Sadly, Prager U and the GOP are spreading lies about Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory Under Attack

What is Critical Race Theory? Let’s ask the American Bar Association and Purdue’s Writing Lab

A Lesson on Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (1970s-present)

Let’s Ask Alabama

Alabama lawmakers begin process of purging racist language from state constitution

“Alabama voters in November approved Amendment 4, which allowed the state to remove the racist language from the constitution. The legislature can only remove racist language, as well as language that was repetitive and no longer applies.”

“At Thursday’s meeting, the panel debated Sections 32, 256 and 259, according to The Alabama Political Reporter.

Section 32, according to its text, outlaws slavery and states that there is no involuntary servitude “otherwise than for the punishment of crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted.”

Section 256, which concerns the public school systems, states “separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.”

Section 259 allows for the use of poll taxes to support public schools in the counties where they are collected.

The panel decided not to vote on removing any of the language, as they decided to wait until public comment ends Tuesday. The panel will meet again on Oct. 13, according to the Alabama Political Reporter.”

Prager U?

What Is Critical Race Theory? according to Prager U

“Have you heard about Critical Race Theory? I’m guessing you probably have. It has already insinuated itself into many institutions and is making rapid progress into others. If it takes hold, it will completely change the very nature of America and the way you live.”

It has been taught since the 1970s. It does not ‘take hold’. Where are the videographer’s anti-CRT tweets and writings pre-2019?

“Critical Race Theory holds that the most important thing about you is your race. The color of your skin. That’s who you are. Not your behavior. Not your values. Not your environment. Your race.”

That is NOT what Critical Race Theory does. It is the study of how governmental actions and society then and now were influenced by race.

“In Critical Race Theory, if you are a member of a “minoritized” racial group—their term, not mine—you are a victim of a system that is rigged against you, a system that doesn’t want you to succeed. On the other hand, if your race is “privileged,” you’re an exploiter—whether you intend to be or not.”

This is one of the biggest lies being told by Republicans. It IS a study of how historical events and actions (see above) were shaped by race. Trail of Tears, Chinese Exclusion Acts, Japanese Internment Camps, Slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow Laws, Segregation, Tuskegee Study, Civil Rights Movement, Red-Lining, White Flight, Sundown Signs and Operation Wetback (yes, it was called Operation Wetback!)

“Critical Race Theory begins from the assumption that racism occurs in all interactions. To see how this works, consider this thought experiment: Imagine you own a shop, and two customers enter at the same time—one white and one black. Who do you help first? If you help the black person first, Critical Race Theory would say you did so because you don’t trust black people to be left alone in your store. That’s racist. If you helped the white person first instead, Critical Race Theory would say you did so because you think blacks are second-class citizens. That’s racist, too.”

Hmm…. John Oliver covered this (Some Dirty Words – HBO)

That’s Critical Race Theory. It can find racism in anything, even if it has to read your mind to do it.”

Locking up black hair products but not white hair products is not reading your mind. It is reading the mind of the store manager.

“Critical Race Theory is a uniquely American invention. Brewed up at Harvard Law School in the ‘70s, now part of the academic and media mainstream, it is also uniquely un-American because it rejects the core tenets of the American, classically liberal, Judeo-Christian value system. It turns the bedrock American idea upside down.”

It was not ‘Brewed up’

Critical Race Theory: Past, Present, and Future

It is NOT un-American. Covering US History is NOT Anti-US History. By the way, we are NOT a Judeo-Christian founded nation, if you studied US History you would know this.

It does not turn the bedrock American idea upside down. This is the old argument of teach the “Good History” but not the “Bad History” so kids will be more patriotic.

You are a mathematician from Tennessee Tech and Tennessee

James A. Lindsay

I graduated Summa Cum Laude from MTSU with a HISTORY Degree

“Here it is in the words of Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, two leading proponents: “Critical Race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral principles of constitutional law.””

You do realize that in 1776 “All Men are Created Equal”….

When Thomas Jefferson penned “all men are created equal,” he did not mean individual equality, says Stanford scholar

but in 1787 Black Men (and Women, “All Other Persons”) became 3/5ths of White Men (and Women) and Native Americans became 0/5ths of White Men?

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

EXPLAINER: No evidence ‘3/5 compromise’ aimed to end slavery

What was the Three-Fifths Compromise?

“The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. However, the Three-Fifth Compromise has its roots further back in history, dating back to the Continental Congress in 1783. The Compromise was a result of the apportionment of taxes being related to land values.

Initially, taxes were levied not in accordance with the population numbers, but the actual value of the land. Many states began to depreciate the value of the land in order to provide relief from their taxes. A committee was held that would rectify the situation by implementing the apportionment of taxes in relation to the state’s population. However, this idea was met with the dispute over how to consider slaves in the apportionment process and the actual ratio of slaves to free people at that time.

The implementation of the Three-Fifths Compromise would greatly increase the representation and political power of slave-owning states. The Southern states, if represented equally, would have accounted for 33 of the seats in the House of Representatives. However, because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Southern states accounted for 47 seats in the House of Representatives of the first United States Congress of 1790. This would allow the South to garner enough power at the political level, giving them control in Presidential elections.”

Teaching the 3/5ths Compromise does not turn the bedrock American idea upside down.

“It does this because Critical Race Theory proponents assume racism is present everywhere and always, and they look for it “critically” until they find it. And they always find it. It has to be there because that’s how the imperial European powers, and then America, set things up.”

If you were a historian instead of a mathematician, you would know the history of race.

Historical Foundations Of Race

“The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection. The modern-day use of the term “race” is a human invention.”

One of my favorite videos (studying the impact of race does not mean one is racist)

Facing America’s History of Racism Requires Facing the Origins of ‘Race’ as a Concept

“Here, as in all dangerous academic theories, there is a kernel of truth. Human beings were not preoccupied with race until the 16th century when Europeans began to explore and then colonize other parts of the world. Drawing distinctions between the races reached its peak in the 19th century with the widespread use of slave labor in North and South America.”

CRT is NOT dangerous and it is the whole ear of corn of truth. You are explaining exactly how people began using the term “race”. See above….

“No one denies this. But since then, the Western world and, most especially, America has spent a lot of time, money, and blood breaking free of its racist past. It’s been a rocky road, for sure, but great progress has been made.”

a kernel of truth” sounds like a denial. Great progress has been made. Sadly, the CRT backlash is cover for changing Voting Laws from The Big Lie to turn back a lot of that progress. This is sad in so many ways:

“Critical Race Theory says all this progress is a mirage: racism never died—never even faded a little bit. It just hid itself better. Critical Race Theory, therefore, is not a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement. It is, in fact, a repudiation of it. To Critical Race theorists, Martin Luther King was both wrong and naïve. White Americans can never judge blacks by the content of their character. They can only judge them, always unfavorably—consciously or unconsciously, by the color of their skin.”

It does not contend that ALL White Americans can never judge blacks by the content of their character. I have been able to do that my entire life. I grew up in Alabama in the 1960s and learned to hate hate.

It does ponder such things as “Stop and Frisk” bias in New York City

2011 NYPD Stop and Frisk Statistics

“In 2011, a record 685,724 people were stopped, 84 percent of whom were Black and Latino residents — although they comprise only about 23 percent and 29 percent of New York City’s total population respectively. The year 2011 was not an anomaly. Years of raw data from the NYPD reveal that stops and frisks result in a minimal weapons and/or contraband yield. An October 2010 report confirmed that the NYPD engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional stops and the main factor for determining who gets stopped, even after controlling for crime rates, is race.

and why

Race determines home values more today than it did in 1980

“Ironically, not since the Aryan obsession in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, or South African Apartheid in the second half of the 20th century, has a social movement been so obsessed with race.”

Wow, how did you say this with a straight face? Our nation does not exist as one country but stays as 13 sovereign countries unless 3 Compromises are made SOLELY based on RACE!

1.INVESTIGATE: The Great Compromise – The Virginia and New Jersey Plans

The Virginia Plan was based on population because Virginia feared that one day the North would have more states than the South and be able to make slavery illegal. In a crude twist of irony, The New Jersey plan made it necessary to have as many slave states as free states to insure that if the North ever did get larger in population than the south, the House could outlaw slavery but the Senate could never pass that law.

The Constitution and Slavery

“A dispute arose over the legislative branch. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation. This argument carried on for two months. In the end, the delegates agreed to the “Great Compromise.” One branch, the House of Representatives, would be based on population. The other, the Senate, would have two members from each state.

Part of this compromise included an issue that split the convention on North–South lines. The issue was: Should slaves count as part of the population? Under the proposed Constitution, population would ultimately determine three matters:

(1) How many members each state would have in the House of Representatives.
(2) How many electoral votes each state would have in presidential elections.
(3) The amount each state would pay in direct taxes to the federal government.

Only the Southern states had large numbers of slaves. Counting them as part of the population would greatly increase the South’s political power, but it would also mean paying higher taxes. This was a price the Southern states were willing to pay. They argued in favor of counting slaves. Northern states disagreed. The delegates compromised. Each slave would count as three-fifths of a person.”

Understanding the three-fifths compromise

“Following this compromise, another controversy erupted: What should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the United States? Ten states had already outlawed it. Many delegates heatedly denounced it. But the three states that allowed it — Georgia and the two Carolinas — threatened to leave the convention if the trade were banned. A special committee worked out another compromise: Congress would have the power to ban the slave trade, but not until 1800. The convention voted to extend the date to 1808.”

Bell Ringer: The Slave Trade Compromise

Wait! With CRT being outlawed, is that bell-ringer above legal to use?

“A final major issue involving slavery confronted the delegates. Southern states wanted other states to return escaped slaves. The Articles of Confederation had not guaranteed this. But when Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, it a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. The delegates placed a similar fugitive slave clause in the Constitution. This was part of a deal with New England states. In exchange for the fugitive slave clause, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade.”

Article IV, Section 2: Movement Of Persons Throughout the Union

“The first of these, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, stipulates that the citizens of each state shall enjoy the “privileges and immunities of citizens” in the other states. Conversely, where the interstate traveller is a fugitive from criminal justice, the second provision—the Extradition Clause—requires the person’s forcible rendition to the state where the alleged crime occurred. Finally, the Fugitive Slave Clause (now obsolete) extended this rule of coercive rendition to interstate fugitives from slavery—that is, fugitives from injustice.

“These compromises on slavery had serious effects on the nation. The fugitive slave clause (enforced through legislation passed in 1793 and 1850) allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery of thousands of free blacks. The three-fifths compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. In 12 of the first 16 presidential elections, a Southern slave owner won. Extending the slave trade past 1800 brought many slaves to America. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 slaves between 1803 and 1808 (when Congress overwhelmingly voted to end the trade). So many slaves entered that slavery spilled into the Louisiana territory and took root.”

1793 and 1850

Fugitive Slave Acts

Can a teacher teach

Prigg v. Pennsylvania

or the

Dred Scott Case ?

Electoral College?

The Electoral College’s Racist Origins

How the Electoral College Is Tied to Slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise

Electoral College is ‘vestige’ of slavery, say some Constitutional scholars

“Northern states didn’t push too hard on slavery issues. Their main goal was to secure a new government. They feared antagonizing the South. Most of them saw slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. However, in five years the cotton gin would be invented, which made growing cotton on plantations immensely profitable, as well as slavery.”

Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery

In 1793, Whitney invented and submitted a patent for the cotton gin—a machine that used rotating brushes and teeth to remove seeds from cotton fiber. His invention revolutionized cotton production, although Whitney faced challenges enforcing his patent and saw little profit from it. While an enslaved person needed about ten hours to separate the seeds from one pound of cotton fiber by hand, two people using the cotton gin could produce about fifty pounds of cotton in the same timeframe.

“The invention of the cotton gin forever altered the economy, geography, and politics of the United States. The cotton gin made cotton tremendously profitable, which encouraged westward migration to new areas of the US South to grow more cotton. The number of enslaved people rose with the increase in cotton production, from 700,000 in 1790 to over three million by 1850. By mid-century, the southern states were responsible for seventy-five percent of the world’s cotton, most of which was shipped to New England or England, where it was made into cloth. Whitney’s cotton gin and its descendants helped the southern states become a major agricultural force in the world economy on the backs of a growing enslaved population.”

“The Declaration of Independence expressed lofty ideals of equality. The framers of the Constitution, intent on making a new government, left important questions of equality and fairness to the future. It would be some time before the great republic that they founded would approach the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.”

Remind me again how you were able to say

“Ironically, not since the Aryan obsession in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, or South African Apartheid in the second half of the 20th century, has a social movement been so obsessed with race.”

Our countries beginning was obsessed with race.

“Critical Race Theory is, then, in a very real sense, a counter-American Revolution. But that’s a positive, not a negative, to those who subscribe to the theory.”

This makes no sense whatsoever. The American Revolution was 13 sovereign countries versus Great Britain

Revolutionary War

“The American experiment was given a 400-year try-out, and it doesn’t work. So let’s scrap it. That’s what they believe. Is that what you believe? I’m going to guess that most of you don’t.”

NO ONE is calling for SCRAPPING the 400-year old experiment except Charles Koch

Koch Brothers Bankroll Move to Rewrite the Constitution

and ALEC

APPLICATION FOR A CONVENTION OF THE STATES UNDER ARTICLE V OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

“So how do we stop Critical Race Theory before it infects the brains of too many decent Americans—especially young people—and turns us into something we have never been and shouldn’t ever want to be?”

Challenge – Go to all 50 states Department of Education websites. Go to their standards. Search for “Critical Race Theory” My state of Tennessee?

Academic Standards

Much like passing Election Laws to combat Voter Fraud that never happened, people are trying to stop Critical Race Theory from being taught when it is not being taught to begin with. Let’s go look at Florida, where the Governor just signed a bill to stop it from being taught.

6A-1.094124 Required Instruction Planning and Reporting.

“Examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with State Board approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons. Instruction may not utilize material from the 1619 Project and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”

The person that wrote this must be a Prager U graduate?

“The answer is simple: refuse to accept it.”

People are refusing to accept something that does not exist to begin with just to energize their base.

“Don’t be intimidated by the “heads I win, tails you lose” logic of this self-destructive, America-hating, anti-reality idea. Don’t be bullied into thinking that you’re racist when you know you’re not. Or that you’re a victim when you know you’re not.”

Teaching history is NOT hating America. Primary Sources ARE reality. No one is bullying anyone into thinking they are a racist. Talking about racism does not make one a racist. No one is calling anyone a victim unless they ARE in fact a victim. You are about as well-versed on US History as Candace Owens.

“Defend yourself—while you still can.”

There is nothing to defend yourself from.

“I’m James Lindsay, Founder of New Discourses, for Prager University.”

A mathematician from Tennessee. That wrote this:

Five Ugly Truths About Critical Race Theory

“Question: Is Critical Race Theory racist?”

No, studying racism’s impact on history is NOT racist.

“Question: Does Critical Race Theory advance the vision and activism of the Civil Rights Movement?”

Yes, we learn from history. Knowing our past helps our present.

“Question: Does Critical Race Theory say that all white people are racist?”

No. It does state that throughout history government has made decisions and taken actions through the prism of race.

What It Looks Like to Reconnect Black Communities Torn Apart by Highways

“Question: Is Critical Race Theory Marxist?”

No.

Critical Race Theory (1970s-present)

“Question: Is Critical Race Theory an analytical tool for understanding race and racism?”

That is EXACTLY what it does!

WHY USE THIS APPROACH?

As we can see, adopting a CRT approach to literature or other modes of cultural expression includes much more than simply identifying race, racism, and racialized characters in fictional works. Rather, it (broadly) emphasizes the importance of examining and attempting to understand the socio-cultural forces that shape how we and others perceive, experience, and respond to racism. These scholars treat literature, legal documents, and other cultural works as evidence of American culture’s collective values and beliefs. In doing so, they trace racism as a dually theoretical and historical experience that affects all members of a community regardless of their racial affiliations or identifications.

Most CRT scholarship attempts to demonstrate not only how racism continues to be a pervasive component throughout dominant society, but also why this persistent racism problematically denies individuals many of the constitutional freedoms they are otherwise promised in the United States’ governing documents. This enables scholars to locate how texts develop in and through the cultural contexts that produced them, further demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is. CRT scholars typically focus on both the evidence and the origins of racism in American culture, seeking to eradicate it at its roots.”

Sad thing? People watching FoxNews or watching PragerU on youtube have no clue what CRT is, they never heard of it until someone told them to worry about it for votes.

How Critical Race Theory Went From Harvard Law To Fox News

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