Critical Race Theory: Voters versus Liberal Extremism

@hightor,

Whether America is a racist country or not is a matter of political ideology.

If they are teaching in American public schools that America is a racist country, that is a problem for many of us.

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@maxdancona,

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Whether America is a racist country or not is a matter of political ideology

What if there can be shown to have been a continuing pattern of racial prejudice and systemic discrimination over the past 400 years? I think, in the case of the USA, the prevailing political ideology is 0ne which denies that racism is a significant factor or glosses over it as something which was once much worse and is now largely inoperative.

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If they are teaching in American public schools that America is a racist country, that is a problem for many of us.

Who's "they"? Why is it a "problem for many of us"? Because it makes people uncomfortable? In any case, an objective history of the USA can be laid out where historical instances of racism are covered without indicting the country in a wholesale fashion. Racism is a widely shared problem in many countries and cultures around the world. While many of our laws are technically colorblind, in reality they often result in the harassment and arrest of non-white people. Why would you want to pretend this isn't the case? Because it conflicts with your "political narrative©"?

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@hightor,

Of course you can show a "continuing pattern of racial prejudice and systemic discriminations". You can also show a continuing progress and advancement in racial equality and social institutions.

You can "show" any ideological narrative. You start with the narrative and then you arrange the facts, and define your terms in such a way that everything coincides.

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@hightor,

Hopefully you are not trying to tell me what I believe (I am perfectly capable of expressing my own opinions). I have no problem holding multiple beliefs at the same time.

1) I believe that the march toward racial justice is an important part of American history and culture. I believe we have made progress.

2) I believe that racism continues to be an issue in modern society (in spite of the progress). I believe this is a difficult set of issues that often don't have easily solutions. I believe that we should have an open dialog.

2) I believe that some of the claims being made by modern progressives are extreme, ridiculous and unproductive. Examples of this are claims made about "cultural appropriation" and the general portrayal of American history as racist.

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@maxdancona,

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You can also show a continuing progress and advancement in racial equality and social institutions.

Like the gutting of the voting rights act, voter suppression, and predominantly white juries in historically racist jurisdictions?

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You can "show" any ideological narrative.

But they won't necessarily be believable, no matter how well-composed the narrative is. Most white people, and nearly every non-white person, have witnessed racism or experienced it. You make it sound as if racism were some rare occurrence.

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You start with the narrative and then you arrange the facts, and define your terms in such a way that everything coincides.

What if you start with questions, investigate historical facts, and detect a pattern of behavior? Why do you always insist that the narrative takes priority? Why can't facts on the ground end up determining the narrative?

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I believe that we should have an open dialog.

An open dialog that excludes the concerns of those most affected by racism?

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@hightor,

Hightor, have you bought into the myth that there is an absolute truth?

I could bring up facts comparing voting rights from 50 years ago with voting rights today, and showing how juries are more integrated now than they ever were... I suspect that wouldn't change your mind.

It is an interesting question, I suppose.. If someone with no preconcieved ideas "started with question, investigated historical facts, and detected a pattern of behavior"... what would they end up with?

Nothing personal, Hightor, but I doubt that this hypothetical person would agree with you (or with me for that matter). It is something that has never happened.

But here we all are, viewing history through the lens of our own biases, experience, and ideology. And we are going to have to deal with that.

The ability to view history through more than one point of view and to see things from different perspectives is both important and rare. People who hold to the idea that they hold the one true understanding of history are missing the point.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

... showing how juries are more integrated now than they ever were...

Not when it matters the most.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/04/1052485269/what-it-means-for-the-jury-to-be-nearly-all-white-in-trial-for-ahmaud-arberys-ki

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Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

But here we all are, viewing history through the lens of our own biases, experience, and ideology. And we are going to have to deal with that.

The ability to view history through more than one point of view and to see things from different perspectives is both important and rare. People who hold to the idea that they hold the one true understanding of history are missing the point.

WQe wouldn't be the person we are today without our own life experiences and (possible) biases.

You certainly can get a different opinion about a historic fact when you look at it with "more than one point of view".
But the fact per se doesn't change at all. So IMO the best way is to approach the past from the past forward, not from the present backward.
It might be popular to look at the past from the wrong end of the telescope, but it's not the best concept.

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@Walter Hinteler,

So if you look at the racial composition of juries in 1921 and compare that with the racial composition of juries in 1971 and then in 2021.... do you think you will see progress?

(Hint: in 1921 the percent of African Americans on juries was 0).

Some of the extreme rhetoric from the left is silly.

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@Real Music,

Thank you Real Music.

Rosa Parks is a great American, and her story is one of how America made progress towards racial justice.

That's exactly what I am talking about.

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To understand history (good and bad) is to understand how we ended up where we are today. To acknowledge and understand our history is important when we as a society want to prevent history from repeating itself. We as a society should never run away from or forget our history. We as a society should acknowledge and learn from our history.

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@Real Music,

That is all nice RealMusic. It doesn't adress the issue.

The issue is how do we keep political ideology out of the history classroom. Your interpretation of history is quite different than that of other people. Unless you believe that you have some insight into absolute truth, it is important to understand that the way history is presented to students matters to parents and voters.

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@maxdancona,

Yeah, so if parents and voters want to teach the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, let them, because it matters to them.

Um, what?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

it is important to understand that the way history is presented to students matters to parents and voters.

True.
Some just don't want to hear what happened in the past.

But should the past really kept secret because of it?

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This isn't something new, History teachers have had to deal with bias from the start.

Max is attacking their professionalism, that's all this is, an uninformed attack on a very difficult profession based on the lies xpewed out on Fox News.

Max taught himself, but lacked the wherewithal to ask his colleagues how to teach effectively.

I once taught a class of 15/16 year old The Time Machine by HG Wells. The coursework assignment was to compare the novel with the film starring Rod Taylor.

The biggest difference was how each viewed communism. In the book the reason society collapses is because it does not embrace communism. The film was made in 1960 at the height of the Cold War and the reason for the collapse of society is a nuclear war.

Clearly the attitude to communism is very different, but the kids I was teaching didn't know what communism or the Cold War was.

This was a very Conservative party of the country but no parents complained about me teaching their kids communism because I did it professionally.

If Max had actually spoken to History teachers he could have avoided this Pointless thread which is nothing more than right wing polemic.

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@maxdancona,

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I could bring up facts comparing voting rights from 50 years ago with voting rights today, and showing how juries are more integrated now than they ever were... I suspect that wouldn't change your mind.

What you don't seem to get is that, yes, much progress has been made, and conditions for non-white people have improved in many areas — but there is still rampant racism. We can't just sit on our laurels because we passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 while Republicans gut it and actively work to suppress the non-white urban vote.

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The ability to view history through more than one point of view and to see things from different perspectives is both important and rare.

So what is your opposition to students being exposed to the 1619 Project? Doesn't it represent a "point of view"?

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@hightor,

I'm quite interested in leaning about Max's ideas and practical experiences in theory and didactics of history. That would at least partly explain his opinion.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

I'm quite interested in leaning about Max's ideas and practical experiences in theory and didactics of history. That would at least partly explain his opinion.

Walter yes, I do have personal experience that informs these ideas.

I grew up in a multiracial family with some interesting subcultures (i.e. religion), and I am currently part of a different multicultural family.

Context switching (being able to switch perspectives based on cultural context) is something that my children have had to learn, and something that I had to learn as a child.

I think that most people can live in one cultural context throughout their lives. They build up a narrative, and this narrative becomes their "truth". Anyone who thinks outside of this "truth" becomes the other and their ideas are rejected.

In the United States right now we have two very different ways of thinking. I think the left, particularly, is wanting their Truth to be the one presented in History class, and the other half of the country is rejecting that.

I currently help a 10 year old doing history homework in Mexico. It is from a Mexican cultural perspective talking about Conquest from Spain. Let me tell you, a Mexican perspective on History is quite a bit different than it would be in the US (or England); Izzy would not approve. It is historically correct (as far as dates and people) but the interpretation, what it means to be Mexican is important.

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I think the problem is that Izzy and Hightor see their narrative as representative of some Universal Truth. Actually, they are part of a cultural group with a set of subjective values that inform their understanding of History.

A good historian is hopefully able to see things from more than one perspective. Of course in public schools we are dealing with children who haven't developed this ability yet.

The concern (which I believe is valid) is that political ideology (from one point of view) is being presented as Truth in public school classrooms.

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Critical Race Theory: Voters versus Liberal Extremism

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