RUTHFULLY YOURS

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

As irate parents and taxpayers turn up in large numbers at school board meetings across the nation to express their opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT), school districts are backpedaling as fast as they can, claiming “we don’t teach Critical Race Theory in our district.”  Although districts are not teaching classes titled “Critical Race Theory,” they are incorporating CRT ideology into programming and curricula, and hiring people whose job is to insert CRT into every aspect of school life.

The following is one example of how CRT principles and practices are being supported by Pennsylvania’s Downingtown Area School District (DASD), where earlier this year the board hired Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), Jason Brown, who wrote a book, Ugh! Not Another Diversity Book in which he misrepresents the history of Thanksgiving to portray all early European immigrants as bad. Please note, the disparagement of people based on their skin color (white), and ethnic background (European), is a key aspect of CRT ideology.

At DASD public meetings, the Board does not allow community members to make comments about DASD employees. Speakers are silenced when they attempt to provide personal experiences and observations of how CRT ideology is being implemented — as was this woman and this woman — making it very difficult to reveal the CRT/DEI agenda. Therefore, it is vital for DASD residents to communicate beyond the bounds of school board meetings to the broader public. 

In Ugh! Not Another Diversity Book Brown plays fast and loose with history to promote an anti-white narrative about the origins of Thanksgiving. To elucidate both what Brown is doing and what the DASD Board considers acceptable scholarship for a member of the “Senior Leadership Team,” it is helpful to look first at the historical record. The passage below is one of the only two existing firsthand accounts of the first Thanksgiving in America, written in 1621 by Edward Winslow.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others.  And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us…

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/confusion-blame-shifting-and-inaccuracy-academia-reacts-to-the-fall-of-afghanistan/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=sixth

You may or may not be surprised by how the ‘experts’ are reacting to Afghanistan’s fall.

he nation’s foreign-policy and Middle East “experts” have blown it again, and academics are part of the problem. In the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, many are simply silent while others are expressing surprise. Still others can’t transcend their default position of blaming America.

Let’s start with silence. What is the Middle East Studies Association up to? Its Committee on Academic Freedom is very active when it comes to writing letters to governments that restrict access to education. Where is the letter to the Taliban demanding that women be allowed to learn how to read and write and universities should remain open?

What about the academics who have been teaching Afghans? What will happen to the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF)? Founded in 2006 with a grant from USAID, it bears the name “American” on its façade and claims to be devoted to “implementing an American higher education model.” Academics certainly thought highly of it — even more highly than they thought of American involvement there in the first place. According to Victoria Fontan, a professor of peace and conflict studies at AUAF, “the university is really one of the only positive U.S. legacies in Afghanistan that has no dark corners.” If Fontan is willing to speak about the U.S. effort in Afghanistan so caustically to CBS, one can only imagine what maligning might occur in her peace-studies seminars.

Many academics are simply reluctant to say or write anything at all critical of Islam or Islamism for fear of being branded an “Islamophobe.” Amazingly, this even applies now to the Taliban. According to ABC 6 Rhode Island News, Faiz Ahmed, an associate professor of modern and Middle Eastern history at Brown University, said that “it will take more than just one side to begin recovery efforts, including the U.S. and neighboring countries as well as the Taliban to honor universal and Islamic values.” Newsflash to Ahmed: The Taliban are quite confident they are restoring Islamic values to Afghanistan after 20 years of Western influence.

Of course, the default academic position for well over two decades has been to blame America for everything. Irfan Noorudin, director of the South Asia Center and professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, says that collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government and takeover by the Taliban is “an indictment of U.S. policy under four American presidents dating back to 2001” and that our allies “increasingly must grapple with an America whose bark is stronger than its bite . . . and that lacks the ability to mobilize consensus around extended international engagement.” Ah yes, “international engagement,” the key to securing, er . . . American interests.

Some academics still can’t get beyond blaming Donald Trump for Afghanistan. Admittedly, negotiating with the Taliban has always been something of a fool’s errand, but every president since Bill Clinton has done so. We don’t know how Trump would have handled the withdrawal, but we know how Biden has mishandled it. That didn’t stop Ronald Stockton, professor of political science at University of Michigan–Dearborn, from saying that the fall of the Afghan government “was inevitable as soon as the Trump administration signed the Doha document agreeing to withdraw all U.S. forces if the Taliban would promise to behave themselves. . . . At that point, our allies within the country knew that it was only a matter of time.” The difference here (to use Stockton’s term) is that Biden didn’t make the Taliban promise anything. Stockton further admonished that “hyperventilating members of Congress are allowed to hyperventilate against Biden if they also hyperventilated against Trump. Otherwise, it is just shameless partisan treachery.” Stockton misses several points here: first, that nearly everyone wanted out of Afghanistan after 20 years of propping up a corrupt and inept government; and second, that for 20 years no major attacks on U.S. soil were plotted, directed, and launched from Afghanistan. He also overlooks Biden’s epic bungling of the withdrawal, which is precisely what everyone is “hyperventilating” about. Even a rank amateur knows to evacuate civilians before military personnel and to remove war materiel from the war zone instead of leaving it to the enemy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/odious-campaign-sexualize-children-public-schools-richard-l-cravatts/

The current debate about critical race theory (CRT) being promoted in public schools by diversocrats and educators intent on indoctrinating students with one particular view of race revealed one important thing: that teachers, and the powerful unions which represent them, feel it is their right and obligation to inculcate students with a questionable, toxic view which accuses all white students of being complicit in systemic racism and assumes all black students are victims of that oppression and bigotry.

Educators have pretended that the effort to promote CRT is purportedly to make children more tolerant and less race aware, although it is obvious to CRT’s many critics that it does precisely the opposite by making children focus on their skin color and making assumptions about themselves and others based on theirs. More importantly, public schools have decided that they, and they alone, can decide to teach children a radical and discredited view of racism and that this area of teaching should have a prominent place in public school education.

But educators have not limited themselves to indoctrinating students about controversial theories about race and bigotry. Long before CRT had shown up on anyone’s radar, public schools had been widening the focus and content of what was commonly referred to as “sex education,” but which now has blossomed from a single course one might encounter in high school about hygiene and reproduction to reading materials, curricula, lesson plans, activities, and even the incorporation of aspects of sexuality into courses such as history where mention of such topics was normally absent.

The 13-million-member National Education Association, just as it has with CRT, has been vocal in promoting a wide and radical curriculum about sexuality, something it feels, as it does with race, that it has a right and obligation to do. A 2016-2017 NEA resolution, for example, “B-53 Sex Education,” announced that the organization, “. . . believes that the developing child’s sexuality is continually and inevitably influenced by daily contacts, including experiences in the school environment . . . [and] that the public school must assume an increasingly important role in providing the instruction.”

Ignoring the reality that many of the students being taught by its members are elementary and middle school-aged children with little or no prior knowledge about sexuality, the resolution continued that it would assiduously defend every student’s right to knowledge about sexuality, asserting that “The Association also believes that to facilitate the realization of human potential, it is the right of every individual to live in an environment of freely available information and knowledge about sexuality . . . .”

And such instruction, of course, would not be a mere perusal of the “birds and bees” of yesterday’s public education. No, in the infinite moral wisdom of the NEA, “Such programs should include information on … diversity of culture and diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity . . . sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and HPV, incest, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and homophobia . . . age-appropriate, medically accurate information including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) issues. This should include but not be limited to information on sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender expression.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dumbing-oregon-down-kate-brown-proficiency-requirement-high-school-graduation-11628796270?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Why didn’t we think of that? Politicians and school officials in Oregon are embarrassed that too many minority children fail tests designed to confirm they’ve mastered the “essential skills” that high school is meant to teach. So in the name of racial equity, they’ve now done the progressive thing. Instead of lifting graduation rates by boosting student performance, they’re eliminating the proficiency requirement.

Gov. Kate Brown signed the bill on July 14, but the Oregonian reports her office never issued a press release and the bill was not entered into the legislative database until two weeks later—a “departure from the normal practice” of entering bills the same day they are signed.

The Secretary of the Senate blamed the delay on a staffer experiencing medical issues. But it’s hardly surprising that Gov. Brown and the Democratic Legislature would not wish to draw attention to this attempt to dumb the state down.

The new law extends until 2024 a temporary suspension of the state requirements that kids demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing, and math to graduate from high school. Previously, in addition to demonstrating proficiency via Oregon’s Assessments of Knowledge and Skills test, students had the option of taking other standardized tests or submitting a work project to teachers. The new legislation gives the state’s Department of Education until 2022 to write new standards.

The purpose of public education is to provide students with the skills they need to succeed in the world. It is a terrible disservice to issue a diploma that fools them into believing they’ve mastered basic skills they haven’t. It is particularly cruel for the minority students who will pay the highest price when the real world confirms that their high schools have defrauded them of a real education.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/will_outraged_parents_reclaim_america_from_this_farleft_madness.html

Usually, revolutions start at the bottom, with ordinary people pushing back against the tyranny of the powerful, either to create liberty (as happened in America) or to establish their own tyranny (as happens with all socialist revolutions). In America, though, we’re seeing a revolution of the powerful against the little people. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way powerful people are seeking to impose three revolutions on children: Transgenderism, masks, and Critical Race Theory. Parents are beginning to push back, but more of them need to do so and they need to push harder.

On the transgenderism front, the left still seems to have the upper hand. Children’s television is saturated with transgenderism, whether it’s Disney using the Muppet Babies to push transgenderism or Nickelodeon having the venerable Blue, of Blue’s Clues, and tuneless drag queens engage the same three-to-eight-year-old set in the wonders of imaginary sexual identities.

Worse, the American Academy of Pediatrics (“AAP”) – that is, your child’s doctor — is actively pushing transgenderism despite the absence of any scientific basis for doing so. Abigail Shrier, who has bravely spoken out about the huge pressure on girls who once were tomboys to take hormones and slice off their breasts, now notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics is stifling all dissent:

Is it safe for adolescents to undergo gender “transition”? Is it wise for children to take hormones that block puberty? The American Academy of Pediatrics not only has answered these questions in the affirmative but is determined to stifle any debate. On Friday the AAP told an international consortium of more than 100 clinicians and researchers who doubt the reigning orthodoxy that they couldn’t set up an information booth at the association’s national conference. The cosmetics company L’Oreal and the National Peanut Board will be there, but not the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.

When it comes to masks and children, the AAP is also uninterested in either evidence-based thinking or dissent. The same organization that boasts Pfizer as one of its supporters insists that all children over two should be masked. This is despite a study showing that children suffer instant oxygen deprivation (as we all do) when masks are stuck on their faces, only they suffer more.

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/339522/eyes-wide-shut-ab-101-bill-poses-danger-for-california-students/

“High school students want to see themselves reflected in history,” said Assemblymember Jose Medina, as he introduced his signature ethnic studies graduation requirement bill, AB 101, to colleagues on the Assembly floor.

Several of the bill’s numerous co-authors expanded on Medina’s sentiments in championing the bill: “It’s important that our students have every opportunity to learn about the history, accomplishments and contributions of diverse communities and leaders that call California home,” stated Assemblymember Robert Rivas. “It’s going to strengthen the diversity in our state,” affirmed Assemblymember Evan Low. “This bill,” promised Assembly member David Chiu, “is the next step to a more inclusive society, one that is reflective and supportive of students of all backgrounds and communities in our state.” And after noting that California is the most diverse state in the nation, Assemblymember Akilah Weber pleaded, “Let us prepare our children for a better future by empowering them with the knowledge of their history and the history of their classmates.”

After hearing these impassioned and moving speeches, one could hardly disagree with Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, who wondered incredulously “why anyone would vote against this bill.”

What gives many Californians pause, however, is that the multicultural and inclusive vision of ethnic studies praised by lawmakers and embraced by the vast majority of Californians—one that celebrates the state’s diversity and offers students a non-politicized, fact-based understanding of the history, accomplishments and challenges of all Californians—is a far cry from the vision of ethnic studies proposed by the educators responsible for developing the curricula most likely to be used in schools.

No one understands this better than AB 101’s own author. In August 2019, after an enormous controversy erupted over the first draft of the state-mandated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), Medina immediately joined 13 members of the Legislative Jewish Caucus in publicly opposing this draft. He stated that its antisemitic bias would “marginalize Jewish students and fuel hatred and discrimination against the Jewish community.” He understood that the first draft, which included overtly anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist material, would inevitably incite bigotry and hostility, especially antisemitism, in California classrooms. He also decided to postpone his graduation requirement bill, the precursor to AB 101, in the hope that a re-do of the ESMC would be consistent with the author’s desire for “a curriculum that is inclusive of all of our cultures and backgrounds.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/critical-race-theory-roundup/

Over the last year, teachers and administrators nationwide have weaponized K-12 education, injecting progressive politics into classrooms, and indoctrinating students with novel social justice dogma, including theories that call for racialized curriculums and reverse discrimination to achieve racial equity.

Mainstream media outlets and left-wing commentators have accused conservatives of demonizing critical race theory, and turning an obscure academic theory into a rightwing “bogeyman.” But there sure are a lot of examples of it turning up in schools across the country, from big city Democratic strongholds to suburban districts in red America. The following are summaries of just a small number of the fights that have erupted in the last year.

Fairfax County Schools Sent Second Graders a Video Vilifying Police: ‘I Feel Safe When There Are No Police’

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) sent second-graders a “summer learning guide” in July which included a Youtube video titled “Woke Kindergarten” that vilified the police.

Centered around the importance of “feeling safe,” the video, which was obtained by Parents Defending Education, presents a slideshow of photos featuring groups of young African Americans, some of whom are holding Black Lives Matter signs.

“We deserve to feel safe in our homes… I feel safe when there are no police. And it’s no one’s job to tell me how I feel. But it’s everyone’s job to make sure that people who are being treated unfairly……feel safe too,” a narrator says.

The “suggested texts” section of the summer learning guide also recommends students listen to “Good Trouble by Ki,” which instructs students on the merits of civil disobedience.

The narrator of another video, intended for seven-year-olds, tells students, “sometimes it’s good to get into trouble.” The video also presents a sequence of photos depicting social justice demonstrations, some from the modern day and some taken during the Civil Rights movement of the mid-twentieth century.

In a reference to Representative John Lewis’ 2020 speech in Selma, Alabama commemorating Bloody Sunday, the video adds, “John Lewis was a freedom fighter who got in a lot of good trouble.”

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis declared at the 2020 event.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-people-vs-critical-race-theory/

There won’t be a second chance to take back hijacked American schools.

With a speed that has astonished ordinary Americans, a vocal minority of “critical race theorists” has blitzed K-12 education with sweeping changes of law and policy. The New York Times’ 1619 Project has been the tip of the spear of their movement to put anti-American narratives of race and power at the heart of American curricula.

Even at the very highest levels of prestige, the examples now are legion. At the Dalton School in New York City, faculty signed a letter with a long list of recommendations, including: yearly anti-racist training for employees, an expanded diversity bureaucracy with at least 12 positions, and employee anti-racism statements. Prestigious exam schools predicated upon admitting excellent students and outstanding staff have been pushed to abandon entrance tests in the name of equity (not to be confused with equality).

Not to be outdone, the Illinois Board of Education recently amended a rule to establish “culturally responsive” teaching standards. The regulations require educators to recognize that there is no one “‘correct’ way of doing or understanding something”; to acknowledge that “systems of oppression…in our society…create and reinforce inequities”; and to “work actively against” those systems in order to “understand how the system of inequity has impacted them as an educator.” The amendment mandates that teachers adopt a narrow political ideology that includes a view of American history, society, and law that most citizens reject. The prioritization of this agenda comes at a time when many students are not even in the classroom.    

Majority Report

The spirit that moved the Illinois Department of Education saturates social media and is omnipresent on elite college campuses. But there is also good news. Despite what the media and the academy would have you believe, the American people think that free speech, equal opportunity under the law, and the principles of the founding should still govern the day-to-day lives of citizens. A recent survey of 800 Illinois residents sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) strongly suggests that efforts to politicize public education do not align with the values of the majority of citizens. Rather than imposing a partisan agenda through rules and regulations from an agency, citizens should have an informed debate about public school curricula and teaching standards.   

To judge from Illinoisans’ assessment of their K-12 schools, the conversation is overdue. Forty-eight percent of respondents think that schools are doing a “worse than good” job (6 percent answered “excellent”). To improve that number, schools would be well served by focusing on preparing students for lifelong success rather than imposing policies and advocating a socio-political position that is at best controversial. 

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/04/scoop-california-ymca-hosts-pornographer-to-teach-children-art-holds-youth-only-events/

This article features explicit material unsuitable for all readers.

On July 20th, the Burbank, California YMCA’s Social Impact Center, which also hosts “youth only” events, hosted an all-ages event called “Pop Art,” where Blake Rodriguez, whose work features pornographic depictions of characters from popular children’s shows, delivered a “painting workshop.”

The Social Impact Center, which touts itself as “Burbank’s first and only LGBTQIA+ Resource Center, posted an advertisement for the event and directly tagged Rodriguez’s art account @blakerodart, which prominently displays a number of deeply disturbing images, including a painting titled “Disney Orgy” that features various Disney characters engaged in group sex. 

One piece of Rodriguez’s work depicted characters from the children’s show “Teletubbies” viewing pixelated pornography. Another painting featured a young boy holding a condom and the words “Fuck Boy” above him. 

All of these disturbing images, as well as many more that also depict nude characters from children’s shows, some of them engaging in sexual acts, were posted before the Social Impact Center tagged his art account and organized this event, indicating the YMCA was completely aware of the type of “art” Rodriguez specializes in before deciding to host him for an event with children.