‘CRT’s Attempt to Reframe Our Country’s Founding’

[Apologies for the belated posting of this third in the series of columns Ms McLaughlin which appeared in the 14jul21 issue of The Union.  The previous two can be found here and here.  gjr]

Terry McLaughlin

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has argued that critical race theory is “another right-wing conspiracy theory” that was “totally made up.” MSNBC’s Chuck Todd said that critical race theory is being “manufactured” by the right. Yet, over the July 4 weekend, the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, announced plans to teach critical race theory in all 50 states and more than 14,000 school districts. The National Education Association believes it is real, and they would be right.

One of the narratives being incorporated into critical race theory curriculum is the 1619 Project originally published in 2019 by The New York Times as stories, poems, and essays about racism and slavery. Twenty Africans, believed to be the first enslaved Africans in British North America, arrived in the colony of Virginia in 1619. The 1619 Project suggests that this was the moment of America’s “true founding.”

Written by journalists and opinion writers, not historians, the project attempts to reframe our country’s founding around the concepts of racism and slavery.

Within days of its launch in August 2019, a number of notable historians pointed out numerous factual inaccuracies and misleading statements in a letter to The New York Times. They included professors Victoria Bynum of Texas State University, James McPherson and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University, James Oakes of the City University of New York, and Gordon Wood of Brown University.

They disputed many of the statements presented as facts in the 1619 Project, not the least of which was an essay promoting the idea that the American Revolution was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery.

Northwestern University History Professor Leslie Harris, an expert on African American life and slavery in the pre-Civil War era, was the first historian to levy criticism who had actually supported the project and participated in it as a fact-checker.

During the publication process, she was presented with the assertion that “one critical reason that the colonists declared their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies, which produced tremendous wealth. At the time there were growing calls to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, which would have badly damaged the economies of colonies in both North and South.”

Harris vigorously disputed this claim, explaining that while slavery was an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the colonies went to war. Yet that claim remains in the published account.

According to Harris, colonists had no need to secede to protect slavery, as slavery faced no immediate threat from Great Britain. The opposite was true, Harris argued, as the Revolutionary War became a primary disrupter of slavery in the North American colonies. It led most of the 13 colonies to arm and employ free and enslaved black people with the promise of freedom to those who served in their armies. Thousands of enslaved people were freed as a result of these policies, and the ideals gaining force during the Revolutionary era also inspired many Northern states to pass laws gradually ending slavery.

These laws did not provide immediate emancipation, nor did they promise racial equality or full citizenship, but Professor Harris asserted that black activism during the Revolutionary War and the following era of emancipation led to the end of slavery much earlier than prescribed within those laws. Slaves often negotiated with their owners to purchase their freedom, or simply ran away in the confused aftermath of the war, and most Northern slave owners granted freedom to their slaves in advance of the time mandated by law.

Despite the many leading scholars who have discredited and criticized the project since its publication as historically inaccurate and ideologically driven, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the primary architect of the 1619 Project, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her essay introducing it.

The editorial staff of the New York Post, which had run multiple articles challenging the 1619 Project’s facts and arguments, wrote: “Too bad the Pulitzer committee now thinks that facts are irrelevant to journalism.” Most recently, Hannah-Jones has been awarded the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her alma mater. (She turned it down in favor of a position at Howard University.)

African-American history and slavery is a critical theme in America’s story, but we can recognize the impact of race without denying the roles of other influences or erasing or denigrating the contributions of early American settlers and our founding fathers, as critical race theory attempts to do.

A dozen Civil War professors and scholars have stated that they are “troubled that these materials are now … the basis of school curriculums, with the imprimatur of The New York Times. The remedy for past historical oversights is not their replacement by modern oversights.”

Professor Gordon Wood, winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for history for a book on the American Revolution, wrote, “I have spent my career studying the American Revolution. … I don’t know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves. … We all want justice, but not at the expense of truth.”

Despite its demonstrable flaws and distortions, the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum approved by the California Department of Education this year draws significantly upon the 1619 Project to validate what The Wall Street Journal calls the curriculum’s “radical indoctrination.”

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Hoisting Critical Race Theory With its Own Petard

By Robert Weissberg

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/hoisting-critical-race-theory-with-its-own-petard/

[Don Bessee]

Those pesky facts dont slow down the false narratives of the left -

1619 Project's Nikole Hannah-Jones called 'hypocrite' for bashing 'inconvenient facts'
‘Self awareness is rare on the left,’ one critic said

https://www.foxnews.com/media/nikole-hannah-jones

;-)

[Walt]

I'm pretty sure this belongs here....
Just where do these woke fools get their butt stupid ideas?
https://www.foxnews.com/media/the-view-hosts-clash-second-amendment-designed-protect-slavery-cornerstone-america
""The View's" Sunny Hostin and Meghan McCain clashed Friday over the Second Amendment in a segment focused on gun violence in America.

During the discussion, Hostin suggested the Second Amendment had racist roots and was "designed to protect slavery." McCain described the right as the "cornerstone" of what she believed "America should be." "

[Steven Frisch]

And of course Terry McLaughlin's comment, "Yet, over the July 4 weekend, the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, announced plans to teach critical race theory in all 50 states and more than 14,000 school districts...." is nothing but a FUCKING lie.

What the NEA did support is "Share and publicize, through existing channels, information already available on critical race theory (CRT) -- what it is and what it is not; have a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric; and share information with other NEA members as well as their community members."

There is a difference between "teaching" CRT and pushing back against the characterization of any teaching that illustrates our racist past as CRT by educating the public on what CRT actually is.

Here is the NEA action Item: https://web.archive.org/web/20210705090534/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/">https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/">https://web.archive.org/web/20210705090534/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/

What Ms. McLaughlin did is parrot the mis-characterization of this action that headlined a wide range of right wing media headlines without bothering to go see the motion for herself, or question the interpretation of the media.

I could point to a long list of publications, from City Journal to the NYPost to the Heritage Foundation, who are repeating the same FUCKING lie in an orgasmic echo chamber of bigoted bullshit.

Critical Race Theory is not the teaching of our history, that is....history....Critical Race Theory is a specific form of legal analysis of public policy regarding race as defined here...

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

...and has nothing to do with whether or not a high school teacher teaches about Nat Turners rebellion of point out that Thomas Jefferson almost certainly had sex with Sally Hemmings....

[Don Bessee]

Well that awfully frichy just look at what msn say -

America's largest teachers' union has announced it backs the teaching of critical race theory in schools, wants to hire staff to 'fight back' against those who oppose CRT, and has called for an October 14 rally to be held in honor of George Floyd's birthday.

The National Educator's Association recently approved a resolution to promote critical race theory through its existing channels, work to 'fight back' against opponents of the practice.

It also wants to assemble a team to teach it to union members and create a 'national day of action' to start a dialogue about systemic racism on October 14 – George Floyd's birthday.

The resolution reads that the NEA will 'provide an already-created, in-depth, study that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism (human centered points of view) and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.'

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/national-educator-s-association-approves-of-critical-race-theory/ar-AALLton

The political left wants critical race theory in every school district in the nation.
The nation’s largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts.

Over the weekend, the National Education Association (NEA) held its annual Representative Assembly, with delegates from across the United States voting on priorities and allocating funding for the upcoming school year, with the ideology of critical race theory — a form of race-based Marxism — taking center stage.

Embracing critical theory, teacher’s union says they — not parents — control what kids learn

https://nypost.com/2021/07/05/embracing-critical-theory-teachers-union-says-they-control-what-kids-learn/

;-)

[Steven Frisch]

Posted by: Don Bessee | 23 July 2021 at 04:58 PM

Yeah well MSN is full of shit too. The reality is there is a lot of sloppy journalism out there, particularly when a group of fools are all just telling each other what they want to here and using each other as references, you know...kind of like this page.

[Steven Frisch]

Posted by: Don Bessee | 23 July 2021 at 04:58 PM

Oh, wait, that was not an MSN article, ur was re=print of a Daily Mail article....Gd forbid a journalist, or people here claiming to be discerning readers and researchers, go to an original source...like I did.

[Bill Tozer]

“And of course Terry McLaughlin's comment, "Yet, over the July 4 weekend, the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, announced plans to teach critical race theory in all 50 states and more than 14,000 school districts...." is nothing but a FUCKING lie.”—
Steve F

And they (NEA) has been busy scrubbing that comment from their site and now it’s gone. And it is now about sanitizing (whitewashing) history. Thomas Jefferson had 6 children from his lover, slave, and companion.
It is about teaching school children who are white that they are cause of all racial ills in society and they (the children) are by default white racists and there is not a damn thing they can do about it. White children are irredeemable racists, solely because of the color of the skin they were born with. To extrapolate, you, Steve Frisch and every white person you know (including your wife) are racists. To deny you are a racist is proof you are a racist, lol.

That is the pushback. Teaching biracial kids to hate one of their parents is beyond the pale.

Granted, the whole CRT thang gets thrown in with intersectionality, 1619 project, trans with their junk hanging out in girls locker rooms and competing against girls for athletic scholarships and awards, BLM, and a whole hodgepodge of the far far left extremists’ ideas and wish lists.

Before you say the quote from the head of the Teachers Union is a fucking lie, perhaps you might want to take it back.

What the NEA is doing now is walking it back after blowback and using fine tuned nuance to make a distinction without a difference.

Where the rubber meets the road, its all about what is happening in the public classrooms, not what some NEA spokeswoman or some CRT lectured says.

Public school children are being taught to be racists, to feel guilt for something they have no control (skin color they were born with—unless you are Rachael Dolezal), to feel resentment for the white kids in class, and are being taught discrimination is ok. I don’t give a hoot what the intelligencia Leftinistas spout.
School children are a captive audience. They just can’t get up and walk out like a college freshman can. They are stuck and have even developed their frontal lobe yet. The children are hostages to indoctrination.

Cut and dice it six ways to Sunday, Steve. The only thing the originator of CRT got right was labeling it a theory.

I wish you were this adamant about the scandalous job public schools have done in CA teaching kids. 70-90% of black kids cannot read or write at grade levels. The solution? White Man did it to them! And that’s is no theory. Teach all about Tulsa, Oklahoma a century ago. No problem with that. Include it in the history courses. Teach them the good, the bad, and the ugly of history, great things and warts. And teach them that it was the Democrats who instituted Jim Crow Laws. And teach them that the USA was the only country in history that fought a bloody civil war to free the slaves. That is something white kids can be proud of. Teach it all and teach MLK’s dream. CRT will never bring unity, only discrimination, division, resentment, bad feeling about oneself, poor self esteem, victimhood and, of course, state sponsored racism

[Bill Tozer]

If they are not teaching CRT in public schools, then banning it is a non-issue. So, poof, end of story, right.

Now, teaching systematic racism to children let’s everybody off the hook for personal accountability.....except the Evil Y-T’s out there. All of them. All, even the white liberals...like Bernie and Brother Ben. I just find it impossible to bring myself to bend my knee and grovel to those who do not take responsibility for their own actions.

In the real world, punctuality maybe a White Supremist trait, but try telling that to your employer.

[Bill Tozer]

‘The Faith of Systemic Racism’

https://quillette.com/2021/07/21/the-faith-of-systemic-racism/

Excerpt:

“The radicals, always livid, always demanding more, insist that all this is window dressing. A sham. It does not matter how much money retailers spend on black-owned suppliers, or what percentage of Princeton’s class of 2025 is BIPOC, or how many movies we watch starring a correctly hued Afro-Dominican. The radical does not negotiate with an eye toward arriving at some peaceful coexistence, but a weakening—a razing—of the old order.

There’s something mystifying about all this endless, unctuous yammering about “systemic racism,” and that is its unverifiability. When the radicals call something “systemic” or “structural,” what they really mean is invisible or, better yet, incapable of being experienced. They are referring to the racism that must exist by dint of our many inequities. They assume a causation they cannot assume. Yes, there is disparity between racial groups. No, we cannot declare that the opinions of dead white people caused that disparity. David Hume was skeptical of asserting that contiguity in time and space was the same thing as causality. In this case, we can’t even go so far as to assert a contiguity in time. We can simply assert a vague contiguity in space. We can say that in America—like many, if not most, places—people once believed reprehensible things. We certainly can’t experience systemic racism, not in the way that “experience” is understood by philosophers or, for that matter, judges. We can’t see or hear or taste or feel it, the way an electric current coursing through a live wire can be felt. Which means we can’t be sure it exists. All we can do is assert, with great conviction, its existence and insist that other people believe in it, too, and threaten them with censure or exile if they believe inadequately.

Alas, if one points this out, if one so much as suggests that we consider other explanations for racial disparity, one inevitably risks being charged with racism. Serious inquiry is verboten.”

[Scott O]

Reading through the various lefty push-backs against the anti-CRT folks is quite amusing. The 3 main arguments are:
1 CRT doesn't even exist.
2 CRT is just 'teaching history' and how can you be against that?
3 "I was a teacher and I never taught CRT so it isn't being taught now."
Perhaps the pro-CRT folks could at least come up with arguments that don't contradict each other and I would at least believe they could be reasoned with.
You have to be in awe of a theory that is championed by people that claim it's just a figment of a fevered right-winger's brain.
I suppose Paul has a poll somewhere about this and Stevie-baby is fuming right now that I must be a racist bigot.
It really isn't about what CRT actually might do to a young child in school, it's just another pure power move by the left to impose a false doctrine. Any false doctrine will do (although this one ticks quite a few lefty boxes) - it's all about the fact that they will try to get away with it and see if they can play politics with the push-back.

[Bill Tozer]

REPORT: Biden’s Education Department Has Closer Ties To CRT Group Than They Admit

“One of the known connections, DOE Deputy Education Secretary Cindy Marten was in charge of the San Diego school system when it had author, professor and co-founder of ATN, Bettina Love speak at an event in August 2020 for $11,000, according to an agreement and financial records, Fox News reported. Marten was nominated in February, but the handbook wasn’t published until April, a month after she was confirmed to the DOE position.”

“The ATN guide promotes CRT talking points, which includes instructing educators to “disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression,” “remove all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children” and provide “free, antiracist therapy for White educators and support staff.”

The ATN does not specifically use the term “critical race theory,” but it touches on many of its common themes, which holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.“

[Bill Tozer]

Yes, one more of many opps. Link:
https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/22/department-of-education-critical-race-theory-joe-biden/
————————————
But they don’t use the words ‘Critical Race Theory’!

‘Biden admin’s school reopening guidelines included link to group promoting critical race theory’

A handbook with guidance for reopening schools prepared by the Biden administration included a hyperlink to a radical group called the Abolitionist Teaching Network that advocates for teachers to “disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression.”

A report from Fox News outlines the controversial positions of the group promoted by the Department of Education, including doing away with “all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children” in classrooms.

The Abolitionist Teaching Network has a list of “demands” on its website including “[f]ree, antiracist therapy for White educators and support staff,” and its co-founder Bettina Love has said, “If you don’t recognize that White supremacy is in everything we do, then we got a problem,” adding, “I want us to be feared.”

Love also said her network would “create a national database of antiracist school counselors, therapists and lawyers,” and would make available “activists in residence” for school districts deemed to be in need of them.......

***The controversial group was linked to by the DOE in its reopening handbook in a section related to students’ academic, social and emotional needs. President Biden’s American Rescue Plan provided $122 billion of aid to schools, 20% of which must go to programs such as those offered by the Abolitionist Teaching Network.****

https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/biden-admins-school-reopening-guidelines-include-link-to-group-promoting-critical-race-theory/
—
Update: The Department of Education has come out and said it is up to the local districts to decide their curriculum, ROFLMAO. Tell that to CA superintendent of schools. Hey, local school districts, do you want/need money? Best to follow the recommendations and do what the NEA demands. Obey and the color of money is in the mail.

[Bill Tozer]

Critical Witchcraft Theory

“Systemic racism” is not a sociological theory. It is theology. More precisely, it is a demonology: a theory of witchcraft.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/23/critical-witchcraft-theory/

[Gregory]

Toes 1118pm

Good one! Thanks.

[Bill Tozer]

‘Minnesota student says teacher told her to hide 'equity survey' questions from parents’
"One question asked us what gender we identify with," revealed a student who was in fourth grade at the time. "I was very confused along with a lot of other classmates."

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/sartell-student-says-teacher-told-her-hide-equity-survey-questions-parents

Again, if CRT is not being taught to young(er) school children, what is all the fuss about? If it is being taught to younger school children, then what is there to hide? Or, why hide it? Why hide it from parents? Why tell school children , “Don’t tell mom!”.

[Scott O]

BT 8:38 - from the article:
‘Minnesota student says teacher told her to hide 'equity survey' questions from parents’

And what have we always told children about adults that tell you "don't tell your parents"?

Glad my grandchildren are being home schooled.

[Bill Tozer]

Wait long enough and it all comes back around. I have been waiting for this old interview with a younger more open minded Don Lemon to come back around in a condensed format to post here. CRT is full of excuses and as Morgan Freeman said, "Bullshit."

https://www.facebook.com/1435071773455316/posts/2932169767078835/

[Bill Tozer]

Ben Shapiro

‘Our Empathetic Authoritarians’
The American crisis of empathy rests in a simple fact: America is now divided over two mutually exclusive definitions of empathy.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/81594-our-empathetic-authoritarians-2021-07-28?

[Bill Tozer]

‘The Moment in 1986 When Critical Race Theory Ousted the Civil Rights Movement’

“For example, in a 2015 journal article, critical-race scholars and practitioners Maria Ledesma and Dolores Calderon celebrate CRT as a “revolutionary project” and encourage elementary schools to disparage color-blindness as “dog whistle racism.”

Critical race theory came into its own by accusing friends and colleagues of racism. If that’s how allies are treated, should it be any surprise that parents and lawmakers opposed to what they see as the radical indoctrination of children should find themselves accused of racism too?”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/07/28/the_moment_in_1986_when_critical_race_theory_ousted_the_civil_rights_movement_786666.html

[Bill Tozer]

Steven Frisch | 23 July 2021 at 04:27 PM

“And of course Terry McLaughlin's comment, "Yet, over the July 4 weekend, the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, announced plans to teach critical race theory in all 50 states and more than 14,000 school districts...." is nothing but a FUCKING lie.”

Steve, I will graciously and magnanimously offer you a second chance to walk you comment back. It will be water under the bridge. All it takes is swallowing your pride. The say humiliation is the involuntary leveling of one’s pride, whereas humility is the voluntary leveling of one’s pride.

July 5, 2021
‘Nation’s Largest Teachers Union Says It Will Teach Critical Race Theory In All 50 States, 14,000 School Districts’

https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-largest-teachers-union-says-it-will-teach-critical-race-theory-in-all-50-states-1400-school-districts

July 28, 2021

WATCH: Rep. Clyburn Denies Critical Race Theory Is Being Taught In K-12 Schools

https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rep-clyburn-denies-critical-race-theory-is-being-taught-in-k-12-schools

Come to the light.

[Bill Tozer]

One of John Hinderaker’s better pieces.

THE END OF MERITOCRACY?

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/the-end-of-meritocracy.php

[Bill Tozer]

cultural appropriations..to fit in

https://www.facebook.com/lotuseatersdotcom/videos/563787691643124/