RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/06/28/stop_gaslighting_parents_on_critical_race_theory_783202.html

Proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor.

Some pundits claim that CRT is exclusively a school of thought taught in legal academia. On her MSNBC show, Joy Reid claimed that “law school is really the only place it is taught. NBC has looked into everywhere.” Former Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tweeted: “I don’t think critical legal studies should be taught in elementary schools, and I am ready to die on that hill[.]”

Some journalists, informed by other “experts,” contend that CRT is synonymous with “talking about racism.” NPR defined CRT as “teaching about the effects of racism”; the New York Times called it “classroom discussion of race, racism.” NBC News labeled it the “academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.” 

These definitions are, of course, mutually exclusive. But they both serve to paint parents into a corner. If CRT is defined just as talking about racism, then parental objections to it must be rooted in racism. If CRT is defined just as a thesis discussed in law schools, then parental objections to it must be rooted in ignorance.

There’s no doubt that CRT has become a politicized term. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo forthrightly explained his strategy on this issue as follows: “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.”

Liberal writer Freddie DeBoer has argued that CRT is now a “completely floating signifier.” Conservatives label a host of things they don’t like as CRT. Liberals, then, “feel compelled to defend CRT because conservatives attack it,” and defend it by claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the bad things conservatives say.  

https://www.theepochtimes.com/majority-of-voters-reject-teaching-children-that-

About two-thirds of Americans believe that children should not be taught in school the claim that the United States is a “structurally racist” nation dominated by white supremacy, a new poll revealed.

The findings were published last week as part of an online survey (pdf) conducted by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll between June 15 and 17, among 2,006 registered voters. The survey asked participants whether they “believe that kids in elementary school should be taught that America is structurally racist and is dominated by white supremacy.”

In response, 61 percent of participants answered children “should not be taught this,” while the remaining 39 percent said children “should be taught that America is structurally racist.”

When it came to another question regarding the teaching of the First Amendment in schools, an overwhelming 81 percent of participants said elementary school students should learn about the First Amendment and the importance of free speech, compared to 19 percent who said they should not.

The results of the survey echoed those of an online poll conducted by Economist and YouGov poll between June 13 and 15, among 1,500 adult U.S. citizens. Participants were asked if they had “a good idea of what critical race theory (CRT) is,” to which 54 percent responded “yes,” 23 percent said “no,” and 23 percent said they are “not sure.”

Those who said they knew about CRT were then asked whether they have a “favorable or unfavorable” opinion of it. Of these participants, 58 percent said they at least have a “somewhat unfavorable” view of CRT, while 38 percent say they are in favor of the Marxism-rooted ideology, which deems the foundations of the American system to be inherently and irredeemably racist.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/28/ivy-league-university-teaches-class-claiming-that-black-holes-are-tied-to-racism/

Cornell University, one of the elite Ivy League schools, is introducing a new astronomy class that claims there are “connections between the cosmos and the idea of racial blackness,” according to the Daily Caller.

The class is called “Black Holes: Race and the Cosmos,” and will focus on the work of “theorists [who] use astronomy concepts like ‘black holes’ and ‘event horizons’ to interpret the history of race in creative ways.” At the same time, the class will address “artists and musicians [who] conjure blackness through cosmological themes and images.”

Despite its explicit focus on race, the class will still count towards Cornell students’ science requirement in their general education classes. According to the class’s official description on Cornell’s website, the course “will introduce students to the fundamentals of astronomy concepts through readings in Black Studies.”

The course’s introduction is the latest blow to the integrity and credibility of Cornell’s astronomy department. The university had previously announced that applicants for the astronomy graduate program will no longer have to submit their scores on the physics GRE, as minority students were more likely to get poorer grades on the exam than White students.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/dewey-defeats-critical-race-theory/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=magazine&utm_term=title

CRT is not just an attack on the American inheritance of political institutions; it is an attack on the social function of public schools.

Moms are rising up in counterrevolutionary revolt. I’ll say it again, moms are rising up in counterrevolutionary revolt against critical race theory, “anti-racism,” the introduction of the 1619 Project into high-school curricula, and the suddenly invasive demands of diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants who are being hired by their school districts. Although progressives wish, in vain, that this movement were an Astroturf operation run by shadowy right-wing donor networks, it has been springing up in school districts in reaction to initiatives led by administrators themselves.

Tatiana Ibrahim stood up in front of the Carmel school board in Putnam County, N.Y, and denounced what she termed the “communist values” that teachers and administrators in the district are promoting. “Stop indoctrinating our children. Stop teaching our children to hate the police. Stop teaching our children that if they don’t agree with the LGBT community, they’re homophobic,” Ibrahim demanded. “You have no idea of each child’s life,” she said, before announcing, in an only-in-America moment, that she is a Christian and her daughter is a Muslim.

She’s far from alone. “Telling my child or any child that they are in a permanent oppressed status in America because they are black is racist — and saying that white people are automatically above me, my children, or any child is racist as well,” said Quisha King, a mother in Duval County, Fla. “This is not something that we can stand for in our country.” Other revolts — as in Southlake, Texas, and Loudoun County, Va. — have been even more dramatic.

As with the Tea Party movement a decade before it, Fox News, Republican-run legislatures, and the institutions of conservatism are only just catching up to a political movement that has already gone viral. And again, as with the Tea Party, one of the reasons conservative institutions are only just catching up is that this movement — a defense of public schools as they were until recently — is not entirely conservative. But we’ll get to that.

Progressives, seeing the backlash, are feigning ignorance. They snort that critical race theory is a technical discourse that developed in law schools, and that it obviously isn’t taught in public schools. But Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado, in their 1995 book trying to define that rising movement of legal scholarship, do give a definition that seems suitable for describing the ideas now filtering down to other schools under a variety of names. “Unlike traditional civil-rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress,” they write, “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/sociology_professor_claims_shelter_dogs_killed_due_to_white_supremacy.html

Do you know why some dogs in shelters end up perishing? Simple neglect? The sad status of being unwanted? Global warming?

Nope. According to Katja Guenther, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California-Riverside, these canine deaths are due to “capitalism, anthroparchy, white supremacy and patriarchy.”

Of course.

Guenther says, for example, that people of color who abandon their dogs are likely victims “ensnared in the legal system,” forced to leave their animals behind “under the duress of sudden eviction or deportation or arrest.” She even claims that such people believe what they are doing is for the best, because of “the constraints of their knowledge and resources, both of which are limited by the nexus of their class, status as immigrants, and ethnicity.”

Incredibly, Guenther avers that if, say, a Latino man on a bicycle happens to drop a dog “while escaping from mall security officers … after stealing a pair of Wrangler jeans,” it is simply the result of his “status as marginalized.” Moreover, should a woman leave her dog to die at the pound after she has finished breeding her and selling her puppies to buy drugs, it is probably the fault of her “status as a poorly educated queer woman of color.” Wow.

Yet, in her book, “The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals,” Guenther claims that allowing your dog to sleep inside your house is actually a manifestation of white privilege. She wants Fido to be locked outside when it’s twenty-below-zero or during violent storms? Doesn’t sound very tolerant and inclusive.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/brandeis-word-police-highlights-the-absurdity-of-modern-progressivism-opinion/ar-AALro1b

The Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center (PARC) website at Brandeis University reads like a parody.

PARC compiled a list of words it deemed too offensive to utter, which includes “rule of thumb,” “killing it,” “freshman” and, somewhat ironically, “trigger warning.” The list is making the rounds on social media, eliciting general mockery from the political Right. And these social justice warriors deserve to be mocked: Their list is ridiculous.

But conservatives, moderates and anyone interested in an open and honest exchange of ideas shouldn’t dismiss PARC as merely a joke. This level of word-policing is quite dangerous.

The “student-centered” resource plays into absolutely every stereotype you might have about hypersensitive, self-preening progressives who are offended by everything but claim to be brave enough to fight for the marginalized. They see the world through a social justice lens, focusing on the tenets of critical race theory and intersectionality.

PARC staffers compiled a list of examples of supposedly “violent language.” All examples are ridiculous; a few are even condemned based on outright erroneous claims.

Progressive activists believe words are violence (when they’re not claiming silence is violence). Everything they do not like is considered violence, including the “oppressive” phrase, “killing it.” Rather than adopt the understood meaning of the phrase, they argue it should be replaced because “if someone is doing well, there are other ways to say so without equating it to murder.”

The phrase “rule of thumb” apparently also can’t be used. PARC claims the expression “allegedly comes from an old British law allowing men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than their thumb.” This is simply untrue.

PARC demands you stop using the word “picnic” because it claims the word was “often associated with lynchings of Black people in the United States, during which white spectators were said to have watched while eating, referring to them as picnics.” This also is simply not true, and PARC ended up deleting this entry.

The phrase “go off the reservation” apparently has a “harmful history rooted in the violent removal of indigenous people from their land.” So you better stop using it. And if you were expecting a trigger warning ahead of their word-policing, think again. “Trigger warning” will have “connections to guns for many people,” and it is thus banned. Similarly banned is “take a shot at” because it uses “imagery of hurting someone or something.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/25/canceling-critical-race-theory

Just four weeks ago, I wrote about the beginnings of a resistance to the teaching of Critical Race Theory, which is Marxist in nature, and asserts that the United States is systemically and irredeemably racist. Parents and other citizens started filing lawsuits and joining emergent activist groups. And now, many state governments have entered the fray. According to Education Week, as of June 18, 25 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict the teaching of the controversial theory. In fact, eight states have already enacted bans.

The activity varies from state to state. In Florida, the state board of education has voted to approve a rule that prohibits schools from teaching CRT and the 1619 Project. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds recently signed a law that will ban schools from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex, among other provisions. In D.C., a bill has been introduced that would ban the promotion of “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating.” And Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a law limiting the ways that teachers can discuss racism and sexism in class. As Education Week’s Mark Walsh explains, “The laws passed or proposed so far generally prohibit schools from teaching that one race or sex is inherently superior, that any individual is consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist because of their race or sex, and that anyone should feel discomfort or guilt because of their race or sex.”

And now, ironically, the wokesters—the same crowd that brought us “cancel culture”—is screaming “Censorship!” National Education Association president Becky Pringle said her union is contemplating the use of “legal action against laws restricting how racism and history are taught.” American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten weighed in on Florida’s law, insisting that lesson plans from the debunked 1619 Project help students “discern fact from fiction,” and laughably accuses Florida governor Ron DeSantis of “pretending this history doesn’t exist.” And now, teachers in 22 cities are planning protests over laws “restricting racism lessons in schools.”

The born-again First Amendment zealots are dead wrong, however. The 1619 Project is a lie. The original document maintained, for example, that slavery was a primary motivation for the colonists’ revolt against England and the Pilgrim’s subsequent trek across the Atlantic to the New World in 1619. The bogus document also claims that 1619, not 1776, was the year of “our true founding.” After receiving criticism from historians, some tweaks were made, but the document is still a fraud. 

And banning the teaching of falsehoods should not get under the skin of any honest person. If the Flat Earth Society demanded that their ideas be taught in government-run schools and were shunned, would anyone be at the barricades with fists clenched? Of course not.

Regarding Critical Race Theory, it is, well, just a theory. And not all theories belong in schools. If I came up with a theory that women are dumber than men, and could produce no facts or scholarship to substantiate my claim, would educators be pushing for schools to teach it? Hardly. Additionally, the teaching of CRT actually runs afoul of the law. As legal experts Rick Esenberg and Daniel Lennington of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty point out, the Constitution, along with federal and state statutes, protects “freedom of conscience.” Hence, public schools “cannot force students to affirm certain points of view—such as critical race theory’s ideas of white supremacy, white privilege, or systemic racism. The Constitution also prohibits ‘compelled speech,’ meaning that teachers cannot force a student to speak a certain message, such as a confession that ‘I am a racist.’”

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-weinstein

On May 23, 2017, not so long ago in real time but seemingly an eternity given the extraordinary history we’ve lived through since, a group of 50-odd students at Evergreen State College arrived at the classroom of a biology professor named Bret Weinstein, demanding his resignation. He stepped into the hall to talk, believing he could work things out.

He was wrong. Weinstein’s offense had been to come to work during an event called the “Days of Absence,” in which white students, staff, and faculty were asked to stay home. This was an inverted version of a longstanding Evergreen event of the same name that, based on a Douglas Turner Ward play, invited students of color to stay home voluntarily, to underscore their value to the community. As he would later explain in the Wall Street Journal, Weinstein thought this was a different and more negative message, and refused to comply. When that group of 50 students he’d never met arrived at his door and accused him of being a racist, he assumed he could find common ground, especially when his own students (including students of color) spoke on his behalf.

“I was one of Evergreen’s most popular professors,” he later testified to the House of Representatives. “I had Evergreen’s version of tenure. Did they really think they could force my resignation based on a meritless accusation? They did think that, and they were right.”

Weinstein was a Bernie Sanders supporter who described his politics as unabashedly liberal, even leftist. Like many, he’d grown up steeped in the imagery of sixties protest culture, probably imagined himself on its side, and therefore thought he could find solidarity with protesters. He didn’t realize was that he was the canary in a coal mine for a new movement that understood free speech as a stalking horse for the exercise of institutional power. When Weinstein opened his mouth to defend himself, what the crowd heard was him attempting to exercise authority, and they exercised theirs back.

They’d won over Evergreen’s new president, George Bridges, who refused to intercede in Weinstein’s behalf and later even asked college police to stand down, when protesters began stopping traffic and searching cars for someone, presumably Weinstein. The police told Weinstein they couldn’t guarantee his safety, and ultimately he was, in fact, forced to resign.

Frequently portrayed as the involuntary protagonist of the first of a series of campus free speech crises, in fact Weinstein was one of the first to understand that a rollback of “free speech” in cases like his was incidental to the larger aims of the movement.

“What is occurring on college campuses is about power and control. Speech is impeded as a last resort,” he told the House Oversight Committee.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/suppressing-and-punishing-speech-fight-racism-richard-l-cravatts/

Even before the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, universities had demonstrated that they were in thrall with an obsession about racism and racial equity. Diversocrats in bloated fiefdoms of equity, diversity, and inclusion diligently indoctrinated so-called marginalized students on how to be victims and oppressed, and whole systems were set up to monitor the behavior of potential racists and punish them for their transgressions.

At the University of San Diego’s Law School, for example, members of the Black Law Students Association, in order to confront “the oppression that is inextricably linked to [their] Blackness,” demanded that the law school “develop a classroom diversity officer position tasked with observing classroom practices and reporting questionable conduct within the classroom to the administration” so that perpetrators could be censured and punished.

At Princeton, several hundred faculty members published a letter to the administration in which they asked that the University form “a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty . .  ,” overlooking the fact that what they were calling for was a veritable star chamber in which a handful of virtue-signaling, race-obsessed faculty would use their own bias and subjectivity to vet the research and teaching of fellow faculty and decide which viewpoints would be permitted and which, henceforth, would not (and would potentially even be punished)—a blatant violation of both the spirit and intent of academic freedom.

That same desire to ferret out any racist thought or bias which might injure or make uncomfortable a member of an identity group has seeped into public schools, as well, along with the impulse to censure and punish any staff or students who violate the overly-broad strictures of conversations about race, culture, and politics.

In Chicago, for example, where out of nearly 1,500 shooting victims so far in 2021, over fifty were 15 or younger, at least school-aged children will not be threatened by racism and bias on the part of their school peers now that they can identity and report bigotry in their schools. The formal program, “Transforming Bias-Based Harm,” promotes some of the insidious aspects of now-typical diversity and inclusion campaigns, including finding racism where it is almost imperceptible: implicit or unconscious bias and microaggressions. Students will be able to report the misbehavior of fellow students, including “everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional,” directly through the Chicago Public Schools website, and perpetrators are potentially subject to being punished for their unacceptable speech. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/06/23/viral_school_board_speech_it_is_my_constitutional_right_to_critique_your_fascism.html

In this viral video, Simon Campbell, a former member of the Pennsbury, PA school board, rips his former colleagues for allegedly seeking to censor video of spicy public comments and criticism of the school district.

“I’ve got news for you, School Board President Benito Mussolini, your power does not supersede that of the U.S. constitution and the rights of the citizens of this great country,” he said before being warned not to name-call.

“I’m quoting you from the U.S. Supreme Court. The judges wrote: ‘This nation is founded on the profound national commitment to the principle that debate of public issues shall be uninhibited, robust, and wide open. And that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.’ That’s constitutional case law in this nation. I don’t have to be nice to you. Nobody behind me has to be nice to you.”