The Attack on "Critical Race Theory": What's Going on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P35YrabkpGk
Lately, a lot of people have been very upset about “critical race theory.” Back in September 2020, the former president directed federal agencies to cut funding for training programs that refer to “white privilege” or “critical race theory, declaring such programs “un-American propaganda” and “a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.” In the last few months, at least eight states have passed legislation banning the teaching of CRT in schools and some 20 more have similar bills in the pipeline or plans to introduce them. What’s going on?
Join us for a conversation that situates the current battle about “critical race theory” in the context of a much longer war over the relationship between our racial present and racial past, and the role of culture, institutions, laws, policies and “systems” in shaping both. As members of families and communities, as adults in the lives of the children who will have to live with the consequences of these struggles, how do we understand what's at stake and how we can usefully weigh in?
Hosts: Melissa Giraud & Andrew Grant-Thomas
Guests: Shee Covarrubias, Kerry-Ann Escayg,
Some core ideas of critical race theory:
- racial realism
- interest convergence
- racial equity only occurs when white self interest is being considered (Brown v. Board of Education as an example to portray US in a better light with respect to the Cold War)
- Whiteness as property
- Cheryl Harris' work
- White people have privilege in the law
- myth of meritocracy
- Intersectionality
People would rather be spoon fed rather than do the work themselves. Sadly this is being encouraged in the media.
Short summary of CRT: How laws have been written to institutionalize racism.
Culturally Responsive Teaching (also has the initials CRT).
KAE tries to use an anti-racist critical pedagogy in her teaching.
SC: Story about a book Something Happened in Our Town (book).
- Law enforcement got upset and the school district
- Response video of threat, intimidation, emotional blackmail by local sheriff's department.
- Intent versus impact - the superintendent may not have had a bad intent when providing an apology, but the impact was painful
It's not really a battle about or against CRT, it's an attempt to further whitewash American history. (synopsis of SC)
What are you afraid of?