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Critical Race Theory Is Latest Bogeyman of the Right


BarryLaverty

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This writer puts it very well into what all this is about: fear and political maneuvering. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/critical-race-theory-latest-bogeyman-171813734.html

Lexington Herald-Leader

Critical race theory is latest bogeyman for the right. Don’t fall for the hype.

Linda Blackford

“We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know. We should know the good, the bad, everything. That’s what great nations do: They come to terms with their dark sides. And we’re a great nation.” — President Joe Biden at the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre in Tulsa, Ok.

Many people had never heard of the Tulsa Massacre, in which a mob of white people in 1921 bombed and destroyed a prosperous black neighborhood and many of its residents until they saw the comic turned TV show “Watchmen.”

Many people have also never heard of what happened in Corbin, Ky., in 1919 when a white mob forced Black railroad workers, along with nearly every other Black person in town, onto railroad cars and out of town. According to George Wright’s “Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940,” the riot was triggered by false rumors that a night watchman had been stabbed by two Black men. “As a way of making sure that other blacks knew that they were not welcome in Corbin, local whites adopted the practice that seems to have been used in an undetermined number of Kentucky cities: They put up a sign saying ‘N------ Don’t Be Here When The Sun Goes Down.’ The sign was displayed in Corbin until the 1960s.”

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Many Kentuckians don’t know about the Corbin riots or the many “sundown” towns that dotted Kentucky or the many Black people who died at the hands of white lynch mobs, despite Wright’s careful accounting. Like Tulsa, they were covered up, whitewashed, forgotten. But instead of learning our history — and possibly coming to grips with it — some state legislators here and elsewhere have decided we should ban such discussions from our classrooms and lecture halls.

“Critical race theory” is yet the latest cultural bugbear of Republican politicians, who are skilled at firing up their base while completely missing the point. It’s doubtful that Ky. Reps Joe Fischer, Matt Lockett or Jennifer Henson Decker truly know or understand what critical race theory is — an academic framework that posits many institutions have systemic racism at their core — but they are sure it will “indoctrinate our children” and pit us (white people) against the other (people of color). They are simply following whatever conservative think tank told them this would make a good political target. Nonetheless, the vague language of their bills would scare plenty of teachers into simply not talking about racial injustices of the past and present.

Rep. Joe Fischer has proposed a bill to ban “critical race theory” from being taught in Kentucky classrooms.
 
Rep. Joe Fischer has proposed a bill to ban “critical race theory” from being taught in Kentucky classrooms.


 

 

A new ‘bogeyman’

The bills — proposed in Kentucky and already passed elsewhere — are absurd on many levels, and wouldn’t last a day past a First Amendment court challenge. But they do show the GOP’s skill at manipulating cultural issues into concepts twisted beyond recognition. Conservatives finally came around to admitting that slavery was horrific and segregation a moral travesty. Now we have to enter gently into other truths about our history, the era of Jim Crow terror in which Black people were routinely lynched; redlining, in which federal housing policies pushed people of color into urban slums; about Black veterans denied the benefits of the GI Bill after World War II; about a criminal justice system that funnels people of color from schools into prison. The “states rights” dog whistles of the 1960s to resist the civil rights movement have morphed into CRT, “wokeism,” and the scary “Marxist” agenda of declaring that Black lives should matter as much as white ones.

The police murder of George Floyd and the police killing of Breonna Taylor did a lot to bring these issues to the fore in one fell swoop, forcing many white people to face the enormity of crimes they never knew about to begin with. No wonder they’re scared.

So instead of reckoning and reconciliation, they’re headed to the bunker, pointing with shaky fingers at “critical race theory,” which in the words of Nation writer Jeet Heer has become the “bogeyman” that anarchism and communism were in past generations. “It is a conjured up scapegoat for social problems whose true sources cannot be confronted,” he wrote. Namely that white Americans have done terrible things to Black Americans for many, many years, and we still have not atoned.

Legislate from fear

Never mind that it used to be GOP orthodoxy that we let local schools control themselves. Luckily for our society, youth and education will almost certainly turn back the backlash.

Abbey Grace, a 23-year-old social worker in Corbin, first learned about the Corbin expulsions in a class at the University of the Cumberlands. She and her classmates, nearly all from Eastern Kentucky, and some from Corbin, were astounded to learn about the history from the documentary “Trouble Behind” from 1991.

“It was really nasty and ugly and there was no denying it,” she said. “A lot of people in my class had never heard of it and it made people uncomfortable.”

Grace joined the Sunup Initiative, a local group attempting to come to grips with Corbin’s racial past and helped organize Black Lives Matter protests a year ago this month. Her grandfather stopped speaking to her for her political activism.

“This legislative effort (to ban critical race theory) is one of fear because they don’t want people to learn more about other ideologies because it makes them face what actually happened,” Grace said. “They’re scared that kids of the future will learn about things and form their own opinions and ideas.”

Teaching children that the terrors of slavery and Jim Crow morphed into other forms of segregation and discrimination in many sectors of U.S. society is not demonization. It’s history. Too many of us never got the full story, and the hysteria over critical race theory is just another distraction keeping us from a better understanding and a potential reckoning with our past.

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1 hour ago, PepeSilvia said:

All I know is that I can’t wait to teach Abbott’s 1836 Project so that the students can read the racism in Texas’ founding documents for themselves. I do miss teaching Texas History so at least now I’ll be able to a little bit. 

Why not throw in a lesson on how African Tribes sold Other African tribes to “Whitey”?🤨

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8 hours ago, CarthDawg77 said:

Why not throw in a lesson on how African Tribes sold Other African tribes to “Whitey”?🤨

Because that would destroy the narrative of "white people bad" and "only whites can be racist", and "ZOMG! Systemic racism!" and everything is racist. And that Whites are ALWAYS the oppressors.

Heck, I saw a video the other day where the "originating" CRT books themselves say that it's EXACTLY what many of us have been saying it is.

So I'd like to ask our white CRT proponents on here: How does it feel that CRT labels you an oppressor? Also, since some of you capitalize the B when writing black, do you do the same with white? Why or why not?

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Evidently many of our liberal posters have no idea what’s being taught under the guise of Critical Race Theory.  Boogeyman of the right?  Then why are so many blacks complaining about it?  I really doubt they’re all Republicans.  Of course it creates hate, and the Left thrives on hate.   That is obviously why are liberal posters embrace CRT.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/moms-of-america-fight-back-critical-race-theory

 

E3D76736-0FED-4C22-86BD-E882380D79F1.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Hagar said:

Evidently many of our liberal posters have no idea what’s being taught under the guise of Critical Race Theory.  Boogeyman of the right?  Then why are so many blacks complaining about it?  I really doubt they’re all Republicans.  Of course it creates hate, and the Left thrives on hate.   That is obviously why are liberal posters embrace CRT.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/moms-of-america-fight-back-critical-race-theory

 

E3D76736-0FED-4C22-86BD-E882380D79F1.jpeg

 

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How any sane person can look at this load of :poop: and not see that all it does is fan the flames of racism by it's very content is beyond me ... what good do think will become of brainwashing young children of all ethnic backgrounds? It does nothing to bring people together ... but then again, that's probably the goal of this garbage .... and now, I hear, the same sort of nonsense is being force fed to our military personnel  ....  congress and the Supreme Court need to step in and stop this racist brainwashing  🐎 :poop: ....

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yo mama
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2 minutes ago, KirtFalcon said:

How any sane person can look at this load of :poop: and not see that all it does is fan the flames of racism by it's very content is beyond me ... what good do think will become of brainwashing young children of all ethnic backgrounds? It does nothing to bring people together ... but then again, that's probably the goal of this garbage .... and now, I hear, the same sort of nonsense is being force fed to our military personnel  ....  congress and the Supreme Court need to step in and stop this racist brainwashing  🐎 :poop: ....

Those who believe that definitely are not sane. 

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12 minutes ago, KirtFalcon said:

How any sane person can look at this load of :poop: and not see that all it does is fan the flames of racism by it's very content is beyond me ... what good do think will become of brainwashing young children of all ethnic backgrounds? It does nothing to bring people together ... but then again, that's probably the goal of this garbage .... and now, I hear, the same sort of nonsense is being force fed to our military personnel  ....  congress and the Supreme Court need to step in and stop this racist brainwashing  🐎 :poop: ....

Democrats divide.  Period

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18 minutes ago, Monte1076 said:

No, it's like "canceled" versus "cancelled". Both are actually correct, for some reason.

As in canceled history for poor white people not to feel bad? Or cancelled as in taking away the ability of teachers to discuss current events, so that 'conservatives' can control the narrative and act aggrieved if it's mentioned? 🤫

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1 hour ago, BarryLaverty said:

As in canceled history for poor white people not to feel bad? Or cancelled as in taking away the ability of teachers to discuss current events, so that 'conservatives' can control the narrative and act aggrieved if it's mentioned? 🤫

CRT teaches that you're a oppressor, Barry. How's it feel to be an oppressor?

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1 hour ago, Monte1076 said:

CRT teaches that you're a oppressor, Barry. How's it feel to be an oppressor?

I have never been followed around in a store because of my skin color, have been in the majority in every place I have worked, have never been 'redlined' on insurance or a car or house loan. Within my lifetime I have never been harassed by police for driving in a neighborhood, had people cross the street because I was wearing a hoodie, and I can jog without fear of vigilante rednecks shooting me.

I can not begin to relate to the experience of a Black man my age in America.
 

I would like to study and discuss racial issues in our country now, and I think studying the whole history of our country can lead to progress. What are you afraid of? What is going to be taken from you if others can also have the experience of what it's like to be White in America??

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33 minutes ago, BarryLaverty said:

I have never been followed around in a store because of my skin color, have been in the majority in every place I have worked, have never been 'redlined' on insurance or a car or house loan. Within my lifetime I have never been harassed by police for driving in a neighborhood, had people cross the street because I was wearing a hoodie, and I can jog without fear of vigilante rednecks shooting me.

I can not begin to relate to the experience of a Black man my age in America.
 

I would like to study and discuss racial issues in our country now, and I think studying the whole history of our country can lead to progress. What are you afraid of? What is going to be taken from you if others can also have the experience of what it's like to be White in America??

You just said a mouthful sir, I respect that..... anyone who gets offended at this statement we know where they stand... sad that white ppl want to tell black ppl how good they got it compared to years ago, no matter who sold slaves or had slaves a white man/woman will never know what it's like to be black just like we won't know what it's like to be white SMH

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1 hour ago, BarryLaverty said:

I have never been followed around in a store because of my skin color, have been in the majority in every place I have worked, have never been 'redlined' on insurance or a car or house loan. Within my lifetime I have never been harassed by police for driving in a neighborhood, had people cross the street because I was wearing a hoodie, and I can jog without fear of vigilante rednecks shooting me.

I can not begin to relate to the experience of a Black man my age in America.
 

I would like to study and discuss racial issues in our country now, and I think studying the whole history of our country can lead to progress. What are you afraid of? What is going to be taken from you if others can also have the experience of what it's like to be White in America??

All of this is fine, but this isn’t what CRTis. And you keep avoiding what it actually is.

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