RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/24/the-woke-crusade-against-western-civilisation/

Cambridge University’s archaeology museum is to display signs explaining the apparent ‘whiteness’ and lack of ‘diversity’ among its ancient sculpture plaster casts – all as part of an anti-racism campaign.

This sounds like satire, but it’s not. Cambridge University’s Classics faculty really has chosen to focus on ‘the role of classical sculpture in the history of racism’. In effect, this ancient seat of learning is undertaking an act of cultural vandalism. It is seeking to recast Greek and Roman civilisation as the cradle of modern racism.

The museum says the sculptures give a ‘misleading impression’ of the whiteness and ‘absence of diversity’ in the ancient world. Aside from the philistinism of this approach, the important question to ask is why it is being adopted now.

It seems that all it took for the Classics faculty to decide ancient sculptures were a bit racist was an open letter to the faculty chair, written in 2020, from students, alumni and staff. This letter called for a ‘public acknowledgement of the problems of racism within Classics and… for active anti-racist work within our discipline’. And, just like that, this august institution gave in – it effectively said that the ancient world is something of which we should be ashamed.

The Classics faculty has since declared it will ‘turn the problem into an opportunity’. This will entail drawing attention to ‘the diversity of those figured in the casts’, and to the ways that the sculptures’ ‘colour has been lost and can be restored’.

In addition to all this, the Classics faculty has now published an action plan showing how it will deal with racism in Classics more broadly. This includes providing training for Classics tutors on how to discuss sensitive topics, and a review of all the language used in course titles and materials.

For some, the decision of Cambridge’s Classics faculty to portray Classics as racist is just another example of the dominance of identity politics in universities. But there is much more at stake here.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/a_virus_more_potent_than_covid.html

This one actually is tearing the country apart, and the cure is not apparent.

Shame and blame are animating features of the Critical Race movement.  The latest example of Critical Race Theory can be found in the article from Inside Higher Ed and is titled “Camera’s On: Surveillance in the Time of COVID-19.”  Author Margaret Finders “(pronouns: she, her, hers) is former chair and professor in the department of education at Augsburg University and Joaquin Muñoz (he/him/his pronouns) is assistant professor in the American Indian studies department at the university.”

The authors claim that asking students to keep cameras on during synchronous online class sessions is actually “indicative of an attitude toward teaching that positions students as docile bodies in need of constant surveillance.”  In fact, though “sharing an empty box or just a name seems to make many instructors uncomfortable … feeling such discomfort does not give them the right to demand entry into students’ private spaces.”

Who is “demanding entry into students’ private spaces”?  The Zoom screen does not meander into other rooms.  It shows the face of the student. 

But the more important point according to Finders and Muñoz is that “the ideologies of  ‘cameras on’ are incredibly problematic due to their racist, sexist and classist [emphasis mine] undertones.”

And so Marxist ideology is front and center in the article.  The clearly combative words and alleged high moral stance are the first indication that the left is on the march.  After all, the leftist machine is adept at manufacturing outrage.  Strategic ambiguity and changing the meanings of words to suit its nefarious purposes are never-ending.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/critical-race-theory-loudoun-culture-wars-systemic-racism-education-teachers-union-11629837816?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Leesburg, Va.

Shouting matches, tears and overwhelming frustration dominated the Loudoun County School Board’s meeting on June 22. Sitting on the dais, I had a front-line view of the fundamental challenges facing our nation’s education system.

Before I was elected to the school board, Loudoun County Public Schools in early 2019 spent $400,000 on an “equity consultant” to analyze graduation rates and other data to determine how racist the school district was.

After breaking down the data by race, the consultant found tiny differences in the graduation rates of black high-school students and white ones. These gaps, often only 1 percentage point, weren’t statistically significant.

Yet the LCPS superintendent deemed them sufficient evidence to bring in other outside groups, which declared that Loudoun County was systemically racist, and that the administration needed to embrace critical race theory’s concept of equity.

Critical race theory’s proponents claim America’s entire social structure and fabric—you and me, our laws and rules—are irredeemably racist and must be dismantled. LCPS and school systems like it support CRT by recommending books and teaching resources.

According to one strongly recommended book, “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo, “a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.”

This is a glimpse of what roughly 15,000 teachers are reading and using in their lesson plans for the estimated 85,000 students of Loudoun County.