My mistake about light eyes, but the light skin is definitely true as there is a huge variety in hues of brown among people from the Levant. My point is that the vast majority of civilizations on this earth originated from the great Middle-Eastern melting pot and include significant DNA of all three major branches of Homo Sapiens. It's…
My mistake about light eyes, but the light skin is definitely true as there is a huge variety in hues of brown among people from the Levant. My point is that the vast majority of civilizations on this earth originated from the great Middle-Eastern melting pot and include significant DNA of all three major branches of Homo Sapiens. It's foolish for any one group to claim superiority or inferiority based on the accomplishments of these civilizations as they are essentially the same people with some regional variations in skin tone and eye color based on climate-driven factors. The whole idea of racism is flawed whether you apply it as the Nazis did or if you apply it as the CRT crowd does (which is completely different),
Racism only exists as a construct to enable those with control of the fundamental systems of a society (either macro or micro). An example is a high school with a black principal and two black assistant principals who systemically use the exact same mechanisms to hold back students of color from performing at their best to ensure the students continue to fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT that have been applied to student bodies since the 1990s. These administrators, all with PhDs, harbor the exact same opinion of the student body that they accuse past administrations of harboring.
Racism is a tool used to divide people artificially to maintain class structure, which is far more important to those controlling the systems of society than the color of the skin in each stratum of that class structure. Its most useful function is as a weapon to oppress people who think differently from or are a threat to those in control of the underlying systems. Label someone a racist and oppressed peoples immediately attack that individual regardless of why the person was labelled as a racist. The most insidious use of the term is applying it to all people of a group no matter their beliefs or even ability to participate in the systems of control. This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group and then their behaviors cast a pall over the entire society which just reinforces the divides between groups.
"there is a huge variety in hues of brown among people from the Levant."
Right, but they're brown people. So categorising them as "light skinned" is a little strange. Some of them are lighter skinned than others, but very few of them would be described as light-skinned. You seem quite determined to make this distinction and I'm still not clear why.
Also, I agree that racism is inherently flawed. I hope that's obvious from my copious writing on the topic 😅. And I'm obviously not a supporter of CRTs framing of racial issues. But I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge the vast difference between Nazi racism and CRT racism before comparing the two.
Yes, racism is a tool used to divide people artificially to maintain class structure. And it's been used almost exclusively to artificially maintain a racial divide that subjugated black people. The original CRT writings of people like Derrick Bell were actually fairly sensible, reasonable attempts to address that divide. Obviously, CRT has been rebranded as something else in recent years. But while, as I said, I disagree with CRT as it's understood today, I think it's unreasonable to treat the reaction to a problem as if it's equivalent to the problem itself.
Lastly, I think your hypothetical about the high school principals is very far-fetched, no? Unless it's not a hypothetical, in which case I'm truly horrified. I don't think any principal, black *or* white, would try to ensure students of colour "fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT." There are a lot of really stupid (and frankly racist) ideas about how to close racial gaps in education. But I don't think any teachers of any colour are trying to maintain them.
Steve, I was really looking forward to your opinion on this topic: "This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group and then their behaviors cast a pall over the entire society which just reinforces the divides between groups."
“This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group”
I think the notion of being from “the wrong group” is already a completely wrongheaded way to lol at any social issue. Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, etc.
I agree, of course, that applying labels to an entire group is a mistake (and I think it’s true that this leads some people to virtue signal). But so is grouping ourselves by arbitrary characteristics like skin colour in the first place.
> Lastly, I think your hypothetical about the high school principals is very far-fetched, no? Unless it's not a hypothetical, in which case I'm truly horrified.
Not hypothetical at all. It is happening now at Kenwood High School in Clarksville, TN. These three administrators ran roughshod through both the student body and the faculty throughout the 2021-2022 school year. Students were berated daily about their choice of clothing and often sent to in school suspension for infractions. During pep rallies, students who had been in either ISS or OSS were sent to the auditorium to watch a movie instead of socializing and building school spirit. To keep a lid on what was happening in the school, they would cancel requests for substitutes and shuffle teachers around during their planning period to ensure the classes were watched. Any student that fell behind in class was pulled from the class and sent to digital learning, where they would have to finish the course online at the school. For students with IEPs and 504s this can be disastrous as there are no inclusion teachers in the classrooms hosting digital learning, and there was no differentiation in how material and assessments were provided, even if the student had specific accommodations requiring such differentiation. The list goes on and on. So, I have witnessed this through my wife who teaches there.
"Not hypothetical at all. It is happening now at Kenwood High School in Clarksville, TN"
This is horrifying, but is it evidence of the administrators "holding back students of color from performing at their best to ensure the students continue to fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT"?
It sounds as if there are enormous problems at that school, but you haven't pointed to any evidence of racism or CRT-infused activism here.
For example, school assemblies, even pep rallies, are used to present guests to the students who are moving forward in their academic careers. All students to have been given ISS or OSS are explicitly excluded. It doesn't matter why. There are students that get suspended for wearing pajamas when they have no clean clothes, or wearing their hoodie in class because they want to hide the fact that they don't have facilities to bathe because they live in a car. These administrators are actually harsher to these students than previous admins. They are ensuring the cycle of poverty continues by robbing these students of their dignity and possibly their future. At the very least, they are not receiving equal access to educational opportunities. As for the digital learning with no accommodations for 504 and IEP students, that is the very definition of students with disabilities not being given their rightful services, services that are fundamental to breaking poverty cycles. If that's not what CRT is supposed to fight for, then what is it?
My mistake about light eyes, but the light skin is definitely true as there is a huge variety in hues of brown among people from the Levant. My point is that the vast majority of civilizations on this earth originated from the great Middle-Eastern melting pot and include significant DNA of all three major branches of Homo Sapiens. It's foolish for any one group to claim superiority or inferiority based on the accomplishments of these civilizations as they are essentially the same people with some regional variations in skin tone and eye color based on climate-driven factors. The whole idea of racism is flawed whether you apply it as the Nazis did or if you apply it as the CRT crowd does (which is completely different),
Racism only exists as a construct to enable those with control of the fundamental systems of a society (either macro or micro). An example is a high school with a black principal and two black assistant principals who systemically use the exact same mechanisms to hold back students of color from performing at their best to ensure the students continue to fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT that have been applied to student bodies since the 1990s. These administrators, all with PhDs, harbor the exact same opinion of the student body that they accuse past administrations of harboring.
Racism is a tool used to divide people artificially to maintain class structure, which is far more important to those controlling the systems of society than the color of the skin in each stratum of that class structure. Its most useful function is as a weapon to oppress people who think differently from or are a threat to those in control of the underlying systems. Label someone a racist and oppressed peoples immediately attack that individual regardless of why the person was labelled as a racist. The most insidious use of the term is applying it to all people of a group no matter their beliefs or even ability to participate in the systems of control. This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group and then their behaviors cast a pall over the entire society which just reinforces the divides between groups.
"there is a huge variety in hues of brown among people from the Levant."
Right, but they're brown people. So categorising them as "light skinned" is a little strange. Some of them are lighter skinned than others, but very few of them would be described as light-skinned. You seem quite determined to make this distinction and I'm still not clear why.
Also, I agree that racism is inherently flawed. I hope that's obvious from my copious writing on the topic 😅. And I'm obviously not a supporter of CRTs framing of racial issues. But I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge the vast difference between Nazi racism and CRT racism before comparing the two.
Yes, racism is a tool used to divide people artificially to maintain class structure. And it's been used almost exclusively to artificially maintain a racial divide that subjugated black people. The original CRT writings of people like Derrick Bell were actually fairly sensible, reasonable attempts to address that divide. Obviously, CRT has been rebranded as something else in recent years. But while, as I said, I disagree with CRT as it's understood today, I think it's unreasonable to treat the reaction to a problem as if it's equivalent to the problem itself.
Lastly, I think your hypothetical about the high school principals is very far-fetched, no? Unless it's not a hypothetical, in which case I'm truly horrified. I don't think any principal, black *or* white, would try to ensure students of colour "fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT." There are a lot of really stupid (and frankly racist) ideas about how to close racial gaps in education. But I don't think any teachers of any colour are trying to maintain them.
Steve, I was really looking forward to your opinion on this topic: "This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group and then their behaviors cast a pall over the entire society which just reinforces the divides between groups."
“This leads to "virtue seekers" who try to prove they aren't racist despite being from the wrong group”
I think the notion of being from “the wrong group” is already a completely wrongheaded way to lol at any social issue. Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, etc.
I agree, of course, that applying labels to an entire group is a mistake (and I think it’s true that this leads some people to virtue signal). But so is grouping ourselves by arbitrary characteristics like skin colour in the first place.
I was hoping this would be your response! It is all about vanity and the desire to fit in with the correct crowd.
> Lastly, I think your hypothetical about the high school principals is very far-fetched, no? Unless it's not a hypothetical, in which case I'm truly horrified.
Not hypothetical at all. It is happening now at Kenwood High School in Clarksville, TN. These three administrators ran roughshod through both the student body and the faculty throughout the 2021-2022 school year. Students were berated daily about their choice of clothing and often sent to in school suspension for infractions. During pep rallies, students who had been in either ISS or OSS were sent to the auditorium to watch a movie instead of socializing and building school spirit. To keep a lid on what was happening in the school, they would cancel requests for substitutes and shuffle teachers around during their planning period to ensure the classes were watched. Any student that fell behind in class was pulled from the class and sent to digital learning, where they would have to finish the course online at the school. For students with IEPs and 504s this can be disastrous as there are no inclusion teachers in the classrooms hosting digital learning, and there was no differentiation in how material and assessments were provided, even if the student had specific accommodations requiring such differentiation. The list goes on and on. So, I have witnessed this through my wife who teaches there.
"Not hypothetical at all. It is happening now at Kenwood High School in Clarksville, TN"
This is horrifying, but is it evidence of the administrators "holding back students of color from performing at their best to ensure the students continue to fall in the politically ascribed roles of CRT"?
It sounds as if there are enormous problems at that school, but you haven't pointed to any evidence of racism or CRT-infused activism here.
For example, school assemblies, even pep rallies, are used to present guests to the students who are moving forward in their academic careers. All students to have been given ISS or OSS are explicitly excluded. It doesn't matter why. There are students that get suspended for wearing pajamas when they have no clean clothes, or wearing their hoodie in class because they want to hide the fact that they don't have facilities to bathe because they live in a car. These administrators are actually harsher to these students than previous admins. They are ensuring the cycle of poverty continues by robbing these students of their dignity and possibly their future. At the very least, they are not receiving equal access to educational opportunities. As for the digital learning with no accommodations for 504 and IEP students, that is the very definition of students with disabilities not being given their rightful services, services that are fundamental to breaking poverty cycles. If that's not what CRT is supposed to fight for, then what is it?