explained in 2012, some school systems defiantly continued their use.
One of the three, Virginia’s History and Geography, explained that the Lost Cause was inspired by state’s rights and pure altruism: “Virginians love the United States and did not want to leave it. But Virginians wanted people in every state to have their rights.” After the war, it said, “Robert E. Lee, because of his greatness, his bravery, and his love for Virginia, would always be a hero.” Another, Virginia: History, Government, Geography, explained that slavery “made it possible for the Negroes to come to America and make contacts with civilized life.” They were lucky to live “far away from the spears and war clubs of enemy tribes” in Africa. Plantation life was “happy and prosperous.” True, there was a teeny, tiny bit of whipping, but “whipping was also the usual method of correcting children,” and anyway, “all slaves were given medical care.”
A third, Cavalier Commonwealth: History and Government of Virginia, explained that Virginia’s slave masters “regarded themselves as benefactors of a backward race,” and “indeed in some respects they obviously were.” Slaves were given “plentiful food…warm cabins, leisure, and free health care.”
Finally, the book I quoted at the outset, A Hornbook of Virginia History, told students: “The debt the Negro race owes to Virginia and the South has never been less recognized than it is today. Virginia took a backward race of savages, part cannibal, civilized it, developed many of its best qualities.”
Please remember: These textbooks were prepared by a state commission using tax dollars and taught in public schools in courses students were required by law to attend—black students as well as white. Parents worried about how textbooks will affect white students need to cope with the fact that three generations of black students were subjected to these books.
The issue is not whether Youngkin read these books as a student; it is that he and I both grew up white and privileged in a society profoundly shaped by this shameful state-imposed racial ideology. Many of my teachers—and undoubtedly many of those who taught Youngkin at his tony prep school, Norfolk Academy—believed implicitly in these myths, spoke of them often, and would not tolerate dissent from them.
In other words, we were “raised that way.” And the moral stature of the Youngkins of the world to invoke Martin Luther King as a way to shut down racial dialogue is, shall we say, slight.
In fact, the entire hue and cry against CRT is not about ending division; it is about preserving it. It is not about racial reconciliation; it is about inspiring racial panic, of the kind that swept the South in the 1830s, the 1890s, and the 1950s. That this phony scare is active in states outside the South is a sign of the success the conservative movement has achieved in exporting the religious, political, and racial values of the South to states in the heartland. It is no longer only in the old Confederacy that questioning of the racial order is seen as next to treason.
Glenn Youngkin is simply the latest in a line of mountebanks willing to stir race hatred and fear to gain power.
He knows how it is done; like me, he learned it in school.
What Garrett Epps Learned in School | Lapham’s Quarterly (laphamsquarterly.org)
Want to Know More About Critical Race Theory? Look at Virginia’s Schools—For More Than 75 Years | Washington Monthly
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