“Schools have become the focal point for culture war fights that animated former President Donald Trump's base and have been advanced by conservative activists and influencers since he left office.
“Conservative grassroots activists have zeroed in on local education policy with a tea party-esque fervor for months – spanning debates about reopening, how to teach U.S. history and required masking. Now, conservative personalities are urging followers to run for school board seats that have rarely generated much interest, while dozens of activist groups focused on schools have sprouted to advance the fights.”
(Allan Smith. “Schools become political 'battlefield' in culture wars Trump cultivated.” NBC News. September 07, 2021.)
Groups have popped up around the country to bolster the efforts, including No Left Turn in Education, Parents Rights in Education and Moms for Liberty. NBC News reported this year that at least 165 such local and national groups had sprung up to influence the fight over schools, many of them reinforced by a network of conservative think tanks, law firms and activist parents.
Many conservative activists want a ban on discussing “divisive concepts” such as racism or sexism in public schools. They tell parents that liberals want to make their kids hate their country and feel guilty for being white. They see any inclusion of examining these topics as a stealth form of indoctrinating Marxism.
These coalitions – many of which are religious conservatives and extreme tax-cutters --- prefer to vilify public schools and, pretty much, any traditional educational institution, including liberal arts colleges – as potential corruptors of the nation's youth; as unwanted interlocutors in that most sacred relationship: the one between a child and her parent.”
The organizations began flexing their muscles in the conservative backlash over critical race theory, which was often used as a catch-all phrase encompassing diversity training and other anti-racism efforts.
There is scant evidence that the theory itself – an academic area of study that examines the modern-day impact of systemic racism in law and society – was being taught in K-12 schools; however, recently, more than 20 bills to curtail the teaching of race in school were introduced in statehouses, and a handful of governors signed such legislation into law.
Examining American institutions and laws through the lens of race and racism has been a part of public school curriculum for decades, but many Republicans and right-wing media have co-opted this term, and they're using it as a catch-all way of describing basically any conversation about race or racism that makes white people uncomfortable. So conversations about white privilege, having dialogues about anti-racism – these have all been branded falsely as critical race theory.
CRT – What It Is And Is Not
Let's be clear: critical race theory does center on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) and that these institutions function to maintain the dominance of white people in society. The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race. Proponents also believe race is culturally invented, not biological.
And, yes, critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.
But …
CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Examining America's history of racism does not necessarily admonishe all white people for being oppressors while classifying all Black people as hopelessly oppressed victims.
Dr. Rashawn Ray, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution and a Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland, explains …
“Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. Sociologists and other scholars have long noted that racism can exist without racists. However, many Americans are not able to separate their individual identity as an American from the social institutions that govern us – these people perceive themselves as the system.
“Consequently, they (people) interpret calling social institutions racist as calling them racist personally. It speaks to how normative racial ideology is to American identity that some people just cannot separate the two. There are also people who may recognize America’s racist past but have bought into the false narrative that the U.S. is now an equitable democracy. They are simply unwilling to remove the blind spot obscuring the fact that America is still not great for everyone.”
(Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons. “Why are states banning critical race theory?” Brookings. August 2021.)
The key distinction about blame: scholars and activists who discuss CRT are not arguing that white people living now are to blame for what people did in the past. They are saying that white people living now have a moral responsibility to do something about how racism still impacts all of our lives today.
Still, many Republicans view the concepts and catch-all phrases underlying critical race theory – white privilege, systemic inequality, and inherent bias – as efforts to rewrite American history and persuade white people that they are inherently racist and should feel guilty because of their advantages.
These GOP activists seek to scare off companies, schools, and government agencies from discussing systemic racism. “What these bills are designed to do is prevent conversations about how racism exists at a systemic level in that we all have implicit biases that lead to decisions that, accumulated, lead to significant racial disparities,” says Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. “The proponents of this bill want none of those discussions to happen. They want to suppress that type of speech.”
Some Republican-led state legislatures want to roll back racial progress regarding everything from voting rights to police reform. Laws forbidding any teacher or lesson from mentioning race/racism, and even gender/sexism, put a chilling effect on what educators are willing to discuss in the classroom and provide cover for those who are not comfortable hearing or telling the truth about the history and state of race relations in the United States. Ironically, “making laws outlawing critical race theory confirms the point that racism is embedded in the law,” notes sociologist Victor Ray.
(Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons. “Why are states banning critical race theory?” Brookings. August 2021.)
And, let's be brutally honest …
Some parents are worried about their kids learning things in school that they do not have the capacity to address. Their children have learned very little about inequality and often ask their teachers about things like protests and police brutality. Classroom discussions about systemic racism can help explain current events like racial disparities in police killings, COVID-19 outcomes for minorities, and the devaluing of homes in Black neighborhoods.
Public school teachers are not teaching critical race theory. As an ex-teacher in public education, I can attest to that. They do, however, strive to teach the truth – a reality that would include pertinent veracity about the past and the present.
These teachers are not seeking to indoctrinate students with dangerous ideals or make false allegations that whites are inherently racist. These instructors do seek to engage in culturally relevant teaching that seeks to better engage students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. They are charged with keeping the integrity of the state curriculum, and if and when they fail to do so, they face serious repercussions.
Above all, instructors must teach critical thinking skills and problem solving while managing their classrooms in a professional manner that is age appropriate and intellectually honest. This difficult assignment requires teachers to make critical decisions about a variety of perspectives and experiences including differences in American culture, race, and identity. Imparting honesty and integrity is crucial to that responsibility.
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