The Racist, Conservative-Created Crisis In American Education.

It’s no secret that Regressive interests want to limit education. The fact that conservatives have collaborated with them to deny it needs to be brought up, and we need to understand it.

Hello, friends,

Last week, we talked about how Baylor University got an exemption to some of Title IX’s sexual harassment regulations from the Biden administration.  With regards to that article, I believe someone sub-posted me on social media that I was “straightsplaining” the issue, which, I mean, that’s hilarious considering I’m nowhere approximating straight.  I hope that, silliness aside, that person does well in life.

This week, we’re not focusing so much on any one institution, or even anything on the federal level.  We’re focusing on a crisis in education being brought about by what I’d consider regressive interests.

Those of you who know me know that I spent eight years working in education.  Most of that time was as a teaching assistant, helping students with disabilities out in primarily a one-to-one fashion.  I also spent, cumulatively, a little over a year as a library assistant (in two different libraries, no less!), as well as a year as a Social Studies teacher and a year and almost a half as an English teacher.  I even got an award for being a collaborative professional at a school where collaborative education was prized.

I know I’m kinda bragging, but what I’m trying to do is set the expectation that when we talk about the teaching of history classes, I have some basis of knowledge both of the content and of the craft of teaching it.

Furthermore, I’m trying to set the expectation that you will understand why I’m so frustrated that so many states have been trying, particularly recently, to suppress education on various issues - especially on African American History, which I will concede I don’t have the lived experience of.  In fact, consider as I write this that I have lived experience on the ‘other side’ of some of the systems we’re going to talk about, and that my opinion - though hopefully well-researched - does not cancel out the opinion of those with other lived experiences.

Today, we’re going to talk education, racism, and systems.  This gets a little ranty, but there’s a payoff at the end.

The Background Of Education Bans

Look, Fascist interests trying to limit education is nothing new.  There’s a whole Wikipedia article on Nazi book burnings, just for starters.  Important to note is the idea that the Nazis wanted to prohibit books on the basis of “action against the un-German spirit.”  In other words, the racial (palingenetic, to be technical) identity had to come first in education.

In the past week, Arkansas has made moves against the teaching of, specifically, AP African American History.  Here’s information about Arkansas essentially trying to delete the class from its listings from the Arkansas Times.  They’re far from the first, as Florida has already perpetrated this particular crime against education.  Then again Florida has approved Prager U videos for the classroom, which feature such ‘education’ as the fact that slavery was a good outcome for the natives of the Caribbean as an animated Christopher Columbus comments about how slavery is a historical practice that’s better than death.

Arkansas and Florida are not the only states contemplating the move to ban AP African American History.  North Dakota, Mississippi, and Virginia are among those implicated in this radically regressive re-assessment of educational standards.  The College Board, which governs college-level AP exams and other standardized tests, has already bent under pressure from Florida, although it’s resisting some of Florida’s most radical claims on education, such as that slavery was actually beneficial for the enslaved.. 

So What’s The Big Idea?

Racism?  I mean, that’s an easy one, right?

But, let’s boil this down a little bit more.  Let’s bring it to a simmer, even if we have to make some educated guesses as to what the ‘logic’ in operation is.  Let’s explore Critical Race Theory, shorthanded to CRT, just a tiny bit.  Wikipedia has a definition for it that is quite complicated and loaded, so it looks like we’ve got more boiling-down to do.  Bearing in mind that I’m not a legal scholar, and - let’s be clear - very simply-put, it’s the idea that racist legal-and-other systems exist, and prevent equality of outcome.

And conservatives & regressives hate it.

I did a Google search for “CRT teaches people that America isn't equal.”  It spit back…A lot.  From PBS interviews, to legal defense funds for the NAACP, to queries about how we can teach about America’s racist history without being controversial.  Well, in my professional opinion as a recovering history teacher, that last one is impossible:

History is going to hurt because you’re exploring Humanity’s past wounds.  There’s little neutrality there.

Remember how when we talked about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), we talked about one of the bill’s authors, Marsha Blackburn, viewing CRT as “dangerous to children?”  Well, she cites the Heritage Foundation as she makes the argument that, “At its core, CRT segregates people into two main categories: oppressors or victims.”

This can be argued from a historical standpoint, although I’d point out there are usually three groups:  The bullies, the victims, and the bystanders.  There are those who do harm, those who receive harms done, and those who - for whatever reason - are nominally uninvolved but are, through the bully’s actions, still roped into secondary involvement with the situation.  In other words:  If you see a person being kicked by another person and you do nothing, you’re still part of the situation even if you do nothing at all but walk away.  Inaction is a choice, which is itself an action, even if that action is taken out of self-preservation.

So how is this harmful to children, most of whom have witnessed bullying?  “The last thing educators should be doing is encouraging our children to be ashamed of the color of their skin,” Blackburn writes.

And, there, it all falls together:  Their working hypothesis is that if students are taught that white Americans with power discriminated against, bullied, and otherwise victimized Black (...and Native, and Latino, and Asian, and Irish and Italian and Jewish and…) Americans, especially through systemic means, those students who are themselves white might feel bad about that.  

They might say, “gee, my ancestors sure were dipshits.  They hurt innocent people.  Our government systematically abused people.  I feel like their actions have impacted my life and now I feel bad.”  And rather than hope that the children will learn something about fairness and equity from this, regressives like Blackburn seem to think that the white child’s pain at the knowledge that they benefited from a system that gave them a leg up is cause for other children to not learn about this advantageous position.

Which is interesting, isn’t it?

Feeling Bad About History Is Normal - Even Desirable.

I’m a white guy.  Yes, predominantly I’m Irish and Italian, and - yeah, sure - we were once discriminated against by mainstream white American society, too.  “No Irish Need Apply” is emblematic of the oppression and exclusion that Irish people suffered.  There are slurs for Italian (and other Mediterranean) people, particularly those with dark skin.  We basically weren’t considered ‘white’ at the time.

Now, now, let me prevent any misunderstanding:  No, we were not oppressed nearly as badly as many other groups were.

This isn’t a “who suffered worse” contest, especially because I’d lose.  Nor is this an attempt to dive into how certain out-groups are brought into the in-group, often so that we’re aimed against a different, even-less-’desirable’ out-group.  Yes, that’s a historical thing, but we’re not going to get into that today, except to acknowledge that in-grouping and out-grouping is a concept.

As far as I know, none of my ancestors were involved in most of America’s historical atrocities, with many of them coming over some time around the mid-to-late 1800’s.  But that doesn’t mean that I never benefited from racism, both on a systemic and personal level.  I’ve never had someone follow me around a store because they thought I’d steal from them on a personal level.  The life’s work of my ancestors wasn’t stolen from them, but was instead passed down to me on a systemic level.

Do I feel bad about that?  Well, yes!  Shouldn’t I?  I don’t just feel bad for friends who I’ve witnessed experience racism first-hand, either.  I’ve seen this shit in my professional practice.  I once taught at a school for arts and technology that was in a building that later became notorious for its bad ventilation.  Its student population was mostly Black, Latino, and Asian-American.   Do you think it got the same funding as the more famous arts school across the street?

I mean, I taught in a classroom with no windows to the outside world.  There’s a pattern of scholastic segregation in NYC.  I can’t prove anything, but you do the math on that one. (Editorial note: My colleagues were almost exclusively awesome. NYC teachers have heart)

Learning about these inequities existing at an early age can lead people with backgrounds like mine to care about people who didn’t have my opportunities.  It teaches compassion.  To many, that’s exactly the problem.

Regressives And Conservatives Don’t Want To Teach Compassion

On a basic Human level, compassion leads to action.  Compassion leads the bystander who doesn’t realize how involved they are in a situation to stand up against a bully.  Compassion teaches us to stand up against systems which don’t treat people the same and to reform them if possible - and to destroy them when it’s not.

That shit terrifies conservative and regressive people.

So rather than allow their children to learn about inequality and overturn it, Blackburn throws out platitudes like, “We can all agree that racism and discrimination are wrong and have no place in the classroom.”  Well, of course we can all “agree” that “racism and discrimination” are wrong!  But if you never teach what those things look like, you’ll never see your children grow up to fight against them with anything more than the same idle bullshit you throw at them.

Therefore, it stands to reason that people who want to perpetuate a system they benefit from don’t want to teach children the compassion that would break that system down.

And that’s where my train of thought stops.

I feel like, at this point, I’ve either lost you - dear reader - or I’m preaching to the choir.  Either you already know this and understand it, or you are so divorced from the situation as to have already closed this article.  Maybe you just think I’m being a bit preachy, which - I mean, that’s fair!  I try not to be too egotistical, but I’m arrogant enough to think you’re going to read about 1,700 words deep into this article just to get to where we are.

So if you’ve stuck around for the payoff:  Little Rock, Arkansas is gonna teach AP African American History, anyway.

I’ll wrap this up here.  I might not have an article next week, I have a half-business-trip, half-vacation to go on.  Thanks for reading!  Now, enjoy a few “In Other News” things…

In Other News:

• I mean, Donald Trump got indicted again.  This time on a RICO charge.  I hold out a twinge of hope that this is the stickiest set of charges yet.

• Norfolk-Southern has been writing a lot of lobbyist checks, following up on our now-distant talk about the East Palestine crash.

• Brooklyn’s Democratic Party just picked an anti-abortion judge.  You know, just in case you were wondering if there are, indeed, some “vote blues” that you ignore “no matter whos.”  Okay that joke was terrible.

• There’s the possibility of an upcoming auto workers strike.  Now, we all know how we feel about strikes here.  Bon Voyage!

• A major abortion care center burned down in California, creating the possibility of a pattern.  Whether this was an accident, an isolated incident, or something more remains to be seen.

Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe.  If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list.  This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.