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Saturday, January 27, 2024

Links - January 27th 2024 (1 - Critical Race Theory)

Meme - "You just don't understand Critical Race theory"
"If you understood it you'd agree with me"
"obviously you are reading the wrong source material"
"you must be a racist"

Can You Teach Children to be Anti-Racist? - "In 1935, Richard Clarke Cabot, a professor of clinical medicine and social ethics at Harvard University, began one of the first randomized controlled experiments in the field of social science. In Cabot’s ambitious study, 650 underprivileged boys from Cambridge Massachusetts and the neighboring suburb of Somerville were selected into either a treatment or control group. The treatment group received counselling and a wide-ranging program delivered by these counsellors that included home visits, tutoring, and a variety of field trips and activities. The control group boys received none of these special services. Follow-up studies in the subsequent two decades found pretty much no effect from the program. A later analysis in the 1970s by Professor Joan McCord found that the boys involved in the program did worse on a number of key outcomes than boys in the control group. For instance, they were more likely to be alcoholic, dissatisfied at work and to commit more than one crime.  This seems baffling. Surely, the counsellors had the best of intentions. How could a program of this kind be harmful? McCord proposed four possibilities—a kind of culture clash between the middle-class world of the counsellors and the boys’ families; the creation of a dependency relationship between the boys and their counsellors; a labelling effect where the boys in the project internalized a negative self-image; and a failure to reach expectations that had been raised by participating in the project.  McCord’s analysis and ideas have been challenged by some, but the possibility her work raises—that well-intended interventions can have negative consequences—should be at the forefront of the minds of anyone introducing a new social intervention. And that brings us to Racism. No Way, an anti-racism teaching program developed by the government of the Australian state of New South Wales for use in its public schools... Interestingly, the Racism. No Way resources note that white privilege is a “controversial topic.”... White privilege is a controversial concept for a number of reasons. Firstly, it reframes discrimination faced by non-white people, such as being harassed while shopping, by flipping it and making the absence of this discrimination a privilege. Secondly, it seemingly ignores what could be argued as the far more significant effect of social class on individual outcomes. Thirdly, it risks labelling young white people and driving them towards more of a white identity. And an increased sense of white identity is not necessarily a good thing in a society such as Australia... Australian students with East Asian heritage, for instance, tend to do rather well in the Australian education system. Do they have a form of privilege too?  The standard response of activists on Twitter when faced with such questions is that: 1) the questions themselves are an expression of, and evidence for, white fragility, an “outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation”; and 2) the idea of an Asian Australian “model minority” is a trope wheeled-out by those who are opposed to tackling racism. Of course, neither response actually answers the question... Unfortunately, teachers do not tend to have the luxury of avoiding or shouting-down their students’ questions... .  The basic problem is a broad assumption on the part of the public in general, and activists in particular, that pretty much everything is teachable. Just as we can teach children multiplication facts, we assume we can teach them the attitudes to the world that we want them to have. In reality, it is far more complicated than that"

Mythinformed on X - "A University of Illinois professor is asked twice on whether or not to disclose that she is teaching Critical Race Theory. Both times she suggests don’t name it, just do it."
ACRL RBMS IOC/DC: Integrating Critical Race Theory and Teaching with Primary Sources - YouTube
Damn right wing misinformation!
She's actually explicitly asked how to smuggle it into the curriculum when you encounter resistance and wholeheartedly endorses that

Meme - Wilfred Reilly: "I'm not sure this is a win for Jeet. The question being asked here, DURING THE COLD WAR, is whether U.S. institutions had to hire Communists and anti-USA social radicals. The answer was basically "Yes," and 18% of social scientists today ID as Marxists."
Jeet Heer @HeeJeet: "The original war against Critical Race Theory & (((Red Professors))). DO COLLEGES HAVE TO HIRE RED PROFESSORS?
Parents can rid campuses of communists"

Dalton headmaster quits while Brearley dad writes scathing letter - "Dalton School’s Jim Best announced he was leaving Friday to pursue “other exciting and inspiring opportunities” after 16 years at the school. His departure came after months of controversy at the Upper East Side academic bastion over the school’s “anti-racism” focus.  At the same time, a father at the equally prestigious, $54,000-a-year Brearley School sent a scathing, nearly 1700-word letter to the institution’s roughly 600 families over Brearley’s “obsession with race.”  The letter by Andrew Gutmann, first published in Bari Weiss’ Substack, explained why he was pulling his daughter out of the Upper East Side school after seven years. She started there in kindergarten.  “It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way,” Gutmann wrote. “The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob.”...   Brearley head of school fired back Friday with her own missive to the school’s families, calling Gutmann’s letter “deeply offensive and harmful.”  “This afternoon, I and others who work closely with Upper School students met with more than one hundred of them, many of whom told us that they felt frightened and intimidated by the letter and the fact that it was sent directly to our homes,” Jane Fried wrote. “Our students noted that as this letter, which denies the presence of systemic racism, crossed their doorways, the evidence of ongoing racism – systemic or otherwise – is daily present in our headlines.”   Gutmann told the Post Saturday that he stood by his letter and expressed scorn for Fried’s contention that upper school students would be “frightened” by a letter. Gutmann listed a total of 10 “objections” in his screed. Specifically he railed against “mandatory anti-racism training for parents.” He also decried the school’s “vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as equity, diversity and inclusiveness.  “If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called ‘equity,’ it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets,” Gutmann wrote.  “If the administration was genuinely serious about ‘diversity,’ it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought.”  He criticized the school for gutting the traditional curriculum and censoring books while repeatedly telling parents that its first priority is the “safety” of the children. “For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital!”  Gutmann said he most resented how “Brearley has begun to teach what to think, instead of how to think.”... an anonymous group of parents sent a letter to other school families in January protesting Dalton’s race-based policies.  “Every class this year has had an obsessive focus on race and identity, ‘racist cop’ reenactments in science, ‘de-centering whiteness’ in art class, learning about white supremacy and sexuality in health class,” the missive stated. “Wildly inappropriate, many of these classes feel more akin to a Zoom corporate sensitivity-training than to Dalton’s intellectually engaging curriculum.”  Tensions first began running high in December when Dalton issued an “anti-racism” manifesto written by faculty members.  The document called for the hiring of 12 diversity officers and an overhaul of the entire curriculum to better reflect social justice imperatives."
All the conservatives claiming public education is the problem have it wrong
Of course, these people terrified by a letter keep going on about "white fragility"

Action Civics: Joe Biden Set to Push Critical Race Theory on U.S. Schools | National Review - "Biden’s Department of Education has just released the text of a proposed new rule establishing priorities for grants in American History and Civics Education programs. That rule gives priority to grant “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives.” The rule goes on to cite and praise the New York Times’ “landmark” 1619 Project, as well as the work of Critical Race Theorist Kendi, as leading examples of the sort of ideas the Biden administration wants to spread.  The programs immediately targeted by Biden’s new priority criteria for American history and civics grants are small. Once in place, however, those criteria will undoubtedly influence the much larger and vastly more dangerous “Civics Secures Democracy Act.” That bill would appropriate $1 billion a year, for six years, for history and civic education...   One of the problems with the new, ultra-woke Illinois teaching standards mentioned earlier is that they impose Chicago’s radicalism on conservative districts downstate."

Peel teacher says school board made him attend ‘toxic’ Critical Race Theory session - "A Peel District School Board (PDSB) teacher says he and other educators were forced to attend a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) session containing Critical Race Theory (CRT), attacks on white people and claims that merit and objectivity are linked to “whiteness.”... He said the panel took place in September 2020 as part of mandatory professional development...   The panel featured four black PDSB employees, including vice-principal Melissa Wilson. In her introduction, Wilson said her academic practice “is informed by Critical Race Theory, anti-colonial education and black feminist methodologies.”... Wilson is heard making several controversial remarks about race.  “We were all born into a racist society,” claimed Wilson...   The teacher also told True North he believes only a minority of educators support CRT – but that the minority is vocal and intimidating. “The vocal minority speaks and everybody else just sits silently hoping to get through it, hoping to not say something that’s gonna get them in trouble.”   He believes it’s time to stop imposing CRT and DEI ideology and instead focus on students. “We need to refocus on lifting all students up and making sure that what we are doing is in the best interests of all kids in our care.”  In the past, Ontario teachers have faced investigations for opposing CRT.  In March 2022, Ottawa high school teacher Chanel Pfahl was placed under investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers after she made remarks and postings opposing CRT in schools on Facebook."

Gov employees want those who resist anti-racism training “taken out” - "A recent survey of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) employees found a desire among some public sector workers to see their fellow colleagues who resisted or even “subtly protested” mandatory anti-racism training fired or not hired to the department in the first place...   One of the primary takeaways was that the government take steps to make “anti-racism values” a “prerequisite for hiring and promotions.”   “Many add that this must be backed by a willingness to remove employees who do not meet these criteria,” wrote the report’s authors.   One survey participant complained that they were “not convinced” the government was taking anti-racism seriously because there were people who reacted negatively to training which made them “hardline racists” according to the anonymous IRCC employee.   “There are some people who are true hardline racists. It’s the way they react, subtly protesting things,” said the anonymous IRCC worker. Another IRCC employee said that “some people need to be taken out” for not complying with the federal government’s anti-racism mandate.   “Some people do need to be fired, not just, ‘Oh, let’s go train.’ If you are a problem, you are a legal liability, and some people need to be taken out,” said another IRCC employee.   “There are people who are extremely cynical. I see it in the trainings. We need to weed those people out. If you don’t support this, don’t work at our department,” a different interviewee claimed. In 2021, the IRCC adopted its “Anti-Racism Strategy 2.0” to tackle the issue of so-called systemic racism within Canada’s immigration system. Some of the initiatives include race-based hiring initiatives, mandatory anti-racism training, data collection on ethnicity and other programs.   As reported by True North last year, the program included an admission that the purpose was to “permanently embed” far-left woke ideology into Canada’s immigration system.   Participants of the latest survey, however, wanted to see the IRCC go even further in its efforts to root our alleged racism within the department. One interviewee called on the department to create “some kind of test” to root our supposed racists from the application process."
Clearly, civil service bias is a paranoid right wing conspiracy theory disinformation myth

Schools call math racist and the flag offensive, time for a clean up | Toronto Sun - "The Canadian flag is now offensive to some of the powers that be in Ontario’s education system. Last week, a school principal sent home a letter warning parents that their child was about to be offered a free Canadian flag and if they didn’t want to receive one, they should send the attached form back... We have seen school boards across the province import American anti-racism training and other curriculum aids that are fully steeped in the radical critical race theory. These materials, filled with American spellings, history lessons and examples don’t deal with the very different experiences of Black and Indigenous communities in Canada.  They are adopted by activists here, not because they will help but because the materials match the politics of the activist/consultant introducing them to the system... The now former head of Ontario’s public service called the entire provincial civil service a “White supremacist” organization in an official report last year."
We're still told that liberals don't hate their countries

The Black Lives Matter Curriculum Has an Unintended Lesson - The Atlantic - "In a recent article on the Black Lives Matter at School curriculum in Evanston, I quoted Evanston parents who favor diversity, racial equality, and inclusiveness but object to lessons that they believe cross a line into indoctrination. All the parents I interviewed would be quoted only anonymously, out of fear that they would be harassed online or even lose their jobs... when we got here in 2018, within the first year, my children were being taught about white supremacy and white privilege and that all white people were rich and racist. My son and daughter came home like, What is this?... My children have always been so proud of who they are. Then all of a sudden they started to question themselves because of what they were taught after arriving here. My son has wanted to be a lawyer since he was 11. Then one day he came home and told me, “But Mommy, there are these systems put in place that prevent Black people from accomplishing anything.” That’s what they’re teaching Black kids: that all of this time for the past 400 years, this is what [white people have] done to you and your people. The narrative is, “You can’t get ahead.” Of course I want my children to know about slavery and Jim Crow. But I want it to be balanced out with the rest of the truth. They’re not taught about Black people who accomplished things in spite of white supremacy; or about the Black people today who got ahead, built things, achieved things; and those who had opportunities that their ancestors fought for... One day my daughter told me she was taught that all white people are privileged and part of a system of white supremacy. My son said the same thing... I’ve spent a lot of time in Central Africa because my dad is from the Congo. And some of the propaganda that’s being spread right now here in Evanston is similar to some of the divisiveness that took place in Rwanda before the massacre... The education system tends to erase or mute Black people from different backgrounds and experiences. They make this assumption that all Black people are a monolith—they all speak the same way, think the same way, and conduct themselves in the same way.  Showing up on time has nothing to do with being white. It’s something that you’re taught or not taught. My father taught me at a very early age to keep my word. If you say that you’re going to be somewhere at some time, be there. What system of white supremacy was he influenced by?... certain elements of our community are threatening to get people fired. Even if someone just poses a question, or expresses a conflicting view, you’re immediately labeled a part of the problem, a white supremacist, and people will say, “Find out where they work.”  If you’re a Black person who says what I say, you get attacked too. Now, I’m independent. I work for myself. So who is going to fire me? But what are we telling our children, who will one day lead our society, when we show them that if you pose a question, and if someone doesn’t agree with you, maybe they’re going to go after your job?"

Meme - James Lindsay, wears cool shoes: "Anytime you hear Marxists talking about "true history" or "honest history," what they mean is revising history and adding a layer of Marxist interpretation to cherry-picked historical facts to advance the cause of Marxism. That's what "true" means in Marxist language."
"Truth
Truth is usually taken to mean correspondence of an idea to the world outside thought. However, following Hegel, Marxists take truth to be something that may be said of a social formation or social practice itself. The truth of a social practice is always relative, since, as Goethe said: "All that exists deserves to perish" - sooner or later, everything turns out to be false. See Engels' discussion of this in Ludwig Feuerbach, and the End of Classical German Philosophy.
Some philosophical currents believe that the truth of an idea can be established by logical deduction from "clear ideas." In general, each current has its characteristic criterion of truth: for Rationalism it is Reason; for Empiricism it is Observation and Experiment; Pragmatism makes practice the criterion of truth, but like Empiricism, pragmatism knows only immediate, individual action and misses the cultural and historical content of social practice. If the claim that "practice is the criterion of truth" is to have any content more profound than "the truth of the pudding is in the eating," then it depends on the notion of truth (as objectively inhering in the object itself) and practice (as social-historical practice within the totality"
This is another explanation of the relationship between post-modernism and post-Marxism

Meme - ".@PburgSchools is reportedly teaching white students that they're privileged because they're white and that power structures which white people dictate, marginalize people of color. .@PburgSchools is teaching kids that they're guilty simply for being white"
"Why is this in the school? This is the 10th grade English class, WHY? ENGLISH CLASS
"Intersectionality: You can never fully separate parts of people's identity because each category attributes to who they are"
"Race Lens: How do people of different races experience the world differently?
Analytical lens that examines existing power structures, which are based on white privilege and perpetuates the marginalization of people of color"

Think intersectionality and critical race theory aren’t a threat to Jews? Think again - "a new lawsuit about ethnic studies in Los Angeles illustrates not only how radicals are trying to use the public education system to impose their toxic theories on schoolchildren but the deceptive manner they are using to do it. It also shows that the Jewish stakes in the battle over CRT are much higher than many people understand.  The background to this case—in which the public-interest law firm, the Deborah Project, has sued the “Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum et al” on behalf of the Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles—involves a fight that most of the organized Jewish community thought they had already won... Those who were behind the drive to install ethnic-studies courses in schools were dedicated to using public education to have CRT and intersectional ideology go mainstream. That meant that it was more than likely that the approved curriculum would be manipulated by extremists to do exactly what Newsom and the California legislature had thought they had stopped.  As Deborah Project legal director Lori Lowenthal Marcus laid out in an article in the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal, what’s been going on is that a group promoting something they call the “Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, have with the help of the teachers union in Los Angeles been working covertly to have courses taught in the schools conform to a worldview in which leftist ideas about the need to resist “empire, white supremacy, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism and anthropocentrism” became the focus of education in California.  As JNS reports, this effort centers on having ethnic studies only touch on black, Latino, Native Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The latter group includes people from the Middle East but pointedly excludes Jews. It sets aside the long history of oppression, religious hatred and ethnic cleansing carried out against Jews because, according to the CRT worldview, Jews are white and therefore privileged oppressors.   What happened was that a number of radicals behind this curriculum have, with the help of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, sought to bypass rules about transparency and public accountability, and impose their own CRT-inspired agenda on ethnic-studies courses. As Marcus discovered during the course of her investigation, the Liberated curriculum group advised teachers to “fly under the radar” and hide their goals, methods and details about their course material only to those administrators, teachers and parents who were ready to back their transformation of the schools into bases for leftist activism.   This would be deeply troubling under any circumstances since, like so many other efforts to use the schools to mainstream these toxic theories, such as curricula based on The New York Times’ fallacious “1619 Project,” their ultimate purpose is to instill hatred for America and to place race at the center of every discussion. This is antithetical to the notion—put forward by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—that promoting equality and judging people by “the content of their character rather than the color of their skin” is the goal Americans should strive toward. Many liberal Jews have felt free to support the Black Lives Matter movement after the death of George Floyd in 2020. They regarded the way CRT and intersectionality labeled Israel and Jews as possessors of “white privilege” and belonging to the oppressor class as a peripheral issue, even if it did grant a permission slip for anti-Semitism.  The Deborah Project’s lawsuit demonstrated that hatred for Israel and contempt for Jews—even for liberal groups like the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish federations and community relations councils—are integral to the campaign for Liberated Ethnic Studies. Its advocates regard demonizing Israel as a priority and think of Jews who are even minimally supportive of the Jewish state’s right to exist as supporters of “white supremacy” whose influence must be eradicated.   That these ideas are inherently illiberal is obvious but becomes even more explicit when supporters of Liberated studies in teachers’ unions and elsewhere in the educational establishment say they are opposed to “multiculturalism.” They aren’t interested in actual diversity, which means celebrating the broad mosaic of American ethnic groups from all backgrounds. What they want is a curriculum that is solely focused on an anti-democratic narrative in which certain groups deemed to be victims must be advanced while everyone else is deemed a privileged oppressor who must be penalized... That radical groups supported by the LA teacher’s union are doing this is a disgrace. But it is also, as the Deborah Project’s lawsuit shows, a violation of federal and state laws that prohibit such blatant discrimination."

Free Black Thought on X - "Ethnic Studies "tells kids of color they are stuck in a caste system based on race. It tells kids that 'institutions chronically favor white people & disadvantage people of color.' This curriculum will not help kids of color succeed. All it does is remove any reason to try." 🔥"

Meme - Frank McCormick I Chalkboard Heresy: "It's amazing that despite leaking documents from my school district showing that our "Equity Department" was training staff in Critical Race Theory, non-teachers like David accuse me of lying. Maybe I was just one of the few teachers telling the truth?"
"AttachmentCourageous-conversation-protecal-overview.pdf
Greetings: I hope all is well. As a follow-up to our meeting today, please note:
1. Please review critical race theory (see link below). Please send me any questions or concerns.
Link: What Is Critical Race Theory? Definition, Principles, and Applications
What Is Critical Race Theory? Definition, Principles, and Applications
Critical race theory emerged in the 1980s among legal scholars seeking to challenge the idea that the United Sta..."
Dave von Ebers @DavefromTR1: "Frankie's totally unhinged. He went from lying outright about "critical race theory" in public schools to obsessively tweeting about gay and trans kids. No wonder he couldn't hack it as a teacher. What a sad little man."
Liberals tell us that Critical Race Theory is not being taught in schools, so they must be right and anyone who disagrees must be lying

Paul Rossi on X - "Most white people have no interest in "being white" in any active sense and would be happy to continue deracializing, but CRT activists, by insisting that whiteness is unconsciously enacted in every situation, are creating a double bind whereby active white racial consciousness is growing in society.   If positive white identity grows, they win, because they can say, "See, white supremacy is a problem". If negative white identity grows, they win, because they win converts. Win-win for them, lose-lose for everyone else. Under CRT and wokeness more generally, white people are not allowed *not* to be white. To do so is framed as denialism or fragility. Activists have been leveraging the double bind in order to destroy the positive progress in our society since the 90s--and they are winning."

Meme - Helot @Helot_: "Racial achievement gaps strongly correlate to progressive local politics. The more progressive the city, the larger the gaps tend to be. CRT, and other progressive educational theories are failures in the real word, and it's Black kids that suffer most."
The Secret Shame: How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity for All
This is a self-perpetuating cycle where they can argue that racism is to blame and they need even more CRT

Time to end the teaching of divisive critical race theory in British schools - "What a relief it was to finally hear a Government minister speaking out against the dangerous spread of woke ideologies in schools. So-called critical race theory – the idea that white people are inherently privileged and black people are inherently oppressed – has been advancing through the education system for far too long. The equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, was spot on when she called out this toxic theory in the Commons this week and reminded schools that it’s illegal to be teaching political ideas as uncontested facts.  The problem should not be underestimated. Even a quick glance at the most popular teaching resource websites, from which teachers download lesson plans, shows resource after resource baked in critical race theory. Open a plan almost at random and you’ll find uncontested definitions of microaggressions, institutional racism, and white privilege. In my experience, the result is not schools teaching that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of their background, a view held by the vast majority of the population. It is young white children being told that they suffer from “unconscious bias”, and young black kids that they’re being held back and will forever be victims of systemic racism. I’ve seen first hand the upset this can cause to pupils of all skin colours; it’s simply not right and does nothing for the fight against racism.   As part of the Don’t Divide Us organisation, I’ve also received hundreds of letters from parents and teachers who are upset about what their children are being taught at school, and unsure of how to combat it. We created CRT-free lesson resources for schools that wish to teach Black History Month but would like to do so in an inclusive and diverse way. We also produced letter templates to assist parents in contacting head teachers for further clarification about what’s being taught...  teachers who break the law should face the consequences. My old headmaster always said, “what you permit, you promote”. If ministers allow schools to continue disobeying the law, they are in effect promoting the harmful, divisive, toxic ideologies they’ve just condemned.  Instead of teaching young people what to think, we should be showing them how to think critically. We should be challenging ideas and presenting multiple perspectives. But schools should also be bringing people together by celebrating the values that make this one of the least racist countries in the world. We need more unity and less division. It would be great if we could truly mean it when we call ourselves the United Kingdom."
From 2020

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