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vague-humanoid · 1 year

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@that-biracial-geek-girl @britomartis @el-shab-hussein

When the debate over teaching race-related concepts in public schools reached Kimberly Tilsen-Brave Heart’s home state of South Dakota, she decided she couldn’t in good conscience send her youngest daughter to kindergarten at a local public school.

“I knew that the public school system would not benefit my child without the important and critical history and culture of Indigenous people being taught,” said Tilsen-Brave Heart, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

Tilsen-Brave Heart worried that her 5-year-old daughter, Pia, would be exposed to even fewer lessons taught through a cultural lens than her older siblings had been, robbing her of an educational experience that would foster a sense of belonging and self-identity. “I want my children to know who they are,” said Tilsen-Brave Heart. “I want them to know their language, their culture, where they come from — to be proud of their ethnicity and their history and their culture.”

When South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, signed an executive order in April 2022 restricting how race and equity can be taught in the classroom, Tilsen-Brave Heart decided to enroll her daughter at Oceti Sakowin Community Academy, a newly opened private school in Rapid City. The school is centered on the culture and language of the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires. The term refers to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people, also known as the Sioux.

South Dakota, home to nine tribes collectively known as the Great Sioux Nation, is one of dozens of states that have recently adopted or introduced laws or policies that take aim at critical race theory, commonly known as CRT. The concept is a decades-old framework in higher education that examines how racism is embedded in laws, policies and institutions. Its critics have argued that it sows divisions among young students and unfairly lays blame on white people for past and enduring inequities. Some Republican politicians have used the concept to stir backlash against efforts to promote equity and inclusion more broadly.

The anti-CRT efforts to restrict how race is taught have clashed with initiatives in several states, including South Dakota, Oklahoma and New Mexico, to teach Native American history — which has often been left out of instruction — more accurately and fully.

In 2018, after a decade-long consultation process, South Dakota adopted new standards designed to expand and improve instruction of Native American studies. In Oklahoma, collaborations such as one between the state Department of Education and the Oklahoma Advisory Council on Indian Education have led to more classes on Indigenous languages being offered to students. In New Mexico, the state Public Education Department recently adopted standards to improve the teaching of race and ethnicity, a subject that includes Indigenous history and culture.

About 644,000 Native students attend the nation’s K-12 system, with the vast majority enrolled in public schools, according to the National Congress of American Indians. States with the largest share of the Indigenous student population include Alaska, Oklahoma, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota.

In South Dakota, critics say the governor’s executive order threatens to undo years-long attempts to enrich lessons about the history of Native Americans, whose culture is at risk of vanishing from the curriculum.

The order restricted “inherently divisive concepts” in K-12 schools and required the state Department of Education to review curriculum training materials for teachers and students to determine if they contain such concepts. In a June 2022 report, the department said it had deleted the term “equity” from the title of a report about equitable access to qualified teachers for low-income and minority students. The former School and Educator Equity Report is now called Rates of Access to Qualified Teachers.

The department also concluded that the 2018 Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings may be in violation of the executive order. The standards were developed by a diverse group of tribal educators, historians and cultural experts in collaboration with the department to provide guidance on Native American instruction. “A few of the suggested approaches to instruction embedded into the standards may not align with the EO [executive order],” the department said in its report, citing as an example instruction to “simulate assimilation experiences, including: conversion of groups to individualism.”

The report recommends that outside experts and stakeholders conduct a review of the standards. Ruth Raveling, a Department of Education spokeswoman, declined to answer specific questions about the report, saying it speaks for itself. In an email, she included an excerpt from the document: “The department is committed to ensuring that all students have educational opportunities that prepare them for college, careers, and life. In alignment with Executive Order 2022-02, the agency operates with the understanding that each South Dakota student is unique, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and should not be subject to discrimination.”

The state’s executive order has caused confusion among teachers who taught Native American history and culture using the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings, said Roquel Gorneau, a South Dakota education specialist for the Lower Brule and Crow Creek Sioux Tribes. “A lot of it is social studies, among other subjects, and a lot of it is cultural teachings,” she said. “It’s knowledge about culture and history and traditions in language. But teachers now are unsure how we’re allowed to continue to utilize that without violating the executive order by the South Dakota governor, who has banned speaking of any CRT-related topics. And topics are defined as those meant to make one race feel inferior or superior to another.”

Like other educators, Gorneau emphasized that critical race theory is not being taught in South Dakota schools at the K-12 level. But she said the executive order means that students won’t learn in the classroom about important events that have affected Indigenous communities, such as the Keepseagle settlement that in 2010 awarded $680 million in damages to Native American farmers — like Gorneau’s mother — who were denied low-interest government loans that white farmers were granted.

“We’re basically not allowed to explain that these things have occurred,” Gorneau said. Explanation is needed, she added, “in order to help our students grow into people who become contributing members of society who help prevent these things from occurring again.”

The executive order, she added, “serves as a detriment to positive race relations, to mutual understanding, to reconciliation among Native and non-Native people.”

This year, at least 22 bills introduced in state legislatures would bar any discussion of concepts related to race, ethnicity, color and national origin from a school’s curriculum. The American Civil Liberties Union is fighting the GOP-led efforts, which it says amount to classroom censorship.

In Oklahoma, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the state on behalf of students, educators and civil right groups over House Bill 1775, a law approved in 2021 that bans schools from teaching certain concepts related to race and gender. “We knew that this was an attempt to whitewash Oklahoma curricula and to ensure that the perspectives of marginalized communities that had only just started getting more of an emphasis in Oklahoma classrooms was erased from those very critical spaces,” said Megan Lambert, ACLU legal director in the state.

The Oklahoma Department of Education did not respond to inquiries about HB 1775. Lambert said the law not only violates teachers’ First Amendment right to free speech, but also students’ right to information. “We also saw an equal protection violation because we know that not seeing yourself or your perspective reflected in your curriculum has detrimental outcomes for students,” the attorney said, adding that the case is working its way through the court system.

Tribal educators say attacks on teaching race and culture hinder longtime efforts to help improve academic outcomes for Native students. Nationwide, high school graduation rates for Native students are lower than those of their white peers, and their dropout rates are higher. Research shows that students who are exposed to a supportive, culturally relevant environment perform better in school.

The current environment is yet another hurdle for Native students to overcome in the classroom, said Waquin Preston, a member of the Navajo Nation, the nation’s largest tribe covering portions of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. “The curriculum needs to be relevant to our students,” he said.

“When the Native history and the ability to engage culturally in the classroom, when a lot of that is lost, then students don’t have the same interest in schooling because they’re not seeing themselves reflected,” Preston added. “They don’t necessarily see the relevance of it in the community.”

As a tribal state policy associate for the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), Preston provides support to tribes and student advocates collaborating on state education policy. He lives in Arizona, where three pending bills in the state legislature seek to restrict teaching concepts related to race and ethnicity in schools. One of the bills, House Bill 2458, would allow parents and students to file complaints against possible violators, who could be fined up to $5,000.

Preston and his NIEA colleague in Oklahoma, Stephanie Hawk, said the anti-CRT measures have a deterrent effect on teachers, who are uncertain about what is safe to teach. In Oklahoma, which has the country’s third-largest Indigenous population, Hawk said the downgraded accreditation of two school districts — Tulsa and Mustang — accused of violating HB 1775, has essentially halted instruction on the state’s rich Indigenous heritage. In Tulsa Public Schools, a teacher complained about a staff training video on implicit bias, while the incident at Mustang Public Schools involved an anti-bullying activity that reportedly made students feel uncomfortable.

“Educators are very fearful on how to even start that discussion, much less continue to teach it in the classroom,” Hawk said. “And so they just don’t, so there is no Native history being taught.”

Back in South Dakota, Tilsen-Brave Heart recalled that until the executive order, she had been encouraged by efforts of educators, parents and advocates to expand Indigenous teaching and hoped it would benefit her older children, Payton, 16, and Paloma, 11, who attend public schools.

Over the years, schools have provided limited instruction that at times has portrayed Indigenous people “as though we are like some ancient construct, like dinosaurs, rather than modern Native Indigenous people here who are thriving, owning businesses, becoming doctors, lawyers and being fully participatory in the community,” said Tilsen-Brave Heart.

The businesswoman and chef who focuses on Indigenous foods, said she plans to keep her daughter at the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy. Pia is quickly absorbing the Lakota language, her mother said. “She can do a traditional prayer in Lakota. She knows all of her numbers to 20 in Lakota and she can count to 100 in English. She also knows all of her colors in Lakota, and she knows simple phrases.”

Mary Bowman, a Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota who taught in South Dakota’s public schools for 15 years, was the lead designer of the academy and is now at the helm. The first class of kindergarteners attends class tuition-free at the private school that, so far, has relied on donations, Bowman said. Plans are to seek accreditation and add a grade each year. Interest from families in enrolling their children is high, she said.

Bowman said the academy is culturally responsive, a place where students can feel they belong and where they see themselves represented in the curriculum. She points to research showing that connecting students’ culture and language to their school experience helps them do better academically. “Our hope is that we eventually will help change the way that school districts educate Indigenous kids,” she said.

Tilsen-Brave Heart said doing away with discussions on race and equity in schools is a leap backward. “We should be moving forward,” she said, “and we should recognize everyone’s history and the authentic history of the United States and all that it is.”

This story about Native American studies was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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kp777 · 2 years

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By Pema Levy

Mother Jones

May 21, 2022

Florida textbooks may no longer teach “social justice,” according to new state guidance, part of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing attack on pluralistic democracy.

The guidance, which was recently updated but is undated, states that “social justice” is now one of the topics that are prohibited in state-approved textbooks for K-12 social studies classes. According to Politico, which reported on the new criteria, textbook publishers have until June 10 to submit social studies proposals. The DeSantis administration recently rejected math textbooks for including “impermissible” topics—a warning shot to publishers that the state will make political hay by rejecting textbooks with even a hint at the fact that America is not a perfectly fair, racism-free country.

Social justice generally refers to the movement for equality in American society and against unfair treatment and unequal opportunities, and is often associated with movements against racism, sexism, and anti-LBGTQ rights. Clearly, Florida Republicans want to keep such movements out of Florida classrooms. The new rules do not actually define social justice but merely include three prohibited ideas:

Potential Social Justice components include:

Seeking to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups.

Undeserved disadvantages are from mere chance of birth and are factors beyond anyone’s control, thereby landing different groups in different conditions.

Equality of treatment under the law is not a sufficient condition to achieve justice.

Under this definition of social justice, Florida textbooks cannot actually explain or acknowledge that some people in society receive better treatment and advantages than others. Because the guidance leaves the scope of social justice open-ended, publishers will likely go beyond this definition in order to meet the state’s new criteria.

The guidance also bans inclusion of critical race theory, social and emotional learning, and “any other unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination”—using a broad approach to suppress any attempt to acknowledge the ongoing presence of discrimination.

The list of topics included under the CRT prohibition makes clear that Florida classrooms must not acknowledge that there is any lasting effect from slavery, Jim Crow, or other forms of oppression in American life. Complying textbooks would have to convey that any pesky problems like racism and segregation have been solved. In this way, the textbooks will reflect the restrictions placed on teachers by the “Stop WOKE Act,” which DeSantis signed last month. That law restricts how teachers, college professors, and employee trainings discuss race, oppression, and the country’s founding, with language that’s identical to that of the textbook restrictions.

If the “Stop WOKE Act,” which is being challenged in court, stands, alongside the textbook restrictions, then Florida classrooms will present a distorted image of American history and society today, one where everyone has an equal shot at success and the vestiges of oppression have fallen away. When the students step out into the Florida sunshine, however, they will still live in today’s America, one made even more oppressive and authoritarian by their own schools.

#social justice #critical race theory #florida #republicans #politics #equality #education

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bwhitex · 2 months

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What’s Wrong With White Leftist?

This study, and the discussion in the PsyPost article suggests an intriguing intersection between personality disorders and political behavior, particularly concerning left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) and its relationship with antagonistic narcissism and psychopathic tendencies.

Recent research has begun to unravel the complex psychological profiles that may underpin certain forms of political activism, particularly within left-leaning groups. The study in question, while not diagnosing individuals with personality disorders, identifies traits common to disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) in some political leaders and activists.

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These findings reveal that antagonistic narcissism, a form of narcissism characterized by exploitation, arrogance, and manipulativeness along with psychopathic tendencies, such as thrill-seeking and lack of empathy, predict a specific kind of left-wing aggression aimed at tearing down hierarchical structures.

This aggression, labeled as "antihierarchical," is not necessarily rooted in a genuine commitment to egalitarian principles but may rather serve as a "dark-ego-vehicle". The dark-ego-vehicle principle refers to the notion that individuals with dark personality traits may use political activism as a means to fulfill their own narcissistic and psychopathic needs. In the context of leftism, this principle suggests that certain individuals may exploit the movement's ethos of equality and social justice to mask or enable their own desires for power, recognition, and dominance.

The researchers employed a measure known as the Left-Wing Authoritarian Index to capture the nuances of LWA. This index assesses dimensions such as anti-conventionalism, top-down censorship, and antihierarchical aggression. Interestingly, the study did not find a strong link between LWA and altruism, indicating that those with left-wing authoritarian tendencies may not be as motivated by prosocial behaviors as one might expect.

Neurotic narcissism, an aspect of collective narcissism involving, mainly witnessed within left wing, white identifying men and woman, who because of the education system today, and they way information was being taught to them. Developed identity development issues, and are preoccupation with what others think about their group and whitenesss, their feelings of shame about whiteness, and their need for admiration, was initially linked to LWA. However, when other variables such as age, gender, and social desirability were accounted for, the relationship between LWA and neurotic narcissism diminished. Meaning those not male, not white and not young enough to be under the influence of things like CRT, weren’t associated with LWA.

The research conducted by Krispenz and Bertrams serves as a cautionary tale for political movements, suggesting that they remain vigilant against the things like neurotic forms of collective narcissism, and other individuals with dark personality traits. It also challenges the conventional wisdom that authoritarian tendencies are exclusive to right-wing ideologies, showing that authoritarian dispositions can exist across the political spectrum.

Krispenz, A., & Bertrams, A. (2023). Antagonistic narcissism and psychopathic tendencies predict left-wing antihierarchical aggression, study finds. Current Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.psypost.org/antagonistic-narcissism-and-psychopathic-tendencies-predict-left-wing-antihierarchical-aggression-study-finds/

Krispenz, A., & Bertrams, A. (2023). Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment. Current Psychology, 43, 2714–2730. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04463-x

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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By: Robert F. Graboyes

Published: Feb 28, 2024

Egalitarianism vs Who-Knows-What

The titanic social struggle of our era pits those favoring equality (in its traditional sense) against those demanding “equity” (in a sense far from its traditional meaning). One who advocates equality is an egalitarian, and his philosophy is egalitarianism. One who advocates “equity” has no name—or has scores of names; the same is true of his philosophy. This asymmetry of nomenclature and the divergent meanings of “equity” put egalitarians at a powerful rhetorical disadvantage. For effective argumentation, egalitarians need to level the rhetorical playing field, and I believe the most efficient way of doing so is to refer to anti-egalitarians as “equitists” and to their philosophy as “equitism”—as we’ll do here.

Following is an excellent example of how equitists themselves distinguish egalitarianism from equitism:

“Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”

Egalitarians aspire to equalize individual rights and opportunities, and perhaps to equalize ex post outcomes across individuals via social safety nets. Equitists, well-intentioned though they may be, pigeonhole people by immutable characteristics (race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, disability, etc.) and then seek to equalize average outcomes across groups. Someone in charge (an equitist, naturally) must devise a taxonomy of mankind, assign every individual to some cell in that taxonomy, rank each cell along something like an oppressor/oppressed spectrum, and then allocate rights, privileges, opportunities, and wealth among these cells.

Generally, egalitarians seek to define “equal” objectively (e.g., equal rights, opportunities, access to education, income), whereas equitism’s definitions of “equal” are subjective. Equitism is largely an outgrowth of Frankfurt School critical theory, which rejects the very notion of objectivity. (My “Equity-toonz: One Meme Is Worth a Thousand Pictures” explores how explanatory memes that equitists often employ can mislead readers—intentionally or not.)

The subjectivity of equitism can be seen in “antiracism” guru Ibram X. Kendi’s prescription:

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

In Kendi’s formulation, no metric can ever signal that equality (between groups) has arrived. Instead, there is never-ending retribution for ancestral sins, subjectively administered via an authoritarian “antiracist constitutional amendment.”

And yet, as odious as Kendi’s ideas may be, the absence of a word like “equitism” leaves egalitarians flailing. Kendi calls his version of equitism “antiracism,” allowing his enthusiasts to declare that if one is not antiracist, then logic dictates that one must be proracist. This false dichotomy forces egalitarians into convoluted, never-satisfying rebuttals. Declaring one’s opposition to “Kendian Equitism” would present no equivalent difficulties.

And “antiracism” is only one of many names an egalitarian must battle. As the artwork atop this essay shows, these interconnected doctrines have been called antiracism; wokeness; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race theory (CRT); environmental, social, and governance (ESG); postcolonialism; anticolonialism; social and emotional learning (SEL); safetyism; intersectionality; oppressor/oppressed; white fragility; identity Marxism; identity politics; fighting white privilege; postmodernism; identity synthesis; social justice; critical social justice; political correctness; progressivism; and more. All are closely related, but just different enough to sow confusion, accidentally or deliberately—e.g., “Antiracism is not the same thing as critical race theory, which is not the same as DEI.”

Sun Tzu said, “He who occupies the high ground will fight to advantage.” The absence of an umbrella term for these highly interrelated philosophies hands equitists the rhetorical high ground. The key to cleaning this Augean Stable of lexicon is recognizing that the revisionist definition of “equity” is the one common thread running through every one of these movements or concepts. This simple trio of terms—equity, equitist, equitism—can level that battlefield of ideas.

Name the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It

Many have commented on the absence or multiplicity of names for this anti-egalitarian tendency—and the rhetorical mire this shortcoming imposes on the whole egalitarianism-versus-whatever-you-happen-to-call-it-on-a-given-day debate. On the political right, Thomas Klingenstein said, “Rhetorically, our side is getting absolutely murdered … We have not even come up with an agreed-on name for the enemy.” In the center, Bari Weiss said, “[T]his new ideology doesn’t even like to be named.” On the left, Freddie DeBoer titled an essay (without asterisks), “Please Just F***ing Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Political Changes You Demand,” adding, “You don't get to insist that no one talks about your political project and it's weak and pathetic that you think you do.”

Many have suggested names, but none has caught on. This is because an effective name must meet seven separate criteria—and no previously suggested options have checked all or even most of the seven boxes. Here are (1) the criteria; (2) examples of why current terms fail; and (3) why equity-equitist-equitism could succeed.

[1] FLEXIBILITY: There must be a trio of terms naming the aspiration, the advocate, and the philosophy.

If you call the philosophy “wokeness,” then who advocates it? Wokesters? Woke folk? Persons of the woke persuasion? They have no name.

With equity-equitist-equitism, one can say, “Someone who supports equity over equality is an equitist, and his philosophy is equitism.” All grammatical forms are available, and their interconnections are logical and intuitive.

[2] BREVITY: The trio must consist of simple, single, clearly related words.

“Critical race theory” demands three words and seven clunky syllables. Who is its advocate? “Critical race theorist” might describe academicians, but not activists. “Someone who subscribes to critical race theory” entails a mind-numbing seven words and thirteen syllables. “CRT” is brief but obscure.

In contrast, one can easily say, “He is an equitist,” rather than ponderous phrases like, “He is someone who supports the idea of equity over equality,” or the audience-euthanizing, “He is someone who supports equity, but I’m talking about the modern anti-egalitarian definition of equity, not the traditional definition.”

[3] BREADTH: The terms must be applicable to a broad swath of the many allied movements comprising this philosophy.

Enthusiasts swear (sometimes) that CRT is only a legal doctrine and not, say, the clearly derivative concepts taught in K-12 settings. ESG applies only to business investment. You need a term that covers all these related doctrines.

The re-engineered definition of “equity” is the common thread that connects all 21 movements listed above (along with others), and equitist-equitism follow suit. Does any other word fill this niche?

[4] COHESION: The quest for breadth must be offset by parameters that limit the philosophy to a focused topical range.

“Political correctness” may cover many equity doctrines, but it also incorporates lots of barely related concepts—etiquette, scientific doctrines, etc. Maybe SEL derives from postcolonialism, but applying the latter label to the former would likely stall the speaker in a futile argument over arcane lexical points.

Using equity-equitist-equitism limits the conversation to the notion of allocating rights, privileges, resources, and wealth across groups rather than across individuals. It leaves cultural tics and attitudes to other days.

[5] CLARITY: The trio must be sufficiently novel to insulate egalitarians from both innocent confusion and deliberate shenanigans.

To naive listeners, “I oppose Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (the doctrine) sounds exactly like “I oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion” (three separate, benign ideals). This can lead to confusion among thoughtful, well-intentioned listeners and speakers—and it allows some disingenuous “equity” enthusiasts to frustrate meaningful debate by means of motte-and-bailey rhetorical tactics (i.e., using a term that has two meanings—one controversial, and one not).

Equity-equitist-equitism quashes the motte-and-bailey problem. “Equitist” and “equitism” have no familiar, traditional meanings with which they can be easily confused—accidentally or purposefully. The word “equity” remains a problem, but one easily dealt with via scare quotes or quick clarifications like “equity, in the equitist sense.”

[6] FAMILIARITY: The trio must not be so novel as to be incomprehensible to those hearing them for the first time.

Yascha Mounk suggests that these doctrines be referred to together as, “identity synthesis.” But one would need a fairly comprehensive explanation before using such an expression. Terminology, like iPhones, should be usable without requiring an instruction booklet.

Someone who has never heard the terms equitist or equitism can intuitively sense their meanings by thinking about the obvious root word—equity.

[7] RESPECTABILITY: The terms must not be patently frivolous or insulting.

“Wokeness” is widely viewed as an insult and, to be honest, the word is usually invoked specifically to deliver scorn or insult. Yes, “woke” was once a self-description that seems to have originated with blues musician Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a., Lead Belly), but there is always danger in outsiders trying to co-opt in-group slang.

“Equitist” and “equitism” have a staid, neutral vibe. Equity-equitist-equitism is precisely analogous to equality-egalitarian-egalitarianism. While some equitists will object to being called equitists, their complaint will seem more petty and unreasonable than their current objections to “wokeness” or “political correctness.”

Equity-equitist-equitism has an additional bonus virtue. Google Translate is able to translate all three into at least some other languages. (e.g., Equidad-equitista-equitismo for Spanish; Equité-equitiste-equitisme for French). Since these doctrines are debated internationally, this multilingual flexibility is important. This brings us to the following.

Equity-Equitist-Equitism as Self Description

Interestingly, one can find some (obscure) equitists on the Internet who have suggested calling their philosophy “equitism.” Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Lore aspires to build a visionary city (“Telosa”) based on a somewhat-related concept of “equitism;” Telosa’s website says, “Equitism is inclusive growth,” and speaks of the project’s “commitment to DEI” to be administered by a municipal DEI department. A group calling itself the Atlas Movement (of whom I know nothing) wrote:

“Equitism is the political, social, and economic doctrine promoting the idea that to maximize peoples’ well-being, society must ensure equitable rights and opportunities for all. In short, we want to systematically improve society by applying the value of Equity (from Aequitas, justice & fairness) to all its areas.”

There was also a 2022 opinion column in Ecuador’s El Heraldo: “La filosofía del equitismo” (“The Philosophy of Equitism”). Written by Guillermo Tapia Nicola, who calls himself a legal and political advisor to Ecuador’s National Assembly, here are some relevant passages (translated from Spanish):

“This endeavor … the result of everything that has happened in recent decades, is what has been called ‘Equitism,’ conceptualizing it as a new ideology for a new stage, which is supposed to guide political and social work. ... Then, talking about democratic equity, equity in vaccines, institutional equity, climate equity, or equity in matters of rights, and verifying the actions that are actually taking place on these issues, will no longer sound strange to the ears ... Ultimately, the effort and determination put in by those agents of change, promoters of equitism, could well give us a spark of hope, two years after the pandemic ... In short, it is about maintaining the audacity of those actions that provide balance, and it is only matched by the audacity of that new vision and philosophy. Equitism.”

I agree with these writers. The movement they describe should have a name, acceptable to honorable advocates and adversaries alike, and I believe the best option lies in equity-equitist-equitism.” Apply these words to the proponents of “equity” and to their philosophy, and let the real debates begin—on level ground, at last.

#Robert F. Graboyes #equity #equality #equity vs equality #equality vs equity #equitist #equitism #egalitarianism #DEI #diversity equity and inclusion #DEI bureaucracy #religion is a mental illness

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ausetkmt · 1 year

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Ta-Nehisi Coates on the right-wing backlash to teaching Black history

“I take it as a sign of strength for where the movement is right now,” says Ta-Nehisi Coates on anti-CRT policies and the backlash from the right. “It doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous—but it’s also a statement of how threatened they feel and the effect that some of this work has had.”

#Ta-Nehisi Coates #Ta-Nehisi Coates on the right-wing backlash to teaching Black history #CRT #Black History #white supremacy

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 9 months

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The Stereotyping of the Left

Woke is a Chud bad joke.

Stephen Jay Morris

8/6/2023

©Scientific Morality

One aspect of oppositional propaganda the conservative Right hasn’t mastered is the art of stereotyping. All of history’s Left wing tropes have made a better impact than racist conservatives’ caricatures of people of color. The latter’s tripe includes Black face; bucktoothed, Japanese soldiers; dumb blondes; hook-nosed Jews; pencil thin homosexuals; and women depicted as scared little girls who were stupid and needy. Left wing propaganda was more effective, i.e.: the drawings of the workers depicted as Roman Gods; the image of the all-woman work force during World War Two, otherwise known as “Rosie the Riveter”—a female worker flexing her muscle. These images were complimentary to the oppressed masses.

The Right wing has never been astute of the arts. They are not a creative or romantic people. As such, they must imitate the art culture of the Left. But, in so doing, it all falls flat on its face, with cringe! They act like spectators watching Jesus Christ wearing the crown of thorns and carrying the cross. They mock, heckle, and laugh. The good are accused of being bad and vice versa. This has been the plight of human behavior for thousands of years.

So how do they make Leftists look? Before I get into that, let me clarify that these stereotypes are nothing new.

How do they depict the Left? The Right wing’s propaganda alternates between these two stereotypes: the effeminate male, which in today’s vernacular is called, a soy boy,” created to make the Left look weak and clueless, henpecked by feminists and anally raped by Black men. The other: that of the scary Leftist monster that is demonic and eats white children, or has sex with them. Due to the Right’s anti-intellectual bent—they are, after all, Anti-Intelligentsia—they focus on the source of intelligentsia, the place of learning: the college campus. As most know, reality has a Left wing bias. It's fucking true! Come on! What did the Right ever do to enhance America? Not a damn thing! So, they attack and attack the universities.

Due to their misogyny, they make all the Left-wing culprits appear to be emotional and hysterical females. They get a sadistic thrill and make money from this hate porn. Their Left wing characters have pink hair and thick glasses, and their bodies are full of tattoos. They claim that the Left has school programs where white children must stand at the front of their classrooms and apologize to the Black kids for having been mean to them for 400 years. They propagate that there are rules in place which state that, when a white person stares at a Black person for more than two seconds, the former is a racist. Other rules require boys to wear dresses in class and permit the girls to lift up their skirts. The Right also claims that the Left places urinals in girls’ bathrooms to accommodate trans males.

Alas! These things do not occur! But the religious Right has paranoid fantasies. Fact: there is no CRT curriculum in any public school in the country. The course is offered in graduate law school, but only as an elective; it is not a requirement!

These woke stereotypes abound because propaganda is a masquerade for lying. Most CHUDs are liars. Most CHUDS are also grifters, opportunists, attention whores, and mentally ill. There are more narcissists in the conservative movement than there are in the progressive. Their narcissism is evident by their proclivity to project: they accuse the Left of everything of which they are guilty!

Someday, the American people will catch on that these cretins are full of shit, and they will be tarred and feathered!

At which point, I will ask, “where’s my microwave popcorn?”

#stephenjaymorris #american politics #poets on tumblr #anarchism #anarchopunk #anarchocommunism #anarchoindividualist #anarcho communism #anarcho capitalism #anarchofeminism #anarcho syndicalism #anarchoqueer

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kammartinez · 10 months

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We fell under the leadership of those who would compromise with truth in the past in order to make peace in the present and guide policy in the future. —W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America

It is strange…that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it. This crusade is much more important than the anti-lynching movement, because there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom. —Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

On January 20, Florida’s education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr., tweeted out a chart justifying the state’s decision to ban schools from teaching a newly created advanced placement course in African American Studies. The graphic singled out the curriculum’s inclusion of Black queer studies, intersectionality, Black feminist literary thought, reparations, and the Movement for Black Lives as “obvious violations of Florida law.” It also identified scholars whose work was included in an earlier iteration of the curriculum as radical propagandists bent on smuggling “critical race theory” (CRT), Marxism, and deviant sexuality into high-school classrooms.

Despite the fact that the College Board had not yet released the final curriculum to the public, Diaz and the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, claimed it violated Senate Bill 148, better known as the “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act,” or the Stop W.O.K.E. Act. Sponsored by Diaz and signed in April 2022, the law prohibits teaching anything that might cause “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” or “indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent…with state academic standards.” In other words, introducing and teaching race, gender, sexuality, and anything remotely resembling critical race theory was strictly prohibited.

When the College Board released the final curriculum eleven days later, it had changed substantially. Most of the material the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) found offensive was removed or downgraded from mandatory to optional. The revised 226-page curriculum eliminated queer studies, critical race theory, mass incarceration, and a section titled “Black Struggle in the 21st Century,” made the Black Lives Matter movement and reparations optional research projects, and added a project topic on “Black conservatism.” The names of all the offending authors—including myself—were removed.

The College Board insisted that it had not bowed to political pressure, despite a trove of email exchanges with the FDOE discussing potentially prohibited content and a final letter from the FDOE thanking the board for removing topics the state had deemed “discriminatory and historically fictional.” The fact is that the College Board stood to lose millions of dollars if Florida canceled its AP courses. Although a federal judge blocked portions of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act that restricted academic freedom in public colleges and universities, the law still applies to private businesses and K–12 education.

Rather than accept a watered-down curriculum bereft of the theories, concepts, and interdisciplinary methods central to Black Studies, students, teachers, scholars, and social justice activists fought back. On May 3 they organized a nationwide day of action calling out the College Board and defending the integrity of Black Studies. Apparently it worked. A week before the national protest, the College Board announced plans to revise the curriculum yet again. As of this writing, however, no specific changes have been announced.

The right’s vehement opposition to Black Studies is predictable. Black Studies has been under attack since its formal inception on college campuses in the late 1960s, and repression of all knowledge advancing Black freedom goes back much further. Most state laws prohibiting enslaved Africans from learning to read and write were introduced after 1829, in response first to the publication of David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World—an unrelenting attack on slavery and US hypocrisy for maintaining it—and then to Nat Turner’s rebellion two years later. Back then the Appeal was contraband: anyone caught with it faced imprisonment or execution. Today it is a foundational text in Black Studies.

The historian Jarvis R. Givens found that during the Jim Crow era Black school teachers often “deployed fugitive tactics” and risked losing their jobs in order to teach Black history.1 In Mississippi, organizers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) taught contraband history in “freedom schools,” while the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) established “freedom libraries” throughout the state stocked with donated books—many on Black history by Black authors. Between 1964 and 1965, white terrorists burned down the freedom libraries in Vicksburg, Laurel, and Indianola.2

Who’s afraid of Black Studies? White supremacists, fascists, the ruling class, and even some liberals. As well they should be. Not everything done in the name of Black Studies challenges the social order. Like any field, it has its own sharp divisions and disagreements. But unlike mainstream academic disciplines, Black Studies was born out of a struggle for freedom and a genuine quest to understand the world in order to change it, presenting political and moral philosophy with their most fundamental challenge. The objects of study have been Black life, the structures that produce premature death, the ideologies that render Black people less than human, the material consequences of those ideologies, and the foundational place of colonialism and slavery in the emergence of modernity. Black Studies grew out of, and interrogates, the long struggle to secure our future as a people and for humanity by remaking and reenvisioning the world through ideas, art, and social movements. It emerged as both an intellectual and political project, without national boundaries and borders. The late political theorist Cedric J. Robinson described it as “a critique of Western Civilization.”

A chief target of this critique has been the interpretation of history. Battles over the teaching of history are never purely intellectual contests between ignorance and enlightenment, or reducible to demands to insert marginalized people into the curriculum.3 Contrary to the common liberal complaint that schools “ignore” the history of slavery and racism, Black and Native people have long occupied a place in school history curricula. Generations of students learned that white people settled the wilderness, took rightful ownership of the land from bloodthirsty Indians who didn’t know what to do with it, and brought the gift of civilization and democracy to North America and the rest of the world. During most of the twentieth century, students were taught that Negroes were perfectly happy as slaves, until some conniving Republicans and carpetbaggers persuaded them otherwise. Leading history books by Ivy League professors repeated the myth, and in the first epic film in the US, D. W. Griffith depicted the “great and noble” Ku Klux Klan redeeming the South from rapacious, ignorant Negroes and shifty carpetbaggers, obliterating all vestiges of the Black struggle to bring genuine democracy to the South and the nation.

Black scholars and their allies consistently contested these narratives. In “The Propaganda of History,” the last chapter of his epic text Black Reconstruction in America (1935), W. E. B. Du Bois called out the ideological war on truth masquerading as objective scholarship. He believed in reason but came to see its futility in the face of white supremacy, colonial rule, and “one of the most stupendous efforts the world ever saw to discredit human beings, an effort involving universities, history, science, social life and religion.”

Du Bois wasn’t out to make a name for himself in the field of nineteenth-century US history. He was trying to understand the roots of fascism in Europe and in his native land. He saw the battle over the interpretation of history play out in the streets, statehouses, courts, and newspapers for decades—often with deadly consequences. The rise of the second Ku Klux Klan was inspired in part by a national campaign to erase the history of Reconstruction. The chief catalyst was Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, released in 1915, the same year the renowned Black historian Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Respectable white supremacists such as the Ladies Memorial Associations and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894, waged their own soft power campaign, building monuments to the defenders of slavery in the region and around the nation’s capital. The movement to erect statues celebrating Confederate war heroes took off in the early twentieth century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction because it took over three decades of white terrorism, political assassination, lynching, disfranchisement, and federal complicity to destroy the last vestiges of a biracial labor movement, ensuring that white supremacy and Jim Crow could reign supreme.

What the right demonizes as CRT bears no resemblance to actual critical race theory, a four-decades-old body of work that interrogates why antidiscrimination law not only fails to remedy structural racism but further entrenches racial inequality. Racism, these theorists argue, isn’t just a matter of individual bias or prejudice but a social and political construct embedded in our legal system. Taking a page straight from the anticommunist playbook, the right has reduced CRT to an incendiary dog whistle, turning an antiracist academic project into a racist plot to teach white children to hate themselves, their country, and their “race.”4

The chief architect of this strategy is Christopher Rufo, currently a senior fellow at the archconservative Manhattan Institute, who in the wake of the mass protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd declared that the spread of critical race theory was behind the unrest. By his own admission, Rufo sought the “perfect villain” to mobilize opposition to the antiracist insurgency and had no qualms about distorting CRT to do it. Ignoring the scholarship while naming the scholars, notably Kimberlé Crenshaw and the late Derrick Bell, he presumed that these three words “strung together” would signify “hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.” As he explained to his Twitter followers in 2021, the plan was to rebrand CRT and

eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.

Rufo’s ploy soon became White House policy. He helped draft Trump’s now-rescinded Executive Order 13950, issued on September 22, 2020, which warned of a left-wing ideology threatening “to infect core institutions of our country” by promoting “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating.” The document pitted this invented ideology against the principles of “color blindness” derived from a distorted reading of Martin Luther King, Jr. to justify eliminating workplace diversity and inclusion training in federal agencies. It helped spawn a wave of anti-CRT legislation. According to a recent study released by UCLA’s Critical Race Studies Program, from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022 federal, state, and local legislative and governing bodies introduced 563 anti-CRT measures, almost half of which have been enacted or adopted. At least 94 percent of the successful measures target K–12 education, affecting nearly half of all children in the country’s public schools.

These measures target not just CRT but liberal multiculturalism and, more pointedly, Black Studies, Ethnic Studies, Gender Studies, and any modern academic discipline that critically studies race and gender. (From here on I will refer to this scholarship collectively as “critical race and gender studies,” make specific references to Black Studies or CRT when appropriate, and use “we” occasionally when explaining what scholars in these fields do.) Most of these bills allegedly intended to protect education from politics share identical language because they derive from model legislation drafted by well-funded right-wing think tanks, including the America First Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Citizens for Renewing America, Alliance for Free Citizens, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Stanley Kurtz, a leading critic of the African American AP course who masquerades as an investigative journalist for National Review, ironically named the model anti-CRT legislation he drafted for the Ethics and Public Policy Center “the Partisanship Out of Civics Act.”

Some of the text of that legislation was lifted from the section of Executive Order 13950 prohibiting the teaching of “divisive concepts.” These concepts include the idea that one race or sex is “inherently superior” to others; that the US “is fundamentally racist or sexist”; that a person, “by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive” or “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex”; that “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race”; and that some people “should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” The assumption here is that confronting the history of American racism would provoke feelings of guilt and shame in white kids and their parents. Such legislation never considers the psychological distress Black, brown, and Indigenous students frequently endure as a result of whitewashed curricula, tracking, suspensions and expulsions on the slightest pretext, even abuses by law enforcement inside their own classrooms.

Such allegations against critical race and gender studies strain credulity. No serious scholar believes that someone is “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” solely “by virtue of his or her race or sex.” We teach the opposite: that race is neither fixed nor biological but socially constructed. Modern categories of racial classification were Enlightenment-era European creations that relied on a false science to claim that discrete “racial” groups share inherent traits or characteristics. We reject such claims as essentialist and recognize that behaviors and ideas attributed to race, gender, class, and sexuality are not inherent but ideological, and therefore dynamic and subject to change. We use evidence-based research to show that policies that further racial, class, and gender inequality need not be intentional, and that anyone can be antiracist, regardless of their race.

The belief that hierarchies of race and gender are based on “inherent” characteristics is the basis for white supremacy and patriarchy. Such ideologies have been used to justify conquest, dispossession, slavery, segregation, the exclusion of women and Black people from the franchise, wage differentials based on race and gender, welfare and housing policies, marriage and family law, even the denial of women’s right to bodily autonomy. Many conservatives backing anti-CRT legislation do subscribe to the idea that certain differences, especially regarding gender, are “inherent”—that is, fixed and immutable. CRT and Black Studies do not.

Likewise, to accuse CRT of teaching that “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic” are racist is to turn its interpretation of US history on its head. What Black Studies and critical race theory reveal is the extent to which wealth was accrued through the labor and land of others. The foundational wealth of the country, concentrated in the hands of a few, was built on stolen land (Indigenous dispossession), stolen labor (slavery), and the exploitation of the labor of immigrants, women, and children.

Finally, critical scholars of race and gender categorically reject the claim that any individual “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” The language is intended as an attack on the idea of reparations, but advocates of reparations hardly claim that all present-day white people are “responsible” for slavery. Rather, they acknowledge that enslavement, land theft, wage theft, and housing discrimination resulted in extracting wealth from some and directly accruing generational wealth to others. Slavery and Jim Crow—more precisely, racial capitalism—suppressed wages for white workers, and the threat of interracial worker and farmer unity compelled the Southern oligarchs to pass antilabor laws and crush unions. The result was the subjugation of all working-class Southerners, including whites.

The right-wing movement to remake education is not limited to K–12. Nearly a fifth of the 563 anti-CRT measures introduced and 12 percent of those enacted target colleges and universities. In Florida, DeSantis has launched a successful coup against the administration of New College, replaced a majority of the board of trustees with handpicked allies, and begun to totally overhaul the curriculum, wiping out all vestiges of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The latest attack on Florida’s state university system, Senate Bill 266, which DeSantis signed into law last month, is a flagrant attack on academic freedom and faculty governance. The Board of Governors is charged with reviewing state colleges and universities for violating the Florida Educational Equity Act, which forbids teaching “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.” The law also prohibits faculty or staff from advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion, promoting or participating in political or social activism, or granting preferential treatment “on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion.” And it gives boards of trustees the power to review the tenure status of any faculty member on demand, which means that even tenured professors are subject to arbitrary dismissal.

Buried in this law and shrouded by the state’s “anti-woke” rhetoric is another agenda: transforming the state college system into an engine of market fundamentalism beholden to business interests. One of its objectives is “to promote the state’s economic development” through new research, technology, patents, grants, and contracts that “generate state businesses of global importance,” and to create “a resource rich academic environment that attracts high-technology business and venture capital to the state.” In 2020 the governor and the state legislature established and lavishly funded the Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom at Florida International University, tasked with promoting “a better understanding of the free enterprise system and its impact on individual freedom and human prosperity around the world, with a special emphasis on the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean.” SB 266 further elevated the Adam Smith Center by giving it all the powers of an academic department, including the ability to hire tenure-track faculty and offer majors and minors.

A matter of days before issuing Executive Order 13950, Trump announced the formation of the federally funded 1776 Commission to promote “patriotic education” and portray the US in a more positive light. Advisors for the commission blamed colleges and universities for distorting history and promoting “destructive scholarship” that sows “division, distrust, and hatred among citizens…. It is the intellectual force behind so much of the violence in our cities, suppression of free speech in our universities, and defamation of our treasured national statues and symbols.”

The commission issued its first and only report less than two weeks after the insurrection at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. It denigrates popular democracy, whitewashes the history of slavery, says nothing about Indigenous peoples or dispossession, and claims that “progressivism” and “identity politics” are at odds with American values, not unlike communism and fascism.

Perhaps its most egregious fabrication is turning Martin Luther King Jr. into a colorblind libertarian. The report recasts the civil rights movement as a struggle for individual liberty and equal opportunity that, with the death of King, lost its way when it embraced “group rights,” “preferential treatment” for minorities, and “identity politics.” This is the same King who in his book Why We Can’t Wait (1964) supported “compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro” because “it is obvious that if a man is entered at the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up”; the same King who called on the federal government to divest from the war in Vietnam, invest in the war on poverty, recognize racism as a source of inequality, and acknowledge “the debt that they owe a people who were kept in slavery 244 years.”

The stunning distortion of King’s ideas should surprise no one, King least of all. He knew something about the politics of history. On the occasion of Du Bois’s hundredth birthday in 1968, King delivered a speech at Carnegie Hall on the significance of Black Reconstruction’s challenge to the “conscious and deliberate manipulation of history.” Du Bois, King observed, proved that “far from being the tragic era” of misrule and corruption, Reconstruction

was the only period in which democracy existed in the South. This stunning fact was the reason the history books had to lie because to tell the truth would have acknowledged the Negroes’ capacity to govern and fitness to build a finer nation in a creative relationship with poor whites.

Multiracial democracy, or what Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” represented the greatest threat to the classes that ruled the South and the nation. It still does. DeSantis, Trump, Governors Greg Abbott and Kim Reynolds, the 1776 Commission, the Center for American Freedom, the American Enterprise Institute, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and their copious allies all claim that their war on critical race and gender studies aims to present US history in a “positive light.” Why then not teach the history of movements that tried to make sure every person enjoyed freedom and safety and fought to end slavery, Jim Crow, patriarchy, and sex discrimination? If “patriotic education” embraces the principles of freedom and democracy, why not introduce students to courageous people—like Benjamin Fletcher, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Johnnie Tillmon, George Jackson, Fran Beal, Barbara Smith, and others—who risked their lives to ensure freedom, democracy, and economic security for others? Why not create a curriculum centered on the abolitionist movement; on Indigenous nations as early models for US constitutional democracy; on the formerly enslaved people who crushed the slaveholding republic, tried to democratize the South, and fought the terrorism of lynching, the Klan, and the Black Legion; on the suffragists and labor organizers who expanded our democratic horizons and improved working conditions?

But in our current neofascist universe, this is “woke” history. The right masks its distrust of multiracial democracy by calling it “progressivism” and its opposition to antiracism by labeling it “identity politics.” According to this logic, antiracism has sullied America’s noble tradition. Ruby Bridges Goes to School, books for young readers on Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, and his children’s book, Antiracist Baby, have all been targeted for bans as subversive literature. There is no commensurate movement to ban books that promote racism, like Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), which asserts frequently that Black people are innately inferior to whites—physically, intellectually, and even imaginatively; Edmund Ruffin’s defense of slavery, The Political Economy of Slavery (1857); or books and articles by Samuel Cartwright, Josiah Nott, George Fitzhugh, Louis Agassiz, Herbert Spencer, Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, or Daniel G. Brinton, the eminent anthropologist who in his book Races and Peoples (1890) wrote, “That philanthropy is false, that religion is rotten, which would sanction a white woman enduring the embrace of a colored man.”

The point of these attacks is to turn antiracists into enemies and the people identified as “white” into victims. Marginalized white working people, who are victims of stagnant wages, privatized health care, big pharma, and tax policies that redistribute wealth upward, are taught instead that they live in what was once the perfect country until woke forces took over and gave their hard-earned income to the Negroes and immigrants who are now trying to take their guns. It would be a mistake to think of such rhetoric as a “culture war.” This is a political battle. It is part and parcel of the right-wing war on democracy, reproductive rights, labor, the environment, land defenders and water protectors, the rights and safety of transgender and nonbinary people, asylum seekers, the undocumented, the unhoused, the poor, and the perpetual war on Black communities.

As I write these words, the predominantly white Republican Mississippi state legislature is stripping the predominantly Black city of Jackson of political authority and revenue. Many of the same states adopting anti-CRT laws are also passing anti-trans bills and extreme abortion bans, and relaxing gun laws. The Tennessee state legislature expelled two young Black representatives, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, for joining protesters demanding stricter gun laws after a mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school. And Texas governor Greg Abbott is planning to pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted of killing the antiracist activist Garrett Foster during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020.

Colin Kaepernick, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and I put together a new anthology, Our History Has Always Been Contraband, to respond not only to these right-wing lies and attacks but also to an ill-informed mainstream discourse over the meaning, purpose, and scholarly value of Black Studies. Despite the claims of even well-meaning and sympathetic pundits, Black Studies courses are not designed to serve Black students alone but all students. The point is not to raise self-esteem or make students feel guilty, nor is Black Studies merely a diversity project. The essays and readings we gathered make clear that Black Studies sits not at the margins of social inquiry but at its very center. As we face a rising tide of fascism, we must remember how we got here: by protest, occupation, rebellion, and deep study. As long as racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, class oppression, and colonial domination persist, our critical analyses will always be considered criminal.

#history #education #racism #politics #censorship

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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A public elementary school in Washington, D.C., gave children as young as 4 a lesson on "anti-racism" that asked them to identify racist members of their family.

According to a Nov. 30 letter from Janney Elementary School Principal Danielle Singh, students in Pre-K through 3rd grade participated in an "Anti-Racism Fight Club" presentation by speaker Doyin Richards.

CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, ILLINOIS USED COVID-19 RELIEF FUNDS TO PUSH CRT IN SCHOOLS

"As part of this work, each student has a fist book to help continue the dialogue at school and home," Singh’s letter stated, linking to Richards’ presentation. "We recognize that any time we engage topics such as race and equity, we may experience a variety of emotions. This is a normal part of the learning and growing process. As a school community we want to continue the dialogue with our students and understand this is just the beginning."

Richards’ "Anti-Racism Fight Club Fistbook for Kids" explains that "white people are a part of a society that benefits them in almost every instance," and that "it’s as if white people walk around with an invisible force field because they hold all of the power in America."

"If you are a white person, white privilege is something you were born with and it simply means that your life is not more difficult due to the color of your skin," the "Fistbook for Kids" explains. "Put differently, it’s not your fault for having white privilege, but it is your fault if you choose to ignore it."

The "Fistbook for Kids" says anti-racism "isn’t a spectator sport" but requires "being loud, uncomfortable, confrontational and visible to ensure change is made."

A series of questions in the book asks children, "Where do you see racism in yourself? This requires true soul-searching. Be real with yourself, don’t feel guilt/shame and own it. It’s the first step in becoming an anti-racist."

Under a section titled, "How to deal with racism from loved ones," the book teaches children that "just because someone is older than you doesn’t mean that they’re right all of the time."

"If someone doesn’t believe that people should be treated equally based on the color of their skin, then they are the problem. Parents need to stop making excuses for that behavior if they truly believe in anti-racism," the book says. "Who in your family has racist beliefs? Do you think you can change their ways? What is your strategy for dealing with them?"

After the presentation, the school sent parents a resource link directing them to Richards’ original "Anti-Racism Fight Club Fistbook" for adults, which declares that "racism is as American as apple pie and baseball."

"As we sit here today, it is still woven into the fabric of our homes, communities, schools, government, economic system, healthcare, and so much more. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to find one facet of our society where racism does not exist," the book states. "White supremacy isn’t the shark, it’s the ocean."

The original "Fistbook" also claims that "if the police don’t murder citizens without penalty, then the riots/looting don’t happen," and that "your feelings about Colin Kaepernick serve as a great barometer of how you would feel about Dr. King" during the Civil Rights Movement.

"If you hate Kaepernick now, you’d hate Dr. King if he was alive today," it argues. "And do you know what’s funny? In 50 years from now, white people will probably talk glowingly of Kaepernick as they are with Dr. King now. Stop using his quotes to benefit your racism."

DC Public Schools told Fox News Digital in a statement that the original "Fistbook" was not shared with students.

"DC Public Schools provides joyful and rigorous academic experiences for our students and is committed to advancing educational equity," the district said. "In December, a resource link with this content was shared in a parent newsletter at one of our schools. It is not part of our DCPS curriculum and was not shared with students," the district said, referring to Richards’ guide for adults.

Commenters claiming to be parents at Janney Elementary complained about the Nov. 30 presentation and the "Fistbook for Kids" on the "DC Urban Moms and Dads" online forum.

"Anyone else’s Kindergarten kid freaked out by an anti-racism assembly today? My kid needed to sleep with a light on and the door open tonight," one person posted anonymously. "Anyone know what specifically was talked about? My kid couldn’t relay much except that she was scared."

The district declined to answer Fox News Digital’s inquiry about the "Fistbook for Kids" and whether the Nov. 30 presentation for students ages 4-9 was mandatory.

_________________________________

home school your kids

#nunyas news

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wisdomfish · 1 year

Video

youtube

What is Critical Race Theory?

In recent years the Black Lives Matter movement has reignited the debate about racism in contemporary society, highlighting racial disparities and appalling abuses of power that have been directed at the black community. It has brought Critical Race Theory, which asserts that Western societies are institutionally racist by their very nature, to greater public and evangelical attention. Concepts such as ‘white privilege,’ ‘micro-aggressions,’ and ‘intersectionality’ dominate the discourse, and anti-racism training has become mainstream in many institutions.

Evangelical responses to BLM and its CRT ideology have been sharply divided, often along ethnic or political lines. Many black Christians feel that their experience of racism is not taken seriously by their white brothers and sisters, whereas white Christians feel culturally beleaguered and charged with guilt and complicity in a horrendous sin for which they do not feel responsible.

This Master Class examines the claims of CRT and considers how evangelical Christians should respond to it. The issues raised by CRT are much broader than race itself and raise questions about the relationship between minorities and the majority culture in which they are located. This broader perspective means that the Master Class addresses issues of great relevance to many European contexts, where the primary sociological division are not rooted in colour but ethnicity.

Part 1 explains the origins and claims of CRT and how it has come to such prominence in recent times. It shows how CRT developed from the wider Critical Theory derived from the Frankfurt School of Marxist intellectuals to become a totalising ideology and comprehensive worldview of contemporary society. This is part 1 of a 5-part series.

#blm #crt #society #critical theory #frankfurt school #marxism

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yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666 · 2 years

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you can say what you want about white people making money off black pain and the tragedy of our existence in this country but at a time when school districts (including my own) are being demoted for talking about race, a movie about the galvanizing moment of the civil rights movement, the murder and torture of emmett till is probably a good thing.

don't act like you learned about it in school because you probably didn't and a whole new generation of kids will absolutely not learn about it because of our new anti-crt laws.

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rosielindy · 2 years

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“I have often said that we are in the civil rights movement of our day. The same way we now look back on the movement of the 1950s and 1960s we might one day look back on the movement of the 2010s and 2020s.”

#racial justice #christianity #conservatism #crt #civil rights #civil rights movement #speakup #stand up for civil rights #Jemar Tisby #silence is complicity

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arcticdementor · 1 month

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For the past three summers, teachers rallied across the country to speak out against anti-history education bills and to make public their pledge to teach the truth. The teacher-led rallies received national media attention, providing a valuable counter narrative to the oversized coverage of the well-funded anti-CRT movement. Once again, we invite educators, students, parents, and community members to rally across the country and pledge to #TeachTruth and defend LGBTQ+ rights on June 8, 2024. The situation is urgent. Lawmakers in at least 44 states have introduced legislation or pursued other measures that attempt to require educators to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, and other forms of oppression throughout U.S. history. These laws and restrictions have been imposed in at least 18 states. The Right has declared war on teaching the truth about structural racism and sexism and on LGBTQ+ youth.

…

Although bills and budget resolutions are being proposed (and in some cases passed) in specific states, the threat to teaching — and the need for solidarity — is everywhere. We invite people to participate from all over the United States. You can plan a virtual event or gathering at a bookstore, library, farmers’ market, historic marker, or other public location. From our freedom to vote, to our children’s freedom to learn, to everyone’s freedom from gun violence, certain politicians want to overturn the will of the people and block the policies we need for our students, families, and communities to thrive. By coming together, we can rewrite the rules to ensure safe, affirming, and welcoming schools and the freedom to learn for our children — across race, place, and gender identities — no exceptions.

#zinn education project #deborah menkart #public schooling #why crt bans won't work

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 11 months

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By: Eddie Waldrep, PhD, MSCP

Published: May 15, 2023

This is a guest post by Edward E. Waldrep, Ph.D, M.S.C.P. Dr. Waldrep is a Veteran of the War in Iraq, Purple Heart recipient, and is currently a clinical psychologist for the Department of Veteran Affairs specializing in PTSD. Views expressed here are those of the author and are not the views of the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Our country, and indeed the world, has gone through a lot in the past couple of years. The COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, a racial reckoning, rioting, and a tumultuous transition of presidential power that has marred our democratic institutions to name a few. With so much going on, the radical political changes within the American Psychological Association (APA) may have easily escaped the attention of many.

For example, the APA has been gradually changing the way race is approached. Officially, in 2017 it updated standards on multiculturalism to include embracing “intersectionality,” a conceptualization of the myriad ways in which one is oppressed via group identity. In 2019, a Task Force on Race and Ethnicity Guidelines in Psychology noted drawing upon Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a guide and in 2020 the definition of racism promoted by the APA was officially changed. The redefinition changed it from internal prejudicial beliefs and interpersonal discrimination to a “system of structuring opportunity.” What led to this change and why does it matter so much?

Social Justice versus Critical Social Justice

These changes came as a result of the changing focus of APA, and academia in general, from traditional social justice movements to Critical Social Justice (CSJ). Traditional social justice sought to end institutional oppression, discrimination based on immutable characteristics, focus on universal humanity of every individual, and for equality of opportunity for each to pursue their own self-directed goals. These are indicative of aspirational goals found in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. There are contemporary organizations promoting the same pro-human ideals such as the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) and many others. On the other hand, there is CSJ that has skyrocketed in the public sphere in recent years and is much more pernicious.

The boom of CSJ is not a mere phenomenon. It is the result of decades of planning referred to as “the long march through the institutions,” a neo-Marxist approach to establish the conditions for revolution. This built upon the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci who developed the concept of “cultural hegemony.” Cultural hegemony was posited as an explanation for why the grand Marxist revolution and utopia had failed to manifest itself. Basically, if people were able to have a comfortable life in a free market society, then they lack the motivation to burn down western society to make way for the grand utopia.

Critical Critical Theory Theory

The hegemony is thought of as an invisible, largely undetectable, ubiquitous force that nobody intentionally directs but by which all are influenced. This is where the “fish in water” analogy stems from the that is commonly used to explain “white privilege.” In their book, Black Eye for America, Swain and Schorr (2021) note that the strategy to bring about communism is to dismantle or undermine western society by attacking five societal components that maintain the hegemonic “oppression”: educational establishments, media, the legal system, religion, and the family. Douglas Murray also noted this attack in his recent book, The War on the West.

CRT is just one iteration of the application of Critical Theory(1) to different aspects of society (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, queer, colonialism, etc.) and often is presented as diversity, equity, and inclusion. CRT and intersectionality have been encouraged to be adopted in cultural competencytraining and stem from the same origin. Intersectionality, applied socially, is designed to get people to think of how they are constantly oppressed, in any variety of ways, in any given situation, to promote social divisiveness. The concept of intersectionality was popularized by Marxist lawyer and key developer of CRT, Kimberle Crenshaw. In her 1991 article for the Stanford Law Review, she argues that universal humanity ought to be rejected and focusing on race should be retained and be used for political power.

This is the exact opposite of Dr. King’s approach. She makes the distinction between “I am black” vs. “I am a person who happens to be black”. She is critical of the latter and states, “’I am a person who happens to be black,’ on the other hand achieves self-identification by straining for a certain universality (in effect, “I am first a person”) and for concomitant dismissal of the imposed category (“Black”) as contingent, circumstantial, nondeterminant” (pg. 1297). Hence, the CRT focus on “centering race” to achieve ideological and political goals associated with imposing Marxist ideology to “dismantle” western norms and practices centering individual human rights and liberties.

The Modern Echoes of the Ugly History of Collectivist Ideologies

This ideology has a horrendous track record for humanity. Simply relabeling the ideology does not change that fact. American Psychologist, the “flagship publication” of the APA, went so far as to dedicate an entire special issue promoting this ideology in 2021. The edition editors criticize the field of psychology for “failing” to focus on structural power dynamics and for not creating “lasting social change” (Eaton, Grzanka, Schlehofer, & Silka, 2021). These are references to postmodern philosophy, Marxist structural determinism and social engineering. The authors go on to state “articles in this special issue build the case for a public psychology that is more disruptive and challenging than simply aiming dominant, canonical, and mainstream psychological research and practice outward” (pg. 1211).

Flynn and colleagues, 2021, discuss civil disobedience and criticize nonviolence as the only acceptable form stating, “we encourage psychologists to think critically about the effects of privileging certain acts of civil disobedience over others on the basis of decontextualized tactics alone, such as the assertion that property destruction invariably denotes a protest tactic outside the bounds of civil disobedience” (pg. 1220). They go on to describe strategies to twist and manipulate APA Ethics to justify any means they appear to see fit to dismantle “systems of oppression”. For example, regarding Principle C: Integrity, they state, “we also read it as authorizing clandestine methods of civil disobedience to contest injustice (e.g., deception, evasion) when methods maximize benefits and minimize harm” (pg. 1224). This stretches the intent of the use of deception from research methods, a researcher pretending to be a student for example, to justifying outright dishonesty.

And of course, the special issue would not be complete without an article criticizing “good” psychology. Note, the use of “Critical” in this context is related to neo-Marxist “Critical Theory” and not critical thinking. Grzanka and Cole, 2021, make an argument for what they describe as “bad psychology”. They argue that “good psychology” (maintaining rigorous methodological, scientific, and objective standards) is a problem because it gets in the way of the radical political agenda of transforming society the way that they think is best. They state, “we contend that what is commonly thought of as ‘good’ psychology often gets in the way of transformative, socially engaged psychology. The radical, democratic ideals inspired by the social movements of the 20th century have found a voice in the loose network of practices that go by the term critical psychology and includes liberation psychology, African American psychology, feminist psychology, LGBTQ psychology, and intersectionality” (pg. 1335).

The authors do, conveniently, leave out the fact that the ideology underlying the radical social movements of the 20th century are attributed with mass murder on an unimaginable scale. Throughout the special edition, the argument is made, consistently, that this ideology, advocacy, and radical social transformation should be incorporated through all aspects of psychology: research, training, and delivery of clinical services.

How could the American people continue to trust the organization if this ideology is being actively promoted? What would psychotherapy look like within this ideological framework? I would argue that society would not and should not continue to trust APA if this continues. This is not sound, competent, professional, empirically informed psychology. This is Psychological Lysenkoism.

Critical Theory Ideas are Bad Psychology

APA has allowed, even endorsed, the miscommunication of psychological science that has the potential to negatively affect the mental health of individuals and society overall. Concepts such as implicit bias and microaggressions have questionable validity yet are so prominently displayed that they have the effect of gaslighting society. The net effect is to have people wondering if every interpersonal interaction is racist or bigoted and second guessing each encounter for intent and impact. These are reflective of the precepts and goals of CRT itself. The implicit idea is that almost everything is or can be racist is a central tenet of the ideology. From there, the goal is to then create the critical consciousness necessary to give rise to social unrest and revolution. The first paragraph of the intro to CRT, written for high school students, sets itself aside from traditional civil rights, and “questions” equality theory, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. Delgado and Stefancic (2017) state, “Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law” (pg. 3).

An additional tenet is that the voices and “lived experiences” of marginalized groups ought to be accepted unquestioned. However, the hypocrisy of the framework is laid bare when the “voices of color” dissent from the prevailing narrative. Prominent examples are those of John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly, Roland Fryer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Darryl Davis, Jason Hill, Coleman Hughes, Eric Smith, Ian Rowe, Thomas Sowell, and the list goes on and on. The same dissociation occurs with members of various marginalized communities when anyone of that community doesn’t toe to line with the ideological framework. The individual does not matter, only the prevailing ideological narrative and political agenda. Anything, or anybody, that interferes with that agenda is inherently loathsome. The most common response to any individual expressing skepticism or dissent is to label the individual (any applicable variation of -ist or -phobic) and should not even be allowed to have a voice!

APA Should Adopt a Pro-Human (All Humans) Orientation

In psychological practice, we should focus on the individual with inherent dignity, value, and careful consideration of how factors influence the individual. APA ought to return to a pro-human orientation. The “critical” movement denies the individual and views them as simply a representative of a superimposed group identity or combination of identities. This is antithetical to our field. The adoption of radical political ideology has even led to the resignation of at least one leadership role in protest. When we focus on our universal humanity, we can celebrate our differences. If not rejected as morally abhorrent as it is, then the American people would rightly lose trust in the organization and damage trust in our profession.

(1) “Critical Theories” (Critical Race Theory, most varieties of postmodernism, fat studies, etc.) have taken that name because they endorse deep skepticism of liberal democratic norms and practices that pervade … liberal democratic societies. I (this is Lee writing here) sometimes have a bit of fun with this by referring to critiques of Critical Theories as Critical Critical Theory Theories — i.e., turning the lens of critique that includes revelations of implicit, empirically flawed or moral dubious claims & assumptions back on Critical Theories themselves, as Ed Waldrep has done here with respect to APA.

#Eddie Waldrep #critical theory #critical race theory #cultural marxism #neo marxism #queer theory #postcolonial theory #lived experience #intersectionality #woke #wokeism #cult of woke #wokeness as religion #wokeness #psychology #human psychology #institutional capture #religion is a mental illness

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kamreadsandrecs · 10 months

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#history #racism #censorship #politics #education

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raspberrysmoothie01 · 1 year

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So what is "Book Banning?"

By Daisha J. & Julia G-M.

What IS it?

The process of banning books, also known as censorship, occurs when, government, organizations, or individuals decide not to place books in schools due to its themes or material.

In America, this also violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Regardless of this fact, certain limitations are permissible.

Children's literature is the main target for book banning in the United States. Those concerned are worried that the readers, commonly students, will be influenced by the content of books.

Where are these bans in effect? (In the U.S)

In Minnesota (our state) there is currently one ban on the book, "Lawn Boy" by Jonathan Evison, in Wayzata Public Schools for being "Sexually Explicit".

Why Bans?

Book-banning supporters characterize the content in these books as “divisive concepts” and claim these books will “inflict emotional trauma on students.

Within the past five years, there has been a relentless push nationwide for books by Black and Brown authors to be banned from libraries and from school curricula that discuss race and social justice and reveal the truth about the United States racist past.

It is an attempt by right-wing conservatives to deny and suppress the power, voices, and lived experiences of Black and Brown people in this country. To suppress uncomfortable truths about America in that inequality is a result of years and years of systematic/structural oppression and not an isolated incident.

Examples of "banned" books

To Kill A Mockingbird was challenged by Glynn County, Georgia in 2001 by a school board member because of the use of profanity. However it returned to the reading list in Muskogee Oklahoma High School later in the year, despite the protests from black students and parents about the usage of racial slurs in the material.

All four books shown above were banned for LGBTQIA+ themes and/or “sexually explicit”

During a Williamson County Commission’s education committee in May, a group from the local chapter of Moms for Liberty expressed their displeassure. The argument being that teaching about the darker aspects of racism in United States history, isn't appropriate in elementary grades.

Toni Morrison is no stranger to book bans, as shown above -- three of her well known books, "Beloved", "Song of Solomon", and "The Bluest Eye", were all removed from reading lists in some states for holding "graphic & sexual content". I'll go more into depth later on.

"The Target"

Banning books not only excludes a group of people, it also can send the message that one's history isn't relevant. Black and Brown protagonists of color being the biggest category of books that are being banned.

The learning of historic movements in the past that have given rise to racial justice in response to violence and harm being done to Black and Brown people is under attack and books are the building blocks of that learning.

“Today’s fight for truth is part of that ongoing battle for justice. Without truth, there’s no basis for our demands for justice. And that’s why we must fight fiercely to preserve truth. To preserve history in our public schools and libraries to expand our knowledge of history and facts so another generation does not grow up lamenting what they did not learn in school. What they did not learn about who they are, who we are, and all of the possibilities of what we can become”

“The War on Truth: Anti-CRT Mania and Book Bans Are the Latest Tactics to Halt Racial Justice.” Legal Defense Fund, 21 Apr. 2023,

Backlash

School staff who are advocating for their diverse school populations and the need for inclusivity in public schools are being terrorized out of their positions.

The push for censoring these books has resulted in alarming incidents of targeted harassment, including physical violence threats against teachers, librarians, and other school board members. In many states, school officials have dealt with mobs of people expressing their anger about the “divisive” concepts being learned about in books by yelling, screaming, and flashing Nazi symbols at school board members. Some school board members have even received death threats.

“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” wrote Attorney General Garland. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

“Justice Department Addresses Violent Threats against School Officials and Teachers.” The United States Department of Justice, 4 Oct. 2021,

Fighting back

The fight against book-banning include organizing local coalitions and initiatives within their own communities among students, parents, and staff.

Keiwanna Pitts, a high school English teacher, petitioned to keep the book, “Stamped” in her school. Herself, along with co-workers, community members, and students showed up at school board meetings, forcing the issue to the members and successfully prevented the book from being taken off the shelve.

Ways to participate include:

buying banned books

writing a letter to a favorite banned or challenged author

speaking out to get the public’s attention by talking on the radio, going to protests, or publishing your own writing

D & J's Analysis

J: I learned that the motives behind book-banning is all about politics and not about what people actually think. Book banning is harmful and an attack on reading, which are the building blocks of learning.

Despite research showing that a large majority of voters actually oppose removing books from public libraries, there is still this relentless urge by legislators to ban books. The power that elected officials have over making decisions about public education is substantial and it can prevail over the opinions of the majority of voters. Banning books goes against the fundamental principle of the right to a complete education and the learning of the truth, that of which are the lived experiences of Black and Brown people in this country.

The implications of yourself not being represented in education makes you feel invisible and doubt yourself and is especially harmful as you grow up from childhood to adulthood. Book-banning is an attack on Black and Brown children’s self-esteem and confidence and a strain on making their wildest dreams seem possible.

D: Going back to what I mentioned earlier, Toni Morrison is one of the book authors that writes about social issues and experiences people of color go through. While her books contain graphic content that may be uncomfortable to read about, it only shines a light on the issues displayed and bring about the harsh realities of the human experience. It brings realism on how something similar is happening to others around you that one might not have known.

Of course parents always do what they think is best for their child -- and that is very understandable. A way they try to express their displeasure is placing limitations on books that are not age appropriate for their children. However it is also important to educate them on the real side of history that doesn't fully touch on the behind the scenes of all the goodness we have today.

Book banning can put limitations on what students are able to learn about and process others ideas. When one is on the outside world, there are no restrictions on social issues or no form on "censorship" -- it is all very raw and real problems being thrown at them, with no idea how to react or deal with them. Ignorance can root from this problem as well, and we know how people react to this.

In conclusion,

we believe that book banning is only promoting ignorance and wants to ignore the social issues (Racism, Poverty, Abuse, Assault, etc.) that people of color face in America. Book-banning doesn't make people of color feel like they belong in this country when they don't see themselves being represented in learning. The pattern of prioritizing the experiences of white people over experiences of people of color is a tactic to ensure white supremacy within the educational field. It doesn't give kids hope of a world of possibilities with no limitations.

So... now that you have some sort of understanding --

SOURCES https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/28/beloved-toni-morrison-virginia/ https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/986/book-banning https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/ https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics https://libguides.law.uconn.edu/c.php? https://chicago.suntimes.com https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-addresses-violent-threats-against-school-officials-and-teachers

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