[ad_1]
State legislatures, primarily in Republican states, pass resolutions banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. Democrats have cried foul, but they are forcing CRT in public schools and other dimensions of public policy. Aren’t bans and warrants two sides of the same bad penny?
Yet the battle has been on, so there is no point in simply shouting “pox in your two houses”.
CRT is wrong, firstly because no such controversial version of history and sociology should be taught in public schools. Let the academic intelligentsia debate these ideas until a consensus interpretation develops that suits young minds in elementary, middle and high school.
Further, the central tenets of the CRT and its highly promoted version, The New York Times Project 1619, are extreme to the point of being invalid, including clearly the related public policy prescription of overt reverse racism.
One of the main supporters of the CRT, Ibram X. Kendi, says: “When I see racial disparities, I see racism. This radical absolutist observation is patently false, breaking down, for example, when one examines a single specific disparity: Asian Americans outperform whites and all other minority groups both academically and economically. . Where is Kendi’s racism?
Kendi: “The only cure for racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy for past discrimination is current discrimination. The only remedy for current discrimination is future discrimination.
Do we want to teach in public schools – that white schoolchildren are discriminated against and black schoolchildren advance because of the sins of white ancestors and the oppression of black ancestors? Should it be public order that the sins and oppression of ancestors determine the future of schoolchildren today?
Yet that is what the Biden administration proposed. On April 19, he published in the Federal Register a proposed new rule, titled “Proposed Priorities – American History and Civics.”
The proposed rule will prioritize federal grants for teacher training and classroom instruction to projects that “integrate anti-racist practices into teaching and learning.” As scholar Ibram X. Kendi put it… “Anti-racist ideas hold that racist policies are the cause of racial inequalities.
This is hardly the unifying policy that Biden the candidate has promised.
Federal education policy is not the only public sphere in which reverse racism is used. In Connecticut, a new law declares racism a public health crisis. He is setting up a large committee to reduce “disparities” – hires that do not reflect the demographics of society – by 70% in education, health care, criminal justice and earnings. While it’s long on ambition and short on details and ultimately may suffer the fate of many committee-led initiatives, the 70% target is huge. If the law has even half of the expected impact, the impact will be huge, mostly for the good.
However, at least one former Connecticut state lawmaker sees reverse-of-law racism as a powerful negative force in public sector employment. Janet Lockton, former state representative for the 149th District, said: “Every state executive, legislature, judiciary and higher education agency must… prepare a plan to hire and retain at least 70% of people from color in addition. She concludes that “if you are white, the likelihood of getting a job in a government agency, higher education or judicial branch in the future is unlikely.”
Lockton raises the specter of white theft. Indeed, why wouldn’t white workers leave the Nutmeg State in search of better employment prospects in the States without a high hurdle of reverse “anti” racism?
Connecticut cannot afford more emigration. He has suffered from emigration for years. Recently, the US Department of Labor released monthly data for May showing the state has the worst employment statistics in the country with the highest dropout rate from the civilian workforce before the pandemic and the sixth highest unemployment rate of 7.7%.
May’s employment of 1.62 million is 16% lower than the state’s civilian workforce before the pandemic of 1.93 million in February 2020. The next biggest gap is in Hawaii at 11.1%.
There is a serious jobs crisis in Connecticut. Inevitably, a shrinking workforce means a shrinking economy.
The jobs crisis should be the number one priority in Hartford. One of the CRT’s many flaws is that it appears to have distracted Connecticut officials from this priority. This is not to downplay the importance of concerns about racial disparities, income inequalities and social justice. This means that the CRT’s prescription on reverse racism is flawed both as a cure and as a distraction from an essential part of any cure – jobs.
There can be no social justice without jobs and without a healthy economy.
Red Jahncke (Twitter: @RedJahncke) is President of The Townsend Group Intl. LLC, a Connecticut business consultancy and columnist for Day.
[ad_2]
picture credit