KSera
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Posts posted by KSera
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2 hours ago, Condessa said:
But is having white skin a privilege? Being discriminated against for having a different color skin would be an injustice. I don't think my kids who take after my side of the family have a "privilege" over my daughter who takes after the other side of the family for having lighter skin.
I think of not being discriminated against as a right, not a privilege.
1 hour ago, Condessa said:Privilege: a special favor, honor, or right granted to a person or persons
I think two meanings of the word "privilege" are being conflated. There's the definition you gave, that means getting something extra or a special favor, but there's the other meaning that means something more akin to an advantage or a benefit. It doesn't mean that it's an extra that everyone shouldn't enjoy the same benefits of, like a child's reward for showing a certain level of responsibility, it just means it confers some advantage to the person holding it (an advantage that can, as Melissa has been saying, be cancelled out or mediated by some other disadvantage). So, a child coming from an intact family isn't an extra reward, but it does most often confer an advantage that a child from a non-intact family doesn't have. To your final sentence, not being discriminated against is a right, but it's one that in our society, people with white skin are more likely to have the advantage of that right being granted and respected.
1 hour ago, pinball said:I think it is an inappropriate way for framing U.S. history, especially for younger kids, so it is inevitable that it will be taught “badly.”
But what's the alternative? I'm not talking about CRT specifically, but about including discussions of race and systemic racism when talking about US history. I can't see a way to teach history without inadvertently (or purposely) applying some kind of lens as regards race. To leave out discussions of systemic racism is to apply a lens that centers "Whiteness" as the default in our history. I'm not advocating things like that "Not My Idea" book mentioned in The Atlantic article--I think that was a terrible choice--or having kids labeled individually, but I don't see leaving out race as a neutral decision, either.
1 hour ago, Carol in Cal. said:I have the same views about the idea of teaching the Bible as literature. There are too many ways for that to go wrong in a public elementary or middle school for me to want it to be done. I feel like chances are it will do little good and possibly a fair amount of harm.
Lots of things are like that. This current issue just happens to be about a fairly taboo subject which makes it harder to discuss.
But like I was asking pinball, how do you propose to teach history while not having discussions of racism?
1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:It does mean, however, that when parents and teachers in individual schools complain about what their children are being very poorly taught eg the 'whiteness is a contract with the devil' picture book for Kindy students, schools stop, listen, and do a hell of a lot better.
I mean, c'mon, what made a school think that was a good idea?
Schools could almost completely calm the situation by meeting with parents, and showing them the (non-devil) curriculum they are using that doesn't do what others are claiming.
They could understand that maybe it's not such a great move having "passionate" teachers improvise outside the curriculum.
And they could allow opt-out for activities that involve students of any age having to declare and rank identities.
But you know, if schools are gonna close ranks, and treat Asian mothers (OPs article) as demonstrating malign Whiteness and shut them out...expect to see the situation escalate, not de-escalate.
Parents do retain a right to know what their children are being taught. Imagine your kid has a science teacher who trashes evolution as heathen nonsense - you want to know that, right? It's not so good when the off-curriculum 'teaching' is stuff you don't agree with.
I've asked to see the curriculum before.It was sex ed, and I wanted to check that DD was correct it did not teach safe sex for same sex couples. She was right. So I went and talked to the school, and because they didn't treat parents like the enemy, they listened and agreed to remedy the curriculum by the next year, which didn't help us but did help the students coming after her.
I honestly meant to think that this recourse is ok for me, because I was on the 'right' side of the issue, but not for people who are on the 'wrong' side?
I don't know who thought that was a good idea. I hope most people here can agree that was not a good choice (but expect there are some that don't). However, I still maintain that in the US right now, most of the people upset about this aren't just upset about these poor applications, they are upset about the whole idea of a more complete history being taught, with racial injustices being a part of it. A large number of them hold strong to the "talking about race is racist" idea, and these examples of terrible application are just being used as political pawns. For parents in any school district where these things are actually happening, absolutely they should be able to do as you say above.
23 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:I'd agree with this.
Curriculum should not be hidden from parents.
100% blame on schools that do this.
Education works best as a three way partnership - students, teachers, parents. Start cutting parents out of the loop, you'll get problems.
Schools have the power to de-escalate 99% of these parent outcries.
I mean, seriously, call a meeting. Lay out all the resources you're going to be using. Have copies of the curriculum to read. Let parents browse the materials. Talk about how those materials will be implemented in the classroom. Have a Q and A where parents can ask clarifying questions. Conclude with the reminder that your doors are always open should parents have further concerns.
If you back your curriculum and teaching staff as pedagogically sound, the above should be zero problem for you.
In all the school districts around me, they actually do this. They have curriculum nights, and parents can come and look at all the curriculum that will be used. I don't know how responsive schools are to calls for change though, not having used the public schools. I do know when I followed the elementary math adoption process closely, I thought it was a mess and largely the blind leading the blind. Very frustrating.
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1 minute ago, Carol in Cal. said:
OK, have at it. What specific shoes would you suggest to look professional and be healthy?
I added a link above. My top choice personally would be https://xeroshoes.com/shop/shoes/phoenix-leather/. Most of the barefoot shoe companies make a leather dress flat. My feet can't handle other kinds of shoes for long (took me 40 years to figure out the problem wasn't my feet, it was the structured shoes), so that's what I would go with. There are other options for someone who doesn't feel a need to be quite as bound to a minimalist shoe, but just wants a professional flat. I'd just be randomly picking from pictures for these, because these aren't what I wear. Brands like Naturalizer, Born, Clarks, all make shoes like this.
https://www.nordstrom.com/s/born-beca-flat-women/5747506
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21 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:
I agree with you about the health issue with heels, and that’s why I specifically talked about how to pick good flats that look as much like pumps as possible. Personally I wear Earthies flats—they don’t squish my toes and they don’t have heels and they are a bit cushy. I would love to live in a world where I could wear Altras all the time, but if I’m client facing continually that’s not necessarily possible unless my shoes are always hidden.
Instead of just saying what not to do, I tried to suggest what to do instead. If you have other suggestions as well that would be helpful. I don’t think it’s reasonable to just say no to being professional without some alternative to propose.
Also, while i have not suggested polyester, I will say that it’s a lot different now than the sweaty clingy stuff I used to wear in the 70s like armor. That stuff felt fake and did not breathe at all. The newer versions are very different from that.
I'm happy to give suggestions 🙂. I was trying to not go off on a whole big shoe thing, especially as I don't know if heels are even an issue to the OP. If she would like suggestions for zero drop flats, I'll be happy to oblige. (One example I like: https://xeroshoes.com/shop/shoes/phoenix-leather/)
I was a baby in the 70s, so I'm not aware of how that polyester felt 😉. I fully believe the current stuff is not an issue for most people--my sister and mom both wear it all the time. I was just identifying with the OP on that issue, because I do continue to have an issue with the current stuff. Maybe I carry a weird electrical charge 🤷♀️😂.
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7 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:
This is a thoughtful article; thanks for sharing. I think there are many people who think examples like the leading one in this story about the “Not my Idea” book are what most schools are doing, and it’s understandable there would be some major issues with that. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. Those are just the ones that get attention, and they are the ones that should be addressed. As the article says (but not until a good way into the piece, which means I expect a lot of people miss it because these Atlantic articles are always long):
“And that influence shows in Evanston, where, starting in the spring of 2019, the District 65 Educators’ Council––the local teachers’ union––proposed to work with administrators to develop a local BLM at School curriculum. By autumn, the school board had approved a week of lessons. The curriculum—which district leaders say aligns with Illinois social-studies standards and guidelines—draws on the materials and guiding principles of the national initiative while also adding texts such as Not My Idea, which doesn’t appear on the national BLM at School’s current list of recommended books.” (Bolding mine)
6 hours ago, Plum said:I put medical records in there because it seems like a no-brainer, right?
Dr. David Reich, Professor from Harvard and Mt. Sinai says there's no race gene. Race doesn't exist. Any differences come from lifestyle and circumstance which of course caused a bunch of other scientists to disagree and post a public letter.
https://scijust.ucsc.edu/2019/05/30/developing-debate-on-race-and-genomics/
I'm a little confused. With covid we saw the differences between race. Was that all purely mistrust of medicine, lack of access, lifestyle and circumstance?
There are certainly medical issues that affect certain groups disproportionately due to genetics. Which is different than saying there is a race gene. There are genes that are more prevalent in certain ethnic groups. Sickle cell anemia, for example. I don't think we can say yet how much of the difference with Covid is due to circumstances and how much is genetics. It would be interesting to see how the outcomes for minorities differ depending on their living situations, and if their outcomes were more similar to other people of their race, or of other people living in the same areas in equivalent living circumstances.
4 hours ago, Plum said:You don't see how someone who is a Critical Race Theorist and teaches CRT at Boston U could have any influence on the CRT framework in K-12? It says right in the quote that he has an influential opinion. His book has already been linked in this thread.
As mentioned in several links, including this particularly helpful one Sneezyone posted Accusations about teaching ‘critical race theory’ in Connecticut often lack evidence, used as a vehicle for broader attacks on equity and inclusion, K-12 schools aren’t actually trying to implement CRT.
QuoteBut many of those arguments, educators say, are long on hyperbole and short on facts. School superintendents under attack in the state say that critical race theory is not a part of their curricula — and that their critics fundamentally misunderstand their efforts to create inclusive educational environments and teach students to approach history with nuance.
“At a national level now, people are making broad assumptions and making allegations that any discussion of race, or equity, or social justice among students or in a school system means that students are being sorted, or judged, or shamed based on their race or ethnicity,” said Guilford Superintendent Paul Freeman.
3 hours ago, Plum said:It would be a nightmare of a line and exclude people with transportation problems, but you could get your ballot at the post office. There could be other official places to pick it up. Show ID to prove you live at that address and get your mail-in ballot. Or make it an opt-in like absentee ballots.
My sister received 4 mail-in ballots from the family that lived in her house before her. That doesn't work.
There would be little point in that. Time and again, mail-in ballots have been shown to have a very low incidence of any kind of fraud, and they allow more people to be able to exercise their right to vote, especially people that are disenfranchised by the current voting process. Your sister would not have been able to use the ballots that arrived. Every ballot is checked against the signature on file, and everyone only gets one vote. My husband and I have each had a ballot where our signature didn't match and we were contacted to resolve. For both of us, our signature had drifted since we first registered. Our signatures are now updated. I've been on a tour of a local mail in ballot counting facility, and my faith in the system was bolstered even further by seeing how it's done. It's an excellent system that works well and ensures people aren't disenfranchised.
1 hour ago, Carol in Cal. said:Although I dislike the ‘return by election day’ requirement, I think that it is important. The system falters a great deal when there is uncertainty for weeks on end, and having an actual Election Day requirement is helpful in minimizing that, although it does not eliminate it completely in close/contested races. And sending ballots by mail to people who have not requested them is a recipe for weird stuff happening—people not being able to figure out how to vote, people not really understanding that they have the actual ballot rather than a sample in hand, or people still figuring they should be able to find a polling place and vote on Election Day, which may or may not be true.
The states that have transitioned to voting by mail entirely had to do some educating before getting there. That’s wise and prudent.
I think that the bulk of votes should be counted with live observers present and all at once. That is one of the reasons our system is more or less trusted. If we are going to move toward mail in ballots, there has to be pre-implementation education, some kind of chain of custody control that is widely understood, and a rapid counting system with observers, to ensure the legitimacy of the results in people’s minds.
I don't think return by election day is necessary. It's only in modern times that we have come to expect such rapid turn around of voting results. It's not built into our system. In fact, our system is built with lots of time in between voting and certification and inauguration to give time for these things. As far as needing it "to ensure the legitimacy of the results in people’s minds," the only thing that called into question the legitimacy of the results was people insisting the results were not going to be legitimate starting months before an election even happened, for the express purpose of sowing doubts. Terribly damaging to our democracy.
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5 hours ago, plansrme said:
Heels, please, even low ones.
2 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:Very nice, well kept flats are fine, but not casual ones. Pumps are the gold standard, and if you want to wear flats they should look as much like pumps as possible.
All the rest of the advice seems fine, but this is the one I have a big problem with. Any kind of heel messes with the entire body alignment, from the knees all the way up the spine, and to require women to do that to themselves to be considered professional is a big issue to me. Squished together toes should never be a requirement for looking professional either.
I'm also with the OP about polyester tops. I know lots of people have no problem with them, and maybe it's some kind of sensory issue, but I can not stand the way polyester tops feel. They have this weird static cling feeling to me and they make me sweat. A lot of rayon does the same, but some rayons I can handle. So rayon might be a possibility, if you can touch it before buying. Otherwise, a cotton button up dress shirt might be the best way to do cotton in a professional way.
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1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:
I'm not sure. I think, personally, I'd feel better getting a test, although the fact that it's unpleasant may deter me given that I'm vaccinated (being honest here.)
I’ve tested twice and my older two kids have tested a few times as well, and other than my oldest’s presurgery swab, they were all super easy lower nose swabs. All were PCR. My oldest said even the high swab wasn’t bad at all. She said it only lasted a second and then was done. She had been expecting worse.
16 minutes ago, Acadie said:Our library has free tests you can do at home. You need an internet connection and device with camera, and someone walks you through it online. Results in 20-30 min. Governor DeWine wanted at-home tests to be available in every county and libraries are one of the primary modes of distribution.
That is such a smart idea!
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8 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:
I have one person on here that I ignore because of his/her rudeness to people, combined with the self-proclaimed "mantle of authority" with which the person writes every.stinkin.thing. It just makes my skin crawl, so I put that person on ignore because I find it very hard to engage peaceably with that person.
You are ascribing motive without knowing what is really in Pen's heart, and that motive is not in keeping with Pen's persona. I know you find Pen's opinions controversial, but her writing demonstrates kindness and generosity, even when she is being confronted about something. It is more in keeping with her character shown through her writing to conclude that her suggestion is due to kindness: if what she is writing is bothersome to someone, they should feel free to ignore her and ignore responses that quote her.
Since you seem really annoyed by what she writes, you might consider letting others address her. Please don't feel like you have to be a martyr for the sake of the common good. Hers is a minority view, therefore it will be confronted.
Lol, there’s a good chance from your description that the person you have on ignore is the only person I have considered doing so with (but haven’t).
I wasn’t ascribing motive myself at all, just quoting what she said about it. And I definitely don’t consider myself a martyr on this. I see it more as a failure of impulse control on my part when I do respond 😂. Definitely not proud of it. On the other hand, for some reason, too often a fact check doesn’t happen, and I have a hard time just letting blatantly false information go unchecked when the stakes are so high. I can't decide if that's right or wrong of me.
To get back on topic, no side effects for my 12-15 year old with either shot. I do have an older teen who had a swollen lymph node after the first shot, but that was all and it went away.
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24 minutes ago, Plum said:
Tried that. I keep getting a log in screen. I think I had it at one point so I could read something. 🤷♀️ I'm on Chrome on my pc. Ahh worked on my phone.
If I just go to Twitter.com, I am on a login screen that I can’t do anything with. I always get there via a link. Either a link to something someone has shared, or a link I have bookmarked to a curated list I like to follow. From there, I can use the search function or whatever else.
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1 hour ago, Plum said:
The Jewish community is concerned about CA's AB-101 ethnic studies curriculum and requirements legislation I posted up thread. It's an example of how an entire group is against this curriculum and for valid reasons. The public school system and states may have good intentions but their follow-through is always a trainwreck and this isn't something that should be screwed up.
Honestly, this is true about just about any curriculum change in public schools. We've seen it with math instruction, reading instruction, and all kinds of things. For some reason I can't figure out, schools seem to be terrible at being able to recognize what curriculum actually have good research base to support them, and they are forever adopting awful programs. One of the reasons I didn't feel like our public schools were even an option for us was Everyday Math and sight reading curriculum. So, it certainly doesn't surprise me that schools are not doing a good job with this. I don't think throwing the baby out with the bathwater by just deciding we won't address race issues in schools is a solution. As I've said, that viewpoint takes a "white" view as the default.
8 minutes ago, Plum said:I don't have Twitter so I didn't read the thread.
I don't have a Twitter account either, but all that means is I can't follow accounts or comment. You can still read whatever you want on Twitter (unless someone has a private account, but I almost never run into that). When a Twitter link is posted on TWTM, for some reason I find I usually have to ctrl-click on the date and open in a new tab in order to view it. Maybe that's just me.
6 minutes ago, Condessa said:Because significant portions of school funding come from local taxation, and again, there’s the generational wealth gap that is a large contributing factor to having disproportionate numbers of minority students in lower income school districts. Also, rates of single motherhood are very strongly correlated with poverty rates. But rather than call the schools racist, why don’t we address the root causes of this disparity?
The funny thing is, I've been finding the majority of all your examples you've been posting are actually very good examples of structural racism, and the kind of things that should be taught in schools. Pointing out structural racism isn't the same thing as calling schools or individuals racist. Not recognizing it makes it almost impossible to fix. I agree with whoever said in this thread or another that it would be better to call what we're talking about structural racism than CRT. CRT has become a trigger word applied to a lot of things that aren't even about CRT (by design to get a reaction) to the point it seems unhelpful at this time. It's been co-opted.
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4 hours ago, Fritz said:
When I started this thread I truly had no idea that many of you had either never heard that this was being taught in school systems across the country, or where unaware of the controversy over it's implementation. I have been hearing about this for awhile now. Maybe because I do read/watch Fox news.
I haven’t seen that anyone is unaware of this controversy at all. Rather, I think there is disagreement about the nature of the controversy. In particular is the fact that Fox News in particular has been greatly amplifying this over the past few weeks, and that’s why we’re suddenly hearing about it everywhere.
3 hours ago, Fritz said:Paraphrasing from the video, "If you believe in kids and teach them to believe in themselves they will rise to the occasion and succeed." IMO, that's the secret sauce no matter gender, race, or sex! This starts at home with the parents. I realize not every kid gets that from their parents. Having the schools do a better job of this rather than studying the wheel of privileges' or focusing on our perceived differences based on race seems likely to bring about a better outcome for all kids.
I don’t like the whole wheel of privilege thing, but I think it’s totally missing the point to think that structural racism can be overcome just by addressing it in the home. Part of the whole point, is that our system is set up such that it does not take just the same amount of effort for all kids to succeed.
2 hours ago, Condessa said:I missed the quote. It had to do with Rufo being a nut. I can’t resolve the exact wording to respond to, but basically I wanted to make the point that what he said is underlying so much of this current discussion, whether people realize that’s where it’s coming from or not. It’s kind of similar to when people are espousing Q anon ideas, but don’t realize that that’s where they originated from. Now, that’s not at all to say but there aren’t lots of valid criticisms of how this is being taught in schools, and I think we’re having a discussion about that, but the current conversation being had in the US about it today is largely based on what Rufo and his ilk are trying to do, right down to the exact same arguments being made in this thread are the ones that they’ve been making their rounds on Fox News. Marxism, the specific examples, etc.
1 hour ago, Condessa said:See, even if a lesson doesn’t go as far as making kids identify themselves as oppressed/oppressor, things like this connected to CRT are going to be a big problem for a lot of people. These are exactly the type of claims that are made without evidence other than disproportionate outcomes and expected to be accepted that make the less extreme implementations of CRT still a big problem for many people.
Commercial banking, real estate and lending were racist, and that suppressed the development of generational wealth in minority communities. But is it racist now? Are these industries still placing roadblocks to minorities?
Voting access had racial roadblocks placed for many years, but does it now? A certain position makes claims about ID requirements and policies against handing out water in line as racist policies, but the only way that holds up is if you honestly believe minorities are less capable of acquiring an ID or bringing their own water. Are there any actual racist roadblocks to voting access now?In education practices, the most common form of racist practice seems to be of the lessened expectation type (which is actually pushed by some proponents of CRT, such as in this math educator course promoted by the OR department of education https://equitablemath.org/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery that says making kids do independent work and show their work in math class are symptomatic of white supremacy). In higher education, actual concrete policies at many schools favor most minorities while impeding Asian students with an actual racist policy. Are there policies or practices in place in our country actually seeking to impede other minorities’ educational progress?
We cannot logically assume that anytime there are disparate outcomes between races, it must be caused by racism. Correlation does not indicate causation. If it did, disproportionate rates of incarceration between genders would indicate that men are being overwhelmingly oppressed with unjust mass imprisonment, which is ridiculous. This doesn’t mean that the cause isn’t racism, either, but we have to actually show evidence of that, not just teach it as gospel to be accepted on faith.
Correlation can also be caused by other factors; for example, the strongest statistical correlation between an environmental factor and poor educational outcomes, juvenile delinquency, criminal behavior, and incarceration is the lack of an intact family with the biological father in the home. Doesn’t it stand to reason, then, that communities where this home situation is less common would have higher rates of these problems?
I’ve got to go, so I’m going to have to come back to this one later.
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On 6/12/2021 at 6:55 AM, Not_a_Number said:
I'd like to point out to some of you that the ignore function is really handy. Just saying. 😉
I don't use it because I think it can lead to exactly what I've seen demonstrated by being blocked by someone else myself: someone creates more and more of an echo chamber for themself by blocking the things they don't want to hear. [deleted. unhelpful.]Obviously, to each their own, but I'm just explaining why I've chosen not to use it.
On 6/12/2021 at 7:35 AM, Pen said:
😉you are so right - I have suggested that myself! 😉. The human mind “ignore function” is also common in real life when people do not want to face things that they may be doing or have done which could be detrimental.Which further backs up what I just said.
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3 hours ago, Pen said:
I am not who is posting misinformation so far as I know. You all who think it is approved are misinforming
@Pen won't see this unless she has unblocked me, but something still being under EUA doesn't mean that the people receiving it are receiving it as part of a clinical trial. The clinical trial is a thing that is in process, with a set of people who have given informed consent to participate in the trial, and in this case were randomized to double blind treatment or placebo groups. The general public receiving the vaccine under EUA is NOT part of this trial. As said above:
14 hours ago, hippymamato3 said:That's not how any of this works.
So funny you said this, because that was the exact thing that came to mind when I read that. I wanted to post the meme 😂
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10 hours ago, Penelope said:
Maybe. Sometimes. It’s also the way straight into groupthink.
“That statement is bad because it is something someone on the right (or the left) said.” No, I don’t think so.I don’t worry about it at all when I find myself occasionally agreeing with someone on the far left or far right on some aspect of an issue. It happens when you try to think critically.
Agree. I think it's problematic to think a view is wrong by virtue of it being held by people you disagree strongly with. And I agree that way of thinking can lead to groupthink.
10 hours ago, Sneezyone said:It’s one kind of check but it also depends on your perception of the thought spectrum. For me, it’s a circle, not a line. People on the far left and far right often share similar views. Even on this forum you can see the overlap. That overlap doesn’t just happen because of critical thinking.
In addition to the circle thing happening, there are also views that meet somewhere in the middle.
8 hours ago, Plum said:So far I've posted a bunch of examples that have been dismissed.
Teaching that one race is better or worse than another is in fact racist. Forcing a child to hang all of their family "baggage" onto their shoulders year after school year is detrimental to their whole being. I don't see how anyone can not see that. A child born into "privilege" didn't ask for any of it and the same goes the other way. Those example paragraphs didn't take into account where their family came from, their work ethic, their values...it only labeled and sorted them out as if they were something that could be weighed and measured.
I have appreciated your contributions to this thread, even if I haven't agreed with them all. It's been clear that you are putting thought and effort into it, and not just listening to what people on TV or talk radio or social media are telling you to think. In your last paragraph above, putting aside that while you have provided a lot of examples of really bad implementation of teaching about race that I don't support, I still haven't seen much that is explicitly teaching that one race is better than another, more than that, I think that's not taking into account that not talking about it doesn't remove racial "baggage" that kids may may carry around. It's not the talking about it that creates it. I do disagree with kids having to claim a particular identity and share that with the class and anything of that nature, but ignoring teaching about race and the way it impacts people doesn't make it go away and not impact people all the same.
7 hours ago, SKL said:Interesting that many of the loudest voices against this are parents of color.
I don't believe this is actually true. Certain people are wanting to draw attention to parents of color who are upset about this for their own purposes. This is a common thing that is done where people select people to represent a group who are actually outliers in that group, and not a fair representation at all. We see this in the past year when people choose doctors with very fringe Covid ideas as an example of what doctors think about Covid, and it's very common with white people choosing to amplify a voice from a minority group that doesn't represent the most commonly held view within that minority group at all, but rather supports the white person's position.
6 hours ago, Condessa said:I’ve really appreciated your input here.
This board is not especially left-leaning as a whole, but there are some left-leaning posters here who really jump on certain viewpoints, and hold posts on opposing ideas and topics to a much higher standard of evidence. It makes it feel like a more polarized place, because of the vocality of one side.
Don’t give up. We all stand to benefit when our ideas are challenged by a variety of well thought-out perspectives and a willingness to ask questions.
I've appreciated your input as well. Early in the thread, I felt like we were of very different minds on this issue, but I saw your position become more nuanced as the thread progressed. I actually think this has been a really good thread, and it (like many threads about deep subjects) keeps making me think how untrue the sentiment is that TWTM is an echo chamber. I think perhaps the prevalence of Covid threads over the past year has given that false impression, because there is a high percentage of people here who are on the side of truth and science, so the super majority have aligned as far as Covid goes. I see lots of people who align on that all over the board on a lot of other big topics we've been discussing lately. This thread shows clearly this is not an echo chamber.
4 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:In the end, complaints don't come out of nowhere. Is it possible it's all a Republican set up job? I guess. Is it likely? Why wouldn't one want to be curious about why a survivor of communism is getting triggered? Or why a biracial boy felt demeaned or punished? Or why a humanist teacher is resigning?
I agree those are all things to be curious about, but at the same time don't believe for a second that's the primary motivation for this being so amplified right now. I think @Pam in CT's earlier post explained it best, with the comment from Christopher Rufo about how they have managed to weaponize CRT:
Quote“We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions,” wrote Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’”
Rufo has been a recent guest on Fox News, talking about the evils of CRT, and the frenzy about it seems to have intensified based on that. So, it's really not that there is nothing to criticize about the implementation of CRT in the schools (I expect there is plenty), but it really is that this is quite clearly motivated by something other than people wanting their kids to be taught about race and racism in a better way.
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2 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:
I don’t see you as pearl clutching over race. I see a lot of people with very valid concerns about this and how it’s being implemented (you among them from your responses on the other thread). Those aren’t the people I’m referring to. It may be that some of this is hard to communicate fully to people outside the US, because it’s a very particular odd dynamic going on with these discussions right now that I’m trying to articulate, and that I see some others trying to get at as well. It’s something that doesn’t actually have anything to do with the people I’m referring to having done any serious consideration of these issues at all. It’s based almost completely on people hearing talking heads talking about this or seeing articles in particular biased sources and then getting up in arms about something when they don’t even really understand what that something is. Again, that’s largely not what’s happening here (TWTM). I think there has been some really good discussion on the other thread about the various potential problems and pitfalls. I have personally encountered multiple people in real life the past couple weeks who have clearly thought I would be of the same mind as them on this (two go to the same church I do), and have said they would have homeschooled too, specifically to avoid “all this critical race stuff” so their kids wouldn’t “be told they have to feel guilty for being white”. That’s not a thing that I am hearing actually happening anywhere around me. That’s the pearl clutching stuff I’m talking about.
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I’m way behind on the other thread because I like to finish reading before replying and I haven’t been online enough to keep up, so I haven’t replied there yet, but I’m most of the way through it. What keeps coming to my mind there as on this thread, is that I think by and large, there’s a huge chasm between what people are afraid is being taught in the schools and what actually is. It appears there are some stories of places where this has been very poorly implemented (no big surprise), and otherwise it’s a lot of people pearl clutching about how damaging it will be to their kids to be talked to about race in school. It seems to me a large portion of those who say they are so worried about CRT being taught in schools actually don’t want race addressed at all. When they say they don’t want certain racially charged topics addressed, they are in essence saying they think of their “white” version of history to be the default and that teaching anything else is going off script on some way.
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15 minutes ago, Laurie said:
My understanding is that you have to begin by first understanding what is meant by Critical Theory.
I found a course description from a Philosophy department about Marx and Critical Theory. https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/courses/1314S/PHIL/PHIL-366-1314S
I think this is why crt in the classroom is concerning to conservative parents...because marxism is at the core.
But what do YOU mean or understand CRT to be about? I keep seeing people saying how concerning it is, with links to why other people say it’s concerning, but without saying anything themself about what they believe it means or why it is specifically problematic. You have at least shared a reason, but not enough for me to understand what it is about it that you are concerned about, other than that Marx introduced an idea of critical theory, so CRT must be bad?
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12 minutes ago, pinball said:
So where are you seeing confusion? Like what specifically have you seen that is using or defining CRT erroneously?
Mostly I’m not seeing people who are upset about it define it at all. The main thing I keep hearing is that they’re going to “teach whites kids to feel guilty for being white.” So I’m wondering @Fritz, since you’ve brought race up many times on many threads and started this one, how do you define critical race theory?
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Thought of this thread when I saw this tonight:
Anti-vax doctor mocked for claiming that shots will ‘magnetize’ people
Followed by:
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Last I heard, it was 4 to 5 days after exposure. If symptomatic, now’s a good time to test.
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1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:
I think the reason this is hard is because it's actually hard to access that information -- you have to use T-cells or something. I actually would guess there's plenty of monetary motivation for it: everyone would love to know.
There actually is one approved by the FDA, but once I actually read about it, it didn’t sound as helpful as I had hoped. I don’t have time to read about it again right now, but I seem to recall it hadn’t been tested very far out from the participants infection, so it’s hard to know how long it actually is reliable for. If there was one that was accurate, I would want to take it.
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6 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:
I've got no problem with her speech going ahead. More power to her. Black anger is valid. If Yale shuts her down, I'd have no problem insisting that they back her as a speaker.
She’s from the US, right? One thing that’s been knocking around in my head when I read this thread is that it seems like she’s talking from a place as if she is Black (I know Australia uses that term differently, but in the US, that is not used for Indian people). It’s interesting to me because it has been making me wonder if the experience of Indian Americans is overall quite different in other parts of the country than it is where I am and in the places I’m familiar with. Where I live, the demographics for people of Indian descent and those of African descent are very different, and the kind of racism that each might experience are different. Speaking in generalities, Indian Americans here are of a higher SES than the general public and not a group that has experienced the same kind of systemic racism that Black Americans have. There can be other kinds of racism, I’m just saying they are different, and her words made me think I was reading the words of a Black American, not an Indian American. I’ve only read it though, so perhaps her actual speech gave background that would have put that in context for me.
I also differ in my opinions about a university having to support any and every kind of speech, even if they invited them. I don’t think every single person who wants to speak somewhere is owed the right to do so. I do think an exchange of lots of different view points is important, but if someone wants to come speak on campus about why we should kill gay people, I don’t think the university is at all obligated to invite them to do so. Not every viewpoint is exactly equal. And if they do invite someone to speak, and the person says things they didn’t expect (like that gay people should be killed), I think it’s well within their rights to say, “Just so you know, we don’t at all support what this speaker said.”
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1 hour ago, Plum said:
Preprint from the Cleveland Clinic saying people who had covid are unlikely to benefit from vaccination. Wow. I wish they would test those that had it for antibodies before giving them the vaccine. Feel free to pick it apart. Maybe we'll see more studies like this come out, maybe we won't.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2
Every time I read one of these, I’m blown away by how well these vaccines are working:
”Of the 2154 SARS-CoV-2 infections during the study period, 2139 (99.3%) occurred among those not previously infected who remained unvaccinated or were waiting to get vaccinated, and15 (0.7%) occurred among those not previously infected who were vaccinated.” !!
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3 minutes ago, Scarlett said:
Can anyone give me the Cliff notes on this issue? Yes I feel lazy today.
I have heard snippets of the OK Governor making laws where teachers can't make students 'feel uncomfortable about their race or make them feel guilty for things their ancestors have done.'.....what kind of nonsense is he spouting.
I’m sure someone will do much better, but the super, super brief version is that some people think that teaching kids that minorities in this country, particularly Black Americans, have faced systematic oppression and racism (and continue to) will make the white kids feel bad, so it shouldn’t be taught.
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I think Yale’s response makes clear these are this individual’s views and don’t represent Yale in any way. I find the violence she speaks of repugnant as well. I see that racist white folks are loving this story right now, though. This plays right into their narrative, which is why I wouldn’t personally help them out by amplifying it. The issue du jour seems to be the evils of critical race theory and how schools are teaching kids to feel guilty for being white. I’m wondering which talk shows hosts have been promoting this. I have had two people in the past two weeks respond to hearing that we homeschool by saying they would have/will do the same thing because they don’t want their kids being taught all that race theory stuff “and that they should feel guilty for being white”. So, those folks are going to love this story, even though this particular woman only represents her own opinions.
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Different symptoms for new Covid variant
in The Chat Board
Posted
Ugh, that's awful! Glad your ds feels better, and good on him knowing it was a bad idea to go into the store while symptomatic like that.