Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster invited Jodi Show onto their show to describe her experiences at Smith College. The details show the extent to which Critical Race Theory and Woke ideas have infected the culture of Smith College.
An excerpt of Jodi Shaw's discussion from the 18 min mark:
I started sending emails and asking for definitions because clearly we were using different dictionaries at this point I well understood that my definition of racism was not consistent with um smith college's definition and nor was my definition of what i think of with equity and inclusion, so I started asking for definitions and I wasn't able to get those. Instead I got referred to Ibram X. Kendi’s book. I got sent an essay called Me and White Supremacy . . .
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
I am thinking of MLK's words, week by week, as I watch the moral rot of Critical Race Theory (CRT) spread through our sense-making institutions: our colleges, media outlets and government bodies. And more recently, we can see this at Amazon and Ebay and in the censorship policies of huge social media corporations that attempt to control what we share with each other.
The sad irony is that what is now passing as a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement is the opposite of the Civil Rights Movement. The Woke movement demands that we judge each other's character and legal rights by irrelevant characteristics, not by the content of our character.
It's time to stand up and publicly declare that this Woke ideology, this Woke religion, is a fraud. Critical Race Theory divides us and spreads suspicion and hatred. Critical Race Theory attacks the central teachings of Martin Luther King.
It might be uncomfortable for you to stand up to state these obvious things publicly, but there are many important reasons to summon the courage to speak up. Who do you want to see when you look in the mirror in the morning? Do you see a person who is courageous or do you see a person who is afraid to speak truth to a misguided mob? Are you willing to sit in silence while that mob smears the teachings of Martin Luther King, a man whose ideas are so treasured that we set aside a national holiday in his honor?
Considerable numbers of Woke educators in Oregon are advocating that the math curriculum for grade school students needs to be revised. The Educators are claiming that under the current methods of teaching, Black children do not have a fair opportunity to learn math. The Educators are making the preposterous claim that math teachers need to jettison the exactitude of math in order for Black children to have a fair chance. The Educators claim that this is one step in their efforts to rid schools of "white supremacy." At his own website, McWhorter lays out parts of the Oregon proposal:
1. a focus on getting the “right” answer is “perfectionism” or “either/or thinking;”
2. the idea that teachers are teachers and students are learners is wrong;
3. to think of it as a problem that the expectations you have of students are not met is racist;
4. to teach math in a linear fashion with skills taught in sequence is racist;
5. to value “procedural fluency” – i.e. knowing how to do the fractions, long division … -- over “conceptual knowledge” is racist. That is, black kids are brilliant to know what math is trying to do, to know “what it’s all about,” rather than to actually do the math, just as many of us read about what physics or astrophysics accomplishes without ever intending to master the math that led to the conclusions;
6. to require students to “show their work” is racist;
7. requiring students to raise their hand before speaking “can reinforce paternalism and powerhoarding, in addition to breaking the process of thinking, learning, and communicating.”
Glenn Loury and John McWhorter tear apart this racist and demeaning Oregon proposal in this recent podcast.
This is what I believe: No person should ever be judged based on how they look. To judge each other by the way we look destroys trust and hurts innocent people. To treat people differently based on any irrelevant factor is to embrace the bizarre "logic" of astrology and phrenology. There is only one human family and it consists of millions of exquisitely complex individuals who should be judged only on their individual merits. To all of the Dividers out there, we need to say "No More!"
Increasingly, American institutions — colleges and universities, businesses, government, the media and even our children’s schools — are enforcing a cynical and intolerant orthodoxy. This orthodoxy requires us to view each other based on immutable characteristics like skin color, gender and sexual orientation. It pits us against one another, and diminishes what it means to be human.
Today, almost 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education ushered in the Civil Rights Movement, there is an urgent need to reaffirm and advance its core principles. To insist on our common humanity. To demand that we are each entitled to equality under the law. To bring about a world in which we are all judged by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin.
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