July 7, 2021 – Washington Co., WI – One thing UW-Milwaukee philosophy professor, Mark Peterson, got right in his recent letter to the editor of the Daily News is that he is “‘something’ of an expert on critical race theory (CRT)”; he is certainly an expert PROPONENT of CRT, just like most of the liberal college professors are.
One thing Professor Peterson got wrong is that CRT is nothing to fear; it has absolutely been destroying our country and we should be terrified. Those who disagree are either lying or have their heads in the sand. Why else do you think we have athletes and celebrities disrespecting the national anthem, flag, military, and police officers? Why else do you think we have to fear Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA from terrorizing our businesses and neighborhoods?
These people were indoctrinated by some teachers, college professors, and the media to hate our country and anything it represents, to despise whites, Patriots, Christians, and even blacks who defend and honor God, family, and our nation.
In case you’re confused as to what CRT is, let’s look at the syllabus “Let’s Talk About Race” at Brandman University of California: “Critical race theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.
CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures.
CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color.” CRT comes wrapped in different names such as equity, diversity, and inclusion.
According to Lara-education.org, in a 2018 article, “CRT and the Tensions Between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — What Leaders Need to Know”: “To better understand and acknowledge the tension and often contradicting nature of these three concepts [diversity, equity, and inclusion], we need to apply a critical framework.
For example, critical race theory acknowledges that race and racism are ubiquitous and are problematized even more when looking at the intersectionality of race with class, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities; it challenges the dominant ideology; and it centralizes the experiential knowledge of those who are oppressed.
Applying CRT, we can then ask interrogating questions to understand the complexity of these terms. The current dominant ideology centers the white, heterosexual male. It is through this dominant ideology that diversity, equity, and inclusion are traditionally defined.” Furthermore, as the National Education Association (NEA) (our country’s largest teachers’ union) states in part B of their newly adopted plan to promote CRT in K-12 nationwide, they “provide an already-created, in-depth study that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society, and that we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or the 1619 Project.”
As Monte Schmiege of West Bend explains in his letter to the Daily News on 07/02/2021: “CRT is one aspect of Marxist philosophy that seeks to destroy America’s foundation, destroy the family, and destroy individual rights.”
He further points out, “If you apply the theory, then the WBSD ‘Excellence For All’ motto is racist. Success is racist. These concepts were designed by whites for whites and do not reflect the values of others.”
As a former candidate for the West Bend School District school board, twice, I have been paying close attention to whether CRT is being taught in our school district, and I do see some areas of concern. Whether it’s being done purposely or through negligence, it needs to be exposed so the administration can make sure curriculum and resources are revamped in order to eliminate the indoctrination. I will continue to pay attention.
Jody Geenen
West Bend, WI
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Hi everybody! I guess I hit a nerve. 🙂
All of this scary stuff comes from one reporter who is on the record saying that he was tickled to find something he could weaponize this effectively. He showed up on Tucker Carlson last year, and the rest is history. If anybody would actually like to talk about this with me, and find out how critical race theory works in real life, I’d be happy to have coffee with you. My email address is here, and you can just let me know.
Two corrections should probably be made to all of the angry letters that came in. First of all, I actually am an expert on this. Professors of philosophy and religious studies are typically pretty well-versed in critical race theory. Maybe the authors didn’t know that. The second thing is that UW Milwaukee and the branch campus in West Bend, is not a junior college but a major, Research-1 University. Just to set the record straight.
I have plenty of very conservative friends and we’ve always found that coffee makes these conversations easier. So my offer stands. I will be happy to buy the first cup.
I think all of this is a distraction. What people are actually upset about is not the existence of a controversial theory that is taught from an academic standpoint in college classrooms just as Marxism and Fascisms are taught, but not endorsed as theories of Government. What they are upset about is the use of CRT and more broadly forced acknowledgement / indoctrination of students who are minors that are being taught in public schools – the issue here is again, not an issue of teaching *about* something that is controversial, it’s teaching this ideology as fact or as something that is a widely accepted theory. The insistence of some to teach this in classrooms ignores the fact that there is a fixed amount of time to teach things in a school year and instead of focusing on topics of academic significance, a handful of teachers are instead concentrating on , yet again, forcing their own ideology down student’s throats.
If your school does not teach the following things, please explain why they have time for a unit on CRT:
1. Fascism
2. The enlightenment
3. Marxism
4. Nazism
5. Communism and Capitalism
6. The history of western civilization
I was educated in a good public school in Washington county and aside from my final year of school in which I took APUSH (whose curriculum is designed by a private corporation, college board), not a single one of these topics registered more than a footnote in any of my classes, yet they are arguably far more relevant to Western Civilization than a poorly written and frankly paternalistic fringe theory on race relations.
Even having said all of this, the issue is not just that this poorly defined fringe theory is getting undue representation in the classroom, it’s the way that it is being taught.
If we had a unit on white supremacy or Jim Crow, the ideologies taught would undoubtedly be framed in a negative light and to be honest, I have found most educators don’t even go into the specifics of bigoted ideologies because they see them as so beyond the pale that they are not worthy of being taught to students who are simply there to get a basic education. The summation of the unit largely ends up being: “Nazis: Bad” – a truism no doubt, but not overwhelmingly new or useful information for most students.
To take a more moderate issue, let’s compare this to the teaching of the New Deal and the “Robber Barons” – these both take up significant amounts of time in most public school curriculum and when I was in school in one of the most conservative areas of the state, I was taught that the New Deal is what pulled the US out of the Depression, that FDR was practically the second coming of Christ and that John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were “bad men”. No discussion of opposing ideologies, no discussion of how many mainstream economists disagree with the assertion that the New Deal benefitting the economy, no discussion of the internment camps for Japanese Americans, no discussion of the fact that these evil industrialists were massive philanthropists and that the concept of “Robber Barons” flies in the face of the most basic tenets of economics. Again, here they see no problem shading history with their own personal feelings because “everyone must believe that”. “Rockefeller – Bad” goes on the transparency sheet and everyone is expected to know it for the test.
Now, on the flipside, when CRT is taught in the classroom, it is treated with validation, normalization and legitimization, sometimes bordering on promotion. While they see no problem with negatively shading teachings about people or ideas they dislike to fit their own personal outlook, they treat CRT as if it’s a completely valid ideology that is just as widely accepted as “Nazis: Bad” – furthermore it’s frequently coupled with a paternalistic mindset that lays all the negative things that happen to people of one group at the feet of people from another group, or even worse, on a concept that all differences in outcome are due to “systemic racism” that pervades all aspects of life.
This idea is nothing more than a regurgitation of “critical theory” which no teacher would dare bring up in the classroom, because it is a fringe Marxism theory that can’t be adequately understood without an education on the theories that underlie it – which are apparently not important enough to make it into anyone’s curriculum.
When you teach concepts that students understand the foundations of juxtaposed with opposing viewpoints – you are educating. When you jump into a fringe theory that is buried underneath at least 5 other ideological frameworks that you haven’t covered (Marx, Kant, Critical Theory) and present it without much more well established opposing viewpoints, you are doing nothing but legitimizing ideas that have no place in a high school classroom. In short – if your students have never learned about The Moynihan Report, the fact that the black family collapsed after the civil rights movement – not before it, or any juxtaposition that shows opposing viewpoints, it’s completely unacceptable to drop this on minors in a publicly funded classroom.
Now, all of that said, why are people concerned about the teaching of CRT and more broadly the invasion of the “woke” mentality into classrooms?
Probably because it has been destroying public schools across the country while they pretend that it’s not being taught.
Buffalo public schools have gone as far as hiring a “Diversity Czar” that is in charge of enforcing radically racist and frankly anti-academic theories in curriculum, in training the teachers and punishing anyone who dissents. Teachers who speak out are fired. Parents who speak out are “targeted” in strategy meeting by union officials. People are explicitly taught that white people are born with “implicit racism”. These ideas are eventually planned to be taught to students as young as 4 years old per the official statements of the district. All of this is of course happening while Buffalo schools are failing and it’s relatively poor student population is forced to attend this school under threat of imprisonment.
https://www.city-journal.org/buffalo-public-schools-critical-race-theory-curriculum?wallit_nosession=1
If this kind of double-think, condemnation of people based on race and crushing of dissent does not seem Orwellian to you, I don’t know what does.