Critical Race Theory

The Sandbox Political Topics
307

For me, it’s more a matter of taking what i like from it.

Systems can have a kind of inertia built into them in which they reproduce existing inequities.

I think it gets more subtle when we ask ourselves whether we, ourselves, are systems that naturally support the status quo. And if we support unjust status quo then are we complicit? Are we guilty? Probably to some degree.

But this article seems to devolve into a kind of fanaticism when it. confidently declares that these companies are intentionally supporting white supremacy.

I don’t think it’s helpful to ask whether this represents crt or not. Because ultimately there is no institution of crt, instead there are individual writers with individual ideas that must be evaluated separately.

339

Text of Article
A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.

No Black parents, teachers or scholars testified to the Joint Committee on Education during the invite-only hearing on critical race theory.

Aside from an official from Missouri’s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory, which is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism.

Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel called it “ridiculous” to have a conversation about inequity while “excluding the very people who are saying we’ve been treated inequitably.”

“That talks more to the kind of hearing that they wanted to have than the information that they wanted to gather,” Chapel told reporters after the hearing. “They wanted to hear from their friends who were going to support their political talking points.”

Republican Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, who leads the committee, said she wanted to use the hearing to highlight voices of parents upset about critical race theory who have said local school officials ignored their complaints.

“I felt today it was important to hear from people who have tried to go through the official cycle of authority within their districts and have basically been turned away,” she told committee members.

O’Laughlin said she also invited an associate professor of teaching who specializes in Black history, but he declined to testify.

She said there will be more committee hearings on critical race theory and more opportunities for the public to weigh in.

“I’m certain this won’t be the last conversation,” she said.

Heather Fleming, a former Missouri teacher who now offers diversity and inclusion training, said she wanted to testify Monday but was not allowed. She said without any African Americans involved in the discussion, “you’re talking about us, without us.”

“What not having any African Americans in the room really showed was that this wasn’t really about understanding,” Fleming said.

Scholars developed critical race theory during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

It’s recently become a political lightning rod.

Many Republicans view the concepts underlying critical race theory as an effort to rewrite American history and persuade white people that they are inherently racist and should feel guilty because of their advantages.

“Some students are having serious emotional problems dealing with the CRT, or social justice, concepts being taught in our schools,” Katie Rash, a leader in the Missouri chapter of the group No Left Turn in Education, told the committee Monday.
Article End.

The bolding was mine to highlight the sweet, sick irony. By the way Republicans it is not rewriting history. It is about including historical events which have been whitewashed out of history. Yes Republicans it is a proven fact that America is racist from before it’s founding to today.

345

How much of the US economy when slavery ended was being produced by slave labor? I think this is a question that has merit. I do know the North where there was no slavery was already doing far better economically which is the main reason they won the war. They had many more resources than the Confederacy did. The are where slaves were mainly held is still the poorest most economically depressed areas in the country.

While slavery was the most vile and evil example of systemic racism I believe the main barriers of African American economic success today are really from the systemic racism in policies that have been implemented long after slavery was over.

I do not want to downplay slavery, but the focus on it gives white people an out. Slavery is not responsible for the majority of economic hardship faced by many African Americans today.

2 Likes
346

My personal anecdotal example of racism is the G.I. Bill. My father went into the navy at the beginning of the war dirt poor. He used the GI Bill after the war to work his way through school and receive an accounting degree. My and my siblings and my kids and my nieces and nephews can all track our success back to that welfare program. If my father was black all that success is lost.

3 Likes
347

20th century stuff: between the GI bill benefits being restricted and racial covenants in real estate, I wonder if there are other large scale engineered ways to keep a group of people less wealthy.

college degree touted for a long time as improving family wealth. home ownership and the resultant appreciation is a HUGE generation to generation wealth transfer opportunity. What other huge ones am I missing?

1 Like
408

I think you mean that you’re personal anecdotal example of racism is the college your dad attended refuse to admit black students?

427

Criminal justice system pretty consistently sentences African Americans at higher levels and for longer sentences.

Harder to get credit for a long time so higher interest loans for cars and credit cards means sucking more money from each paycheck form interest.

Gerrymandering today sucks their political power.

2 Likes
429

Yep. Even the US Government recognizes that its actions are racist. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1986 specifically targeted crack vs. powder cocaine which "In 1995, the U.S. Sentencing Commission concluded that the disparity created a “racial imbalance in federal prisons and led to more severe sentences for low-level crack dealers than for wholesale suppliers of powder cocaine. … As a result, thousands of people – mostly African Americans – have received disproportionately harsh prison sentences.” (quote from wiki article on fair sentencing act)

1 Like
431

At the time the law was signed it was thought the additives in crack made its use more dangerous than powder cocaine. The differences in sentencing were meant to help reduce the perceived difference in effect. Admittedly, they didn’t change the sentencing in a timely fashion when the science caught up. But well, government isn’t exactly known for quick action in anything that can be labelled a non-emergency.

Most of the credit issues, especially for the last 45-50 years have been legitimately based on economic realities. There have certainly been abuses. Most of which were targeted by economic class rather than race.

I would argue that Gerrymandering has concentrated minority voting power rather than diminish it. There are a number of districts at both the state and federal levels that are carve outs for majority-minority populations. That was done supposedly to increase minority representation in the governing bodies. It has a natural side effect of reducing minority membership in other districts. Then again I’m on record as stating that high levels of gerrymandering is harmful to the country so…

1 Like
432

I attempted to move all the religious stuff to its own thread. I apologize if I accidentally took some of the on-point posts, as well.

6 Likes
433

from wikipedia…
"By 1956, 7.8 million veterans had used the G.I. Bill education benefits, some 2.2 million to attend colleges or universities and an additional 5.6 million for some kind of training program. Historians and economists judge the G.I. Bill a major political and economic success—especially in contrast to the treatments of World War I veterans—and a major contribution to U.S. stock of human capital that encouraged long-term economic growth. However, the G.I. Bill received criticism for directing some funds to for profit educational institutions. The G.I. Bill was racially discriminatory, as it was intended to accommodate Jim Crow laws. Due to the discrimination by local and state governments, as well as by private actors in housing and education, the G.I. failed to benefit African Americans as it did with white Americans. Columbia University historian described the G.I. Bill as affirmative action for whites. The G.I. Bill has been criticized for increasing racial wealth disparities.

1 Like
434

I’m trying to wrap my head around what this means.

Does it mean that African American GIs were less likely to voluntarily take advantage? That they were entitled to smaller benefits? That they faced discrimination from the admissions departments at many schools? That they were less likely to be qualified for college because they were stuck at crappier K-12 schools? Something else?

435

The federal gov’t studies this. The most recent report I could find this morning (2011-2016) is https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2017/20171114_Demographics.pdf

The authors try to adjust for a variety of known factors (other than race) which could affect the result. In particular, they base their study on deviations from recommended sentences. The report says

Black male offenders’ sentences were 19.1 percent longer than those of White male offenders…

White female offenders received sentences that were 28.9 percent shorter than those
of White male offenders …

Black female offenders … also received shorter sentences than White
male offenders …, at 29.7 percent

So there’s a racial disparity and a sex disparity. But, the sex disparity is larger. What’s going on here?

436

This is also generational in impact because it Rob’s children of mother’s and father’s.

1 Like
437

i think that what I read was it was written knowing that colleges themselves wouldn’t expand the number of Black students they accepted. so while many Blacks qualified for the benefit, they weren’t able to then use it owing to other known caps. Something along those lines. Is it the GI Bills fault entirely? No. But my super terrible student dad went to a college happy to take his GI bill money and he managed to finish w a degree.

438

The USDA discriminates against POC farmers to the extent that it lost one of the largest class action lawsuits for its actions between 1981 and 1996. Side note: one of the contributing factors was Reagan’s closing the Civil Rights offices so black farmers had no where to file complaints.

a link with a bit of history Timeline: Black farmers and the USDA, 1920 to present

2 Likes
439

Thanks, clicking on links to support those statements I get to this: 'When Affirmative Action Was White': Uncivil Rights - The New York Times

The issue with the G.I. Bill regarding education wasn’t that the text was discriminatory. It was that it relied on the existing education infrastructure. Southern states’ colleges were legally segregated and substantially unequal. The HBCUs simply didn’t have room for all the eligible returning vets. And, their programs were teaching and preaching, not engineering and accounting.

There was only one comment about northern schools, that was about ivies. Here’s a glowing story about Harvard Vets Flooded Campus Under GI Bill | News | The Harvard Crimson No mention of black students. Were there any black vets at Harvard? If not, was it blatant “blacks can’t come here” or more indirect like “we only take kids from ‘better’ high schools”, and blacks weren’t going to expensive prep schools or living in high income enclaves where the public high schools were “better”.

What about other northern schools. Did U of Michigan, for example, admit black vets? If not, why not? I see TF responded, maybe northern schools had explicit caps on black enrollment?

I don’t think we should be pointing at the G.I. Bill. We should be pointing at the practices of the colleges and universities.

440

I do agree states and state institutions are and have been significantly more racist than the federal government. It would be interesting (in a different place) to investigate when and where the federal government overrides state rights versus when and where it allows states to run the show.

441

I think when American Citizens are treated differently under state or local law for no reason other than the color of their skin, that’s when the federal government must step in.

3 Likes
442

I think the point being made is there are larger systemic racists policies that have been in place through outAmerican history and you can’t point to just one as often they are intertwined so deeply. Regardless of the intentions or wording of the GI Bill, it served to further the advancement of many White GIs returning, but fell far short of its goal (if it even was a goal) for returning Black service men.

It’s all just another part of why critical race theory should be taught so these systems, intentional and unintentional, can be dismantled to level the playing field.

1 Like