Critical Race Theory (CRT) is in your child's school, Dublin, Ohio.
Dublin City Schools teacher training materials - 2020 to 2021. Should you care?
“The truth is always an abyss.” - Franz Kafka
We have received a partial response to our December 2021 document requests for teacher training materials used between August 2020 and November 2021. Below is a sampling of some of the materials used or recommended in those trainings. The full documentation received will soon be available here.
NEA edjustice - a social activist site, taking a progressive stance on political issues, including immigration, immigration enforcement, defunding the police, systemic racism, removal of confederate statues and names from buildings, and encouraging the use of BLM materials (the organization) in schools
Teaching Tolerance (now Learning for Justice)
takes a progressive stance on social justice in the classroom with the specific goal of teaching students to carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world in regard to systemic racism, gender, class, illegal immigration, and police policies
recently changed their name because “tolerance is not justice”
OSU’s 21 Day Anti-racism Challenge
For 21 days, one is to “choose one action to further your understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, systemic racism, oppression and equity as an individual, group, unit or department.”
The “actions” include suggestions for readings, podcasts, videos, observations and ways to form and deepen community connections.
Every source is from a left-wing, progressive viewpoint from sites like Medium, Huffington Post and the NY Times or websites like “Teaching While White.”
Nearly all of them promote a view of white people as racists in a racist system who cannot help but continually oppress POC.
Most of the materials are focused on social activism, including - specifically - “mentoring a new generation of activists.”
There are materials which call for defunding the police and which promote the BLM political movement.
And there is link advocating the 1619 project - a purported “history” project which was immediately rejected by historians for its lack of factual basis, among other problems.
A few examples from the suggested readings:
The Problem with White People
“The current relationship of white America to black America is something like a spouse who, having given up regularly beating, raping, and starving their partner, complains that it’s simply too much to ask that they also be allowed out of the basement.”
“Even more, I’ve come to believe that at some very deep level, many white people resist racial equality because, knowing what white folk have done to other races in America and beyond, they don’t want to risk it being done to them and theirs.”
White Fragility
“In a white dominant environment, each of these challenges becomes exceptional. In turn, whites are often at a loss for how to respond in constructive ways. Whites have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides.”
Any type of disagreement with her theory from a white person is seen as just an “interruption” born from racial stress.
DCS teacher training books include:
Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K 12 Anti Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development - By: Enid Lee
So You Want To Talk About Race? - By: Ijeoma Oluo
Stamped: Antiracism and You - By: Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi
This Book Is Anti-Racist - By: Tiffany Jewell
White Fragility: Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism? - By: Robin DiAngelo
We Got This - By: Cornelious Minor
The above-listed books uncritically push tenants of systemic racism, including white privilege, white supremacy, anti-racism, white fragility, and social justice.
Three points
1. A definition.
There is a lot of confusion around the meaning of CRT. So let me be clear. When I refer to CRT, I am referring to the idea - born out of postmodern theories back in the 1970s and 80s - which assumes that racism is baked into everything in America and that white privilege and white supremacy are the basis of all American power structures which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color (POC). And it is from this theory that ideas like systemic racism, institutional racism, antiracism, white fragility, reparations, and social justice have emerged.
I am NOT referring to all discussion of race, racism or discrimination.
I am NOT referring to the teaching of history.
While DCS teacher training materials do not explicitly refer to CRT, CRT’s tenets and core ideas are infused within the materials. This is not at issue. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, they are lying to you.
But here is the real question - should you care that CRT is here?
2. The possible concerns.
a. For the last two years, our teachers have been trained to teach from a particular viewpoint. A viewpoint that specifically tells one to infer the existence of racism in any given context. A viewpoint that relies on Kafka traps and double binds. A viewpoint that is both divisive and politically laden.
And this viewpoint has been taught as fact with no room for questions or disagreements, no alternative viewpoints, and no examination of any potential problems or failings within the chosen viewpoint.
I do not think this is properly called “education.”
If DCS want their teachers to learn about racial disparities, they should consider providing alternative viewpoints as to why those disparities exist and explore the problems with the theory of systemic racism. Try “Woke Racism,” by John McWhorter, “Unspeakable Truths about Racial Inequality in America,” by Glen Loury, “Beyond All Reason,” by Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry (critical examination of the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado) and pretty much anything by Thomas Sowell.
b. DCS teachers have been given training materials that encourage them to treat people differently based on their skin color, and include claims such as: every societal problem is the result of “white men,” everything western civilization has built is racist, police should be defunded, immigration laws should not be enforced and capitalism is a tool of white supremacy.
Any disagreement with these materials is seen as “racist.”
How do you think this affects the way our teachers teach and how they see and treat their students? If their student’s skin is dark, the student is a victim that lacks agency without a white person’s help. If their student’s skin is light, the student is an up and coming oppressor (with oppressor parents) who must be shaped into social activists. And, if the student is bi-racial, like my children - the student’s white parent is racist against her own children and her POC husband (per - my favorite “anti-racist” author - Robin DiAngelo).
c. The focus on CRT/systemic racism as the only answer to disparate outcomes prevents one from exploring other potential answers.
Consider: “Racial disparities have multiple interwoven and interacting causes, from culture to politics to economics, to historical accident to environmental influence and, yes, also to the nefarious doings of particular actors who may or may not be “racists,” as well as systems of law and policy that disadvantage some groups without having been so intended.” - Glen Loury
d. Promoting a progressive left-wing ideology under the guise of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) can harm attempts at actual DEI. Because, you see, anyone who disagrees with the tenets of CRT - which is, again, a highly divisive theory - will be suspicious of and reluctant to be involved with anything related to purported “DEI.”
3. But what do you think, dear Reader?
Thanks for the work your doing! 👍
Thank you for the research and revelations!