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Tag: critical race theory
Critical Race Fragility
The critical race theorists are feeling the heat. Over the past decade, they have had remarkable success in perpetuating the concepts of systemic racism, unconscious bias, white privilege, and white fragility in American institutions, beginning with universities and moving on to schools, government agencies, and multinational corporations. Their campaign began mostly without opposition, as most conservatives were either ignorant of what was happening or dismissed it as a campus fad.
That changed last year. The intellectual movements around the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, Quillette magazine, and the 1776 Unites coalition of dissident black scholars had laid down a theoretical case against critical race theory (CRT). President Trump elevated the debate into the mainstream, denouncing CRT by name at the National Archives, signing an executive order banning CRT-based training programs from the federal government, and sparring on the topic during a televised presidential debate. Since then, investigative journalists, including me, have reported on the negative impact of CRT in government, schools, and corporations; states such as New Hampshire, Arkansas, Iowa, West Virginia, and Oklahoma have introduced legislation seeking to ban CRT programs that promote the concepts of race essentialism, collective guilt, and race-based harassment in public institutions.
This shift in momentum against the new racial orthodoxy, which has now grown beyond America’s borders to England, France, Italy, Hungary, and Brazil, has rattled the American Left. Their first argument against this change is that conservatives are using state power to “cancel wokeness.” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently followed this line, attacking my work “leading the conservative charge against critical race theory,” declaring that the Right wants to ban critical race theory because it is afraid to debate it. This is false, of course. For more than a year, prominent black intellectuals, including John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly, and Coleman Hughes have challenged the critical race theorists to debate—and none has accepted. After Goldberg published her column, I called her bluff even further, challenging to “debate any prominent critical race theorist on the floor of the New York Times.” Predictably, none responded, catching the New York Times in a fib and further exposing the critical race theorists’ refusal to submit their ideas to public scrutiny.
The second line of attack, advanced by Goldberg and Acadia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, is that the attempt to regulate critical race theory-based programs is an “attack on free speech.” Goldberg and Sachs are attempting to reclaim the mantle of free speech, but on closer inspection, their case is legally and morally groundless. First, as legal writer Hans Bader points out, the Supreme Court has ruled that states and public schools have the ability to control curricular speech without violating free speech. Furthermore, under the Fourteenth Amendment, states and school districts have an obligation to prevent the creation of a learning environment that promotes hostility toward a certain race or sex. The courts have repeatedly ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment outweighs and limits the First Amendment when it comes to government entities adopting policies and programs that perpetuate racial stereotyping, discrimination, and harassment. Despite Sachs’s hyperventilation about threats to academia (i.e., the public-employment program for new racialist ideology), many legislatures have explicitly allowed the teaching of CRT in university classrooms; it is only forbidden to turn these principles into compelled speech, employee-indoctrination programs, and official state curricula for primary and secondary school students.
The most telling limitation in their argument, however, is that Goldberg and Sachs both refuse to deal with specifics. They present critical race theory as a benign academic discipline that seeks “social justice,” while ignoring the avalanche of reporting, including my own, that suggests that, in practice, CRT-based programs are often hateful, divisive, and filled with falsehoods; they traffic in racial stereotypes, collective guilt, racial segregation, and race-based harassment. The real test for intellectuals on the left is not to defend their ideas as abstractions but to defend the real-world consequences of their ideas.
Illinois Teachers Shamed For Color Of Their Skin In Taxpayer-Sponsored ‘Antiracist’ Training
Educators at a public high school in Illinois were astonished to learn when they showed up for work one day that everything from the color of their skin to snow shoveling indicates “systemic racism.”
On Feb. 26, Naperville 203 Community Unit School District hosted a systemic racism training for faculty and staff, bringing in “antiracist” coach Dena Simmons for a keynote speech. The Countywide Equity Institute featured 10 speakers lecturing on “equity and inclusion” practices for “marginalized and/or underrepresented” students, as well as implicit bias and microaggressions.
A whistleblower who reached out to The Federalist, a teacher at Naperville Central High School, claims Simmons told attendees that “our education is based on a foundation of whiteness” and that Americans “are spiritually murdering” students. Simmons also reportedly said that if you are not an “antiracist” you are a racist, even if you believe “you are treating people with respect.”
Simmons has delivered two TEDx talks on institutional racism. In one speech to educators that has more than 230,000 views on YouTube, the Yale University graduate said “white supremacy” is the outcome in all schools that do not embrace “racial justice” and “antiracism” training for students.
In an article titled “How to Be an Antiracist Educator” published in Oct. 2019, Simmons praises The New York Times’ “1619 Project” as a “comprehensive opportunity to learn and discuss history and race with colleagues and students.” The 1619 Project claimed America is systemically racist and that all of modern society and injustices are directly linked to slavery. It has been the target of much criticism by scholars for inaccuracy.
The whistleblower said Simmons’ lecture was “all over the place” and “hard to follow” content-wise. Simmons reportedly said “snow removal” indicates systemic racism, presumably referencing a viral Feb. 3 column published by the Los Angeles Times in which the author condemned her Republican neighbor for plowing her driveway.
Cleveland State Professor Is Indoctrinating The Next Generation Of Educators With Critical Race Theory
Two education majors at Cleveland State University did not realize when they signed up for a class titled “The Social Context of Urban Education” that they would be lectured on white privilege, implied racism, and forced to learn critical race theory from a Robin DiAngelo textbook. DiAngelo, the famous “antiracist” educator who was exposed as providing Coca-Cola’s now-deleted “try to be less white” training to employees, has become one of the leaders in the insane movement.
“Every week it’s something different, and our textbook has nothing to do with my major, middle childhood education,” said the whistleblower, a sophomore from Lake County, who first contacted The Federalist. “Last week, we had this presentation from people who hold positions at CSU about the likewise relation between the riots in the 1960s to the riots that took place in Cleveland in 2020. … All the assignments have nothing to do with being a teacher. It all has to do with how I have white guilt apparently. We also had to give a presentation in class on how our positionality and intersectionality interact with us in society.”
The course is being taught by Molly Feghali, who students say has prohibited white people from using the word “ghetto” in the classroom due to its supposedly racist connotation. One paper prompt Feghali has assigned for the class asks students to spend time “reflecting on your educational journey thus far,” and describe “how has your positionality/intersectionality impacted your journey?” Another asks students to “create a graphical representation of how prejudice, discrimination, implicit bias, power, oppression, and socialization are interrelated and impact the isms.”
The radicalism of Feghali is unsurprising given the substance of her doctoral thesis. The 2018 thesis, titled “Interracial Contact at a Diverse High School: How School and Community Structures Shape Students’ Experiences,” is 126 pages of leftist buzzwords. It states that “unconscious bias” manifests in “micro-aggressions,” and that “white privilege” means white students are inherently ignorant.
If You Liked Common Core, You’re Going To Love Joe Biden’s Anti-American Civics Project
It’s deja vu all over again. A coalition of government- and billionaire-funded nonprofits has a “bipartisan” plan for national curriculum goals, this time concerning U.S. history and government. Today this “state-led” coalition is releasing a major report they hope will get the attention of the Biden administration and state governors to “collaboratively” enact their vision nationwide.
Remember, these sorts of national plans are supported by people on the right and left, so there can be no need for further investigation or any public questioning. The experts have got this problem all figured out. Your children and the nation’s future are in their hands. Trust them, these are experts under whose leadership the nation’s civic and historical knowledge not only hasn’t improved but may be at the worst point in possibly all of American history, because of — oops, I mean in spite of their best efforts!
More than 300 “leading scholars” have spent 17 months putting together a “roadmap” for “what and how to teach integrated K-12 history and civics for today’s learners.” It’s a “cross-ideological conversation about civic learning and history at a time when our country needs it the most,” so don’t worry your pretty little heads about anything and let the experts sort it out! What could go wrong?
What, you heard that the Smithsonian is saturating its exhibits and materials with social-justice saturated fake history and forking over good taxpayer money for racist propaganda, and therefore you’re a bit concerned about their involvement in this project? What’s wrong with you, the Smithsonian is an old and venerable American institution! Republican senators are putting billions of dollars behind its promotion of cultural Marxism!
Did we mention this project is also bipartisan? The education secretaries for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all on board, of course. They presided over a massive decline in U.S. education quality and increase in bureaucracy, so you know it’s a good idea!
The DC uniparty has just the perfect solution for American kids’ dangerous ignorance about their nation’s founding principles, system of government, and history. It’s making them into political activists! It’s called “action civics.” Isn’t that exciting? Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were big fans. Remember them? So are Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, those models of respect for the U.S. Constitution!
No, kids don’t need to know anything to lobby their local, state, and national governments, that would ruin the effect. Everyone knows learning is boring! What’s fun is action! Action civics! You know, like the nation saw in the past year or so, all those refreshing young people protesting in the streets for racial justice.
Biden HUD Secretary Nominee Marcia Fudge Is A ‘Systemic Racism’ Conspiracy Theorist
President Joe Biden nominated Rep. Maria Fudge for the secretary of Housing and Urban Development position on Dec. 10. Fudge, an Ohio Democrat, perversely claimed at a Biden campaign live stream rally in April 2020 that COVID-19 demonstrates that America is systemically racist, a statement in line with her other bizarre commentary on race.
“Black people have always been aware of systemic and institutional racism. COVID-19 just proved to the rest of the country that it exists,” Fudge said. “If we do not elect Joe Biden, we will not recover in my lifetime. I’m not being dramatic, I’m being honest.”
Fudge’s speculative comments concerning race and COVID-19 followed her controversial reading of a statement from one of her constituents, a man who called all Trump supports “racist” and “dumb,” on the House floor in June 2019.
“It is glaringly apparent that many who support the present administration are either racist, steeped in religious beliefs, ignorant, or as my mother used to say just plain dumb,” Fudge read aloud. “They have chosen to support a president who has a proven record of being sexually condescending to women, will not oppose the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate organizations, is indecisive, condescending to anyone who challenges him, and hides behind his Twitter account rather than dealing with the real issues in our country and around the world. To put icing on this cake, he’s a proven liar.”
Dr. Seuss for our modern age…
Amid protests against racism, scientists move to strip offensive names from journals, prizes, and more
For Earyn McGee, terminology matters.
McGee, a herpetologist, studies the habitat and behavior of Yarrow’s spiny lizard, a reptile native to the southwestern United States. The University of Arizona graduate student and her colleagues regularly pack their things—boots, pens, notebooks, trail mix—and set off into the nearby Chiricahua Mountains. At their field site, they start an activity with a name that evokes a racist past: noosing.
“Noosing” is a long-standing term used by herpetologists for catching lizards. But for McGee, a Black scientist, the term is unnerving, calling to mind horrific lynchings of Black people by white people in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. “Being the only Black person out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of white people talking about noosing things is unsettling,” she says. McGee has urged her colleagues to change the parlance to “lassoing,” which she says also more accurately describes how herpetologists catch lizards with lengths of thread.
McGee isn’t alone in reconsidering scientific language. Researchers are pushing to rid science of words and names they see as offensive or glorifying people who held racist views.
The Evolutionary Advantages of Playing Victim
Victimhood is defined in negative terms: “the condition of having been hurt, damaged, or made to suffer.” Yet humans have evolved to empathize with the suffering of others, and to provide assistance so as to eliminate or compensate for that suffering. Consequently, signaling suffering to others can be an effective strategy for attaining resources. Victims may receive attention, sympathy, and social status, as well as financial support and other benefits. And being a victim can generate certain kinds of power: It can justify the seeking of retribution, provide a sense of legitimacy or psychological standing to speak on certain issues, and may even confer moral impunity by minimizing blame for victims’ own wrongdoings.
Presumably, most victims would eagerly forego such benefits if they were able to free themselves of their plight. But when victimhood yields benefits, it incentivizes people to signal their victimhood to others or to exaggerate or even fake victimhood entirely. This is especially true in contexts that involve alleged psychic harms, and where appeals are made to third-parties, with the claimed damage often being invisible, unverifiable, and based exclusively on self-reports. Such circumstances allow unscrupulous people to take advantage of the kindness and sympathy of others by co-opting victim status for personal gain. And so, people do.
Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead. Victimhood signaling is associated with numerous morally undesirable personality traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and exploit others for self-benefit), a sense of entitlement, and lower honesty and humility.
Coach Fired For Questioning Woke Curriculum
A new court case reminds us that having an opinion can be hazardous to your career.
David Flynn had been a winning football coach at Dedham High School in Massachusetts. His two children attended Dedham schools. Last fall he learned that his daughter’s seventh-grade history class, “World Geography and Ancient History I,” had been re-routed from discussing the classics and instead turned into a series of indoctrination sessions in the new woke ideology.
Without consulting or notifying parents, Dedham Public Schools loaded down the seventh-grade history class with contemporary topics on politics, race, gender, stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination and diversity. Naturally, these topics were presented from a progressive perspective and embedded with the usual biases and tropes that are accepted as gospel by left-wing educators.
For example, class materials labeled police officers and white people as “risk factors” to all black people and suggested that white people inherently see all black males as threats. A teacher used a cartoon character of herself wearing a BLM t-shirt, just in case some kids did not get the point.
Flynn did what any concerned parent might do when learning about his child being indoctrinated. He and his wife expressed their concerns to the history teacher and principal of the school – then later to Superintendent Michael J. Welch and three members of the Dedham School Committee. However, the school system had no interest in engaging in constructive dialogue. In October the Flynns removed their children from the school.
The issue came back to haunt Flynn in January when he was called into a meeting with Superintendent Welch, DHS principal Jim Forrest and athletic director Steve Traister. Welch confronted Flynn with one of the emails he had sent to the Dedham School Committee and asked him, “What are we going to do about this?” By the end of the meeting Flynn was informed that DHS was “going in a different direction” with their football program, and moments later a statement was released stating that Flynn was removed as head coach because of “significant, repeatedly expressed philosophical differences with the direction, goals and values of the school district.”
Hellbound and Down 
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