Public schools need to respect and account for it in their behavior and curriculums.
When I was in elementary school in the '80s, we learned about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement in terms that were unambiguous--King was good, the Civil Rights movement was good, and segregation was bad. This started pretty much as soon as school started. We weren't doing it in kindergarten, but by second grade it was in the curriculum.
This was, obviously, the right thing to teach kids. I mean if someone wants to argue otherwise I can't really stop them, but it was still correct.
I think, along the way, they mentioned that interracial marriage had once been illegal but went away during the Civil Rights movement.[1] If you look at polling from the '80s, less than half of Americans approved of it. It was much less popular than gay marriage is now. Loving v. Virginia was less than 20 years old, more recent than Lawrence v. Texas is now.
Hell, the national holiday for MLK had just been adopted, with a sitting Senator arguing that King should not be honored because of his "Marxism", with 17 other Senators voting alongside him.
We were elementary schoolers. We were being taught a number of things that were still controversial at the time. Our education on such matters was in no way "value neutral": we were actually being instilled, or indoctrinated, with values.
It's just those values were good, and it was good we were indoctrinated with them.
[1] Contemporary Rightwards will object to this on the grounds that it mentions marriage to kids younger than 10, and thus is "grooming" them by exposing them to the existence of a social institution that is inextricably entangled with human sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
The idea that a teacher mentioning their spouse is “inappropriate” is absolutely bizarre and you know it
Teachers have had families forever, have occasionally mentioned them forever, and no one had the slightest problem with it until human garbage like DeSantis needed a wedge issue
I think starting a war for humanitarian reasons is essentially never going to work. Once the war is already happening, assisting one side may well be the right call
It's not just instilling values, though that is part of it.
In our case, I suspect that the teacher was thinking, "Hey, here's a point of view that's popular outside of this little liberal enclave, presented in a very entertaining way, and it would do some good for kids to be exposed to it and get a broader perspective." I never got the impression he was a particularly conservative guy even by our town's standards; he just liked reading this one commentator who was pretty conservative and often very funny.
I think that's a totally appropriate thing for a 9th grade social studies teacher to do. And it became more of a focus each year, as we were increasingly tracked into college prep. In AP European history, we read some Edmund Burke and some Marx, and I'm pretty sure that they weren't presented as anything resembling indoctrination.
Unlike O'Rourke, I am dead certain some parents would have an absolute cow if they learned their student had been assigned reading from The Communist Manifesto in history class, even though I'd say it's one of the most historically important pieces of writing from the 19th century.
And it's extremely strange to read a lot of this stuff from people who then turn around and get extremely upset when kids graduate, go from college, and then don't really have much ability to deal with opposing views, or views that make them uncomfortable. Like, that stuff is a skill, and where the hell are they supposed to learn it?
If it's not high school, why are we expecting to know them to know it when they get to college?
If they don't know it by the time they're in college, when the hell are they going to learn it?
One element of these debates that actually kind of bugs the shit out of me is the role "indoctrination" plays in these debates.
For example, I grew up in a super liberal suburb of Boston in the '90s. When I was in ninth grade, our social studies teacher mentioned that he really liked P. J. O'Rourke and I went out and checked out some books by the O'Rourke, and so did some of my classmates.
Like, I think what my teacher did was extremely obviously fine. I suspect most of the OT commentariat would agree.
But squint a little at it and I could easily see a twitchy parent blowing it up into "indoctrination".
In this case, the claim being made is that Florida schools are teaching inappropriate lessons in sexuality to children.
And the bill’s supporters in the media are claiming that unknown figures are grooming the children for sex.
I know someone is going to object that this is just Twitter, but I don't think it's nutpicking when it's the actual administration official in charge of communicating with the press.
I also don't think it's remotely a coincidence that the Republican Party is looking for ways to paint LGBT folk and anyone cares even slightly about their rights as pedophiles in the post-Q era. They know what their voters like, and what their voters like is pretending they're locked in an apocalyptic struggle against cabals of (((globalists))) who are high on adrenochrome.
I’d think eliminating the threat ambiguity would be a great first step.
A lot—not all, but a lot—of resistance is coming from people on the Left who, with no small justification, believe these pushes are a part of a coherent Rightward campaign to make both homophobia and racism acceptable again.
And while I grant that there were some motte “anti-CRT” bills that really just ban teaching racism, others went full on bailey, in ways that would make it very difficult to teach about why the South started the Civil War.
In general, if you want a political coalition that welcomes people who are worried about the impact DEI is having on their school, there is no connection between those doubts and the poison Christopher Rufo is peddling.
Also, like, I don't believe for a second that, post-Q, it's just a wacky coincidence that scum like DeSantis and Christopher Rufo are pushing the line that their political enemies are all secret pedos.
The CRT thing and this really reflects a mistrust between some parents and schools.
It contributed. I think that's what made it a good political issue for the Right.
Anyway the bills that actually were fine focused on banning stuff that schools absolutely shouldn't teach. They wouldn't have actually banned teaching the actual real thing that is Critical Race Theory, funnily enough, but they would have banned teaching that one race is better than another, to which a natural response is, "Isn't that illegal already?!"
I think given the way the rhetoric that the DeSantis admin is using to push it, and the history of the bill went down in terms of amendments, it's much, much closer to the latter
One thing that sets apart the "Don't Say Gay" bill from the anti-CRT bills from the last year is that it's one single bill that's awful (vague and with an enforcement mechanism that makes it worse).
The anti-CRT bills ran the gamut, with some being quite bad, most being kinda poor, and a couple being Good, Actually.
During a press conference ahead of signing the law, DeSantis said teaching kindergarten-aged kids that “they can be whatever they want to be” was “inappropriate” for children.
Also, I have to say that if they believed any of this crap had legs, they wouldn't be saying it. Fox News depends much more on media companies being able to openly antagonize a major political party than Disney does.
I think it goes something like ‘I don’t care who my neighbor marries but for the life of me I can’t figure out why adding gay representation, no matter how unobtrusive, into early elementary curriculums makes anyone’s list of top 100 priorities for public education.’
Yeah, I buy that as a reasonable enough position, but even there the legislative "Don't Say Gay" push is fundamentally incompatible with, "Eh, who cares?"
I think this is a limiting feature for a lot of Culture Warring, TBH.
It's extremely unclear to me that Team Bad's current take--that mentioning the existence of gay people in front of eight-year-olds is tantamount to child molestation--is all that well aligned to the mainstream either.
Here's the thing: "We should cut back on copyright terms and that will really screw Disney!" is a totally plausible position that would at least work with a Trollface mask, but I haven't seen it in the wild at all because the coalition that wants to screw Disney hates the idea of limiting corporate power.
No, we aren’t going to accomplish a goal worth accomplishing because the coalition that’s trying to accomplish something here is constitutionally incapable of accomplishing a worthwhile goal
On “Florida “Parental Rights in Education” Bill: Read It For Yourself”
Replying to @InMD:
When I was in elementary school in the '80s, we learned about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement in terms that were unambiguous--King was good, the Civil Rights movement was good, and segregation was bad. This started pretty much as soon as school started. We weren't doing it in kindergarten, but by second grade it was in the curriculum.
This was, obviously, the right thing to teach kids. I mean if someone wants to argue otherwise I can't really stop them, but it was still correct.
I think, along the way, they mentioned that interracial marriage had once been illegal but went away during the Civil Rights movement.[1] If you look at polling from the '80s, less than half of Americans approved of it. It was much less popular than gay marriage is now. Loving v. Virginia was less than 20 years old, more recent than Lawrence v. Texas is now.
Hell, the national holiday for MLK had just been adopted, with a sitting Senator arguing that King should not be honored because of his "Marxism", with 17 other Senators voting alongside him.
We were elementary schoolers. We were being taught a number of things that were still controversial at the time. Our education on such matters was in no way "value neutral": we were actually being instilled, or indoctrinated, with values.
It's just those values were good, and it was good we were indoctrinated with them.
[1] Contemporary Rightwards will object to this on the grounds that it mentions marriage to kids younger than 10, and thus is "grooming" them by exposing them to the existence of a social institution that is inextricably entangled with human sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
"
This argument can be used to de-legitimate any right anybody asserts ever.
"
The idea that a teacher mentioning their spouse is “inappropriate” is absolutely bizarre and you know it
Teachers have had families forever, have occasionally mentioned them forever, and no one had the slightest problem with it until human garbage like DeSantis needed a wedge issue
On “Bucha: Russian Retreat Reveals Putin War Crimes”
This is pretty much where I am.
I think starting a war for humanitarian reasons is essentially never going to work. Once the war is already happening, assisting one side may well be the right call
On “Florida “Parental Rights in Education” Bill: Read It For Yourself”
It's not just instilling values, though that is part of it.
In our case, I suspect that the teacher was thinking, "Hey, here's a point of view that's popular outside of this little liberal enclave, presented in a very entertaining way, and it would do some good for kids to be exposed to it and get a broader perspective." I never got the impression he was a particularly conservative guy even by our town's standards; he just liked reading this one commentator who was pretty conservative and often very funny.
I think that's a totally appropriate thing for a 9th grade social studies teacher to do. And it became more of a focus each year, as we were increasingly tracked into college prep. In AP European history, we read some Edmund Burke and some Marx, and I'm pretty sure that they weren't presented as anything resembling indoctrination.
Unlike O'Rourke, I am dead certain some parents would have an absolute cow if they learned their student had been assigned reading from The Communist Manifesto in history class, even though I'd say it's one of the most historically important pieces of writing from the 19th century.
And it's extremely strange to read a lot of this stuff from people who then turn around and get extremely upset when kids graduate, go from college, and then don't really have much ability to deal with opposing views, or views that make them uncomfortable. Like, that stuff is a skill, and where the hell are they supposed to learn it?
If it's not high school, why are we expecting to know them to know it when they get to college?
If they don't know it by the time they're in college, when the hell are they going to learn it?
"
One element of these debates that actually kind of bugs the shit out of me is the role "indoctrination" plays in these debates.
For example, I grew up in a super liberal suburb of Boston in the '90s. When I was in ninth grade, our social studies teacher mentioned that he really liked P. J. O'Rourke and I went out and checked out some books by the O'Rourke, and so did some of my classmates.
Like, I think what my teacher did was extremely obviously fine. I suspect most of the OT commentariat would agree.
But squint a little at it and I could easily see a twitchy parent blowing it up into "indoctrination".
"
Not just their supporters in the media: DeSantis' press secretary said the same thing.
"
I really don’t think InMD could have been much clearer that he doesn’t think laws like the one in FL are a solution to his problem or any other.
"
I’d think eliminating the threat ambiguity would be a great first step.
A lot—not all, but a lot—of resistance is coming from people on the Left who, with no small justification, believe these pushes are a part of a coherent Rightward campaign to make both homophobia and racism acceptable again.
And while I grant that there were some motte “anti-CRT” bills that really just ban teaching racism, others went full on bailey, in ways that would make it very difficult to teach about why the South started the Civil War.
In general, if you want a political coalition that welcomes people who are worried about the impact DEI is having on their school, there is no connection between those doubts and the poison Christopher Rufo is peddling.
"
Also, like, I don't believe for a second that, post-Q, it's just a wacky coincidence that scum like DeSantis and Christopher Rufo are pushing the line that their political enemies are all secret pedos.
"
It contributed. I think that's what made it a good political issue for the Right.
Anyway the bills that actually were fine focused on banning stuff that schools absolutely shouldn't teach. They wouldn't have actually banned teaching the actual real thing that is Critical Race Theory, funnily enough, but they would have banned teaching that one race is better than another, to which a natural response is, "Isn't that illegal already?!"
"
I think given the way the rhetoric that the DeSantis admin is using to push it, and the history of the bill went down in terms of amendments, it's much, much closer to the latter
"
One thing that sets apart the "Don't Say Gay" bill from the anti-CRT bills from the last year is that it's one single bill that's awful (vague and with an enforcement mechanism that makes it worse).
The anti-CRT bills ran the gamut, with some being quite bad, most being kinda poor, and a couple being Good, Actually.
"
It's not obviously not instruction about sexual orientation.
A major problem with the law is vagueness, and that's exacerbated by the way it's enforceable by parental lawsuit.
"
For that matter, can he answer, "My wife's name is Diane?"
"
A teacher goes away on vacation. When he returns, a student asks what he did.
He says, "I got married and went on my honey moon."
A student asks, "What is your wife's name?"
Can he answer, "Actually, he's my husband, and his name is Harvey?"
"
A student during show and tell or the like describes her two fathers, Don and Jon.
Another student is confused and asks a question.
Can the teacher answer?
"
It is also the position of the DeSantis administration that this "inappropriate" lesson is tantamount to sexually abusing children.
DeSantis and his crew are fundamentally wicked people, and treating them as a part of your in-group is at odds with basic decency.
On “Freedom of Speech and the Heckler’s Veto”
There, "your" is key.
Also, I have to say that if they believed any of this crap had legs, they wouldn't be saying it. Fox News depends much more on media companies being able to openly antagonize a major political party than Disney does.
"
Yeah, I buy that as a reasonable enough position, but even there the legislative "Don't Say Gay" push is fundamentally incompatible with, "Eh, who cares?"
I think this is a limiting feature for a lot of Culture Warring, TBH.
"
It's extremely unclear to me that Team Bad's current take--that mentioning the existence of gay people in front of eight-year-olds is tantamount to child molestation--is all that well aligned to the mainstream either.
"
It's very much like "defund" decisively lost the intra-Democratic political fight long before it would matter for inter-party policy positioning.
"
Here's the thing: "We should cut back on copyright terms and that will really screw Disney!" is a totally plausible position that would at least work with a Trollface mask, but I haven't seen it in the wild at all because the coalition that wants to screw Disney hates the idea of limiting corporate power.
"
No, we aren’t going to accomplish a goal worth accomplishing because the coalition that’s trying to accomplish something here is constitutionally incapable of accomplishing a worthwhile goal
"
I have a theory
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