"Acceptable Racism" -- Education Researchers' Disgusting Anti-White Bent
Martin Luther King's words, calling for us to "judge a man by the content of his character," are one of the most beautiful messages out there. I've read and heard his words hundreds of times, and I never fail to feel moved by them.
Disgustingly, there's a very different message being sent in the education world -- a very ugly message.
Max Eden writes at City Journal about the sick trend in education curriculum, instruction, and policy:
This weekend, more than 14,000 academics will gather in Toronto to share their research for the American Education Research Association's annual conference....Unfortunately, rather than a renewed commitment to methodologically sound research into education policy and practice, the conference program demonstrates a preoccupation with promoting a virulent new brand of racism. A keyword search of the conference program reveals 422 hits for whiteness--more than for "personalized learning" (16), "school boards" (19), "standardized testing" (20), "high school graduation" (23) "reading achievement" (24), "digital learning" (25), "policy analysis" (31), "early education" (38), "teacher evaluation" (41) "literacy instruction" (42), "bilingual education" (48), and "achievement gap" (75) combined.
A symposium called "The Interrogation of Whiteness in Progressive Public Schools" promises to explore "the experience of teachers and education leaders who work to undo whiteness in public schools."
Anti-racism pro tip: If you can't say it about black people, it's not acceptable to say about white people.
Eden continues:
A featured paper in that session is "Trust, Community, and Dismantling White Dominance." Another, "Critical-Race Elementary Schooling: Teacher Change Agents are Undoing Whiteness in Elementary Schools," celebrates teachers who "actively resist elements of Whiteness."
Imagine being a white kid taught by those who ingest this sick shit.
Perhaps the most remarkable symposium analyzes fanfiction about "Beckys." "Becky" is a slur for "a stereotypical basic white girl; obsessed with Starbucks, Ugg boots, and trying to have a bigger butt."The panel, titled, "Critical Becky Studies: Critical Explorations of Gender, Race, and the Pedagogies of Whiteness," includes a paper called "Becky Book Club: White Racial Bonding in the Living Room," which explores the "more insidious workings" of book clubs "laced with white supremacy and surveillance." Another essay, "Border Becky: Exploring White Women's Emotionality, Ignorance, Investment in Whiteness," examines white women who find themselves "at the border between choosing to be a race traitor and repledging their allegiance to white supremacy."
Note that the obsession is not with educating kids but educating kids how white people are bad.
Those of us who are decent human beings call this racism.
Those of us who are thinking humans wonder how American kids will compete with those from China who are getting an actual education. In math 'n' stuff.
This is a direct result of a creeping (now almost complete) change in education. No longer do schools expose students to history, civics, and useless racist things like facts. Critical thinking and examination of the various sides of an issue are now anathema.
In its place students are inundated with social justice ideology and taught that virtue signaling shows intelligence and compassion. It has gone so far off the rails that a college professor has postulated that time is racist!
This will not end well.
Jay at April 7, 2019 6:21 AM
What exactly is "whiteness in public schools?" And why is it so pernicious that it must be eradicated?
Seriously, I'd like to understand how I became Public Enemy No. 1 in public education simply because I'm white.
I'd also like to understand how targeting "whiteness" is not racist.
Conan the Grammarian at April 7, 2019 7:54 AM
The truly bizarre thing about educators attacking "whiteness" is that they make it synonymous with success, logic, hard work, delayed gratification, wearing a belt, being polite. In other words they are going to tear down all the things that education used to build up. They are against learning. How strange! But that is where wokeness leads.
cc at April 7, 2019 9:14 AM
> they are going to tear down
> all the things that education
> used to build up
Haight noticed that a couple years ago, before writing the book.
> I'd also like to understand
> how targeting "whiteness" is
> not racist.
Teapot tempests are louder than the used to be. Silly people are saying silly things, but I don't think this will flower. It's annoying, but I don't feel threatened, because competence will always be rewarded.
All this is of a piece, right?
Last week someone, I can't remember who, noted that all the people who with songs of socialist adoration for Bernie & AOC were singing into their smartphones and Ipads.
These people *want* stuff.
Crid at April 7, 2019 10:28 AM
These people *want* stuff.
Yes. But they want other people to pay for it, design it, build it, and bring it them. What will the do if their grocers can not get resupplied within 3 days? starve, I suppose.
Critical thinking and examination of the various sides of an issue are now anathema.
Of course. Have you tried leading those sorts of people? you have to persuade them!
I R A Darth Aggie at April 7, 2019 12:58 PM
IDK. I'm losing confidence that it will. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is not a king, he's an outlier, a lunatic.
Conan the Grammarian at April 7, 2019 2:45 PM
"What exactly is "whiteness in public schools?""
The next comment did a good job of addressing that: "logic, hard work, delayed gratification, wearing a belt, being polite."
Teaching the value of long time preferences, i.e. delayed gratification and thinking more than one week into the future, has been widely labeled as racist. Back in the 70's a black sociologist FROM AFRICA came to study the public schools in Shaker Heights, OH to determine the reason for one of the first intra-school observed racial achievement gaps (Shaker was a very affluent suburb being rapidly integrated at the time.) He lamented a black culture that defined ethnic authenticity as failing within western civilization - high achieving black students were ostracized by their black peers for "acting white," i.e getting good grades.
Black syndicated columnist William Raspberry once wrote that the central failing of African Americans is that they let their most delinquent youth set their cultural norms.
bw1 at April 7, 2019 6:50 PM
SJWs see anti-white racism as "punching up"; you'll never convince them that it's evil. However, the less thickheaded ones might possibly be made to see that substituting virtue-signaling for real education helps no one.
On the other hand, perhaps part of the problem is a shortage of teachers qualified to do anything but virtue-signal.
Rex Little at April 7, 2019 8:34 PM
I don't think that is what Becky is. Becky smoked pot that one time. Then she died. Don't be Becky.
Or at least that is how the joke goes. There is some old year book photo that goes with it. And often it isn't pot. Sometimes it was crack, or alcohol, or even driving a pickup truck. The point being people make idiotic connections and lie about things for political purposes.
Crid, I can understand why you have that viewpoint. You don't have any kids or grandkids. You don't interact with these people. Yes they want stuff. All those fancy electronic gizmos and devices. But they aren't smart enough to see the connection between a good education and their favored electronic status symbol. Instead they will insist it is evil US carbon dioxide that destroyed the Aral Sea. And I'm not joking about that. They attempted to teach me that back in the 90s. My teacher was baffled but interested when I mentioned if you pump all the water out there isn't any more water there.
https://aliciapatterson.org/stories/how-soviets-destroyed-sea-thirty-years
This is why school choice is a big issue for anyone interested in real education.
Ben at April 7, 2019 8:53 PM
What exactly is "whiteness in public schools?"
Actual, measurable achievement, of which I am being told on Facebook is impossible because I am not a teacher. The accuser is, of course, and she rejects the idea that others can see the results of her profession's work. She is comfortable in that echo chamber.
On the racial divide (please note that whites are not alone in achievement, although hustlers insist they are):
"Cities have been the heart of the intellectual and artistic in all civilizations, as for example Athens, Rome, Florence, Vienna, New York. By contrast, blacks have destroyed city after American city after American city. Trenton, Camden, Newark, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Flint, St. Louis, New Orleans, Milwaukee. At one time in all of these one could live, walk at will, send one’s children to the schools. Now, no. Violence, crime, racial attacks,and illiteracy drive the civilized to remote suburbs. This is not my culture and I see no reason to apologize for it."
And whiteness is bad. Right?
Radwaste at April 8, 2019 4:36 AM
"It's annoying, but I don't feel threatened, because competence will always be rewarded."
Of course, the problem is where one will find competence in the future; it will be a much more rare commodity than it has been since WWII. The public primary school system has passed the point where reform is possible. For parents, the only course of action is to bypass it, and that means either private school or home schooling. Unfortunately, many parents don't care -- for them, the public schools are a babysitting service, and that's all they expect from it. And of the parents who do care, a significant fraction don't have the means to pursue the alternate course. I dream of a day when the existing public school system becomes a rump party that only handles the delinquents and is ignored by everyone else, but that's not going to happen any time soon.
Cousin Dave at April 8, 2019 7:09 AM
"...gather in Toronto to share their research for the American Education Research Association's annual conference."
US educators have their convention in CANADA? WTF, man? Am I missing something? Or are they concerned that the inflammatory nature of their message won't be well-received at home?
bkmale at April 8, 2019 8:33 AM
Toronto is a nice city in the summer, good bar scene. It's just an excuse to get out of town on someone else's dime Bkmale.
Ben at April 8, 2019 9:52 AM
> I can understand
No
Crid at April 8, 2019 10:13 AM
You have kids Crid? You've dealt with the public schools? Or are you just blowing smoke about stuff you've got no clue about like usual?
Ben at April 9, 2019 6:39 AM
No one without kids can ever understand! You have INSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTSSSSSSSSSSS
Crid at April 9, 2019 11:11 AM
So you admit you have zero interaction with these people but you know by pulling things out of your ass all about them. Good job Crid. Venezuelans love iPads and food and toilet paper. But they still set everything up to lose all that stuff. Your argument is based on admitted ignorance and false hope.
Ben at April 9, 2019 4:59 PM
Admissions! You're prosecuting a criminal enterprise!
Crid at April 10, 2019 7:39 AM
Do you have anything to support your assertions Crid? You've had ample time to make your case. Instead you snark like a child. Why? What is the point? You are just mad someone pointed out you wrote something stupid? You enjoy insulting me personally because I noted you are a troll? Or is it just the joy of trolling? If so I can respect that. The joy at least if not the implementation.
Ben at April 10, 2019 8:14 AM
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