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Ibram X. Kendi: The Danger More Republicans Should Be Talking About

j brown's body

"A Soros-backed animal"
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"What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth.

...In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that nearly one in 10 multiplayer gamers ages 13 to 17 had been exposed to white-supremacist ideology. An estimated 2.3 million teens each year are exposed to white-supremacist ideology ...17 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds who encounter white-supremacist views on social media, according to the same ADL study. ...One study of TikTok videos found that almost a third “amplified white supremacy.” ...And yet, there might be more white-supremacist material preying on vulnerable young people on Instagram than on TikTok. ...Experts know—and white supremacists know—which white kids are most vulnerable to grooming: kids seeking a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging; loners and excluded kids; and depressed kids. And depression among “white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups,” Derek Thompson recently reported in The Atlantic.

In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters. White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers—and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced. White kids can learn about Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were born into an enslaving South Carolina family and courageously transformed themselves into leading abolitionists.


This is anti-racist education, and it protects white children—all children—against the growing threat of white supremacists..."

Link

Kendri is right, of course. We need anti-racism education in schools to help thwart the threat of white supremacy among young white people. But since Republicans can't attack the public school system by going after white supremacy, its not worth the trouble.
 
The link goes to a paywall.

This information is so important that you have to pay to read it.
 
The link goes to a paywall.

This information is so important that you have to pay to read it.

Feel free to comment on the content in the op.
 
"In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters. White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers—and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced. White kids can learn about Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were born into an enslaving South Carolina family and courageously transformed themselves into leading abolitionists.
Sounds good.

Kendri is right, of course. We need anti-racism education in schools to help thwart the threat of white supremacy among young white people.
Strongly disagree with this framing. Public education should not be tailored to counter particular ideologies, and especially not among particular demographic groups. "Anti-racism" means such different things to different people, it should not be a goal of public education.
 
"What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth.

...In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that nearly one in 10 multiplayer gamers ages 13 to 17 had been exposed to white-supremacist ideology. An estimated 2.3 million teens each year are exposed to white-supremacist ideology ...17 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds who encounter white-supremacist views on social media, according to the same ADL study. ...One study of TikTok videos found that almost a third “amplified white supremacy.” ...And yet, there might be more white-supremacist material preying on vulnerable young people on Instagram than on TikTok. ...Experts know—and white supremacists know—which white kids are most vulnerable to grooming: kids seeking a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging; loners and excluded kids; and depressed kids. And depression among “white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups,” Derek Thompson recently reported in The Atlantic.

In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters. White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers—and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced. White kids can learn about Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were born into an enslaving South Carolina family and courageously transformed themselves into leading abolitionists.


This is anti-racist education, and it protects white children—all children—against the growing threat of white supremacists..."

Link

Kendri is right, of course. We need anti-racism education in schools to help thwart the threat of white supremacy among young white people. But since Republicans can't attack the public school system by going after white supremacy, its not worth the trouble.

When I was in school, we read Huckleberry Finn. Huck decides in the book that if having a "Black" friend meant that he was going to Hell, then he'd go to Hell.

For me, that was a life changing sequence of thought by Huck and I accompanied him along the path as he followed an undeniably well founded line of reason and logic.

Now, our ridiculously stupid educational hierarchy refuses to allow Huckleberry Finn to be taught in publicschools.

Too bad...

As Thomas Sowell asked,

"Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where
some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born while
other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

Such is the state of the drive to divide out society along the lines of race and hate.
 
When I was in school, we read Huckleberry Finn. Huck decides in the book that if having a "Black" friend meant that he was going to Hell, then he'd go to Hell.

For me, that was a life changing sequence of thought by Huck and I accompanied him along the path as he followed an undeniably well founded line of reason and logic.

Now, our ridiculously stupid educational hierarchy refuses to allow Huckleberry Finn to be taught in publicschools.

Too bad...

As Thomas Sowell asked,

"Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where
some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born while
other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

Such is the state of the drive to divide out society along the lines of race and hate.

That's setting the bar pretty low. I suspect many people who haven't read it don't think they're going to hell for having a black friend.

I read it in high school, and, of course, had the same idea. Who wanted to be like the ignorant white people in the book? Well,, some of my classmates, perhaps, all of them were white. They thought it was pretty cool that a famous writer used the n-word and saw it as a liberty to use themselves. I read it again in college and got quite a bit more out of it.
 
Sounds good.


Strongly disagree with this framing. Public education should not be tailored to counter particular ideologies, and especially not among particular demographic groups. "Anti-racism" means such different things to different people, it should not be a goal of public education.

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that we are all equal is a political ideology. Anti-racism isn't really complicated. Examining implicit bias just leads to rather complex and reflective thinking. That, to me, is a big part of education - the "not repeating the mistakes of past" part of studying history.
 
"What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth.

...In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that nearly one in 10 multiplayer gamers ages 13 to 17 had been exposed to white-supremacist ideology. An estimated 2.3 million teens each year are exposed to white-supremacist ideology ...17 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds who encounter white-supremacist views on social media, according to the same ADL study. ...One study of TikTok videos found that almost a third “amplified white supremacy.” ...And yet, there might be more white-supremacist material preying on vulnerable young people on Instagram than on TikTok. ...Experts know—and white supremacists know—which white kids are most vulnerable to grooming: kids seeking a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging; loners and excluded kids; and depressed kids. And depression among “white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups,” Derek Thompson recently reported in The Atlantic.

In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters. White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers—and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced. White kids can learn about Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were born into an enslaving South Carolina family and courageously transformed themselves into leading abolitionists.


This is anti-racist education, and it protects white children—all children—against the growing threat of white supremacists..."

Link

Kendri is right, of course. We need anti-racism education in schools to help thwart the threat of white supremacy among young white people. But since Republicans can't attack the public school system by going after white supremacy, its not worth the trouble.
This guy is a younger version of Al Sharpton: a For-Profit Race Baiter.
 
So, is anti-racism a political ideology or an ideal that is reflected in our Declaration of Independence with "all men created equal?"

Should schools teach it to counter the racist indoctrination kids are getting online?
 
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that we are all equal is a political ideology.
Then why designate it with a specific, oppositional term? Why call it 'anti-racism'? Outside of debating the pros and cons of different ideologies (all kinds) in say a senior logic/philosophy class, offhand I'd venture that the only values which should be promoted by public education are truly foundational ones like universal human rights as in the UN Declaration of that name or the US Declaration of Independence. But while it could and should have that effect, that's a far cry from saying that you're teaching 'anti-racism'; and if someone does insist that they want to teach 'anti-racism' you'd surely have to wonder what else they're going to add to it.

Anti-racism isn't really complicated. Examining implicit bias just leads to rather complex and reflective thinking. That, to me, is a big part of education - the "not repeating the mistakes of past" part of studying history.
Disadvantages along the lines of race such as implicit biases in employment, justice etc. are just one of the types of disadvantage and inequalities of opportunity in society. Furthermore since those disadvantages can no longer be explicit formal discrimination, most of them end up boiling down to disparities in wealth and income, albeit sometimes a step or two removed: Unequal educational funding between predominantly white and non-white schools would no longer exist if people in non-white districts had the same incomes and property values to provide the same funding, for example, or if there weren't as much black poverty there obviously wouldn't be as much black crime, and if crime/imprisonment statistics and educational outcomes were the same we should expect those implicit biases to resolve eventually too.

Are disadvantages along the lines of race the most important type of disadvantage in society, so as to warrant particular attention?
Should others like opposition to wealth-based inequalities of opportunity also become a specific focus of public education?
Is it even possible to coherently discuss or teach 'anti-racism' without addressing those issues?
And do 'anti-racist' advocates even want to, or are some of them happy to use it as a trojan horse for anti-capitalism too?

Even as a raging lefty myself, I'd be concerned about questions like those.

Perhaps more importantly, considering what a 'controversial' issue race is and given limited public attention and political capital, is education really the area where those efforts should be spent? We've seen how much political traction can be gained even from largely fabricated bogeymen like 'CRT' and completely fabricated bullshit like 'grooming' kids to be gay or trans; the message "that they're out to get your kids" is a highly emotive and incredibly powerful one even when it's based on smoke and mirrors, and yet Kendi wants to actively promote a specific educational agenda under newfangled terminology? Seems to me there's a very real risk of that doing more harm than good, especially if (as you imply) all you're really talking about are teaching slightly better history, civics and basic human rights.
 
So, is anti-racism a political ideology or an ideal that is reflected in our Declaration of Independence with "all men created equal?"

Should schools teach it to counter the racist indoctrination kids are getting online?

Kendi seems to be falling back a bit here from his systemic racism position. He's inferring that some whites are white supremacists and others aren't. He's reading the anti-CRT climate and adjusting accordingly.

An estimated 2.3 million teens each year are exposed to white-supremacist ideology in chats for multiplayer games like World of Warcraft...

This is cosmetic; he's just changed his approach to promote anti-racism (race-based redistribution). Look at these two 'justifications' for redistribution:

1. Some white teens play video games and are exposed to "white supremacy" through chats.

2. White women make 18% more than Black women, and that's unfair. These white women never entered a chat room, but still take part in structural racism and are guilty of participating in a white supremacist system.

Kendi wants to solve #2 through redistribution. #1 acts as a gentler way to introduce that concept to white people. He wants to appear more mainstream.
 
"What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth.

...In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League released a report finding that nearly one in 10 multiplayer gamers ages 13 to 17 had been exposed to white-supremacist ideology. An estimated 2.3 million teens each year are exposed to white-supremacist ideology ...17 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds who encounter white-supremacist views on social media, according to the same ADL study. ...One study of TikTok videos found that almost a third “amplified white supremacy.” ...And yet, there might be more white-supremacist material preying on vulnerable young people on Instagram than on TikTok. ...Experts know—and white supremacists know—which white kids are most vulnerable to grooming: kids seeking a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging; loners and excluded kids; and depressed kids. And depression among “white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups,” Derek Thompson recently reported in The Atlantic.

In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters. White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers—and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced. White kids can learn about Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were born into an enslaving South Carolina family and courageously transformed themselves into leading abolitionists.


This is anti-racist education, and it protects white children—all children—against the growing threat of white supremacists..."

Link

Kendri is right, of course. We need anti-racism education in schools to help thwart the threat of white supremacy among young white people. But since Republicans can't attack the public school system by going after white supremacy, its not worth the trouble.

Kendi does have a gift for swaying the weak minded.

The reality is that black Americans face a far greater threat than white kids playing first person shooter video games. They are far more likely to be harmed from actual, living first person shooters in their neighborhoods.
 
Sounds good.


Strongly disagree with this framing. Public education should not be tailored to counter particular ideologies, and especially not among particular demographic groups. "Anti-racism" means such different things to different people, it should not be a goal of public education.

Children in Germany are taught the horrors of Nazi Germany. That doesn’t make them feel guilty. Most German kids are very proud of the liberal democracy their nation has become.

Not sure why teaching the history of racism here should be any different.
 
_______________________________


"It seems to me that the regulative idea that we – we wet liberals, we heirs of the Enlightenment, we Socratists – most frequently use to criticize the conduct of various conversational partners is that of ‘needing education in order to outgrow their primitive fear, hatreds, and superstitions’. This is the concept the victorious Allied armies used when they set about re-educating the citizens of occupied Germany and Japan. It is also the one which was used by American schoolteachers who had read Dewey and were concerned to get students to think ‘scientifically’ and ‘rationally’ about such matters as the origin of the species and sexual behavior. It is a concept which I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities, invoke when we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own...The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire “American liberal Establishment” is engaged in a conspiracy.

The parents have a point. Their point is that we liberal teachers no more feel in a symmetrical communication situation when we talk with bigots than do kindergarten teachers talking with their students. […] When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we do not consider the possibility of reformulating our own practices of justification so as to give more weight to the authority of the Christian scriptures. Instead, we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank. The racist or fundamentalist parents of our students[…] will protest that these books are being jammed down their children’s throats. I cannot see how to reply to their charges without saying something like “There are credentials for admission to our democratic society […]. You have to be educated in order to be … a participant in our conversation … So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours.”
-Richard Rorty, professor emeritus of philosophy and humanities at Stanford University, and former chair of the American Philosophical Association
 
Children in Germany are taught the horrors of Nazi Germany. That doesn’t make them feel guilty. Most German kids are very proud of the liberal democracy their nation has become.

Not sure why teaching the history of racism here should be any different.
If public education should be tailored to counter particular ideologies, as you seem to be suggesting, what criteria determine which ideologies should be opposed and which should be upheld? 'Science' obviously isn't an answer since we're talking about ideologies and values rather than objective facts. Will of the majority seems an obviously flawed answer, firstly in that it would completely politicize curricula and secondly in that it would then be 'right' for highly racist or religious societies to have education systems which oppose tolerance and secularism. Curious as to your thoughts how this would be decided/justified.

As I further explained in my subsequent post, outside of debating the pros and cons of different ideologies (all kinds) in say a senior logic/philosophy class, offhand I'd venture that the only values which should be promoted by public education are truly foundational ones like universal human rights as in the UN Declaration of that name or the US Declaration of Independence. But while it could and should have that effect, that's a far cry from saying that you're teaching 'anti-racism'; and if someone does insist that they want to teach 'anti-racism' you'd surely have to wonder what else they're going to add to it.
 
If public education should be tailored to counter particular ideologies, as you seem to be suggesting, what criteria determine which ideologies should be opposed and which should be upheld? 'Science' obviously isn't an answer since we're talking about ideologies and values rather than objective facts. Will of the majority seems an obviously flawed answer, firstly in that it would completely politicize curricula and secondly in that it would then be 'right' for highly racist or religious societies to have education systems which oppose tolerance and secularism. Curious as to your thoughts how this would be decided/justified.

As I further explained in my subsequent post, outside of debating the pros and cons of different ideologies (all kinds) in say a senior logic/philosophy class, offhand I'd venture that the only values which should be promoted by public education are truly foundational ones like universal human rights as in the UN Declaration of that name or the US Declaration of Independence. But while it could and should have that effect, that's a far cry from saying that you're teaching 'anti-racism'; and if someone does insist that they want to teach 'anti-racism' you'd surely have to wonder what else they're going to add to it.

What is the difference between "anti-racism" and the idea of universal human rights?
 
What is the difference between "anti-racism" and the idea of universal human rights?
See the last paragraph of my earlier post: If there's no difference, why introduce newfangled terminology to push an educational agenda, when you already know that "they're out to get your kids" is powerful messaging even when it's naught but smoke and mirrors? That's like deciding to start naming ordinary history classes 'Critical Race Theory' - obvious pushback with zero upside.
 
The link goes to a paywall.

This information is so important that you have to pay to read it.
Kendi has bills to pay. Scam artist of BLM proportions.
 
If public education should be tailored to counter particular ideologies, as you seem to be suggesting, what criteria determine which ideologies should be opposed and which should be upheld? 'Science' obviously isn't an answer since we're talking about ideologies and values rather than objective facts. Will of the majority seems an obviously flawed answer, firstly in that it would completely politicize curricula and secondly in that it would then be 'right' for highly racist or religious societies to have education systems which oppose tolerance and secularism. Curious as to your thoughts how this would be decided/justified.

I think we all have an innate idea and sense of justice, and when that is violated. Those who question obvious violations of it through history clearly have alternative agendas in mind.

I think teaching the history of how we have gone awry at different points in history with what is just will help us all be more attuned and sensitive to when we are going awry with it again going forward. Germany today is one of the most trusted champions of ideas of justice and human rights in the world today, and their leadership today is most trusted by the world "to do the right thing" (despite their horrendous history in the last century).


I think the reason why is exactly because of this kind of education and culture in their country today: German children are taught unblinkingly about the horrors of Nazi Germany, and how and why things went wrong. This has not led to their children feeling guilty or personally responsible for what happened back then. But they become more aware of what can happen if you're not careful.
 
See the last paragraph of my earlier post: If there's no difference, why introduce newfangled terminology to push an educational agenda, when you already know that "they're out to get your kids" is powerful messaging even when it's naught but smoke and mirrors? That's like deciding to start naming ordinary history classes 'Critical Race Theory' - obvious pushback with zero upside.

Oh I see. You are saying it's just a messaging problem. You probably have a point. From Bernie calling himself a socialist, to "defund the police", to some of this stuff, it is no secret that the left sucks at messaging.
 
Just teach the actual history folks. Just teach the actual history and let the kids come to their own conclusions.

Worth noting that Florida's rejection of new Math texts does not include any information to the publishers regarding the decision making process as to why texts that did not make the grade were rejected. No specificity offered AT ALL. Which pages of these texts caused their rejection people?

This is a classic for GOP culture war politics. Lets pass nebulous laws that include nebulous standards. Then we will employ those nebulous standards nebulously. A neat trick when all you really care about is getting your way whetter you know what the fugg you are talking about or not.
 
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