Conservatives injecting millions school board elections

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cyberdad
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15 Oct 2022, 3:27 am

A growing number of conservative political action groups are targeting their efforts to influence local school board elections.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/ar ... hool-races

Their aim is to gain control of more school systems and push back against what they see as a liberal tide in public education classrooms, libraries, sports fields, even building plans.

Once seen as sleepy affairs with little interest outside their communities, school board elections started to heat up last year as parents aired frustrations with pandemic policies. As those issues fade, right-leaning groups are spending millions on candidates who promise to scale back teachings on race and sexuality, remove offending books from libraries and nix plans for gender-neutral bathrooms or transgender-inclusive sports teams.

At the center of the conservative effort is the 1776 Project PAC, which formed last year to push back against the New York Times' 1619 Project, which provides free lesson plans that center U.S. history around slavery and its lasting impacts. Last fall and this spring, the 1776 group succeeded in elevating conservative majorities to office in dozens of school districts across the U.S., propelling candidates who have gone on to fire superintendents and enact sweeping “bills of rights” for parents.

As of Sept 28 2022 a total of 42 US states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Seventeen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/ ... ck/2021/06

As a result of these unconstitutional and immoral acts by GOP politicians many teachers across the US have been terminated for attempting to teach US history
https://www.salon.com/2022/04/13/fired- ... loses-job/

Many of the US red states are sneakily invoking anti-communist laws that permit blacklisting teachers by conflating the teaching of racism with promoting communism.



roronoa79
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15 Oct 2022, 2:26 pm

Nothing says "not racist" like white people forbidding teachers from talking about racism except in very specific ways that don't make American look bad.

They've already lost. People of color and teachers want to teach the truth more than republicans want to avoid having their patriotic egos bruised.

Time to sit back, watch them squirm, and wait a few years when they will try to sweep under the rug that they ever decided this was a hill to do on--as they have done with all other conservative social policies.


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cyberdad
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15 Oct 2022, 6:28 pm

The intention is quite clear
1. Stack school boards with conservatives (they tried this successfully in stacking the supreme court which bore fruit when they overturned Roe Vs Wade and have their eye on other civil rights laws).
2, Erase history relating to slavery
3. Terminate teachers who attempt to teach the truth

If this isn't fascist I don't know what is...



ASPartOfMe
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16 Oct 2022, 2:35 am

cyberdad wrote:
A growing number of conservative political action groups are targeting their efforts to influence local school board elections.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/ar ... hool-races

Their aim is to gain control of more school systems and push back against what they see as a liberal tide in public education classrooms, libraries, sports fields, even building plans.

Once seen as sleepy affairs with little interest outside their communities, school board elections started to heat up last year as parents aired frustrations with pandemic policies. As those issues fade, right-leaning groups are spending millions on candidates who promise to scale back teachings on race and sexuality, remove offending books from libraries and nix plans for gender-neutral bathrooms or transgender-inclusive sports teams.

At the center of the conservative effort is the 1776 Project PAC, which formed last year to push back against the New York Times' 1619 Project, which provides free lesson plans that center U.S. history around slavery and its lasting impacts. Last fall and this spring, the 1776 group succeeded in elevating conservative majorities to office in dozens of school districts across the U.S., propelling candidates who have gone on to fire superintendents and enact sweeping “bills of rights” for parents.

As of Sept 28 2022 a total of 42 US states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Seventeen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/ ... ck/2021/06

As a result of these unconstitutional and immoral acts by GOP politicians many teachers across the US have been terminated for attempting to teach US history
https://www.salon.com/2022/04/13/fired- ... loses-job/

Many of the US red states are sneakily invoking anti-communist laws that permit blacklisting teachers by conflating the teaching of racism with promoting communism.


This is called Conservative and Right Wing Cancel Culture.

Both the 1619 and 1776 Projects are not histories, they are cherry picked histories designed to promote agendas. Both fail to recognize historical figures were not symbols validating thier agendas, they were humans full of contradictions and hypocrisies.


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cyberdad
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16 Oct 2022, 3:36 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
Both the 1619 and 1776 Projects are not histories, they are cherry picked histories designed to promote agendas. Both fail to recognize historical figures were not symbols validating thier agendas, they were humans full of contradictions and hypocrisies.


I'll quote an actual expert in the field, Leslie M. Harris who is professor of history at Northwestern University
Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past—histories that wrongly suggested racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. history.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... ake-122248
While Prof Harris has fact checked some the material and found errors in the 1619 project, that's the whole purpose of academic peer review.

Again....as with climate change I listen to scientists
With the 1619 project I listen to "qualifiedl" historians and not brainwashed MAGA conservatives



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16 Oct 2022, 4:07 am

cyberdad wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
Both the 1619 and 1776 Projects are not histories, they are cherry picked histories designed to promote agendas. Both fail to recognize historical figures were not symbols validating thier agendas, they were humans full of contradictions and hypocrisies.


I'll quote an actual expert in the field, Leslie M. Harris who is professor of history at Northwestern University
Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past—histories that wrongly suggested racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. history.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... ake-122248
While Prof Harris has fact checked some the material and found errors in the 1619 project, that's the whole purpose of academic peer review.

Again....as with climate change I listen to scientists
With the 1619 project I listen to "qualifiedl" historians and not brainwashed MAGA conservatives

Only the historians that agree with you. There is no historian consensus.
What History Professors Really Think About ‘The 1619 Project’
Quote:
The project sought to reframe the nation’s history by placing Black people, and the institution of slavery as well as its impact, at the center of the U.S. historical narrative. “The 1619 Project” was first published in August of 2019 in commemoration of the 400-year anniversary of enslaved Africans landing on the shores of the U.S. in Virginia.

Although lauded by many and awarded the Pulitzer for Hannah-Jones, the project immediately drew criticism from scholars and politicians. However, the greatest objections emerged when “The 1619 Project” began to be taught in grade school and college history courses with some state government’s threatening to revoke funding from schools using it in their classrooms.

A few well-known historians have been critical of “The 1619 Project,” but not because it centers slavery in U.S. history. In a letter to The New York Times they wrote: “None of us have any disagreement with the need for Americans, as they consider their history, to understand that the past is populated by sinners as well as saints, by horrors as well as honors, and that is particularly true of the scarred legacy of slavery.” They are critical because they feel “The 1619 Project” “offers a historically-limited view of slavery” and “asserts that every aspect of American life has only one lens for viewing, that of slavery, and its fall-out.”

At the same time, many history professors are using “The 1619 Project” in their classrooms and feel strongly about the importance of its use. Jonathan Zimmerman, an educational historian at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that teaching “The 1619 Project” alongside other interpretations of history “represents a huge opportunity to teach students what history actually *is*: an act of interpretation.” He also plans on teaching “The 1619 Project” in his courses.

I agree completely with the part I bolded.

The Historians Are Fighting


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cyberdad
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16 Oct 2022, 5:36 am

It's critical that accurate information is taught to students about the history of the country they live in,



cyberdad
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17 Oct 2022, 1:39 am

With history it's based on academic consensus. Those conducting a witch hunt against non-existent CRT in highschools can't and won't debate actual historic facts because they know they can't win.

Instead they are stoking fear in parents about how tender and young their children to hear distressing stories, The legal cases involving MAGA parents claiming their children's self-esteem has been impacted by hearing about white privilege or slavery sounds suspiciously contrived.

Keep in mind these MAGA politicians pushing this propaganda are not just historians (De Santis has a woeful record with trying to explain history) but they are not psychologists either. They are pretending to know things to impress their minions.



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17 Oct 2022, 7:54 am

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17 Oct 2022, 4:13 pm

cyberdad wrote:
It's critical that accurate information is taught to students about the history of the country they live in,

Most want age-appropriate accurate information taught. The problem is disagreeing as to what is accurate American history.

cyberdad wrote:
With history it's based on academic consensus. Those conducting a witch hunt against non-existent CRT in highschools can't and won't debate actual historic facts because they know they can't win.

Instead they are stoking fear in parents about how tender and young their children to hear distressing stories, The legal cases involving MAGA parents claiming their children's self-esteem has been impacted by hearing about white privilege or slavery sounds suspiciously contrived.

Keep in mind these MAGA politicians pushing this propaganda are not just historians (De Santis has a woeful record with trying to explain history) but they are not psychologists either. They are pretending to know things to impress their minions.


"Anti Racism" education is not pushing propaganda? "Anti Racism" education by finding racism seemingly everywhere is not creating a higher degree of fear than is warranted in POC ?


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18 Oct 2022, 3:07 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
"Anti Racism" education is not pushing propaganda? "Anti Racism" education by finding racism seemingly everywhere is not creating a higher degree of fear than is warranted in POC ?


Anti-racism education is one thing, but the line seems to be rather blurred. Teachers are literally being threatened if they mention slavery, lynchings or Jim Crow. These things happened and to black Americans are just as traumatic as the holocaust was for Jewish people (Imagine a 400 year holocaust, that's what black people in America have survived).



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18 Oct 2022, 10:57 am

cyberdad wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
"Anti Racism" education is not pushing propaganda? "Anti Racism" education by finding racism seemingly everywhere is not creating a higher degree of fear than is warranted in POC ?


Anti-racism education is one thing, but the line seems to be rather blurred. Teachers are literally being threatened if they mention slavery, lynchings or Jim Crow. These things happened and to black Americans are just as traumatic as the holocaust was for Jewish people (Imagine a 400 year holocaust, that's what black people in America have survived).

If it was a Holocaust there would be no trauma anymore, they all would have been dead 390 years ago.


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18 Oct 2022, 3:22 pm

Is the 1619 Project flawed? Of course it is! Framing all of American history as based around slavery is an oversimplification. That is the objection that most historians critical of the project have. Any historian that doesn't bury their head in the conservative sand will tell you that history education in this country has for far too long glossed over race and racism as they have influenced the lives of Americans and the course of the country's development. The historians in the very Forbes article ASPartOfMe linked say this.

Certain conservatives focus on the flaws of the 1619 Project so they do not have to address that there is wide consensus among American historians that race and racism have been swept under the rugs when we teach children history. Historians taking issue with a single anti-racist historical narrative is not them taking issue with anti-racist narratives in general. Even if they are critical of the 1619 Project, most accredited historians would scoff at the suggestion that racism has never defined America as a nation.


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18 Oct 2022, 8:20 pm

Prolonged intergenerational trauma is (in my view) is far worse than several years of genocide. If you look at the impact of the mass murder of Jews on the current generation of Jewish people it's not comparable with the current generation of African Americans
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/aug ... 81114.html
https://www.dw.com/en/how-jewish-life-d ... a-56604526

A comparable experience is that of the Rwandan Tutsi. They endured a month of genocide losing much of their communities population. Today they are the most successful community in Africa
https://borgenproject.org/improvements-in-rwanda/

Same with Sri Lankan Tamils who suffered genocide at the hands of the Sri Lankan government in the space of several years of civil war. Today Sri Lankan refugees are the most successful community in north America


In stark contrast 400 years of intergenerational trauma suffered by black and native Americans means these two groups are at the bottom of the sociodemographic ladder in all economic, social and health indicators. The legacy of intergenerational trauma is real.



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18 Oct 2022, 8:22 pm

roronoa79 wrote:
Is the 1619 Project flawed? Of course it is! Framing all of American history as based around slavery is an oversimplification. That is the objection that most historians critical of the project have. .


The criticism of the project clearly ignores the fact that the authors of the project never intended for it to replace existing history curriculum. It is merely an additional learning resource.



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19 Oct 2022, 1:47 am

cyberdad wrote:
Prolonged intergenerational trauma is (in my view) is far worse than several years of genocide. If you look at the impact of the mass murder of Jews on the current generation of Jewish people it's not comparable with the current generation of African Americans
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/aug ... 81114.html
https://www.dw.com/en/how-jewish-life-d ... a-56604526

A comparable experience is that of the Rwandan Tutsi. They endured a month of genocide losing much of their communities population. Today they are the most successful community in Africa
https://borgenproject.org/improvements-in-rwanda/

Same with Sri Lankan Tamils who suffered genocide at the hands of the Sri Lankan government in the space of several years of civil war. Today Sri Lankan refugees are the most successful community in north America


In stark contrast 400 years of intergenerational trauma suffered by black and native Americans means these two groups are at the bottom of the sociodemographic ladder in all economic, social and health indicators. The legacy of intergenerational trauma is real.

Maybe so, but for all the things that have been inflicted upon American blacks a government attempt to kill them all off is not one of them.

The problem with the constant use of Nazi comparisons is at this point goes in one ear and out the other. People are desensitized to both how bad the Nazi were and how bad the things being compared to the Nazis are.

That said a Native American comparison to the holocaust has some validity is that they were subject to ethnic cleansing and they are often relegated to living on reservations.


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