Do you agree with the Black way of seeing the world? Oh . . . wait a minute. There is not one "Black" way of seeing the world and this is one of my biggest problems with modern social justice/CRT rhetoric. This video illustrates the how misguided it is to try to shove people into ideological or political silos based upon immutable physical characteristics.
In response to the illiberal political Left attempts to mangle history, statistics and science in classrooms, we increasingly see the political Right attempting to ban books, courses and ideas in school, often through ill-considered legislation. The ability of children to learn is being damaged by both of these groups. Andrew Sullivan suggests a way forward in his Substack article, "The Right's Ugly War On Woke Schooling: There is a better way to defeat left indoctrination than banning books." Here is an excerpt:
The trouble is that banning courses restricts discourse, and does not expand it. It gives woke racialist theories the sheen of “forbidden knowledge.” It removes the moral high-ground from those seeking to defend liberal learning from ideologues of any variety. And it sets an early lesson for kids that the right response to bad arguments is to gets authorities to suppress them — exactly what the woke believe — and not to marshal arguments that refute them. Greg Lukianoff calls this “unlearning liberty.” If want to end an American education like that, don’t copy it!
And these kinds of laws have to be vague and thereby overreach, or be very specific and permit clever ways to get around them. The woke love manipulating language to deconstruct society. Look how they took the word “racist” and redefined it. Look at how they’ve deployed a word like “equity.” Ban words? They redefine them. Ban courses? They’ll call them something else. If a social justice warrior teacher is teaching genetics, they can always stealthily introduce trans ideology — and only the kids would know.
A better way is to insist that any course or lesson that involves critical theory must include an alternative counterpoint. If you have to teach Nikole Hannah-Jones, add a section on Zora Neale Hurston; for every Kendi tract, add McWhorter; for every Michael Eric Dyson screed, offer a Glenn Loury lecture. Same elsewhere. No gender studies course without a course on biological sex and gender-critical viewpoints. No “queer theory” class without texts from non-leftists, who are not falsifying history or asserting that homosexuality is socially constructed all the way down. This strategy doesn’t ban anything; it adds something. It demands that schools make sure they’re helping kids think for themselves.
If your kid, black or white, is treated differently by a school or a teacher in class because of his or her race, there is already a remedy: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If your child is forced to sit in a section designated for one oppressive or oppressed race, sue. If your son is told he is inherently toxic because he is a boy, or straight, sue. If an Asian or white kid is told she bears responsibility for the long effects of slavery because of her race, sue. This way, we are not banning anything, and we are defending civil rights.
Then we need transparency. Public schools should have their curricula and lesson plans posted online. And no state public school funds should be spent on the equity industrial complex: defund equity consultants, DEI conferences and struggle sessions for either teachers or students. If teachers want to bone up on Judith Butler or Robin DiAngelo, they can do it on their own dime. If this sounds harsh, so be it. Critical theory should be treated more like creationism in public schools than scholarship: an unfalsifiable form of religion, preferably banned outright, but if not, always accompanied by Darwin.
I absolutely agree with Glenn Greenwald here. I would further add that there are no homogeneous groupings at all. To suggest otherwise is to start down the slippery slope to identity politics. Even the members of tight-knit families are dramatically different from each other, which can be seen when you take the time to get to known them as individuals.
And why is it that we leave out people from low-earning people without college degrees when we claim the need for "diversity"? I believe that it is because it is perfectly OK to treat low-earning working class people without college degrees as pariahs in modern society--just try to find some of them in featured roles on TV shows and movies. The heroes live in fancy apartments and they wear expensive clothes.
Even one step further, which member of the working class. They are not all the same. If you take the time to get to know people who don't earn much money this is indisputably clear.
One more for now: what about viewpoint diversity? When we speak of having a "diverse" environment, that is overlooked, often intentionally, I believe, because it blows apart the notion that merely recruiting a "woman of color" into the conversation would be a meaningful way to achieve true diversity.
How many people are there on the planet? Seven billion? There are seven billion types of people on this planet.
I saw this Rogan interview with Krystal and Saagar. I've watched a lot of Joe Rogan for the past two years. He leans far left on most issues he discusses, but that's not good enough for most people and news media on the political left, who seek to purification, not nuanced discussion. Many of them have no idea what to do with people like Rogan, who hold heterodox opinions. They reject the idea of human complexity and they are increasibly thinking in cartoons. That is the subject of Krystal Ball's 7-minute commentary. It was spot on. I've seen this rejection of the "impure" on FB over and over. IMO, this is ruining the political left and sending many voters over to the political right, which is morally bankrupt.
My advice to people on the political left: Quit demonizing people who are not aligned with your views. Quit writing off everyone who voted differently than you. Engage openly and respectfully with your family, neighbors and friends who think differently than you. I'm an atheist, but Jesus had it right when he gave the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies." I give thanks today that we don't all think alike. And I give thanks for the wisdom of John Stuart Mill. And I give thanks for the courage and soaring inspirational thoughts of Martin Luther King: Hate cannot drive out hate and we should judge each other only by the content of our character. Let's start judging each other more wisely starting today.
Here's what the current climate of hyper-race-consciousness is getting us. It has derailed the career of a top-flight OB/GYN doctor who describes herself as a "bi-racial woman with multi-racial children." Her sin was to believe in the vision of Martin Luther King. She discusses what her employer, Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS), did to her in this short video.
"Dr. Tara Gustilo is of Filipino descent, the mother of black children, and a Harvard-educated physician at Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS) in Minneapolis. She was Chair of the OB/GYN Department, until HHS decided her personal views on race did not correspond with her skin color and revealed her supposed “internalized whiteness.”
Over the last decade, Dr. Gustilo has served successfully in various leadership roles at HHS. She created a program to reflect cultural differences in birthing practices to better serve her diverse patients. But over time, her colleagues transformed this program into racially segregated care.
When Dr. Gustilo voiced her objections, advocated for race-neutral care, and criticized racial essentialism on her personal Facebook page, her colleagues told her that she, as a person of color, should hold the same race-essentialist views they do and could not lead because she does not share those beliefs. HHS then removed her from her position as Chair of the OB/GYN department. Dr. Gustilo has now filed an EEOC discrimination charge against HHS."
Unfortunately, there are many more stories like this. You can read about many of them at Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism ("FAIR").