Race Essentialist Curricula

[Morley]

How much do the modern day Italians owe you as an Englishman for the Germanic and Celtic people who were enslaved and forced to labor to help build up the economy of the Roman Empire?

It could be argued that the Celtic and Germanic tribes got their revenge when, over centuries, they sacked Rome and helped bring about the end of the Roman Empire.

I assure you that this didn't take centuries and likely millenia to forget and move on from as does the case of Africans enslaved in the antebellum US.

It hasn't been hundreds or thousands of years since American slaves were freed. If you can endlessly play the victim about the wrongs done to the Confederacy, certainly the descendants of those enslaved by the Confederacy have the right to complain about wrongs done against them in the present day.

What's going on in the US has nothing to do with history.

Yet here you are, with the avatar of a man who's been dead for 160 years, complaining about others' reference to history by talking endlessly about history yourself. You're a pampered, tennis-playing optometrist who laments that he's not a Viking warrior engaging in one-to-one, to-the-death combat; who suggests it would have been great to have been a lost-cause soldier happily picking off fellow Americans. You whine that you would have served your county by going to war--but couldn't because everyone in government and your chain-of-command didn't share your same political beliefs. And then you bitch about others referring to history.

…………..

Maybe Schmo could chime in on this. White spaniards once killed and enslaved brown amerinds. They brought African slaves who were forced to build up Latin American countries without pay. Yet I have never seen any make the argument that modern day latinos with more european DNA owe something to those with less. By in large their accusations of racism ate reserved for anglo Americans who had nothing to do with their past mistreatment.

I thought you served a mission in South America? Of course it's an issue. I was in Cusco [not on a mission] when there were marches demanding equal treatment for native peoples there.

And no, it's not about DNA measurements; it's about socially constructed culture. But you know that.

…………

And the truth is the confederates lost everything after the civil war. Like freed African American slaves they started from zero in 1865.

You're being offensively ridiculous. You're saying that every house in the South was burned? That every plot of land owned by a Confederate was confiscated by the North? That every family was killed? You're comparing a people who were defeated in war to another group whom these same people brutally enslaved.

Those enslaved people were bred like livestock, worked like farm animals, forced to abandon their native languages and culture, could be raped and beaten at will, and were not allowed to own property or determine whom they would marry. They did not enter the period at the end of the war with the same status as white Southerners.

My reaction to your disgusting and ill-founded victimhood and sense of entitlement is something I can't express without lapsing into prolonged and profound vulgarity, so I'll step away about here.

[ajax18]

Morley that's I feel about the critical race theory being pushed upon kindergartners by the state in taxpayer funded compulsory schools. Have you read the original article? Have you watched the clips? We'll never agree on this. That's why I say we need a divorce due to irreconcilable differences.

[Morley]

Morley that's I feel about the critical race theory being pushed upon kindergartners by the state in taxpayer funded compulsory schools. Have you read the original article? Have you watched the clips? We'll never agree on this. That's why I say we need a divorce due to irreconcilable differences.

Have you read it, yourself? These are private schools. The state has little control over their curriculum. It's the market economy you claim to cherish.


edit to add: Taxpayer financing of private schools is a stance that most conservatives support. Personally, I agree with you, in that I don't think any private school should enjoy state funding.

[ajax18]

You're being offensively ridiculous. You're saying that every house in the South was burned? That every plot of land owned by a Confederate was confiscated by the North? That every family was killed? You're comparing a people who were defeated in war to another group whom these same people brutally enslaved.

Can you see why I might take offense to my kids being taught that every discrepancy between black and white is due to racist white people? Any stat that shows blacks have a lower income, higher number of people on welfare, higher number of people incarcerated, suspended more often at school. That can have nothing to do with personal choice or culture. All problems in the black community can only be due to white people or their ancestors. I find that offensively ridiculous.

[Kishkumen]

Ajax, I am not sure why you are up in arms over an organization of independent--i.e., non-public--schools teaching critical race theory. Just don't send your kids to those independent schools. Are you going to flip out if Montessori schools teach yoga? What next?

[Chap]

Somehow, I think this belongs here.

I wonder how Ajax would have replied to the letter-writer?

The painful, cutting and brilliant letters Black people wrote to their former enslavers

He knows to the nearest dollar how much his former owner owes him for all those years of unpaid labor.

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir:
I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.

Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what “the good chance” is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane, and Grundy, go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master.

Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future.

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio.

If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die, if it come to that, than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.

You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson

P.S.— Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.


Anderson’s former enslaver was forced to sell his plantation and died a few years later at 44. Anderson lived a long life, had 11 children with his wife and became a sexton in his church.

[Philo Sofee]

Somehow, I think this belongs here.

I wonder how Ajax would have replied to the letter-writer?

The painful, cutting and brilliant letters Black people wrote to their former enslavers

He knows to the nearest dollar how much his former owner owes him for all those years of unpaid labor.

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir:
I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.

Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what “the good chance” is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane, and Grundy, go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master.

Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future.

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio.

If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die, if it come to that, than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.

You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson

P.S.— Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.


Anderson’s former enslaver was forced to sell his plantation and died a few years later at 44. Anderson lived a long life, had 11 children with his wife and became a sexton in his church.

Thanks for sharing this. It is quite poignant Chap! Things like this are so enlightening to the rest of us as to our stations in life, and why we truly need to be grateful.

[canpakes]

In the same lecture, the speaker says later that “indigenizing the classroom” also includes avoiding terms that she perceives as “capitalistic,” such as the word “goal.”

“Often in education we talk about ‘learning goals’ or ‘learning targets,’ and a part of indigenizing the classroom is also breaking down how … we view our classroom culture. So that word ‘goal’ to me feels very corporate and very capitalistic … so instead I really would like to flip that and use the word ‘intention,’” the lecturer explains.

ajax, what is it specifically about this approach or phrasing that you are taking issue with?

A separate session presented at the 2021 conference features a slide titled, “Burn crap Down,” with a lecturer who describes herself as a vice principal urging educators to “[recognize] when systems are broken and [imagine] something new,” including examples such as “designing equitable grading practices.”

Do you believe that this message to ‘Burn crap Down’ is to be interpreted as a literal promotion of arson?

[ajax18]

What do you think they mean by equitable grading practices? It sounds like their idea that one right answer is white supremacism. If that's true maybe schools really do need to be segregated because learning math umder such a skewed woke bias is impossible for everyone at that point.

[Kishkumen]

What do you think they mean by equitable grading practices? It sounds like their idea that one right answer is white supremacism. If that's true maybe schools really do need to be segregated because learning math umder such a skewed woke bias is impossible for everyone at that point.

Do you have kids in school or something? Grandkids? Are they being taught critical race theory? Where is the urgent fire to put out?