It’s been months. Why can’t a primetime anchor + team get the facts right?
Was Taylor killed in her bed? Did cops storm in + just start shooting? They were not looking for *someone else*. No civilian was prosecuted for defending themselves.
Law enforcement made avoidable + ultimately fatal errors. Bad policy. Incompetence. Human error.
America’s failed war on drugs is an under-discussed factor too.
But there is zero evidence racial bias played any material roll in this outcome.
STOKING fear + outrage is a choice.
"Ain't nothing changed since the 1920s... Make that 1820s... No, 1776*!"
Increasingly ridiculous claims heaped on top of one another.
It's worse than inaccurate. Contemplate all the extraordinary progress made, the price paid to achieve it, and how flippantly it's disregarded.
If @chrislhayes has misjudged the President’s remarks — interpreting a notoriously inarticulate man in the darkest imaginable way — does that make Hayes precisely the sort of dangerous hysteric he’s inveighed against?
Things could go very badly in November. And by disseminating hysterical takes + provably false narratives, some people seem determined to ensure as much.
The President has helped create this cauldron. His opponents are little better. And prominent pundits are doing their share.
It’s a pitiful, if not yet entirely hopeless, state of affairs.
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A) attempt to meet the needs of each individual student, whether their *special needs* involve remediation or accelerated curricula.
B) dismantle your gifted program because the *wrong kind of kids* are *doing too well*.
B? 👍🏼
There is no end to the way students differ from one another. Some of these differences will convey advantages. Students from two-parent households likely have some average advantage over their * single-parent* peers.
Should we hobble them in the name of EQUITY?
Why stop there?
When an "educational" system prioritizes race, gender, or even parental equity -- it happens at the expense of respecting the dignity + potential of each individual student.
Not sure this "racial reckoning" has a bottom. Seemingly no end to the moral backsliding it can induce.
Surveying the media response to the recent @thehonestlypod episode w/ myself, @bariweiss and featuring an interview w/ Amy Cooper -- is surreal. 'Media incuriosity' is a primary theme in the recording, and some folks seem determined to illustrate why... 🧵podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
CIP: The distance between what Amy Cooper told me vs. the characterization of her remarks by @blakersdozen can be measured in light-years.
No surprise since, as Blake told me earlier today, he didn't even listen to the interview he was reporting on.🙃
*Motivated Incuriosity*
During our conversation, Ms. Cooper recounted being threatened several times. And for his part, Mr. Cooper openly admits to making what might be characterized as a vague threat.
Some facts are disputed; others are *well-confirmed* but evade the attn of anyone disinclined to see.
Seems @realchrisrufo has withdrawn from this engagement, again. I won’t speculate about his motivations, but if I'm going to publicly assail someone's credibility, motives, and integrity -- I wouldn't turn down an opportunity to defend those assertions in a neutral venue.🧵
Disappointed we won't have an opportunity to flush out our disagreement, both on the issues and with regard to several misrepresentations Chris recently directed my way in various publications. 2/
I’m frustrated by how acrimonious this has become; characteristic of America’s toxic public discourse.
I condemn any assertion that @realchrisrufo is somehow racist or sympathetic to white nationalism.
We have our disagreements, but there is NO credible support for that claim.
Believe you're locked in a civilizational conflict? That corrosive ideas, endangering the foundation of free society saturate everything, incl K-12 curriculum?
Well, bans on ideas will not save you. Worse than fool’s gold, you establish a precedent *THEY* may turn on you next.🧵
But on principle, I can’t cheer on a discombobulated campaign to ban particular bad ideas -- even in public schools.
That doesn't remotely suggest every pedagogical fetish ought to be indulged, or that students ought to be subjected to politicized indoctrination of any kind.
The list of ugly ideas schools could teach is infinite.
An affirmative approach to reform that focuses on pedagogy + frameworks --while advocating for greater choice + competition in K-12-- may be less scintillating than enacting a ban; probably more efficacious in the long run.
When surveying US history, what’s more remarkable: that slavery once existed in the United States — or that the same country gave rise to an intellectual and moral tradition that helped outlaw slavery all over the world?
I wouldn’t describe this as a 'controversial' take.
More like 'dangerously uninformed and cynical.' And seeminly rooted in the belief that a society's historical defects forever contaminate its functioning.
(Try applying that *insight* universally.)
Perfect Justice: A balancing of all historical scales, accounting for every deprivation and misdeed, bringing about *universal equity*.
That's the *brilliant* intellectual project that inspired the Khmer Rouge. Year Zero. The Killing Fields. (Go google that, kids.)