Conservative and Right Wing cancel culture

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Whose history?



I’m getting weary of keeping up the whole CRT act. It’s not me. It’s going to be offensive to both liberals and conservatives, and it REALLY hammers away at liberals for not getting anything done and for conservatives supporting or enabling liberals. I posted a video of Khiara Bridges covering the basics, so I’m pretty much winding down here.

I would just say why can’t we set aside envy and greed and just accept each other with a spirit of gratitude? You don’t like where you are? Then leave! No opportunities? Leave! Everyone you know is a racist? Forget ‘em. Find people with common values and goals. Change the world by realizing you ideas and dreams. You don’t need anyone else for that. And certainly blaming everything on racism won’t magically make things better.

I'm a free thinker who can sympathize with a black person point of view. But if that said black person, says they want me dead, says i'm cause of all their suffering, and that i'm a 'devil'. How am i supposed to react ? That would kinda make it hard to be on the same page, don't cha think.

His story, written by the victors, Napoleon. Yeah , But History still has a fair amount truth to it.

I may be projecting here - but who wants you dead? If you are perceived as a devil, it may be because you have acted that way towards someone.

You don't have to react at all. You volunteer your reactions.

He probably means a black person saying "I want white people dead."

Honestly this is the majority of the world so many people would be dead. Yeah I wouldn't react, just think this person is delusional and it's not even worth reacting to.

I'm talking about militant sectors of Black rights activists, those who view White people as 'devils' and want them exterminated. As far as i know there are still groups out there who hold that belief. As well as individuals, who just plain despise white people.

I see you have carefully sidestepped my earlier questions.

I don't know if your claims are true but if you are teaching children then my concern is for them and not your beliefs which are self-evidently fixed.

I'll try a different tack and explain how a concept that is triggering you works in college (if it's applied in the K12 education system it would only be student's in year's 11 or 12 who could properly understand).

A theory is a set of ideas or principles that are proposed to predict an outcome. According to the scientific method a theory must be both testable and falsifiable. . This is fact, no amount obfuscation from you is going to change that.

When a theory is presented to students (in this case the social construct of race) it is presented so that students understand the evidence used to support the testable hypothesis e.g. in this case the role of race in shaping the modern world the student lives in but concurrently they must be presented with limitations of the evidence, that there are mitigating factors that can still invite falsifying the theory and/or minimising its impact in some/many areas. This is critical thought.

It is not possible to present critical thinking on such a complex and nuanced principle as "race" to young kids, this is why this high level of cognitive appraisal of a delicate theory is presented at college.

On a separate matter if you decide to follow edicts from a republican dominated state legislature to ban teaching of race in a K12 school (pretending it meets your definition of CRT) you will likely be breaking federal US law. How?

In a 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed whether race could be a factor in maintaining diversity in K-12 schools, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion famously concluded: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But during oral arguments, then-justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “It’s very hard for me to see how you can have a racial objective but a nonracial means to get there.”

When republican states write bills banning CRT they are deliberately vaguely written so according to some legal experts it currently remains unclear whether these new bills are constitutional, or whether they impermissibly restrict free speech
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what- ... ck/2021/05

Besides, it's impossible for republicans to police what goes on inside hundreds of thousands of classrooms. But the intention is clear, many social studies educators have expressed fear that such laws will force teachers to self-censor their own lessons out of concern for parent or administrator complaints.

If you want to look for examples of this type of censorship in the past then look now further than Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany where education material in schools were burned.

I'm not even reading all the rationale for or against virtue-shaming. That's what it is -- shaming people into feeling responsible for their skin colour and an ideology they may or may not espouse. It might be effective for some white, pinheaded racists, but for the majority of people this is not the way to effect change. Shame is the core of trauma, and inflicting shame on people for something they cannot change (e.g., their skin colour, or other people's bigotry toward them), only leads to damaged mental health, hostility, and self-hatred.

People of all colours and all forms of victimisation carry enough shame as it is, and the mental health system isn't designed to support them. It's dangerous to teach people they should hate their own cultural / racial identity, or listen to groupthink persecuting their existence and perpetuating the cycle of segregation, division, or fear.

Education, justice, and systems reform are key, but not rhetoric involving mass stereotypes against any group of human beings -- and certainly not an assignment of blame or shame for children who all are created equal until they're treated otherwise.

I thought we were all better than that.

You’re confusing the definition of “critical” in the context of CRT with the classic definition. Critical Race Theory is not a noun. It’s a verb. Watch the video I posted. All the way through. “Critical” means taking action to effect social change. There’s no “thinking” involved. The “theory” refers to an analytical system founded on the narrative of victim classes, namely minority races oppressed by a dominant culture, which is where “race” comes from. Initially there was no R, just the C and the T, and Critical Theory goes back to Kant and Marx. And don’t forget the contributions of Horkheimer et al. CRT is a spin-off and unique movement apart from CT. The term “CRT” was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. If you really want to know what this thing is, don’t take my word for it. Go to the source. Crenshaw, and the Khiara Bridges video is very well done. These are some of the pioneers of CRT. I’m not cherry-picking conservative propaganda to make a point or to caricature CRT discourse. These women very calmly lay out the tenets of CRT and are not unpleasant or demeaning. Khiara even mentions that CRT is an eclectic topic and can become very complex. But you’ll also note that I’m not wrong.

And explaining “evidence” to a worldview that places an emphasis on narrative and storytelling is just going to make you look like a butthole. That’s pretty dang insensitive, because demanding evidence when blacks are used to whites conveniently ignoring or…oops…”losing” evidence (or just plain not collecting evidence, e.g. Canada)—well, I’ll put it this way: Just how much “evidence” do you think black people had against Klansmen when their men were being lynched? The black community hasn’t forgotten about that. They still experience it. Any time something happens to them (police brutality) and they can now show body cam footage and white cops STILL get acquittals—well, that’s not evidence; but when they get arrested for a nonviolent offense, everything they say is used against them.

Do you see how condescending speech about the importance of “evidence” is a racist micro aggression?

Regarding elementary school students, I think you fail to understand childhood development. I’ve taught kids from kindergarten through senior year. I’m aware of how kids learn. If I teach a child, say, how to play the clarinet, I’m not going to start with a fully assembled instrument. I’m going to start with how to form the correct embouchure. Then how to assemble the mouthpiece and barrel. Then it’s tongue position, air pressure, and then make a sound. Once we get that far, we can assemble the rest of the clarinet and start learning notes. For the first several weeks, we might not learn past the first 5 notes with the left hand. But we can use that time to learn rhythm, reading music, and some easy songs. Then we move on to the right hand, crossing the break, and that’s the first year. By 4th year or so we should be learning one of the Weber concerti. But it’s a steady progression of reviewing fundamentals and building on that.

Similarly, basic CRT concepts would be easy to teach beginning with kindergarten, but you start with learning about different cultures, or recognizing differences among students. And maybe you do a project where each student brings in family photos, and you gently point out differences in how different families live. Or ask and compare what different parents do for a living. What you’ll do over time is create an awareness of how people of different cultures live and lead kids to make the connection between race and quality of life. Then the common thread of racism throughout history, and finally (by middle school) the Middle Passage and slavery in the British colonies. Over time, they connect the dots to see that racism is woven into the fabric of America with white students learning to see their own role in systemic racism.

As a matter of fact, there actually is a school curriculum that accompanies the 1619 Project, which has as its goal reframing the history of the United States by placing slavery and racism at the center. If this curriculum were to be used, it would certainly serve to establish racism as systemic.

Wait what?

That's racist.

Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 19 Dec 2021, 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

See bold. That right there is what I’m getting at. I can tell you and I are on opposite perspectives on many things, but you see the problem with CRT and how unreasonable it is.

And yes, I agree 100% that shame/guilt is not the way to go. If I ever mistreat you, then I should feel guilty and I should apologize. And if I ever unintentionally mistreat you, you should tell me and I’ll try to make amends as best I can. But I’m not going to apologize for being born a certain way, or for having ambition, or for setting and achieving goals or making a lot of money.

I learned all of this in school and I'm not even American.

We also learned about Asian slavery, and current-day slavery (sex slaves, child labour).

None of it shamed anyone for their personal heritage, but we were taught critical thinking and sensitivity nonetheless.

I'm not sure about this sentence. There's a finite connection between race and quality of life? Do you mean worldwide?

That's rather presumptuous. But I think I know what you're trying to say even though it came out sounding quite racist.

Also I have to be honest, I've lost track of your point-of-view. I have no idea where we agree or disagree. After I write posts, you say you agree with me. What exactly do we disagree about?

Well, yeah, it IS racist. But in CRT, only white people can be racist. Not black people. Blacks have a reason to hate all white people—for being their oppressors. Whites don’t have an excuse. White people are the bad guys. So accusing blacks of racism…is itself racist.

You've lost me again. I don't know when you're being facetious or not because I say what I mean.

What we disagree on isn’t that important at the moment.

What I started out doing was taking up the CRT position and running with it because two other WPers were singing its praises. Well…singing its praises in the sense that they say American conservatives want to cancel teaching about racism in America. That’s not entirely true, and a number of American conservatives for a time advocated in favor of teaching CRT in public schools until they became aware of what all was involved. The position was taken in this thread that Republicans want to make CRT the new boogeyman issue and cancel teaching diversity in schools.

What I chose to do was interpret their responses through the lens of CRT to try to help them understand exactly what CRT is and help them understand why there’s so much opposition to it. And it’s not even conservatives standing alone in opposing it. CRT is highly anti-liberal. When you consider the role of the dominant cultural hegemony in Democratic Party leadership and the executive levels of our federal government, it’s easy to understand why CRT proponents aren’t liberal-friendly.

I don’t really consider myself a conservative or a liberal. I’d say I share more values with American conservatives than liberals, so maybe more like a right-leaning libertarian. That’s not entirely accurate, either, but it’s the easiest way to describe my own political and philosophical views. My views are complex, actually, but that’s a different topic.