The Republicans have a winning issue sitting in their laps. I hope they use the opportunity to actually expand school choice and improve education options. IÂ’m skeptical. My gut says theyÂ’ll instead simply look to ban teaching CRT, which would be a mistake.
Dude, I apologize that this post turned out so long. I really didn't intend for it to. I was gonna just talk about the CRT but as you can see here, it didn't work out like that. lol
I was sitting in my vehicle one evening outside the Target in Texarkana (over a year ago) waiting for my wife who had gone in to get a few things. While I was out there I got a text from my boss (a conservative) at work. She had been asked by somebody higher up our food chain who had been asked by some of her bosses higher up the U of A food chain whether we covered anything from the CRT or 1619 project. I had never heard of either at the time, but when I heard the year 1619 I knew it had to do with slavery so I did some Google searching on my phone and texted a friend (who is a Lib) for more information. Between my Google searching and my friend's reply I found out more than I needed to know so I told my supervisor that I did and always had covered the important "facts" about slavery and racism in my courses but I did not teach either of those "collections of material". I asked her did she really want me to develop something on either of those things? A little while later she texted me back and told me no, she had just been asked about it.
I teach what I think is right and true. I don't give a rat's ass (and never have) whether it's politically popular with Repubs or Dems. I do and always have felt like both sides have some good ideas and I cherry pick the good stuff and leave the other stuff to rot.
Extremists on the far left want that "if you're white you need to feel bad and be punished for what white people did in the past". I address things that were done that were wrong and we talk about it. To go as far as they do is bull**** IMO.
Extremists on the far right want to whitewash all the wrongs that were done to people of color in the past and talk about "American Exceptionalism" which conveniently dodges most if not all those bad things. Remember the groups of idiot parents in TX a few years back who wanted to "fine tune" the history textbooks by removing most of the stuff about Jefferson and all the stuff about Cesar Chavez (among other things)?
I detest both of those approaches. To me the truth is the truth. I don't whitewash it and I don't deny it and I don't try to create some alternate universe where people of color need to remember the good old days when "they knew their place, and white people need to do permanent penance for their sins" OR some alternate universe where 450 years of slavery and racism and the genocide of Native Americans are "skipped over as fast as possible".
I agree with Steak Sauce's point that we need to have a discussion about all those things, the good and the bad, and I always have done both. The problem is, a lot of people who want to lead the discussions on both sides have their own political agenda. Any discussion though is only as good as the people leading it, be they leftists or "rightists".
I agree with Bill Maher that we need to strive for a colorblind society, but not one that ignores the past or permanently dwells on the past. As a nation we seem to have lost the ability to "multitask" as it were.
We are ALL Americans and like it or not we will as a nation either learn how to swim together or we will all eventually drown together. The whole concept of "everyone who disagrees with my point of view (whatever that is) must be destroyed" is just as wrong as CRT or 1619P or "Repubs are great all the time" textbooks. If we don't get rid of that "my way or the highway" mentality the Chinese and the Russians WILL win and probably sooner than most of us think.
