Did you know law professors including from our most elite law schools are in K12 classrooms all over the country teaching Critical Race Theory? ? It’s okay. Neither did I.
I am sooooo sick and tired of all the garbage being spewed forth regarding Critical Race Theory. CTR (as it’s now commonly referred to) is an academic school of thought developed for use in law school instruction in the wake of the 1960s Civil Rights Era. Like other academic theories it has always had both advocates and detractors but it is in fact something that made its way into law curriculums. It is quite separate from regular social studies type stuff children are taught in their K-12 education. How accurate and or inclusive all THAT has been is another topic entirely. CRT as it was developed and still taught examines how race plays a role in institutions (both government and broader societal/business conventions) and how it intersects with the law itself.
Law school, like medical or dental school is a form of graduate school. A graduate of an accredited law school is awarded the degree Juris Doctor – think of it as a doctorate in the law. In other words some seriously advanced stuff and it requires a solid education going in to make it through. And hard work. Really hard work for most people.’ But getting back “on point” as lawyers would say, the actual courses in CRT are designed for and taught in law schools! Oh sure, it’s gotten some courses at the college level that address the topic matter but not really the way people training to become lawyers learn it. It this hadn’t turned into a political culture war thing that is causing so much damage I’d find the notion of advanced, graduate level instruction on how race, institutions and the law interact downright laughable. Those who believe that is happening (or like the Senators who know better but sadly know an effective political weapon that causes wanton damage but use it anyway) in K-12, even grade school SHOULD be mocked. Openly. With some measure of contempt perhaps.
From what I’ve read about it CRT stuff in law school is complicated as hell, full of nuance and interactions of multiple concepts. Or in other words advanced graduate level, even doctoral course level instruction and discussion. Yet we have braying idiots from Senators (including wannabe Presidents in the mix) down to Joe and Jane MAGA screaming about their “precious” children – including either inciting or making direct physical threats against school board members and teachers for teaching stuff that’s the subject of law school coursework!
Again I ask the question – did you know kids were getting dosed with advanced law school legal theory as part of their basic education? I sure as hell didn’t.
BECAUSE THEY AREN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My sympathy for MAGA level “stoopid” idiots who think their kids are getting a head start on law school as part of their basic education ranks down there with my sympathy for the fix Putin/Pootie-Trash has put himself in and the possibility of a “Et tu Brutus/Ivan?” moment in the foreseeable future. As in none. Zero.
Teaching kids about slavery, Jim Crow, the Klan, the Civil Rights movement and ongoing struggles of non-white people to be granted the full rights and blessings of citizenship, that the words Equal Justice Under Law cut into the stone over the main entrance to the SCOTUS building has yet to be achieved isn’t Critical Race Theory. It’s history and history should be both comprehensive and accurate. If some of the folks out there get all butt-hurt that their warped, racist ideology THEY are literally devoting their main focus into contaminating the minds of their children with don’t like it? Well, since I hope this will get shared I won’t put up a favorite cartoon but basically the caption is that “My field of $*@&s (the act of procreation) is barren!”
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee should have been prepared to openly mock the GOP with big posters of memes like the title pic of this article. I’m pretty sure that forewarned Judge (soon to be Justice) Jackson could knock lame GOP pitches out of the park. My hope is that someone on our side has had thoughts similar to mine and is ready to go in the morning to knock the GOP and this b.s. manufactured campaign issue back under the slimy rocks from which conservatives seem to get all their ideas from these days.
U don’t get onto rule school, er, law school by rocking the boat. You don’t get your law degree or pass the bar rocking the boat. You don’t get elected by rocking the boat,(speaking truth as your personal mantra). You don’t stay in office or rise through the ranks rocking the boat. Asking them to be courageous & forthright is asking pigs to fly. The boat rockers are the ones THEY lock up. They don’t lock up the members of their rule making click. Ever see a prosecutor go to jail for mucking around & knowingly send an innocent person to jail? Of course not! These aren’t the best people. They stay in their lane. Risk? No fucking way.
‘Banning’ Critical Race Theory in schools is about as sensible as banning the theory of relativity or quantum theory.
The whole thing makes as much sense as the banning of the theory of evolution – maybe it’s time for a present day version of the Scopes monkey trial
Less than a year before heading off to become a Marine I played the character based on Scopes in a community production of a famous play about the Scopes trial.
Sadly, we have “Inherited the “Broken” Wind.
Hell, it’s not just broken wind (farts for those of you who don’t get it – we have conservatives that read this site now!) or even sharts but actual shit dumping all over science. Take a look at all the bullshit that’s been pushed through into laws and even legal precedent by “Jeebus Judges/Justices” since the Scopes trial. Worse still they not only aren’t done (not by a long shot) in trying to force their Dominionist/Prosperity Gospel version of Christianity down EVERYONE’S throat, complete with their Assault-Weapon Jeebus leading the charge, mowing down everyone who doesn’t agree with them, they have built an entire enterprise to pack legislatures and especially the Courts with their disciples. It gets even worse than that. The Federalist Society (and similar but less well-known organizations) have also created a system to identify (or even create) cases to push through the system all the way up to SCOTUS to create the version of this country they believe god wants!
My copy of Inherit The Wind includes a quote from John Randolph Neal (despite Clarance Darrow getting all the attention it was Neal who headed Scope’s defense team) which has always stayed with me – “The question is not whether Evolution is true or untrue, but involves the right to teach. Or, more importantly the right to learn.”
Bit by bit the nutjobs in right-wing “Christianity” have been continuously chipping away at the bedrock principles of freedom enshrined in our Constitution with particular emphasis on the separation of Church and State. They have gained the upper hand and have momentum that will take more generations than I care to imagine to stop.
The real assault is on intelligence, science, & the truth. Their senate candidate in GA, who got hit in the head running the football, gave his erudite argument against evolution. He stated that science says we evolved from monkees, & if that’s true, why are there still monkees? The interviewer stated he was so smart. I’d rather put an orangutan in the seat.
Interesting that the theory of evolution states that we evolved from monkees since there weren’t any monkees until late 1965 when Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones were brought together for a TV project.
And, for what it’s worth, there’s only one “monkee” still around” Mickey Dolenz. Jones died in 2012, Tork in 2019 and Nesmith just died this past December.
(I have absolutely no idea why you wrote “monkees”–twice, at that–when the word displays on my screen as errors when I type it.)
I was catching the Last Train To Clarksville. Ur the one who noticed.
Ah yes.
That is the exact meme I was referencing. I’ve got it stored on my computer and have posted it in comments here and elsewhere multiple times. Still, in the hopes that my article might get shared I decided to exercise a bit of discretion.