A Non-Carpenter Looks Closely at Carpentry

My deck boards kept rotting through, so I decided to switch to "no maintenance" composite decking, which comes with a 25 year guarantee. I fix a lot of things at my house, but I suspected that the joists were rotted out and that work is over my head. Luckily, my favorite carpenter, "Matt," had a couple days open. He allowed me to be his carpenter's helper for 12 hours yesterday.

It's amazing to watch a professional carpenter solve challenge after challenge, many of them not obvious to non-carpenters until pointed out. This was notably imperfect existing construction that needed to be torn out. I helped to cut material, make runs to the hardware store, and carry around a lot of material, including 60 lb joists. I was mesmerized by Matt's physical stamina and his thought process as much as his skills in fitting things together into a rock solid new deck and perfect new set of stairs. Even setting up requires unloading and moving probably 700 pounds of equipment off the truck. It also involves significant planning, because getting the job done uses up lots of supplies, including blades and bits. He needs to stock an entire workshop on his truck, including backup tools.

I got back to my routine today, but Matt does this every day. His job requires skills honed over a lifetime and constant physical exertion where mistakes can be expensive and sometimes dangerous. So kudos to those of you who do physically demanding high-skill work. These are people (including carpenters, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics and many others) with a central role in keeping this country running. Maybe it's time to set aside a day in their honor . . .

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Christopher Rufo: What to Do About the Rapid Spread of Critical Race Theory Throughout the United States

Christopher Rufo summarizes the spread of critical race theory, characterizing these stories as the tip of the iceberg. His article: "The Courage of Our Convictions: How to fight critical race theory."

What does critical race theory look like in practice? Last year, I authored a series of reports focused on critical race theory in the federal government. The FBI was holding workshops on intersectionality theory. The Department of Homeland Security was telling white employees that they were committing “microinequities” and had been “socialized into oppressor roles.” The Treasury Department held a training session telling staff members that “virtually all white people contribute to racism” and that they must convert “everyone in the federal government” to the ideology of “antiracism.” And the Sandia National Laboratories, which designs America’s nuclear arsenal, sent white male executives to a three-day reeducation camp, where they were told that “white male culture” was analogous to the “KKK,” “white supremacists,” and “mass killings.” The executives were then forced to renounce their “white male privilege” and to write letters of apology to fictitious women and people of color.

This year, I produced another series of reports focused on critical race theory in education. In Cupertino, California, an elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” In Springfield, Missouri, a middle school forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” based on the idea that straight, white, English-speaking, Christian males are members of the oppressor class and must atone for their privilege and “covert white supremacy.” In Philadelphia, an elementary school forced fifth-graders to celebrate “Black communism” and simulate a Black Power rally to free 1960s radical Angela Davis from prison, where she had once been held on charges of murder. And in Seattle, the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.”

I’m just one investigative journalist, but I’ve developed a database of more than 1,000 of these stories. When I say that critical race theory is becoming the operating ideology of our public institutions, I am not exaggerating—from the universities to bureaucracies to K-12 school systems, critical race theory has permeated the collective intelligence and decision-making process of American government, with no sign of slowing down.

The woke-infested media has, for the most part, given CRT advocates a free pass regarding the real-world affects of CRT. Rufo proposes asking that CRT advocates be forced to answer these questions:

Critical race theorists must be confronted with and forced to speak to the facts. Do they support public schools separating first-graders into groups of “oppressors” and “oppressed”? Do they support mandatory curricula teaching that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”? Do they support public schools instructing white parents to become “white traitors” and advocate for “white abolition”? Do they want those who work in government to be required to undergo this kind of reeducation? How about managers and workers in corporate America? How about the men and women in our military? How about every one of us?

Rufo suggests advocating "excellence" rather than "diversity":

In terms of principles, we need to employ our own moral language rather than allow ourselves to be confined by the categories of critical race theory. For example, we often find ourselves debating “diversity.” Diversity as most of us understand it is generally good, all things being equal, but it is of secondary value. We should be talking about and aiming at excellence, a common standard that challenges people of all backgrounds to achieve their potential. On the scale of desirable ends, excellence beats diversity every time.

When we tell the story about the United States, we need to tell the whole story, the moral arc:

[W]e must promote the true story of America—a story that is honest about injustices in American history, but that places them in the context of our nation’s high ideals and the progress we have made toward realizing them.

Fighting back will require that good-hearted thoughtful people stand up to waves of abuse:

Above all, we must have courage, the fundamental virtue required in our time: courage to stand and speak the truth, courage to withstand epithets, courage to face the mob, and courage to shrug off the scorn of elites.

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Enthusiastic Racism From the Academic Left

I agree with the message of this short video. I despair of the way that "anti-racism" is being implemented in many schools. What does it tell young people who identify as "black" that we need to lower standards for all "blacks" because they, as a group, cannot cut it?  Two things:

1. This claim is false. "Black" students can cut it.  If given high-quality education and parental involvement from the start, I believe that "blacks" are every bit as capable of educational achievement as any other "color" of student. Many "black" students are high performers.

2. This quick solution sends the same pernicious message that one would expect to hear from American slave-holders in the 1850s.  This is not what students need to hear.

Let's give all students (and their families) the tools they need to succeed.  And let's not shy away from inconvenient facts, including these the fact that 69% of "black" children were born outside of marriage (compared to 30% for "whites" and "15% for people categories as Asian.  I don't bring this up to be moralistic, but only to suggest that many more "black" children lack some of the resources available, on average, to children of other "races." A two-parent household (whether or not married) can, on average, offer more resources to the children of that household.  I also suspect that in some "black" communities (not all), education is approached differently than in some other communities (of all "races). John McWhorter has discussed this different approach on occasion (see, for example, the 30 min mark here). Both of these factors (and others) need to be addressed unflinchingly so that every child, including every single "black" child, gets the resources and encouragement he or she needs to excel as a student.

Nothing I have written here suggests that we should judge any child on any basis other than as an individual.  Every child is unique and there are high achievers and low achievers of every so-called "race."

[I no longer use the term "race" or the colors referring to "races" without scare quotes.  Use of these terms is horribly imprecise, unscientific and inherently divisive.  Claiming that there are "races" is the first step on the slippery slope toward racism.  We need a two-pronged attack: 1) We need to move away from claims that there are "races," as nothing good results from this divisive term. 2) At the same time, we need to ostracize and vigorously litigate against any person or organization that discriminates on the purported basis of "race." ]

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Cities Face a Daunting Problem in Addressing Homelessness

What are the state of the art approaches for addressing homelessness in the U.S.? In his article, "The Limits of Housing First," Christopher Rufo offer lots of facts and figures but no optimism. Homelessness is a massively daunting problem and U.S. cities are struggling for answers. An excerpt:

In Los Angeles, this could spell disaster. In the most optimistic scenario laid out by the controller’s office, the city will build 5,873 supportive housing units at an initial cost of $1.2 billion, plus an estimated $88 million in annual service costs associated with the Housing First model. The recipients of this housing will not meaningfully improve their lives in terms of addiction, mental illness, and spiritual well-being — and there will still be 60,000 people on the streets across Los Angeles County. In other words, even under its own theoretical assumptions, Proposition HHH is doomed to fail.

The City of Los Angeles did not return a request for comment.

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