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Opponents of critical race theory seek to flip school boards in U.S.

27 Comments
By MICHAEL MELIA

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"We don't want our kids to learn about systemic racism! Then we'd have to face up to the fact that we created it and allow it to continue!" Racists will be racist.

-7 ( +6 / -13 )

Contentious subjects like this teach kids that politics is a bare knuckle fight and school is a system to be gamed. And how to do it. Doesn't matter whether you have a left or right wing teacher/parents or what your own opinions are, you rapidly learn to write what your teacher wants to see in your papers, grab some top grades and move on. The stuff that matters, that is relevant to your career, you do on your own time, because they don't teach it in schools. Works like that in China, the US and everywhere else. Smile, nod, clap when you are supposed to, keep your head down and your nose clean, and focus on what you want to do with your life. Leave the crazy adults to fight their culture wars. Nobody ever wins those. Just concentrate on your own future, make some friends and don't bully anyone. You'll escape school in one piece and be fine.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

This is a re-run of the 1990s when the Repubes and happy-clappies were trying to push their "creation science" lies on school districts by running candidates promising to replace science, specifically evolution and modern theories of the formation of the universe, with their pseudo-science nonsense. Ultimately it won't last. Truth is too strong to suppress that way in a society that still honors free speech. There were some poke-in-the-eye school board races with stolen campaign signs followed by ugly little court cases with candidates seeing a seat on the board as a launching pad for higher office. Most launched into obscurity and I doubt a lot of people even remember those fights now.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

I don't know anything about the situation of this school, so I will refrain from commenting on it, but I do support parents who want to protect their kids from the seemingly anti-white racist CRT. I'm against racism of all types whether it is against blacks, whites, or people of any other color/origin. I'm sure CRT has some good points but it has become a tool of the WOKE Left to indoctrinate our kids with anti-white attitudes. This will NOT be beneficial for anyone! On the contrary, it will complicate efforts to address real racism and everyone will suffer.

0 ( +6 / -6 )

Let's just cut right to the truth....

CRT is a fictitious invention of the far-right - it only exists in the minds of the outraged Kens and Karen threatening the lives of school board members...

It was invented by both the far-right media and far-right politicians as just another "gimmick" to keep their blinded flock outraged and angry - angry enough to watch their shows, buy their books and show up at the voting booth...

It's just one of many faux culture war issues that the far-right media and politicians use to manipulate and fleece the MAGA masses...

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

What does CRT teach exactly? I am not from the US, and am genuinely curious.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

I wish them all the best in corrrecting this problem. Its great to see grassroots action to tackle it.

Under no circumstances should teachers or principals be activists. In the U.K, there are laws against it.

I think its a minor problem in Aus, but I'd like to see a clear ban and teachers dismissed after 3 warnings and lose their ability to teach at any level, ever again.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

Behold the mighty Ostrich. By hiding its head in the sand, it thinks it can escape reality.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

lincolnman:

"Let's just cut right to the truth....

CRT is a fictitious invention of the far-right - it only exists in the minds of the outraged Kens and Karen threatening the lives of school board members...

It was invented by both the far-right media and far-right politicians as just another "gimmick" to keep their blinded flock outraged and angry - angry enough to watch their shows, buy their books and show up at the voting booth...

It's just one of many faux culture war issues that the far-right media and politicians use to manipulate and fleece the MAGA masses..."

Is this a joke? If not, it is all demonstrably untrue. CRT was not "invented" by anyone but its inventors, and they are on the race-mongering left, not the right...lincolnman is engaging in his own conspiracy theory.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Oh, I thought CRT was invented by those more on the "left" of things? Thanks.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Is this a joke? If not, it is all demonstrably untrue. CRT was not "invented" by anyone but its inventors, and they are on the race-mongering left, not the right...lincolnman is engaging in his own conspiracy theory.

The joke is on you and the rest of MAGA-world...to bad you can't see it...

0 ( +4 / -4 )

More grist for the culture wars. I buy the idea that this is being done to drum up support in the 'burbs- Trump has made the Republican brand toxic to many suburbanites (especially women), and this may be one way to drum up support by other means.

And once again we see the corrosive effect of Fox News on the national discourse- most of these folks could not tell you exactly in detail what CRT means, but Fox riffs on it endlessly, so it is therefore Bad and Must Be Stopped. Or until Fox turns their eyes to the next Outrage Du Jour, whatever that may be.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

CRT is a fictitious invention of the far-right - it only exists in the minds of the outraged Kens and Karen threatening the lives of school board members...

No, it is basically saying that White people are bad past as well as present and the fact that your life is hard and that the strides you make in vain are the result and fault of the people that oppressed your ancestors and the same people are holding you back. In other words, Blacks are the victims and as such will always need the assistance of social justice warrior Whites to help them make it through life, and other Whites that are not part of that fabric are just by default oppressors.

It was invented by both the far-right media and far-right politicians

No, it was not, it was invented by Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams. None of these people are far-right.

It's just one of many faux culture war issues that the far-right media and politicians use to manipulate and fleece the MAGA masses...

Get off of your typical TDS fix. This is why the Dems are in trouble and this is why McAuliffe might lose, he ticked off not only conservatives but liberals and independent students as well with that absurd asinine comment he made that he thought parents don't have the right to interfere with what the teachers are teaching their kids and they should stay out. The guy is out of his mind! CRT, the crap and poison that it is will further divide an already divided nation as it will make Whites feel oppressors and Blacks are victims and neither side will recover from this.

https://nypost.com/2021/06/23/kudos-to-black-and-white-parents-mounting-an-uprising-against-race-theory/

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

The joke is on you and the rest of MAGA-world...to bad you can't see it...

Not only do we see it, but we also see another nail in the coffin for the House Democrats of an issue that is widdling their power down significantly, the clock is ticking on these people 2022 is around the corner.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

I think opponents of CRT are outraged now that it has reached the stage where professors of legitimate universities espouse that "we got to take white people out," and are supported by the university:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10143199/NJ-professor-says-got-motherf-s-talking-white-people.html

Or the CEO of AT&T telling white employees the "You are the problem" and the white staff are racist. A declarative statement about everyone white and requiring them to "confess their white privilege" :

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10143019/You-problem-T-recommends-articles-staff-stating-white-people-racist.html

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I think opponents of CRT are outraged now that it has reached the stage where professors of legitimate universities espouse that "we got to take white people out," and are supported by the university:

One doesn't need to be an opponent of CRT to feel that the comments by this professor are not appropriate. This wouldn't be a problem in countries that aren't binary, and are able to think in nuance. That is not America though.

Some parts of critical race theory are good, saying that white people need to be taken out is bad. This doesn't mean that all critical race theory is good, or that all criticism of bigoted actions is bad, nevertheless "opponents of CRT" have concluded that any criticism of bigotry is bad, and people like the professor have decided that white people need to go. Very American of both sides.

Unfortunately, Americans can only think of this or that, A or B, black or white, so you end up with Americans either screaming 'CRT is evil!' or 'white people are evil', and very, very, VERY few in the middle.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

"opponents of CRT" have concluded that any criticism of bigotry is bad, and people like the professor have decided that white people need to go. Very American of both sides.

No, opponents have a deep and rightful concern that this perversion of pushing white guilt and black victimization will further divide an already divided America and we should compound that rhetoric? More and more parents of every rational ethnic background or opposing as junk. Again, this is what is going to start costing Democrats their jobs and rightfully so.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

girl_in_tokyoOct. 29 07:34 am JST

"We don't want our kids to learn about systemic racism! Then we'd have to face up to the fact that we created it and allow it to continue!" Racists will be racist.

That is a racist statement in itself.  But it is no surprise.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

By the way, for all the liberal social warriors out there who think they are helping minorities, particularly black people, allow me to refer you to the words of Malcolm X when he said that white liberals are the worst thing to happen to the black population. “The white liberal differs from the white conservative in one way. The liberal is more deceitful and hypocritical than the conservatives. Both want power. But, the white liberal has perfected the art of posing as the negro’s (sic) friend and benefactor.” He accused the liberals of using the black Americans as ‘political pawns’ in their political struggle against the conservatives.

https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/malcolm-x-warning-african-americans-white-iiberals-conservatives-political-pawns/

http://pge.libercus.net/.pf/showstory/201901080025/3

https://www.mtdemocrat.com/letters/we-should-have-listened/

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

This article is all over the place and seems to have little or no direction.

When you install fear/hate/anxiety into a populace their ability to learn is greatly diminished. Probably one of the worst crimes a human can do especially to young minds.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

CRT is a US-centric, intersectional view on race theory, focusing in racism and racial justice.

It is controversial because CRT is pretty much an extension of intersectional feminism, and applies the same principles of intersectional feminism to race, and as such, it sees liberalism (classical liberalism as in  Enlightenment rationalism) as bad for racial justice, since changes rely in "incrementalist" change of the zeitgeist of the society around race.

The world view of CRT is race focused, as in most race theories, and CRT, because of its intersectional component tries to relate everything to race, basically according to CRT you cannot ever remove race as a basic component of the individual experience, as it is something intrinsical, and as such simple empathy is not good enough in order to end up racism, since each racial group have their own agendas, so colorblind law is not "good", and some factions of CRT sees white supremacy as the logical construct that advances the interests of white people.

Another major component of CRT is storytelling, which means that we must rely in the stories of each racial group about racial oppression to understand the experience of such group. CRT basically thinks that storytelling is more important than facts in the realm of race.

CRT is also well known for been revisionist of the interpretations of civil law and historical facts. One of the main revisionist interpretations they push is the idea that all civil-rights advances on minority groups just happen when it aligns with white interests, specially that it was done to improve foreign relationships with other countries.

CRT also is ok and studies non-white cultural nationalism and separatism, with some radicals pushing for separation of cultural black groups.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

I think its a minor problem in Aus, but I'd like to see a clear ban and teachers dismissed after 3 warnings and lose their ability to teach at any level, ever again.

I lived in Australia briefly, outside Cairns. Coming from the US I found the racism in Australia to be eye-popping. Aussies didn't use the N word but they had plenty of others that were just as bad and their attitudes dripped of white superiority and the inferiority of anyone of color. The ways I heard Aborigines and Papuans described was repulsive. Historically it isn't all that long ago Australia had a whites only immigration policy and too may Aussies I met still think that way.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

No, opponents have a deep and rightful concern that this perversion of pushing white guilt and black victimization will further divide an already divided America and we should compound that rhetoric?

Thank you for proving my point by showing how you exactly fit the point I was making:

Americans can only think of this or that, A or B, black or white, so you end up with Americans either screaming 'CRT is evil!' or 'white people are evil', and very, very, VERY few in the middle.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

No, opponents have a deep and rightful concern that this perversion of pushing white guilt and black victimization will further divide an already divided America and we should compound that rhetoric? 

The divisions are there. 400 and something years of slavery under British and later US rule followed by another century of institutional racial discrimination in the form off officially sanctioned government policies such as separate schools, whites only facilities, Blacks forced to sit at the back of the bus, etc., and discriminatory private businesses practices like insurance and real estate red lining does that. Those are undeniable facts no matter how much whites would like those facts to be ignored. The divisions you mention cannot get much worse than they already are. And it is because too many whites refuse to admit a person of color can do better in school or work than whites can and too many whites still refuse to acknowledge that Blacks were treated worse than whites and in most places still are. Whites feel threatened by the success of non whites, seeing their success as a threat to them. A subset of those feel whites have a right to be above people of color. Yes they do. It is ridiculous. Until whites truly see themselves through the eyes of Asians, Blacks and Hispanics the divisions will remain.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

CRT seems to be just a good long look at real American history and the dominance the power of 'White' People has played in it and NO average American White person really wants to examine THAT too closely. That examining White history feels like an 'attack' is understandable for people who live in denial and/or ignorance and whose 'heroes' are being shown for their psychopathic behaviors. Examining 'self' is never a pleasant process if one has self-honesty, but self-honesty is a thing much deprecated in American values and called 'negativity' and having it be available as a process to be learned by young minds is terrifying to those older minds previously molded in positive 'rationalization'. And 'school' itself is not as much about 'education' as it is 'socialization' (learning to sit quietly and respond to orders) and education does not really begin for most until after 'schooling' ends and, by then, many minds are so crippled that they cannot change much of what has been so thoroughly programmed into them. "As the twig is bent..." "Suffer unto me the little children..." But this is not just America but any and all Human societies as a basic structural element which carries culture through generations of time, both the useful and the pathological, and, for Humans as we see, the more pathological the culture, the more successful it will be over the many generations of its persistence.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Critical race theory traces its origins to a framework of legal scholarship that gained momentum in the 1980s by challenging conventional thinking about race-based discrimination, which for decades assumed that discrimination on the basis of race could be solved by expanding constitutional rights and then allowing individuals who were discriminated against to seek legal remedies. However, some legal scholars pointed out that such solutions, though well-intentioned, weren't effective because racism is pervasive and baked into the foundation of the U.S. legal system and society as a whole.

Take the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, for example, in which the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that separate is not equal and that state laws protecting segregated public schools are unconstitutional. While the ruling gave Black children the right to attend schools that had long prohibited them, it also resulted in some white families enrolling their children in private schools, moving to the suburbs or redrawing school district boundaries in an effort to resist integration.

Even now, more than half a century after the Brown v. Board decision, efforts are still underway by some wealthy and majority white communities to create their own school districts, and there exists a $23 billion gap between majority white and majority Black school districts out of which spills an array of inequalities.

Today, critical race theory is used by academic scholars inside and outside law schools to describe how racism is embedded in all aspects of American life, from health care to housing, economics to education, clean water to the criminal justice system and more. Those systems, they argue, have been constructed and protected over generations in ways that give white people advantages – sometimes in ways that are not obvious or deliberately insidious but nonetheless result in compounding disadvantages for Black people and other racial and ethnic minorities.

Many Americans, especially white people, believe racism is the product of intentionally bad and biased individuals, but critical race theory purports that racism is systemic and is inherent in much of the American way of life, no matter how far removed we are today from its origins.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

When you install fear/hate/anxiety into a populace their ability to learn is greatly diminished. Probably one of the worst crimes a human can do especially to young minds.

So is your conclusion that race differentials should not be discussed at all, or...?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

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