Real Life Public Schools That Are Enthusiastically Dividing Students By “Color” and Preaching False Biology

Critical Race Theory is winning the day in many public schools, as described by Erika Sanzi in her article, "The Monster Is in the Classroom Schools indoctrinate children as young as eight in race and gender essentialism."

The problem? Increasing numbers of public grade schools are teaching their students to see each other as color categories and to treat each other differently based on those "colors." In my own mind, I think of these poisonous approaches as neoracism, neosegregationist and racecraft. As I've often written, dividing people into colors is as absurd as believing in astrology, though much more pernicious given our country's long struggle with racism. With regard to sexuality, increasing numbers of schools are preaching to their students that it is bigoted to state that there are only two sexes, even though biologists universally hold that there are only two sexes of every other species of mammal based on the two types of gametes (and the organs that produce those gametes).  Schools are teaching that we should ignore this science when it comes to human animals because it is inconvenient. Schools are teaching that sex is "assigned" at birth by doctors and parents (rather than noticed). Today's institutional leaders of Wokeness, such as Planned Parenthood, falsely advise that 2% of people are intersex, mangling the scientific definition and rate of occurrence of intersex in the process (the actual rate of intersex conditions is about 0.018%).  These falsehoods are rampant among the Woke and these ideologically-laced teachings are now permeating classrooms, including public school classrooms.

[In the current social environment, I feel the need to add this: I'm writing about sex, which has a long stable scientific definition. And see here. And here. Over the past few decades, "gender," a non-scientific concept, has become mostly unhinged from sex. In modern times, "gender" can seemingly can mean anything, e.g., a bio female can "identify" as a woman, a man, something "fluid, or apparently anything at all.  I have no problem with any adult claiming any type of gender, but I also insist that people should get their biology right, especially when teaching grade school students. There are only two sexes and rare biological intersex conditions do not constitute a third type of sex. The elephant in the room is that these bankrupt ideas of sexual Wokeness are being encouraged by profit seekers.]

Here is Sanzi's main concerns:

American schools are teaching young children race essentialism: reducing them to identity groups, putting them in boxes labeled “oppressor” and “oppressed,” and often inflicting emotional and psychological harm. If this sounds extreme, that’s because it is. It is not happening everywhere—but it is happening enough to have juiced a multibillion-dollar, nationwide industry. Sometimes the source is a rogue teacher whom the principal and superintendent admit they are trying to rein in; but increasingly, it is simply public officials implementing approved policies.

She gives several examples of Wokeness in modern day public school classrooms:

Lexington, Massachusetts, where, in October 2019, fourth-graders were taught to “articulate what gender identity is and why it’s important to use nonbinary language in describing people we don’t know yet.” According to photos shared on Twitter by the district’s Director of Equity and Student Supports, students learned about “gender identity,” “gender expression,” “sexual orientation,” and “sex assigned at birth” by examining sticky notes on a “Gender Snowperson” who was drawn in magic marker on a large sheet of paper. The students were also taught that their pronouns had been “assigned at birth.”

.  .   .

This past February, students in Evanston, Illinois, listened to the book Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness. Parents were asked to discuss the book with their children at home. The book says that “whiteness is a bad deal” and “always was,” and that “you can be white without signing on to whiteness.” As Conor Friedersdorf reports in The Atlantic, Evanston schools ask kindergarten parents to quiz their five- and six-year-olds on whiteness and to give them examples of “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community.”

These examples described by Sanzi comprise the tip of the iceberg. I recently commented on Christopher Rufo's report on eleven additional public schools across the U.S., all of them preaching (not teaching) similar divisive poison to young children. In many schools, our children are being similarly indoctrinated, prepared to participate for the rest of their lives in the oppression olympics. We are enthusiastically producing adult-sized toddlers. And see here. We are creating a generation of students who are so emotionally fragile that they cannot bear the thought that other people think differently than they do. This theme was explored at length by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in their 2017 book, The Coddling of the American Mind. Here is more on the concerns of Haidt and Lukianoff. And see here for the "Three Great Untruths."

Here is yet another recent example of Wokeness in the classroom, Grace Church School. 

With regard to sexuality, we are at a crossroads and the correct road is paved with scientific facts, not ideology.  As Heather Heying writes, we should be teaching biology, not ideology.  With regard to "race," the Woke endgame is Evergreen State College. 

If only there were healthy ways to teach people how to get along with each other . . . Actually, there are healthy approaches, including Chloe Valdary's "Theory of Enchantment," (urging that we treat people like human beings, not political abstractions). And see Christopher Rufo's advice here.  And here. And here is some advice by forty black intellectuals critical of the Woke permeated environment at Smith College.  Here's yet another alternative approach: Counterweight, which urges us to engage with each other as complex and nuanced human beings, not stereotypes. Consider also this detailed blueprint for reform by the President of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), Greg Lukianoff.  In summary:

10 Principles for Opposing Thought Reform in K-12

  • No compelled speech, thought, or belief.
  • Respect for individuality, dissent, and the sanctity of conscience.
  • K-12 teachers & administrators must demonstrate epistemic humility.
  • Foster the broadest possible curiosity, critical thinking skills, and discomfort with certainty.
  • Foster independence, not moral dependency.
  • Do not teach children to think in cognitive distortions.
  • Do not teach the ‘Three Great Untruths.’
  • Take student mental health more seriously.
  • Resist the temptation to reduce complex students to limiting labels.
  • If it’s broke, fix it. Be willing to form new institutions that empower students and educate them with principles of free, diverse, and pluralistic society.

For many more examples of Wokeness upon which I have commented, consider this DI collection of articles on Wokeness. 

Continue ReadingReal Life Public Schools That Are Enthusiastically Dividing Students By “Color” and Preaching False Biology

Glenn Greenwald Puts Spotlight on CNN’s Natasha Bertrand to Illustrate the DNC – Spy State Alliance

It wasn't that long ago that Democrats were suspicious (if not hostile) to the CIA and America's other spy agencies. There was good reason for that, given the long history of propaganda, lies and manipulation by the CIA, FBI and NSA. Perhaps the peak of this DNC anti-spy state feeling occurred during Edward Snowden's revelations.

But then something happened. The Spy State became useful to the DNC, driven by their mutual hostility to Donald Trump. This was brought on by Trump himself by his ridicule of the spies. This makes for terrible political strategy, as highlighted in this short interview from 2017, Rachel Maddow interviewing Chuck Schumer: "When you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." The CIA and NSA have immense resources for getting back at you by fueling campaigns of disinformation:

We know remarkably little about the nature of the nation’s intelligence spending, other than its supposed total, released in a report every year. By now, it’s more than $80 billion.
During the good old days of 2013, some Democrats took seriously the revelations disclosed by Edward Snowden, even though they were hesitant to applaud his efforts publicly.  This headline tells you what the DNC thinks about Snowden's heroic actions: "Almost No Democrats Are Calling On Trump To Pardon Edward Snowden: Many progressive lawmakers have pushed reforms based on Snowden’s leaks, which makes their silence about a potential pardon that much more curious." This is a complex multi-variate issue, of course, but I suspect that Snowden has been abandoned to twist in the wind because he is not useful to the DNC and because Snowden is not a friend of the DNC's newish friend, the U.S. spy state.

This brings us to Glenn Greenwald's most recent article about the bubbly friendship involving the spy state, the DNC and the DND-allied "news" media. Corruption doesn't happen in the abstract. Rather, it is furthered by the conduct of real-life human beings, often by people who willingly betray the principles that should be guiding them in exchange for money and career advancement.  CNN's Natasha Bertrand is one for those people.  Greenwald's article is titled: "CNN's New "Reporter," Natasha Bertrand, is a Deranged Conspiracy Theorist and Scandal-Plagued CIA Propagandist: In the U.S. corporate media, the surest way to advance is to loyally spread lies and deceit from the U.S. security state. Bertrand is just the latest example."

Glenn Greenwald continues to be a lightning rod for abuse from many political directions.  These ad hominem attacks stem from his reporting because he has a problem: he follows facts where they lead, regardless of who this pisses off. His resulting and undeservedly untarnished reputation makes many people (including many of my FB "Friends") viscerally hostile to Greenwald and hesitant to read or believe what he has written. Here is the solution to that (unwarranted) hostility: Greenwald's article contains numerous links allowing you to read the underlying evidence and weep. Here is an excerpt, but I urge you to read the full article, to follow Glenn Greenwald at his Substack account and, further, to financially support his courageous journalism.

Natasha Bertrand has spent the last five years working as a spokesperson for the alliance composed of the CIA and the Democratic Party, spreading every unvetted and unproven conspiracy theory about Russiagate that they fed her. The more loyally she performed that propagandistic function, the more rapidly she was promoted and rewarded. Now she arrives at her latest destination: CNN, not only Russiagate Central along with MSNBC but also the home to countless ex-operatives of the security state agencies on whose behalf Bertrand speaks.

Once again we see the two key truths of modern corporate journalism in the U.S. First, we have the Jeffrey Goldberg Principle: you can never go wrong, but only right, by disseminating lies and propaganda from the CIA. Second, the organs that spread the most disinformation and crave disinformation agents as their employees are the very same ones who demand censorship of the internet in the name of stopping disinformation.

I've long said that if you want to understand how to thrive in this part of the media world, you should study the career advancement of Jeffrey Goldberg, propelled by one reckless act after the next. But now the sequel to the Goldberg Rise is the thriving career of this new CNN reporter whose value as a CIA propagandist Goldberg, notably, was the first to spot and reward.

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald Puts Spotlight on CNN’s Natasha Bertrand to Illustrate the DNC – Spy State Alliance

The “News” Media Again Creates Something Out of Nothing

Yeah, I’m picky. I'd like to see modern news outlets carefully determine that they have evidence upon which to base their splashy headlines. I also expect that when they get the facts wrong on an important national issue, that they will clearly and loudly apologize. That's what I want, but that's not what we are getting.

Remember how Officer Brian Sicknick died during the Capitol riot after someone savagely bashed his skull with a fire hydrant? See the video. The problem is that there was never any evidence for this claim. Further, it has now been proven completely untrue based on a recently released autopsy report. Why does this matter that there was never any evidence to support this widely promulgated claim? Glenn Greenwald points out that without an intentional bludgeoning of Sicknick, the DNC-aligned media (as opposed to FOX, which is the GOP-aligned media) had no claim that the Trump mob killed anyone, which they sorely craved. Take a look at the "news":

This recent false story regarding Sicknick's death is not an outlier. The Russian Bounty story was also concocted out of thin air.  As was the claim that Russians meddled in U.S. elections. And see here.  And see here, where Taibbi lists ten big media claims about Russia that have been proven bogus. As was the case with "Russian Collusion with Trump." This is a world in which this same news media outlets condemn Donald Trump but praise Joe Biden for the exact same foreign policy approach to Saudi Arabia. After being made aware of these problems, one would be forgiven for falsely assuming that the DNC media made these things up because it didn't have any legitimate issues with which to pummel Trump. But are hundreds of true stories of Trump's misconduct and ineptitude. So why make shit up? Why the overreach?  Matt Taibbi offers this analysis of the modern news media:

[T]he new “norms” in the business have disincentivized traditional outlets to care about accuracy, leading to huge quantities of mistakes. When news agencies see their jobs as being primarily about politics, they become more concerned with being directionally right than technically accurate, knowing among other things that their audiences will forgive them for being wrong, so long as they’re wrong about the “right” targets.

Many of our biggest media outlets have signed up to be cheerleaders for their favorite political team. They have assumed the role of nannies to serve the cravings of their followers. They choose narratives that their respective teams will approve, then they concoct stories based news sources like these: “some believe,” or “sources say” and other creative dissemblings. By using vapor-sources like these, lies can be quickly converted into "news" stories that will sell ads and make their team's readers happy. Many of our biggest media outlets are co-dependent and co-captured in this way, as repeatedly documented by Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Walter Cronkite must be crying in his grave that our major media outlets are fully invested in what Taibbi terms bombholing:

This technique of using the next bombshell story to push the last one down a memory-hole — call it Bombholing — needed a polarized audience to work. As surveys by organizations like the Pew Center showed, the different target demographics in Trump’s America increasingly did not communicate with one another. Democrats by 2020 were 91 percent of the New York Times audience and 95 percent of MSNBC’s, while Republicans were 93 percent of Fox viewers. When outlets overreached factually, it was possible, if not likely, that the original target audience would never learn the difference.

This reduced the incentive to be careful. Audiences devoured bombshells even when aware on a subconscious level that they might not hold up to scrutiny. If a story turned out to be incorrect, that was okay. News was now more about underlying narratives audiences felt were true and important. For conservatives, Trump was saving America from a conspiracy of elites. For “liberal” audiences, Trump was trying to assume dictatorial power, and the defenders of democracy were trying to stop him.

If you still have a smidgeon of trust in our major media outlets, watch this video by Matt Taibbi to the end, where you will experience more bombholing per second than you ever before thought imaginable:

Consider also, Taibbi's most recent post, "Rachel Maddow is Bill O'Reilly." I'm sorely tempted to conclude that the news industry has zero standards and zero credibility.  I've long believed this of FOX News.  Now it's most big news providers (though I do respect The Hill--including "The Rising," with Krystal and Saagar as a wonderful exception to the general industry decay and disappointment).

Where am I going with this post?  I'm frustrated, actually disgusted, with what used to be a proud industry, the only industry mentioned in the U.S. Constitution:  the press.  As discussed by Felix Salmon, here's what Americans now think about the traditional news media.

When we catch our big modern monied “news” outlets running such garbage, it impeaches their character. It tells us that that we should not trust them in the future. It should also concern us about what they are suppressing. What they are hiding from us from our own good? What, in addition to the (true) story that the laptop did belong to Hunter Biden (a story that says more about the partisanship of U.S. spy agencies and news media than anything else? What else is being suppressed? How about the nationwide problem that school and university professors are being forced to either proclaim allegiance to neo-racist Woke ideology or to completely shut up at Evergreen College, Smith College, University of Vermont, USC, UCSD and (most recently) Grace Church School in Manhattan. This same Woke ideology also spills into numerous corporations and cultural institutions.  There are many other examples. I have spoken to many of these teachers and attorneys who verify these stories, yet these stories are intentionally uncovered by the DNC-aligned media, with the rarest of exceptions.

Second take. What are my expectations regarding the modern media? News outlets should be at least as principled as high school newspapers, given that we rely upon them for information we use to decide who to run the country. I expect that editors will reject stories for which there is no evidence.

I lean strongly to the left on most political issues, but there are a lot of self-proclaimed progressives who despise people like me who question the “progressive” canon. Their solution for people like me:  they try to hurt my feelings by calling me a “conservative.” I've seen it over and over. It is laughable. These are the many people for whom thinking has become a team sport, who are afraid to allow facts to fall where they will and only THEN concoct opinions. These are the victims we were warned about by the excellent documentary, "The Social Dilemma." They have lost their ability to think critically, both by silo-inducing social media and also by politically corrupted legacy media.

I obtained the factual bits of this story by reading Glenn Greenwald, who self-publishes at Substack in order to escape the reach of editors and co-workers who think their jobs are to swear allegiance to a particular political party. He points out in his piece the hatred toward him by many of those in the legacy media for his crime of pointing out these problems.

Because of its centrality to the media narrative and agenda, anyone who tried to point out the serious factual deficiencies in this story — in other words, people trying to be journalists — were smeared by Democratic Party loyalists who pretend to be journalists as "Sicknick Truthers,” white nationalist sympathizers, and supporters of insurrection.

I need to mention, Greenwald takes massive abuse for reporting for the sake of getting the facts right, and the social venom to which he is subjected seems to make dig in even harder to set the record straight.

I will end with one more excerpt from Greenwald's article to demonstrate the extreme levels of hypocrisy the Sicknick story illustrates. The title of Greenwald’s article: “The Media Lied Repeatedly About Officer Brian Sicknick's Death. And They Just Got Caught. Just as with the Russia Bounty debacle, they will never acknowledge what they did. Their audience wants to be lied to for partisan gain and emotional pleasure.”

Truth matters. Noble lies are never justified no matter the cause, especially in journalism. But these employees of corporate media outlets have been taught the exact opposite model: that their primary obligation is to please and flatter the partisan agenda and political sensibilities of their audience even if it means lying or recklessly spreading unproven theories to do it. That is their profit model. And they have trained their audiences to want and expect this and that is why they never feel compelled to engage in any self-critique or accountability when they get caught doing this: their audiences want to be lied to — they are grateful for it — and would prefer that they not admit they did it so that their partisan interests will not be undermined.

What is most depressing about this entire spectacle is that, this time, they exploited the tragic death of a young man to achieve their tawdry goals. They never cared in the slightest about Officer Brian Sicknick. They had just spent months glorifying a protest movement whose core view is that police officers are inherently racist and abusive. He had just become their toy, to be played with and exploited in order to depict the January 6 protest as a murderous orgy carried out by savages so primitive and inhuman that they were willing to fatally bash in the skull of a helpless person or spray them with deadly gases until they choked to death on their own lung fluids. None of it was true, but that did not matter — and it still does not to them — because truth, as always, has nothing to do with their actual function. If anything, truth is an impediment to it.

Continue ReadingThe “News” Media Again Creates Something Out of Nothing

Story about BLM Co-Founder Not Allowed Pursuant to Facebook’s Version of Free Speech

For many people it is an interesting fact that the co-founder of organization Black Lives Matters has gone on a expensive home buying spree. Hasn't this story been told hundreds of times over the years when famous people do some expensive signaling? It sometimes raises interesting questions about where these people got all of that money. In this case, it was determined by the New York Post that Patrisse Khan-Cullors bought four houses worth $3.2M. In a country that values free speech, information should flow and people can make of these stories what they want. For some people it won't be a big deal. For others, these purchases are controversial, because it suggests that money that should be going to a non-profit cause is being siphoned off into luxury.

The story about this story is much more interesting. It was reported by the New York Post. But Facebook (and Instagram) will not allow you to share this story, as discussed by FOX:

Facebook has barred users from sharing a New York Post report from last week about the controversial property acquisitions by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors.

Users of the social media giant noticed on Thursday they could not share the link to a story that shed light on Cullors' multi-million-dollar splurge on homes. Fox News can confirm that an error message appears whenever users try sharing the article on their personal Facebook page or through the Messenger app.

When users attempt to send the link, an error message alleges that the article "goes against our Community Standards."

The New York Post published this follow-up story today, where Khan-Cullors claimed in a strangely narrowly-tailored defense: "“I have never taken a salary from the Black Lives Matters Global Networks Foundation,” she also said Thursday."

Again, this real estate buying spree could be an interesting story for many people, especially for those who wonder whether their donations to BLM (and its many affiliates) are really helping struggling black people.  The NYP adds: "But in insisting she did not take a salary from the organization’s non-profit foundation, Khan-Cullors left unsaid whether she was paid through BLM’s network of similarly named for-profit entities." Shouldn't people be able to freely share this information and make up their own minds about whether it is interesting?

Numerous Facebook users, however, were blocked from sending the NYP story.  One of those people, Abigail Shrier, was blocked from sending it as a private message on FB Messenger. Outraged, she wrote: "Facebook will not allow you to post this NY Post story or even to message it to another person. (I just tested it). So Facebook is now effectively opening your mail and reading the contents for ideologically objectionable material."

Shrier (who has been victimized by silicon valley regarding her book--and see here) (with the modern version of the ACLU joining in with this censorship) is following up on this disturbing censorship.

Continue ReadingStory about BLM Co-Founder Not Allowed Pursuant to Facebook’s Version of Free Speech

A Brave Math Teacher Describes How his School Indoctrinates Young Children in Wokeness Ideology

We need more brave teachers like Paul Rossi, who guest-authored this article on Bari Weiss' Substack website: "I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated: Children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school. That’s why I am." Here is an excerpt:

I know that by attaching my name to this I’m risking not only my current job but my career as an educator, since most schools, both public and private, are now captive to this backward ideology. But witnessing the harmful impact it has on children, I can’t stay silent.

My school, like so many others, induces students via shame and sophistry to identify primarily with their race before their individual identities are fully formed. Students are pressured to conform their opinions to those broadly associated with their race and gender and to minimize or dismiss individual experiences that don’t match those assumptions. The morally compromised status of “oppressor” is assigned to one group of students based on their immutable characteristics. In the meantime, dependency, resentment and moral superiority are cultivated in students considered “oppressed.”

All of this is done in the name of “equity,” but it is the opposite of fair. In reality, all of this reinforces the worst impulses we have as human beings: our tendency toward tribalism and sectarianism that a truly liberal education is meant to transcend.

Rossi offers details and it is shocking to see what goes on in the name of education, especially the fact that his school excels at telling those with contrarian viewpoints to shut up and feel ashamed for thinking.

I notice from the school's "Message from the Head of School" page, that the school is not inclined to do real work, to look in the mirror or to consider the long-term consequences of its incredibly divisive approach to running Grace Church High School. That message ends:

So if the boorish “cancel culture” press wants to condemn us a newly dubbed “Woke Noho” school of politeness, dignity and respect, then I embrace it, and I hope you will too. George P. Davison Head of School

I financially support the work of Bari Weiss on Substack. Please consider joining me.

Continue ReadingA Brave Math Teacher Describes How his School Indoctrinates Young Children in Wokeness Ideology