How should racial issues be covered in public schools?

[John Dule]

Rather than engaging in definitional scrimmages over what does and does not constitute "Critical Race Theory," let's discuss how we would actually teach kids about America's racial history. Factors to consider include:

1) Factual accuracy (of course)
2) Addressing how the effects of these problems ripple to present day inequities
3) Emphasizing the positive change that has been achieved within the system
4) Avoiding the pitfalls of the victimhood mentality
5) Sensitivity to the racial identities of every student

How would you propose we frame this far-reaching and controversial subject? At what age should we start teaching kids about it? What historical events would you emphasize or deemphasize? How much discretion should teachers have in their curricula when it comes to teaching about race?

[CEO Mindset]

They shouldn't. Also private schools/homeschooling shouldn't exist.

[Beebeebutt]

Explain the main events, and clearly emphasize what the end goal should be.

[Cassandra]

I'm a huge fanboy of the Oxford US History series. Though I guess synthesizing Charles Grier Sellers with Daniel Walker Howe would be a necessary move to provide a little bit more of a window into WHY a vast swathe of white yeomanry and working class men in the north embraced Jacksonian white supremacy as a guiding political principle and allied with the bulk of southern opinion.

I think it's more than possible to teach history as it happened and explain why the various actors made the decisions and held the beliefs they did without resorting to moralizing or what-have-you. Changes in material conditions (land, technology, labor supply, etc.) are a key factor in what drives history. Let's emphasize those, and de-emphasize trying to figure out "who was right." A good history education ought to give students the analytical and research tools to do that themselves.

Also, tbh, I'd tell parents to cry less. I know this isn't the case in most of the country, but down here in North Georgia, lost cause-ism is still a thing. So no, if I ever do become a history teacher, I'm not going to stand up in front my students and make some elaborate defense of "states rights" or spend a good section of class bashing Sherman for the brutality of his "march" without any context (as certain history teachers of mine once did).

[HillGoose]

they should just talk about the fact that race isn't real, and that it was made up by the fat cats to divide people to make them easier to control, and how history shows us that.

[Donerail]

Very carefully

[John Dule]

I started this thread because of a discussion I had with a friend of mine whose thoughts I hold in high esteem. We were talking about how the dominant intellectual trend in the West for the past ~50 years has been centered on "critical theories"-- postmodernism, Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, etc. While being skeptical and questioning government are always good, it is inherently easier to articulate criticisms than to develop solutions.

I have increasingly begun to think that this trend is partially responsible for increased political polarization in this country. No one feels the need to put forth an intelligent argument for their views anymore; instead, they can demonstrate an """understanding""" of the issues simply through whataboutisms and diatribes against the opposition. This is why young people today feel so comfortable arguing for the elimination of the police, prisons, the military, borders, capitalism, etc without offering any alternatives. Coming up with an idea takes effort, and it places the speaker in the vulnerable position of having to defend themselves against criticism. On the other hand, so long as you never suggest any new ideas, you are free to play perpetual political offense-- which is much more fun and a lot easier.

[Cassandra]

I started this thread because of a discussion I had with a friend of mine whose thoughts I hold in high esteem. We were talking about how the dominant intellectual trend in the West for the past ~50 years has been centered on "critical theories"-- postmodernism, Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, etc. While being skeptical and questioning government are always good, it is inherently easier to articulate criticisms than to develop solutions.

I have increasingly begun to think that this trend is partially responsible for increased political polarization in this country. No one feels the need to put forth an intelligent argument for their views anymore; instead, they can demonstrate an """understanding""" of the issues simply through whataboutisms and diatribes against the opposition. This is why young people today feel so comfortable arguing for the elimination of the police, prisons, the military, borders, capitalism, etc without offering any alternatives. Coming up with an idea takes effort, and it places the speaker in the vulnerable position of having to defend themselves against criticism. On the other hand, so long as you never suggest any new ideas, you are free to play perpetual political offense-- which is much more fun and a lot easier.

There is something to that, I think. IMO the element in the room is the failure of utopian projects--communism, fascism, even (I would argue) liberalism--in the 20th century. That old Mark Fisher chestnut, "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" is applicable here. The turn to criticism is understandable I think in a world where all the theorized alternatives seem to have failed.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

Long-winded effortpost incoming. Not sure what grade levels this is most appropriate for, probably middle and high school. I tried to leave my personal biases out of this, although I'm sure some on the cultural right will accuse me of pushing a "culturally subversive" agenda anyway.

Important caveats:

• Schools should teach students to treat each other equally as individuals, and not see each other according to which socially defined racial group they "belong" to.
• Educators need to differentiate between different members of a racial group, who may or may not have ancestors who were involved in the historical events within the US (or the Americas at large) that affected US race relations and history. This is one reason why the push for institutional disaggregation of different ethnicities, ancestries, and nationalities within racial categories exists.
• There are privileged and underprivileged members of every racial group, and therefore we shouldn't generalize the experiences of the majority to those of the individual.
• There will always be differences among different groups of society, but we should strive for as much equality of opportunity in society and elimination of structural barriers as possible.

As far as events pertaining to the history of US race relations are concerned, I would place a stronger emphasis on:

• the banning of the international slave trade post-1808
• the Chinese Exclusion Act (1881)
• US vs Wong Kim Ark [established birthright citizenship]
• the Spanish-American War [implications for American imperialism]
• the Tulsa race massacre of 1921
• the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act [national-origin quota system]
• Operation Wetback (1954)
• the 1965 Hart-Celler Act [emphasis on family reunification & skills]
• Loving vs. Virginia [interracial marriage]
• the 1990 immigration act [adds a diversity lottery]
• Obama's 2012 DACA executive order

Key points:

• American history has been strongly defined by European colonizers bringing racialized slavery of Sub-Saharan Africans and both commiting genocide against the indigenous peoples of the present-day US.
• Present-day race relations are in large part by the continued demographic, economic, and cultural dominance of the descendants of Caucasian settlers, as well as the different relationships non-Caucasian groups have with the Anglo Caucasian majority.
• No racial group is inherently superior to any other (this argument does not necessarily apply to cultures), and differences in regional development levels that lead to differences in group prestige are mostly caused by geographic factors compounded over thousands of years that affected how various civilizations developed. . Geographic factors explain why Europe was able to develop relatively advanced technology and how Europeans acquired immunity to infectious diseases originating from domesticated livestock.
• At the global level, "white supremacy" is the result of Western European nations developing ocean-crossing transportation technology that enabled them to trade with other world cultures and establish global trade networks, resulting in colonialism and imperialism that enriched Europe and put European colonial powers at the center of the global economy. This is why European countries are so much wealthier than other parts of the world.
• At the US level, "white supremacy" is a thing because the US was first colonized (chiefly) by the British, and later also settled by people from other European and Near Eastern countries, which gave "white people" a demographic advantage over the descendants of African slaves and the disposessed indigenous peoples. The British colonists had trans-oceanic ships to bring enslaved Africans and infectious diseases that Native Americans had no immunity to, which killed most of them off centuries before white settlers were able to force the survivors off of their tribal lands.
• The US maintained this demographic (and therefore cultural) advantage of "white people" through the mid-20th century via restrictive immigration laws that prevented people from other parts of the world from immigrating.
• Successive immigrant groups have experienced relative upward mobility compared to ADOS and indigenous communities due to self-selection and greater in-group cohesion, without the baggage of disposessment and systemic barriers of the latter.

Spoiler alert: corrollaries of 3 + word vomit on various nonwhite groups

Show

<sub>8. Despite group-level differences across several metrics between ADOS and Anglo whites, Sub-Saharan Africans are not inherently inferior to Caucasians, nor are Black Americans inherently inferior to White Americans! Group differences among ADOS and the Anglo whites have been profoundly shaped by centuries of legal and institutional racism (e.g. post-segregation redlining) that prevented the descendants of former slaves from accumulating property and wealth. However, this doesn't mean ADOS are less capable than members of other races, or should be held to different standards. Black immigrants from other nations in the Americas or Africa itself also face anti-black cultural prejudice in the US and police profiling, but generally do not face the structural barriers and same level of systemic racism as ADOS, which has allowed them relative upward mobility and higher SES compared to most black Americans.

9. Hispanic/Latino is technically an "ethnicity" in the US Census, but is often thought of as a racial category in practice… Not all Latin Americans speak Spanish, not all of them are immigrants (New Mexico Hispanos, Californios, Tejanos, etc. all have long histories in the US- some were in the present-day US before the US even became independent!). However, most Hispanics/Latinos in the US are descended from post-1965 immigrant waves, and there is a small number of undocumented immigrants, seasonal migrant workers, etc. who are here. Not all Latinos are Mexican, not all Latinos are “of the same ancestry” (different mixes of white vs black vs indigenous vs East Asian, MENA, etc). Dynamics of “whiteness” are different in Latin America than in the US due to the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers having different attitudes on race mixing from the British. Also don't use "Latinx" unless you're specifically referring to non-binary individuals lmao.

10. AAPI issues- Asians and the model minority myth, Asians and the perpetual foreigner myth, Asians =/= Pacific Islanders. Even more culturally fractured than Latinos, but more politically united due to similar histories of recent immigration. Not all East/Southeast Asians are Chinese, not all of us are smart or even culturally Confucianist lol. For that matter not all South Asians are Indian either, although the ratio of Indians to South Asians is bigger than that of (ethnic) Chinese to culturally Confucianist Asians. There is a long history of East/Southeast/South Asian history in the US- think Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese internment, Punjabi farmers in California, civil rights struggle & Asian American movement. Asians aren't inherently smarter than other races, it's more like the immigration process favors people who are rich/relatively well-off and smart/good at school, and immigrant cultures place a strong emphasis on education. Also there are many many poor/lower-class/refugee origin Asians who aren’t really discussed in the mainstream media narratives (even within the AAPI establishment which often focuses on pop culture representation and stereotypical bougie AsAm issues). Most Asians today are part of post-1965 (and post-Cold War) immigrant waves, so aren’t directly connected to the Civil Rights era struggles.

11. First Nations, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, etc. Idk what should be mentioned here that isn't already covered, outside of making sure historical and contemporary events (e.g. Trail of Tears, smallpox blankets, Standing Rock) are covered? There is a pattern of white/non-native anthropologists, academics, and activists appropriating elements of indigenous culture and speaking for indigenous peoples without considering what they actually think. This is a recurring theme I've noticed in author Sherman Alexie's work, and this is a particularly outrageous instance of this phenomenon (original link). I guess the "my great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess" folk myth among White Southerners and DNA testing companies deserve a passing mention?</sub>

12. General thoughts on mixed-race and multiracial people: example of how race is a social construct in practice, Mixed individuals tend to be grouped into one of their ancestries/cultural groups by mainstream society, even if they don't necessarily identify with one of their ancestries more than the others. 2 well-known examples of this are Barack Obama and Kamala Harris assimilating into 20th-century ADOS culture/identity even though neither of them have any ADOS heritage (see the quoted PR post).

13. Personal thoughts on/critique of "CRT": there needs to be a separate/expanded conversation on “integration” so that it isn’t just a 3-way street between whites, ADOS, and indigenous folks. Discussion of systemic racism against ADOS and indigenous communities needs to include Latinos and Asians on some level, while also acknowledging their grievances with the cultural mainstream.

The last 2 points are basically a rehash of this OP: Some musings on Race in this country…

American political and media discourse on Race is perpetually stuck in Black and White. Latinos and Asians (both massive broad brush categories, especially the latter) and the increased rate of interracial marriage have been complicating the narrative for decades; in the case of Asians and other contemporary “new” immigrants, specifically since 1965.

The obsession with Blackness and Whiteness is kind of ridiculous in light of these developments; at worse, it brings to mind late 17th century Virginian legislators trying figure out precisely how much Negroid blood makes a slave. Kinda gross all around tbh.

Interestingly, the two BlPOC who have been elected President and Vice President respectively were the product of interracial marriages with at least one immigrant parent (in Harris’s case, both parents were immigrants). And Obama was certainly not raised in anything resembling a “typical” American context, let alone a typical Black American context. In fact, Obama’s background is famously very complicated in racial and ethnic terms, as well as in his social context—Hawaii and Indonesia! This sounds like the background of an Asian immigrant of some sort, does it not?