RSN: FOCUS: Jonathan Capehart | What About Black Students' 'Discomfort'?

 

 

10 February 22

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET YOU ON BOARD? — We have tens of thousands of readers that check in every day, but will not join the those that contribute to keep the project going? We have your trust, you come here. That trust is built on our loyalty to you our supporters, not to an unnamed third party. But for some reason there is a belief that someone else will magically support the project. This is yours, don’t abuse it.
Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

 

FOCUS: Jonathan Capehart | What About Black Students' 'Discomfort'?
Jonathan Capehart, The Washington Post
Capehart writes: "Of all the attempts around the country to coddle the snowflakes among us who can't handle the reality that our shared history is equal parts noble and brutal, the 'discomfort' bill in the Florida state legislature is the most idiotic."

Of all the attempts around the country to coddle the snowflakes among us who can’t handle the reality that our shared history is equal parts noble and brutal, the “discomfort” bill in the Florida state legislature is the most idiotic.

The official name of the legislation, part of the bonkers “stop woke” agenda of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is “Individual Freedom.” One of its provisions directs that classroom instruction not make any student "feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

That protection from “discomfort,” of course, is a one-way street accessible only to White students. What about the unease Black students feel learning history that is sanitized or just plain incorrect? I know I’m going back some decades, but I’ll never forget the discomfort of being one of the few Black kids in a predominantly White school, especially during history class when slavery, the Civil War, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or the civil rights movement would come up.

One teacher often had students read sections of the textbook aloud in class. No one ever saw my growing alarm as I realized that the (startlingly brief) section on slavery would be intoned by me. I could feel the eyes on me as I read aloud paragraphs that barely scratched the surface of the inhumanity visited upon my ancestors.

The Civil War was merely a costly conflict between North and South that resulted in the liberation of the slaves. And the civil rights movement, in retrospect, was discussed with an odd mix of admiration at how African Americans braved harrowing violence to push for the equality promised in the Constitution — and annoyance at how they disrupted the status quo by doing so. Mostly, though, Black people and our foundational contributions to this country were downplayed or ignored.

Anyway, back to that Florida bill. While it says educators “may facilitate discussions and use curricula” to teach about things such as slavery, racial oppression and racial discrimination, the flawed measure includes a big ol’ “but.” It says that “classroom instruction and curriculum may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles of this subsection or state academic standards.”

“Indoctrinate or persuade” is a giant loophole that could potentially lead to banning anything that twinges the fragile sensibilities of those who can’t handle confronting the truth or being intellectually challenged. Just how vacant this legislation and this movement are was illustrated by Tina Descovich, a leader of the conservative group Moms for Liberty. “To say there were slaves is one thing,” she told The Post, “but to talk in detail about how slaves were treated, and with photos, is another.” This is the very definition of what author Robin DiAngelo calls “white fragility,” which she says is “triggered by discomfort and anxiety" but is “born of superiority and entitlement.”

What’s happening in Florida is part of a larger and offensive national freak-out over teaching the truth of our history. This past month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) issued an executive order to “end the use of inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory” — which, I might point out, is not taught anywhere in Virginia public K-12 schools. During a radio interview that followed, Youngkin announced that there is even a tip line for parents to report school officials who they believe are teaching “divisive” subjects.

Singer John Legend had the perfect response to Youngkin’s nonsense. “Black parents need to flood these tip lines with complaints about our history being silenced,” he wrote on Twitter. “We are parents too.”

That’s who gets lost in all this: Black parents and their children. All because some White people can’t bear feeling “uncomfortable” learning about “divisive” subjects. They want a gauzy, feel-good version of history that blinds them to the impact such a mythology has on events unfolding now. Meanwhile, Black people have to live with the real-life consequences of this blissful ignorance.

In her new book, “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation,” Imani Perry, an African American studies professor at Princeton University, writes: “Americans are quite good at taking up pleasures of history and leaving its victims to fend for themselves. … If you want to understand a nation, or have aspirations for it that are decent, myth ought to be resisted.”

We’ll never understand this country as long as book banning, tip lines and legislation to bubble-wrap the tender White souls among us continue to flourish. We’ll just have more Black kids reading more rewrites of history, wondering what was left out. And they’ll know their discomfort never mattered.

READ MORE

 

Contribute to RSN

Follow us on facebook and twitter!

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611

RSN: FOCUS: Paul Krugman | Attack of the Right-Wing Thought Police

 

 

26 January 22

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

SHOCKED BY THE LACK OF SUPPORT — I just want you to know that, as a monthly contributor who thinks the work you are doing is hugely important, I am shocked by the lack of support of other readers. Rest assured that rsn is deeply appreciated and I count on it/you to keep informed. If we want a “free” and independent press in today’s world of corporate news, you are essential and I, for one, am deeply grateful to you and want to express my thanks. I’m sorry that your fundraising efforts are not bringing faster and more abundant results. In deep appreciation.
Marilyn, RSN Reader-Supporter

Sure, I'll make a donation!

 

FOCUS: Paul Krugman | Attack of the Right-Wing Thought Police
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "Freedom is under attack, on more fronts than many people realize."

Americans like to think of their nation as a beacon of freedom. And despite all the ways in which we have failed to live up to our self-image, above all the vast injustices that sprang from the original sin of slavery, freedom — not just free elections, but also freedom of speech and thought — has long been a key element of the American idea.

Now, however, freedom is under attack, on more fronts than many people realize. Everyone knows about the Big Lie, the refusal by a large majority of Republicans to accept the legitimacy of a lost election. But there are many other areas in which freedom is not just under assault but in retreat.

Let’s talk, in particular, about the attack on education, especially but not only in Florida, which has become one of America’s leading laboratories of democratic erosion.

Republicans have made considerable political hay by denouncing the teaching of critical race theory; this strategy has succeeded even though most voters have no idea what that theory is and it isn’t actually being taught in public schools. But the facts in this case don’t matter, because denunciations of CRT are basically a cover for a much bigger agenda: an attempt to stop schools from teaching anything that makes right-wingers uncomfortable.

I use that last word advisedly: There’s a bill advancing in the Florida Senate declaring that an individual “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” That is, the criterion for what can be taught isn’t “Is it true? Is it supported by the scholarly consensus?” but rather “Does it make certain constituencies uncomfortable?”

Anyone tempted to place an innocuous interpretation on this provision — maybe it’s just about not assigning collective guilt? — should read the text of the bill. Among other things, it cites as its two prime examples of things that must not happen in schools “denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of critical race theory” — because suggesting that “racism is embedded in American society” (the bill’s definition of the theory) is just the same as denying that Hitler killed 6 million Jews.

What’s really striking, however, is the idea that schools should be prohibited from teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents. If you imagine that the effects of applying this principle would be limited to teaching about race relations, you’re being utterly naive.

For one thing, racism is far from being the only disturbing topic in American history. I’m sure that some students will find that the story of how we came to invade Iraq — or for that matter how we got involved in Vietnam — makes them uncomfortable. Ban those topics from the curriculum!

Then there’s the teaching of science. Most high schools do teach the theory of evolution, but leading Republican politicians are either evasive or actively deny the scientific consensus, presumably reflecting the GOP base’s discomfort with the concept. Once the Florida standard takes hold, how long will teaching of evolution survive?

Geology, by the way, has the same problem. I have been on nature tours where the guides refuse to talk about the origins of rock formations, saying that they have had problems with some religious guests.

Oh, and given the growing importance of anti-vaccination posturing as a badge of conservative allegiance, how long before basic epidemiology — maybe even the germ theory of disease — gets the critical race theory treatment?

And then there’s economics, which these days is widely taught at the high school level. (Full disclosure: Many high schools use an adapted version of the principles text I co-author.) Given the long history of politically driven attempts to prevent the teaching of Keynesian economics, what do you think the Florida standard would do to teaching in my home field?

The point is that the smear campaign against critical race theory is almost certainly the start of an attempt to subject education in general to rule by the right-wing thought police, which will have dire effects far beyond the specific topic of racism.

And who will enforce the rules? State-sponsored vigilantes! Last month Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, proposed a “Stop Woke Act” that would empower parents to sue school districts they claim teach critical race theory — and collect lawyer fees, a setup modeled on the bounties under Texas’ new anti-abortion law. Even the prospect of such lawsuits would have a chilling effect on teaching.

Did I mention that DeSantis also wants to create a special police force to investigate election fraud? Like the attacks on critical race theory, this is obviously an attempt to use a made-up issue — voter fraud is largely nonexistent — as an excuse for intimidation.

OK, I’m sure that some people will say that I’m making too much of these issues. But ask yourself: Has there been any point over, say, the past five years when warnings about right-wing extremism have proved overblown and those dismissing those warnings as “alarmist” have been right?

READ MORE

 

Contribute to RSN

Follow us on facebook and twitter!

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611

Christina Levant Platt

 

Barack Obama Fan Club

Good People News

N9ov7emm5bSer1 2h3 aftt o0c7cs:54 PMdl  · 

“This is my great-grandma, Christina Levant Platt at age 100, weeding her garden. She was born into slavery. Her “owner” was a wife that taught my great grandma to read and write secretly, which was illegal and quite dangerous at that time for both of them. She learned to read the Bible.

She had 11 children, she lost two, one son was one of the first black attorneys in US. She sent the 4 boys to college in Boston. Exceptional in those days.

She passed 5yrs before I was born but I love her as if I knew her. Family tells me she would say “ I put prayers on my children’s children’s heads”.

This apparently worked

Around April 12, 1861, Christina was at the 1st battle of the CIVIL WAR, in Fort Sumter at Charleston Bay, South Carolina, working in the cotton fields.

She said “the sky was black as night” from cannonball fire. She saw a man decapitated by a cannonball.

She was the water girl for the other slaves as a young girl and “ the lookout” for the slaves in the fields for the approaching overseer on horseback as they secretly knelt and prayed for their freedom.

She would watch for the switching tail of the approaching horse and would alert the slaves to rise up and return to picking cotton before he saw them.

She eventually married a Native American from the Santee Tribe. John C, Platt.

After freedom, Christina insisted upon taking her children north as she knew they would not get a good education in the south, and that’s all she cared about. She died at age 101 in 1944, where she and her husband had built a home in Medfield, Massachusetts, the first black family to move there.

With great respect, I honor my great grandmother.

So much more I could say about this miraculous woman. She gave me much strength in my hard times.

Whenever I thought I was having a hard day, I would think of her and shrug it off.

Thank you for reading one story of millions. ”

-Brenda Russell

 

Utter nonsense!

CNN.COM

Tennessee parents say some books make students 'feel discomfort' because they're White. They say a new law backs them up

Robin Steenman pulled her daughter out of public school over a mask mandate last year but is keeping her out until the school board bans books she says make

Tennessee parents say some books make students 'feel discomfort' because they're White. They say a new law backs them up

By Evan McMorris-Santoro and Meridith Edwards, CNN

Updated 1:45 PM ET, Wed September 29, 2021

Battle over how race is taught in classrooms heats up in school district 04:58

Williamson County, TN (CNN)Robin Steenman pulled her daughter out of public school over a mask mandate last year.

She's now in private school and misses public school. But Steenman is keeping her out not because of masks, but because of lesson plans she says make students feel bad about their race.

"The school bus goes right in front of my house and my kid is dying to ride it," she told CNN. "But not until I have deemed that the curriculum is safe and will do no harm."

Steenman is counting on a new Tennessee law to force schools to end that curriculum -- and ban at least one book in the elementary school library written from the perspective of Mexican Americans.

The former fighter pilot leads a chapter of Moms For Liberty in this wealthy, Republican-leaning suburb of Nashville.

She says her group has ballooned in size since April, from less than 20 parents meeting at her house to more than 3,000 connecting on Facebook. The chapter has grabbed headlines for belligerent protests at school board meetings. They have attacked a high school LGBTQ pride float -- one tweet wondered if students passing out pride literature were doing "recruitment." And another meeting featured a tirade by a Moms For Liberty member against a children's book about the lives of seahorses, which she said was too sexual.

But the group's main concern is how American history is taught in school, particularly to younger kids.

In a multi-page complaint to the state department of education filed this summer, Moms For Liberty says the Williamson County Schools curriculum violates state law because it includes "anti-American, anti-White and anti-Mexican teaching."

In May, Gov. Bill Lee signed HB 580, a law aimed at banning so-called critical race theory from schools. Educators argue that critical race theory is not taught or included in the K-12 curriculum and is usually an elective class in college or law school.

Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students "feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish."

Steenman says the Williamson County curriculum makes students feel bad about their race, meaning the law should invalidate it.

The Tennessee Department of Education declined a request for comment from CNN on the complaint.

The books at the center of the debate

With a pile of kid's books marked with highlighters and flagged with Post-It notes spread out on her dining room table, Steenman told CNN the books in the school and the way they're taught leave children of White parents feeling guilty.

"A letter was brought to my attention that was written by the parents of a biracial second-grade boy. And he's half Thai, half White -- has as a White father, a Thai mother," she said. "And then he is suddenly ashamed of his White half, his White father. He only wants to identify as Thai and he does not want to be an American."

Robin Steenman

Steenman doesn't like a lot of the curriculum at Williamson County Schools. But four books in the second-grade lessons plans are the target of her campaign.

Three of the books, about the civil rights movement, are problematic for the way they're taught, she says. One is a children's book about the March on Washington written for young readers.

Two tell the story of Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old who integrated an elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. "Ruby Bridges Goes To School," written for elementary school students by Bridges herself, is fine for kids to read, Steenman says. But she says teachers should not be allowed to lead discussions of the pictures in the book -- one of which is the famous Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby, the US Marshals who had to protect her from an angry segregationist White crowd, and the ugly slur hurled at her by adults.

"There's no need to emphasize it," she says of the slur. "Just, you know, if they want to read 'this book has a famous painting,' fine. And then just move on."

There's no safe way to teach "Separate Is Never Equal," a 2014 picture book about a landmark legal case that integrated the southern California schools in the 1940s, Steenman says. The book should be banned, because it features contemporaneous quotes uttered by White segregationists in court.

"They [students] are sitting there listening to this, and all they're hearing is 'Mexicans are dirty, inferior in scholastic ability. They have skin problems and lice' and it just goes on and on and on about it," Steenman said as she flipped through the pages. "And I submit that's what they're going to take from that book, because they're just not ready."

This idea that second-graders can't handle history -- that hearing about it could, in fact, make them racist or hate their own race -- is central to the Moms For Liberty complaint against the Williamson County public schools.

The debate over "Separate Is Never Equal," is a surprise to Duncan Tonatiuh, the award-winning author of the book.

"The villain here is racism and segregation," Tonatiuh told CNN while flipping through the pages. "At the end of the book, what I wanted to show is the Mexican American children and the White children being in school together and playing together and interacting with each other."

Duncan Tonatiuh

Tonatiuh has won a number of awards for writing engaging stories for a young audience. He said he's read the book to many elementary school students and the response has been nothing like what Steenman fears.

"When I shared the story with kids, I don't see kids saying, 'oh, this makes me feel shame,'" he said. "They say, 'that's not right. That's not fair. That's not how people should treat people.' That's the reaction that I get."

National education experts are worried about the fear from mostly White parents spreading in places like Williamson County, Tennessee.

"There isn't a crisis in how we teach history in this country," said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, which represents thousands of teachers across the US. She says the idea that kids shouldn't hear the realities of the past is a scary one.

"You would never go into a school in, in Germany and say, oh, why do you teach about Nazi-ism?" she said. "You would, you would never ask that question because they do teach about it because teachers want kids in Germany to understand what that history was."

What is past, and what is present

Steenman says she doesn't know what age is appropriate for students to hear about the dogs, firehoses, bullets people like Ruby Bridges faced decades ago.

She's not sure how relevant that history is to Williamson County today.

"I'm not going to argue [whether] racism still exists," she says. "I don't personally know any."

Months before Moms For Liberty showed up, public school moms Revida Rahman and Jennifer Cortez had started their own group -- One Willco -- after a string of racial incidents rocked the district. The district sent students on field trips to a nearby plantation site (there are several in the area) and Rahman's husband chaperoned one trip. She said he was shocked to hear little mention of how plantations actually worked.

Jennifer Cortez, left, and Revida Rahman.

"It didn't have a context other than being a fun place," she said "We have not known plantations to be a fun place."

On the playground, Rahman said her children and other children of color have faced bullying.

"My son had an incident at his middle school, where students locked arms. And, and if you were White, they would break the arms to let kids go through," she said, recalling a story she learned from her son in the pickup line at school right after it happened. "If you were Black, they kept their hands together and told you that you needed to go back to Mexico."

"They said they were building a wall," Cortez said.

The Williamson County School District is 97% White, according to U.S. Department of Education data. It's a well-to-do district overall, with a high level of college educated parents and a large household median income.

Last month, the Williamson County school community and one of its sports rivals were shocked by a threatening social media message sent to a Black player by a White one wearing a Klan hood.

The effort to leave recent American history out of the curriculum could make it harder for students of color trying to go to school now, according to One Willco. Racism is an active issue that needs to be confronted, the moms said.

"They're bullying our school board. They're bullying our elected officials," Cortez said of Moms For Liberty. "They're causing real harm in our communities."

Interpreting 'discomfort'

Rahman worries the law passed in May is broad and could be used to target teachers and take history out of schools.

"When you say discomfort, if the teacher can have some discomfort, where do you draw the line in that process?" she said. "That's, what's concerning about the law. It's not inclusive of everybody. I don't think it's divisive, talking about these uncomfortable topics."

A Williamson County School bus drives past the Confederate monument which stands in the center of the town square in Franklin, Tennessee.

A spokesperson for the school board in Williamson County told CNN school leaders in the county have launched a "Reconsideration Committee" to review the books Moms For Liberty has complained about. One board member familiar with the process said new Tennessee law is hard to interpret, but this board member said they expect the state will ban at least one of the books Moms For Liberty cited.

"Discomfort" clauses like the one in Tennessee are a fixture in the push to pass legislation aimed at racial history education across the country.

It's a crisis moment in classrooms, according to the NEA's Anderson.

"We're heading toward a pretty scary time," she said. "If we're talking about politicians, banning books, uh, I thought we were long past those days."

NOW PLAYING

Battle over how race is taught in classrooms heats up in school district

CNN

00:13/04:58