Inside one school district's confounding struggle to define critical race theory

The Los Angeles Times via SF Gate ^ | November 25, 2021 | by Hayley Smith

[Oldeconomybuyer]

LOS ANGELES — Inside a wood-clad meeting room in Orange County, five school board members sat before a sign-waving, opinionated crowd. For more than three hours, the trustees listened, debated and asked questions as they tried to decide whether to ban classroom teaching on a hard-to-define topic not taught in their schools: critical race theory.

"I don't think that this definition is really good," trustee Marilyn Anderson said after reading the dense entry. "I think it needs to be really specific. It needs to spell out the specific theories that we do not want taught in our district — like that the United States is fundamentally or systemically racist."

At the end of a long night, the board postponed the vote. But what emerged during their session revealed far more than angst over a "yes" or "no" vote on whether to ban critical race theory. Their meeting offered an up-close look at how an advanced academic concept has been transformed into a politicized slogan framing uncomfortable discussions about how to teach race, racism and equity in schools — and how the quest to define it inside a suburban school board meeting can be a minefield.

Critical race theory is a university-level academic lens for examining how racial inequality and racism are historically embedded in legal systems, policies and institutions in America and is not generally taught in K-12 schools. Yet Republicans have seized on it as a wedge issue painting white people as racist oppressors and people of color as the oppressed. Democrats largely see the conservative drive against critical race theory as racist dog-whistle politics that polarizes broader discussions about reckoning with America's past.

[BenLurkin]

Democrats largely see the conservative drive against critical race theory as racist dog-whistle politics that polarizes broader discussions about reckoning with America's past.

Discussions about 'reckoning' with America's past don't belong in K-12.

Period.

And that that leftists want to use their dominance of the education bureaucracy as a platform for imposing their warped worldview on children is the root of this entire problem.

[greeneyes]

Projection. The RACIST dog whistle IS CRT/marxist crap they are trying to cram into skulls full of mush.

[Parley Baer]

“five school board members sat before a sign-waving, opinionated crowd”

Got to love how these lefty newspapers choose their wording.

[Paladin2]

CRT Theory:

Marxism Good.

Whites BAD; especially those who voted for Trump.

[joshua c]

CRT is not being taught but you are not allowed to ban it

[Nateman]

CRT: Any ideology designed to increase tensions between races and advance Communism. Communism: legalized evil.

[Fungi]

Remember one thing, if it is published in the LA Slime, it is not true, just an opinion, despite not being on the opinion page. The entire rag is pure unadulterated crap.

[lurk]

Why is it being taught in the university? Creating Racial Tensions is wrong for everyone.

[Jeff Chandler]

five school board members sat before a sign-waving, passionate crowd

[olivia3boys]

I have teens in CA schools right now—high school and college. It’s exasperating. The simple truth is that there is NO TIME FOR SUCH NONSENSE. There are very few instructional minutes available for math, English, science, foreign language, history, and electives. . .there is no time, or interest in, woke nonsense. Literally no one—students or parents—want it. It wastes time and trust me, they know it all already. It’s been drilled into their brains since 2nd grade. Enough is enough.

[alexander_busek]

“five school board members sat before a sign-waving, opinionated crowd”

How dare they have opinions!

Regards,

[ronnie raygun]

looking to compromise on CRT until no one is looking anymore and its back to business. Kill it dead once and for all

[BroJoeK]

Critical Race Theory is 100% a logical fallacy called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".
CRT posits that because we can discern statistical differences among various racial or ethnic groups, therefore those differences were caused by "systemic" or "structural" WHITE-racism.

That argument (such as it is) utterly collapses when we consider various Asian ethnicities, but it doesn't matter to CRT propagandists -- the purpose of CRT is not "the truth", but rather it's agit-prop to keep different races & ethnicities at war with each other, and so to expand the need for Bigger & Bigger Government.

[norwaypinesavage]

Let’s say that you randomly select a million people in the US, and then divide them into groups based solely on observable physical characteristics. This could be height, weight, eye color, skin color, head size, eyesight, hair color, finger length, and more. On average, some groups would be more capable of some things compared with the others. Some would be better at basketball, some badminton, some mathematics, some singing, some surgery, etc. This is just a fact of life.

Is it ‘systemic racism’ to acknowledge this? Is it ‘systemic racism’ to teach this?

In my view it’s ‘systemic racism’ to demand that each group have ‘equity’ of outcome, that they all get the same grades in school, admission to universities, job offers for nuclear physics professorships, salaries, etc. That is the very definition of racism - demanding that reality based on race must be ignored.

[Valin]

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