How is it possible for a grade school math textbook to be about Critical Race Theory?
Florida has just banned 41% of its math textbooks, at least some of which were alleged to contain CRT. Link. I can’t imagine how a math book could do this. Are odd numbers being discriminated against? And what about negative numbers? Is zero trying to take over the real numbers by multiplying itself against everyone else?
Although the banned books were listed, no examples were given as to why they were considered offensive. See if you can think of what they might have done.
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122 Answers
Maybe Denzel and Tanisha had five nickels and they wouldn’t share them with Dick and Jane.
(It is absurd and frightening that Florida is doing this!)
Well, plenty of math texts include word problems: “Joe has three apples. He gives two to Mary. How many does he have left?” The word problems sometimes include semi-realistic scenarios. Twisted minds could find twisted images or ideas in them.
I just saw that. How absurd.
Several Math texts also call out the number 3, 6, and 9 saying they are gay numbers. How can they possibly be shaped like that and be straight.
Birds are fake too!!
(I’m pretty concerned that, to paraphrase, as Florida goes, so goes the nation. I have a strong hunch that De Santis is going to be our next President.)
Adoptions by states are critical to the sale of textbooks. Curriculum developers study the states’ “frameworks” to meet all the grade-level requirements for a certain subject. But I don’t believe they set social and cultural expectations.
They do show up, though. When I was working for an educational publisher on some literature-based materials, I remember spending one weekend—along with numerous colleagues—hastily reading through a stack of juvenile fiction searching for and calling out any mention of smoking in order to drop those books from the reading list. Another time we had one state’s reps say they wanted us to use a picture book with an Asian main character, but then they rejected our choice (and the lessons based on it) because the character looked “too Asian.”
Losing a state’s expected adoption is a heavy blow to the publisher. So they make every effort to conform to the state’s expectations. Applying them after the fact seems really low.
Shh, no, @janbb. Let’s not even turn that thought loose in the world.
Follow the money. Who got a kickback for getting the purchased books approved?
@LostInParadise With the proper (imprroper) author/editor I’m pretty sure it would fit nicely to the woke folk.
Is there a public record where they document the specific objections to proposed textbooks? or is this done in the dark?
School math textbooks must be purged completely. All numbers are equally guilty and should be replaced by Roman numerals forthwith.
@Jeruba I looked a little closer and found this:
“Joe has three apples. He gives two to Mary. Mary says the patriarchy needs to be abolished. How many does he have left?”
I’m shocked! :P
Ask one one the many “stable geniuses” in the GOP ! They set up the idea of CRT happening in schools.
Same way John Birchers hunted communists.
Do any of your links give specifics? Examples of why @smudges?
@gorillapaws I was looking for the same thing. I haven’t found a specific list of books that were banned, nor what it was that made them unacceptable. It was part of an official look at the educational materials, I found that, so I’m sure there is a report somewhere that specifies that was rejected and why…but a simple 20 minute search didn’t show it.
I’d love to know the specific objections too. Maybe there is nothing very radical about the books they chose to accept. It is worrisome to me that some states seem to be letting the religious right make some decisions, and I guess now we have to worry about white supremacists making decisions, but I am not going to assume anything. It looks like there are a lot of options for text books and some are bound to be rejected. I don’t know how rogue Florida is going from the mainstream in the US? A lot of the upset around this topic seems to be upset about nothing. Republicans hysterical about CRT in K12, and it isn’t taught in K12. SMH. Democrats also seem to be a little off the rails sometimes, kind of like an overkill.
@seawulf575 I appreciate the effort looking into it.
My totally uneducated best guess is that the math rejections are mostly related to a shift away from “common core.” The article I read mentioned the new restrictions are, as an example, moving away from grouping numbers and back towards “carrying the one” approach so parents could more easily relate to their kids’ homework. I’m out of my depth on this though. It would be really interesting to see what the book burners found so offensive in math texts.
Of course the other possibility is someone is making money from this whole thing. I remember reading there’s some shady stuff that goes on in the textbook industry. I wouldn’t be surprised if people are getting kickbacks somewhere.
@jca2 Based on those standards, the Bible certainly has to be ruled out. It contains rape, prostitution, incest, forced abortions by the church, genocide, self-mutilation, cannibalism, torture, etc.
How? This is my surmise: By finding innocent examples that can be twisted in such a way as to be supportive of an attitude or point of view, one that CRT opponents can claim as sympathetic to CRT. The same way that some people can find hints of sexual perversions in seemingly innocent lyrics or images. They’re looking for something that isn’t there, and if they look hard enough and stretch it far enough, they can say they have a case.
They know there’s nothing to it, but it allows them to harass people who have committed no offense and flex their power as a force to be reckoned with.
It requires at least one part crazy, three parts ignorance, and five parts racist.
@Jeruba Well stated.
I’d say we can find some twisting on both sides. Everyone wants to exasperated. It’s exhausting. Exasperation gets votes.
I’m reminded of the one school question I saw several year ago. I’m trying to find it now and if I do I will post a link. It was a question about critical thinking. It gave a story and then asked questions about it. The story was about a woman who found a strange barrette under her bed that had blonde hair stuck in it and she was a brunette. There were comments relating to her husband. The questions then started poking at what it might mean and what conclusions could she draw. It was a question for something like 2nd graders. You had supporters of this claiming those against it were against teaching critical thinking skills. Those against it were claiming it was inappropriate for 2nd graders and really even for older kids.
^Yeah, that one is really out there for grade school kids and not really appropriate.
I would love to see the ones they are removing in Florida.
Why is it such a secret?
@chyna Not a secret. @smudges linked it above. Not so sure remove is the right word, or if reject is more accurate. Were the books in the school system already?
Yes, but not the actual specifics of the books that are objectionable. Unless you have that?
@chyna I’d like to know also. People are already angry or happy, and they have no idea what the content actually was, just buzz words like CRT making them emotional. At least jellies do want to know the actual content, which is a good thing.
I’d also like to know who started the story. Was it DeSantis making a statement that Florida rejected books citing CRT, or some media outlet accusing Florida of rejecting books based on CRT.
Both sides win votes with the story. Everything seems like BS to me now, even though I know it’s not all BS. Some things we really do have to worry about.
I constantly feel like people are being manipulated like puppets on strings.
Yeah, what I would like to see is this book on page 12, page 34, page 76, etc. are the reasons this book was rejected.
It boggles my mind that book banning is happening in this time. It happened in my state back in the 70’s as some board member didn’t want “white children to learn language used by African Americans as they would cause white kids to talk ghetto dialect.”
@chyna I’m not sure this is book banning, it’s text book selection. Book banning troubles me too. Some of the book banning conversation I wanted to research more though. Were they taking certain books out of the school system altogether that were already in the schools?
@chyna Literally, they burned books like in the past? They couldn’t just throw them out. Again, it all is so politically purposeful. It’s disturbing to me in so many ways.
Edit: do you know which books were burned? When I googled I saw some articles of religious fanatics burning Harry Potter. I’m not sure I can get incensed over that. We already know they are cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
I couldn’t find any specific examples of why they’re being removed.
In addition to references to CRT, the books were rejected for inclusions of Common Core and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics, according to the department.
The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K-5, where 71% were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies, the department said.
My sister’s a fourth grade math teacher in TX. I’ll ask her for her thoughts.
@chyna “Yeah, what I would like to see is this book on page 12, page 34, page 76, etc. are the reasons this book was rejected.”
That’s what I want to see. I did see mention that perhaps this isn’t being released because pre-published editions are “proprietary” information and are protected under IP laws/contracts?
If we learned nothing from the election in 2016 and the 4 years following, we learned that ANYTHING is possible.
This is just another page in history of how blind some people are to the truth and how some people just want to control the rhetoric and try to control you with their beliefs.
I mean, common core is pretty terrible, so I can’t blame them for rejecting math books with that nonsense in it. I have no idea what “social emotional learning” is or how it could apply to math. Not to sound like I’m 80 years old, but things were simpler in my day. We just learned math the normal way.
^^That’s the thing! For years I’ve been annoyed with mixing too much reading with math at very young ages.
I do think it’s good to have real life examples in word problems, but it does not need to be an exercise in teaching some sort of moral imperative.
Leave math alone. Young kids who struggle in reading and whose brains are not ready for complex concepts, but who take Well to math, they are screwed now. They can’t excel at anything. I am only talking about very young children, eventually we all start to catch up in all realms of academics more or less.
I worried common core was difficult for parents to be able to help their children with math, and maybe there should be an effort to help parents with it.
It’s very possible some of what was rejected will piss me off as right wing crazy talk, but it’s very possible a lot of it I might agree with. None of us know.
@JLeslie You’re correct about Common Core. I couldn’t help my daughter with her math homework starting in 4th grade, because it was Common Core and it made no sense to me. I used to tell her that I could do the problems in my head and I could do the problems and show the work the way I learned it, but I couldn’t do the problems and show the work the way it was now supposed to be done. Other parents had the same issues. We all used to joke that we couldn’t do basic math any more. In a way it was kind of sad because we were ineffective with helping with math.
Simple math calculation problems become big complicated things with boxes and stuff, with Common Core. I don’t know what the point was, of finding a new way to do math.
Well, my thoughts are that they’re incorporating other lessons into the math. Lessons in sociology, science, spelling etc. to tie everything together. It’s how we were taught to teach in school.
I think the point of “new math” is to introduce kids to new ways of looking at a problem. Some people/kids just “get it.” I think they’ve tried to unearth exactly how some kids “get it” while others struggle.
Trust me. The kids “get” common core math, even if we grown ups don’t. I’ve had kids explain it to me, and they get it.
It’s definitely not a black and white issue. I’m fine with introducing several ways to solve a math problem, and I don’t expect all parents to be able to understand all of the work a student does. My mom couldn’t help me with math past fifth grade and there was no such thing as common core back then.
What I do think is a lot of people in the school system are not “math” people. They might be able to do math reasonably well, but they didn’t excel in it in childhood. I’m not talking about math teachers, and maybe add in some science teachers and some electives like accounting class, I’m talking about everyone else who thinks it’s important to teach some other lesson while teaching math.
Wait…hold up. They’re objecting to SEL as well?
@smudges That is wild. Do you have any links to share on this? Honestly curious why they would object to SEL.
SEL is social emotional learning.
@Dutchess_III Here’s the short description: “Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing the self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work, and life success.”
and here’s a site:
https://www.cfchildren.org/what-is-social-emotional-learning/
I didn’t know anything about this until it came up in this discussion, but wow! Wish I’d had that in school! Aside from school subjects, all I learned was to respect my elders, play nice, and mind my P’s & Q’s.
My daughter’s elementary school did SEL and I think my sister’s did, also.
I still haven’t seen what exactly was in which books to claim they were inappropriate. I can imagine that slipping in inappropriate things would be fairly easy. Example: What if the KKK was in charge of creating math books. And they had questions in there that were something like “Charles has 3 slaves that can pick 9 bales of cotton in a week. How many bales of cotton can he get if he adds 2 more slaves? ” Yes, it is an idiotic question, but think about it. The KKK only wrote a math problem, according to them. They aren’t trying to indoctrinate anyone. They aren’t encouraging slavery, they aren’t teaching kids that slavery is good. It’s just a math problem…so what’s the problem? Well as we all know, there is a LOT wrong with that question and it would be considered highly inappropriate. But the same idea applies.
To get to the root of the issue for John Q. Public, we’d have to see what they deemed inappropriate. I would support that discussion. I think it is perfectly fair to ask why these books were deemed inappropriate. I think it should be readily explained what the criteria were and how the different texts were judged. And to make things clear, it wasn’t just math books that were targeted. They educational materials used in FL were listed on one of the links. It covered Social Studies, English, etc.
I all for parental rights…always have been. But part of those rights is to have open discussions about changes in the curriculum, getting details out into the open.
Part of the problem is the US uses the term “white guilt” regarding wrong doings in history, and I’ve never been ok with that term. No one today should feel guilty about slavery.
As a German person I know once said, “we don’t feel guilty about the Holocaust, we feel a RESPONSIBILITY to never let it happen again, or anything similar.”
Change the language and you undue the bullshit arguments about teaching history in K12 in the US.
Responsibility would turn our minds to making things more equal today, and let go of any idea of guilt from the past. Today is what actually matters. The history matters also, to improve the present and into the future, but we need to change current circumstances.
It’s all politics, it’s all just trying to get votes. It’s not about our children.
DeSantis just did a Trump. Threw out some key words and the media ran with it, and now DeSantis can just sit back and laugh at everybody. It’s like trolling.
Well, this is news that isn’t. Schools reject textbooks all the time. It’s part of the selection process. Publishers send out large amounts of textbooks for evaluation and only a few get selected. I have crates of evaluation copies of textbooks that were rejected from when my mother worked for the school system years ago. What has happened here is a politician made CRT a talking point so he could send a message to parents that said his school system was protecting their kids from “indoctrination.” There may have been something in one of the math books that could have been something that looks like CRT to the right set of eyes. Regardless, Math books don’t need to have any social messages in them. That belongs in social science.
@Blackwater_Park Yup, like I said, DeSantis throws out a dog whistle and then he sits back and laughs and counts his money while Democrats and Republicans feed on it like sharks rushing in on the chum. It’s so easy.
Although, I do believe the far religious right leaders are actively trying to dismantle public schools, but I think the average Republican doesn’t understand that they are helping that along. They believe what they are told and what they repeat about creating competition and protecting their children.
OK, I found one example in a Math – Practice Question area of one of the books in question
It reads:
Congressman Matt Gaetz and 2 friends have 10 ounces of cocaine. There are 12 people at the party, 3 of them are girls under the age of 18. What should he call it on the Venmo transaction comments?
Apparently I wasn’t far off with my KKK example. Here are some examples used in the school books that show how you can reject a math book because it teaches/pushes CRT or SEL.
Measuring racial bias is not CRT. There are laws against racial bias, like the Civil Rights Act. I see nothing wrong in discussing it. The video said that there were only a few such examples. Apparently most of the rest involved something called social-emotional learning, whatever that is.
Apparently Florida does not want any discussion of NON-WHITES only Plantation owners !
^^I don’t see anything that implies they don’t want diversity in their text books.
@LostInParadise You are trying to justify. The problems are MATH problems…not a discussion of the Civil Rights Act. And they aren’t talking about the criminal aspect of racism, they are basically telling the kids they should be measuring their racial bias. And the last time I checked, the only real “tests” for racial bias are left-wing based assessments designed to claim everyone is biased. And those are highly inaccurate. AND it is the basis for the entire concept of Critical Race Theory…that people are unconsciously and implicitly racist.
Critical Race Theory is based on the premise that there are no biologically distinct groups of humans and that race is socially constructed. Link. That has nothing to do with the math problems. Even if there really were distinct races and even if some were statistically inferior to others, this would not justify prejudice against individuals. Surely you must recognize the prevalence of racism in this country.
@LostInParadise That there is no biological difference is an extremely small piece of CRT. By your own citation it clearly states that the point of CRT is that there is implicit bias in all people, specifically to oppress people of color. The math problems listed as examples by the FLDOE clearly show this is what they are teaching. The first question specifically cites the Implicit Association Test. Here is a good description of what that is. It specifically talks about hidden and subconscious biases. But here’s the kicker: The IAT has been debunked as being inaccurate and really pseudoanalysis. Even Vox came to this conclusion.
It was not that long ago that blacks had to sit in the back of buses, were not served in some restaurants and had to use separate water fountains (Link). Those practices were made illegal by the Civil Rights Act, but the attitudes that led to them are still rampant. If a particular test does not properly reveal them, I am sure there are others that do. The Vox link you pointed to said that one test is insufficient and that a battery of tests would work better.
@LostInParadise I think you are missing the concern with CRT. It isn’t to belittle blacks or negate their past. But it actually promotes racism. It stresses the difference between people and tries saying that everyone is racist. The more you focus on racism and point to the differences between the races, the worse it will get.
The IAT that is cited has been shown to be erroneous, yet it is the “standard”. And all this avoids the question: why do you have to use CRT in a math question? As I stated with my KKK analogy, it would look awfully bad if the question used slaves as one of the variables in a number. It would have no place in a math question. And that is why these books were banned by the FLDOE…for not meeting the standard they want from their instructional material. They don’t want indoctrination, they want education.
But it actually promotes racism.
[face palm]
Yes @raum You are racist. CRT tells us so. And you hate black people. CRT tells us so. You just need to accept it. Meanwhile, the black people are being told you hate them and that you are a racist so I’m sure they are meeting you with love and acceptance.
@seawulf575 Dude, I’ve got implicit bias like everyone else. That doesn’t mean I hate Black people. Jesus.
You don’t solve a problem by pretending it doesn’t exist. CRT doesn’t promote racism, it acknowledges that it exists. Which apparently is extremely difficult for a lot of people.
@raum But teaching children they are racists is what is being taught. And teaching black kids to hate white people is the other side of that coin. That is keeping racism alive and well.
I think the problem that most people that accept CRT is that they don’t have a good definition of racism. Either that or they have such low self-esteem that they will believe whatever anyone tells them. Let me help with one of those:
1. A person who believes a particular race is superior to others.
2. a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others
Grade school children don’t have the hate of others or even the understanding of those definitions for them to be racist. And for others, such as yourself, you believe that if someone doesn’t admit to being a racist (as defined by….?) they are just thick, I guess. Racism is, indeed, a real thing. But it isn’t nearly as prevalent as you might believe. Here’s another option: People don’t view themselves or their races as being superior. They don’t agree with those that hate others because of their skin color. By all account, they are not racists. But to teach children they are racists is just plain evil. Teaching them that everyone brings something to the party…that everyone has skills, abilities, etc that we can learn from is a FAR better way and far more inclusive way of teaching children to look at people with healthy eyes and minds.
It is better to be a “XXX” then to be teach the children you are a “XXX”
I get it ! ! !
DeSantis is looking to run for President in 2024. It seems republicans can’t run and expect to win by doing things that actually can help citizens so DeSantis has his boogieman in his pocket. It’s gay people. Trump ran on immigrants but DeSantis is running on the fear of gay indoctrination and hatred of white people. This is how he plans to beat Trump. Dems want to brainwash your children and he can save them and make white Americans number one and straight.
Also I wouldn’t be surprised if the publishers of the books that were chosen didn’t happen to give to DeSantis campaign or happen to be very republican and have Christian stories in it. Jesus had 12 disciples and one hung him self. How many can make it to heaven?
I do find it funny they can’t seem to give exact examples of what was in the books.
Should the Bible be banned from public schools? A man in Florida is pushing for that. He makes a good case. The Bible accepts slavery and has stories of rape and incest.
@LostInParadise: Schools shouldn’t have children reading the Bible anyway. Separation of church and state.
Bibles are not banned from schools. It just can’t be used to lead discussion by someone in authority like a teacher.
If a student brings a Bible to school that’s his business.
I get that @Dutchess_III. But when @LostInParadise says that Bibles s hould be banned, they’re not being used by the school itself so it’s not an issue.
@jca2 I’m willing to bet there is a bible in a school library somewhere. Just like people banned books in school libraries even if the topic isn’t being actively taught. To the right that was indoctrination. So why not use their boogieman thinking about the bible? So I get it. Heck if its that offensive then the pledge of allegiance shouldn’t be said either, since it says one Nation under God. Just saying. Isn’t it trying to make all children believe in a God? Isn’t it indoctrination?
Btw, I do believe in God but my point is actually that saying or reading something doesn’t brainwash children. Having a book about 2 daddies isn’t going to make children suddenly become gay or go against their faith. Reading about how our system is set up to be biased isn’t going to make children take up arms or shoot themselves or crush their souls or make them feel bad about being born white. Young children will not understand CRT and older white children will just argue that it isn’t true because it doesn’t benefit their lives and for minorities, it will just confirm what they know or they will ignore it because they have been living obliviously to any bias. So just like plenty of children are taken to church every Sunday and then become atheist when grown, you can lead a horse to water but can’t make them drink.
People will always choose to believe what they want to believe.
To be fair, the big fear from some people is that once textbooks are allowed to have even any hint of political bias or motivation it’s essentially an all out assault for control over our children’s minds by political actors with nefarious intentions. It’s a valid fear under certain circumstances, this just is not one of them. The placement of race topics in math textbooks certainly does look like it’s agenda driven but it’s not one I really disagree with, nor would most people. This sort of thing really should be called out as long as it is done fairly…and without political/motivational bias. Good luck with that in 2022.
Where I lived in TN some of the schools taught the Bible in literature class. It bothered me to say the least. It would not bother me if it was just in the library.
Not every book can be in a school library, it’s too small. So, no matter what there will be some picking and choosing.
Obviously, the problem is a systematic attempt to clear schools of a specific topic that most of us feel is important. Although, I’m completely ok with it not being in math books.
@Blackwater_Park….raising kids is all about brain washing, BTW….for better or worse.
@jca2 “Schools shouldn’t have children reading the Bible anyway. Separation of church and state.”
This is a misconception. It’s not a violation of Church and State to teach ABOUT the Bible (and other religious texts). It IS a violation to use said religious text to proselytize for that faith. In other words it’s fine for a history or comparative religion class to teach that people of the Christian faith believe that a man named Christ was the son of God, but they can’t say Christ IS the son of God. Likewise they can teach that the Ancient Greeks believed that Apollo was the son of Zeus without running afoul of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
That said, if the standard is to ban books that are offensive based on certain criteria, then the Bible would certainly fall into that group.
@gorillapaws I agree with you. It’s a work around, or we could say a loophole, to teach the Bible in literature class to kids in K12, but I think the loophole should be challenged. It is the way to teach the Bible and (try to) get away with it, but the intention is very obvious. Especially, in places where the vast majority of kids are Christian, it reinforces their training at home, and sparks conversations among the children. Some of those children are not Christian and can be taunted or be under peer pressure to conform. It undermines “parental rights” of all things. To use the Republican terminology.
Comparative religion at the high school level would be fine with me when taught in a truly balanced way as long as it’s an elective. In history class also it has a place to mention the religion or beliefs of the people at the time, but it can go overboard and be delivered in a very biased way, so educators still need to be careful.
In public school, I never saw nor heard of a “bible” class. Nor of a literature class where the bible was taught. In private schools, yes.
And there is a HUGE difference between banning books that are in the library of a school because of their content and banning books that are specifically being actively taught because of content.
But I guess the other side of the question needs to be addressed: Why does there have to be SJW, SEL, or CRT items in a math book for grade schoolers? I have brought up the KKK example a couple times now. I would be equally upset with things like that in a math book. It almost seems like what is being done is either (a) an effort to saturate these things into grade school learning or (b) trying to bypass the obvious teachings such as in a social studies class.
I don’t see how any of us can make a call when we have no idea what specific concerns they have @seawulf575.
Here’s someone who’s fighting back:
Florida man asks schools to ban Bible following the state’s efforts to remove books
April 26, 2022 • Activist Chaz Stevens says the book isn’t age appropriate and contains references to rape and bestiality. It’s a not-so-subtle dig at Florida’s recent efforts to ban books.
It does indeed have content that they never mention in Sunday school. For one example, look up Tamar (2 Samuel 13) if you’re curious.
Yes, thank you, @Dutchess_III. (And if I didn’t get that, the article would have helped me out in the first line: A Florida activist known for his tongue-in-cheek petitions to local government agencies has asked school districts in Florida to ban the Bible.) But it’s to make a point, and the Bible does support it.
And it really does makes a good point.
@Jeruba Again, the difference between a book being in the library at a school and being actively taught is huge. Most grade school kids are not going to go to the library and check out a Bible for their reading pleasure. And even if they did, it would be their choice to do so. If the school was actively teaching the Bible to kids and trying to slip in scripture into every single subject, it would be an entirely different story.
So you are saying that you would not object to a school library having books on CRT or gay relationships.
And, no problem (no reaction) if schools get rid of the Bible’s in the libraries at schools where they exist?
And it’s OK if the libraries carry the Quran? What about Wiccan text?
@LostInParadise I don’t care at all if it is available as long as it isn’t being pushed in the classroom….and that includes pushing the book on kids. @JLeslie I’ve never seen a Bible in a school library…certainly not when I was a kid. Not saying they weren’t there, but honestly, I never thought about looking for one. I’m pretty sure this holds true to kids today. @Dutchess_III I am a firm believer that all subjects should be allowed in libraries. Despite popular belief about me, I am a pretty open minded guy. I’ve read the Quran. I dated a witch. I’ve read the bible. I’ve read fiction stories and non-fiction stories. It is interesting what you can learn about a great many topics when you open your mind.
Banning books is a lot different than forcing an education on a specific subject on an entire class of children. AND the age does matter. If a child gets interested in really any topic, that is okay. They can dig in and find out about it. But not all topics are really open for all age groups, in my mind. Reading about the Marquis de Sade would be unacceptable for a 6th grader, for instance. But if the child is curious they can and should discuss it with their parents.
Some people believe CRT is going to tell kids in school the 150 or more years ago plantation owners beat, killed, raped and sold humans because their skin was a different color !
In the 20th century the whites lynched blacks and burned crosses on colored peoples lawns.
And white police beat and fire hosed civil rights protesters in the 1960s.
Because it is true !
@seawulf575 It’s not about that. In my experience Christians freak out when something is taken away even if it never should have been there in the first place. Schools stop doing Christmas decorations they feel it’s a war on CHRISTmas. Schools stop allowing a prayer led by a coach before a football game, the feel the atheists are trying to eliminate Christianity and prayer. Someone is prohibited from handing out bibles on school grounds, Christians take issue.
Not all Christians, but plenty. They feel it’s chipping away at their right to practice their religion and that there is a systematic attempt to squash Christianity.
@Tropical_Willie I don’t believe that to be true….that some people believe that. We have been teaching that for a long time now. CRT isn’t about teaching factual events about slavery and racism. It’s about trying to establish an idea early on in children that they cannot reason objectively about race….that there is racism we don’t even know about impacting our thinking. It creates a division of oppressed and oppressors based on a supposed unconscious bias. It really has its roots in Marxism being an offshoot of “Critical Theory”. And all CRT REALLY does is keep racism alive and well.
Let’s take your answer as a perfect example. You believe there is systemic racism and unconscious bias and that there is nothing white people can do except be racist, correct? But let’s take a look at all the examples you showed. Pick any one of them…they all apply…and you will find that those things do not exist in today’s society…in this country. Blacks are no longer bought and sold, beaten, and raped because of their skin color. Blacks are no longer lynched and no crosses are being burned in their yards. Police no longer beat or fire hose civil rights protesters. Why is that? Oh yeah, because white people fought against all of these things. That is the fact you leave off on all of your examples. So while it is very important to teach even grade school children these things happened and that they were wrong, it is equally important to talk about how all of these things ended. You have not gotten that piece ingrained yet. You have gotten as far as white people are racist and that is that. And THAT is the thinking that CRT creates and fosters.
From American Bar Association website.
The limitations of legal interventions have led to current manifestations of racial inequality in education, including:
The predominance of curriculum that excludes the history and lived experiences of Americans of color and imposes a dominant white narrative of history;
Deficit-oriented instruction that characterizes students of color as in need of remediation;
Narrow assessments, the results of which are used to confirm narratives about the ineducability of children of color;
School discipline policies that disproportionately impact students of color and compromise their educational outcomes (such as dress code policies prohibiting natural Black hairstyles);
School funding inequities, including the persistent underfunding of property-poor districts, many of which are composed primarily of children of color;
The persistence of racially segregated education.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/
SOooooo….the ABA has a class on critical race theory (which by the way is an unproven theory) and it points to deficiencies in classroom for black children. Does it ever ask any further questions about behaviors? For instance, Deficit-oriented instruction that characterizes students of color as in need of remediation. Is there an actual class that says “For Blacks only”? Or is it instruction available to help get students that are behind “the curve” up to speed? And if there are blacks in these classes, does it ask the “why” question? They had remedial classes in schools the entire time I was in them. Both blacks and whites were in attendance. And in most cases, it was not because the students were stupid, but because they had attitudes and really just didn’t give a shit about school.
But let’s look at that one from another perspective. Let’s say that the school districts did away with classes like this. Now there is no remedial classes to help focus on those students most in need of the focus. So then a whole bunch of kids graduate that can’t read or write and many of them are black because, well, many of the kids in the school were black. Would you then complain that there weren’t remedial classes? That somehow the classes were too tough for the blacks and that it was racist that the school districts did nothing to help them? The answer is, of course yes, that would happen. There have been many, many studies that show blacks lagging behind all other ethnicities in most areas of school and black males the farthest back. I don’t believe for one second that blacks are inherently stupid, not as smart as other races, or any other drivel like that. I do believe that it is probably all due to attitude. But does the ABA look at that? No. They have a theory, they don’t really want to test it, they want to use it as a basis for lawsuits, and now we want to apply that same thing to young children. And what they draw from their vague theory is that whites are naturally racist. They can’t help it, they just are and they want to punish blacks. What a crock.
@Tropical_Willie I’m not panicking at all. I’ve seen the stats. And again…they aren’t looking at the details. Yes, there are a lot of blacks that get arrested and go to prison. Did they do crimes? Nod your head as the answer is yes. They were not just walking down the street, arrested for no reason and thrown in prison. Not even you can believe that. So is it your stance that blacks should not be arrested when they break the law just so we can make a stat look good? Is it racist if we do anything else other than let them break the law?
Since you like stats, let’s look at some others Let’s start with the distribution of race. We see that whites make up about 75% of the population, Blacks about 13%. Yet if you go up to look at the stats from the FBI we see that blacks commit 52% of the homicides. ? How does that happen? Because the victims or the cops were racist? Are we supposed to just let them go free because they are black and we need to arrest more whites for murders or just let a whole bunch of murders go unprosecuted? The sad statement was that last one since that is what Democrats have started doing…just not prosecuting crimes in an effort to not have to arrest black criminals.
This all gets back to what I am saying. You are a perfect example. You want to look at the end result of a series of events and draw a conclusion based on that. You don’t really care why the blacks were arrested, you just want to claim racism without really looking. And that is the point behind CRT and teaching children those ideals. It removes responsibility and erroneously assigns blame, much like you are doing.
YOU just wont quit
CRT is freaking out right-wingers !
And getting it out of elementary school text books is freaking out left-wingers.
With the vision of a right-winger all things are . . . anti-colored !
@Tropical_Willie Actually, the vision of a right-winger doesn’t look at race as much as you like to think. However, EVERYTHING from the left is about race. It is the LEFT that is keeping racism alive and well. But then it was the Democrats that pushed to keep slavery, passed Jim Crow laws, fought to keep segregated schools (including your idiot POTUS), formed the KKK, burned crosses in black people’s yards, lynched blacks, and led the beatings and fire hosing of civil rights protesters. And it continues today, just a newer form of subjugation.
@seawulf575 The left and the right are both dwell on race, but your whole thing about the Democrats doing the lynching and Jim Crow laws, I mean really how do you Republicans keep saying that? You know the South was full of Democrats and now they are Republicans. They switched parties. I’m not saying all Republicans are racist, but I am saying the racist people moved to the Republican Party. Some identify as Libertarian, but the vote Republican.
@JLeslie Look at what you just said. The south was full of Democrats. And all these horrible things were done. And then they all just turned into Repubs. The assumption that all the evil Dems suddenly became Repubs is patently foolish. For that to be true, you would have to find that all Dem politicians suddenly became Repubs AND that all Repubs suddenly became Dems…sometime back in the 60’s or 70’s. If this mystic change of party happened, at some point we would have had a country that was almost 100% Repub or 100% Dem. That never happened. AND you would be able to go back and show dozens of Dems that suddenly became Repubs all at once. You can’t do that because it never happened. As of the 70’s Biden still wanted school segregation because he didn’t want his kids going to a racial jungle so we know the racist rhetoric was at least alive and well in the Dems then. This mystical swap is a creation of the Dems to try making the Repubs look like they are really the ones that wanted slavery and wanted to keep blacks down. The only real difference with the Dems today is that they aren’t just trying to subjugate the Blacks. They want to subjugate everyone. And they don’t mind destroying civilization to do it.
@gorillapaws You just showed that blacks, and especially black politicians moved to the Democratic party but you didn’t show the white politicians changing. AND you failed to show the Repubs moving en masse to the Democratic party AND the Democrats moving en masse moving to the Republican party. AND since your entire citation revolves around the 1930s, you have ignored the Jim Crow laws, the civil rights abuses and even the school segregation which was ALL Democrats. What your article showed is that the Dems tried changing their direct efforts to subjugate the blacks and started enslaving them through economics.
@seawulf575 In the Memphis metro area when I lived there it wasn’t the Democrats who were afraid of the Black people being bused to the suburbs.
Actually, to some extent both groups worry about their kids middle class kids going to school with lower classes that don’t test as well and we hear about more violence in schools. The solve is to make circumstances better for all children. The Republicans want to have vouchers and direct money into private schools under the guise of competition will make all schools better. That’s just a smokescreen to create more religious schools and poor people will have even worse public schools and there will be an even bigger divide.
Which gets me to the big divide and tool of the Republican party, which is religion. The party used religion to woo members and keep them in line and that was part of the great migration from one party to the other.
I know plenty of white Republican families adopting Black children and I’ve said all along I don’t think all Republicans or Trump voters are racist. I do think the racist people live in that party though. They are bedfellows with you. There are some racist people among the Democrats, sure, you can find them, but the White Supremacists are voting for people like Trump, not Biden, and you know it.
@JLeslie So now you are backing off the Dems are now Repubs and Repubs are now Dems? I say that because you haven’t shown the mass migration of politicians changing parties. There have been really productive ad campaigns that made voters move from one side to the other…that isn’t the same.
White Supremacists vote for Trump and not Biden. That might be true even though Trump has denounced them numerous times. But there is a flip side to that coin. Blacks are moving away from Democrats too, and you know it. And many of the communist/Marxist/anarchist groups vote for Dem over Repub and you know that too. And those are the groups that are trying to put CRT into every grade school textbook they can find.
And, BTW, school vouchers actually benefit poor people more than rich people. School vouchers take tax money and attach it to the child and not the school. So poor kids can go to better schools than the run-down ones in their local areas. Rich kids have good schools in their areas so they are naturally at an advantage as it is now. Schools have to do a good job to earn/keep students coming to them. There is basically nothing racist about school vouchers..in fact they are designed to close the racial gap.
It’s more complex than black/white of course. Here’s more context.
@seawulf575 Not backing off. Ask Southerners in their 80’s and 90’s, many of them were Democrats and became Republicans after civil rights or if they were late in changing during the Reagan years.
School vouchers used for private schools chip away at the public schools. Give government money to private schools and they increase tuitions. You might really believe they aren’t racist and aren’t promoting private schools, but the people at the top pushing it know the real goal. They give you material so you go along. They propagate the message.
Agree that parts of the Democrat party are way too far left for me. I know they are my bedfellows. I say it! You say it! Admit White Supremacists are in your party, real neo-Nazis.
@gorillapaws Yep, the parties changed their focus on what government should be, but that isn’t racism. The racism of the Democrats proceeded on well into the 1960’s and beyond. The Civil Rights Act of 1963 had very little support from Democrats even though Johnson was the president. It only passed because of strong support by the Repubs. It was the 70’s when Wallace was running for president. 1977 Joe Biden was worried about schools becoming racial jungles. These are all very racist times for the Dems. Believing the federal government should have more power and the states having less has nothing to do with the racist views of the politicians.
@JLeslie See my answer about the racist Democrats for @gorillapaws
As for school vouchers, you are trying to argue from the point of view of the schools. It isn’t about the schools, its about the children. The public schools are failing miserably. Money has been thrown at them and they go downhill even more. The poor students are getting substandard education (though to be honest, some of that is on them). So if giving those poor students a chance to attend a better school occurs, how is that racist? Trying to force them into the same failed schools is the racist move here.
I already told you that the WS likely voted for Trump. But let me ask you: how many WS groups are there? What is their number of members? What are their goals? I’m not saying WS groups don’t exist, but I will say they are not nearly as influential as you make them out to be. Meanwhile the communist/marxist/anarchists are almost 100% Democrat. And there are MANY of them that are VERY influential. BLM, Antifa, Bernie Sanders and all his followers, AOC, Ilan Omar,....the list goes on and on. Your conflation that WS represent Trump is false. He has specifically called them out as being horrible groups. Who in the Democrat party has called out BLM or Antifa? Hell, they even helped to set up bail out and legal support funds for those arrested at riots where billions of dollars of damage were done and, oh yeah, mostly black entrepreneurs were forced out of business.
Biden calls out some of the extreme behavior of ANTIFA and denounced Defund the Police and so did Cory Booker and plenty of prominent people in the party. The person the Democrats elected into the top office is willing to disagree with the extremist in the party, Trump ENCOURAGES the extremists.
You are duped about the schools. That’s ok, you just don’t see it. In the short term there might be a few poor kids who benefit from vouchers, but the long term goal is to ruin the public schools. What about college? Do agree with the government loans for tuition? Do you think colleges raise their prices because the government money is flowing?
@JLeslie How many times has Biden denounced Antifa? I can only find one time where he “denounced Antifa”. During an interview he was asked point blank whether he denounced Antifa and he said yes, violent protests from any side are bad. But does that match with him insinuating Kyle Rittenhouse was a White Supremacist? He didn’t denounce the violence in Kenosha, but he had no problems linking Rittenhouse to WS, thereby hinting that all violence is because of WS. Meanwhile we have Kamala Harris stumping for and supporting the Minnesota Freedom Fund…a group that bails out “protesters”. Please remember that most of these “protesters” were Antifa. She supported them even after they bailed out a 2 time rapist who was arrested for sexual assault, a woman that stabbed a man to death because he didn’t want to have sex with her, and a woman that shot at police. That is nowhere NEAR condemning or denouncing this group, it is openly supporting them. And here’s another facet to this story. Antifa was categorized by the DHS as a Domestic Terror Organization back in 2016. All this support from the Biden campaign was well after that.
Now to the other side…when did Trump encourage extremists? Please, educate me. Show me the citations. And they cannot be hints or innuendo. I want to see the text of him supporting domestic terror groups or really even white supremacists. I can show you the text of him condemning them repeatedly, but let’s see what you have other than a vague repeated claim by the media.
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