What is the Critical Race Theory?

[Dill]

(05-28-2021, 12:10 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: 1.) My concerns and my opinion mainly revolve around what's being learned rather than what's being taught.  What are students taking away from these classes? 

Is it helping them?  Is it helping race relations?  Is it helping people come together more?  Is helping to empower students?

Or is hurting students?  Is it hurting race relations?  Is it causing more division?  Does it lead to resentment, or shame?  Does it cause Black Americans to feel futher removed from the "system" and to feel like they don't have the same chances of success in life?

I haven't taken these classes, and there's so many different examples of CRT that have been presented that's almost impossible to critique the subject as a whole.  I just don't understand what the end-game is here.  I also don't understand why we're introducing sociology into the lower levels of education.

2.) I've seen countless examples of college aged students, college grads and adults in general stuggle with so much of what surrounds these issues.  And when I say countless, I mean hundreds of hundreds of times over.  I've seen this in comments sections, on Twitter, on Reddit, watching debates on college campuses, seeing footage of protests, seeing interactions on sites like youtube, etc.

Now, granted, these may not all be the result of CRT specifically.  Some of these opinions may be parroted from all over.  Some may be learned in Sociology courses in college that differ from CRT but they share similar talking points.  But I still think when you introduce some of these shared talking points it's not at all given that students will come away with what was intended by exploring them.

There's an incredible amount of nuance to these subjects and much of it seems lost on those who in engage in speaking about it or debating it.  If I had more time I had go down the rabbit hole that is yoube tube and provide with examples but it would take forever.  I'm hoping you know the type of rheotic I'm speaking of.

I think it's too early to answer your questions.

Also, it is important to note that questions about CRT in the curriculum, and its effects, are difficult to separate from the other confusions and mass disinformation which dog public discussion of U.S. race relations. 

First off, it is not clear whether and to what degree CRT informs much of the US HS curriculum. CA is supposedly adopting a CRT informed curriculum. Chicago schools decided to use the NYT 1619 Project as a supplement. That means they are adding some news paper articles to class discussion. I'm guessing there are huge swaths of school districts across the nation who may not be doing anything like this, especially in mostly white districts. But it may be popular where there are more diverse populations. (Bpat would have a WAY better sense than I what is the case.) 

However, we are seeing a huge political reaction against this supposedly "racist" curriculum, and most in places where it's not clear that it CRT, as theory or perspective, is actually being taught.  Just as "voter integrity" legislation swept Republican legislatures across the country last month--and in states with no record of voter fraud--now we have a similar push to ban courses which teach that your race makes you responsible for what your ancestors did. I don't see how this can be driven by anything actually going on in the classroom.  I do see how it can be driven by Fox News segments linking CRT to "cultural Marxism," which teaches us to hate America and blame Whitey for all our problems. 

Division? People involved in the aforementioned conflict have different ideas about what constitutes and creates "division." CNN is airing a documentary on the Tulsa riots this weekend. Will that cause "shame" and create "division"? If that is our worry, then the solution is simple for some--don't teach history that shames whites. Teach patriotic history.  Many people, white and black, have never heard of the Tulsa riots (or similar ones during the period), because heretofore whites have largely been protected from the shame and division lying beyond patriotic history. From this perspective, "helping race relations" means keeping us all in the dark about the past to protect white sensitivities. And it harbors a resolve NOT to look into how the racial architecture of many institutions, inherited from that past-beyond-patriotism, may continue to function, noticed only in effects for which other explanations (e.g., individual failure) may be readily provided. 

I have no doubt you have seen "countless examples" of people arguing about race relations in the U.S. Without examples, 2-3 links at least, I just can't be sure how any of what you are seeing really arises from public school curricula. I have seen college students misuse (in my view) definitions of "systemic racism" by, for example, telling me they can't be racist but I can.  That suggests exposure to, but not mastery of, CRT. Perhaps the kind of exposure one gets on Youtube. 

But that seems to me a very small problem next to the bigger one of how CRT becomes the bogey man responsible for "cultural Marxist" division in the US and begins driving legislation to squelch "truth matters" history in favor of the "non-divisive" patriotic type.

LOL Remember when the Oklahoma legislature voted to ban all Sharia law from state courts? Similar "threat" here.