Critical race theory (11 Viewers)

[DaveXA]

Frankly, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to the Critical Race Theory curriculum. What is it, where does it come from, and is it legitimate? Has anyone here read it and maybe give a quick summary?

If this has been covered in another thread, then I missed it.

 

[SamAndreas]

So, how do we feel about the mock slave auction at J.S. Waters School in NC?

A mother says her son was sold in a mock slave auction. School district votes unanimously on action plan | CNN

A North Carolina school board voted unanimously Monday to approve an action plan after reported racial bullying in the district, including a student-organized mock auction of Black students.

edition.cnn.com

"We" feel that the sun shines a little bit brighter here in California. But we sure could use some more rain.

I read the article and the school district response seemed to have been timely and bound within reason.

 

[SystemShock]

This belongs in the racism thread, if I am reading that short article correctly. It doesn’t give a whole lot of context but it appears that black students were “sold” and that racial bullying was going on.

This would point out the need for diversity education, at least to me.

I found another article from a local ABC station - it apparently happened on the ball field during baseball practice. No mention of where any coaches were. There has already been retaliation by one of the white students against the team member who told his parents about it. Not a good situation at all.

While the article could/should go in the racism thread as well, the reason I posted it here is because of the argument that teaching CRT makes white kids feel guilty about the racism of their ancestors, even be traumatized by this knowledge, yet here we have a middle school in which white kids have fun playing slave traders - just like their ancestors - while teachers watch in amusement*; so it seems they don't feel bad at all that the brand of CRT they were taught.

* I tried to find an article in English that states teachers were present, but the ones I read are all about the reaction from the school board. Originally, I caught the article on my hometown's newspaper (Diario de Yucatan), and that one states that "personal docente" were present. "Personal docente" is mostly used to reference teachers; sports coaches are considered teachers as well.

 

[MT15]

This is from a newsletter I get from the NYT about parenting. It has some evidence about what I have suspected from listening to people talk about CRT and diversity being covered in schools. That it’s always some school far away, it’s never their own schools. And it’s been completely misrepresented and overblown by the right wing media and R party as a convenient talking point, divorced from reality. I have quoted all of it, it’s a newsletter and there is no link. Bolded text was done by me.

“Tucked into a New Yorker article by Jill Lepore about the spate of school board fights over just about everything was a statistic that caught my eye. Despite all the ink spilled lately about clashes over masking, critical race theory and which books to assign (or ban), American parents are happy overall with their children’s education. Lepore explains:

In “Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice Is Really About,” the education scholars Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek point out that about nine in 10 children in the United States attend public school, and the overwhelming majority of parents — about eight in 10 — are happy with their kids’ schools.

Though I am quite happy with my children’s public school, am surrounded by parents who are mostly happy with their kids’ public schools and, when I was a kid, attended a public school that my parents were basically happy with, I was still surprised the number was that high.

I would have thought that the latest numbers about parental satisfaction might be lower because of all the pandemic-related chaos. But according to Gallup, which has tracked school satisfaction annually since 1999, in 2021, “73 percent of parents of school-aged children say they are satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving.” More parents were satisfied in 2021 than they were in 2013 and 2002, when satisfaction dipped into the 60s, and in 2019, we were at a high point in satisfaction — 82 percent — before the Covid pandemic dealt schools a major blow.

Digging deeper into the Gallup numbers revealed that the people who seem to be driving the negative feelings toward American schools do not have children attending them: Overall, only 46 percent of Americans are satisfied with schools. Democrats, “women, older adults and lower-income Americans are more likely than their counterparts to say they are satisfied with K-12 education,” Gallup found. My hypothesis is that it’s a bit like the adage about Congress: People tend to like their own representatives (that’s why they keep sending them back year after year) but tend to have a dim view of Congress overall.

Polling done by the Charles Butt Foundation shows a similar dynamic playing out in Texas, a state where book bans have been well publicized and an anti-critical race theory bill was signed into law in December. The third annual poll, which was of 1,154 Texas adults, found:

The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on public education by the Charles Butt Foundation. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools. Forty-eight percent of nonparents now give their local public schools A’s and B's, versus 56 percent a year ago.

This isn’t to say that our education system, broadly speaking, is humming along perfectly. There are so many ways it can improve, particularly in serving students in schools with higher poverty rates and those with physical disabilities and learning differences. But it does mean that we should take stories with a grain of salt when they present the American education system as a fact-free zone, no longer focused on teaching the basics, that parents are or should be fleeing from in any significant or sustained way.

As the Gallup polling also showed, home-schooling is back to its prepandemic rate of 4 percent, and data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that by far the steepest drops in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year were among children in pre-K or kindergarten. These kids likely will not be away from public schools permanently; their start was merely delayed.
It should also make us a bit more reflective about election results that are framed as a result of displeasure with schools. TargetSmart, which bills itself as a Democratic political data and data services firm, analyzed records showing who voted in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election, which has been touted as a win for the Republican, Glenn Youngkin, that was based on unhappiness over the way the previously Democratic-led state handled the pandemic in schools.
TargetSmart found:

Turnout among voters age 75 or older increased by 59 percent, relative to 2017, while turnout among voters under age 30 only increased by just 18 percent. Notably, turnout of all other age groups combined (18-74), which would likely include parents of school-aged children, only increased by 9 percent compared to 2017 … This “silver surge” is an untold story that fundamentally undermines the conventional wisdom that Covid-19 protocols in schools and fears about critical race theory in curriculum determined the outcome of the election.

All of this at least raises the question of whether some of the people driving the outrage, even animus, against schools might not have much skin in the game and might not have any recent experience with teachers or curriculum. As we head into the midterms, at the very least we should resist easy conclusions about who is angry about what’s happening in our public schools and whether it has anything to do with the reality of what’s going on day to day for millions of children and their families.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Ignorance of history? This sounds exactly why more history needs to be taught in schools

Interesting read
============================================================

Ignorance of U.S. history might help explain why White Republicans tend to perceive less racism than White Democrats, according to new research published in the scientific journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Surveys have consistently found that White Republicans perceive less racism than White Democrats. For example, a Pew Research Center poll from 2020 found that 74% of Biden supporters thought it was a lot more difficult to be Black than White, while only 9% of Trump supporters said the same. But the reasons for these political differences in perceptions of racism are unclear.

“Prior research suggests that White people’s knowledge of historical racism and perception of present racism differs across regions and contexts,” said study author Ethan Zell, an associate professor of psychology at UNC Greensboro. “We thought these differences could be happening because White samples that are more conservative know less about historical racism and perceive less present racism than White samples that are more liberal. Thus, we designed a set of studies to directly test this hypothesis.”

The researchers used the crowdsourcing platforms Prolific and Amazon Mechanical Turk to survey 463 White American adults regarding their knowledge about Black history in the United States and their perceptions of racism. The participants completed a Black History Quiz in which they indicated whether they believed 16 statements were true or false and reported the certainty of their response.

The quiz contained false statements, such as: “African American Paul Ferguson was shot outside of his Alabama home for trying to integrate professional football.” It also contained true statements, such as: “The African American slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court ruled that he was property, not a citizen of the U.S. and therefore could not sue in federal court.”

The researchers found evidence that political differences in the perception of individual racism were mediated by historical knowledge. Republican participants tended to score worse on the Black History Quiz compared to Democratic participants, and those who scored worse on the quiz tended to perceive less racism....

But the researchers cannot say for certain that historical ignorance causes people to downplay or deny racism. “More studies in larger samples are needed,” Zell explained. “Further, our studies are not experiments (we did not manipulate historical knowledge), so it remains unclear whether historical knowledge has a causal effect on perception of present racism.”

“It remains unclear why White Republicans have worse knowledge about historical racism than White Democrats,” the researcher added. “One possibility is that media sources consumed by Democrats more often cover this topic.”...........

Ignorance of history may partly explain why Republicans perceive less racism than Democrats

 

[Optimus Prime]

I see Mississippi has its priorities in order
================================

On the southern steps of the Mississippi state capitol last week, a group of protesters gathered in front of a bronzed casket.

It was empty, but for piles of paper, strewn across the inside. They were printouts of dozens of bills that have died in the state legislature in recent months; a bill to expand healthcare coverage for new mothers; a bill to help provide healthy food options in rural and underserved communities, a bill to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people.

All had failed before being voted on in a legislature that is controlled by a Republican supermajority.

“These are bills that the people of Mississippi never got a chance to legislate,” said Nsombi Lambright, an organizer with the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, as she addressed the assembled crowd.

“And so when bills like these don’t make it through the process, people seldom have a voice, we seldom have a way to then come back and say: what happened?”

Just a week earlier, however, the state was in the national spotlight for a piece of legislation that it hadpassed as a priority: a law seeking to ban the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in Mississippi’s schools, colleges and universities……

As he signed the bill into law, Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, said the legislation would combat “indoctrination in our state”.

He argued, without citing evidence, that “children are dragged to the front of the classroom and are coerced to declare themselves as oppressors, taught that they should feel guilty because of the color of their skin, or that they are inherently a victim because of their race.”……..

Opponents of Mississippi’s anti- critical race theory law fear whitewashing of history

In Republicans’ fevered imaginations, schoolchildren are browbeaten into admitting they are racist

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Not just black history that schools need to do a better job teaching
========================================

“What’s the difference between a Jew and a Boy Scout?” a friend asked, with a broad grin on his face, as I sat down in my seventh-grade science class. “The Boy Scout comes back from camp!” He and everyone else at my table burst out laughing. Did my classmates even know what they were laughing about? Upset but unsure, I feigned a smile. I am ashamed to say I said nothing.

I grew up hearing about the Holocaust through the stories my grandfather, now 92, told about his perilous escape from fascist Italy as a teenager. He described the indifference he saw in the eyes of soldiers and civilians alike, the fear in his parents’ hushed voices as they planned to flee, how his heart pounded as he slid under a fence to reach Switzerland while holding his 3-year-old sister in his lap.

He escaped only hours before German soldiers showed up at his home in Milan to take his family to a concentration camp. It is a miracle that he survived and that I am here today. When I look into his eyes as he recalls his frantic getaway, I see him reliving the history my friend had so unabashedly joked about.

My generation is the last one that will be able to talk to Holocaust survivors and people who experienced life in Nazi Europe. As this crucial connection to the Holocaust fades, so will our collective memory of it. When there are no more living survivors, Holocaust denialism will become easier and more mainstream.

I’m a junior in high school, and my formal education on this topic has consisted of one slide with a brief depiction of concentration camps and a short worksheet. If this is all I’ve been taught, it’s no surprise that Holocaust knowledge nationwide is severely lacking.

Almost 1 in 3 American adults say they believe that fewer than 2 million people were killed, and about 1 in 10 people aren’t sure the Holocaust even occurred. In a national survey, 11% of millennials and Gen Z report believing that Jews themselves created the Holocaust. To be clear: Two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population was murdered.

Eighty years later, antisemitism is on the rise. As a Jewish American, I’ve had to walk past security guards and a metal detector to enter my synagogue for fear of shootings. Swastikas have been painted on schools, Jewish centers, even a State Department elevator. When I recall the chants of “Jews will not replace us” by white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Va., it chills me to my core.

Earlier this school year, one of my teachers made an offhand comment insinuating that because I was Jewish, I must have money. Last spring, someone dropped an antisemitic note on my family’s doorstep that called government officials “Jew-inspired communists.” Accepting stereotypes and making threats have the potential to turn into far worse...............

I’ve heard so little about the Holocaust during my years in school that if I didn’t have intimate personal connections to it, I could easily put it in the back of my mind. My 10th grade history class in Virginia spent weeks elaborating on the way of life of ancient Mesopotamians and less than a day on the Holocaust. It’s hard to fathom............

MSN

 

[MT15]

This whole solution in search of a problem will go away after the midterms. The republicans are using this, very cynically, to gin up fear and loathing before the elections. Just like the migrant convoys filled with leprosy and terrorists of days gone by.

Also, Moms for Liberty is getting their money from somewhere. Who is funding them? Who is funding the people who came to a town not far from me and started groups about CRT? There was no evidence of any of this stuff happening in the schools in that town-yet people moved in from out of state, started these “grass roots” movements, trained people how to disrupt school board meetings, and then moved on.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Sad but familiar story
=================
I don’t remember the first time I realized that I was different from my white classmates. I don’t even remember the first time I understood what race was. But I remember the first time I was made to hate myself for being Black.

I was 10 years old when I was called the N-word for the first time.

We had been dismissed from class for the day, so I went to grab my backpack from my assigned cubby in the corner of my elementary school classroom. Before I could throw it over my shoulders, my classmate had made the announcement.

“Look everyone, it’s Tigger the [N-word].”

I was the only Black girl in the room, so I immediately knew that he was talking about me. If that wasn’t obvious enough, he made sure to clarify by staring and pointing at me while he said it.

The shock from the blow didn’t allow me to fully process what happened. All I could think to do was to question whether I had heard him correctly. When he said it again, he made sure to remove any doubt.

One incident, one word: that’s all it took for me to realize that I was considered the “other”. My innocence and naive childlike hope was gone as I was thrusted into a position of subordination.

•••

My school district in Carmel, Indiana, is home to some of the best public schools in the US – it is where I received my education from the age of five until graduation. Other than the less than 4% of Black students in the district, the schools are made up of white hallways, white teachers and white students…….

Sometimes, I try to convince myself that if my white classmates and teachers were educated on the true history of this country, then maybe my experience wouldn’t have been what it was.

Maybe administrators would see how their choice to dish out a year-long suspension to a Black student for drugs while not punishing the white student (who was caught with more drugs) parallels the “war on drugs” in America.

Maybe they would see that adding extra security near the area dubbed “the Black Spot” mimics profiling and over-policing across the country.

My 16-year sentence in the school system ended in 2016, when I earned my diploma. After the world was forced to grapple with a reckoning on race and policing in 2020, Carmel now claims that they are ready to change, but I can tell nothing has changed.

As I scroll through social media, I look in disgust, but not shock, at the use of “[N-word] this” and “[N-word] that” in comments made.

But instead of tackling this very real racial abuse, teachers, administrators and parents are more afraid of the bogeyman in the corner: critical race theory.

White parents and families across the country are panicked by the idea of students being critical of the United States’ dark history – especially lessons that center the egregious actions of white people over time. The aim of critical race theory is to contextualize the history behind the racism and systemic oppression that we see today.

But the parents of Carmel don’t want their students to be taught about anything that may make their children feel guilty for their whiteness.

The school would rather cater to white comfort than address America’s skeletons.

I never got a say in learning about Black trauma: it was an expectation. At a young age, images of slaves with whip scars on their backs and the horrors of the backlash against the civil rights movement were already burned in my mind.

White students get a say in whether they want to learn about their history. I did not……..

‘I was constantly bullied’: being a Black student in one of Indiana’s whitest districts

As the debate about critical race theory rages on, Hallie Watson reflects on the racism that has plagued her school district since she was a child

www.theguardian.com

 

[coldseat]

Sad but familiar story
=================
I don’t remember the first time I realized that I was different from my white classmates. I don’t even remember the first time I understood what race was. But I remember the first time I was made to hate myself for being Black.

I was 10 years old when I was called the N-word for the first time.

We had been dismissed from class for the day, so I went to grab my backpack from my assigned cubby in the corner of my elementary school classroom. Before I could throw it over my shoulders, my classmate had made the announcement.

“Look everyone, it’s Tigger the [N-word].”

I was the only Black girl in the room, so I immediately knew that he was talking about me. If that wasn’t obvious enough, he made sure to clarify by staring and pointing at me while he said it.

The shock from the blow didn’t allow me to fully process what happened. All I could think to do was to question whether I had heard him correctly. When he said it again, he made sure to remove any doubt.

One incident, one word: that’s all it took for me to realize that I was considered the “other”. My innocence and naive childlike hope was gone as I was thrusted into a position of subordination.

•••

My school district in Carmel, Indiana, is home to some of the best public schools in the US – it is where I received my education from the age of five until graduation. Other than the less than 4% of Black students in the district, the schools are made up of white hallways, white teachers and white students…….

Sometimes, I try to convince myself that if my white classmates and teachers were educated on the true history of this country, then maybe my experience wouldn’t have been what it was.

Maybe administrators would see how their choice to dish out a year-long suspension to a Black student for drugs while not punishing the white student (who was caught with more drugs) parallels the “war on drugs” in America.

Maybe they would see that adding extra security near the area dubbed “the Black Spot” mimics profiling and over-policing across the country.

My 16-year sentence in the school system ended in 2016, when I earned my diploma. After the world was forced to grapple with a reckoning on race and policing in 2020, Carmel now claims that they are ready to change, but I can tell nothing has changed.

As I scroll through social media, I look in disgust, but not shock, at the use of “[N-word] this” and “[N-word] that” in comments made.

But instead of tackling this very real racial abuse, teachers, administrators and parents are more afraid of the bogeyman in the corner: critical race theory.

White parents and families across the country are panicked by the idea of students being critical of the United States’ dark history – especially lessons that center the egregious actions of white people over time. The aim of critical race theory is to contextualize the history behind the racism and systemic oppression that we see today.

But the parents of Carmel don’t want their students to be taught about anything that may make their children feel guilty for their whiteness.

The school would rather cater to white comfort than address America’s skeletons.

I never got a say in learning about Black trauma: it was an expectation. At a young age, images of slaves with whip scars on their backs and the horrors of the backlash against the civil rights movement were already burned in my mind.

White students get a say in whether they want to learn about their history. I did not……..

‘I was constantly bullied’: being a Black student in one of Indiana’s whitest districts

As the debate about critical race theory rages on, Hallie Watson reflects on the racism that has plagued her school district since she was a child

www.theguardian.com

This video linked in that article is very good and a more accurate view of the situation in many school districts.

'They're teaching children to hate America': the culture war in US schools – video

In Carmel, Indiana, the school board brought in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, to combat structural racism in the education system. Since then, a battle has erupted between those who welcome the changes, and others who see it as leftwing indoctrination

www.theguardian.com

 

[zztop]

getting tired of good people getting fired because some white people are feeling a little uncomfortable

Southwest Missouri high school teacher accused of using critical race theory loses job

Kim Morrison, a high school English teacher in Greenfield, was notified mid-March that her contract was not renewed for the next year.

www.news-leader.com

She said prior to teaching "Dear Martin" as part of the contemporary literature class the first time in spring 2021, she sought administrative approval, and no issues were raised last year.

Racism is one theme of the book. She said another theme is "why people believe what they believe about people that aren't like them."

 

[MT15]

I’m afraid this is just the beginning. More outrageous stuff to follow if the crazy Q-loving right wingers get their way.

 

[SystemShock]

getting tired of good people getting fired because some white people are feeling a little uncomfortable

I am old enough to remember when right wingers called people snowflakes, mocking how easily they got their feelings hurt and playing the victim, telling them to cowboy up... but no one under 2 years old would have lived through that period in U.S. history.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

I am old enough to remember when right wingers called people snowflakes, mocking how easily they got their feelings hurt and playing the victim, telling them to cowboy up... but no one under 2 years old would have lived through that period in U.S. history.

Spot on. The right are the new snowflakes.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

The right has created a good propaganda out of CRT. Its the best thing that could have happened for them. Now they can scare all the parents into believeing this made up monster they created out of CRT.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Excellent

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/john-lewis-march-trilogy-civil-rights-education/?itid=hp_opinions

 

[Optimus Prime]

I’ll put this here
============
The French novelist Honoré de Balzac was right: “The secret of great fortunes with no obvious source is a crime, forgotten because it was well-executed.”

In the United States, Southern plantation slavery has dominated historical memory.


But Harvard University’s 134-page report on how slavery benefited the nation’s oldest, richest and most prestigious institution of higher learning bluntly illustrates a crime many Americans prefer to ignore: The whole nation, not just the South, grew rich and powerful from the unpaid labor of enslaved African Americans.


Between Harvard’s founding in 1636 and the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783, “Harvard faculty, staff, and leaders enslaved more than 70 individuals,” the report says. But that is only the beginning.

More important is the fact that many major donors — whose gifts “helped the University build a national reputation, hire faculty, support students, grow its collections, expand its physical footprint, and develop its infrastructure” — made their money from the profits of slavery.


Let me quote one key passage from the report, released this week, at length:


“These financial ties include donors who accumulated their wealth through slave trading; from the labor of enslaved people on plantations in the Caribbean islands and the American South; from the sale of supplies to such plantations and trade in goods they produced; and from the textile manufacturing industry in the North, supplied with cotton grown by enslaved people held in bondage in the American South.

During the first half of the 19th century, more than a third of the money donated or promised to Harvard by private individuals came from just five men who made their fortunes from slavery and slave-produced commodities.”…..

One of the most egregious episodes in the sordid history of financing higher education through slavery happened at Georgetown University, one of the premier Catholic universities in the nation.

In 1838, with the university facing financial ruin, the Jesuits who ran the school sold 272 enslaved Black people to plantations in Louisiana, where living and working conditions for the enslaved were as harsh as anywhere in the country. The money from that sale kept Georgetown afloat.

Like most U.S. colleges, Georgetown discriminated against African Americans in admissions and hiring well into the 20th century.

“Slavery’s legacies persist in racial disparities in education, health, employment, income, wealth and the criminal justice system,” Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow and Harvard Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin wrote this week in The Post.

“The question before us now is how best to reckon with these realities and atone for our past. Acknowledging the truth is not enough. We have a moral obligation to take action.”…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/28/harvard-makes-amends-for-slavery-but-the-real-reckoning-has-yet-to-start/

 

[Optimus Prime]

Conservative Virginia Military Institute alumni are using a petition drive and a lawsuit to challenge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college, ignoring the priorities of VMI’s first Black superintendent.

Though VMI’s leader, retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, has been increasingly vocal about the need for diversity initiatives, a network of older, White alumni upset with the school’s reforms is ratcheting up their attacks on the college’s new agenda.

The group — irate over a state-ordered investigation last year that concluded the college suffered from a “racist and sexist culture” — appears emboldened by the election of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who banned teaching “critical race theory" in K-12 schools and purged the word “equity” from Virginia’s education system.

……VMI, which received $21.6 million in state funding for the 2021-2022 academic year, has been under pressure to address racism and sexism on its 182-year-old campus in Lexington.

The college, whose cadets fought and died for the Confederacy, did not admit its first Black students until 1968 and its first women until 1997. Just 6 percent of its 1,650 cadets are Black. Women make up 14 percent of the student body.

The first attack on the contract came in March from Carmen D. Villani Jr., a White member of the Class of 1976 and frequent public critic of the college’s direction. Villani circulated a petition online calling for Virginia’s new attorney general Jason Miyares (R) to halt the NewPoint Strategies contract or any similar contracts at the school.

The petition also asks Miyares to stop the college’s implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives until the “appropriate” state agency conducts a “full investigation” to determine whether critical race theory — an academic framework that examines systemic racism in America — or other “divisive training” are occurring at VMI……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/16/vmi-critical-race-theory-equity/

 

[Optimus Prime]

another article saying honstly teaching about America's racist past and present will lead to less racist attacks, not more
===============================================================================

In a matter of minutes at a supermarket in a mostly Black area of east Buffalo, New York, a shooter ended the lives of 10 people. Among them: Pearly Young, 77, who handed out food to the needy; Aaron Salter, 55, a former police officer; and Katherine Massey, 72, a writer who pushed for civil rights. Three people were injured.

Add one more to the list of lives that were thrown away. If the suspected shooter is found guilty, he could face life in prison for what authorities have called a hate crime.

It appears that the plot to kill innocent minorities started long before the Saturday afternoon attack. The suspect looked for Black neighborhoods on the internet. A screed was found online that is believed to be his. The writing contains alarming and hateful messages about minorities and information about altering a firearm. He had already stated that he would kill others and himself in response to a school assignment. For that, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, but released days later.

Why were signs that he was a danger not more closely monitored and acted on? And how does our society keep missing that signs of hatred among younger white Americans (who are rehashing the kinds of attacks common during and before the civil rights movement) are real threats? How is it that white supremacist ideology is still so dangerously alive in a generation that is supposed to embody hope, progress and change?

Some recent acts of mass violence on Black Americans and against Black movements have been committed by young adults – the shooter who killed Black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 was 21; the suspected shooter in Buffalo was 18.

The latest incident comes at a time when parents across the country are fighting to keep curriculum out of schools that could teach their children how racism and hatred have not just marred entire communities but have also hindered American progress.

Instead of teaching children as much as possible about a church bombing that killed four young Black girls in the 1960s, and devastated Black parents across the country, fights over curriculum tell young people that empathy for groups damaged by the nation's past is unnecessary. A church in Alabama filled with worshipers has been replaced by a supermarket in Buffalo filled with community caregivers and public servants.

Education about this nation's struggle with racism and oppression has always been weak. The current fight against the imagined boogeyman of critical race theory threatens to make a flawed system (and uninformed generations) worse.

How is this country supposed to become less racist, less violent and more accepting when so many Americans fight to keep kids in the dark about their history – and in doing so, doom them to repeat it?

Last year, a group of white students in Texas repeated a horrible chapter of America's past, not through a violent physical attack but by selling Black classmates on a social media app. According to news reports, the students used racially charged and psychologically damaging language. It was the same kind of dismissive language commonly used during auction block sales of Black men, women and children during centuries of slavery in America.

In that same Texas area, parents have fought against teaching critical race theory in schools, and others on the state level have pushed against curriculum and books related to slavery and the nation's racist past...........

Why do young whites kill out of hate? Schools aren't teaching nation's racist past.