Alabama State Superintendent Says Parents Are Reporting 'Black History Month' As Critical Race Theory. Says People Misunderstanding What CRT Is

[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

Despite Conservatives repeated assertions that they know perfectly well what CRT is and that it has nothing to do with stopping all teaching about race and racial issues.....

Well... Predictably Alabama's CRT ban is causing mass confusion as nobody...not even the Republican lawmakers that write the bills banning CRT can describe it or point to any examples of it being taught in Alabama. 

And now opportunistic Alabama parents with.....possibly questionable motives....are reporting to the State ANYTHING having to do with teaching about race as being CRT.

----------------------------------------------------------

https://www.al.com/news/2022/02/alabama-officials-receive-complaints-about-black-history-month-as-state-debates-crt-legislation.html

 

"As Alabama lawmakers look to take up multiple bills in the coming weeks that would ban divisive concepts associated with critical race theory, Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey on Wednesday told members of the House Education Policy Committee people are confused about what CRT is.

 

Mackey said he is hearing from people who call to report CRT being taught, but when state officials investigate, they find no evidence.

”There are people out there who don’t understand what CRT is. And so in their misunderstanding of it, they make a report but it’s not actually CRT.”

“I had two calls in the last week that they’re having a Black History Month program and they consider having a Black history program CRT,” Mackey said. “Having a Black history program is not CRT.”

....

 

Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, has filed a bill, HB9, to ban divisive concepts from being used in trainings conducted by state agencies and contractors. He continually claimed CRT was being taught in Alabama’s K-12 classrooms, but did not provide any specific examples for his assertions.

“I can tell you what’s in the state curriculum,” Mackey responded. “I can tell you what’s in our textbooks and CRT is not in there.”

 

...

“I think that the intent is not to actually learn what CRT is or what it is not,” he told AL.com. “The intent is to continue the distraction and the divisive tone of driving fear on an issue that there’s no clarity being provided about.”

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[homersapien 11,440]

Wow!!

Didn't see that coming.   

[autigeremt 6,685]

Everyday should be American history and black men and women should be mixed in with the rest of it...fairly. Segregation is for losers. 

[DKW 86 7,440]

Reading that made my head hurt. Cant say I am surprised tho.

[AU9377 5,035]

Sadly, I am not shocked in the least.

[CoffeeTiger 5,169]

Republicans in West virginia are starting to give up the game out loud. 

a West Virginia Republican sponsoring anti-CRT legislation in the state did a interview where he stated that teaching "negative" things about America must be monitored and when the reporter asked him if he believes racism has played a part in America history, the Republican refused to give an answer saying that was a "loaded question" 

 

CRT is just a convenient boogyman excuse many Republicans are using to try and pass laws and bills to limit schools teaching about slavery, racism, and the impact it had and has on African Americans. 

 

[homersapien 11,440]

Ron DeSantis, ‘Don’t say gay,’ and the new GOP ‘snitch culture’

By Greg Sargent

The GOP proposals sweeping the country that restrict the teaching of race have an obvious purpose: to make teachers feel perpetually on thin ice, so they shy away from difficult discussions about our national past rather than risk breaking laws in ways they cannot themselves anticipate.

But there’s another, more pernicious goal driving these bills that might well succeed politically precisely because it remains largely unstated. The darker underlying premise here is that these bills are needed in the first place, because subversive elements lurk around every corner in schools, looking to pervert, indoctrinate or psychologically torture your kids.

Firmly establishing this premise as true — as the basis for moral panic — is itself the key to this broader campaign. Two developments in the school wars drive this home.

First, a new battle has erupted between the White House and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), now that DeSantis has signaled support for what critics are calling the “Don’t say gay” bill advancing in the Florida legislature. The bill would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and President Biden just slammed it as “hateful.”

Second, a new GOP proposal in West Virginia would establish a tip line for parents to report teachers caught proselytizing about critical race theory. After a similar tip line was instituted in Virginia, this suggests the mania for mechanisms to rat out offending teachers may be spreading.

The Florida “Don’t say gay” bill prohibits school districts from encouraging “discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” that is not “age appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”

In response to critics who argue this would stigmatize LGBTQ people, supporters insist it wouldn’t prohibit such discussions if they arise. But the bill doesn’t define what is “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”

This is likely to leave teachers fearing that if they do engage such a discussion, parents might decide it’s not age-appropriate and object. DeSantis underscored the absurdity here, declaring it’s “entirely inappropriate” for teachers to have such conversations, which seems to give away the bill’s goal of making teachers feel on thin ice when such discussions do come up.

In that regard, it’s important to note that the bill also would allow parents to bring legal action against school districts, in which courts could “award damages.” As a PEN America report documents, many proposals across the country require punitive action against teachers and give parents such a right of action.

They also suffer from vague drafting. Some would prohibit teaching materials that merely “include” various “concepts,” such as the notions that the United States was “founded” as a “racist” nation and is “irredeemably” racist, or concepts that might cause “discomfort,” or even “anti-American” ideologies. It’s reasonable to think certain civil rights and abolitionist tracts might run afoul of such directives.

Which brings us to the new West Virginia bill, which would require the state to set up a tip line for parents to report sightings of teachers who smuggle critical race theory (the idea that racial disparities are baked into law and institutions) into discussions.

The chief sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Michael Azinger (R), gave away the game in an exchange with a local news outlet. Azinger suggested that “negative” teachings of U.S. history must be monitored, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Then this happened:

REPORTER: You don’t think that racism played a part in U.S. history?

AZINGER: If you want [to ask] a loaded question, you can do that.

It’s a “loaded question” to ask how far teachers can go in discussing our racial past in the face of state restrictions on these discussions? The vagueness is the whole point.

Here’s the rub: It’s the combination of this vagueness and punitive mechanisms such as rights of action and tip lines that is the problem. And proposals for tip lines are proliferating.

It goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with parents being kept apprised of what’s happening in classrooms, and having input into it. But that’s not what’s going on here. Instead, precisely because teachers might fear that they can’t anticipate how they might run afoul of the law — while also fearing punishment for such transgressions — they might skirt difficult subjects altogether.

The deeper idea here is to advance the underlying premise that parents should fear a shadowy, hard-to-define, menacingly all-pervasive subversive element within. A bill in New Hampshire puts this into writing, barring advocacy of “subversive doctrines,” which is supposed to make you fear your child is at risk of being exposed to them.

Florida-based strategist Rick Wilson, who has broken with the GOP and knows from within how Republicans prosecute such culture wars, calls this a new “snitch culture” that’s taking hold of his former party.

“They want teachers to be scared in the classroom,” Wilson says. “We’re going to see test cases … all over this country.” As Wilson notes, the entire point is to put the base on high alert for “apostasy.”

The roots of this run deep. As a great episode of the “Know Your Enemy” podcast details, calls for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations. The move from restricting race discourse to more “snitch” lines is perfectly in sync with that history.

If you pay close attention not just to the language of these bills but also to the unstated premises they are trying to advance, you can see this happening all over again.

[homersapien 11,440]

On 2/7/2022 at 11:03 PM, AU9377 said:

Sadly, I am not shocked in the least.

I have to admit I can't help but be a little shocked by just how far the Republican Party has diverted from traditional conservatism.

They have embraced pure insanity.

Edited February 9, 2022 by homersapien

[AU9377 5,035]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Ron DeSantis, ‘Don’t say gay,’ and the new GOP ‘snitch culture’

By Greg Sargent

The GOP proposals sweeping the country that restrict the teaching of race have an obvious purpose: to make teachers feel perpetually on thin ice, so they shy away from difficult discussions about our national past rather than risk breaking laws in ways they cannot themselves anticipate.

But there’s another, more pernicious goal driving these bills that might well succeed politically precisely because it remains largely unstated. The darker underlying premise here is that these bills are needed in the first place, because subversive elements lurk around every corner in schools, looking to pervert, indoctrinate or psychologically torture your kids.

Firmly establishing this premise as true — as the basis for moral panic — is itself the key to this broader campaign. Two developments in the school wars drive this home.

First, a new battle has erupted between the White House and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), now that DeSantis has signaled support for what critics are calling the “Don’t say gay” bill advancing in the Florida legislature. The bill would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and President Biden just slammed it as “hateful.”

Second, a new GOP proposal in West Virginia would establish a tip line for parents to report teachers caught proselytizing about critical race theory. After a similar tip line was instituted in Virginia, this suggests the mania for mechanisms to rat out offending teachers may be spreading.

The Florida “Don’t say gay” bill prohibits school districts from encouraging “discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” that is not “age appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”

In response to critics who argue this would stigmatize LGBTQ people, supporters insist it wouldn’t prohibit such discussions if they arise. But the bill doesn’t define what is “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.”

This is likely to leave teachers fearing that if they do engage such a discussion, parents might decide it’s not age-appropriate and object. DeSantis underscored the absurdity here, declaring it’s “entirely inappropriate” for teachers to have such conversations, which seems to give away the bill’s goal of making teachers feel on thin ice when such discussions do come up.

In that regard, it’s important to note that the bill also would allow parents to bring legal action against school districts, in which courts could “award damages.” As a PEN America report documents, many proposals across the country require punitive action against teachers and give parents such a right of action.

They also suffer from vague drafting. Some would prohibit teaching materials that merely “include” various “concepts,” such as the notions that the United States was “founded” as a “racist” nation and is “irredeemably” racist, or concepts that might cause “discomfort,” or even “anti-American” ideologies. It’s reasonable to think certain civil rights and abolitionist tracts might run afoul of such directives.

Which brings us to the new West Virginia bill, which would require the state to set up a tip line for parents to report sightings of teachers who smuggle critical race theory (the idea that racial disparities are baked into law and institutions) into discussions.

The chief sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Michael Azinger (R), gave away the game in an exchange with a local news outlet. Azinger suggested that “negative” teachings of U.S. history must be monitored, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Then this happened:

REPORTER: You don’t think that racism played a part in U.S. history?

AZINGER: If you want [to ask] a loaded question, you can do that.

It’s a “loaded question” to ask how far teachers can go in discussing our racial past in the face of state restrictions on these discussions? The vagueness is the whole point.

Here’s the rub: It’s the combination of this vagueness and punitive mechanisms such as rights of action and tip lines that is the problem. And proposals for tip lines are proliferating.

It goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with parents being kept apprised of what’s happening in classrooms, and having input into it. But that’s not what’s going on here. Instead, precisely because teachers might fear that they can’t anticipate how they might run afoul of the law — while also fearing punishment for such transgressions — they might skirt difficult subjects altogether.

The deeper idea here is to advance the underlying premise that parents should fear a shadowy, hard-to-define, menacingly all-pervasive subversive element within. A bill in New Hampshire puts this into writing, barring advocacy of “subversive doctrines,” which is supposed to make you fear your child is at risk of being exposed to them.

Florida-based strategist Rick Wilson, who has broken with the GOP and knows from within how Republicans prosecute such culture wars, calls this a new “snitch culture” that’s taking hold of his former party.

“They want teachers to be scared in the classroom,” Wilson says. “We’re going to see test cases … all over this country.” As Wilson notes, the entire point is to put the base on high alert for “apostasy.”

The roots of this run deep. As a great episode of the “Know Your Enemy” podcast details, calls for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations. The move from restricting race discourse to more “snitch” lines is perfectly in sync with that history.

If you pay close attention not just to the language of these bills but also to the unstated premises they are trying to advance, you can see this happening all over again.

This is literally like some former Soviet occupied Eastern block country or Nazi Germany.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

6 hours ago, homersapien said:

By Greg Sargent

The GOP proposals sweeping the country that restrict the teaching of race

When you start an article with a lie. Damn. You poor victim.