White people are FREAKING OUT about “critical race theory”
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/28/we-should-all-be-woke/
washingtonpost.com
We should all be woke
Perry Bacon
4-6 minutes
Seeking to address gender and racial disparities in America, calling people by the pronouns they prefer and sharply criticizing those who oppose equality-minded policies are all positive behaviors. Period. Being woke is good and being anti-woke or woke-skeptical is bad — and it’s even more galling from those who identify as liberal, progressive or Democratic.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that woke-bashing would have some appeal with Democrats. Many left-leaning people joined the panic over “political correctness” in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as over “cancel culture” more recently. And it’s entirely logical that arguments that defend the status quo and cast those trying to change it as extreme would resonate in some quarters of the party. The status quo in America is working just fine for many Democrats — particularly White, male, upper-income Democrats.
Reparations, major changes to policing, greater inclusion of women and people of color at workplaces, increased acceptance of transgender people, and other changes being sought by the left would have few direct benefits for most elite Democrats. And they might carry some costs.
But Democrats are the party of cultural liberalism, and the party’s coalition includes most voters who are people of color, women and LGBTQ. So it’s hard, if you want to remain a Democrat in good standing, to directly attack, say, Black Lives Matter or your workplace’s diversity initiative. And therein lies the value of that vague and definition-less term “woke” — it’s tough to tell exactly what you’re criticizing when you attack it. Few Democrats would actually say that they are annoyed by someone’s personal pronoun. But “wokeness has gone too far”? That a risk-free way to signal the same thing.
The anti-woke generally stick to less controversial framings: An obsession with pronouns will cost the Democrats swing voters. Some diversity training is over the top. Even Black voters don’t support “defund the police.” Eric Adams, James E. Clyburn and Barack Obama think wokeness is going too far — with a few comments from that trio invoked over and over. But if you think diversity training and pronoun usage are playing major roles in election results, I have a bridge to sell you. And Adams, Clyburn and Obama are nearing “my Black friend” status among moderate White Democrats.
Besides, all of this is misdirection. The central agenda of people who are cast by their critics as too woke isn’t to get more people to say “Latinx” or require everyone to read Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.” It’s a dramatic rebalancing of American society that will bring more cultural, economic and political power to those who have been historically marginalized — and, necessarily, take some power away from those who have traditionally dominated.
It is true that becoming more woke might be bad electorally for Democrats — but it has nothing to do with “Latinx.” It’s because changes that disrupt America’s status quo often result in electoral backlashes to those changes. The Democrats lost five of six presidential elections after they adopted the civil rights reforms of the ’60s. The rise of Obama coincided with a huge defection of White voters without college degrees from the party.
But there are huge benefits to it, too. Since Black Lives Matter and other movements spurred the Democrats and the country overall toward wokeness, we are seeing real, sustained efforts at the local, state and federal levels to address racial disparities; historic appointments of Black, Latino, Muslim and transgender people to powerful roles; reforms of policing and other institutions that have treated people of color poorly; programs at all levels of governments to reduce income inequality; corporations hiring more people of color; and reforms of the electoral system in blue states that make it easier for everyone to participate.
Of course there’ve been some excesses on the left in pushing for equality; every political movement has its learning curve. But the woke backlash is about the entire project. We’re in the midst of a progressive attempt to reshape America — a project that would strip power from the elite, the wealthy and the White. If those people think of themselves as in an us-against-them struggle, they’re right to see the woke as their enemies. But they’re wrong if they, too, want to live in a better and more equal America.
A $5 Million Fine for Classroom Discussions on Race? In Tennessee, This Is the New Reality
edweek.org
A $5 Million Fine for Classroom Discussions on Race? In Tennessee, This Is the New Reality
By Eesha Pendharkar — August 03, 2021
7-9 minutes
Tennessee aims to levy fines starting at $1 million and rising to $5 million on school districts each time one of their teachers is found to have “knowingly violated” state restrictions on classroom discussions about systemic racism, white privilege, and sexism, according to guidance proposed by the state’s department of education late last week.
Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel “guilt or anguish” because of past actions committed by their race or sex.
The guidance received immediate backlash from advocates of students of color in the state who say it would have a disproportionate impact on already underfunded, majority Black and Latino school districts.
“There’s also a fear for young students of color who are in districts that are majority white and now there’s no protection for them and their white student peers in learning about truthful history and racism,” said Cardell Orrin, the executive director of Stand for Children Tennessee, a group that advocates for historically disenfranchised students.
The new guidance lays out the complaint process that a current student, parent, or employee can initiate against a district if they believe an educator has violated the law, but it does not elaborate on what specifically school districts are banned from teaching, as many teacher advocates had hoped. Instead, it cites 11 broad concepts that teachers can’t teach or use materials to promote. For example, students can’t be told that they are “inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously,” or bear responsibility for past actions committed by members of their race or sex. Experts have called the language of these laws vague.
Tennessee’s department of education will allow the public to weigh in on the rules until Wednesday, Aug. 11, according to the Tennessean.
Tennessee is one of 11 states this year that have drastically curtailed the ways that districts can fight systemic and individual acts of racism, homophobia, and sexism in the classroom and how teachers can talk to students about the ways America’s government has historically discriminated against minorities. Another 16 states have similar bills that are set to be considered during next year’s legislative session.
Advocates of the bills argue that public school districts are indoctrinating students with teachers’ political agendas and, through their equity initiatives, giving students of color an unfair advantage over white students.
Opponents of the bills argue that school districts can no longer ignore longstanding academic disparities between white students and students of color and are obligated to teach all students a more complete and nuanced version of America’s racist past.
In most instances, the laws spell out which anti-racist initiatives districts are no longer allowed to practice and what “divisive” concepts teachers are no longer allowed to discuss, but state legislatures left room for state departments of education to determine how to enforce the laws.
Several lawyers Education Week has spoken to have expressed fear that state departments will make the laws more stringent through the rules.
States are getting specific about penalties under ‘critical race theory’ laws
Tennessee’s Department of Education is the second in the country to release additional guidance on how its censorship law will be enforced, following Oklahoma’s state department, which released guidance in mid-July.
Oklahoma educators could have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked and schools could lose accreditation if an investigation finds evidence that they taught about racism and sexism in ways that violated the law.
Oklahoma will also allow parents the right to inspect curriculum, instructional materials, classroom assignments, and lesson plans to “ensure compliance.”
Tennessee’s 11-page document outlines the process of filing a complaint alleging the violation of the law and the consequences that teachers might face if the district or state determines that they used prohibited materials or discussed a banned concept. For the most part, school districts will be in charge of investigating a complaint and deciding a course of action. In instances where the accuser or the accused disagree with the district’s decision, the state’s commissioner of education will have the final say.
Like Oklahoma’s rules, Tennessee’s also require school districts to investigate complaints if parents or students claim that an educator violated the law.
Parents, students or district employees can file complaints up to 30 days after the violation allegedly occurred, according to the rules. After a district receives the complaint, it has 60 days to investigate. If it finds the allegations to be true, it must start remedial action such as removing the reference material cited in the complaint from the curriculum or taking “disciplinary or licensure action against a teacher,” the rules say.
Either the complainant or person the complaint accused of violating the law can appeal the district’s decision within 15 days to the state department’s review committee. If the committee finds that a prohibited concept was taught, it can file a report to the commissioner, who will determine if the allegation is substantiated.
“It could be worse. It could’ve been that [complaints] go straight to the state and the state decides to take money away,” said Orrin. “This puts enough layers of local control in the process that it makes a lot of sense to allow teachers to teach what they need to teach, and figure out where complaints are coming from and then start to address it from there.”
If the department then determines that a violation occurred, it can withhold $1 million or 2 percent of the district’s state funding, whichever is less. The fines ramp up with each violation, amounting to a penalty of $5 million or 10 percent of state funding for the fifth time a district is determined to be in violation of state law.
Tennessee’s state department has already started to receive complaints of violations of the law.
In June, the Williamson County chapter of the national group Moms for Liberty, a group advocating for “parental rights,” wrote to Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn objecting to a lesson about Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to desegregate an elementary school in Louisiana, which they said made white students in the class feel uncomfortable.
“Targeting elementary age children with daily lessons on fighting past injustices as if they were occurring in present day violates Tennessee law and will sow the seeds of racial strife, neo-racism (and) neo-segregation,” Robin Steenman, the chair of the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty wrote in the complaint.
Eesha Pendharkar
Eesha Pendharkar is a reporter for Education Week covering race and opportunity in education.
radicalscholarship.wordpress.com
“Racial Discomfort” in an Era of Erasing Curriculum
Author: plthomasedd
5-7 minutes
My neighboring state of North Carolina has filed copy-cat legislation being proposed across the U.S. by Republicans as part of the manufactured Critical Race Theory (CRT) crisis.
As Justin Parmenter explains, “Among other things, the bill would make it illegal for teachers to promote feelings of racial discomfort and would require schools to prominently post information about diversity training on their websites for public review.”
Republicans and conservatives have launched a campaign grounded primarily in several false claims, including a drastic misrepresentation of what CRT is (a graduate-level theoretical lens primarily found in law schools) and that CRT exists in any significant way in K-12 public education (it doesn’t).
Since the public and political rhetoric is both misleading and false, and since the legislation is written in coded ways, those of us who recognize that this movement is an insidious lie (political leaders claiming to be protecting academic freedom by banning CRT from academic spaces) must now call Republicans on their bluff, specifically addressing the concept of “racial discomfort.”
As an educator for almost 40 years, I find no real evidence that white third graders across the U.S. are being told in schools that they are personally culpable for racism and slavery simply because they are white.
And as a scholar who understands and embraces CRT, I also know if CRT were being practiced with children across the U.S. in public school, that theoretical lens focuses on systemic racism, not individual racism. In other words, white students in U.S. public education would be well served by CRT that emphasizes the role of systemic racism regardless of individual beliefs.
CRT is one way to raise everyone’s awareness of racism and inequity so that we can all behave in ways that lead the country toward equity and meritocracy.
The only blame anyone should suffer (in the context of CRT) is a refusal to recognize systemic racism and then a refusal to behave in ways that are equitable.
Republican legislation is prescribing, then, that students remain ignorant, and ironically, passively complicit in systemic racism.
But the primary unwritten/unspoken given in the claimed concern about “racial discomfort” is that the term addresses only white racial discomfort—as if being white is somehow a greater burden, for example, than being Black and actually experiencing racism.
Is hearing or reading “n—–” not a form of racial discomfort?
Is being told you are “articulate” while Black not a form of racial discomfort?
Is being asked “Can I touch your hair?” while Black not a form of racial discomfort?
Is being paid less even though you the same educational attainment while Black not a form or racial discomfort?
Since this movement is ambiguous on the surface, we must call their bluff by acknowledging “racial discomfort” among all races.
Black students, for examples, must not be asked to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, or The Great Gatsby.
Imagine being a Black teenager in a room filled with white peers and a white teacher, reading from Gatsby [1]:
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard? … Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved … This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or those other races will have control of things … The idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and … And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization – oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Or the repeated use of “n—–” in Huck Finn, Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men.
And let’s not stop there.
Shakespeare is filled with sexism, bigotry, and racism It must go. No more Shakespeare because children and teens might feel discomfort.
And honestly, who didn’t feel discomfort when confronted with the Pythagorean Theorem.
It must go also.
In the context of the legislation being proposed and passed, we must demand that all texts and topics causing anyone (regardless of race) “racial discomfort” be removed from the curriculum.
The logical extension of this nonsense is the total erasure of curriculum; there simply is nothing left to teach if we mobilize and demand that legislation be applied evenly for everyone.
It shouldn’t be on the shoulders of minoritized peoples to call this bluff, but a widespread effort to take this legislation to its logical conclusions would cause the movement to collapse under its own dishonesty.
Republicans and conservatives do not care about everyone’s discomfort, let’s note. How trans students feel has been repeatedly disregarded, for example.
Legislation aimed at CRT is a Great White Lie, but if we call them on their bluff, that lie will be exposed when we find ourselves with a total erasure of the curriculum.
[1] See When W. E. B. Du Bois Made a Laughingstock of a White Supremacist
(Un)Critical Race Theory
(Un)Critical Race Theory
deardeandotcomJuly 28, 2021
In 2021, if you don’t know what Critical Race Theory is, you should *almost be ashamed.
Almost ashamed because if you are a product of the American public and private educational system then your knowledge is exactly where the framers of childhood education wants it to be – Woefully inadequate and lacking in knowledge and awareness of the true and accurate history of this country.
You have been spoon-fed a false version of American history that has effectively shielded you from the meaning of America, the thoroughness of enslavement, the insidiousness of white supremacy, and the continuing evil efficacy of “pretend teaching.”
You have graduated satisfied in your understanding of how America came to be and you are so very wrong. You received an “A” in history, but that grade is as laughable as it is sad. And you walked the stage to receive a diploma that isn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
Congratulations, you’re qualified to know almost nothing about America!
You have learned so little about American History because white supremacists planned it that way and are fighting to keep it that way. From the Daughters of the Revolution to the Klan, to various northern and southern white-led PTA’s, school boards, and of course school districts, there has been a concerted effort for hundreds of years to limit what we all learn in school – public, private, elementary to university.
You know the stories because they are like those old Fractured Fairy-Talescartoons that twisted the meaning and origins of common fairytales and then ended with a pun or a joke.
There is the fairytale of George Washington. That he was a man of unassailable integrity and leadership. This is translated to children through the metaphor that he did not lie and confessed to chopping down a cherry tree, or some such nonsense. What is not said, however, is that his famous wooden teeth were teeth stolen from one or more of the Africans he enslaved. The same slaves he did not free upon his death but instead willed them to his heirs. George Washington was a human trafficker.
Then there is the fairytale that the Founding Fathers were great men of destiny who fought royal tyranny to secure their god-given inalienable rights of freedom. Which could be accurate if the tale mentioned it was only for themselves. Thousands of years of Native history, traditions, community, and society be damned. And freedom , agency, rights, etc., for stolen people from Africa who were then enslaved in America? Nope. Nope. Nopitty Nope.
The so-called Founding Fathers were almost all owners of humans and they knew – they knew it was wrong, but they were so hyped up in their self-given superiority they simply did not care that they were now worse leaders and people than the ones they left in Europe.
You were told about “Manifest Destiny,” “States Rights,” “The Industrial Revolution,” and of course the “Greatest Generation” (of white men) who singlehandedly saved the world during World Wars I and II.
But who did they “save the world” from? They saved the world from other white men, who together with the “greatest generation,” brutally killed over 100 million people in just those two wars.
No amount of “inner-city violence” will ever match those numbers.
Thankfully, your education also taught you about historical great white men and their societies, from Rome and Greece mostly, with a detour to Egypt, and a day or two talking about China and the Mayans.
And following the Civil Rights changes from the 1950’s -1970’s, your textbooks began to include Black history sentences and if you were in a “blue” state you may have gotten a paragraph.
But mostly you got two lines of Black History during a couple of days in February. You learned that Slavery “wasn’t that bad,” most slave owners were actually pretty kind people, the Irish were slaves, too, and the always present “we freed you.”
If you were extra lucky, you got to dress up as a slave, or pretend to be on a slave ship, and if your teacher was a next level racist, you got to pick and clean cotton to show how the slaves did it.
There. Now you fully understood 250 years of chattel slavery, emancipation, rebellion, and Jim Crow, and it was all distilled to you in soft words and masked images because that is all your American sensitivities could handle.
Your education was so thorough you graduated from a major university with an impressive degree, but you know less than Black kids who are taught American history as part of our survival classes at the foot of our parents, grandparents, church mothers, preachers, and teachers.
Black kids have a Ph.D in American history because it is necessary for our day to day well-being and our community recognizes the need for us to understand who we are, where we came from and, equally important – who we live with.
You are NOT smarter than a Black 5th grader about Black history and, really, if you are an adult you should be ashamed.
Because if you are an adult, there simply isn’t an excuse in 2021 for your blissful ignorance around actual American history. Americans have to work hard to preserve national ignorance by clinging so tightly to the privilege that it grants you.
Americans can’t have it both ways.
Americans sit comfortably in ignorance celebrating statues to confederate traitors, sacred native mountains carved into giant heads of white men, holidays almost exclusively dedicated to white men, and money exclusively dedicated to white men.
All but one President and Vice President are exclusively limited to white men, and almost every supreme court justice, almost all senators, governors, prosecutors, sheriffs, Fortune 500 CEO’s, and college presidents are white men. But somehow, they are all afraid of learning how the system that has so handsomely rewarded them was designed to benefit them at every step of their lives.
It may come as a surprise to those of you unfamiliar with actual American history that white men were not and are not the only people worthy of studying, understanding, and developing entire courses of study around.
The depth of Black history is rich in honor, perseverance, humor, invention, industry, success, failures, and all of the range of human achievement and accomplishment. In fact, the more you learn the more you’ll find out that many “great white men” stole more than just black lives and wealth, many stole from the richness of their collective knowledge, ideas and genius.
We are more than the trauma inflicted upon us by your forefathers.
We are more than you know even know, not because we are hidden or knowledge of us is hidden, but because the willful blindness that permeates the ruling classes who prefer to “See no Blackness, Hear no Blackness, and Speak no Blackness.”
The lives of Americans, and thus the life of the country, stands to improve and leap forward should the truth of American history be taught and understood by everyone.
The old saying goes: “Those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”
But for Americans, if should be changed to:
“Those who refuse to learn the past, will remain stuck in an imaginary now.”
Americans lack of learning our true history is why we continue to fight the same fights generation after generation. From police brutality, fairness in hiring, funding for schools, fairness in borrowing money for small businesses, fairness in farming, home buying, and general credit.
We remain stuck as a nation because white people refuse to learn why things are the way they are, and without that knowledge, the root causes cannot be understood and addressed.
Republicans, i.e. white people, are passing Anti-CRT laws across the nation, even though they do not even know what CRT is, and none can articulate why it is so bad for white people to learn more than whitewashed fairytales.
They are acting and legislating out of fear.
Deeply rooted fear that the GQP weaponizes to prevent white Americans from learning the truth of what this country is and how it got to where we are today. Fear that they will be exposed and may one day have to confront themselves in a way that shatters their picture perfect false way of life.
Are white children and adults so fragile that they can’t learn the so-called founding fathers were rapists, that Black women were used to breed children, had their milk stolen by white mothers, and that those who owned humans did detestable violence, sexual violence, mutilations, ate them, and murdered babies, children, women and men with impunity?
Will it destroy white society to learn their weddings at plantations are a celebration on the grounds of death and destruction of babies, children, women and men? Many of whom are buried underneath where they take their wedding vows?
Will Hollywood collapse by including more Black people in movies, television, commercials, and speaking parts in cartoon series and movies?
I don’t think so.
I think white Americans are stronger than white American leaders give them credit for. They keep truth from white citizens by keeping them focused on modern fairytales about the horror of Black folk taking over, Black folk being lazy, Black folk being less patriotic. They keep white people angry at Black people, laying the blame at all of America’s faults at the feet of Black people.
The lies white Americans are told are legion. Supremacy is the catch-all, but it is day to day, in school, at home, at work, and online.
Your white voice isn’t more important, the laws aren’t yours to weaponize, and your job, your car, your health, your voting rights, your rights overall are not more important than those of anyone else’s in this country.
You have been duped and fooled by people who count on you not using critical thinking skills to question falsehoods and seek truth.
Critical Race Theory is simply the pursuit of truth.
But also, Critical Race theory has been taught in American schools since day one, it has just been exclusively focused on white society and whiteness overall as the standard for all humanity from antiquity until now.
It is absurd even writing that previous sentence, but it is more absurd that we are still fighting to teach actual American history versus American fairytales.
America needs CRT more than ever. Without it, we have what we just experienced over the past four years. A lying meathead president who was and is a complete idiot, and who was championed by seventy-million people who were so vile and deplorable they could not even win with class or grace. So of course, they and he could not lose with class and grace. They decided to tear down the country they purport to “love” for the sake of maintaining the lie of white supremacy.
They fell for his grift because they are uncritical in believing the lies of manifest destiny and white supremacy. They could not – and can not – see past the privilege they are surrounded and protected with by all levels of society.
They took over the Capitol and only one of them was killed by authorities who are always willing to kill Black people.
Black people know history and so every time we have marched in Washington we have done so with public planning, city approval, and loud calls for peace. We know if that were us storming the Capitol, we would have died by the thousands and the steps of the Capitol would run red with the blood of our people.
Because we know American history.
America is stuck because we do not teach CRT to white people. Knowing and understanding CRT would go a long way towards forcing the majority to confront white supremacy.
You can’t have white supremacy in a nation that knows and accepts its true history. But white supremacy will thrive where ignorance is nurtured and glorified.
CRT won’t steal, kill, or erase your history but it will round out your history so that you and everyone can better understand how we came to be.
Once we all know, we can fix, adjust, improve, and gallop into a better future that is a future of knowledge, understanding, and, yes, inclusiveness.
CRT is the only way forward and the longer it is delayed and vilified the longer white society will remain in ignorance to the detriment society and America’s future.
I purposely left out the official definition of critical race theory because if you still do not know what it is it is incumbent on you to research it for yourself and not wait for someone to teach it to you.
You can do it.
© 2021 by Myron J. Clifton. All Rights Reserved.
(Un)Critical Race Theory
deardeandotcomJuly 28, 2021
In 2021, if you don’t know what Critical Race Theory is, you should *almost be ashamed.
Almost ashamed because if you are a product of the American public and private educational system then your knowledge is exactly where the framers of childhood education wants it to be – Woefully inadequate and lacking in knowledge and awareness of the true and accurate history of this country.
You have been spoon-fed a false version of American history that has effectively shielded you from the meaning of America, the thoroughness of enslavement, the insidiousness of white supremacy, and the continuing evil efficacy of “pretend teaching.”
You have graduated satisfied in your understanding of how America came to be and you are so very wrong. You received an “A” in history, but that grade is as laughable as it is sad. And you walked the stage to receive a diploma that isn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
Congratulations, you’re qualified to know almost nothing about America!
You have learned so little about American History because white supremacists planned it that way and are fighting to keep it that way. From the Daughters of the Revolution to the Klan, to various northern and southern white-led PTA’s, school boards, and of course school districts, there has been a concerted effort for hundreds of years to limit what we all learn in school – public, private, elementary to university.
You know the stories because they are like those old Fractured Fairy-Talescartoons that twisted the meaning and origins of common fairytales and then ended with a pun or a joke.
There is the fairytale of George Washington. That he was a man of unassailable integrity and leadership. This is translated to children through the metaphor that he did not lie and confessed to chopping down a cherry tree, or some such nonsense. What is not said, however, is that his famous wooden teeth were teeth stolen from one or more of the Africans he enslaved. The same slaves he did not free upon his death but instead willed them to his heirs. George Washington was a human trafficker.
Then there is the fairytale that the Founding Fathers were great men of destiny who fought royal tyranny to secure their god-given inalienable rights of freedom. Which could be accurate if the tale mentioned it was only for themselves. Thousands of years of Native history, traditions, community, and society be damned. And freedom , agency, rights, etc., for stolen people from Africa who were then enslaved in America? Nope. Nope. Nopitty Nope.
The so-called Founding Fathers were almost all owners of humans and they knew – they knew it was wrong, but they were so hyped up in their self-given superiority they simply did not care that they were now worse leaders and people than the ones they left in Europe.
You were told about “Manifest Destiny,” “States Rights,” “The Industrial Revolution,” and of course the “Greatest Generation” (of white men) who singlehandedly saved the world during World Wars I and II.
But who did they “save the world” from? They saved the world from other white men, who together with the “greatest generation,” brutally killed over 100 million people in just those two wars.
No amount of “inner-city violence” will ever match those numbers.
Thankfully, your education also taught you about historical great white men and their societies, from Rome and Greece mostly, with a detour to Egypt, and a day or two talking about China and the Mayans.
And following the Civil Rights changes from the 1950’s -1970’s, your textbooks began to include Black history sentences and if you were in a “blue” state you may have gotten a paragraph.
But mostly you got two lines of Black History during a couple of days in February. You learned that Slavery “wasn’t that bad,” most slave owners were actually pretty kind people, the Irish were slaves, too, and the always present “we freed you.”
If you were extra lucky, you got to dress up as a slave, or pretend to be on a slave ship, and if your teacher was a next level racist, you got to pick and clean cotton to show how the slaves did it.
There. Now you fully understood 250 years of chattel slavery, emancipation, rebellion, and Jim Crow, and it was all distilled to you in soft words and masked images because that is all your American sensitivities could handle.
Your education was so thorough you graduated from a major university with an impressive degree, but you know less than Black kids who are taught American history as part of our survival classes at the foot of our parents, grandparents, church mothers, preachers, and teachers.
Black kids have a Ph.D in American history because it is necessary for our day to day well-being and our community recognizes the need for us to understand who we are, where we came from and, equally important – who we live with.
You are NOT smarter than a Black 5th grader about Black history and, really, if you are an adult you should be ashamed.
Because if you are an adult, there simply isn’t an excuse in 2021 for your blissful ignorance around actual American history. Americans have to work hard to preserve national ignorance by clinging so tightly to the privilege that it grants you.
Americans can’t have it both ways.
Americans sit comfortably in ignorance celebrating statues to confederate traitors, sacred native mountains carved into giant heads of white men, holidays almost exclusively dedicated to white men, and money exclusively dedicated to white men.
All but one President and Vice President are exclusively limited to white men, and almost every supreme court justice, almost all senators, governors, prosecutors, sheriffs, Fortune 500 CEO’s, and college presidents are white men. But somehow, they are all afraid of learning how the system that has so handsomely rewarded them was designed to benefit them at every step of their lives.
It may come as a surprise to those of you unfamiliar with actual American history that white men were not and are not the only people worthy of studying, understanding, and developing entire courses of study around.
The depth of Black history is rich in honor, perseverance, humor, invention, industry, success, failures, and all of the range of human achievement and accomplishment. In fact, the more you learn the more you’ll find out that many “great white men” stole more than just black lives and wealth, many stole from the richness of their collective knowledge, ideas and genius.
We are more than the trauma inflicted upon us by your forefathers.
We are more than you know even know, not because we are hidden or knowledge of us is hidden, but because the willful blindness that permeates the ruling classes who prefer to “See no Blackness, Hear no Blackness, and Speak no Blackness.”
The lives of Americans, and thus the life of the country, stands to improve and leap forward should the truth of American history be taught and understood by everyone.
The old saying goes: “Those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”
But for Americans, if should be changed to:
“Those who refuse to learn the past, will remain stuck in an imaginary now.”
Americans lack of learning our true history is why we continue to fight the same fights generation after generation. From police brutality, fairness in hiring, funding for schools, fairness in borrowing money for small businesses, fairness in farming, home buying, and general credit.
We remain stuck as a nation because white people refuse to learn why things are the way they are, and without that knowledge, the root causes cannot be understood and addressed.
Republicans, i.e. white people, are passing Anti-CRT laws across the nation, even though they do not even know what CRT is, and none can articulate why it is so bad for white people to learn more than whitewashed fairytales.
They are acting and legislating out of fear.
Deeply rooted fear that the GQP weaponizes to prevent white Americans from learning the truth of what this country is and how it got to where we are today. Fear that they will be exposed and may one day have to confront themselves in a way that shatters their picture perfect false way of life.
Are white children and adults so fragile that they can’t learn the so-called founding fathers were rapists, that Black women were used to breed children, had their milk stolen by white mothers, and that those who owned humans did detestable violence, sexual violence, mutilations, ate them, and murdered babies, children, women and men with impunity?
Will it destroy white society to learn their weddings at plantations are a celebration on the grounds of death and destruction of babies, children, women and men? Many of whom are buried underneath where they take their wedding vows?
Will Hollywood collapse by including more Black people in movies, television, commercials, and speaking parts in cartoon series and movies?
I don’t think so.
I think white Americans are stronger than white American leaders give them credit for. They keep truth from white citizens by keeping them focused on modern fairytales about the horror of Black folk taking over, Black folk being lazy, Black folk being less patriotic. They keep white people angry at Black people, laying the blame at all of America’s faults at the feet of Black people.
The lies white Americans are told are legion. Supremacy is the catch-all, but it is day to day, in school, at home, at work, and online.
Your white voice isn’t more important, the laws aren’t yours to weaponize, and your job, your car, your health, your voting rights, your rights overall are not more important than those of anyone else’s in this country.
You have been duped and fooled by people who count on you not using critical thinking skills to question falsehoods and seek truth.
Critical Race Theory is simply the pursuit of truth.
But also, Critical Race theory has been taught in American schools since day one, it has just been exclusively focused on white society and whiteness overall as the standard for all humanity from antiquity until now.
It is absurd even writing that previous sentence, but it is more absurd that we are still fighting to teach actual American history versus American fairytales.
America needs CRT more than ever. Without it, we have what we just experienced over the past four years. A lying meathead president who was and is a complete idiot, and who was championed by seventy-million people who were so vile and deplorable they could not even win with class or grace. So of course, they and he could not lose with class and grace. They decided to tear down the country they purport to “love” for the sake of maintaining the lie of white supremacy.
They fell for his grift because they are uncritical in believing the lies of manifest destiny and white supremacy. They could not – and can not – see past the privilege they are surrounded and protected with by all levels of society.
They took over the Capitol and only one of them was killed by authorities who are always willing to kill Black people.
Black people know history and so every time we have marched in Washington we have done so with public planning, city approval, and loud calls for peace. We know if that were us storming the Capitol, we would have died by the thousands and the steps of the Capitol would run red with the blood of our people.
Because we know American history.
America is stuck because we do not teach CRT to white people. Knowing and understanding CRT would go a long way towards forcing the majority to confront white supremacy.
You can’t have white supremacy in a nation that knows and accepts its true history. But white supremacy will thrive where ignorance is nurtured and glorified.
CRT won’t steal, kill, or erase your history but it will round out your history so that you and everyone can better understand how we came to be.
Once we all know, we can fix, adjust, improve, and gallop into a better future that is a future of knowledge, understanding, and, yes, inclusiveness.
CRT is the only way forward and the longer it is delayed and vilified the longer white society will remain in ignorance to the detriment society and America’s future.
I purposely left out the official definition of critical race theory because if you still do not know what it is it is incumbent on you to research it for yourself and not wait for someone to teach it to you.
You can do it.
© 2021 by Myron J. Clifton. All Rights Reserved.
Of course they are. You would think women twerking on tables in restaurants or gay people on tv is the most pressing issue pertaining to or community judging by the activity in threads like that and not shyt like this
it shows who are really about black people
The 21st century version of this
TheOptimisticCynikal
All Star
So question. What if students are talking about race among themselves at lunch/break outside the classroom? The school still getting fined/penalized or whatever?
Are teachers allowed to intervene if they over hear those conversations? It seems like their attitude is if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. This would've worked pre-internet era, but people can discover this stuff simply through algorithms on YouTube suggesting a video about any of the many atrocities committed by yt people and their attempts at limiting 'anguish and guilt' is now wasted effort.
Black people in the home definitely let their children know how fukked up yts are simply through everyday experience. So is it gonna be a situation where only the black kids are aware of the true reality of America and white kids are ignorant? How is that beneficial? They'll simply have their first dictation of race history in America told to them by their black friends and classmates that know far better and have an infinite amount of evidence and examples.
I know they like to call it 'white supremacy', but there sure are a lot of futile, redundant decisions. It screams of desperation. And you know they be wasting so much resources on this shyt
Are teachers allowed to intervene if they over hear those conversations? It seems like their attitude is if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. This would've worked pre-internet era, but people can discover this stuff simply through algorithms on YouTube suggesting a video about any of the many atrocities committed by yt people and their attempts at limiting 'anguish and guilt' is now wasted effort.
Black people in the home definitely let their children know how fukked up yts are simply through everyday experience. So is it gonna be a situation where only the black kids are aware of the true reality of America and white kids are ignorant? How is that beneficial? They'll simply have their first dictation of race history in America told to them by their black friends and classmates that know far better and have an infinite amount of evidence and examples.
I know they like to call it 'white supremacy', but there sure are a lot of futile, redundant decisions. It screams of desperation. And you know they be wasting so much resources on this shyt