“But Where is Critical Race Theory Actually Being Taught?”

When I deny that the current versions of CRT are related to the Civil Rights Movement, I assert this because:

A) CRT and antiracism are obsessed with dividing people into "colors" and treating them differently on the basis of "color."

B) The Platform of CRT and antiracism have no meaningful mechanism for improving the lives of the poor minority populations they pretend to serve.

C) CRT and antiracism excel at denying data relating to their mission (including police statistics and economic facts, such as the fact that 60% of Americans who identify as "black" are middle class or above).

D) CRT and antiracism advocates do not extol the teachings of Martin Luther King.  In fact, King's teachings are barely mentioned in training materials.

There are other difference too, but this is a sampling based upon some of the articles I've written recently.

Increasing numbers of people are starting to understand that CRT and "antiracism" have no meaning connection to do with the traditional Civil Rights Movement, but now they are increasingly denying that CRT and "antiracism" are being taught in schools. I see this as motivated reasoning based on the fact that most of these people (the ones I know) are only exposed to left-leaning legacy media. These people admit of only a few outliers and deny that CRT or antiracism is a significant problem in the U.S. I disagree, based on these resources:

The recent case of Dana stangel-Plowe, former teacher at a school in Englewood.

The recent case of Paul Rossi.

The observations of Andrew Gutmann, a former parent at Brearly School.

Christopher Rufo's reports based upon leaked training materials at numerous schools.

Chloe Valdary teaches a good-hearted program to diminish bigotry she compares to the CRT programs of which she is knowledgable.

Numerous reports by Parents Defending Education.

Numerous reports of attempted cancellation based on CRT here.

Reports at businesses by Counterweight.

Many more reports here, by Princetonians for Free Speech.

I have also been personally contacted by approximately a dozen people who work in academia who are afraid to speech honestly on issues because CRT permeates the campus

More reports here (Stanford) and here (Rutgers).

John McWhorter's receipt of numerous complaints (see the comments) here.

Another recent resource is Christopher Rufo's "Critical Race Theory Briefing Book." 

There are numerous other reports, more of them surfacing every week. I will try to update this list periodically.

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Youtube needs to Read its own Mission Statement

Before it imposes any further sanctions on Brett Weinstein, Youtube needs to read its own mission statement:

Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.

We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.

Our values are based on four essential freedoms that define who we are. Freedom of Expression

We believe people should be able to speak freely, share opinions, foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats and possibilities. Freedom of Information

We believe everyone should have easy, open access to information and that video is a powerful force for education, building understanding, and documenting world events, big and small.

Freedom of Opportunity We believe everyone should have a chance to be discovered, build a business and succeed on their own terms, and that people—not gatekeepers—decide what’s popular.

Freedom to Belong We believe everyone should be able to find communities of support, break down barriers, transcend borders and come together around shared interests and passions

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The Straw-Manning of Christopher Rufo

Many people who only read left-leaning legacy media falsely assume that they are well-informed. They take their own select slice of information as a proxy for the full gamut of available information. Many do this because they don't want to spend an admittedly exhausting amounts of time doubling or tripling their news gathering time, much less doing the extra-hard work of processing conflicting accounts from various sources of information. Limiting our news gathering intellectually crimps us, but then we don't know what we don't know, so ignorance becomes bliss. Ignorance feels powerful and omniscient.

I'm posting these concerns because I keep hearing from people who are absolutely convinced that they know that criticism of CRT (Critical Race Theory) is a sham because they've heard about it at NYT/WaPo/NPR. These same news sources also tell us that Christoper Rufo is to be ignored because some Republicans find some of his ideas attractive. There is a much bigger world out there than left-learning legacy media. I lean left on many issues, but I keep encountering ad hominem attacks that I am a "conservative" or "Republican" because I don't pass the DNC purity test. Such simplistic and silo-driven reasoning!

I have been provoked to write this article because I noticed several people on FB citing WaPo's recent piece that starts off by straw-manning Rufo's concerns with this sentence: "Critical race theory holds that racism is systemic in the United States, not just a collection of individuals prejudices--—an idea that feels obvious to some and offensive to others." And with this single sentence, WaPo's entire article becomes a fraud. But those who choose to trust WaPo as authority wouldn't know it. If anyone wants to be truly informed, please consider Rufo's response to WaPo's article on Twitter. Of course, you don't HAVE TO read Rufo's response. But don't consider yourself well-informed unless you do.

[Added June 22, 2021]

The Washington Post walks back many steps.

Continue ReadingThe Straw-Manning of Christopher Rufo