The History Culture War Continues Part 4

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Courageous Conversations About Race lessons were taught to all grades at Henley Middle School in Crozet. ANDREW SHURTLEFF, THE DAILY PROGRESS

In this article we learn, “Anti-bias lessons piloted this spring at Henley Middle School have prompted a range of comments to Albemarle County School Board members and dueling petitions from parents for and against the lessons. A group of parents’ concerns, comments and criticisms come as the division’s anti-racism policy, which was approved in February 2019 and drafted by students, is starting to make its way into classrooms. That policy calls for an anti-racist curriculum, and Henley’s pilot program was the middle school team’s answer to that charge, Principal Beth Costa said. The Courageous Conversations About Race lessons, created by county teachers and held during the Advisory block, started at the end of April following months of planning. The units walked students through discussions about race, identity, culture, bias and empathy with readings, activities and question prompts such as ‘What happens when people with different cultures come together in a community?’ and others about the cost of white privilege. ‘At this age, you can’t dive into anti-racism,’ Costa said. ‘You have to go all the way back to the concept of self in order to understand your community, your culture, then to understand race.’ The content of the lessons has alarmed a group of parents who say the units overstep the school’s role, discriminate against their children who hold different beliefs, infringe on parental rights and create divisions. Meanwhile, another group of parents says teaching students how to interact with their peers is essential to ensuring all students feel safe and supported, which can be a matter of life and death, given the suicide rates among transgender children. Sixth- and seventh-graders followed one set of lessons while eighth-graders had a different set that was developed by a division-wide team of middle school diversity resource teachers. Henley was picked to pilot the lessons over the course of six weeks. Feedback from students and teachers will inform work over the summer to prepare to roll lessons out to other county middle schools, Costa said.”

The article tells us, “The goal in talking about bias, privilege and dominant culture was not to make anyone feel bad, Costa said. ‘It’s just to raise an awareness of what privilege is, and what is important to know about it,’ she said. Costa said that in a school like Henley, which is one the division’s least diverse, helping students to understand that people identify in different ways is important. ‘The important thing was the impact,’ she said. ‘How do you become an ally for someone if you’ve never had that experience? You then can still become that person’s ally … whether that’s about identity or culture or race. That’s the part we’re really going after in a school like Henley that really is not very diverse or representative of the world.’ After listening to 54 people — most of whom were white and in support of the lessons — weigh in on the issue over the last two School Board meetings, board members said Thursday that they supported what Henley was doing but also want more information about the pilot. ‘It aligns perfectly with our anti-racism policy,’ board Chairman Graham Paige said. The pushback from parents comes as state lawmakers across the country are aiming to restrict the teaching of critical race theory, systemic racism or bias. At the same time, parents are speaking out at school board meetings about similar issues with the support of national conservative organizations. In Virginia, this movement largely has been focused in Loudoun County over critical race theory and the suspension of a teacher who disagreed with a policy about transgender students, as well as potential changes to math courses, which state officials say are far from being adopted, and new standards for social-emotional learning.”

The article continues, “More than 300 people have signed a petition seeking to pause the implementation of Courageous Conversations lessons at Henley Middle School to allow for a review and evidence-based analysis of the program, surveys and a public discussion. In the petition, parents wrote that they support a learning environment free from discrimination, hate, exclusion and bullying of any kind. ‘We are concerned about the new Courageous Conversations program being piloted at Henley Middle School, and whether it is the right way to achieve the above goals we are all united in supporting,’ according to the petition. Parents also criticized the rollout of the lessons as lacking transparency and communication, and questioned the level of teachers’ preparedness to lead the discussions. ‘What’s the rush on this program?’ asked Christy Cormons, a parent of two elementary students, at last week’s School Board meeting. ‘What’s the big secret? Nothing is gained by rushing. Slow down, press pause and be transparent with parents.’ Matt Mierzejewski, parent of a Henley eighth-grader, is part of Citizens Advocating for Responsible Education, the group opposed to the lessons. In an interview, he said he first became concerned about the lessons when he learned they would include conversations about identity, sexual orientation and gender. He and his wife pulled their son out of the class after the first lesson. ‘Part of the issue that I have in some of the curriculum is that it is absolutely imposing a belief system as opposed to presenting different belief systems,’ Mierzejewski said. ‘What we asked of the administration at Henley is, let’s present all sides for inclusion here. Let’s present the fact that some religions and beliefs say that there are only two genders. This is a widely held belief; this is not a radical thought.’ ” In other words, in addition to teaching acceptance of others who may be different, he wants the school to also teach hatred of others who are different. That would be the “other side,” after all.

It also says, ” ‘But there has to be a place for every student’s voice to be included,’ Mierzejewski said. ‘And that includes, as an example, someone who believes that there are only two genders, male or female. That is a belief system that my child subscribes to, and that he should not feel intimidated, unsafe, or discriminated against because of that belief and position.’ His son has experienced discrimination in the school, he said, declining to provide further details. His wife, Marie Mierzejewski, said at the May 27 board meeting that as a Catholic, the message to her son has been to keep his head down and shut up because his opinions aren’t welcomed in the school. ‘When did public schools truthfully only become welcoming if you’re a Democrat?’ she asked. ‘That’s honestly what it’s come down to — feeling that if you have conservative values, you are really unwelcome to express them at the school, and that you’ll get ostracized. And that’s already been happening to my son for saying to people he believes in male and female.’ ” She just wants to continue teaching her son to hate without interference.

The article says, ” ‘I want to make it very clear that this school is in no way teaching us that white people are bad,’ said Madalyn Benedict, an eighth-grader at Henley. ‘The only purpose is to bring awareness to these kinds of issues. For those of you who think that the county is pushing a political agenda or narrative: The idea that being anti-racist is somehow an attack on your political or religious views because it promotes being against bigotry is disgusting.’ Madalyn was one of several students who spoke in support of the lessons at Thursday’s board meeting. Mary Govan, a student at Albemarle High School, said that growing up in the county’s western feeder pattern, many of her classmates were white and some teachers would confuse her with the only other Asian American child in her grade. She said the anti-racism policy and lessons might make the schools more welcoming for people who aren’t in the majority. ‘Tonight, I am listening to a lot of adults who are scared of having students and teachers talk about race and identity, but as an Asian American, I can’t escape these topics,’ Govan said. ‘And I need my teachers and peers to know how to have those conversations with me when I’m around, and feel safe having them.’ Julie Govan, Mary’s mother, and Scott Guggenheimer, a Henley parent, are the justice, equity, diversity and inclusion volunteers with Henley’s parent and teacher support organization and helped to write the petition as a way to express public support for the county and school. Guggenheimer said he’s sympathetic to people with whom the policy or lessons don’t resonate. ‘I certainly like the idea of a school system that is trying to figure out how to create the conditions in which every single student can thrive,’ he said. ‘And certainly, as a dad, I like the idea that my child and my children would be able to have conversations about identity across the curriculum. … That would be a good learning experience for my kiddos, and hopefully would help build sustained positive relationships for children, regardless of identity, background or circumstances.’ Govan said as a parent of several children of color, she has seen how different groups of students have different experiences in the school system. ‘I’m really in support of what Albemarle County is doing here because I think that they’re making it so that the standard for the school community is to be welcoming to and respectful to every single student,’ she said, speaking as a parent and not on behalf of the parent-teacher organization. ‘… to me, that’s impossible to gainsay the value of.’ “

According to the article, “The lessons are part of a years-long, multi-faceted effort to eliminate racism in the school division and improve outcomes for students who have historically lagged behind their white, more affluent peers. The efforts include adopting the anti-racism policy, training teachers on culturally responsive teaching practices, changing discipline policies, updating the history curriculum and ending the use of school resource officers. … The division’s equity reports released in 2016 and 2019 highlighted achievement and opportunity gaps among student groups, as well as disparities in discipline, gifted education participation and enrollment in advanced courses. In the 2018-19 school year, about 86% of white students passed the reading tests, compared with 54% of Black students, 55% of Hispanic students and 53% of economically disadvantaged students. That’s the most recent state data available because the pandemic canceled testing last year. Board members have said the schools are not teaching critical race theory, which is an academic framework that argues racism is embedded in legal systems and policies, according to Education Week. The unanimous vote to adopt the anti-racism policy wrapped up a seven-month process of public meetings and work sessions that stemmed from conversations about the division’s dress code and banning symbols relating to the Confederacy and white supremacy. During that process, most — if not all — of the public feedback was that the policy didn’t go far enough. The policy establishes reporting requirements on disciplinary actions and racial disparities throughout the division. It also mandates anti-racism training for staff and a more transparent process for class recommendations. Division staff have identified 27 action items from the policy and developed a multi-step plan for implementing the different parts.”

This article shows how a researcher uncovered a good part of the con game. “Rick Berman, an infamous right-wing lobbyist whose organizations have been accused of several astroturfing campaigns—and who is known as ‘Dr. Evil’—revealed that his firm is behind an organization that claimed to be a grass-roots movement against New York City’s prep schools focus on ‘diversity education.’ Last week, the New York Post reported on a ‘group of parents’ that was planning to show billboards showing messages such as ‘DIVERSITY NOT INDOCTRINATION’ and ‘WOKE SCHOOL? SPEAK OUT.’ The Post‘s story is centered around and features Prep School Accountability, which describes itself on its official website as ‘a group of concerned parents.’ ‘In recent years, a new orthodoxy has emerged at our schools, dividing our communities based on immutable characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. As a result, the core tenets of high-quality education—uniting all children and families through a love and appreciation for learning and community spirit—have gone by the wayside,’ the Prep School Accountability website reads. Prep School Accountability is soliciting parents to share their stories ‘If you or your child have witnessed concerning content or been part of a troubling experience regarding NYC prep school curricula’ via a form. The group did not respond to an email sent through that form. Nowhere on the site is there any reference to Rick Berman and his right-wing lobbying firm Berman and Co. The site mentions the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), but specifies that PrepSchoolAccountability.com is not affiliated with FAIR. FAIR did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, a researcher who specializes in open source intelligence investigations, published a post detailing evidence that he claimed showed Berman and Company was behind Prep School Accountability.”

In this article we find out, “University of Toledo sociology professor Monita Mungo sees ‘critical race theory’ as a ‘lens in which to view how race has operated in society.’ Jane Timken, a Republican running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, said the same way of interpreting American history ‘puts people into boxes and divides our country.’ It’s just the latest issue to drive a wedge between liberals and conservatives, who sharply disagree over how race and history should be taught in public school classrooms. Critical race theory, a concept that was rarely discussed outside academia before becoming a buzzword for conservatives and Republicans, has exploded onto the national political stage. Its supporters believe that U.S. public policy and structures have preserved the unequal treatment of people of color, while detractors argue it sows discord and distorts history. Ohio is among the states where Republicans are proposing bills that would ban teaching critical race theory in public primary and secondary schools. Lawmakers in Michigan and Pennsylvania have introduced similar bills. This week, the Florida Board of Education barred teachings that fall within this set of ideas with the backing of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. But it’s not clear how or the degree to which critical race theory, a framework ascendant in the 1990s for understanding society and race, is even taught in K‑12 schools in Ohio or nationwide. At local schools, at least, it’s not a class or curriculum, and liberals see the uproar over it as conservative hysteria that has little to do with its actual framework. ‘Most Republicans who are up in arms about critical race theory can’t define it and cannot give a solid definition of what critical race theory is,’ said Pete Gerken, a Democrat and Lucas County commissioner. ‘It’s a term of art for some people, and for some people it’s negative. But in actuality, all we’re asking people to teach is U.S. history.’ In a recent op‑ed for The Hill, Ms. Mungo wrote that, ‘Critical race theory reveals how race has been used as a tool to create and exert power in ways that affect everyone — of all races — economically and politically. The real problem with critical race theory is that it exposes those who have used race as a tool for their own political and economic gain.’ For the right, critical race theory, or CRT, has become a catch‑all for anything related to race or inequality in political and cultural discourse, Ms. Mungo said. ‘As for what’s happening in politics, that critical race theory, I have no idea what that is. But it’s not critical race theory. It seems to be a broad understanding or a broad description of anything related to the historical racial divides,’ she said. … Ms. Mungo said point‑blank it’s not an issue in public schools: ‘No teacher is walking in and saying, ‘Okay, today’s lesson is critical race theory.’ ‘ “

This article gives us more detailed information on the disinformation campaign against CRT. “An inauthentically organized, corrosive disinformation campaign taking direct aim at social resilience and anti-racism pushes has taken over school boards throughout the United States in what appears to be a highly coordinated national push — which as of June 2021 has made its way from local school boards all the way into state laws. These hastily-written, often highly vague laws ban critical race theory, which has been an established academic concept for more than four decades: ‘The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others. A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.’ The moral panic around critical race theory (often shortened to simply ‘CRT’) and also threatening ethnic studies programs is the end result of a weaponized disinformation and propaganda campaign that has also been ongoing for decades. As a result, no one attacking it seems to be able to define it, but Republican-led states have moved swiftly to ban it: ‘…n the previous five months, taking their cue from conservative activists like Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, and Cornell University Professor William Jacobson, founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, thousands of Republican legislators from Vermont and Rhode Island in liberal New England, to solid Republican states like South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Iowa, Idaho and 11 other states, had voted for bills banning Critical Race Theory (CRT) in primary and secondary schools and-or colleges and universities, because it ‘undermines American values’. Anti-CRT bills have become law in eight states and are set to become law in a further nine states.’ At the same time, inauthentically organized and sometimes violent events that are calculated to push scholars and lawmakers out of government and academic positions and put white supremacists and other conspiracy theorists into them have been seeded across the nation, specifically coalescing around local races and school boards.”


Prominent Republican political figures are rushing in to support the anti-critical race theory parent activists, hoping that these local battles will mobilize conservative voters in next year’s midterms and beyond. Matt Williams / for NBC News

This article tells us, “Jeff Porter, superintendent of a wealthy suburban school district in Maine, had no idea that his community was about to become part of a national battle when in the summer of 2020 a father began accusing the district of trying to ‘indoctrinate’ his children by teaching critical race theory. To Porter, the issue was straightforward: The district had denounced white supremacy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, but did not teach critical race theory, the academic study of racism’s pervasive impact. But the parent, Shawn McBreairty, grew increasingly disgruntled and soon connected with No Left Turn in Education, a rapidly growing national group that supports parents as they fight against lessons on systemic racism. That action turned a heated conflict with the school board into one that soon drew national attention, mobilized by a new, increasingly coordinated movement with the backing of major conservative organizations and media outlets. It’s a movement that has amped up grassroots parental organizing around the country, bringing the lens and stakes of national politics — along with the playbook of seasoned GOP activists — to school boards. ‘I was very naïve at the beginning of the year,’ Porter said. ‘I thought it was a concerned parent who had taken it a little too far. I didn’t understand this until recently, but these were tactics from national organizations to discredit the entire district.’ McBreairty became Maine’s chapter leader for No Left Turn last summer. He has since put up a billboard-size sign of a school board member’s face on his lawn and said it was surrounded by rat traps to prevent theft. ‘This is a war with the left,’ McBreairty said in an email to NBC News, ‘and in war, tactics and strategy can become blurry.’ The fight has only escalated, and it shows no sign of slowing.”

According to the article, “Conflicts like this are playing out in cities and towns across the country, amid the rise of at least 165 local and national groups that aim to disrupt lessons on race and gender, according to an NBC News analysis of media reports and organizations’ promotional materials. Reinforced by conservative think tanks, law firms and activist parents, these groups have found allies in families frustrated over Covid-19 restrictions in schools and have weaponized the right’s opposition to critical race theory, turning it into a political rallying point. While the efforts vary, they share strategies of disruption, publicity and mobilization. The groups swarm school board meetings, inundate districts with time-consuming public records requests and file lawsuits and federal complaints alleging discrimination against white students. They have become media darlings in conservative circles and made the debate over critical race theory a national issue. Virtually all school districts insist they are not teaching critical race theory, but many activists and parents have begun using it as a catch-all term to refer to what schools often call equity programs, teaching about racism or LGBTQ-inclusive policies. Now, conservative activists are setting their sights on ousting as many school board members as they can, and local Republican Parties have vowed to help, viewing the revolt against critical race theory as akin to the tea party wave from a decade ago. Activists and parents have launched 50 recall efforts this year aimed at unseating 126 school board members, according to a new report from Ballotpedia, a website that tracks U.S. politics and elections. Most of those recalls — which already surpass the record for a single year — started as objections to Covid-19 restrictions, but five of the most recently launched campaigns, including a particularly contentious fight in Loudoun County, Virginia, include concerns about critical race theory. And, in a new development this year, rather than targeting a single member, these efforts often target multiple members or entire school boards, according to Abbey Smith, a researcher at Ballotpedia.”

The article continues, “This data, which is limited to the 39 states that allow for recall of local elected officials, suggests that political discord at the local school level is at an all-time high. At least 50 other school districts from Washington to Florida have been the scenes of local unrest over the idea of critical race theory, according to an NBC News analysis of media reports. Prominent Republican political figures are rushing in to support the parent activists, hoping that these local battles will mobilize conservative voters in next year’s midterms and beyond. The push comes as President Joe Biden and Democrats have benefited from popular economic legislation but show some vulnerability on culturally divisive issues. As former Trump adviser Steve Bannon put it on his podcast in May: ‘The path to save the nation is very simple — it’s going to go through the school boards.’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said this month that he will get the ‘political apparatus involved so we can make sure there’s not a single school board member who supports critical race theory.’ Political action committees have been set up dedicated to the cause. The clashes at school board meetings and online are partly anchored in ‘real differences’ in parents’ opinions on Covid-19, race and America’s future, said Jeffrey Henig, director of the politics and education program at Columbia University’s Teachers College. ‘But it’s being exploited by actors at the national level,’ he said, ‘who see it as an opportunity to reshuffle the politics of the standard educational reform debate.’ “

This Op-Ed piece goes into what happens if you ask one of these idiots what CRT is. “There’s been a lot of talk about critical race theory lately, and I’ve felt at a loss. I’ve heard so many conflicting things about critical race theory, I’ve gotten more and more confused. So I did what middle-aged white men are prone to do — I asked another middle-aged white man. But not just any. I called an Alabama lawmaker, state Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, who wants to make it illegal to teach critical race theory in Alabama. The 2020 Alabama legislative session ended last month, but Pringle is already primed for the next one. He recently pre-filed a bill — almost eight months before the next session is scheduled to start — and he’s been talking it up on the radio. So what does his bill say? ‘It’s pretty simple,’ Pringle said. ‘All it says is you can’t teach critical race theory in K-12 or higher education in the state of Alabama.’ That is a short bill, if not a simple one. But it didn’t answer my question: What is this critical race theory educators would be forbidden to teach? Pringle has seen enough legislation to understand the law requires specificity. Many bills begin by laying out their legal definitions. How would his bill define critical race theory? ‘It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin, period,’ Pringle said. That sounded very serious, indeed. Nazi-like, even. So I asked Pringle if there were any critical race theorists he could point to who have been spreading such toxic garbage? ‘Yeah, uh, well — I can assure you — I’ll have to read a lot more,’ he said. I began to get the feeling that Pringle didn’t know as much about critical race theory as I had hoped. Were there other examples he could give me where critical race theory was being put into practice? ‘These people, when they were doing the training programs — and the government — if you didn’t buy into what they taught you a hundred percent, they sent you away to a reeducation camp,’ Pringle said.” Can you believe he really believes the government sent people to a reeducation camp if they didn’t totally believe something? This guy is a complete moron.

The article continues, “Pringle was a little difficult to follow but this sounded serious. These people — whoever they were— sounded terrifying, and if there were reeducation camps operating in America, that would be big news someone like me should get to the bottom of. I asked Pringle, who were these people? Pringle is a Realtor, a homebuilder and general contractor and he dug through what he called his ‘executive suite’ (the cab of his pickup truck) looking for an article he’d read. After a few moments of silence, he began to speak again, this time a bit haltingly. ‘Here’s an — it doesn’t say who it was, it just says a government that held these — these training sessions …’ Pringle trailed off and I told him that, if he liked, he could send me a link to the article, but then he began to speak again. ‘The white male executives are sent to a three-day re-education camp, where they were told that their white male culture wasn’t their —’ he trailed off again. I was worried that we’d lost our connection. These sorts of conversations sometimes end abruptly, but Pringle was still on the line and after a little more hemming and hawing he retreated to a common safe-space of politicians who’ve crawled too far out on a limb: He just wanted to start a conversation, he said. ‘I introduced a very brief version of the bill to start the conversation, but it’s very difficult in this cancel society to have a frank discussion about racism in this country and this country’s history,’ he said. ‘I mean, history is being rewritten and I’m not exactly sure of the accuracy of what’s there now and what they’re trying to change it into.’ This was news to me, as I’d seen lots of lawmakers try to talk about race and history in the Alabama State House, but for whatever reason, they were always the Black lawmakers. It was the white lawmakers who usually tried to change the subject. I wanted to ask Pringle about this, but suddenly he was no longer at a loss for words and I didn’t want to interrupt. ‘This is still the greatest country that’s ever, ever been in the history of the world,’ he said. ‘And the radical left is trying to destroy that and tear us apart and divide this country based on race and class, which is exactly what they do in communist countries.’ ” This idiot is completely clueless. He has no idea what communist countries do, has no idea what CRT is, and is delusional about what “the Left” wants to do.

We continue, “After bragging to me how he had BS-ed his way through his college political science classes by parroting the liberal bilge his professors wanted to hear, Pringle then said he had to get back to his day job and that he had employees waiting on him at a job site. So I let him go. (I texted Pringle later to ask if he could share it with me. ‘Sorry but I can’t find it again,’ he said. ‘Must have deleted the link.’) I had been on the phone for about 15 minutes with someone who should know what they’re talking about before making laws against things, but I was still confused about this supposed radical leftist plot. When I couldn’t get an answer from a middle-aged white man, I took the logical next step. I asked a middle-aged Black man, Alabama Democratic Party chairman and state Rep. Chris England. England was cordial enough, but I got the impression I was interrupting what had been, until then, a nice vacation at the beach. According to England, he hadn’t been familiar with critical race theory, either, until his colleagues across the aisle began making so much noise about it. That’s when he began to research it. ‘Critical race theory has been around since the ’70s and it’s never been taught in K-12,’ England said. ‘It’s post-secondary education theory that is only discussed in masters level classes.’ If that’s so, I asked, what’s really going on here? ‘It’s just politicians trying to manipulate people to garner campaign contributions and votes, whipping them up with something that has no basis in merit or fact,’ he said. But England wasn’t just talking about critical race theory. He was talking about all the political straw men that get dragged out every election cycle. (Remember Common Core?) And there always seems to be a new one. ‘All anybody really wants to be taught in their schools is the accurate and true representation of American and world history, and that includes America’s sordid history with race,’ England said. That sounded reasonable, if altogether different from what Pringle seemed so agitated about. It was almost as if they were talking about two different things. Perhaps there had been some sort of mix-up. Pringle had said he wanted to have a conversation. Would England be OK with sitting down to talk about it with Pringle and his party? England said he would, but he sounded more eager to get back to his beach vacation. ‘These conversations should start where people are, rather than where you want them to be,’ he said. ‘And the last place educational policy should be made — where you decide what teachers should be teaching in the classroom — is in the Legislature.’ “

A young journalist named Jameelah Nasheed is almost singlehandedly turning Teen Vogue into a serious opinion and investigative magazine. She has this wonderful piece for us. “We just lived through four gruesome years of a president who spewed words of hate, often rooted in racism, on a regular basis and a global stage. Many of those words also happened to be lies, yet the Republican party backed him every step of the way — citing the First Amendment, claiming that hate speech and dangerous lies should be fiercely protected under the guise of free speech. Now this same Republican Party has made it its mission to ban our country’s educators from teaching students the actual truth about our history. This isn’t surprising, given Republican lawmakers’ long history of promoting a whitewashed, misleading version of U.S. history in the country’s schools. Trump himself created the 1776 Commission, a ‘patriotic education’ organization that was meant to teach American exceptionalism to students and counter supposed ‘left-wing indoctrination in our schools.’ He also signed an executive order that suspended federal training programs related to race, diversity, and inclusion in the months before the American people told him, ‘You’re fired.’ The Republicans’ current crusade against teaching race and racism in schools is part of the same tradition of erasing truth and amplifying fiction. Perhaps more importantly, it mirrors the type of dangerous, disturbing behavior of those history-makers that the modern GOP fears discussing. If today we talk about the racists and white supremacists of yesterday, then years from now, we’ll be talking about the racists and white supremacists of today, many of whom are the very same leaders trying to rewrite history. This year alone, 21 states have either banned critical race theory (CRT) or introduced legislation that moves in that direction. CRT is described as being a framework that considers race to be a social, institutional construct that’s intended to keep Black and brown people in the lower rungs of society — i.e., an accurate description of the past few centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and myriad other forms of discrimination.”

She continues, “One of the main targets of Republicans’ ire is journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project, published by The New York Times in 2019. The project commemorated the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in what is now the U.S. Her work went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 2020, and its content has since been used to teach about slavery and its impacts in classrooms nationwide. But some schools have attempted to ban its teaching, and in May of this year, it was reported that Hannah-Jones’s application for tenure at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill was denied after conservative criticism of her work. With that, the Pulitzer Prize-winner became UNC’s first Knight Chair professor to be denied tenure by the board of trustees. According to the Associated Press, one of the school’s major donors confirmed that he’d reached out to university administrators to voice his concerns over her hiring, referring to her work as ‘highly contentious and highly controversial.’ But Hannah-Jones’s work isn’t the problem; the problem is the fact that, to many Republicans, discussing slavery and systemic racism seems to be more ‘highly contentious and highly controversial’ than the acts themselves. The GOP is yet again leaning into the culture wars, this time using decades-old material. Critical race theory is an academic framework, which according to NPR, ‘examines how race and racism function in American institutions.’ Although it was developed by a group of legal scholars and activists in the 1970s to make sense of the role systemic racism continued to play in the lives of Black Americans, the concept is also directly related to the teachings of W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Pauli Murray. Civil rights attorney Derrick Bell — Harvard University’s first Black tenured professor, often referred to as the ‘father of critical race theory’ — is credited with establishing the theory along with Alan Freeman, Richard Delgado, Patricia Williams, Mari Matsuda, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. ‘Critical race theory is a practice. It’s an approach to grappling with a history of white supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it,’ said Crenshaw.”

According to Ms. Nasheed, “Those who oppose the concept say teaching CRT ‘teaches kids to hate America.’ Representative Steve Toth (R-TX) went so far as to invoke Martin Luther King Jr. in defending the bill he authored seeking to ban CRT: ‘This bill is a direct reflection of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,’ Toth told Yahoo News. ‘It echoes Dr. King’s wish that we should judge people on the content of their character, not their skin.’ The thing is, CRT isn’t designed to say that all white people are racist; it’s a theory that seeks to interrogate the laws, regulations, court rulings, and other decisions powerful authorities made that led us to where we are. It’s looking at the institutions that held them up, and the figures that set them down. Judging these history makers by the content of their character, it would be difficult not to conclude that some of them are racist. The proof is there, and in many cases, it’s in black and white. There’s the explicitly racist language in the Federal Housing Authority’s Underwriting Manual that laid the groundwork for redlining; the government-funded Kerner Commission’s documented findings on the racial uprisings from 1965 to 1968; and the reality that Black Americans were considered to be three-fifths of a person. There’s also the obvious impacts that the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans has had on their descendants. The fear of teaching American students how to think critically about race is alarming. If merely thinking about the construct of race is so dangerous, the practice of enforcing political and systemic divisions based on that same construct is even more dangerous. Consider what these whitewashed, often false, historical narratives have done to the psyches of nonwhite students. Some textbooks refer to enslaved people as ‘immigrants’ or ‘workers,’ many of whom were not ‘unhappy’ with their place within the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery. Others teach students that Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America, totally disregarding the millions of Indigenous people who inhabited this land before him (a concept that truly baffled me as an elementary school student). Where’s the outrage about the ways those false teachings hurt nonwhite kids? Nonetheless, here we are. All of us — Black, white, Asian, Indigenous — descendants and inhabitants of a country whose history is deeply rooted in the practice of enforcing this construct of race. The U.S. that we live in today, with all its flaws and beauty, wouldn’t be what it is without race. James Baldwin, writer and activist, once said, ‘I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.’ After all, how much can you truly love your country if in the telling of its story, you insist on leaving out the parts that truly define it? To love a fictional iteration of your country is no patriotism at all.”

We learn from this article, “Andrew Hartman, a history professor at Illinois State University, described the battle over critical race theory as typical of the culture wars, where ‘the issue itself is not always the thing driving the controversy.’ ‘I’m not really sure that the conservatives right now know what it is or know its history,’ said Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars. He said critical race theory posits that racism is endemic to American society through history and that, consequently, Americans have to think about institutions like the justice system or schools through the perspective of race and racism. However, he said, ‘conservatives, since the 1960s, have increasingly defined American society as a colorblind society, in the sense that maybe there were some problems in the past but American society corrected itself and now we have these laws and institutions that are meritocratic and anybody, regardless of race, can achieve the American dream.’ Confronted by the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 curriculum, which roots American history in its racist past, Hartman said many Americans want simple answers. ‘And so critical race theory becomes a stand-in for this larger anxiety about people being upset about persistent racism,’ he said.”

This article tells us the racist governor of Texas, in addition to trying to suppress the African American vote, signed a bill to ban the teaching of CRT. “A bill that legislators say sought to ban ‘critical race theory’ in school — but never defined or mentioned the concept explicitly — stirred fear among educators that there could be repercussions for broaching current events during class. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the broad legislation into law without fanfare, according to the Texas Legislature Online service. The law will go into effect in September. … Now, educators and civics advocates question how the vague language in the bill actually translates into the classroom and whether a legal challenge could strike it down. They’ll be closely watching how the State Board of Education takes on the Legislature’s mandate and revamps Texas’ social studies curriculum. ‘We’ve got a piece-of-junk legislation for us to work with,’ said Pat Hardy, a Republican member of the State Board of Education and a former history teacher who had hoped Abbott would veto the legislation. The Legislature approved the bill in the dramatic final days of session after hours of debate and procedural back and forth. Teachers and education groups made impassioned pleas against it, saying it would have a chilling effect on social studies classrooms — particularly in teaching current events — and stymie districts’ work to address racism and equity in schools. ‘This will stifle the teaching of huge, important facts about history, which still affect much of our life today,’ said Clay Robison, the Texas State Teachers Association spokesman. ‘Teachers and students need and deserve the whole truth about our history, our culture and what our problems are.’ “

The article says, “While the legislation was labeled an ‘anti-critical race theory’ bill, it doesn’t actually contain those words. Instead, it includes a long list of subjects and ideas that must — or must not — be taught. Critical race theory is an academic framework that explores how racism is embedded in U.S. policies and systems. Recently, though, conservative pundits and politicians have attempted to conflate it with a slew of other concepts, such as diversity and inclusion efforts, anti-racism training, social justice activism or multicultural curricula. Teachers can’t be ‘compelled to discuss a particular current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs,’ according to the new law. In January, for example, teachers grappled with how to properly teach about the U.S. Capitol insurrection and the inauguration of the first female vice president — knowing that the topics could be considered controversial but that the issues were on students’ minds. If schools do discuss such issues, they can’t give ‘deference to any one perspective.’ That provision enraged Democrats, who questioned how teachers should, for example, explore both sides of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Teachers also aren’t allowed to give credit for students to participate in lobbying or public policy internships. Civics groups say such work prepares students to be engaged citizens and connects what they’re learning in the classroom to the real world. But some argue that it inappropriately steers students to activism. Within social studies classrooms, teachers can’t teach a variety of ideas, including that a person is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, either consciously or unconsciously. This comes as many districts are working on exploring how teachers’ unconscious bias — the stereotypes people may not be aware they have — can negatively affect students of color. School districts are also prohibited from requiring training that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or blame on the basis of race or sex. Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa fears this provision could prevent ongoing districtwide training efforts over cultural competency. The training is part of a larger initiative to address the disparities Black students face at school. Trustees last year unanimously adopted a resolution declaring that Black lives matter. The 1619 Project — a favorite target of conservatives — is explicitly called out in the legislation. The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning work sought to reframe American history around slavery’s consequences and the contributions of Black people. The law prohibits teaching that ‘slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States.’ Several of the Founding Fathers owned slaves.”

The article also tells us, “The language in the bill is vague and subject to interpretation. Education groups worry that ambiguity and fear could stop some teachers from broaching many topics in the classroom. ‘We’ll have principals in conservative communities who don’t want a backlash and will put in place blanket expectations of ‘Don’t talk about anything controversial in your classroom,’’ said Renee Blackmon, president of the Texas Council for the Social Studies. ‘That way they’ll feel like they’re safe from community reproach — and then teachers are on eggshells.’ It’s unclear how the law’s provisions will be executed, leaving Blackmon concerned about ‘whack-a-mole enforcement.’ Veteran social studies teacher August Plock has taught at Pflugerville High School near Austin for 22 years and feels he has earned the support of his campus leaders, which makes him more comfortable navigating tough issues. But a young teacher newly out of college may not have the same confidence in current events discussions that could draw pushback from families. And while Plock acknowledged that each teacher should strive to present a diverse range of perspectives on any controversial topic, he said the legislation could remove debate from the classroom. He said teachers will have to consider: ‘Are you willing to present something, knowing that potentially you could get blowback from it? Are you willing to go there?’ Hinojosa worries that ‘every teacher will be terrified that someone is going to be recording them and turn them into the ‘racial police.’’ ‘That is no way to operate,’ he said. Dallas officials have reached out to statewide and national groups for guidance on how educators should proceed as district lawyers evaluate exactly what the bill will mean for teachers and students when it goes into effect.”

In this article we learn the Republicans are continuing their posturing by saying they will deny funding to schools that use the 1619 Project. “Congressional Republicans once again want to cut federal funding for schools that use lessons based on the 1619 Project—but they don’t want big programs serving special education students and others to be affected. The legislation was introduced this week by nine GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate minority leader, and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. It would decrease federal funds for schools and districts using curriculum inspired by the 2019 New York Times Magazine series that puts slavery and racism at the center of America’s experience and public-policy record. The bill would require the U.S. secretary of education and other cabinet-level leaders to identify the cost of teaching 1619 Project lessons, then cut the corresponding amount of federal aid to schools or school districts. However, the bill would shield programs supporting students with disabilities and school meals from any such cuts, along with ‘any other program for low-income students.’ On its face, that language would exempt the two biggest K-12 programs by dollar amount at the Education Department: Title I services for disadvantaged students, as well as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees school nutrition services. In effect, the bill would require funding cuts in certain instances without affecting major programs for poor students and those who are entitled to special education services. These programs are relatively popular in Congress, and local school districts generally consider them crucial to their budgets and operations. They support everything from breakfast and preschool to individualized education programs. Title I money can also be used to pay for curriculum. The Saving American History Act has no real shot of getting traction in this Democratically controlled Congress. (GOP lawmakers introduced it in both the House and Senate). The federal government also is prohibited from dictating curriculum to schools or punishing them for using certain lessons. However, through this ‘messaging’ bill, the senators are capitalizing on the roiling debate over how schools address racism in the classroom and beyond.”

The lying racist Tom Cotton proves he neither knows nor cares what CRT is or even what the 1619 Project actually is. ” ‘Activists in schools want to teach our kids to hate America and hate each other using discredited, Critical Race Theory curricula like the 1619 Project,’ said Cotton, who authored legislation last year that also targeted the 1619 Project and is the lead sponsor of this year’s bill, in a statement about the legislation. ‘Federal funds should not pay for activists to masquerade as teachers and indoctrinate our youth.’ Cotton’s office did not respond to questions about which programs precisely would be shielded from cuts under the legislation, and why he and GOP senators wanted those major K-12 programs protected. In addition to Cotton and McConnell, the Senate bill was introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark.; Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. The House version was introduced by Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., and Rep. Rick Allen, R-Ga. The bill does not single out the 1619 Project curriculum from the Pulitzer Center by name, but refers only to ‘the 1619 Project initiative of the New York Times.’ It’s unclear what classroom lessons and curricula would be covered by that language. Chicago schools have used the Pulitzer Center’s 1619 Project curriculum in lessons. The center said last year its curriculum was being used in 4,500 classrooms and that tens of thousands of students were engaging with it in some way.”

This article tells us historians and educators are pushing back against the racist poseurs. “Today PEN America—in partnership with the American Historical Association, the American Association of University Professors, and the Association of American Colleges & Universities—issued a joint statement opposing the wave of legislation being introduced in states across the country to stifle education about racism and American history in schools, colleges, and universities. Some 75 academic associations and organizations across the K-12 and college sectors signed on to support the statement, including the American Federation of Teachers, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Council of Learned Societies, and many others. ‘These bills represent the most coordinated and widespread effort to legislate restrictions on speech, thought, and educational institutions in recent memory,‘ said Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America. ‘That’s why we helped spearhead this effort, bringing together an exceptionally wide-ranging and diverse coalition to state our firm and unequivocal opposition to them. These bills are ill-conceived and irresponsible. They pose a fundamental threat to the educational institutions of our democracy.’ “

This article gives us more information on the same subject. “A raft of higher-education organizations voiced their ‘firm opposition’ on Wednesday to legislation that they say aims to bar or impede instructors from educating students about racism in American history. The bills, versions of which have been introduced in at least 20 states, risk infringing ‘on the right of faculty to teach and of students to learn,’ says the joint statement, written by the American Association of University Professors, the American Historical Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and PEN America, and signed by them and more than 85 other groups. ‘In higher education, under principles of academic freedom that have been widely endorsed, professors are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject,’ the statement says. ‘Educators, not politicians, should make decisions about teaching and learning.’ … Jim Grossman, executive director of the AHA, recognized what he called an old trick to drum up political support: You ban things that either aren’t or are barely happening, to make them seem more widespread. By treating rarities as if they’re pervasive, lawmakers are creating effective political rhetoric, Grossman said. The AHA and other higher-ed organizations reject that rhetoric. To Grossman, the goal of the bills is to ‘inculcate patriotism’ by ‘celebrating the nation’s past rather than understanding it,’ he wrote in a recent message to AHA members. Professional historians generally recognize that you cannot teach the history of the United States without regarding racism as a central feature, he said. ‘It’s just not possible.’ Yes, scholars will debate certain aspects of that history, and it’s important for them to be able to do so. But what’s happening in state houses right now, said Grossman, is not about scholarship or scholarly debate. ‘It is about riling up voters.’ Irene Mulvey, president of the AAUP, agrees. ‘These are cynical and illegitimate attempts to twist the national conversation for partisan gain,’ she told The Chronicle. She said it’s important for college administrators to stand up to such attempts. It’s their job, she said, to educate legislators about the primary academic missions of their institutions, to push back. Lynn Pasquerella, president of the AAC&U, called this legislative wave another example of the growing infringement of the autonomy of academic institutions. Look at the case of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s stalled tenured bid in North Carolina, she said. Look at a bill, backed by Republican lawmakers in Florida, that would survey the ‘intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity’ of state institutions by considering ‘the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented,’ and would allow students to record lectures, to be used in potential lawsuits. The group’s member institutions are concerned about the shifting landscape of higher ed in which their control over their own governance is slipping, she said.”

In this article we learn the governor of Nebraska is an ignoramus as well. “Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts this week said he is ‘opposed to critical race theory,’ voicing an increasingly common opinion among Republican politicians. The governor was asked about the concept Monday on his monthly call-in radio program, during which he didn’t explicitly call for legislation related to the theory and public schools but encouraged parents to get engaged. But an associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said the definitions the governor offered on the air reflect a lack of understanding of the theory and literature on it. At the foundation of critical race theory is that race is a social construct used to oppress and exploit people of color, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Academics use the approach to look at how our understanding of race and white supremacy have impacted our past, structures — such as laws, politics, economics and society in general — and present, according to Jeannette Jones, the associate professor. Jones, who spoke to The World-Herald in her capacity as a scholar, not a university employee, said she was first introduced to the theory in graduate school, after a book co-edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw was published in 1995. The concept’s roots reach back decades, but the phrase ‘critical race theory’ has lately assumed a starring role in political discourse, especially around public education. Left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for America, which monitors conservative media, found this week that Fox News’ month-over-month mentions of the theory have more than doubled since February. … In explaining the theory, Jones said it is used not only to help people understand how racism and white supremacy operate, but also how to find ways out. She offered a metaphor: If you get a math problem wrong, you go back and check your work to understand where you made a mistake, or you won’t be able to get the right answer. ‘America needs to go back and check its work,’ she said.”

Later in the article we read, “Later in the show, a second caller, Howard of West Point, referred back to the exchange and asked the governor to define his concept of critical race theory. ‘So, the critical race theory — and I can’t think of the author right off the top of my head who wrote about this — really had a theory that, at the high level, is one that really starts creating those divisions between us about defining who we are based on race and that sort of thing and really not about how to bring us together as Americans rather than — and dividing us and also having a lot of very socialist-type ideas about how that would be implemented in our state,’ Ricketts said, recommending the caller read about it. Rather than looking at how people are different, he advocated for finding ‘common ground’ and ‘how to come together as Americans.’ Presented with the governor’s definitions, Jones said she didn’t ‘hear a firm understanding of the objective of critical race theory.’ ‘I hear a lot of innuendos,’ she said, adding that it is common for someone who’s asked for the definition not to know it. ‘I think most of the people who are using it (the term) now don’t even know what it is. So, when they’re asked to define it, they don’t even know how to define it,’ she said. ‘I think that’s important for us to grapple with.’ “

According to this article, “Consider how 21st-century politicians brag about their country. It is the greatest because it has the ‘greatest employment numbers,’ as Trump has said, or because its ‘cars and movies and technologies’ are the ‘envy of the entire world,’ as Mitt Romney has declared. For Barack Obama, it’s the tolerance and opportunity that allowed a man whose father grew up in a ‘tin-roof shack‘ in Kenya to achieve any dream he wanted. Today’s politicians take evident pride in the United States’ small businesses, large military and middle class. Such boasts would have baffled the founders, though. They thought little about providing jobs or creating an entertainment empire. For them, the ‘pursuit of happiness’ emphatically did not imply a Black man becoming president. When Thomas Jefferson was pressed to defend the virtues of his country, he pointed to the large size of its quadrupeds. Greatness, in other words, is a moving target. A good history class helps students see that. It doesn’t treat the United States as an unvarying force for freedom or oppression but as an arena where worldviews compete. Students learn that different people had irreconcilable dreams, clashing understandings of what made their country ‘great.’ They learn that history is messy. It is this appreciation for change and multiple perspectives that makes the U.S. history classroom a poor place to inculcate or beat back patriotism. ‘How great are we?’ is simply not the question history seeks to answer. ‘How did we get here?’ is closer to the mark. The point of history is not to list all the good things or bad things that have happened, nor to strike some desired balance between them. It’s to understand origins, persistence and change. We teach it because we hope that knowing how slavery ended or the Second World War began will equip students to think intelligently about the present. History helps them to see why and by whom their world was built. It shows them how visions have had consequences — sometimes far-reaching, sometimes unintended. It gives them the intellectual tools to act on their society: a complex, dynamic place that is theirs to change or conserve. The aim of history class isn’t to get students to love or loathe their country. It’s to prepare them to live in it.”

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