Thread by @normative

I think CRT is a mixed bag, some of which is insightful, some of which is off base; it doesn’t seem particularly illuminating to reduce the whole bundle to “the crudest elements of Ibram Kendi’s worldview.” And I think Cooke is pulling the same bait & switch he diagnoses.

https://twitter.com/CathyYoung63/status/1404530582231650307

To wit: Nobody’s banning teaching about racism! The sudden popular relevance of a recherché academic theory is purely about sparing little Jaden a daily Maoist struggle session! But then you look at the Florida statute, and gosh it seems broader than that.

Instruction, Florida stipulates, may not include "the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.”

"Instruction may not utilize material from the 1619 Project...” I mean, I wouldn’t want it preached as gospel—there are various problems with it—but can’t be used at all?

I disagree with the Communist Manifesto a lot more strongly than I do with the 1619 project, but it’d be absurd to make it off limits in a classroom.

“Instruction… may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence…”

Bracket pedantic objections to “nation”… can they teach Fredrick Douglass’ “Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro”? Is it an admissible topic for discussion how “largely” the actually-existing country was based on its avowed “universal principles”? Or is Fred D CRT too?

I have no doubt there is specific dumb stuff schools are pushing in the name of equity or anti-racism or whatever, but it is usefully addressed locally & in the specific, not via the symbolic (but codified in statute!) rejection of an abstract academic framework.

The charge against this supposed epidemic of CRT in schools is that it’s aiming to indoctrinate kids with a single ideological perspective. The tacit premise of the Florida bill seems to be that this is ALL education can ever be… and so we’d better pick the right perspective!

How else to understand the instence that there is a singular correct interpetation of “American history” that’s admissible? Or that a specific collection of essays, some of which make contestable or even just wrong claims, must under no circumstances be used?

Frankly it all seems a bit comically counterproductive. Are kids not supposed to notice that a band of partisan legislators have declared a set of ideas Too Hot for the Classroom?

I don’t know if anything is capable of getting teenagers interested in reading jargon-laden grad level sociology papers, but if it’s possible, this is how you do it.