Critical race theory (10 Viewers)

Optimus Prime said:

And it wasn’t an angry parent complaining

It was a teacher

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Must have been the teacher who posts on SR.

article on how teachers are erring on the side of caution, and are confused about new laws
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A Utah student group was called “Black and Proud.” The principal had it renamed. A New Hampshire history teacher used to discuss current events in a unit about race and economics. No more. And Florida school officials canceled a lecture for teachers on the history of the civil rights movement while they considered whether it would violate state rules.

In 13 states, new laws or directives govern how race can be taught in schools, in some cases creating reporting systems for complaints. The result, teachers and principals say, is a climate of fear around how to comply with rules they often do not understand.

The new measures typically bar teachers from suggesting the United States is a racist country, from elevating one race or gender over another or implying that one race is superior. So far, they have not triggered wholesale rewrites of the curriculum, and few educators have faced prosecution or punishment. Some teachers say they see no changes at all.

But many teachers nonetheless describe a chilling effect. They say they now err on the side of caution for fear that a student or parent might complain, resulting in a public battle — or even, in extreme cases, that they might lose their jobs. In New Hampshire and Oklahoma, which allow anyone unhappy with a teacher to complain to the state, there is an extra layer of fear. Teachers found to be out of compliance can lose their teaching licenses.

“The law is really, really vague,” said Jen Given, a 10th grade history teacher at Hollis Brookline High School in Hollis, N.H. The New Hampshire law bars teaching that people of one age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, creed, color, marital status, familial status, mental or physical disability, religion, or national origin are inherently superior or inferior to people of another. But Given said she’s not clear on the definition of “inherently,” “superior” or “inferior.”

“We asked for clarification from the state, from the union, from school lawyers. The universal response is no one’s really sure,” she said. “It led us to be exceptionally cautious because we don’t want to risk our livelihoods when we’re not sure what the rules are.”’

Supporters say the laws are needed to pare back offensive lessons about race in America, including the notion that White people today — even children — bear responsibility for sins of the past, and those that emphasize American racism over more unifying and uplifting elements of U.S. history.

Some officials have made it clear they are on the lookout for transgressions. In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner, said it was important to “police” teachers to make sure they are not indoctrinating students with a liberal agenda.

“I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers,” he said. “There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.”

Opponents say teachers need the freedom to teach all of American history — the good and the bad — and that conversations about the unequal effects of slavery, systemic racism and White privilege are an important tool for helping students to analyze current events and controversies...........

I don’t get how they pervert the teaching of actual historical facts into racism. This doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you teach history, you should be able to discuss how racism done on a national scale influenced our country and how the vestiges of said racism still exist. At least by middle-high school for sure, if not in the lower grades. How, other than outright gaslighting, do they turn learning about racism into being racist? It defies logic.

It’s right up there with the absurdity of “telling both sides of the Holocaust”. How do any rational people make sense out of that?

CRT debate at Christian Colleges too
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Located on 180 bucolic acres in western Pennsylvania's Amish country, Grove City College is considered by some to be one of the most doctrinally pure Christian campuses in the country.

Subsidized by the Pew family - devout Presbyterians who a century ago made their fortune in the oil business and later founded Pew Charitable Trusts - the college, set amid Neo-Gothic buildings, spacious green lawns and century-old trees, is home to a small minority student population. It has become a flashpoint for efforts to open up conversations about race and diversity across the nation's roughly 1,000 religiously affiliated colleges and universities.

Critics have accused it of promoting critical race theory, an academic concept that sees racism as ingrained in the fabric of American society and its legal systems. The furor arose after a series of events that included inviting Black author Jemar Tisby, who wrote the 2019 book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism, to speak in the campus chapel soon after the college formed an advisory council on diversity.

Reaction was swift. One month later, a protest petition signed by 489 parents, alumni, donors and students claimed that "a destructive and profoundly unbiblical worldview seems to be asserting itself at GCC, threatening the academic and spiritual foundations that make the school distinctly Christian. That worldview is Critical Race Theory (CRT)."

The petition continued, "As biblically grounded Christians, we are not defensive about racism. Where it exists, we should repent of it. We are concerned, though, when our students are falsely convicted and unbiblically indicted simply because of their skin color.".

Numerous parents chimed in, including one woman from Fairfax, Va., who wrote, "We sent our children to GCC for a Christian education and to escape the indoctrination, intimidation and rejection of biblical truths at other places. We did not sacrifice for CRT." Most offensive, she added, was the suggestion that "ALL white people are racists, and especially all white males."

The debate - which is widespread among evangelicals - has become so dire in the minds of some that last July, the website gospelshapedfamily.com posted a list of "Christian Colleges Without Critical Race Theory." The Christian website classicaldifference.com posted a list of questions for parents to pose to the admissions departments of any Christian college their child is considering. They include:

1) Does your college have a "Diversity and Inclusion" officer, or a person with a similar purpose?

2) Does your college have courses in Critical Race Theory, "white privilege," or "diversity and inclusion"? Is there any such course in your required coursework? (Look at their degree requirements to confirm.)

3) Does your college restrict and punish speech against BLM (Black Lives Matter), CRT, or other culturally Marxist ideologies by students? For example, would a student's debate or rejection of BLM or "white privilege" on social media be a concern for the college?

4) Does your college have professors who promote CRT on campus?

5) Has your college taken a stand against LGBTQ activism on campus?

Grove City College President Paul J.McNulty, who has spent the past few months trying to respond to objections at his institution, says no one is betraying the school's mission or its Reformed (Presbyterian) traditions.............

MT15 said:

I don’t get how they pervert the teaching of actual historical facts into racism. This doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you teach history, you should be able to discuss how racism done on a national scale influenced our country and how the vestiges of said racism still exist. At least by middle-high school for sure, if not in the lower grades. How, other than outright gaslighting, do they turn learning about racism into being racist? It defies logic.

It’s right up there with the absurdity of “telling both sides of the Holocaust”. How do any rational people make sense out of that?

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There's no way to make sense out of nonsense, they don't either, they just don't mind.

Very good article and an example of how to teach slavery "the right way" as some here insisted

Hopefully this project not only continues but expands but we'll see if it survives the anti-CRT movement
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When she found the advertisement for Maria, an eighth grader named E.D. was struck by the details in it. The ad was posted in a local newspaper, in 1846, by an enslaver in Tennessee. When Maria escaped, she was only 18 or 19 years old. She did not act alone. Maria ran with “a free man” named Henry Fields. For faster transport, Maria and Henry also liberated a gray mare. Maria’s enslaver suspected Henry had his free papers with him. But he was certain that Henry carried something else: a fiddle.

E.D.’s teachers had asked their students to respond creatively to an ad they found in Freedom on the Move, a digital collection housed at Cornell University of thousands of ads by enslavers and jailers seeking the return of self-liberating people, printed in American newspapers before emancipation. E.D. decided to make Henry’s fiddle. She made it life-size, out of cardboard and papier mâché. She covered it with a collage that tells the story of Henry and Maria’s flight.

The enslaver placing the ad suspected “they will make for Kentucky and from there to a free state.” So E.D. used the image of a running horse, a “Welcome to Kentucky” sign, and a heart symbol—this last because E.D. wondered “if Maria and Henry were in love.” E.D. pasted a copy of the ad on the fiddle seven times, for the number of times the ad ran in the newspaper. It was her personal monument to Henry and Maria and their acts of resistance. “My fiddle represents Henry and Maria’s story, their fight for freedom,” E.D. explained, “but it also represents all of the thousands of other stories just like theirs, waiting to be told.” She carried the fiddle to school in a violin case.

E.D. and her teachers, Kristin Marconi and Christine Snivley, who teach middle school students in Ohio, were part of a virtual learning community created for Freedom on the Move by the Hard History Project. The goal of these workshops was to tap the genius of teachers to build a bridge between the digital archive and K–12 classrooms. As a crowdsourced archive, FOTM was built with the public in mind. Still, it takes the expertise of teachers to reach, arguably, FOTM’s most important readership: young people.

We are in a cultural moment in which teaching about racism and the world it has made is both essential and controversial. Critics rallying under the banner of “anti-CRT” describe this teaching as divisive and disturbing. But we can’t teach the history of the United States without teaching about slavery. And of course, they’re right about the emotions involved—there’s nothing comfortable about slavery.

But they’re missing something: There’s a lot of good, and even joy, to be had in talking about the relentless and omnipresent resistance to slavery that we see again and again in newspapers before the Civil War, in ads seeking the return of self-liberating people.

When it is complete, FOTM will contain upward of 100,000 ads. Even though the stories they convey were written by enslavers and jailers, thousands of self-liberating people forced those stories into the historical record. Because they sought freedom, we can glimpse their personal histories, skills, languages, family ties, community networks, sometimes even their fashion sense.

The Hard History Project and FOTM have been working with teachers from around the country to create lesson plans and assignments that ask students to explore the vast archive of freedom seekers for themselves.

When asked about the difficulties of teaching slavery in the current political climate, Ahmariah Jackson, who teaches English in majority-Black classrooms in Atlanta, is clear about why FOTM’s focus on Black resistance matters, both at the level of the individual and as a mass movement. “We’re speaking about the humanity of those who were enslaved, and that takes priority more than anything,” Jackson says.

“I can’t tell someone what to think about their great-great-great-great-grandfather. I’m not here for that. But I’m also not here to tell a student that their great-great-grandfather was evil. I am more concerned with shedding light on the institution, the practices of the institution, and the implications of that. How are we going to shape this world, move forward, if we’re not learning from that past?” Freedom on the Move, Jackson says, “allows for a full-circle discussion. It allows for an opportunity to heal.”

Using FOTM, educators can let students’ curiosity drive the conversation about the past. Jackson recalls one student who read an ad for a man named Peter and asked: “Well, why did he have this stutter?” Her question, for Jackson, was a revelation. “We’re no longer talking about something that was in a two-dimensional black-and-white ad. We’re referring to a person by their name, by their spirit, by their existence. If all men are created equal, then it means that what we’re talking about is what exists within ourselves, what is indelible.”

Jackson’s students decided to make a resistance newspaper called the Lion’s Side based on the African proverb “Until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” As Jackson told his students: “In this sense, those enslaved individuals are the lion and their stories are not and have not been told. Your charge, your challenge, is to creatively write their story.”

Instead of rewards for the recapture of freedom seekers, his students repurposed the details of the ads and offered rewards to those who helped them escape. They flipped the script. This is especially important for Black students, Jackson says, because it “allows for African Americans to see themselves not just as a product of slavery, not just as disenfranchised, not as downtrodden, not as powerless, but as resolved, as survivors, and that’s important to me.”............

I know we're not supposed to post meme's, but um...

coldseat said:

I know we're not supposed to post meme's, but um...

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The halftime show was far too black for many.

This is where we are now

While I hate that this even went out or was even an option I do appreciate the subtle “these lessons are about harmony, unity, and understanding. If you don’t wish your child to participate in these lessons please add your name to the ‘I’m a racist list’
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An elementary school in Indiana has sparked a backlash after sending out a letter allowing parents to opt their children out of learning about "equity, caring and understanding differences" during Black History Month.

Parents of children attending Sprunica Elementary School in Nineveh were informed about the lessons taking place between February 14 and 25 in a letter, according to a photo shared on Twitter on Tuesday.

"February is a time for caring and growing for our students. In honor of Black History Month and Valentine's Day, I will be coming around and teaching lessons related to equity, caring and understanding differences," the letter, signed by school counselor Benjamin White, said.

It added that studies show that students "who have a greater understanding of diversity in the classroom and outside world will demonstrate improved learning outcomes such as improved grades, better peer relationships, and greater career success later on. These lessons can provide a great impact on students and help facilitate a better learning environment for all."……

H B Lowrey said:

The halftime show was far too black for many.

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Was it though?
Why do you all think conservatives had no problem watching two professional football teams that are overwhelmingly black but got up in arms when 4 out of 5 hip hop singers were black during the half time show? Does that make sense to you? It doesn't, this is more of the left pushing race into spaces where race is not problem.

Farb said:

Was it though?
Why do you all think conservatives had no problem watching two professional football teams that are overwhelmingly black but got up in arms when 4 out of 5 hip hop singers were black during the half time show? Does that make sense to you? It doesn't, this is more of the left pushing race into spaces where race is not problem.

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Did you look at Twitter? Or FB? By chance?

MT15 said:

Did you look at Twitter? Or FB? By chance?

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I am on facebook, not twitter. I didn't notice anything, in fact, I mostly notice how everyone seemed to love it. Now, granted, that music was my generation, so I am sure generationally it might be different, but I didn't see anything about race other than the left telling everybody the right didn't like it.

Farb said:

I am on facebook, not twitter. I didn't notice anything, in fact, I mostly notice how everyone seemed to love it. Now, granted, that music was my generation, so I am sure generationally it might be different, but I didn't see anything about race other than the left telling everybody the right didn't like it.

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I am on Twitter, not FB, and I saw several posts about it. They were picked up and amplified by folks who wanted to make fun of them, admittedly. But there were a whole bunch to pick from.

I really enjoyed the show. The music is from my kids’ generation, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. I did chuckle at a post that said, if you know all the words, it’s time to schedule your colonoscopy.

When Candace Owens reminds her followers that she's black, it doesn't go well.

When Candace Owens, a Black right-wing commentator and a favorite of Kanye West in his peak MAGA era, praised the set as “an excellent Super Bowl halftime performance. Undeniable hip-hop and R&B excellence,” her own fans revolted in the comments.

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Her readership’s broad consensus: “The first time I haven’t agreed with you”; “This s— sucks. Just cuz you like the music doesnt mean it was good”; “You’ve got to be kidding. That halftime performance was painful”; and “Horrible. I knew I wasn’t the audience for that.”

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coldseat said:

When Candace Owens reminds her followers that she's black, it doesn't go well.

Right-wing pundit Candace Owens loved the Super Bowl halftime show. Her followers were not happy

Some conservative commentators were quick to criticize the mostly Black halftime show, while one Black pundit was pilloried for hailing it as "excellent."

www.latimes.com

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This reminds me of the Rep. that singled out this one song in RATM's catalogue as "political" and lamented RATM had done that, since he liked the rest of the catalogue, oblivious to the fact that just about every RATM song is political in nature.

In this case, Owens seems to not realize what the works of Dr. Dre, Snoop, Eminem speak of and against.

If one doesn’t see it then it doesn’t exist.

Farb said:

Was it though?
Why do you all think conservatives had no problem watching two professional football teams that are overwhelmingly black but got up in arms when 4 out of 5 hip hop singers were black during the half time show? Does that make sense to you? It doesn't, this is more of the left pushing race into spaces where race is not problem.

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No one said you did. And I reject your label. You may self-identify any way you like, but that has jack fork all tado with me. But you do seem to be overly sensitive about thinking someone expressed that to you personally. Would you like to discuss why you reacted this way?

SystemShock said:

This reminds me of the Rep. that singled out this one song in RATM's catalogue as "political" and lamented RATM had done that, since he liked the rest of the catalogue, oblivious to the fact that just about every RATM song is political in nature.

In this case, Owens seems to not realize what the works of Dr. Dre, Snoop, Eminem speak of and against.

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That's her gig. The "we're all colorblind now" black chik who makes white guilted folk feel better.