Florida teacher exposed as white supremacist talk show host

[Cold War Liberal]

Miss me with that "white nationalist" euphemism. Anyway definitely homeschooling my kids...

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a99ae32e4b089ec353a1fba

Make sure you do it right because I was homeschooled for all 12 years and textbooks tend to skew waaaaaay to the right. Bob Jones University (you know, the ones who didn't desegregate until 1970, and who didn't allow interracial dating until like 1995 or something) makes a ton of textbooks that the co-op I went to in high school used. I was taught things like:

- slavery had nothing to do with the civil war (states' rights)
- actually slavery wasn't mentioned much at all except when saying that it wasn't the cause of the civil war
- Malcolm X was a terrorist
- Jimmy Carter hated America
- Ronald Reagan single-handedly saved the United States from stagflation and the commies
- Generally put the founding fathers on a pedestal without acknowledging any of the bad things they did
- FDR was a conniving demagogue who hated America, Japanese people (maybe true), and Jews, only fighting Hitler because he had to
- JFK was unimportant and (implied) he deserved to die?
- LBJ hated America and was super racist (maybe not wrong there) so the Civil Rights Act doesn't count, or something
- Obama hates America and is actively undermining it and the rise in the national debt is his fault and not Dubyas
- Al Gore is a sore loser who hates America by dividing it and not handing the 2000 election to Bush right away; additionally, climate change isn't real so Al Gore is also a crazy lying hypocrite (HE LIVES IN A HOUSE!!!!) The right really, really hates Al Gore and I don't understand why despite living with them for 18 years.

Thank God I've always been independent, curious, and willing to question what I'm taught....

So yeah, just be careful.

[Cold War Liberal]

was kinda thinking the labor union guy might see the problem with people being fired for their beliefs.  huh.

I get it why posted beliefs are important in teaching.  A White Supremacist (I mean a REAL one, not someone who passes for one on Atlas) has the potential to effect all sorts of unfair judgments on a child/teen that has impact on their lives.  Unfair grades.  Biased decisions on school discipline.  A manner that is dismissive toward certain students to the point where they become alienated at school to the point of dysfunction.

But the doctrine of White Privilege is flawed to the point where it can (and should) be critically examined and debated, and not just taken as some sort of axiom.  The idea that "diversity is our strength" is something that is fair to question, because in most of the World, diversity is a problem to be worked through and overcome.  The idea that Jihadist Islam is incompatible with the philosophy of self-government and the idea of a republic with democratic features is something that ought to be debated, and the question of what is Jihadist Islam and what is something else is a fair question to decide.  And before anyone wishes to label me a xenophobe, I would suggest that folks here freely discuss Evangelical AMERICAN Christians in that vein, but much less civilly.

Are folks, black and white, right and left, believer and unbeliever, able to discuss issues honestly?  Or is group discussion and debate to be nothing more than who can out-shout the folks opposing them?  I will say that a society where discussion of thorny issues is a matter of out-shouting one's opponents, calling them names, intimidating them off platforms, is a society ridden with rigid ideology and identity politics that makes REAL love of country hard to manifest itself.

You use the "why won't anyone discuss this???" line all the time, which is, in my experience reading (and responding to!) your posts, always promptly followed by anywhere from two to seven reasoned, patient, sometimes lengthy responses pointing out how your points are insensitive and inaccurate (at best), and then you never respond. Not to be rude, but I'm tired of it, to be honest. Do you want an actual discussion?

Let's start a discussion, then: the US systematically benefits white people while oppressing black people, and has since well before its birth as a nation. Slavery, redlining, segregation, the War on Drugs, etc. etc. etc. Those things have measurable effects even if they're not legal anymore. The attitudes that lead to public lynchings being social events that draw thousands of cheering onlookers don't disappear overnight; no, they persist for decades. I cannot imagine that the people who fought against integration just woke up one morning and thought "well you know I've thought white people are superior to black people for my entire life and saw that validated through public policy, but now my entire worldview has changed because of a Supreme Court decision and an act of Congress! And I'm totally not going to be bitter about it and pass my values on to my children, who will live in de jure segregated neighborhoods and attend de jure segregated schools!"

What, specifically, about the concept of white privilege do you find objectionable? Literally no one is saying that all white people have it good and easy, and that no black people can ever achieve anything.