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Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white child

Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children) and that the minorities get to share their anecdotal, lived experience while the white students stand by and are not permitted to say anything. I find the entire formula to be a groundwork for severe social damage. It certainly does not build bridges. Nor does it pave the way towards compassion and understanding.

cbsmith 5y ago
Yeah, that's not what Critical Race Theory is or how it could be applied to schools. The irony of you bringing this up in the context of propaganda is amusing. There's a good short interview NPR did today with Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has been working on applying critical race theory for education policy for over a couple of decades: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-brought-critical-race-theory-to-education-says-bills-are-misguided https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-broug... Be careful out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there.
- esyir 5y ago
  Having seen the media about crt, as well as the way it's applied and the attitudes of its adherents, its pretty close to the truth. And its hard to argue with the result. Whatever is going on, that particular strain of "crt" is virulently spreading.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    "The media about crt" s/media/propaganda/ Keep in mind you're being fed a narrative. CRT has been around for decades, and isn't something you can apply in a grade school curriculum (as Gloria Ladson-Billings said, it isn't something you teach in undergrad at college... it's a subject for post graduate study/research). There's a reason you're hearing about this now.
    - esyir 5y ago
      You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement. Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society. Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances. Then look at intersectionality. The US is literally fractured along identity lines, with people literally pulling that separation and interaction of the various subidentitites to war with one another. Look at the slow march towards "male gays are oppressors" that you see on LBGT communities AND the mainstream media [1]. How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism? Reparations and separation (CHAZ, general talk) anyone? Also common themes in academic CRT. It's pretty clear to me, building from the principles of CRT, and the common themes in their papers have punctured that academic bubble into the mainstream. We're hearing about it now because of this. I certainly don't like it. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-exists-all-year-it-particularly-hurtful-during-ncna1024961 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-ex... [2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_...
      - cbsmith 5y ago
        > You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement. I wasn't intending to attack. > Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society. It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles. > Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances. The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives. > How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism? The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality. There may indeed be a lot of the thinking here that has percolated out "into the mainstream". That's kind of the point of these things. You would expect that most ideas would get around throughout society. But no one worries about String Theory being taught in grade school, and the idea of actively trying to ensure it doesn't somehow slip in to the curriculum in grade school is laughable. If you can get students to the mental headspace where you can even begin to examine CRT, you're doing an amazing job as an educator, and I kind of don't care what you proceed to expose them to at that point. Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape. > I certainly don't like it. ...and that's the crux of it. We're used to the propaganda we've been fed, and the idea of it changing in anyway is just really upsetting.
- ttt0 5y ago
  I get the overall idea of what CRT is and it's basically in the same vein as for example The Culture of Critique. Some of it might be fair points, to some of it I have strong objections, but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that. Hell, the same thing can be even said about a lot, if not most, of adults. It's almost impossible to have any reasonable debate around what these actually say, without throwing around words like racist, anti-white, anti-semite, etc. I'm opposed to censoring anything, but just in principle, neither of them should be taught to children, it's a terrible idea. Period. The NPR interview doesn't really say anything interesting or new to me. All of it applies to The Culture of Critique too. Putting whether these theories are actually true aside for a moment, my point is that if you are opposed to teaching children something like CofC then you should be opposed to CRT as well. To illustrate my point better, let's take the CNN article on what CRT is: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-explainer-trnd/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-e... Here is how CRT is defined, which isn't exactly the most charitable definition of CRT I've ever read, and it frankly sounds completely terrible, but just to demonstrate a point: > Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites. Now let's change some races around: > Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most White people, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits Jewish elites. And this is roughly the conclusion CofC reaches too. So honest question, assuming you can come up with something to substantiate this claim (to keep the discussion simple), would you also be fine with this? Just in principle.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    > but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that Which is why you can't possibly introduce it in to grade school curriculum. The very idea is laughable.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    ...and to your question, I think you're missing the point of CRT. The point is to look at the systemic effects that may otherwise go unobserved because they aren't experienced by the majority. Swapping it around so that it is the experience of the majority takes it out of that context and makes it pretty much a joke.
clipradiowallet 5y ago
CRT is a new [political] spin on an old evolved trait in all human beings(and in some non-human life forms). That trait is "pack mentality"; the idea that a single organism has a higher survival rate when in a pack. Example: lone wolf VS pack wolf - the lone wolf has a higher mortality rate. Expulsion of a pack wolf from the pack invariably leads to a shorter lifespan for the expelled wolf. This works in humans also... eg, a tribe of humans can hunt larger mammals, which results in more food security for the tribe. A single human cannot do this, and has no safety net when they are physically unable to hunt/gather. Whether CRT is right/wrong is another issue altogether...but it's just another lens on a very old behavior trait of species that have survived over long periods of time.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools Critical Race Theory isn’t applied in K-12 schools (at least not as a thing that is taught, it can certainly inform education policy and approaches to policymaking), nor has anyone proposed teaching it there, and anything you’ve read about it being taught there is a complete and utter fabrication for propaganda purposes. > teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children) CRT doesn't include the idea that people are inherently racist, and is, indeed, an outgrowth of critical legal studies and shares CLS’s focus on institutional rather than personal forces. People being racist is largely outside the focus of CRT, which is centrally about how social institutions can be racist, often independently or even contrary to the values of the people currently comprising the institutions. The anti-anti-racists have been claiming people advocating against racism are teaching white children that they are inherently racist long before they attributed that to CRT. CRT has just been adopted as the new buzzword to which anti-anti-racists apply their standard arguments, just as “cancel culture” recently became the label to which all the arguments that the Right had been tieing to “political correctness” since the 1980s became attached.

cbsmith 5y ago

Yeah, that's not what Critical Race Theory is or how it could be applied to schools. The irony of you bringing this up in the context of propaganda is amusing. There's a good short interview NPR did today with Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has been working on applying critical race theory for education policy for over a couple of decades: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-brought-critical-race-theory-to-education-says-bills-are-misguided https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-broug... Be careful out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there.

esyir 5y ago
Having seen the media about crt, as well as the way it's applied and the attitudes of its adherents, its pretty close to the truth. And its hard to argue with the result. Whatever is going on, that particular strain of "crt" is virulently spreading.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  "The media about crt" s/media/propaganda/ Keep in mind you're being fed a narrative. CRT has been around for decades, and isn't something you can apply in a grade school curriculum (as Gloria Ladson-Billings said, it isn't something you teach in undergrad at college... it's a subject for post graduate study/research). There's a reason you're hearing about this now.
  - esyir 5y ago
    You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement. Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society. Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances. Then look at intersectionality. The US is literally fractured along identity lines, with people literally pulling that separation and interaction of the various subidentitites to war with one another. Look at the slow march towards "male gays are oppressors" that you see on LBGT communities AND the mainstream media [1]. How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism? Reparations and separation (CHAZ, general talk) anyone? Also common themes in academic CRT. It's pretty clear to me, building from the principles of CRT, and the common themes in their papers have punctured that academic bubble into the mainstream. We're hearing about it now because of this. I certainly don't like it. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-exists-all-year-it-particularly-hurtful-during-ncna1024961 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-ex... [2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_...
    - cbsmith 5y ago
      > You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement. I wasn't intending to attack. > Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society. It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles. > Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances. The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives. > How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism? The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality. There may indeed be a lot of the thinking here that has percolated out "into the mainstream". That's kind of the point of these things. You would expect that most ideas would get around throughout society. But no one worries about String Theory being taught in grade school, and the idea of actively trying to ensure it doesn't somehow slip in to the curriculum in grade school is laughable. If you can get students to the mental headspace where you can even begin to examine CRT, you're doing an amazing job as an educator, and I kind of don't care what you proceed to expose them to at that point. Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape. > I certainly don't like it. ...and that's the crux of it. We're used to the propaganda we've been fed, and the idea of it changing in anyway is just really upsetting.
ttt0 5y ago
I get the overall idea of what CRT is and it's basically in the same vein as for example The Culture of Critique. Some of it might be fair points, to some of it I have strong objections, but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that. Hell, the same thing can be even said about a lot, if not most, of adults. It's almost impossible to have any reasonable debate around what these actually say, without throwing around words like racist, anti-white, anti-semite, etc. I'm opposed to censoring anything, but just in principle, neither of them should be taught to children, it's a terrible idea. Period. The NPR interview doesn't really say anything interesting or new to me. All of it applies to The Culture of Critique too. Putting whether these theories are actually true aside for a moment, my point is that if you are opposed to teaching children something like CofC then you should be opposed to CRT as well. To illustrate my point better, let's take the CNN article on what CRT is: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-explainer-trnd/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-e... Here is how CRT is defined, which isn't exactly the most charitable definition of CRT I've ever read, and it frankly sounds completely terrible, but just to demonstrate a point: > Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites. Now let's change some races around: > Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most White people, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits Jewish elites. And this is roughly the conclusion CofC reaches too. So honest question, assuming you can come up with something to substantiate this claim (to keep the discussion simple), would you also be fine with this? Just in principle.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  > but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that Which is why you can't possibly introduce it in to grade school curriculum. The very idea is laughable.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  ...and to your question, I think you're missing the point of CRT. The point is to look at the systemic effects that may otherwise go unobserved because they aren't experienced by the majority. Swapping it around so that it is the experience of the majority takes it out of that context and makes it pretty much a joke.

clipradiowallet 5y ago

CRT is a new [political] spin on an old evolved trait in all human beings(and in some non-human life forms). That trait is "pack mentality"; the idea that a single organism has a higher survival rate when in a pack. Example: lone wolf VS pack wolf - the lone wolf has a higher mortality rate. Expulsion of a pack wolf from the pack invariably leads to a shorter lifespan for the expelled wolf. This works in humans also... eg, a tribe of humans can hunt larger mammals, which results in more food security for the tribe. A single human cannot do this, and has no safety net when they are physically unable to hunt/gather. Whether CRT is right/wrong is another issue altogether...but it's just another lens on a very old behavior trait of species that have survived over long periods of time.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Critical Race Theory as I have read about it being applied in schools Critical Race Theory isn’t applied in K-12 schools (at least not as a thing that is taught, it can certainly inform education policy and approaches to policymaking), nor has anyone proposed teaching it there, and anything you’ve read about it being taught there is a complete and utter fabrication for propaganda purposes. > teaches youth that they are inherently racist (note this is only taught to the white children) CRT doesn't include the idea that people are inherently racist, and is, indeed, an outgrowth of critical legal studies and shares CLS’s focus on institutional rather than personal forces. People being racist is largely outside the focus of CRT, which is centrally about how social institutions can be racist, often independently or even contrary to the values of the people currently comprising the institutions. The anti-anti-racists have been claiming people advocating against racism are teaching white children that they are inherently racist long before they attributed that to CRT. CRT has just been adopted as the new buzzword to which anti-anti-racists apply their standard arguments, just as “cancel culture” recently became the label to which all the arguments that the Right had been tieing to “political correctness” since the 1980s became attached.