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Not a big fan, but Bill Maher hosted a session much needed by some Soylentils. Ben Shapiro explains CRT, correctly, but then Malcolm Nance takes him down appropriately. I will not get into details, and I ask that everyone only comment after they have viewed the clip. We will all be more rational, that way?

Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance on Critical Race Theory | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Be nice.

AND PLEASE VIEW THE CLIP BEFORE COMMENTING!! (Only 9:32 long, and I asked nicely.)

Former Nazi Guard, Age 100, to Stand Trial in Germany
Rejected submission by aristarchus at 2021-08-02 23:42:13 from the Get 'em while they're young dept.
News

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

For some crimes, there is no statute of limitations, and there is universal jurisdiction. From The Wall Street Journal (NewsCorp):

World Europe

        Former Nazi Guard, Age 100, to Stand Trial in Germany
        Rights groups say all Nazi perpetrators must be brought to justice, with prosecutions serving as warnings to present and future offenders
        A man who once worked as a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp will soon stand trial.
        Aug. 2, 2021 2:34 pm ET

        BERLIN—A 100-year old man will be tried in Germany on charges of aiding and abetting mass murder while working as a concentration-camp guard, making him one of the oldest defendants in a case brought against alleged Nazi-era perpetrators.

        The centenarian was charged with complicity in the murder of more than 3,500 inmates at the Sachsenhausen camp on the outskirts of Berlin. He is alleged to have worked there between 1942 and 1945 as a member of the SS Nazi militia.

        The man, who hasn’t been named in line with German privacy laws, was found to be sufficiently fit for trial despite his advanced age and will be able to spend around two hours a day in the courtroom after the trial begins in October, said a spokeswoman for the Neuruppin court where the process will take place.

        Historians and rights groups say the case, likely one of the last of its kind, is a reminder that all Nazi perpetrators must be brought to justice irrespective of their age in what should serve as warning to present and future human-rights offenders across the world.

You may find yourself in a similar situation, or you may know someone in a similar situation, and there is only one thing to do, walk in, sing a bar of Alice's Restaurant , and walk out. Whatever you do, do not join the anti-wanking all men's group and storm the Reichstag, M'kay?

[2021-07-20 | 11:22:29 UTC] You have a message from Bytram: I've said it before, and I believe I even mentioned it in a story, that I would not object posts like this being modded as spam: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=43972&page=1&cid=1158137#commentwrap

So it's official. Anyone spamming contentless bullshit like that? Spam-mod them out of existence. No, you special snowflakes, that's not "censorship" any more than telling someone to clean up after their dog is a violation of their freedom of association.

Good synopsis of the history. And some data!

From FiveThirtyEight, where they do numbers. And, they answer Fusty's question! Will he accept a factual answer?

In the 1960s and 70s, conservatives were waging a war against what they considered an existential threat infiltrating America’s public schools. Pamphlets were circulated by the John Birch Society, a right-wing extremist group, declaring it a “filthy Communist plot.” And then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California decried it as a “moral crisis” that needed to be eradicated. What was poisoning the minds of America’s youth? Sex education.

These days, sex ed is more widely accepted, especially following the HIV/AIDS epidemic (though conservatives have still managed to beat back more progressive school curricula when it comes to sexual health), but the Republican Party’s habit of identifying a bogeyman in America’s education system hasn’t wavered.

Then it was sex ed. Now, it’s critical race theory.

Hm, John Birch, founded by the Father of the Koch Bros!

And, Evolution!

One of the oldest education battles revolves around the teaching of evolution. It’s one that until recently didn’t have clearly drawn partisan lines. After all, the most famous example of a legislative attempt to prohibit teaching evolution in schools was actually introduced by a Democrat: a 1925 Tennessee state law to ban teaching evolution in schools. That law was later challenged in a showy court case (complete with chimpanzees) that same year, where it was upheld, and ultimately not repealed until 1967. (It was also a Democrat who introduced a 1981 bill in Louisiana’s state legislature that mandated the teaching of “creation science” — which presents religious beliefs as alternative scientific theories — whenever evolution was taught. The Supreme Court has since banned states from requiring creation science to be taught, but it has remained a popular conservative cultural flashpoint.)

No doubt soon the Republican party Christian coalition will seek to outlaw the teaching of heliocentrism! Not the first time, let me tell you!

            But on to who is spreading the "outrage".

Many Americans still don’t know what the debate over critical race theory is really about at this point. Just 24 percent have heard “a lot” about it, 25 percent know “some” and 51 percent know little or nothing at all, according to a June Morning Consult/Politico poll. But tellingly, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to have seen, heard or read a lot about critical race theory, 30 percent versus 21 percent. What’s more, those Republicans familiar with critical race theory overwhelmingly dislike it — 78 percent have a negative opinion of it compared to 7 percent of Democrats. When asked to describe critical race theory in that same survey, one Republican respondent called critical race theory “a farce,” while another said it was a “Marxist proposal.”

And "Marxist" means furrin! 78%? Nearly as many as believe in faith-healing and Bigfoot - - I mean, Supply side economics and Dick Cheney's foreign policy. So the people with the negative opinion have the least understanding? Just like with sex-education!

Considering how much more exposure Republicans have had to it — a Media Matters analysis shows Fox News has mentioned critical race theory 1,300 times in less than four months, and a query of data on the social media tool CrowdTangle from researchers at Miami University and Wright State University found that the share of posts that mention critical race theory on the Facebook pages of local Republican parties has risen exponentially — the blowback among members of the GOP is not entirely surprising. It’s also not just the volume of coverage: The conservative media’s coverage of critical race theory is overwhelmingly negative, too, as it’s decried by some on the right as anti-white.

Republicans have long fought specters within education that they claim threaten the American way of life. The current blowback against critical race theory follows in that tradition, but it also represents a broader transformation of the GOP into a populist party focused on waging culture wars. Though it may seem like a misguided crusade-du-jour, the tumult around critical race theory is both a reflection of the Republican Party’s past — and a glimpse at its future.

Yep, prepare for the coming Trump Geo-centrism! And SN needs to up its game! Fox News has us beet in frequency. The original fine article contains a lot more very interesting information.

So we are on to the third, no, fourth? Possibly the Fifth aristarchus journal entry on Critical Race Theory. I don't mind, I am not proud, or tired, or deterred by alt-right riots, so here we go, with yet another expose of the Republican attempted demonizatin of academic knowing stuff. Texas! Eyes are upon you!

So now, we have a few more entries on the Critical Race Theory Abomination. Wait for it!

Part One: Coin for the Witcher

The engineered conservative panic over critical race theory, explained. Yes, this is it, from CNN, which will burn you FauX News idiots into the ground! Because, they are correct.

Spare a thought for critical race theory. It wasn't always a conservative bogeyman.
Especially over the past several months, Republicans have distorted CRT -- an academic frame that scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw have been using in graduate-level courses for decades to interrogate how the legal system entrenches racism -- into a catchall to describe things they don't like.

In this bastardized telling, CRT is whatever Republicans want it to be; it comes in many guises. "Black Lives Matter" is one name for CRT. "Social justice" is another. "Identity," yet another. "Reparations." "Ally-ship." "Diversity."

I am recently thinking, spare a coin for the Witcher, 'cause he will slay the Republicans. But that is fanatsy. Not real politics. Unless the Republicans have seriously gone that far.

But to linger on what CRT is, or isn't, is to miss the more pressing concern: Why have Republicans latched onto a decades-old academic term?

" 'Strung together, the phrase "critical race theory" connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American,' " explained Christopher F. Rufo, one of the conservative activists who -- with the help of Fox News, a network that's become its own language -- engineered the panic over CRT.
Because so many Americans don't know what CRT is, it's the perfect tool for scaring White conservative voters with made-up problems -- for mobilizing them against the racial awakening of the past year. Here's how we got here:

Break here. In past journals, I have pointed out how the objection to Critical Race Theory has precursors in the sequestor of debate on race-based slavery in the 1830's Congress. And how the attempt to ban CRT is related to the Scopes Trial of the 1920s. But now we have a connection to the 1960's, and Tricky Dick Nixon. Hang on to your MAGA hats, Republicans!

The backlash to CRT echoes the 1960s
The panic over CRT is hardly the first time that the US has seen such ethnonationalist fearmongering.
In a recent Twitter thread, Pomona College politics professor Omar Wasow argued that one way to understand the anxiety over CRT is as "a reactionary counter-mobilization."
Wasow, who was previously at Princeton University and whose research focuses largely on protest movements, said that he was struck by how the present-day backlash to CRT echoes the dynamics of the 1960s.
"What we saw in some cases in the '60s was that, as the civil rights movement was able to capture the moral high ground in a national conversation on race, that knocked pro-segregation forces on their heels," he told CNN. "There was a period of trying to regroup and find an issue to mobilize around when, nationally, being pro-segregation became highly stigmatized."
Republicans sought to reframe the world. For instance, they heeded the cruel logic of "law and order," a dog whistle used against the civil rights protests of the era. This maneuvering was part of what University of Arkansas political science professors Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the "Long Southern Strategy," a series of decisions on race, religion and feminism that Republicans made starting in the '60s to court White conservative voters in the South.

Ah, yes, the Nixonian "Southern Stategy". When you have lost the moral high ground, and your policies suck, you need to create some kind of diversion, an issue, a bogey.

"We saw Donald Trump try to run on 'law and order' and lose. It didn't seem to have the same punch that it did in the '60s, when Nixon invoked 'law and order' and won the White House. So, there's been this process of searching for a new issue," Wasow said. "There was a period when leading Republicans were complaining about 'cancel culture,' how Dr. Seuss was supposedly being canceled. But it never seemed to stick. So, I think that we're seeing this kind of elite process of trying to find an issue to mobilize around for the 2022, and maybe even 2024, elections. And CRT is one that's really hit a nerve."

The nerve? Not sure if it is going to stick, but it certainly is being pushed!

Part Two: Religion

Religion News Service reports another story, about a one-man Crusade.

(RNS) — Russ Vought believes in fighting racism — as long as it is defined properly.

A former Trump administration official and Wheaton College graduate, Vought defines racism as “personal prejudice that flows from ignorance and treating people differently as a result of that prejudice.”

By contrast, he said, proponents of critical race theory see racism as a systemic problem — not an individual one — that has infected every part of society. That’s led Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, to become a behind-the-scenes leader in the battle over CRT being fought in churches and school boards around the country,[sic]

In an interview with Religion News Service, Vought said his organization does not object to discussions of racism or discrimination. But CRT advocates go too far.

“They don’t want equality of opportunity, they want equality of outcomes,” he said. “That is problematic because then you have no ability to ever live in a colorblind society. And it’s the rejection of a colorblind society that we find so problematic.”

Sounds like Russ got the same talking points that Runaway1956 did. Funny, that. And, given the source, this is not about elementary school white children being forced to confess their racism and cultural inferiority, it is also happening in churches!

Vought said his organization has mostly been involved in efforts at the local school board level but has consulted with state legislators about anti-CRT bills. He is also concerned teaching about CRT has made its way into churches.

People in the pews want unity, he said, and reject any form of racism. But that is not good enough for what he called “woke” celebrity pastors.

“Many of the most senior, well-known, celebrity pastors have been beating down people with a woke theology, and almost bullying people from the pulpit,” he said. “That’s why there is such a reaction to it — because many of those pastors have been misusing the pulpit for the last 10 years.”

That's all they want, Unity, which is why Christians invented the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Auto d'fe. Such nice, white people. Moving on from Tricky Dick's Southern Strategy, to a more recent racist movement:

Writer, speaker and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali sees parallels between the anti-CRT movement and the anti-Shariah movement prevalent in conservative circles. That movement painted Muslims as threats to America’s Judeo-Christian values and way of life, claiming Muslims and liberals were attempting to impose Islamic law in American schools and communities.

This was, of course, before the White Supremacists figured out they could have their own White Sharia that would allow them to keep their women covered up and submissive. But that was only a passing meme. The anti-muslim movement was much more xenophobic and serious.

The anti-Shariah movement, which rose to national prominence about a decade ago, focused on local politics, especially on zoning boards and community meetings where anti-Shariah activists showed up in force to oppose the construction of new mosques or alleged signs of Shariah in schoolbooks. Several states passed laws, written by anti-Shariah organizations, designed to ban Shariah or other foreign laws from U.S. courts. Presidential candidates and pastors warned of the threat of an Islamic “cultural Jihad” as the greatest threat to the American way of life.

In a recent Daily Beast column, Ali argued that anti-CRT activists are drawing from the same playbook as the anti-Shariah movement. He repeated the same concerns in an interview with Religion News Service.

Soon, undoubtedly, the liberal elite smart-people teachers will be trying to shove Critical Race Shariah down our childrens throats! Are you not scared? Ok, the whole thing was fake news, there was no danger, just a bunch of not-too-smart folks falling for the rabble-rousing.

Both movements have taken a concept few Americans understand and turned it into a boogeyman, he said. And both groups have found a news hook to rally people to their cause. For anti-Shariah activists, it was the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, a proposed Muslim community center near the fallen World Trade Center buildings in New York City, and a “mega-mosque” near Nashville, Tennessee. For anti-CRT activists, it’s the 1619 Project from The New York Times, which retold America’s founding from the date slaves first arrived in the American Colonies.

Oh, yes, I remember it well! The Ground Zero Critical Race Theory Mosque and University, trying to undermine the American way of fear of foreigners and general stupidity. Not to mention the subversive SBC! (Southern Baptist Convention) Not very Christian of them.

Part Three: Tom Cotton

And now, after we have covered CNN, and religion, time to turn to politics. And, the military. And Arkansas. Things are about to get weird.

In an Op-Ed in The Washington Post the author takes issue with the dumbest Senator. No, it is not Ted Cruise, he was in Alaska, since there was no A/C at his home in Texas. Read on!

Sen. Tom Cotton is calling for the firing of a U.S. Air Force Academy professor after she admitted to discussing critical race theory with cadets. But even a cursory look at the Arkansas Republican’s slimy argument shows how full of holes it really is.

This episode sheds light on a larger absurdity about this whole debate. Republicans keep telling us the mere discussion of such topics risks weakening our country: If people are told the military is a “racist” institution, they won’t join, or they’ll be so overcome with shame about their country that they won’t defend it.

This is often simply asserted as fact, but it’s plainly absurd on its face, and Cotton’s broadside provides a particularly illuminating example.

That's funny. I seem to recall that it was the experience of black soldiers in a segregated military in non-racist countries in WWII that created the leaders of the civil rights movement, and Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which ordered the integration of the US military, an EO upheld by President Eisenhower. Of course, Cotton is something of a pinhead, don't know much about history.

Cotton and other Republicans are unloading over this op-ed piece in The Post by Lynne Chandler García, an associate professor of political science at the Air Force Academy.

In it, García says she teaches critical race theory as an “academic framework” to analyze the fact that the founding and its documents harbored a “duality” between ideals of equality and realities of inequality and slavery. She also uses it to better understand “structural racism” that “has been endemic in American society,” and employs it for “deconstructing oppressive beliefs.”

This is all anodyne stuff. The idea that the founding harbored that “duality” doesn’t seem controversial. The op-ed does not describe the United States as fundamentally irredeemable. It treats prejudice as something that can be overcome and institutions as subject to improvement, through analysis and understanding.

Ah, Colorado Springs! That den of faux christianity and right-wing prayers! And Grills with guns? Space Farce Jewish Space Lazers?

Yet Cotton sees it as a firing offense. Cotton said this:

We should not be teaching and indoctrinating our cadets to believe that our military is a fundamentally racist institution. Who exactly is going to want to raise their hand and take an oath to defend our Constitution if you believe what Professor Garcia is teaching about it?

Similarly, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) also called for García’s firing, insisting that if we “denigrate the very principles” of the founding, it will make servicemembers “ashamed of their country.”

This is a strange argument. One assumes most people defending the Constitution today do so in the full understanding that it had to be amended a bunch of times to improve on some of its original defects, a capacity for rebirth and renewal that they see as a positive, one that makes it all the more worth defending.

Do they really need to be shielded from any discussion of those original defects?

The author of the Op-Ed concludes:

But come on, this latest controversy is an utter joke. Cotton can’t possibly believe our cadets are such snowflakes that this op-ed will cause them and their morale to melt into puddles of shame. Can he?

Tom Cotton is not the sharpest tool in the shed, I would guess he can. Or he is intentionally insulting the US military, something that Tucker Carlson has this down to a science.

Part Four: Sex Education

OH, we need something from the /The New York Times!

Seems a sex education teacher has been hounded out of selective private schools in New York, and it has something to do with CRT. Not much, but a petition was posted on Instagram and then covered by the New York Post (not an actual newspaper), by an organization that usually does anti-CRT stuff.

The Post’s parent and student sources were anonymous, and it is unclear how many people directly connected to Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School and the Dalton School complained to administrators about Ms. Fonte.

But the complaints, however few or many they were, appear to be part of a broader clash in education.

The Post linked one of its sources to an Instagram account called @SpeakUpCGPS, which was created in May and has more than 100 posts targeting “diversity, equity and inclusion” and critical race theory. Earlier this month, the account’s Instagram bio included a link to a petition for parents, students, donors, trustees, alumni, faculty and staff at the school.

The petition complains about “programming that uses the oppressor-oppressed narrative and that employs collective guilt to shame white students.” It claims that employees of Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School are laying the “groundwork” for “a race-focused ideology.” As evidence, the petition points to anti-racist statements posted in classrooms, as well as the creation of an Equity Day and affinity groups.

Hegel's "Master-slave dialetic" from Phänomenologie des Geistes? Wow, these anti-CRT folks are better read that I thought. But they do not seem to understand how that dialectic turned out. Probably the Kojève interpretation. However, a professional right wing lobbyist seems to also be involved.

The @SpeakUpCGPS Instagram account appears to be one example of a broader culture war over how and whether racism should be taught in schools and universities.

In another example, in June, trucks plastered with billboards circled several private schools in New York City, including Dalton, where Ms. Fonte was still employed at the time, carrying statements like: “Diversity Not Indoctrination” and “Woke School? Speak Out.”

The group that claimed responsibility for the mobile protest is Prep School Accountability, which on its website says it is made up of “concerned parents.” Behind the group is the Center for Organizational Research and Education, a nonprofit led by Richard Berman, who in the past has led campaigns against the Humane Society and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Now I know from my teaching experience that many students do look upon a classroom as primarily a place to be asleep, but they also tend not to learn very much. Berman must have been one of those students. Started out working for Tobacco companies.

To sum up, we first compared the panic over CRT to the pre-Civil war Congressional agreement not to discuss slavery, and they compared it to the Scopes Trial, and panic over Evolution; now we have a comparison to Nixon's "law and order" Southern Strategy, and the panic over Sharia law. And finally, a comparison to sex-education, with the same conservative approach: if we just don't talk about it, then children will not have sex.

• Fresh Air with Terry Gross

• Beware ‘Smokescreen Trolling,’ Trump Followers' Favorite Tactic from WIRED

• Our New Postracial Myth by Ibram X. Kendi in The Atlantic

And

• From Oshkosh, a kerfuffle in Winnebago Republican Party reported by the Oshkosh Northwestern.

First off, when you end up on Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, and you have made the Big Time. But finally we have what all the right-winger morons have been asking for! A definition of Critical Race Theory. Read carefully, Conservatives!

Tyler Kingkade, welcome to FRESH AIR. Let's start with the basics. What is critical race theory? TYLER KINGKADE: Hi, Terry. Thank you for having me. Critical race theory is really a legal academic concept that was developed in the '70s and '80s. Derrick Bell is considered the father of the concept. Kimberle Crenshaw is often one of the most frequently credited scholars responsible for honing it in the 1980s. And essentially, a short way to boil it down is it's a way of studying systemic racism and its impact on society and how it permeates many aspects of society. It's a way of looking at things.

OK, now that this is done, we move on to the Conservative boogie man of CRT! CRT is in your closet! Under your bed! Your kids could be on CRT! Oh, the horror, the fear, the unwhiteness of being scared white. And the Plan of Steve Bannon!

GROSS: Yeah. Let me let me quote what Steve Bannon said on a podcast. He said, "the path to save the nation is very simple. It's going to go through the school boards." So expand a little bit more about what it would mean to have conservative-leaning school boards, what it would mean for conservative politics and politicians. KINGKADE: Yeah, and to an extent, like, conservatives have already tried to get on school boards and have been on school boards. In some of these cases, these are school districts that already have people who self-identify as Republicans. But, you know, you can go back and look at a lot of debates over what kind of textbooks will be used in school boards. You know, they can have some influence - if not directly on the curriculum as the school board, then over the superintendent - in limiting what is taught or what is approved to be displayed in school districts.

No coming back from that, even if you are not a Public Radio listener. And, for a party of individual freedom and responsibility and total control and survelliance, we have a proposal from Nevada:

GROSS: The Nevada Family Alliance proposed putting body cameras on teachers to make sure that they weren't teaching critical race theory. What was the reaction to that? KINGKADE: Yeah. That idea of putting body cameras on teachers is something that, as you said, has been proposed in Nevada by a conservative group. That's also something that's gained steam on certain corners of social media - on Facebook, on YouTube, where conservative commentators have said, let's put body cameras on teachers. And I think, really, the idea of that is sort of reflective of what has been going on over the last year.

You know, true, that. You drop your kids off at school, but you can never be sure what they are teaching them! Because you can't read, and never talk to your children. Teacher body-cams are the only way to be sure those liberal teachers are not brainwashing your children with things like "history" and "literature" and "science"!

Part Two

But as well, we have a piece from WIRED, on the recently christianed "smokescreen troll": Beware ‘Smokescreen Trolling,’ Trump Followers' Favorite Tactic

Some of the claims coming out of the Trump camp in recent weeks are laughable: that Joe Biden is the Hamburglar, that Democrats are conspiring to take away the Chick-fil-A sauces of “real” Americans, that socialism is making your burritos more expensive. Some are much more serious, but just as demonstrably false: that the 2020 election was stolen, that Democrats are guilty of widespread voter fraud, that the January 6th insurrection wasn’t an insurrection at all. Others are couched in fears about “critical race theory” (even among those who can’t seem to define it), and the concern that liberals are woke Harry Potters roaming the countryside, indiscriminately casting the spell expecto cancellation.

Shouldn't that be tabulae novae expecto? Sauces of "real" Americans? Whatever. But there is a method to the madness.

I call it “smokescreen trolling”: flooding the zone with (bull)shit and lighting the fuse to every moral panic possible, while obscuring the underlying assaults against pluralistic, multiracial democracy. (WNYC’s On the Media recently described a similar dynamic as an “authoritarian mullet”: culture wars in the front, attacks against democracy in the back.) To win the ideological war, Trumpists have been effectively weaponizing smokescreen trolling. The only surefire way to counter it—and the widespread, coordinated attacks it cloaks—is through strong voting rights legislation. But in the meantime, this battle is being fought on the rhetorical front. How pro-democracy voices respond matters.

Yes, the response is what matters. But first we need to be clear about what the tactic actually is.

I’ve argued over and over again against using “trolling” as a broad behavioral catchall. For one thing, when the same word is used to describe harmless mischief and white supremacist attacks, it makes the really terrible stuff seem like a subset of internet play. It also has the tendency to cordon “real life” from “just the internet,” which has always been a false distinction but is especially inappropriate when describing things like racist violence.

Or how some people are intolerant of "different" opinions. This is not normal.

But in this case, Trumpist politicians have earned the label by adopting the exact strategies and tactics that 4chan’s trolls perfected throughout the aughts. These strategies include driving wedges between groups, sowing distrust in institutions, and undermining good-faith civic discourse through tactics like over-the-top provocation, tricking people into repeating sensationalist claims, gaming algorithms and keyword search, weaponizing hot-button cultural issues, organizing false outrage campaigns, coordinating targeted harassment (often by directing a “personal army” against a chosen victim), and generally gaslighting.

Like CRT, you know. But the point is to NOT feed the trolls.

When confronted by such sleights of hand online, the first thing to remember is that, however argumentative a claim might seem, smokescreen trolling is not an argument. When Trumpists post wild accusations to social media, they’re not open to having their minds changed, and they will be impervious to whatever facts you think they might be missing. They will, however, be very pleased by your efforts to try.

So, what to do? This!

Don’t help them do that. Instead, refuse to play their game, and insist on a different one entirely—an approach that also helped counter subcultural trolling. As cognitive linguist George Lakoff has suggested, reframe the discussion away from what the Trumpists want you to talk about and toward the deeper truths buried within the stories that must be talked about. Describe the specific actions they and other officials in their state have undertaken to suppress the vote, reinforce white supremacy, and threaten citizens’ freedoms. Particularly if a story is already trending, responses that call attention to what strategies and tactics are being used and why they’re being used can help others understand how they’re being manipulated, where they should be directing their attention instead, and what is at stake.

Like voter supression. Which is why Critical Race Theory. It is making whites feel guilty for trying to keep minorities from voting. That is racist! Thank you, Whitney!

Part Three

The main feature in this journal entry, however, is an essay by Ibram X. Kendi in the Atlantic entitled, Our New Postracial Myth: The postracial idea is the most sophisticated racist idea ever produced. Starting out with the facts:

The signposts of racism are staring back at us in big, bold racial inequities. But some Americans are ignoring the signposts, walking on by racial inequity, riding on by the evidence, and proclaiming their belief with religious fervor. “America is not a racist country,” Senator Tim Scott said in April. Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies. Roughly a fifth of Native Americans and Latino Americans are medically uninsured, almost triple the rate of white Americans and Asian Americans (7.8 and 7.2 percent, respectively). Native people (24.2 percent) are nearly three times as likely as white people (9 percent) to be impoverished. The life expectancy of Black Americans (74.5 years) is much lower than that of white Americans (78.6 years). White Americans account for 77 percent of the voting members of the 117th Congress, even though they represent 60 percent of the U.S. population.

None are so blind, though, as those who refuse to see, and instead lie through their teeth.

And yet, some don’t want the American people to stop and see. They don’t want our kids to learn about the racism causing racial inequity. They are trying to ban teaching it in schools; Florida passed the latest such ban last Thursday. They can’t acknowledge racial inequity because to acknowledge it is to discuss why it exists and persists. To discuss why racial inequity exists and persists is to point to the libraries of nonpartisan studies documenting widespread racism in the United States. To say that there is widespread racial inequity caused by widespread racism, which makes the United States racist, isn’t an opinion, isn’t a partisan position, isn’t a doctrine, isn’t a left-wing construct, isn’t anti-white, and isn’t anti-American. It is a fact. But in recent years, some have reduced a host of facts to beliefs. “I don’t believe that,” Donald Trump said in September when a reporter asked him about the existence of systemic racism.

It's like Covid-19: If you don't believe it, or test for it, it doesn't exist! Brilliant! But it is not just this.

This is a precarious time. There are people tired of quarantining their racist beliefs, anxious about being held accountable by “wokeism” and “cancel culture,” yearning to get back to the normality of blaming Black inferiority for racial inequity. The believers are going after these people with disinformation. They are putting words in the mouths of Black Lives Matter activists, critical race theorists, the writers of the 1619 Project, and anti-racist intellectuals—and attacking the words they put in our mouths. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina claims that we believe “people with white skin are inherently racist.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claims that we believe “all our institutions are bankrupt, and they’re illegitimate.”

Ron really knows what Black folk think! And:

We’ve heard this before. “America is not a racist Nation” is the new “America is a postracial nation.” We are witnessing the birth of the new postracial project.

Yep, despite all evidence to the contrary, America is no longer racist! It is kind of like how America declared victory in Vietnam, and then left. Thanks, Obama!

And, you see, Ibram is a Doctor, a PhD, a professor. Took him a while to get there.

I devoured books and essays on Black life, racism, anti-racism, and history. I had studied these topics for years. But nothing prepared me for the intensity of doctoral studies. Nothing prepared me for the precision and collisions of the sharp minds around me. Nothing prepared me for writing practically a book a semester in the form of multiple 30-page research papers. Nothing prepared me for the total life immersion of study. In fact, I was readying myself to join a guild of intellectuals with expertise on the structures of racism. This guild studies, diagnoses, and strives to eliminate racism. The believers call us “race hustlers,” but they would never call oncologists “cancer hustlers.” They’ll do anything to delegitimize our training and expertise, which veils their absence of training and expertise, which legitimizes their postracial fairy tales.

Cancer hustlers. Economy khallows! But this is the main point of CRT and American conservativism: the equality of stupid.

Because everyone, apparently, is an authority on damn near everything. I can tell an astrophysicist that she is wrong about the existence of extrasolar planets, and she can tell me that I am wrong about the existence of racism. Humility is dead. Expertise is losing out to the world of make-believe, where everyone knows it all, where the climate isn’t changing, where vaccines aren’t saving lives, where teaching our kids the truth is harmful, where anti-poverty programs aren’t better crime fighters than cops, where assault rifles aren’t used to commit mass murder, where Nikole Hannah-Jones doesn’t deserve tenure, where the 2020 election wasn’t legitimate, and where the original postracial project didn’t produce the infernal Trump presidency. To use W. E. B. Du Bois’s words, “lies agreed upon” are king. Ignorance preyed upon is king. Patriotism as racism is king. The conspiracy theory is king.

Mass psychosis? Or the sort Freud found in the Germans before WWII? This is what we are talking about here, smokescreen trolling, privileging of ignorance, racism that can't stand to be called racist. Hmm.

Anyone can diagnose their nation as “not racist.” In the world of make-believe, who cares whether they can’t define what they mean by that? Who cares about definitions? Who cares about the vulnerability of kids to racist messages? Who cares about education? Who cares whether GOP state legislators are attacking the recognition of racism as they institute racist voting policies to maintain their power? Who cares about democracy? Anyone can be interviewed and listened to and taken seriously when they claim that racism doesn’t exist, when they vilify the 1619 Project, when they demonize critical race theory, when they slander anti-racism—when they wholly disregard racial inequity and injustice and violence. Anyone can participate in the new postracial project.

But, really, it's Republicans, mostly.

Part Four

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, racists try to parody CRT, with epic fail. From Winnebago County Republican Party posts Facebook meme showing 7 traits of white supremacy, including 'literacy'

What are the 7 traits of superior whites?

OSHKOSH – The Winnebago County Republican Party is facing criticism after sharing a Facebook post Monday about critical race theory and white supremacy. The post, originally posted under the name Doug Charette, shows a photo of a man who is white with the message, "Know the warning signs of WHITE SUPREMACY: 1. Full time employment 2. Literacy 3. Professional or technical degree 4. Regular church/temple attendance 5. Auto insurance 6. Good credit rating 7. No criminal record." Within four hours the meme garnered more than 100 responses, with most disagreeing with the post. "This is absolutely inappropriate," one comment stated. "Who thought it was ok to post this? I am Republican and this is not OK to post. Very ashamed that you would post this."

At least some of the members of the Party of Lincoln realize that racist dogwhistles is not what they should be. But some others,

In a series of responses to the criticism, an unidentified person using the local party's Facebook account said their intent was to start a conversation about critical race theory and claimed the concept promotes racism by teaching about white privilege. "I learned about it this weekend at the Republican Convention and how the Democrat is asking schools to implement it in our local universities and public schools by attaching money to the implementation of it," the person wrote. The post did not explicitly connect the seven "traits" to critical race theory, but in the comments, the person falsely claimed that's what it teaches without providing any evidence that any schools using the concept make such connections or that the claims in the post were in line with academic literature on critical race theory.

Following the reciprocal, we can see that non-whites are "1.unemployed 2. Illiterate 3. Have no Professional or technical degree 4. Irreligious 5. Uninsured 6. Bad credit rating 7. Criminal record." Why? Well they must just like being that way, or are not constitutionally capable, because white people are supreme. Yes, this is your old fashioned white supremercist racism. More and more it seems, that if you protest Critical Race Theory, as Jeff Foxworthy might say, "You might be a racist."

Part End

The entire manufactured panic over CRT just keeps getting more interesting! Ted Cruz! Ron deSantis! Pat Robertson even spoke up recently, saying that CRT is contrary to the bible (and the letter his father sent objecting to desegregation).

"Pat’s father, Sen A Willis Robertson (D-VA), signed the Southern Manifesto, which urged southern legislatures to ignore Brown [v Board of Education] and maintain segregated institutions," Kruse tweeted. "It’s no shock Pat doesn’t want us to think too hard about how officials used state power to entrench racism."

But as I suggested before, they may have entered the Paradox of power, where the attempt to ensure an outcome ends up being precisely what precipitates failure. Don the Junior seems to have recogized this, and gone back to "Hunter's laptops". Or, he is just really high.

Critical Race Theory: The theory that just keeps giving!

History News Network: Experts Beware: Is America Headed for a Scopes Moment over Critical Race Theory?

In a recent debate over a law to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, Tennessee legislator Justin Lafferty (R) explained to his colleagues that the 3/5th Compromise of 1787, used to determine a state’s representation in Congress by counting enslaved people as “three fifths of all other Persons,” was designed with “the purpose of ending slavery.” Lafferty had his facts spectacularly wrong, but that did nothing to derail the law’s passage.

Anti-Critical Race Theory laws like the one passed in Tennessee – as well Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Florida -- are not just aimed to push back against the heightened awareness of the nation’s history of racial injustice in the wake of the popularity of the 1619 Project and last summer’s massive protests over the murder of George Floyd. They are also attacks on educators -- and on expertise itself. As Christine Emba explained in a recent Washington Post article on conservatives’ current obsession with Critical Race Theory, “disguising one’s discomfort with racial reconsideration as an intellectual critique is still allowed.” Not only is it allowed in these public debates, it is an effective strategy to curb movements for social change. It is also not new.

As with my journal a couple back, this article looks to historical precedents for the Critical Race Theory controversy. Turns out it was not just prohibiting debate about race-based slavery in Congress in the 1830's, but it also was illegal, and I mean Illegal, to teach evolution at some points in America's past. And the "right-wing outrage campaign" was disturbingly similar.

A century ago a similar right-wing outrage campaign was launched against the teaching of evolution in public schools. The 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” remains a touchstone of this era of conservatism. When John Scopes, a substitute teacher in Dayton, Tennessee was charged with violating a new state law against teaching evolution, the case became an international story. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.

The Scopes Trial’s legacy rests perhaps too comfortably on defense lawyer Clarence Darrow’s skewering of the anti-evolution hero William Jennings Bryan in that hot Tennessee courtroom, memorialized in the play (and film) Inherit the Wind. Darrow’s withering questioning made Bryan appear ignorant and incurious. In response to Darrow’s questions about other religious and cultural traditions, Bryan acknowledged that he did not know about them, but added that he did not need to know since through his Christian faith, “I have all the information I need to live by and die by.”

Cue the music! "Don't know much about history, " etc., etc.. But of course, such ignorance is not a bug, it is a tactic!

The legacy of these tactics is on full display today. As David Theo Goldberg wrote in the Boston Review recently, Republican critics of Critical Race Theory “simply don’t know what they’re talking about.” Goldberg is correct of course, but their ignorance is not a hole they are looking to fill anytime soon. It is rather both a shield and a weapon used to go on the offensive against the experts themselves. What the experts “know” about the 3/5th Compromise or the history of racial injustice generally (or climate change, or the dangers posed by COVID-19, or the outcome of the 2020 election) threatens their beliefs in how American society should look and function.

And, the tactic of any violent revolution is to attack democracies at their weakest point, the dog-catcher elections, and, school boards. More from History News Network:

A booby-trapped billboard. A list of demands. A conservative media frenzy.

Jeff Porter, superintendent of a wealthy suburban school district in Maine, had no idea that his community was about to become part of a national battle when in the summer of 2020 a father began accusing the district of trying to “indoctrinate” his children by teaching critical race theory.

To Porter, the issue was straightforward: The district had denounced white supremacy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, but did not teach critical race theory, the academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.

But the parent, Shawn McBreairty, grew increasingly disgruntled and soon connected with No Left Turn in Education, a rapidly growing national group that supports parents as they fight against lessons on systemic racism. That action turned a heated conflict with the school board into one that soon drew national attention, mobilized by a new, increasingly coordinated movement with the backing of major conservative organizations and media outlets.

It’s a movement that has amped up grassroots parental organizing around the country, bringing the lens and stakes of national politics — along with the playbook of seasoned GOP activists — to school boards.

“I was very naïve at the beginning of the year,” Porter said. “I thought it was a concerned parent who had taken it a little too far. I didn't understand this until recently, but these were tactics from national organizations to discredit the entire district.”

Well, yes, professional right-wing nutjob agitators. What did you think was happening.
But now as well, we have January 6th level riots at school board meeting. Amazing.

So here is a result of a search on DDG:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/06/04/loudoun-county-parents-rally-to-recall-school-board-members-pushing-critical-race-theory/
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/05/11/fight-for-schools-launches-recall-effort-against-virginia-school-board-members-over-critical-race-theory/
https://www.london.k12.oh.us/
https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/23/recall-launched-against-school-board-members/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/12/loudoun-county-parents-try-recall-school-board-ove/

Notice anything about the URLs, outside of the third one? Yes, concerted conspiracy to concatenate a cabal of counter-educational insurrection.

But, there is much more. Too much. CRT has hit NPR, PBS, and even Fox News.

Some suggest positive effects, Critical race theory sparks activism in students, over at The Conversation.

Meanwhile, In Florida!

Florida Man and Governator, Ron DeSantis, has signed into law a Florida Bill that will require faculty and students to be "surveyed" on their political positions. What could possibly go wrong?

Tampa Bay Times

TALLAHASSEE — In a push against so-called cancel culture, the Republican majority in the Florida Legislature is ready to pass legislation that would require public colleges and universities to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints.

The survey is part of a broader measure that would also bar university and college officials from limiting speech that “may be uncomfortable, disagreeable or offensive,” and would allow students to record lectures without consent to support a civil or criminal case against a higher-education institution.

The objective, according to the bill sponsors, is to protect the “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” on state campuses. But university faculty members worry the proposal, House Bill 233, is likely to send a chilling effect on their freedom of speech.

“I worry that this bill will force a fearful self-consciousness that is not as much about learning and debate as about appearances and playing into an outside audience,” said Cathy Boehme, a researcher with the Florida Education Association.

Such legislation could also pave the way for politicians to meddle in, monitor and regulate speech on campus based on university survey results, Democratic lawmakers charge.

“Don’t you think it is dangerous for us to have all the data on personal opinions of university faculty and students?” Sen. Lori Berman, D-Delray Beach, asked during last week’s Senate floor session.

Not to worry if you have nothing to hide! Oh, and there are Communist agents in the State Dept.

Boing-boing's coverage:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new bill that requires state colleges and universities to survey students, faculty, and staff at Florida colleges and universities to register their political views with the state, reports Raw Story. From the article:

"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said, justifying the legislation. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."

        DeSantis didn't offer any specific examples of that repression but instead claimed he "knows a lot of parents" who are worried their children will be "indoctrinated" with ideas they don't support, and a pair of state legislators complained that Florida colleges and universities had become "socialism factories."

DeSantis is apparently hellbent on destroying the value of a Florida college education. But no matter, it's precisely the kind of move that will convince the GOP to nominate him as their presidential candidate.

"We had to destroy freedom of speech to save it, or to make sure people have the Right kind of freedom of speech, and don't get cancelled." Fake quote of the Florida House Committee on Un-Republican Activities.

And, Joy Reid destroys the alleged creator of the CRT panic.

Watch Joy Reid takedown the architect of the critical race theory culture war in epic debate. Not really that epic, Rufo is a lightweight.

And for dessert, there is this, what with the impalements and throat-slitting, and total absense of any Critical Race theory:

‘Redneck Rave’ Descends Into Throat Slashing, Impalements, and Mass Arrests

Perchance have the Republicans overstepped? Have they hyped the CRT to the point where they become the William Jennings Bryan of the current century? (He was portrayed as the "Cowardly Lion" traipsing down the "Yellow Brick Road" [Gold standard] in The Wizard of Oz. Cowardly Turtle? Or could Josh Hawley be the new Scarecrow?

I look forward to all the good-faith intellectual discussion on this attempt to gaslight the American public, much like we have had previously. Carry on, my feisty Soylentils!

Addendum
Everyone enjoys a nice cartoon!
Daily Kos. Everybody, mandatory fun, by order of the Florida government!

The American right is currently in an utter panic over "critical race theory" being taught in public schools. On Fox News, there's been an explosion of hysterical coverage, complete with contradictory segments where hosts claim they "don't see people for skin color" before whining that "the United s of America elected an African-American as president of the United States" and "the biggest entertainers, the biggest sports stars are African-Americans." Republicans who otherwise claim to be defenders of free speech are busy trying to pass laws canceling any kind of talk they deem "critical race theory," which, in practice, amounts to bans on talking about historical facts. Across the nation, white parents are crowding school board meetings, melting down over this "critical race theory" thing they've heard so much about.

Again, for the twenty-forth time, this is not about whether CRT is correct or not, it is about why the batshit crazy Republicans think it is a thing. But, you know, the ravings of Runaways and Republicans may seem harmless enough, since they are so stupid, but there is some reason to pay attention to the blatherings of the Republican zombies.

Yet with so many white people across the country in a total freak out over "critical race theory," it appears few, if any, of them could even explain what it actually is. That's because, despite what Fox News is telling them, critical race theory — the actual academic framework that was developed in law schools to understand the historical reasons our legal system perpetuates racial inequalities — is not, in fact, being taught to 3rd graders or even 11th graders. Claims otherwise are a complete lie, ginned up by right-wing propagandists who are desperate to keep the GOP base whipped into a racist frenzy. But even though the whole panic is built on a foundation of sand, it would be unwise of liberals to shrug and dismiss this particular bit of agitprop.

So Amanda, who kicks conservative ass, goes on, and explains what the Republican obsession is with Critical Race Theory.

It is important to note that the fabricated fury over "critical race theory" is a cleverly constructed right-wing troll. Liberals who want to respond with a quick, easily digested rebuttal are instead boxed into a frustrating corner. Because pointing out that critical race theory is not being taught in public schools is a trap, as it could be construed to imply that there's something wrong with critical race theory. And any straightforward defense of critical race theory implies that schoolchildren are somehow expected to understand graduate school-level academic theories. But in fact, the real issue at hand is that conservatives don't want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history. To understand what's really going on under all the scare-mongering, it's important to know that when conservatives talk about "critical race theory," they aren't talking about the actual academic framework developed by law professors. Instead, as Sean Illing at Vox explains, "conservatives have appropriated critical race theory as a convenient catchall to describe basically any serious attempt to teach the history of race and racism."

Crap, you mean that Runaway is not actually racist, just kind of structurally racist in the way that sixty something white guys tend to be? Never saw that coming! Thank you, Critical Race Theory!

Of course, telling people that you oppose teaching the truth about American history sounds bad. So instead, conservative pundits and Republican politicians use the term "critical race theory," using the thin justification that the facts teachers are sharing have often been unearthed by people doing academic research within this framework. The word "theory," in particular, has a long history of setting off poorly educated conservative voters who think it just means "not facts" and don't know that, in academia, it is used to mean an analytical framework for developing factual information. Think of the hysterics around evolutionary theory, for instance, which many conservatives would dismiss as "just a theory," not grasping that it was empirically sound. And that's the crux of it: Schoolchildren aren't really being taught critical race theory, but critical race theory — the actual framework, not the right-wing scare term — is a legitimate academic pursuit that has turned up important facts that white supremacists of yore have covered up. And it's those facts — ,a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/11/hotspots-for-gun-violence-track-closely-with-racist-redlining-policies-of-the-past/">things like the practice of redlining, the truth about what the Confederacy stood for, what Martin Luther King Jr. really believed, and the history of lynching and events like the Tulsa race massacre — that conservatives want to silence. That is why, for instance, they are so afraid of schools teaching the 1619 Project by the New York Times. Not because, as they falsely claim, it's inaccurate. No, the real objection underlying all the noise is that the 1619 Project is true. Conservatives want facts, the thing that all people claim they want children to learn, to be replaced with flat-out lies about American history.

Lies, the one family value the Republican Party has left! So sad. Now I am avoiding too much of my own opinion here, but Amanda goes on:

That's why the feigned umbrage over "critical race theory" is such an effective troll. Responding requires nuance, an explanation of why it's both false that critical race theory is being taught in schools, but also that the real-world practice of critical race theory is not bad or scary or "anti-white." Unfortunately, our political discourse doesn't have much room for nuance, much less lengthy explanations. And so it's easy to get Republican voters, already wanting to believe that white people are under attack from "woke mobs," to get all ginned up on conspiracy theories about "critical race theory," and not look at what the real-world critical race theory actually is, much less the historical facts that Republican politicians want to cover up. While they scare white voters into a panic over their children learning too many details about Jim Crow, Republican legislators are busy passing up draconian restrictions on the right to vote reminiscent of that era of racial segregation.

OK, that much is true. The opposition to Critical Race Theory, to the extant it is aimed at suppressing the history of race relations in the United States of America (some), is part and parcel of the Republican attempt to restrict voting rights so they may have a chance of skimming the elections, again. Pathetic. . And, of course, where did this alleged "Critical Race Theory" become a meme for the less educated far right? Oh, you knew already, didn't you!

Indeed, the idea that "critical race theory" was just the kind of phrase that would easily scare conservatives can be traced back to the time that Andrew Breitbart was still alive. He and the other editors at Breitbart understood that "critical," "race," and "theory" are three words their readers don't really understand well — but do fear — and smashed together, could be leveraged as a Voltron of racist paranoia. Salon reporter Alex Seitz-Wald found, in 2012, that a search for "critical race theory" on Breitbart "returns an astonishing 871 results, over 680 from the past month alone." Rarely, if ever, was the term used accurately.

Rest in pieces, Andrew, like you did for America. But Amanda comes right back to what yours truly has been trying to do here on SoylentNews. It is not a matter of whether CRT is correct, it is a matter of what Right-wing Nutjob anti-intellectuals are trying to do.

Moving away from the debate about what is or isn't "critical race theory" and instead focusing on what lawmakers are actually trying to do — replace factual information with fake history — helps recenter the debate on what's really going on. After all, the only reason Republicans and right-wing pundits lie about what is and isn't in the public school curriculum is because they know they can't win the debate by being honest. The truth terrifies them, which is why they go to such lengths to conceal it both in public debate and in our public schools.

Yep, our right-wing nutjob soylentils do not have the slightest idea of what Critical Race Theory is, but they are agin it, with all their heart and soul, because Fox News told them to be. And, because they are stupid, afraid, and not too bright cowards. Did you know that when you see a white person, you automatically suspect his is going to steal your wallet, or try to sell you insurance? That is systemic racism, right there.

Scholarship is hard. It means having to understand things, not just searching for confirmation of what you already think. So it is not surprising that some Americans have their undergarments all in a bunch over Critical Race Theory. Yes, this again. But, we have actual historians speaking up on the topic, instead of Congresspersons who want BLM to alter the orbit of the Moon. Here is a link to the full article:
Why a Culture War Over Critical Race Theory? Consider the Pro-Slavery Congressional "Gag Rule"

Certain Soylentils of less than average education will no doubt take issue with what these "professors", because, you know, professors really don't know anything more than your average redneck hillbilly from Dogpatch, USA. Except, of course, they do. The Latin verb, docere is where we get the title "doctor", literally a "teacher", which implies they actually do know more than the random commentor on the internet. And our authors here know some history, history that ties the current furor over CRT to American slavery and the Civil War.

What is Critical Race Theory and why are Republican governors and state legislators saying such terrible things about it? If you are among the 99% of Americans who had never heard of this theory before a month or two ago, you might be forgiven for believing that it poses a grave threat to the United States through the indoctrination of our schoolchildren. To clarify the reasons behind the sudden rise in attacks against this little-known theory, it can first help to consider an earlier campaign of silencing in US history—the effort to shut down any discussion of slavery in Congress through a gag-rule that lasted for almost a decade in the 1830s and 1840s.

Hmm, denying there is race-based chattel slavery in these United States, by preventing any discussion of the same? Wasn't this the same approach to sex education that brought us Palin levels of abstinence and teen pregnancy?

In 1836, in response to a flood of anti-slavery petitions, the House of Representatives passed a resolution (Rule 21) that automatically tabled all petitions on slavery without a hearing. By doing so, they effectively prohibited even the discussion of slavery in Congress. The Senate, for its part, regularly voted not to consider such petitions at all. Southern Representatives and their Democratic allies in the North believed that any attention paid to slavery was divisive in that it heightened regional tensions and promoted slave rebellions. They argued that the drafters of the Constitution never intended for the subject of slavery to be discussed or debated in Congress.

At the beginning of each session after 1837, during discussion of the House rules, the ex-President and then Representative John Quincy Adams would attempt to read anti-slavery petitions he had received. Originally, only Whigs supported his efforts, but more Democrats joined him each session, so that the majority against Adams gradually decreased until the gag-rule was repealed at the beginning of the 1845 session.

Figures it would be the ex-guy that was pushing this sore point of American history.

Parallels between the gagging of anti-slavery petitions and the campaign to prohibit the teaching of Critical Race Theory are clear, if unnoticed before now. Like the Southern delegations who opposed discussion of slavery, opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.” Ben Carson and Christie Noem (Gov. ND-R) have asserted that Critical Race Theory is “a deliberate means to sow division and cripple our nation from within.”

In fact the theory, based on an understanding that race is not biological but socially constructed, yet nevertheless immensely significant for everyday life, provides a way to investigate systemic racism and its consequences. It recognizes that racism did not exist solely in the past, that structures embedded in laws and customs persist in the present and permeate social institutions. These structures, intentionally or not, lead to the treatment of people of color as second-class citizens or less-than-full human beings.

Now this is the crucial part, and from past journal comments, is seems some soylentils are under false understandings of what Critical Race Theory actually is.

As their central charge, critics frequently take the theory’s argument that in the US racism is “structural” or “systemic” as synonymous with saying that the United States is “systematically” or “inherently” racist. However, doing so conflates “systemic” with “systematic”: “systemic” practices are those that affect a complex whole of which they are a part; “systematic” practices are planned and methodical. To say an attitude or pattern is structural does not mean that it is unavoidable and unchangeable, that it cannot be addressed and its effects reduced through reforms. Indeed, a central tenet of the theory is that racism has produced its effects through specific, historical institutions, and that reduction of racial inequities can be accomplished, but only once the existence of such injustices is recognized.

Most lines of attack on Critical Race Theory depend in similar ways on misunderstandings or distortions. Whether subtle or not-so-subtle, unintentional or willful, their effect is the same: they misrepresent the theory. The opponents criticize what they call the theory’s “race essentialism”— their misconception of Critical Race Theory as saying that an individual, based on their race, is “inherently” racist or oppressive. Against the idea of structural or “inherent” racism, the critics assert that racism only expresses personal choices and actions. But we need not accept their assumption that racism must be either structural or personal; both can surely exist at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, we have heard it all before, but such misunderstandings are not useful, and if they are fomenting censorship in education, are positively harmful.

Finally, the detractors charge teachers with “imposing” or “forcing” the theory on their students. But these critics are not in fact calling for independence of thought. Rather, their charge seeks to suppress thought that questions historic and continuing inequities and inequalities, just as, almost two hundred years ago, representatives of Southern slave-owners and their Northern sympathizers imposed a gag-rule on their anti-slavery Congressional colleagues.

Not saying that the anti-Critical Race Theory are racists, but, they're racists. Best we just don't talk about it.

*****
Meanwhile, Florida Man mandates exactly what American History is. Florida blasted for 'incredibly depressing and stupid' new policy of lying to children . Does not seem to be received well by actual historians.

Kevin M. Kruse
@KevinMKruse

Teachers "may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence" is nine kinds of nonsense, starting with the fact that the Declaration, uh, didn't create a new nation.

True, that. The Declaration is no part of United States law, so better to stick with the Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, instead of Florida Man History.