Did you take a class in critical race theory?

[Jimmy Higgins]

Reading through the posts it seems that the Republicans/libertarians/conservatives/... aren't so much confused about CRT as they are afraid of any discussion of racism in the public schools.

That sounds like a pretty fair statement but not for your reasons. Most of the Republicans/libertarians/conservatives I know actually do agree with the founding principles of Martin Luther King.

They just don't want to deal with the repercussions of it, and just want to all is fair today, let's move on. Which is one of the things CRT is trying to deal with.

Admission of a human condition that is imperfect, the desire is to strive for a color blind society where no one cares about skin color. But liberals don't really want this. Liberals want to destroy progress thus far and rub the cats fur backwards getting everyone mad as hell at each other.

Yeah, those MAGA rallies were love-in fests, all about tolerance and acceptance.

 

[blastula]

For anybody defending CRT, can you tell me what you think qualifies as CRT and how do you know so? Also, what is non-trivially factual and useful about any of it?

 

[laughing dog]

For anybody defending CRT, can you tell me what you think qualifies as CRT and how do you know so? Also, what is non-trivially factual and useful about any of it?

Here is an introduction to it https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

While recognizing the evolving and malleable nature of CRT, scholar Khiara Bridges outlines a few key tenets of CRT, including:

Recognition that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It recognizes that science (as demonstrated in the Human Genome Project) refutes the idea of biological racial differences. According to scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, race is the product of social thought and is not connected to biological reality.
Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.
Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship. This includes embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.

CRT does not define racism in the traditional manner as solely the consequence of discrete irrational bad acts perpetrated by individuals but is usually the unintended (but often foreseeable) consequence of choices. It exposes the ways that racism is often cloaked in terminology regarding “mainstream,” “normal,” or “traditional” values or “neutral” policies, principles, or practices. And, as scholar Tara Yosso asserts, CRT can be an approach used to theorize, examine, and challenge the ways which race and racism implicitly and explicitly impact social structures, practices, and discourses. CRT observes that scholarship that ignores race is not demonstrating “neutrality” but adherence to the existing racial hierarchy. For the civil rights lawyer, this can be a particularly powerful approach for examining race in society. Particularly because CRT has recently come under fire, understanding CRT and some of its primary tenets is vital for the civil rights lawyer who seeks to eradicate racial inequality in this country......

Foundational questions that underlie CRT and the law include: How does the law construct race?; How has the law protected racism and upheld racial hierarchies?; How does the law reproduce racial inequality?; and How can the law be used to dismantle race, racism, and racial inequality?

 

[Copernicus]

Speaking of the downloadable toolkit for parents put out by the Heritage Foundation labeled "Reject Critical Race Theory," ...

I only downloaded it to examine their propaganda's content, but now they are emailing me, prompting me into "grassroots" action from the top-down direction:

[My Name is Here],

Thanks for downloading our critical race theory (CRT) ebook! Within the ebook, you will learn about what you can do to stop critical race theory.

One of the best ways to expose what is happening in schools with CRT is by submitting a FOIA request. Every state has different laws and procedures when it comes to submitting FOIA requests, so we have compiled links for each state to make it easier for you.

Head over to the ebook today to learn more about FOIA requests, see a sample of what to write, and to submit one. This will give you access to the debate and decision making process of your elected officials to ensure they are not pushing critical race theory into your schools.

Thank you!

Janae Stracke
Grassroots Director
Heritage Action​

I don't particularly see a problem with letting Americans know they have the right to request government information. Do you?

That's a disingenuous strawman.

Metaphor, it is quite possible that you do not know what a straw man is, although I doubt that. So you ask what makes it a straw man repeatedly, although you likely know exactly why it is. Nobody has even remotely implied that "letting Americans know that they have the right to request government information". Everyone agrees that they can and should have the right. That is what makes it a straw man. Then you ask a question loaded with the presupposition that Don2 made such a claim, doubling down on his straw man. Then you commit the straw man fallacy to an argumentum ad nauseam. You can look these fallacies up in Wikipedia, if you aren't sure of their meaning.

 

[Trausti]

For anybody defending CRT, can you tell me what you think qualifies as CRT and how do you know so? Also, what is non-trivially factual and useful about any of it?

Here is an introduction to it https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

While recognizing the evolving and malleable nature of CRT, scholar Khiara Bridges outlines a few key tenets of CRT, including:

Recognition that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It recognizes that science (as demonstrated in the Human Genome Project) refutes the idea of biological racial differences. According to scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, race is the product of social thought and is not connected to biological reality.
Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.
Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship. This includes embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.

CRT does not define racism in the traditional manner as solely the consequence of discrete irrational bad acts perpetrated by individuals but is usually the unintended (but often foreseeable) consequence of choices. It exposes the ways that racism is often cloaked in terminology regarding “mainstream,” “normal,” or “traditional” values or “neutral” policies, principles, or practices. And, as scholar Tara Yosso asserts, CRT can be an approach used to theorize, examine, and challenge the ways which race and racism implicitly and explicitly impact social structures, practices, and discourses. CRT observes that scholarship that ignores race is not demonstrating “neutrality” but adherence to the existing racial hierarchy. For the civil rights lawyer, this can be a particularly powerful approach for examining race in society. Particularly because CRT has recently come under fire, understanding CRT and some of its primary tenets is vital for the civil rights lawyer who seeks to eradicate racial inequality in this country......

Foundational questions that underlie CRT and the law include: How does the law construct race?; How has the law protected racism and upheld racial hierarchies?; How does the law reproduce racial inequality?; and How can the law be used to dismantle race, racism, and racial inequality?

When all you have is a hammer, everything you see is a nail.

 

[Metaphor]

Metaphor, it is quite possible that you do not know what a straw man is, although I doubt that.

Actually, I do know, but when people engage in the exact same behaviour as I did--ask a question--they are not accused of creating a straw man, and in fact deny it when challenged.

So you ask what makes it a straw man repeatedly, although you likely know exactly why it is. Nobody has even remotely implied that "letting Americans know that they have the right to request government information".

I did not remotely imply it was okay for "the right" to spread falsehoods about Juneteenth to promote a political message, yet laughing dog asked me that question in this thread.

Yet, laughing dog denied it was a straw man. Now, I can't for the life of me figure out how what laughing dog did wasn't a straw man, but my question was.

Everyone agrees that they can and should have the right.

I have no idea whether 'everybody agrees' to such a thing. In fact, my exposure to political opinions leads me to believe that there is almost no position that is universally supported or universally opposed. But I do want to know why Don2 posted the contents of the email.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

But I do want to know why Don2 posted the contents of the email.

Did you read the sentences prior to the email in my post?

Did you read the thread?

 

[Metaphor]

But I do want to know why Don2 posted the contents of the email.

Did you read the sentences prior to the email in my post?

Did you read the thread?

I read your post, but not the entire thread. I find the thread has strange implicit assumptions: that your ideological enemies think CRT is taught as a subject in primary or secondary school, and that the adults on this board would have been a good sample to go off to test whether and if there is a recent surge in CRT ideology in schools.

But I don't go into people's threads just to tell them to shut the fuck up and what they are posting about is stupid and boring and pointless.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

But I do want to know why Don2 posted the contents of the email.

Did you read the sentences prior to the email in my post?

Did you read the thread?

I read your post, but not the entire thread.

You should have read the thread. The thread provides context to both the post and other issues you are having.

I find the thread has strange implicit assumptions:...

You are making assumptions about what assumptions are present.

... that your ideological enemies ....

Well, there's an assumption right there and it's a doozy!

...think CRT is taught as a subject...

And that's an error by you. Asking if someone took a class in X, doesn't mean the title of the class is X nor does it mean the class is exclusively the subject of X. It's very informal wording written by someone who did not know much of anything on this topic at the time of the op and so readers will interpret it as very informally "a class in X." It's like this informal conversation:

Joe: Yo, Bill, you ever take a class in sex ed?
Bill: Yeah, man. I took health with Peterson. They covered that shit and also drugs, lots of crazy pictures. LOL.​

And you can see this by examining the op more closely (i.e. reading the thread):

...I suspect it may be a thing in some liberal arts classes in college...

In other words a significant, major concept covered in some class or other, not the exclusive topic of the class nor the title, though such case would also be included.

Still confused?

Okay, it was ALSO explained in post#30:

If anyone has taken a class where CRT was a major part of the curriculum so they can actually be counted on for reliable info, I think it would be fair for them to answer the op question in the affirmative.

Further, a special dispensation was given to conservatives whereby they could also answer Yes if they watched online educational/propaganda videos on CRT, they just had to explain themselves and link the video in the thread.

...in primary or secondary school, ...

or tertiary.

...and that the adults on this board would have been a good sample...

You are making an assumption that this is supposed to be an extremely formal test of the population at large or of grade school kids or whatever. It's just a sample of people in the forum, though there should be some representation.

...to go off to test whether and if there is a recent surge in CRT ideology in schools...

That presupposition by you seems disingenuous. No one said the thread tests precisely the surge in schools. However, CRT has been around for MANY DECADES now. And your usage of the word "surge" indicates a previous baseline. That's what this thread is testing, i.e. a baseline more or less and a smaller test inasmuch as we can test anything recent, according to how active people are in education still and what they post in the thread about themselves and their coursework. So, not everyone is the same age, some are much younger, and even for those of us who are a little older, we still may take continuing education courses. At my wife's job, continuing education is required and at my most recent job, most jobs had required continuing education, but for myself it was optional and I could sign up for classes. One of my employees did that and I approved her class for her. BUT why am I telling you this about continuing education? You ALREADY KNOW. That's what the whole other thread was about with the Indian American psychiatrist who was giving a lecture at Yale which a subset of people in the medical profession could get credit for.

Further, if it's true that there is a grand conspiracy to indoctrinate America's youth with Critical Race Theory, then where's it coming from? It's coming from the conservative-created conspiracy theory of liberal academia. Who are the alleged brainwashers in this "theory?" It's teachers and administrators...which means they've learned CRT already in their older college courses and/or they are learning it now as part of their continuing education.

So, it's all relevant, to ask adults for more information. That said, this thread is not a formal test of teachers either. The thread is open, transparent, flexible and a learning environment, not a formal peer-reviewed published paper with a methodology section.

 

[SimpleDon]

Reading through the posts it seems that the Republicans/libertarians/conservatives/... aren't so much confused about CRT as they are afraid of any discussion of racism in the public schools.

That sounds like a pretty fair statement but not for your reasons. Most of the Republicans/libertarians/conservatives I know actually do agree with the founding principles of Martin Luther King. Admission of a human condition that is imperfect, the desire is to strive for a color blind society where no one cares about skin color. But liberals don't really want this. Liberals want to destroy progress thus far and rub the cats fur backwards getting everyone mad as hell at each other. And CRT is really the perfect instrument for them to rub the cat's fur backward. Such a polarizing term in the first place, they can analysis a subject to death.

It is exactly the same thing as when a Brady bunch type family tries to come together to become one family. But instead of the Brady Bunch we saw on tv, the liberals want 1 of the spouses to keep hammering away the fact some of the kids were not produced by the father's sperm. Analyzing and researching the topic to death brings such unpleasant factual history's (that can no longer be changed) the end result preventing a mixed family from ever becoming a harmonious unit.

Republicans want to make lemonade out of lemons and liberals want to research ways to make the lemons taste more sour.

I am certain that this made sense to you before you wrote it down. But its connection with coherence didn't survive the conversion from thought to the printed page. Possibly it is because I don't have as finely tuned an understanding of liberals as you have. I do understand conservatives however, for most of my life I considered myself to be one. My father was one his whole life. But the conservative movement moved so far to the right that now most believe that I am a liberal. Just like Barry Goldwater.

Republicans have sold their souls to the rich and the corporations.

Perhaps this will help.

​

 

[Metaphor]

You are making assumptions about what assumptions are present.

Of course I am. All discourse comes with implicit assumptions.

And that's an error by you. Asking if someone took a class in X, doesn't mean the title of the class is X nor does it mean the class is exclusively the subject of X.

I did not suggest the title had to be X or that it had to be taught on its own. Nobody--not even Republicans--is imagining that there are classes in year 2 on or about critical race theory. What people understand to be happening is that educators have built the assumptions of critical race theory into their classroom teaching.

In other words a significant, major concept covered in some class or other, not the exclusive topic of the class nor the title, though such case would also be included.

Still confused?

I wasn't confused in the first place. I said the thread had strange implicit assumptions.

You are making an assumption that this is supposed to be an extremely formal test of the population at large or of grade school kids or whatever. It's just a sample of people in the forum, though there should be some representation.

If you don't intend to generalise from the sample then a convenience sample is fine.

That presupposition by you seems disingenuous. No one said the thread tests precisely the surge in schools. However, CRT has been around for MANY DECADES now.

Sure. I would say more or less recognisably from about 1990, but itself was the result of critical theories that emerged in academia in the 1970s.

And your usage of the word "surge" indicates a previous baseline. That's what this thread is testing, i.e. a baseline more or less and a smaller test inasmuch as we can test anything recent, according to how active people are in education still and what they post in the thread about themselves and their coursework. So, not everyone is the same age, some are much younger, and even for those of us who are a little older, we still may take continuing education courses. At my wife's job, continuing education is required and at my most recent job, most jobs had required continuing education, but for myself it was optional and I could sign up for classes. One of my employees did that and I approved her class for her. BUT why am I telling you this about continuing education? You ALREADY KNOW. That's what the whole other thread was about with the Indian American psychiatrist who was giving a lecture at Yale which a subset of people in the medical profession could get credit for.

I made an assumption that you were primarily talking about curricula in schools, which is what a lot of the recent "anti-CRT" legislation is about (in Australia, if somebody used an unqualified 'school', they would be referring to primary or secondary education, not university).

Further, if it's true that there is a grand conspiracy to indoctrinate America's youth with Critical Race Theory,

In what sense would it be a conspiracy? I mean, some of it is secretive--when schools or teachers decide to make it difficult for parents to find out what teachers are actually telling students--but that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy.

then where's it coming from? It's coming from the conservative-created conspiracy theory of liberal academia. Who are the alleged brainwashers in this "theory?" It's teachers and administrators...which means they've learned CRT already in their older college courses and/or they are learning it now as part of their continuing education.

So, it's all relevant, to ask adults for more information. That said, this thread is not a formal test of teachers either. The thread is open, transparent, flexible and a learning environment, not a formal peer-reviewed published paper with a methodology section.

Well, then, here's my 2c.

Many of the underlying assumptions of CRT are in schools already. COVID-19, and its ushering in of teachers and administrators talking over Zoom calls, has inadvertently cast a lot of sunlight on exactly what teachers and administrators believe. And some of it is fucking crazy.

 

[ZiprHead]

Here is an introduction to it https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

When all you have is a hammer, everything you see is a nail.

Wow. What a great thinker!

 

[ZiprHead]

CRT as opposed to this...

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders.<br><br>This is how one of them introduces the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves. <a href="https://t.co/oR617iSkFO">pic.twitter.com/oR617iSkFO</a></p>— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1404245820103348227?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[laughing dog]

Here is an introduction to it https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

When all you have is a hammer, everything you see is a nail.

Wow. What a extremely ironic great thinker!

FIFY

 

[Gospel]

View attachment 34331

Woah woah woah woah! That's teaching folks to hate white people! Nope, it's not the racial profiling done by the police. Nah uh, It's not America's racist rap sheet. It's definetly not the KKK or people who proudly fly the confederate flag. It's damn sure not the current beneficiaries of institutions built on racism crying they had nothing to do with it either. It's Critical Race Theory! Great, so how do we dispel the hate after we cancel CRT? Business as usual right? Just act like the hate is unwarranted and blame the cause on the effects. That's gonna work. I think CRT has its use until the idiots (I just mentioned) can come up with a functional replacement.

 

[blastula]

For anybody defending CRT, can you tell me what you think qualifies as CRT and how do you know so? Also, what is non-trivially factual and useful about any of it?

Here is an introduction to it https://www.americanbar.org/groups/...ng-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

While recognizing the evolving and malleable nature of CRT, scholar Khiara Bridges outlines a few key tenets of CRT, including:

Recognition that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It recognizes that science (as demonstrated in the Human Genome Project) refutes the idea of biological racial differences. According to scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, race is the product of social thought and is not connected to biological reality.
Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.
Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship. This includes embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.

CRT does not define racism in the traditional manner as solely the consequence of discrete irrational bad acts perpetrated by individuals but is usually the unintended (but often foreseeable) consequence of choices. It exposes the ways that racism is often cloaked in terminology regarding “mainstream,” “normal,” or “traditional” values or “neutral” policies, principles, or practices. And, as scholar Tara Yosso asserts, CRT can be an approach used to theorize, examine, and challenge the ways which race and racism implicitly and explicitly impact social structures, practices, and discourses. CRT observes that scholarship that ignores race is not demonstrating “neutrality” but adherence to the existing racial hierarchy. For the civil rights lawyer, this can be a particularly powerful approach for examining race in society. Particularly because CRT has recently come under fire, understanding CRT and some of its primary tenets is vital for the civil rights lawyer who seeks to eradicate racial inequality in this country......

Foundational questions that underlie CRT and the law include: How does the law construct race?; How has the law protected racism and upheld racial hierarchies?; How does the law reproduce racial inequality?; and How can the law be used to dismantle race, racism, and racial inequality?

So if is CRT, why is Kendi's quote not?

“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.”

Is this not CRT?

It is not.

 

[blastula]

CRT as opposed to this...

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders.<br><br>This is how one of them introduces the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves. <a href="https://t.co/oR617iSkFO">pic.twitter.com/oR617iSkFO</a></p>— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1404245820103348227?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

Are those our only choices?

 

[bilby]

CRT as opposed to this...

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders.<br><br>This is how one of them introduces the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves. <a href="https://t.co/oR617iSkFO">pic.twitter.com/oR617iSkFO</a></p>— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1404245820103348227?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

Are those our only choices?

It's a two-party system.

 

[KeepTalking]

CRT as opposed to this...

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders.<br><br>This is how one of them introduces the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves. <a href="https://t.co/oR617iSkFO">pic.twitter.com/oR617iSkFO</a></p>— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) <a href="https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1404245820103348227?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

Are those our only choices?

Unless you can show evidence of an 8th grade history book being used anywhere that teaches CRT, then you don't even have that as a choice. Your choice, especially if you live in Louisiana, may only be the one that notes how tough the poor slave owners had it.