CRT (now rebranded as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion DEI) and DOJ involvement in school board meetings

[frogger]

2 minutes ago, KSera said:

Did you find somewhere to get it for less than at Amazon? I'm impressed you got it so quickly and have already read so much! I've only read excerpts and interviews, but wacky, right? Apparently, people are so predictable (even when it comes to behaving in bizarre ways).

Kindle version was only 19.99. 

 

[Eos]

7 hours ago, Fritz said:

I really think at this point, the only thing to do is have a mass exodus from the school system. That's it.'

I have to say I agree with this Florida mother.

Have you read Rising Out Of Hatred by Eli Saslow?  It's fascinating, terrifying, and wonderful all at the same time.  It documents the evolution of Derek Black (though he uses a different name now) from his childhood with his white nationalist parents through his realization that much of what they had told him was factually wrong, to his adulthood repudiating everything they stand for.  He was homeschooled and I believe it - he is thoughtful, introspective, and displays an immense capacity for critical thinking.  If racist parents think homeschooling is the answer, that may well be the undoing of their ideology.  Not for all of their children, but for some.  Teach children to think for themselves and the truths that underlie critical race theory will resonate.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/29/653013061/rising-out-of-hatred-former-white-nationalist-on-unlearning-his-beliefs

Edited October 8, 2021 by Harpymom

[AnotherNewName]

5 hours ago, WildflowerMom said:

It's hard to pick which line to respond to here.  🤷🏻‍♀️

the school board meetings are outrageous right now in many parts of the country and the DOJ and/or FBI should be brought in.   Do you see the news at all?   (I'm not talking about those sources you referenced, btw).    Going to a school board member's home and yelling 'come out, I see you in there'.   Yeah, the FBI or DOJ needs to be involved.  
 

DOJ/FBI has no jurisdiction.  While I have seen some criminal acts related to these meetings, none of them constitute federal crimes and the FBI has no legal standing to be involved.

[Sneezyone]

Organized crime and terrorism. Federal law enforcement has every right to investigate both. There are real and legitimate questions about the origins of the funding/promotion of misinformation underlying these attacks. There is also developing evidence that the networks promoting these behaviors are national and coordinated.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Sneezyone

[SeaConquest]

7 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

DOJ/FBI has no jurisdiction.  While I have seen some criminal acts related to these meetings, none of them constitute federal crimes and the FBI has no legal standing to be involved.

The feds have jurisdiction over hate crimes on the basis of race and other covered personal characteristics.

[AnotherNewName]

12 minutes ago, SeaConquest said:

The feds have jurisdiction over hate crimes on the basis of race and other covered personal characteristics.

Not exactly.  There is a fairly high bar to allow federal involvement.  Protesting CRT or whatever would not be an automatic qualifier.  The request made to get the FBI involved also did not rely on federal hate crime laws, probably because by and large the crimes committed around these protests have not qualified as hate crimes.

More pointedly, the person I replied to used the example of someone yelling outside of the house of a school member as justification for federal involvement, which is poppycock.

[AnotherNewName]

16 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Organized crime and terrorism. 

Yeah...except none of any of the acts meet the definition of either.  If this was on Twitter I would tag PopeHat just so he could smh at the attempt to bring RICO into this.

FWIW you would have to connect the funding (if any) directly to the relatively handful of state level crimes, many of which would qualify as misdemeanors.

All of the crimes committed and the egregious conduct involved should be handled at the state level.  

[KSera]

Trust Index: Is the FBI sending agents to investigate threats at school board meetings?

Quote

One person on Twitter said: “Dude, AG Garland just ordered the FBI will treat and investigate school board protestors as “Domestic Terrorists”. This is how corrupt Garland is.”

But in a letter News4Jax obtained from the Office of the Attorney General, Merrick Garland isn’t necessarily mobilizing the FBI. Instead, he’s organizing a task force to determine the next steps within the next 30 days.

In the letter, Garland writes:

“I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigations, working with each United States Attorney to convene meetings with federal, state, local, tribal and territorial leaders in each federal judicial districts within 30 days of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators board members, teachers and staff, and will be open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response.”

 

 

And from a spokesperson for the FBI:

Quote

 

“The FBI views this as a continuation of the ongoing, important work that we do every day to investigate and mitigate threats in coordination with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners. The FBI Jacksonville team will continue to work hand-in-hand with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in both the Northern and Middle Districts of Florida, which are leading the collaborative efforts for this initiative at this time.”

In summary: Be careful about claims the FBI is being mobilized against school board protesters, even possibly labeling them “domestic terrorists”.

FBI agents are not being dispatched to school districts across the country to investigate allegations of threats of intimidation.

 

 

[WildflowerMom]

23 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

Not exactly.  There is a fairly high bar to allow federal involvement.  Protesting CRT or whatever would not be an automatic qualifier.  The request made to get the FBI involved also did not rely on federal hate crime laws, probably because by and large the crimes committed around these protests have not qualified as hate crimes.

More pointedly, the person I replied to used the example of someone yelling outside of the house of a school member as justification for federal involvement, which is poppycock.

That was me.   You don't think there's a very good chance that the people who are telling school board members "we know where you live!" and the people showing up outside the homes of school board members are extremists?   Because I think that chance is high.   I also think there's some nation-wide organizing going on.   If the DOD can't get involved, then maybe the states' bureaus of investigation should.   And honestly, some of them do a better job anyway.  🤷🏻‍♀️   

[prairiewindmomma]

I think there are absolutely some events in which outside groups coordinate protests—like this, when Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys tried to break into school buildings during an anti-mask protest… 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2021/09/03/vancouver-schools-lockdown-anti-mask-protesters-entry/%3foutputType=amp

[Sneezyone]

The purpose of investigation is to determine whether or not there is national coordination and whether or not there is some federal crime that can be prosecuted. You can’t ID federal crimes without an investigation. So yes, the FBI and DOJ are perfectLY OK investigating the possibility of federal crimes.

[catz]

12 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

The purpose of investigation is to determine whether or not there is national coordination and whether or not there is some federal crime that can be prosecuted. You can’t ID federal crimes without an investigation. So yes, the FBI and DOJ are perfectLY OK investigating the possibility of federal crimes.

Yes this.  Have we forgotten what was happening in January already?

[Farrar]

I mean, the FBI has been posing to sit in on Quaker Meetings and Unitarian protest groups and pro-choice activists and anti-war folks forEVER. And doing wake up calls (protests in front of an elected figure's home) has been plenty justification from their point of view. So, yeah, yelling at someone's house is not a new reason to investigate from the FBI's point of view.

I don't even know what to say about this anymore. I mean, the people trying to stop children from reading about Ruby Bridges and screaming that everything is "CRT" and that equity is evil and making rules that all Americans who contributed to American society must be taught as heroes and whatever other crap is being served this week at American school boards... are racists. Not even racists in the sense that we all have racial biases thanks to being raised in a racist society. No. These folks are straight up open bigots. And the fact that they've somehow managed to convince so many Americans that the people who are upset that they get paid less, are victimized more, are discriminated against more, and are shot more by cops are somehow victimizing THEM is a pure testament to just how racist America is.

[Eos]

7 hours ago, Farrar said:

I mean, the FBI has been posing to sit in on Quaker Meetings and Unitarian protest groups and pro-choice activists and anti-war folks forEVER. And doing wake up calls (protests in front of an elected figure's home) has been plenty justification from their point of view. So, yeah, yelling at someone's house is not a new reason to investigate from the FBI's point of view.

I don't even know what to say about this anymore. I mean, the people trying to stop children from reading about Ruby Bridges and screaming that everything is "CRT" and that equity is evil and making rules that all Americans who contributed to American society must be taught as heroes and whatever other crap is being served this week at American school boards... are racists. Not even racists in the sense that we all have racial biases thanks to being raised in a racist society. No. These folks are straight up open bigots. And the fact that they've somehow managed to convince so many Americans that the people who are upset that they get paid less, are victimized more, are discriminated against more, and are shot more by cops are somehow victimizing THEM is a pure testament to just how racist America is.

That Friend speaks for me.

[Faith-manor]

15 hours ago, ktgrok said:

My sister is a school administrator and yes, has seen an uptick in threats and slurs directed at her by parents, including being called a Nazi. 

Here too. There has been a very very big increase in the use of the Nazi insult, most of it hurled at any school board members that support masks in schools.

The thing is, crimes committed on school property can not only be eligible for state charges as well as local depending local ordinances, but also federal. It is not surprising to me, and should not be a shocker to anyone, that the DOJ is looking into cases to see if they meet the threshold for federal crime.

As for CRT, here is an article today from CNN about a school district in Missouri. Breaks my heart. If we do NOT get serious about teaching about racism and tackle it head on, this nation is going to be utterly torn to bits.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/09/us/kansas-city-school-slavery-petition/index.html

[SlowRiver]

23 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

One of your three links is the Daily Fail. There's a reason JKR assigned that rag to Vernon Dursley's daily reading.

Another manages to completely ignore incidents like the man who went to his child's school threatening to ziptie the principal and do a "citizen's arrest" because of a mandatory quarantine. With a start like that, I don't care to read the finish.

The third, unherd.com, I haven't even heard of.  That doesn't make me feel too sanguine about them, but still, I'm sure there's lots of reputable organizations I haven't heard of. However, a quick google shows that this ain't one of 'em.

If you want to convince people, having a 2/3 bias in your news organizations (plus one opinion piece) is not the way to go. Try something that at least tries to be unbiased.

The Daily Mail can be tabloidish but also has some excellent journalism at times. People often fail to recognize that because it's decidedly working class. 

Unherd is also a British source, fairly new, with a slate of really excellent writers: Terry Eggelton, Julie Bindel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mary Harrington, Tom Holland, Matthew Goodwin, Tomiwa Owolda, Douglas Murray, among others. I believe Ali wrote the article quoted above and is well worth reading though she's not likely to be offered in an American progressive publication, here is a link to some information about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

 

[KSera]

1 hour ago, SlowRiver said:

The Daily Mail can be tabloidish but also has some excellent journalism at times. People often fail to recognize that because it's decidedly working class. 

Unherd is also a British source, fairly new, with a slate of really excellent writers: Terry Eggelton, Julie Bindel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mary Harrington, Tom Holland, Matthew Goodwin, Tomiwa Owolda, Douglas Murray, among others. I believe Ali wrote the article quoted above and is well worth reading though she's not likely to be offered in an American progressive publication, here is a link to some information about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

 

Unherd doesn’t yet have a listing on mediabiasfactcheck (it lists it as pending), but The Daily Mail has a low fact reliability rating, failing many fact checks:

The Daily Mail on Media Bias Fact Check

I sometimes end up reading stories there, but I wouldn’t use it as a source in a post unless it was the only one I could find and I included a sourcing disclaimer  

 

[AnotherNewName]

16 hours ago, WildflowerMom said:

That was me.   You don't think there's a very good chance that the people who are telling school board members "we know where you live!" and the people showing up outside the homes of school board members are extremists?   Because I think that chance is high.   I also think there's some nation-wide organizing going on.   If the DOD can't get involved, then maybe the states' bureaus of investigation should.   And honestly, some of them do a better job anyway.  🤷🏻‍♀️   

Nation-wide organizing isn't illegal.  And yes, my point was these are state level crimes and should be investigated by state agencies.

And FWIW being an extremist isn't illegal. This is no different than when a certain president and others were demanding that "ANTIFA"/BLM be investigated for actions of individuals.

[AnotherNewName]

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

 

The thing is, crimes committed on school property can not only be eligible for state charges as well as local depending local ordinances, but also federal.

Cite your source.

[AnotherNewName]

14 hours ago, Farrar said:

I mean, the FBI has been posing to sit in on Quaker Meetings and Unitarian protest groups and pro-choice activists and anti-war folks forEVER. And doing wake up calls (protests in front of an elected figure's home) has been plenty justification from their point of view. So, yeah, yelling at someone's house is not a new reason to investigate from the FBI's point of view.

 

The FBI has investigated constitutionally protected activities before so I think they should do so again is certainly a take. IMO not a good one but here we sit.

[Faith-manor]

Conspiracy Against Rights 18 USC 241.

Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights 18 USC 245

Matthew Shepard and James Gets JR Hate Crimes Prevention Act 2009 18 USC 249

Interstate communications - threats communicated with social media or other platforms like Zoom who make it a potential interstate communication. There is a lot of that going around these days. So yes, the Feds can investigate threats against school employees and students when interstate communication is used. One example is in Tuscola County, MI when a young man at Cass City High School and a threat by video posted online. He was turned in by students who saw it, and arrested by local authorities, but also questioned by FBI. The FBI agreed not to delve any deeper based on a plea deal he made as a minor with the county D.A. had he not agreed to terms, the use of interstate communication could have left him open to charges though it is not likely the feds would have gone that far because he was a small fish that ultimately they didn't care about all that much. But, the Wolverine group has been known to show up at board meetings, and having already been embroiled in a federal case that spans Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, their preferred sends opens up threat investigations to school boards to federal investigation because they may very well be involved in an interstate conspiracy. This group is on the domestic terrorist watch list for good reason.

[AnotherNewName]

28 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Conspiracy Against Rights 18 USC 241.

Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights 18 USC 245

Matthew Shepard and James Gets JR Hate Crimes Prevention Act 2009 18 USC 249

Interstate communications - threats communicated with social media or other platforms like Zoom who make it a potential interstate communication. There is a lot of that going around these days. So yes, the Feds can investigate threats against school employees and students when interstate communication is used. One example is in Tuscola County, MI when a young man at Cass City High School and a threat by video posted online. He was turned in by students who saw it, and arrested by local authorities, but also questioned by FBI. The FBI agreed not to delve any deeper based on a plea deal he made as a minor with the county D.A. had he not agreed to terms, the use of interstate communication could have left him open to charges though it is not likely the feds would have gone that far because he was a small fish that ultimately they didn't care about all that much. But, the Wolverine group has been known to show up at board meetings, and having already been embroiled in a federal case that spans Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, their preferred sends opens up threat investigations to school boards to federal investigation because they may very well be involved in an interstate conspiracy. This group is on the domestic terrorist watch list for good reason.

You know none of those have anything to do with being on school grounds, right?

Just a reminder on your exact quote:

"The thing is, crimes committed on school property can not only be eligible for state charges as well as local depending local ordinances, but also federal."

[Tanaqui]

1 hour ago, AnotherNewName said:

Nation-wide organizing isn't illegal.  And yes, my point was these are state level crimes and should be investigated by state agencies.

And FWIW being an extremist isn't illegal. This is no different than when a certain president and others were demanding that "ANTIFA"/BLM be investigated for actions of individuals.

 

It is when what you're planning to do with all this organization is illegal.

Likewise, you're right, simply having and expressing extremist views is not illegal - right up until you act on them in some violent or otherwise criminal fashion.

[AnotherNewName]

14 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

 

It is when what you're planning to do with all this organization is illegal.

Likewise, you're right, simply having and expressing extremist views is not illegal - right up until you act on them in some violent or otherwise criminal fashion.

Your first comment goes without saying. But at this point all we have scene are large protests (legal) with indvididuals on occasion breaking the law. No different than other nation wide protests.

And I don't think it is earth shattering to say someone isn't a criminal until they have broken the law.  Seems like an obvious position but we have fewer and fewer who believe that about their opposition.

[KSera]

8 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

And I don't think it is earth shattering to say someone isn't a criminal until they have broken the law.  Seems like an obvious position but we have fewer and fewer who believe that about their opposition.

But no one is being charged with a crime without having broken a law. At this point they are just convening a group to determine if the issues warrant FBI involvement, as they have been asked by the NASB to determine. I’m trying to figure out why someone would object to them doing that. 

[Pam in CT]

re yesterday's ProPublica deep dive

18 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

RE the bolded, adding this link. 

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

But CRT is the *real* problem? 

"AnotherNewName"? 

I was just reading that (long, and dense) piece, and thinking about this thread.

There's a LOT going on in that horrifying / infuriating / heartbreaking title story about a handful of very-wronged kids; and even more in the the layers of institutions / written policies / unwritten practices / monetary incentives (... one might call them, structures) that the wider-lens investigation peeled back. 

It's a very good article, definitely suitable for a high school civics class, definitely valuable in shedding light into some very broken parts of our society.  Not "CRT" and definitely-definitely not "DEI," but definitely relevant to where we are today. Although bringing such content into the classroom could, conceivable, instill "distress." It certainly did in me.

There are a couple of easily-identifiable Bad Apples for folks inclined to explain horrific one-off stories that way.  There are also some pretty sharp pointers, how the same center that wreaked these abuses is now actively marketing its facility to other counties to turn it into a profit center, a dynamic actively encouraged by county commissioners eager to raise revenues:

Also struck by how, when comparative county data like this (proportion of kids locked up before their initial hearing) started to flag Rutherford County as an outlier...

... the county responded by halting the data collection, on that and other indicators, as did other counties...until the the statewide data collection got so bad that -- lo!! the data could no longer reveal patterns...

Quote

Tennessee’s Administrative Office of the Courts collects crucial data statewide. In 2004, the consultant hired by Rutherford County used that data to sound an alarm: Rutherford County was locking up kids at more than three times the state average.

But then, Rutherford County stopped reporting this data. From 2005 to 2009, the county had 11,797 cases of children being referred to juvenile court. How many were locked up? The county claimed to have no idea. “Unknown,” it reported, for 90% of the cases. The county’s data, now meaningless, couldn’t be used against it.

Later, when the county resumed reporting how many kids it detained, lawyers representing children sounded a second alarm. By 2014, the county was locking up children at nearly 10 times the state average. But then the state stopped publishing its annual statistical report, which had provided the statewide comparison points that allowed troubling outliers to be spotted.

In 2017, a state task force on juvenile justice concluded that Tennessee’s “data collection and information sharing is insufficient and inconsistent across the state.” This “impedes accountability,” it reported. The following year, a state review team reported that without good data, “the state cannot identify trends.”

... which is, itself, a pattern, isn't it. 

 

But of *all* of the narrative details and investigatory insights that are in the piece, the quote that really brought it around to this thread was an almost offhand reference in the fourth section, about how an op-ed in a local paper provided the background into how this vast all-in-one accountability-free invisible facility came into being in the first place.

Quote

[Before the juvenile facility was created] the county detained kids in a deteriorated 19th-century jail separate from the court building. A local newspaper editorial bemoaned the sight this produced in the public square: kids, shackled together, in orange jumpsuits, “shuffling along the sidewalk and into the Judicial Building.” “Not that we’re afraid to see juveniles cuffed and heading toward justice, but it is a disturbing thing that could be avoided if juvenile court could be held at the detention center,” the editorial said.

That is:

The public spectacle of shackled kids shuffling into the regular Judicial Building caused what might fairly be named "distress."

And the good townspeople preferred that such distressing content remain out of sight. Unseen, undiscussed, unnamed.  So they built a one-stop-shop where the kids, once they went in, never again emerged into the public eye. With its own reigning Bad Apple director exhorted on by its own standalone Bad Apple judge, who enthusiastically set out to turn it into a profit center without a lick of accountability. 

It's a pattern, that furious insistence that our consciences not be pricked.

 

 

[Idalou]

21 hours ago, KSera said:

Did you find somewhere to get it for less than at Amazon? I'm impressed you got it so quickly and have already read so much! I've only read excerpts and interviews, but wacky, right? Apparently, people are so predictable (even when it comes to behaving in bizarre ways).

Have you seen this one, it's an hour long

https://youtu.be/pFVT7BDe4bM

 

[AnotherNewName]

20 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

RE the bolded, adding this link. 

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

But CRT is the *real* problem? 

"AnotherNewName"? 

Where did I say one word about CRT?  And cut the troll you pull with everyone. I was here long before you ever were.

Edited October 10, 2021 by desertflower
Bad language

[AnotherNewName]

2 hours ago, KSera said:

But no one is being charged with a crime without having broken a law. At this point they are just convening a group to determine if the issues warrant FBI involvement, as they have been asked by the NASB to determine. I’m trying to figure out why someone would object to them doing that. 

Because it is federal overreach.  The request from NASB is absurd on its face. 

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

And cut the troll bull[****] you pull with everyone.

I've noticed a new trend on this board for people to call people trolls if they disagree with what they're saying (happened to me last week when Spycar didn't like my opinion). That's not the same thing as trolling though. We do seem to have a couple newish posters who frequently post a link to something controversial and then never engage in any of the ensuinging discussion. That verges on trollish behavior, IMO.

 

11 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

The request from NASB is absurd on its face. 

With what school boards have been dealing with over the past few months, it just doesn't seem absurd to me to have the situation looked into. People shouldn't fear for their safety at school board meetings, and when it's routinely happening all across the country, it's more than an occasional, isolated problem. They may find that these events are indeed just one off events that can and should be dealt with locally. I don't see a problem with investigating to see if that's the case.

[AnotherNewName]

23 minutes ago, KSera said:

I've noticed a new trend on this board for people to call people trolls if they disagree with what they're saying (happened to me last week when Spycar didn't like my opinion). That's not the same thing as trolling though. We do seem to have a couple newish posters who frequently post a link to something controversial and then never engage in any of the ensuinging discussion. That verges on trollish behavior, IMO.

 

With what school boards have been dealing with over the past few months, it just doesn't seem absurd to me to have the situation looked into. People shouldn't fear for their safety at school board meetings, and when it's routinely happening all across the country, it's more than an occasional, isolated problem. They may find that these events are indeed just one off events that can and should be dealt with locally. I don't see a problem with investigating to see if that's the case.

OrdinaryShoes does it frequently.  I can't see any value she brings to discussions so she is on ignore now.

I disagree with the letter from NASB as I have not seen anything that can't be handled locally. But I have taken issue for some time with the attempts to weaponize DOJ which have been becoming more and more frequent in the past 20 years.

Edited October 9, 2021 by AnotherNewName

[SlowRiver]

5 hours ago, KSera said:

Unherd doesn’t yet have a listing on mediabiasfactcheck (it lists it as pending), but The Daily Mail has a low fact reliability rating, failing many fact checks:

The Daily Mail on Media Bias Fact Check

I sometimes end up reading stories there, but I wouldn’t use it as a source in a post unless it was the only one I could find and I included a sourcing disclaimer  

 

Unherd is only about a year old. The writers speak for themselves, I think. The Daily Mail is hit and miss but at times can have some excellent journalism, the kind that includes things like actually doing some investigation and checking up on things sources tell them. They've historically done well at the Press Awards including for investigative campaigns.  

Being dismissive to the point you won't read outside of a small band of media sources just ends up narrowing people's thinking.

Edited October 9, 2021 by SlowRiver

[KSera]

18 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

Being dismissive to the point you won't read outside of a small band of media sources just ends up narrowing people's thinking.

I agree a variety of sources is important, but it’s also really important for people to know if a source has a poor track record for factual reporting. If I read something from an unreliable source, I’m going to then go looking for verification from a more reliable source. And like I said, it’s not the source I’m going to use to share information with others; I’ll use the reliable source for that. Reading false information doesn’t do anything to broaden people’s thinking, it just makes them misinformed. 

[Happy2BaMom]

1 hour ago, AnotherNewName said:

Because it is federal overreach.  The request from NASB is absurd on its face. 

In your opinion. 

[Pam in CT]

re so many broken parts

11 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I've been thinking about this article since I read it yesterday. 

It touches on so many issues; our incarceration problem, race, poverty. The judge's talk about disrespect in the courtroom and basically "kid's today!" also struck me. My daughter's back in school this year and I've been thinking about how the school demands respect from the kids without actually deserving it. For example, they won't institute a mask mandate because they're afraid of offending some of the parents. But every time another kid tests positive for COVID, we get the "your children's safety is our top priority" thing. No, it's not their top priority because if it was, they would require everyone in school to wear masks. So no, they don't automatically deserve the respect of their students. 

The judge forces kids to wear a belt in court. How ridiculous! 

The advertisement for the detention center was sickening. 

The voiceover in that "advertisement" is JUDGE DAVENPORT HERSELF.  The very same Bad Apple who presided over the creation of the juvenile facility, overrode the outside consultant recommendations for a smaller facility, and another recommendation to include a section for shelter care for runaways or other kids posing no threat to public safety; and the most important, to keep oversight of the function within the regular courts. Davenport, who has been in her role since 2000, also sanctioned a "filter" policy that was later found to be non-compliant with state law protecting kids:

Quote

Recognizing the harm that can come from incarcerating kids, Tennessee lawmakers have placed narrow limits on when a child accused of being delinquent can be held in a secure lockdown prior to receiving a court hearing. The child must fit one of six categories, precisely defined. They include being a jail escapee; being wanted elsewhere for a felony offense; or being accused, on substantial evidence, of a crime resulting in serious injury or death...

Rutherford County, however, had its own system for deciding whether to keep a child under lock and key. Its written procedure, imprecise and broad, boiled down to whether a child was considered by jailers to be a “TRUE threat.”..

...When police arrest a child, they bring the child to jail. There, under the system, staff decide whether to hold the child before a detention hearing, which could take place days later. Say a child is hauled in for something minor, like skipping school. Under the filter system, the child would be locked up if deemed “unruly.” But the filter system defines “unruly” simply as “a TRUE threat,” while “TRUE threat” is not defined at all.

So any child, no matter the charge, who is considered a “TRUE threat,” however that’s interpreted, can end up being locked up.

Plus, the police can weigh in. In a 2013 email, Duke encouraged sheriff’s officers to let her staff know if they wanted a child detained. “If they say I really want this kid held, 9 times out of 10 we can make it happen,” she wrote. 

She went further in a memo to school resource officers, writing, “Even if we would normally release a juvenile ... any time a local law enforcement officer requests a juvenile be detained and agrees to come to court to testify we will hold the juvenile.”

Detention center staff could be quizzed on the filter system when up for promotion, or disciplined for not applying it as written, according to personnel records. The staff member who made her way up to sergeant before being fired said in a deposition, “We were told when in doubt, hold them ’cause it’s better to hold a kid ... that should have been released than release a child that should have been held.”

Now that the county has lost both a case around the specific incident of the lede, and also a class action suit on behalf of kids detained under this "filter" system over 13 years, and a court has ruled that the "filter" system must be dropped... the county is no longer filling its 65 juvenile beds.

And so that's why the facility, under Davenport's leadership, is marketing its "services" to other counties in TN and in adjacent states.

 

There are a lot of elements in the article that bring it around to the "CRT" brouhaha, starting with: this is precisely the sort of content that the bans sweeping state legislatures would preclude covering in a classroom.  They are written to ensure no student feels "distress," and this scrupulously researched content is, intrinsically, distressing.

But here's the thing: so too are the actual facts of what actually happened.  Kids hauled out of their fourth and sixth grade classes, and off the school bus, put in cuffs, loaded into police vehicles. No parents were called; it all took place in front of tons of other kids.  Four of the kids were detained for several days. For an infraction that did not exist.

That causes "distress" too -- certainly to the 11 kids who were rounded up and taken to the station; but also to their siblings and friends and all the others who *witnessed* it.  The story focuses particularly on 11 kids; the class action suit estimated 1500 kids were detained unlawfully under the "filter" policy; they too are likely to have been "distressed" by the policy, by the facility, by the incentives and admonitions in place to encourage over-incarceration.  The specific anguish of those 11 kids is exemplary, not unique: what they experienced was within a set of structures-- a couple Bad Apples at the top to be sure, but tens of other people working within it. Now that the model is shifting to bringing in $175/day from other counties, that "distress" is being structurally exported.  And Judge Davenport still rules.

What the "CRT" bans seek to do it to make study and discussion of specific events like this, and the larger lens of systems and incentives in which they operate, out of the classroom.  Even though these events -- like Ruby Bridges' first grade and Bull Connor's dogs, and the structures sustaining those events -- also targeted to be excised from school curricula under the bans, *literally happened in schools.*

And that is what proves Whose Distress Matters in this discussion.

 

[SlowRiver]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

I agree a variety of sources is important, but it’s also really important for people to know if a source has a poor track record for factual reporting. If I read something from an unreliable source, I’m going to then go looking for verification from a more reliable source. And like I said, it’s not the source I’m going to use to share information with others; I’ll use the reliable source for that. Reading false information doesn’t do anything to broaden people’s thinking, it just makes them misinformed. 

I guess I just don't see the point when there isn't even anything being said about the actual articles. Whether or not the Daily Mail can be unreliable, is this article along the lines of "The Queen Kicks Meghan Out of the Palace" or is it the sort of article that gets them awards for investigative journalism? Also, Mediawatch can be useful, but I'd be wary of putting too much weight on it. Fact checking isn't always as straightforward as people think.

[KSera]

16 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

Mediawatch can be useful, but I'd be wary of putting too much weight on it.

Just as a clarification, I only referred to Media Bias Fact Check, not Media Watch, though that is interesting as well. If one doesn't have any fact checking they find reliable, they are just deciding based on their own biases what they think is true.

 

[Fritz]

Deleted because political.

Edited October 10, 2021 by desertflower
Political

[Fritz]

NM

Edited October 10, 2021 by Fritz

[KSera]

1 hour ago, Fritz said:

The teacher’s unions will not take the mass exodus and their lack of control over America’s children well. These teachers’ unions have a lot of power as we have seen during the pandemic. It will be interesting/frightening to see how they retaliate for taking away their subjects.

It sounds like you've bought into some really extreme ideas about public schools. I've homeschooled all of my children from the start, because I chose to, despite being in an "excellent" school district, so I'm not defending because I'm part of the system. It just looks obvious that someone wants people to be really angry about this, and it's worth asking who wants you to be angry and why.

[TCB]

6 hours ago, KSera said:

It sounds like you've bought into some really extreme ideas about public schools. I've homeschooled all of my children from the start, because I chose to, despite being in an "excellent" school district, so I'm not defending because I'm part of the system. It just looks obvious that someone wants people to be really angry about this, and it's worth asking who wants you to be angry and why.

It is interesting to see all the attempts going on to manipulate us through social media etc. That probably makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist lol, but I have noticed it a lot during this pandemic, usually as a way to deflect attention away from something else, I think. For instance, initially there was a lot of stuff about Covid being just the flu and no big deal, or even completely false, then, when that became a difficult position to hold, there was a huge interest in human trafficking, or at least that was where the focus shifted with the people I know. At the same time those people were calling other people sheep, and it just seemed so ironic to me when they seemed to be so susceptible to obvious manipulation themselves.

[Fritz]

7 hours ago, KSera said:

It sounds like you've bought into some really extreme ideas about public schools. I've homeschooled all of my children from the start, because I chose to, despite being in an "excellent" school district, so I'm not defending because I'm part of the system. It just looks obvious that someone wants people to be really angry about this, and it's worth asking who wants you to be angry and why.

I'm not angry about this. I thinking it is concerning how much power the teacher's unions have. We shall see how this plays out. It sounds like  your acceptable sources have not done any reporting on how much power the teacher's unions have had in keeping schools closed during the pandemic.

I do find it interesting that Merrick Garland's son-in-law's company sells CRT materials to schools. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Fritz

[Roadrunner]

I haven’t seen anything inappropriate at our school thus far, but I do see leftist propaganda being pushed constantly. My son’s health class taught him he needs to fight for social justice to improve his emotional health. In his English class assignment they had to read an article about the lack of empathy among wealthy and outline all the ways rich people lack empathy. Even my left wing son rolled his eyes when he was reading.

None of this has anything to do with CTR, but I am wondering if this sort of indoctrination in schools isn’t going to cause even more problems. 

I will say that we are reading To Kill the Mockingbird this year, and the so far the discussions on 20th century atrocities as well as discussions about slavery have been nothing but excellent. But all of those have taken place in English and social science classes. I guess we are lucky not to live in a part of the country where school board madness is happening. I think the most heated the situation got here was about online versus in person schooling. 
There is most definitely a place for debate on what is being put into textbooks (we all know good intentions don’t always translate into good teaching. Just look at math), but no place for violence. I just really wish civil debate would replace this madness. 

[KSera]

2 hours ago, Fritz said:

It sounds like  your acceptable sources have not done any reporting on how much power the teacher's unions have had in keeping schools closed during the pandemic.

I don’t know where you got that idea from anything I said. I read lots and lots of coverage about teachers unions and school closures as well as teachers unions and vaccines. It was covered frequently. I just don’t harbor any fears that the motivation is subjugation of the children. 

[Fritz]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

I haven’t seen anything inappropriate at our school thus far, but I do see leftist propaganda being pushed constantly. My son’s health class taught him he needs to fight for social justice to improve his emotional health. In his English class assignment they had to read an article about the lack of empathy among wealthy and outline all the ways rich people lack empathy. Even my left wing son rolled his eyes when he was reading.

None of this has anything to do with CTR, but I am wondering if this sort of indoctrination in schools isn’t going to cause even more problems. 

I will say that we are reading To Kill the Mockingbird this year, and the so far the discussions on 20th century atrocities as well as discussions about slavery have been nothing but excellent. But all of those have taken place in English and social science classes. I guess we are lucky not to live in a part of the country where school board madness is happening. I think the most heated the situation got here was about online versus in person schooling. 
There is most definitely a place for debate on what is being put into textbooks (we all know good intentions don’t always translate into good teaching. Just look at math), but no place for violence. I just really wish civil debate would replace this madness. 

Welcome to DEI. This is the new CRT just more widely focused than just race.

https://diversity.umich.edu/about/defining-dei/

Diversity: We commit to increasing diversity, which is expressed in myriad forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, culture, national origin, religious commitments, age, (dis)ability status and political perspective.

Equity: We commit to working actively to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status.

Inclusion: We commit to pursuing deliberate efforts to ensure that our campus is a place where differences are welcomed, different perspectives are respectfully heard and where every individual feels a sense of belonging and inclusion. We know that by building a critical mass of diverse groups on campus and creating a vibrant climate of inclusiveness, we can more effectively leverage the resources of diversity to advance our collective capabilities.

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, Fritz said:

Welcome to DEI. This is the new CRT just more widely focused than just race.

https://diversity.umich.edu/about/defining-dei/

Diversity: We commit to increasing diversity, which is expressed in myriad forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, culture, national origin, religious commitments, age, (dis)ability status and political perspective.

Equity: We commit to working actively to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status.

Inclusion: We commit to pursuing deliberate efforts to ensure that our campus is a place where differences are welcomed, different perspectives are respectfully heard and where every individual feels a sense of belonging and inclusion. We know that by building a critical mass of diverse groups on campus and creating a vibrant climate of inclusiveness, we can more effectively leverage the resources of diversity to advance our collective capabilities.

I’m confused. What’s the bad thing here?
 

And fwiw, this is actually a completely different thing then CRT. I don’t know where you’re reading that they are equated, but just because both include the concept of race, doesn’t make them related.  I guess you could consider them related in that diversity, equity, and inclusion could be values an institution adopts in order to address structural problems as described in critical race theory. It’s not like either is a curriculum or something though. One is a theoretical framework that describes something and the other is set of principles that might guide how a place operates. 

[Matryoshka]

15 minutes ago, Fritz said:

Welcome to DEI. This is the new CRT just more widely focused than just race.

https://diversity.umich.edu/about/defining-dei/

Diversity: We commit to increasing diversity, which is expressed in myriad forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, culture, national origin, religious commitments, age, (dis)ability status and political perspective.

Equity: We commit to working actively to challenge and respond to bias, harassment, and discrimination. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status.

Inclusion: We commit to pursuing deliberate efforts to ensure that our campus is a place where differences are welcomed, different perspectives are respectfully heard and where every individual feels a sense of belonging and inclusion. We know that by building a critical mass of diverse groups on campus and creating a vibrant climate of inclusiveness, we can more effectively leverage the resources of diversity to advance our collective capabilities.

Also not understanding what is bad here?  

So, staying white, straight, able-bodied, and rich (or at least not poor - ew!) is the way to go and making all others feel unwelcome or unheard and making sure "they" stay out of "our" town or in the closet should be the goal instead?  Good to know you're owning it.

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I have concerns about public unions in general; teachers unions, police unions, unions for prison workers, etc. Their interests don't align with the interests of the public. 

In general, a union should advocate for the interests of its members only. But things get tricky when you have a public union that represents government employees. 

It's true that the teachers unions advocated for school closures which was in the best interests of their members. It wasn't always in the best interest of the children. However, I don't believe that teachers should be required to put their best interests aside for their students. 

In agreement with this. I'm actually not a big union person. I see the necessity and benefit for many professions, but sometimes that ends up being detrimental to society, as you say (police unions for example). I had a job as a teen that required me to join the union, and I resented it because that was a big chunk of my small part time salary that I had to pay in dues every month, and I felt the union severely limited my ability to increase my pay. I was an excellent employee, yet pay raises were strictly on the union schedule of getting X cents more an hour after working there for X amount of time, no matter how good or bad of an employee you were. I felt I would have been able to get raises on my merits, if not for the union.

All that said as background, the teacher unions working to protect teachers during a pandemic is exactly the appropriate use of a union. Their job is to protect their workers. Someone can agree or disagree about whether Covid19 is something people deserve protection from, but it seems straight forward that it would be the union's place to advocate for teacher's protection.

[SlowRiver]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

Just as a clarification, I only referred to Media Bias Fact Check, not Media Watch, though that is interesting as well. If one doesn't have any fact checking they find reliable, they are just deciding based on their own biases what they think is true.

 

Yes, sorry, I used the wrong name.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that, even if you generally trust their desire to be accurate, there are always decisions to be made about how you rate things like publications, or even what counts as a fact. There are some straightforward things but not always.

Look at an organization like the Guardian. You would traditionally not see them outright print untrue things, although their straight journalism has gone right down the tubes and instead they tend to have commentary pieces which can be more difficult to assess. But rather than print untrue things, they would much prefer to simply not run stories at all that are outside the narrative they want to present. 

I really disagree that by making decisions about articles without a fact checker  website is just deciding on the basis of bias. It's possible to make assessments which is what people did in the pre-internet days. It can also be better to look at individual journalists and writers in a lot of cases. It doesn't really matter if the Guardian is a publication with poor reliability, if you are talking about an article that is a good one. Why dismiss a well writen piece by a great author because of the publication?

 

[SlowRiver]

FWIW, I don't think this is Ali's best work. Partly because I don't think it's entirely right to say that CRT is being rebranded, in order to hide it, as DEI. That sounds very conspiracy like and I don't think that's what's going on for the most part, if at all.

I think it would have been more accurate to say that the underlying thinking of CRT - which is by no meas just teaching about race or valuing different kinds of people - is often found in policies such as DEI policies without any mention of CRT. It's the underlying ideas, which come out of specific elements of academia, that are the problem, whatever form they take.

I'd go farther than that though and say, you can have policies that seem perfectly reasonable, but when the people instituting them have a particular lens, they can become very different things. 

It makes it difficult for parents to show down the problem, and give a lot of deniability to teachers and school boards. Probably in many cases they feel that what their kids are coming home with really sucks, so they are pointing to what the school says are it's sources, even if in reality the school is interpreting those in a very specific way and that's the real problem. A lot of these ideas move around so quickly, you hear about something stupid asking kids to make lists about their privilege somewhere far away, and then all of a sudden you see it locally passed on through some conference speaker or something.