Thread by @SteveEnglishbey

Well, I just found yet another great ex. of someone who should be considered for a "Teacher of the Year" award.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1432832337855852546

As someone who considers himself first and foremost a teacher paid to help hitters/throwers develop, imagine me spending half that time [or more] trying to indoctrinate your kids with radical progressive theology!!

Would you, as a parent [or the athlete] think you are getting your money's worth by me mixing things like "connection", rotation INTO foot plant, understanding the dead lift posture ,etc. , etc.

.....with quotes from [for ex.] "White Fragility" and ibram x kendi's book "How to be an Anti-racist" wherein they construct reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity") assertions founded solely on skin color as regards judging/ assessing human nature/performance?

Would you be really happy with me saying that traits such as hard work, perseverance, "grit", personal responsibility, individual effort , etc., are but mere "racists " constructs that are erected to hide the more fundamental "oppressor vs. oppressed" American ideology?

And wherein the dominant ethic is NOT that of INDIVIDUAL MERIT, but rather that of group power dynamics that are based on immutable traits such as skin color and gender?

Would you, as a parent, someone who is paying me to help your son/daughter reach their athletic potential, be enamored with me labeling your kids as either "oppressed" or an "oppressor"?

And wherein I labelled those as "oppressed" as IN NO WAY being able to reach their potential due to the iron-clad power of the "Oppressor" group whose cultural/economic mandate is to block their progress.

And wherein those who pay me and who are "Privileged" , I will lecture them as to how they are somehow very lucky they are white and that somehow this factors into either how I will teach them or how they will succeed in developing their athletic potential.

It is contained within this last statement as to how utterly absurd the radical progressive ideas such as "equity" and "oppressor vs. oppressed" are utterly absurd in the context of athletics.

As I have said many times the beauty of athletic performance is that it is largely based on an objective and meritorious reality.

A quick and simple ex: Barry Bonds is ....in case you have not noticed ...BLACK. He was also known as a kind of arrogant jerk [various reports of this over the yrs].

But. In the context of baseball performance ---that has been and is based on objective/merit driven measurements----do most really care as to his skin color or his [alleged] asshole personality?

The answer is --of course--for most anyway---a resounding NO!! And that is how it should be. And that is certainly a great ex. of a very fundamental American ethic.

Which is that of being in a culture that greatly values and variously promotes INDIVIDUAL merit and wherein it is NOT about "the color of your skin but the content of your character" [King]

To return to the clip I posted here, I think that ANY teacher in this country, regardless of the particular subject matter , should be well versed some of the basic values this country is founded upon.

Things like individual liberties such as free speech, free association, etc. As well as the broader ethic that revolves around individual merit, individual responsibility, individual effort, etc., etc.

As opposed to what the above teacher ex. is advocating, i.e., non-western values that are based on the collective, the power of the socialist state, "us vs. them" constructs such as the "oppressed vs. the oppressor" constructs, etc.

Non-western collectivist values which have led to literally MILLIONS of people being killed in places like Russia, China, Cambodia, etc., over the last century.

There are [of course] many historians much smarter than me that have written about this. That's analysis at the macro level.

But at the micro level--where I really reside professionally and experientially ---my perspective as a teacher with INDIVIDUALS----is straight forward and simple:

I don't care at all as to your color, gender, class, sexual orientation. My job --my charge---is to help you to develop the kinds of physical/mental characteristics that I think are involved in developing your true potential.

And I dare say that this teacher I cited above---though I know there is zero chance of this----would be a much better teacher if he adopted my mindset/perspective.

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