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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31611 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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This is a pretty low-effort hot take. You aren't even talking about teaching Critical Racial Theory, you're just broadly asserting that "teaching African-American history" is equivalent to teaching QAnon conspiracy theories. This is inflammatory enough that you should at least make some effort to justify such a claim.

The course, as many have pointed out, is "African-American studies", not "African-American history". The assertion that teaching X-studies (also known as "grievance studies") is equivalent to teaching QAnon conspiracy theories is far less controversial and far easier to support than that "African-American studies". That is, the problem isn't that it's about black people; the problem is that it's grievance studies.

Your reprimand is both based on a false premise and undeserved.

Your reprimand is both based on a false premise and undeserved.

Swap "studies" for "history" and my reprimand remains unchanged.

You can post all the criticism of "grievance studies" you like. You just can't drop sneering hot takes. You, certainly, should know this.

Swap "studies" for "history" and my reprimand remains unchanged.

Which is just you being unwilling to admit error, because the difference is significant.

Which is just you being unwilling to admit error, because the difference is significant.

Funny, then, that I actually used the word "studies" in the same post you are whining about. But do go on with your bad faith nitpicking over a word and pretending that you actually believe I don't know the difference.

Edit: This post, where I clarified. In the original warning, I did say "history." If I went back and rewrote it to say "studies," I would still write the same warning.

It's certainly higher status, but the way African-American history seems to be taught in the states is that it's inextricably linked with the idea of omnipresent, shadowy conspiracy of white supremacists - and one that wasn't comprehensively destroyed by the Civil Rights Act.

Now, I personally think it wasn't a 'conspiracy' just white people acting in their own self interest in excluding a racial group with a roughly 10x higher propensity for violent crime from their neighborhoods. (the homicide ratio between black/white is fairly constant through time btw, as if it were more a function of innate aggression and impulsivity rather than something environmental).

If you don't believe black people are that violent, or that the exclusion is just in some way, it can look like a conspiracy. We know that black people have a particularly optimistic and rosy view of themselves, and are least likely to suicide out of all major ethnic groups.

But given what has happened to many cities since the Civil Right Act has passed, it's clear that 'White Supremacy' has no power in the US, and teaching people that such a nebulous and nefarious and powerful group is still out there, conspiring and harming black people is really quite similar to QAnon.

(which in my opinion is a false theory promoted by some psyop outfit[1] designed, among other things to absolutely muddy anything and everything to do with actual pedophile conspiracies which undoubtedly exist but are modest in extent and not all powerful, just middling important. Because everyone who starts writing anything about pedo influence networks and allows any feedback will have to contest with 50 excitable QAnon morons driving the signal/noise ratio to shit.)

[1]: I believe the 'psyop origin' because QAnon posited there are 'good insiders' trying to save the US, and you just have to wait a bit and they'll fix things. Preaching passivity.

They didn't say that ~'if you want to fix things, you should get care about local politics, go into politics if you are well established, don't do stupid things, try to get as much power for your party, support police, fight against Soros prosecutors, destroy the Con inc grift' etc which are actually important endeavors needed for true regime reform in the US.

Really? I'd think the hot take would be that any critical studies curriculum is utter garbage would be the default anywhere that isn't a left wing echo chamber. But lets examine.

The College Board has refused to pre-release its entire curriculum. Red flag.

African American Studies courses typically taught in colleges are almost universally utilizing CRT and are pro-socialism and communism.

Lets start with the Wiki, go to the history portion:

A specific aim and objective of this interdisciplinary field of study is to help students broaden their knowledge of the worldwide human experience by presenting an aspect of that experience—the Black Experience—which has traditionally been neglected or distorted by educational institutions.

Oh, so the whole endeavor is, indeed, founded on a conspiracy theory.

Now, its quite hard to get detailed course curriculum/syllabi for the entry level courses at most the major universities I looked at from their websites. Here's one of the more detailed ones I can find from a large uni Georgetown.

The introduction to African American Studies, which currently satisfies a General Education Requirement, traces the African American experience, which spans four hundred years from the colonization of the US and the installation of trans-Atlantic slavery to the present day. Throughout their expansive history, African Americans have consistently created modes of self-fashioning even in the midst of institutionalized anti-black racism. African Americans developed rituals, traditions, music, art, dance, literature, and spiritual practices; kinship structures and communities; and political and social theories and practices that negotiate the contradiction at the core of the uneven experience of US democracy.

Through an examination of primary and secondary sources, this course will introduce students to the distinct epistemologies and methodologies of African American Studies. As Robin D. G. Kelley states, African American Studies “interrogate[s] the construction of race, the persistence of inequality, and the process by which the category of ‘black’ or ‘African’ came into being as a chief feature of Western thought. Students learn how slavery was central to the emergence of capitalism and modernity, presenting political and moral philosophers their most fundamental challenge.” Organized chronologically, the course begins with the historical and philosophical foundations to modern black experience from slavery to the Harlem Renaissance. The course then takes up how black thought and political action shaped the years from the Great Depression to the present.

So even in this brief introduction we are introduced to a wild eyed conspiracy theory.

Here's a syllabus for a course.

Kimberle Crenshaw, University of Chicago Legal Forum, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Class: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policy,” pg. 139-167

Week 11: African American LGBTQ Communities

Week 12: African American LGBTQ Communities

So certainly at least one required reading containing a conspiracy theory and two whole weeks dedicated to a highly intersectional topic.

So yes. There is a mountain of evidence the median AA Studies course will teach, as truth, at least one unhinged conspiracy theory. Likely multiple. On top of that if the NRO reporting contains even a grain of truth on this, there is ample amount of space for such things in the college board's course.

Really? I'd think the hot take would be that any critical studies curriculum is utter garbage would be the default anywhere that isn't a left wing echo chamber. But lets examine.

"African-American history" != "critical studies."

So yes. There is a mountain of evidence the median AA Studies course will teach, as truth, at least one unhinged conspiracy theory.

I'm not going to argue with you about whether you've provided a "mountain of evidence" about the "median" AA studies course, only say that your initial post did not even put this much effort into justifying your assertion, and you are like several posters who've been reprimanded recently for assuming that all you have to do is say "African-American" and the most low-effort weakman sneers will speak for themselves.

Students learn how slavery was central to the emergence of capitalism and modernity, presenting political and moral philosophers their most fundamental challenge.”

This is clear nonsense, of marxist origin. Industrial revolution was more likely a product of the conditions: by high rate of savings, enclosures efficiently realloacting workforce into factories, inventiveness enabled by a tolerance for eccentricity and particular features of the UK at the time - lack of manpower, access to coal, lots of flooded mines, rationalism etc.

Slavery was of miniscule importance. What great resource was supplied from the slave areas ? Sugar ?

I guess this comes down to how central you think 'central' implies. Was it the single most important factor? Maybe not. Was it nonetheless important? Yes; the growth of Northern textiles was enabled at least in part by cheap Southern cotton, protected by tariffs.

"Lots of flooded mines" is not really an independent variable. Flooding had been a major limit on how deep mines could be profitably dug for roughly two millennia.

I think the independent variables behind that are the relatively-cold temperatures and the depletion of English forests (creating a demand for coal sufficient to make machine-pumped mines profitable), though I'm not 100% sure.

"African-American history" != "critical studies."

The course, per the OP, and the AP linked article is, "African American studies". So it is not a history class, by title, it is a critical studies class, by title (and probably in truth).

I'm not going to argue with you about whether you've provided a "mountain of evidence" about the "median" AA studies course, only say that your initial post did not even put this much effort into justifying your assertion, and you are like several posters who've been reprimanded recently for assuming that all you have to do is say "African-American" and the most low-effort weakman sneers will speak for themselves.

No. I think the median critical studies class, which this one holds itself out to be, speaks for itself.

So, again. You reprimanded me for 1) Your own inability to distinguish between the words "studies" v. "history"; 2) Not providing evidence that no one in favor of the dubious curricula provided; and 3) Being vaguely racist (or something?).

No, I stated why I reprimanded you. The reprimand stands.

"African-American history" != "critical studies."

I would disagree. While it's theoretically possible (and has existed in the past) for an African-American History course to not be taught from a critical theory persective, the reality is that they have become synonymous in practice. Gender studies, queer studies, indigenous studies etc are all so deeply intertwined with critical theory (I would argue by design) that there is really no distinction to be made in contemporary academia.

As to the original claim being made that these are essentially just left wing conspiracy theories, I agree with that claim though I agree that the poster didn't substantiate their claim with evidence. However, I will offer a piece of evidence - one of the tenants (and there are a lot of conspiratorial ones) of CRT is that liberalism and the Civil Rights Movement basically amounts to a psyop (they wouldn't word it as such) by the White supremacist society to make Black folx think they are no longer oppressed and are equal to Whites but in reality this is just a cover story so Whites can continue to oppress Blacks.

I cite Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic for this.

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