[cbsmith]

Yeah, that's not what Critical Race Theory is or how it could be applied to schools.

The irony of you bringing this up in the context of propaganda is amusing.

There's a good short interview NPR did today with Gloria Ladson-Billings, who has been working on applying critical race theory for education policy for over a couple of decades: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1009182206/academic-who-broug...

Be careful out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there.

[esyir]

Having seen the media about crt, as well as the way it's applied and the attitudes of its adherents, its pretty close to the truth.

And its hard to argue with the result. Whatever is going on, that particular strain of "crt" is virulently spreading.

[cbsmith]

"The media about crt"

s/media/propaganda/

Keep in mind you're being fed a narrative. CRT has been around for decades, and isn't something you can apply in a grade school curriculum (as Gloria Ladson-Billings said, it isn't something you teach in undergrad at college... it's a subject for post graduate study/research). There's a reason you're hearing about this now.

[esyir]

You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement.

Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society.

Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances.

Then look at intersectionality. The US is literally fractured along identity lines, with people literally pulling that separation and interaction of the various subidentitites to war with one another. Look at the slow march towards "male gays are oppressors" that you see on LBGT communities AND the mainstream media [1].

How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism?

Reparations and separation (CHAZ, general talk) anyone? Also common themes in academic CRT.

It's pretty clear to me, building from the principles of CRT, and the common themes in their papers have punctured that academic bubble into the mainstream. We're hearing about it now because of this. I certainly don't like it.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-gay-privilege-ex...

[2] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_...

[cbsmith]

> You attacked probably the weakest part of that entire statement.

I wasn't intending to attack.

> Your claim that it's a subject for post graduate study/research might have been true at one point, but many of it's principles have been leaking into multiple levels of society, and in my opinion, to the detriment of society.

It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles.

> Firstly, the focus on storytelling over data that is a hallmark of CRT. This has clearly metastasized. Note the prevalence of personal narratives, and the use of personal narrative to explicitly supplant other sources of truth that's common in today's conveyances.

The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives.

> How punctuality and other such professional merits are now just white people's oppression [2] and that any acceptance of such is considered internalized racism?

The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality.

There may indeed be a lot of the thinking here that has percolated out "into the mainstream". That's kind of the point of these things. You would expect that most ideas would get around throughout society. But no one worries about String Theory being taught in grade school, and the idea of actively trying to ensure it doesn't somehow slip in to the curriculum in grade school is laughable. If you can get students to the mental headspace where you can even begin to examine CRT, you're doing an amazing job as an educator, and I kind of don't care what you proceed to expose them to at that point.

Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape.

> I certainly don't like it.

...and that's the crux of it. We're used to the propaganda we've been fed, and the idea of it changing in anyway is just really upsetting.

[esyir]

>I wasn't intending to attack.

Your argument was targeted there, avoiding the core argument. That's all I meant by that.

>It's not my claim, and the "principles" you're talking about aren't CRT principles.

They're common themes in CRT, to the point where they're basically all that's talked about.

>The idea of a narrative being an important aspect of history education goes back... essentially forever. It doesn't trace back to CRT. It's a core principle of CRT because it predates it... and of course there's the whole thing about certain stories being excluded from our narratives.

Critical theory is distinct for it's deliberate supplanting of other forms of truth with the extremely flexible "lived experience". This is one of it's hallmarks, that "lived experience" takes precedence over all, and it shows in their argumentation style.

>The narrative on punctuality that is currently making the rounds is deliberately misframing the context. There's a reality (that has been studied) about how racism colours the application and enforcement things like punctuality. It's not that punctuality is intrinsically a tool for oppression, but rather how systemic racism plays out through things as trivial as punctuality.

See, that's where I reject that entire premise. It's like saying academic competency as a value is discrimination since there are cultures that prioritize, and thus do better at it. Furthermore, I've seen explicit claims that punctuality, as well as professionalism, or even mathematical competence is racism. It's not misframing the context if it's literally done in this way, on a regular basis.

>Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018? All the brawls at boards of education? The 1100 times that it was mentioned on FOX News in just the first half of that year? Yeah, me neither. Yet somehow, I'm supposed to believe a narrative that there's been some massive nationwide covert shift in school boards, school administrations, and teachers that was executed without any turn over, public policy, etc.? I'm sorry. It's a lot easier to believe that the narrative about CRT is propaganda that plays a role in a larger, otherwise unrelated, political landscape.

I've been following for far longer than that. Sokal's well known 1996 hoax was a fantastic example, and the later grievance studies hoaxes, amongst other critiques, do not give me a good impression of their field, nor of their soundness of theory. And, taking a leaf from critical theory's book, my "lived experience' is that that I've seen those same themes have been percolating through the system bit by bit to create the current virulent cult.

That you think that I see this is a recent phenomenon and am just obviously misinformed, or that you immediately jump to "you clearly get your news from fox propaganda" just comes off as extremely condescending to me. Hell, I don't even reside in the US, and my news consumption was largely left-aligned for the time where I consumed mass-market news.

The Jews were once seen as the evil oppressive cabal, whose influence and "corruption" seeped everywhere. It's the same strategy of defining your enemy that has stood the test of time, but this time it comes dressed in different clothes.

[cbsmith]

> That you think that I see this is a recent phenomenon and am just obviously misinformed, or that you immediately jump to "you clearly get your news from fox propaganda" just comes off as extremely condescending to me.

When I asked you about CRT, you referred to "the media about CRT", rather than CRT itself. Forgive me for thinking that meant the media was the source of your understanding. I don't think you "clearly get your news from FOX propaganda". I mentioned FOX News as a specific example of a dramatic and obvious shift, as evidence of there being propaganda, not any assumption about where you get your news from. For all I know you get your news from carrier pigeons, but that's beside the point.

[ttt0]

> Do you remember all the concern about CRT in 2018?

I do actually. I don't really watch news, so I'm not sure what they were saying, but I do remember the concerns. I got interested in this topic in like 2015-2016, if not earlier.

You can take The College Fix as example. It's a news website specifically focused on education and they were talking about it for a long time. Think of them what you will, it's beside the point, but the concerns about education were undeniably there.

Come on, when was the first time all of you heard about the concept of white privilege? I'm willing to bet that for most people here who haven't been living under a rock it was way before 2019.

[cbsmith]

> Think of them what you will, it's beside the point, but the concerns about education were undeniably there.

Yes, as I said, people have be studying this for decades... and then suddenly, in one year, there is a broad belief that there's a need to pass legislation about it across the country.

[ttt0]

I get the overall idea of what CRT is and it's basically in the same vein as for example The Culture of Critique. Some of it might be fair points, to some of it I have strong objections, but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that. Hell, the same thing can be even said about a lot, if not most, of adults. It's almost impossible to have any reasonable debate around what these actually say, without throwing around words like racist, anti-white, anti-semite, etc. I'm opposed to censoring anything, but just in principle, neither of them should be taught to children, it's a terrible idea. Period.

The NPR interview doesn't really say anything interesting or new to me. All of it applies to The Culture of Critique too. Putting whether these theories are actually true aside for a moment, my point is that if you are opposed to teaching children something like CofC then you should be opposed to CRT as well.

To illustrate my point better, let's take the CNN article on what CRT is: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/critical-race-theory-e...

Here is how CRT is defined, which isn't exactly the most charitable definition of CRT I've ever read, and it frankly sounds completely terrible, but just to demonstrate a point:

> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites.

Now let's change some races around:

> Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most White people, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits Jewish elites.

And this is roughly the conclusion CofC reaches too. So honest question, assuming you can come up with something to substantiate this claim (to keep the discussion simple), would you also be fine with this? Just in principle.

[cbsmith]

> but the bottom line is that children are not mentally and emotionally mature enough to deal with subjects like that

Which is why you can't possibly introduce it in to grade school curriculum. The very idea is laughable.

[cbsmith]

...and to your question, I think you're missing the point of CRT. The point is to look at the systemic effects that may otherwise go unobserved because they aren't experienced by the majority. Swapping it around so that it is the experience of the majority takes it out of that context and makes it pretty much a joke.

[ttt0]

It happens to focus on groups that are currently minorities, but it's not so much about the demographic makeup, but about power. And majority does not equate to power. That's just false, and it'd contradict Marxism, or even something like the colonization of Africa, among other historical events. I don't know the history of Africa in depth, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my assumption is that the European colonizers at the time didn't have to reach the majority of the population to take over the power there. What I'm essentially asking is whether you'd be fine with putting the blame (again, just in principle, so we don't have to debate the validity of such theories) on the Jewish elites for the way things are and the Jewish people for upholding such system, because it doesn't impact them negatively, because they believe it benefits them, because they fear the backlash, and so on and so forth.

But I guess your other comment already answers that, so if you're opposed to practices like the one below, then we're in agreement:

> A public school system in New York has introduced a new curriculum to teach that 'all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism', and show kindergarten classes videos of black children shot and killed by police, instructing them about the dangers of police brutality.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/buffalo-schools-claim-all-...

Appeal to authority just in case, it was fact-checked by Newsweek and ruled as true: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-are-buffalo-schools-teac...

[cbsmith]

> And majority does not equate to power.

Fair.