I like Patrick Frey, better known online as Patterico, even if we tend to disagree about many things. But we did agree on two things, that the current spate of laws being proposed and enacted to prohibit the teaching of critical race theories in K-12 public schools are bad laws, poorly written, vague and overbroad, often unconstitutional and will wreak havoc on both education and law.
Law is hard, and expressing in the blunt instrument of words what you’re trying to accomplish is hard when the goal is simple and straightforward is often too difficult to do. Expressing something as ephemeral as a prohibited concept is likely impossible. But at the same time, both Patrick and I agree that indoctrinating students into an array of CRT, Kendian anti-racist curricula, dumbing down education to accommodate excuses for disparate outcomes, is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed.
The laws prohibit teaching CRT, but CRT isn’t really the problem. It’s become a catch-all, mislabeled in large part although somewhat understandably, for what has become a point of attack against progressive shifts in educational theory and curriculum shifts. Was America founded upon universal principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or was it founded to be a racist nation dedicated to maintaining slavery, but wrapped up in lies perpetrated by slaveowners to cover their true purpose of subjugation of black people? Has America progressed since then or are we just pretending that our society is neutral while imposing whatever version of Jim Crow we’re on at this point?
It’s hard to explain critical race theory, which is grounded in viewing everything through the lens of race. This is one of the reasons why it has served so well as a right-wing bogeyman, on the one hand, and a rallying cry for progressives on the other.
In a recent piece in The Week, Damon Linker criticized the left for being what he called “anti-anti-critical race theory,” sidestepping legitimate objections to what he described as a “pernicious” phenomenon.
Parents protesting critical race theory, he wrote, “do not want their children taught in state-run and state-funded schools that the country was founded on an ideology of white supremacy in which every white child and family today is invariably complicit regardless of their personal views of their Black fellow citizens.” He compared the anti-anti-critical race theory camp to leftists in the 1950s who, while condemning McCarthyism, dismissed justified concerns about Soviet Communism.
Michelle Goldberg believes herself to be an honest broker in this “maddening” debate.
My own position is basically anti-anti-critical race theory, in that I disagree with some ideas associated with C.R.T., especially around limiting speech, but am extremely alarmed by efforts to demonize and ban it. There’s certainly some material that critics lump in with C.R.T. that strikes me as ridiculous and harmful. I’ve seen the risible training for school administrators calling worship of the written word “white supremacy culture.” There’s a version of antiracism based on white people’s narcissistic self-flagellation that seems to me to accomplish very little.
But I’m highly skeptical that many public schools are teaching that “every white child and family today is invariably complicit” in white supremacy. Rather, the campaign against critical race theory is doing exactly what Rufo wanted it to: taking inchoate anger about what’s often derided as wokeness and directing it onto public education. In some ways, it’s like the campaign against sex education, where conservative activists would either cherry-pick or invent lurid anecdotes to try to discredit the whole project.
Before turning to the issues in her self-flagellating serving critique, note that she too can tell you what’s wrong with those seeking to demonize it, but what she cannot explain is what it is and what’s meritorious about it. Some (and perhaps it will happen in the comments here) will string together a series of vapid jargon that neither says nor means much of anything, smug in the belief that they’ve regurgitated pseudo-intellectual gibberish to make their case. It doesn’t.
But Goldberg’s more fundamental mistake is that she frames this as a fight between the forces of good, even if somewhat misguided in its silencing of speech and ideas that fail to adhere to its orthodoxy, and evil as represented by Christopher Rufo. This isn’t a battle between Rufo and Kendi, or right-wingnuts and the rest of society.
Concern about the downward spiral in education (there are correct answers in math, at least in K-12 math), about the language policing and trigger warnings, back when trigger warnings had yet to be found triggering, have existed long before anyone heard of Rufo, long before CRT became the bogeyman of the moment. And then seized upon by conservative legislators whose only weapon are poorly conceived and badly drafted laws. The failings of these misguided efforts is so obvious that even Jeffrey Sachs has been able to provide a reasonably cogent critique. And Greg Lukianoff of FIRE has done a thoughtful dive into the cesspool.
But Goldberg makes two fundamental errors. The first is her assumption that the concerns raised are only held by right-wing extremists. This is understandable given her myopia and presumption that much of the array of woke ideology is entirely fine and good, and thus uncontroversial. Of course schools should teach that the country is divided into privileged and oppressed groups, because it is.
Of course this is the view of the majority because she’s just a normal intelligent person and that’s what she believes, and no decent intelligent person could believe otherwise. Except there is a wide berth of people, from liberals to moderate conservatives, who believe schools have no business teaching students to be racially decent people in geometry class.
The other mistake is that since this isn’t happening in her child’s class (even if it is but she’s okay with it as it hasn’t reached the stage where her kid has to confess her white supremacy and find some feet to wash), it’s not a real problem but a manufactured political wedge. There is no question that it’s happening. Waiting until it’s a fait accompli, at children’s expense, has never proven a wise strategy. And this is the point of folks like Damon Linker, and even someone as thick as Jeffrey Sachs. These laws are bad, but distinguishing between teaching and indoctrinating needs to be addressed before the damage is done. And the damage is being done.
***
Oliver Traldi warned us at the outset of this next front in the culture war that we would battle over rhetoric as the woke (yet another word in the ever-deepening pile of self-descriptors for progressives that have morphed into unusable pejoratives) desperately avoided confronting the insinuation of their ideology into education, all the while pretending it’s not happening and is just some right-wing moral panic. Two plus two does not equal five, and whether a second-grader should be made to feel shame and guilt for slavery isn’t your subject to teach to someone else’s children.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“But she can not explain what it is and what is meritorious about it”.
This. None of the advocates can. Or will. Instead they’re being sophist and coy. Which strongly suggests that they know it’s unpopular and even bad for the children that are being taught.
If a school district somewhere decided to teach a curriculum that said that blacks are less intelligent than other races, and were lazy and shiftless and prone to violence, people like Goldberg (and you and I) would find it abhorrent. 99% of the people would.
But that’s what the pro-CRTs are advocating – let’s take everyone and put them in stereotype filled buckets. It’s appalling. Goldberg and her ilk are no different than David Duke. They just hate a different group of people.
But we already have laws that prohibit teaching of stuff about people of color like described above. Don’t we? They why won’t they also cover CRT, which is every bit as racist as the KKK?
If not, short of passing these poorly conceived laws, what’s the solution?
My solution is calling bullshit as loud as I can and putting my name and ass on the line as a old school liberal for whom ideological indoctrination is unacceptable no matter who does it.
“Critical race theory” sounds so generic and euphemistic. We should look to the nomenclature and spirit of “strategic essentialism” and call it “strategic white supremacy.” Much more descriptive. Also points to a better objection to it than “but ‘murica!”
Orwell (ugh) made the point that if you deprive people of the language with which to express an idea, the idea will die for lack of ability to convey it to others. Of the various words and phrases that have been used over the past few years to characterize the radical fringe of the left, critical race theory has a particularly nefarious sound to it, which is likely why Chris Rufo seized upon it as his focal point.
I used the word “array” here. Is that a better description? Is there any comprehensive description that can’t be picked apart at its edges as being either meaninglessly vague or pejorative? Beats me.
Most of these stupid laws are going to be struck down. People who don’t want their children indoctrinated with anti-whiteness propaganda are going to have to rely on alternatives to the public schools.
Or they are going to vote in school boards that won’t allow it to be taught. Most places School boards are elected, vote them out its the American way
Certain school districts (Loudoun County VA) have made it very clear that CRT is here to stay, enforced by the Sheriff. Any parent that objects will be (and have been) arrested.
Given that you’ve made clear you don’t think well of Sach’s reasoning abilities, I was surprised to see that you included him in the post so I read his Arc post. I think you’ve been too kind. First, he castigates laws for prohibiting (he uses the inappropriate word “illegal”) the “inclusion” of “concepts,” and not just their promotion.
Then the next paragraph, he condemns the inclusion of “promote” racial divisions because it would preclude students from watching a presidential debate. Sorry, but his reasoning here was just as bad as before. He’s definitely shooting for twitter-level genius.
Sachs gets a lot of positive reaction for his takes, though not from lawyers or anyone with substantive knowledge. Because I’m not an “ends justify the means” kinda guy, bad and fallacious reasoning doesn’t cut it even if the conclusion isn’t entirely wrong.
If that’s what he considers a “deep dive,” then he’d drown in a puddle.
Sorry, but between the nutpicking (creationism?) and the assumption (it would prohibit both, rules Judge Sachs?) even here Sachs’ ability to make a rational argument fails.
At best, he’s a well-intended simpleton. At worst, he’s just dumb, sad and lazy.
Fine. That was dumb.
For a non-lawyer article, it wasn’t bad. Of course it was shallow, but it’s for an audience that loves Big Macs. At least he wasn’t nearly as full of shit as he usually is.
Full of shit has its audience too, you know.
“Sachs of shit” is actually a common phrase.
But can you fit it all in a duffle bag?
Duffel was the name of the town where the cloth came from to make duffel bags.
So what “we”need, around here, is an acronym for Greenfield/SJ “cloth” so we can finally hit the road with all the “nice” things we “have” all neat and tidy. happily in their “place”.
How hard can that be…..?
Not hard at all….
Introducing the all new, infinitely adaptive, intelligently designed, SHaG BaG!!!
The SHaG BaG is made from environmentally friendly, non-GMO, organically grown, locally sourced, synthetic materials.
Securely holds anything that’s not stupider.
Automatically ejects any kind of bullshit you try to pack it with, while eloquently insulting you with witty phrases and cultural references you don’t understand.
Supplies are limited, so get your SHaG BaG today, and be THE coolest kid on the (cell) block!!!
That sounds pretty damn cool. I’d buy one.
If you give me a 85% cut and sell ‘um on your side bar, I will get a few hundred manufactured. Need to talk to the costume designers about my Select Committee porn series sometime this week anyway…
Go GD!!!
P.S. I bet I can even grow me some synthetic materials if I tip good next time I am at the BDSM gear warehouse….
Nylon is in fashion dont you know and nothing like dinosaur remains to get me creative via my poly gardening…
First, I’m going to need proof of concept.
Will float some ideas by the costume folks…
And get back to you…
I will pluck a few classic posts, your banner, and a mug shot of you before your beard went all gray..
Might take them a while but they will come up with something….
I am thinking some really interesting patches, and pockets are in order…
If you have any “must-haves” via design… now would be the time…..
P.S. gotta love SHaG BaG
I don’t know why you’re worrying about CRT in schools when there are towns taken over by Sharia law and daycare centers run by Satanists.
Reddit is down the hall to the left.