To:  County Republicans 

 

If you’ve been troubled by the terms in italics below, I suggest several articles that may help you to further understand how to confront those who are trying to transform our institutions and, broadly speaking, American culture.

BIPOC, wokeness,  BLM & Marxist leaders, Whiteness  -  white privilege -  white supremacy, racism – racist – ‘1619 Project’ of the NY Times, social justice, Critical Race Theory (CRT)      cognitive imperialism, global warming, climate change,  meritocracy

 The cultural and intellectual movement of the Left is attempting to replace traditional American and Republican values.  The Leftist effort is unrelenting, powerful and national in scope.   To defend Constitutional values, we need to battle false claims of “White supremacy” and the emotionalism of ‘cancel culture’  with information and logic.  We are more than fighting Democrats and liberalism.  Our battle is for the ideology and worldview of students, K-12 through college. It is a battle where your personal effort at the local level will have an important outcome.  It is, clearly, the fight to keep socialist-communist ideology out of our local classrooms and local curriculum.

As most teachers know, it is very rare for parents or citizens to inquire about the granular details of the curriculum in social studies courses. Thus, there are many opportunities for a teacher to inject BLM-Woke (Marxist) ideology into ostensibly non-political courses like history, civics, or economics. Worse, many districts are now adopting BLM-sanctioned curriculum as teachers and administrators (and even school board members) respond axiomatically to accusations of racism and white supremacy.

The Left curriculum will only be prevented, or removed from schools, if citizens and parents fight.  The articles below should help you better understand more clearly the challenges we face.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/virginia-public-school-teacher-describes-critical-race-theory-training-trickle-down-indoctrination?

and

https://quillette.com/2021/02/10/unspeakable-truths-about-racial-inequality-in-america/

February 10, 2021  Unspeakable Truths about Racial Inequality in America written by  Glenn Loury

and

My table-pounding recommendation if you're fighting the curriculum of WOKENESS   https://counterweightsupport.com/2021/04/03/educating-for-politics-how-critical-social-justice-politicizes-the-classroom-and-indoctrinates-students/  

    This, too, is a great explanation about how normal kids are transformed into Social Justice Warriors……….  aka  Communist recruits.  https://www.city-journal.org/critical-race-theory-in-american-classrooms

Gov. DeSantis bans Critical Race Theory from Florida classrooms à  https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-florida-gov-ron-desantis-says-there-is-no-room-for-critical-race-theory-in-state-curriculum

Why Is Wokeness Winning? The astonishing success of left illiberalism by Andrew Sullivan, Oct 16, 2020

 

https://quillette.com/2021/03/25/race-and-false-hate-crime-narratives/  for sources  who do not agree with that view of Andrew Sullivan.

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Great radio programs that are available by smartphone and iheart media:

       Dan O’Donnell M-F, 9-11 AM, because that is convenient for me and also easy to do on the smartphone.  I try to listen to Jay Weber, too, but he starts at 6AM.  Problem is that both of them are EVEN better than Vicki McKenna.  By better, I mean much better intellectual substance.  Jay Weber is amazing for contemporary stuff.  TRY one of his podcasts.  He is astute, quick and conservative—kind of like Wisconsin’s own “Tucker.”    Dan is slightly different, but still a 5-star info source.  Memory is that Rep. Tom Tiffany has been a guest on each of their respective shows

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-the-jay-weber-show-28167130/ 

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-the-dan-odonnell-show-27550539/      try April 6 show.  They are all good……but that one should capture your heart and mind

Why “WOKE” history is Not the Answer   https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/articles/2020/10/27/why_woke_history_is_not_the_answer_581610.html

 

Articles:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/02/12/activists-outline-their-plan-to-push-black-lives-matter-in-classroom/

1619 Project of the NY Times……..and its epic distortions  -- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html

https://www.educationnext.org/1619-project-enters-american-classrooms-adding-new-sizzle-slavery-significant-cost/ 

Hope?   
https://www.fairforall.org/ 

This article is a great introduction to the America’s greatest conservative mind (IMHO) à https://quillette.com/2021/03/27/thomas-sowell-tragic-optimist/  if you’re not familiar with Sowell, this is outstanding.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-left-is-rewriting-american-history-to-push-their-radical-agenda  Sharif Khan

https://quillette.com/2021/03/25/race-and-false-hate-crime-narratives/  Race and False Hate Crime Narratives written by Heather Mac Donald

Also,  https://www.city-journal.org/diversity-delusion   “The Diversity Delusion,” December 26, 2018 Heather Mac Donald discusses the decline of the university and the rise of campus intellectual intolerance, the subjects of her important new book, The Diversity Delusion How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. She spoke at a Manhattan Institute event in autumn 2018. 

How to be an Anti-racist  https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-be-an-antiracist 

Associated article https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids
about purging wascism from the schools.

https://quillette.com/2021/04/03/beyond-order-12-more-rules-for-life-a-review/ a review of Jordan Peterson’s latest book.

Acclaimed non-liberal books -- https://www.dailywire.com/news/10-books-every-conservative-should-read-in-2021

Woke Math Is Coming to a Classroom Near You by Cameron Hilditch  March 5, 2021 [edited for length]

The British author Douglas Murray has lately argued that intersectional social justice represents the most serious ideological threat to the liberal order since the end of the Cold War. Even a few years ago, his thesis would have sounded overblown, but no longer. Events have conspired to vindicate him.

Take the phenomenon of woke math, for instance. As Catherine Gewertz laid out in a piece for Education Week late last year, more and more teachers in K–12 classrooms are introducing left-wing intersectional agitprop into math lessons. Progressive talking points on subjects like policing patterns and campaign-finance reform are being used to supply students with numerical data that is then used to teach multiplication, division, algebra, and the like. Gewertz describes one such initiative, developed in Seattle, as attempting to supply “a framework . . . that weaves questions of power and oppression into math instruction, along with explorations of ethnic identity.”

This infiltration of leftist dogma into education is troubling for several reasons. First of all, it shows just how seriously intersectional social justice takes itself as a comprehensive agenda for social change. Totalitarian ideologies work by supplying an intellectual filter through which all of life is sanitized and presented to people as something uncomplicated and easily understood. This is why the force and momentum of political ideologies is always centripetal, drafting every extraneous facet of social life into the service of the party agenda. The notion that something might be intelligible or worthwhile independent of how it fits into this agenda — that there might be metrics of measuring truth or beauty other than those prescribed by the regnant ideology — is therefore threatening. To combat the threat, ideologues tend to make war on everything that could be construed as apolitical or politically neutral.

But there’s nothing harder to politicize than mathematics. It’s stubbornly indifferent to all of our plans and agendas. That’s why it plays such a central and chilling role at the denouement of 1984. In a totalitarian society, math is the last refuge of irresistible reality. When we find thinking like Krylenko’s not only in our history and English classrooms (wherein ideology can be easily adapted to the subject material) but in math class as well, we have reason to recoil at just how far and how deep the rot of ideological militancy has spread throughout our educational establishment.

The most popular woke math textbook being used right now is High School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice. Published by Corwin in tandem with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, it provides 22 lessons that draw on left-wing talking points. Chapter 6, on algebra and functions, includes lessons like “Children at the Border: Looking at the Numbers,” “Intersectionality and the Wage Gap,” and “What’s a Fair Living Wage?” In Chapter 7, meanwhile, we find a statistics and probability lesson about “Humanizing the Immigration Debate,” and in Chapter 8, gerrymandering is used to teach kids about geometry.

After the book was published, the editors received so many requests from K–8 teachers looking for something similar to suit lower grades that three new volumes are currently in the works, aimed at the youngest and most impressionable of school-aged children.

It would be comforting to think of this trend as something confined to a particular state or locality, but, unfortunately, it’s spreading across the country faster than Beatlemania did in the spring of ’64. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, 22 schools are currently working together on “equity focused math instruction.” A popular social justice math wiki was built and is administered by a teacher in Oregon. The Clayton County school district in Georgia is currently working to institute woke math across all grade levels. And on top of all this, EduColor, a nonprofit devoted to advancing “equity” in education, has a presence nationwide. It’s true that woke math is, for the most part, a feature of schools in blue enclaves right now. But as long as there exists a federal Department of Education, and as long as the Democratic Party remains a wholly owned subsidiary of the teachers’ unions, the danger that these practices will become policy on a national scale is very real.

The cancer of indoctrination is spreading and, if left untreated by parents, teachers, and politicians, it could rob entire generations of their ability to think, judge, and act for themselves.

1. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure Hardcover – Illustrated, September 4, 2018

by Greg Lukianoff (Author), Jonathan Haidt

2. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

3. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity – and Why This Harms Everybody.

4. Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage by Michael Rectenwald

Retired professor of liberal studies at New York University, Dr. Rectenwald traces the ideological roots of “woke culture” in Springtime for Snowflakes. A former Marxist turned libertarian critic of political correctness, Rectenwald weaves together a first-person narrative from the perspective as a red-pilled convert in academia with a philosophical reflection on the postmodernist movement. 

Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. Peterson also has a wonderful list of 100+ great books, for those looking for further reading recommendations. 

Unlearning Race: Self Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams

Cultural critic and New York Times Magazine contributor, Thomas Chatterton Williams is perhaps best known as the mastermind behind the notorious Harper’s Magazine letter standing against cancel culture signed by dozens of celebrities and thought leaders.

In his recent book, Chatterton Williams explores his own racial identity as a mixed-race American man living in France, and ultimately concludes that the only way forward is a rejection of critical race theory and neo-racist identity politics in favor of a reclamation of our common humanity. The book is a refreshing perspective reminiscent of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision for our nation’s future.

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity by Douglas Murray

British author and political commentator, Douglas Murray, has made waves with his best-selling The Madness of Crowds. The book chronicles the rise of woke culture and divisive identity politics, taking on societal misconceptions surrounding race, gender, and sexuality, with interludes on the cultural impacts of technology and Marxist theory.

Ben Shapiro…. Debunks Climate Change  à  https://www.dailywire.com/episode/climate-change-hysteria?utm_campaign=debunked&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=120775280&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_rvBBFVQjPObP9Akrg6v3NjC1Eu2sOg7iwmISrgIQyTEAcnyWBShvvKQVJBseXA9D7IDx7jDrSEvsgroi-m__PaaNweg&utm_content=debunked_ep_7&utm_source=housefile 

Review of Green Fraud, the new book by leading anti-global warming writer, Mark Morano https://www.dailywire.com/news/graham-green-fraud-and-the-climate-lockdown

 

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/ 

 

 

 

The Neoracists -- A new religion is preached across America. It's nonsense posing as wisdom.

John McWhorter  Feb 8.    (Selections of McWhorter’s works are quoted below)

One can divide antiracism into three waves. First Wave Antiracism battled slavery and segregation. Second Wave Antiracism, in the 1970s and 1980s, battled racist attitudes and taught America that being racist was a flaw. Third Wave Antiracism, becoming mainstream in the 2010s, teaches that racism is baked into the structure of society, so whites’ “complicity” in living within it constitutes racism itself, while for black people, grappling with the racism surrounding them is the totality of experience and must condition exquisite sensitivity toward them, including a suspension of standards of achievement and conduct.

Third Wave Antiracist tenets, stated clearly and placed in simple oppositions, translate into nothing whatsoever:

  1. When black people say you have insulted them, apologize with profound sincerity and guilt. But don’t put black people in a position where you expect them to forgive you. They have dealt with too much to be expected to.
  2. Black people are a conglomeration of disparate individuals. “Black culture” is code for “pathological, primitive ghetto people.” But don’t expect black people to assimilate to “white” social norms because black people have a culture of their own.
  3. Silence about racism is violence. But elevate the voices of the oppressed over your own.
  4. You must strive eternally to understand the experiences of black people. But you can never understand what it is to be black, and if you think you do you’re a racist.
  5. Show interest in multiculturalism. But do not culturally appropriate. What is not your culture is not for you, and you may not try it or do it. But—if you aren’t nevertheless interested in it, you are a racist.
  6. Support black people in creating their own spaces and stay out of them. But seek to have black friends. If you don’t have any, you’re a racist. And if you claim any, they’d better be good friends—in their private spaces, you aren’t allowed in.
  7. When whites move away from black neighborhoods, it’s white flight. But when whites move into black neighborhoods, it’s gentrification, even when they pay black residents generously for their houses.
  8. If you’re white and only date white people, you’re a racist. But if you’re white and date a black person you are, if only deep down, exotifying an “other.”
  9. Black people cannot be held accountable for everything every black person does. But all whites must acknowledge their personal complicity in the perfidy throughout history of “whiteness.”
  10. Black students must be admitted to schools via adjusted grade and test score standards to ensure a representative number of them and foster a diversity of views in classrooms. But it is racist to assume a black student was admitted to a school via racial preferences, and racist to expect them to represent the “diverse” view in classroom discussions.

I suspect that deep down, most know that none of this catechism makes any sense. Less obvious is that it was not even composed with logic in mind. The self-contradiction of these tenets is crucial, in revealing that Third Wave Antiracism is not a philosophy but a religion.

The revelation of racism is, itself and alone, the point, the intention, of this curriculum. As such, the fact that if you think a little, the tenets cancel one another out, is considered trivial. That they serve their true purpose of revealing people as bigots is paramount—sacrosanct, as it were. Third Wave Antiracism’s needlepoint homily par excellence is the following:

Battling power relations and their discriminatory effects must be the central focus of all human endeavor, be it intellectual, moral, civic or artistic. Those who resist this focus, or even evidence insufficient adherence to it, must be sharply condemned, deprived of influence, and ostracized.


John McWhorter, contributing writer at The Atlantic and professor of linguistics at Columbia University, is a member of Persuasion’s Board of Advisors. His new book, The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists and their Threat to a Progressive America, is being published in serial at It Bears Mentioning.