The powerful keep those they exploit from knowing who they are, where they came from and the crimes of the ruling class. As social inequality mounts, so does the campaign to keep us in darkness.
"The poor, especially poor people of color , remain rigidly segregated within educational systems. The backlash against critical race theory (CRT), explorations of LGBTQ+ identities and the banning of books by historians such as Howard Zinn and writers such as Toni Morrison, are extensions of this attempt to deny the oppressed their song."
The postmodernist cultural Marxists in charge of the teachers unions and the k-12 education establishment and connect to the Democrat political machine control this education system and their critical theory ideology calls for segregation and practices it within and without the education system.
These people also align with the globalist corporatist oligarchs that want to insure everyone else joins the black minority on the plantation of dependency while they, along with their partners in the elite ruling class, can continue to consolidate and grow THEIR wealth and power.
The main problem with this article is that it fails to connect the dots to perpetrator of the crimes it trumpets. That is why I just did. You are welcome.
Take away economic opportunity for the masses except for the elites, including destroying the public education system that the masses would otherwise rely on to advance, and then buy the media to point the finger of blame at others... others that are actually similarly victimized by the elites as are the minorities.
Frank - I get tired of your misreadings, which can't be made in good faith at this point:
You claim:
"The main problem with this article is that it fails to connect the dots to perpetrator of the crimes it trumpets. "
How did you possibly miss this:
"Those, like Du Bois, who was blacklisted and driven into exile, who pull the veil from our eyes are especially targeted by the state. Rosa Luxemberg. Eugene V. Debs. Malcolm X. Martin Luther King. Noam Chomsky. Ralph Nader. Cornel West. Julian Assange. Alice Walker. They speak a truth the powerful and the rich do not want heard. They, like Bynum, help us find our song."
"The backlash against critical race theory (CRT), explorations of LGBTQ+ identities and the banning of books by historians such as Howard Zinn and writers such as Toni Morrison, are extensions of this attempt to deny the oppressed their song."
Let me explain. Those that fight against CRT and the woke ideology are in fact attempting to break the economic and educational oppression of the poor and working class that is currently the only real thing holding back the black community. Singing songs of racial and group victimology designed primarily by 3rd wave feminists and weak men will not get the job done.
Everybody wants the same things that you and I have buddy... including our brothers and sisters of the black community. That fact energizes me. I hope it doesn't cause you to worry about the additional competition.
Hard to know what your talking about after the line....slinging songs of racial ad group victimology designed primarily by 3rth wave feminists and weak men....
You realize I assume that patriarchy is at the root of most current problems....if you can look down on your mother or your sister............there's nor arrogance you aren't capable of.
The patriarchy rocks. Built everything around you that you take for granted. If a matriarchal system worked we would have example throughout history. We don't have any.
Perhaps you can't imagine what we might have accomplished if thick witted men hadn't banded together to keep women in the home.........or the nunnery, working for free.
But to continue to argue at this late date that 'patriarchy rocks' is to have Rocks in your head. And testosterone coloured glasses distorting your view.
Aw... there we have it... a 3rd wave feminist. Probably either a lesbian (not that there is anything wrong with that... except if bitter) or resentful that no strong man is interested and thus a man-hating mindset developed.
If you think a world with strong men is dangerous, just wait until it is dominated by weak men.
Exactly....but its difficult trying to be on the side of the angels, when you have so much hatred inside you. The mess the world is in is complex, but unless something is happening in American education that I'm not aware of, as a retired Canadian teacher....this fellow seems to be barking up the traditional American fascistic tree.....
We have the same angry right wingers in Canada. They all expected to get rich off globalism, their gender and skin colour qualified them.........and now they are mad as hell, because for reasons of Marxist fiddling, they've been left out.
"Hatred" LOL. No, I don't hate in politics. I am hear to debate for the benefit of future generations.
I really don't know what you are talking about with "they expected to get rich off globalism". That is inane.
There are two paths... globalist collectivism that you advocate, and democratic nationalism that they advocate. Brexit my dear. Trump. Elections in Italy, England, Sweden... the tide is turning. Canada might be late to the game because it is cold and brain cells are slower to work. But the Trudeau globalists will be ejected too.
It's not inane Frank.....we all bought into globalism at some level at the beginning. Very few saw those free trade deals for the death blows they were to local economies and good working class jobs. Now we're seeing the fall out.
But its complex. And white western patriarchy is part of it...unfortunately. Too few of us had the education to consider that Thatcherism/Reganism was just the latest turn of the imperial screw....we fell for 'wealth creation'....have had to listen to blather about our wonderful 'entreproners'(misspelling intentional) for decades.
Perhaps you and I weren't fooled. But you and I were part of a very small group and most of us did very little. Remember Seattle? I was teaching at the time....and I followed them as much as I had the time to. But did it change anything?
The wealthy class wanted to become Wealth Creators. And we let them.
Now a lot of bad stuff is coming home to roost, and we're doing exactly what the elites want us to do...........moving to the fascistic right, fighting among ourselves, getting our tails in knots about something most of us haven't read...'critical race theory'. Transgender people also knock us over with outrage....
So sex and class still operate to divide us. We get in a dather about stuff that doesn't matter.........look for someone to blame...go off half cocked if anyone suggests an idea we don't have already....
And the saddest, funniest part of it is: We think we are on the side of the angels. But I've got news for all of us: There are no angels.
Just people Frank. ....many of them little children with no future to speak of. Our clever energy entreproners and our rip and ship magnates, will see to that.
While you and I debate straws. And capitalists and fascists duke it out. It's humbug my friend.
LOL. Interesting that you did not try to shame little Adam for the first insult. You lose all credibility for being a high and mighty shame giver of civility when it is only one-sided.
If you stopped bashing those who disagree with you........I'd have done enough good work for one day. The labels flying about in the USA just now are mostly counter productive....and don't actually name anything very real.
Real Marxists abhor postmodernism and its exponents. You are referring to what Marxists call lthe pseudo-left, who are really just bourgeois liberals using socialist jargon to mask their middle-class and postmodernist nonsense.
Yes, that is why I called them cultural Marxists. They share in the common motivation behind all ideological movements... they believe that the change will benefit them in attaining hierarchical power and wealth. The interesting point of history is that no cultural revolution ever succeeds without the support of the elites. That is why there is such uncomfortable, but warm and fuzzy, relations between the cultural Marxists and the economic Marxists. The really notable break in credibility with the economic Marxists is that they hate Trump as much as the cultural Marxists and Trump was/is truly the working-class advocate and against the corporatist cabal of the elites. If the economic Marxists were true to their ideological calling they would have joined the Trump train. They did not and have not, and so there is really not but a hair's width difference between them and the cultural Marxists.
Utter garbage. Pathological liars don't work for anyone, except themselves. They are too far out of the reality loop to know what social justice work looks like. Moreover, they've always found lying works for them so that they don't have to work.
Trump working for the working class!!!! That is hilarious. Although he may have duped some desperate folks into believing he's their man.........he's used their anger and frustration to gain power. That's all.
I'm pretty sure that those fighting against CRT are not "attempting to break the economical and educational oppression of the poor and working class" that you say are "the only thing holding back the black community". I would be interested to hear from you how you believe that critical race theory being taught in colleges is holding back the black community.
Victim mindset. It is the most debilitating malady within the human condition. Tell me I cannot because of discrimination against my racial (or other) identity enough times, and I have a setback or two that I can blame in it, then blame I will. Adversity is the common experience. Those that succeed learn how to cope with it and overcome it. Those that don't tend to blame others for their lack of life satisfaction. However, the ability for low income blacks to advance into the middle class was eroded beginning in the 1970s about the same time that civil rights progress should have opened the door for them. Our stupid trade policies that were basically Wall Street and big corporation demands for them to access cheap foreign labor were basically an Eff You to the American poor and working class. Add the flood of cheap labor from the southern border... and the black community destructed because men could no longer find work to provide for their families. Then Democrats exploded the welfare state to lock them into a cycle of government dependency.
Blacks are victims, but not from racism today. They are victims of the elites and Democrats who have systematically ripped out all the paths for them to attain a good economic life. And the social decay, including all the crime, is a consequence of that.
I'm not sure that you and I can equate our experiences of adversity with those that most, possibly all, black americans have encountered. I don't agree with "adversity (as) the common experience" in that context. A setback or two is one thing; the racist culture that black americans have historically had to contend with day to day is another. How dim would you have to be as a black american to be unaware of the cultural and financial friction that historically racist systems apply to your 'upward mobility' as you attempt to make your way in the world? It is difficult enough to make your way up in a competitive environment without the added weight of discrimination and worse.
You mentioned that transnational capitalists have betrayed the working class in the US. That is true. The first wave though, was the de-industrialization starting in the early sixties. The black middle class was the first to go. The welfare state was introduced to replace industrial employment. I noticed this as a young person growing up in San Francisco.
As to the southern border: the horse has already left the barn as far as industry in america is concerned. The murderous coup that H. Clinton and other villains facilitated in Honduras is driving victims of violence to our borders.
I'm not sure that you and I can equate our experiences of adversity with those that most, possibly all, black americans have encountered.”
Naw. In the 80s and 90s I worked in corporate IT. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, female, straight, gay… all professionals. Worked together. Were all friends. We all got promoted based on drive and demonstrated capability. We wondered then what you educated leftist were babbling about. It never made sense. But now it does. Your decades of failed liberal policies decimated the lower class and blacks have been the most hurt. And so you educated left elites came up with a new ideology to blame others. But you are class bigots and always have been. Your guilt about this drives you insane.
‘I don't agree with "adversity (as) the common experience"
Clearly an elite that has not had much diversity to overcome. It is for most people. Especially today… except for most upper middle class females… life is good for them today.
With respect to black Americans, this simply is not reality based on my experience. The only real material bias roadblocks to middle class prosperity other than the Wall Street / globalist-focused elites exporting working class economic opportunity to China and Mexico, are class-related as of the 1970s and 80s... not race. That is the same today. There were and are just too many middle class and upper middle class blacks prominent in and integrated in society for the claim of historical or modern racism still being a cause of black strife. Sorry, but you don't get to carry that through multiple generations as a victim excuse. It is just bullshit. Everyone has challenges and roadblocks. A plump short dude with freckles and red hair would have as much if not more psychical trait discrimination than would someone black. It has been that way for decades since the 80s at least. But blacks are over-represented in lower socioeconomic class. The reason is decades of failed liberal policies that have locked generations in cycles of government benefit dependency combined with the eradication of middle class economic opportunity and crappy schools. Their urban culture and language can be compared to low-class southern whites, who are in the same decline for similar reasons, in terms of access to the keys to prosperity in our modern economy and social system. It is in fact racist to make this claim that blacks today are incapable of achievement because they are victims of the history of their ancestors. It is modern luxury virtue signaling from generally white educated elites that has the same effect if locking those "victims" on a plantation where they, the white educated elites, have to take care of them.
The de-industrialization timing sucked in that it started happening right after our civil rights progress where blacks should have entered the middle class. It was not targeting blacks, it was done by a combination of Wall Street and big corporation financial interest and stupid ivory-tower academics... the former to maximize profit and shareholder value... and the latter with their stupid idea that the US could afford to export middle class prosperity to other counties at the expense of our own middle class so that these other countries would become peaceful economic partners. See China for how fucked up that idea was.
We are not driving victims of violence to our borders as our cities are as violent or more violent than these other countries, and all but a small percentage of the 5+ million of illegals that have come here since Biden are true justified asylum seekers. There are coming here because of our tremendous welfare state. And they have been displacing black and uneducated white economic opportunity by increasing the population of lower-class, uneducated people competing for good paying jobs.
It is possible to tell the truth about racism and the oppressions it kept in place in your country for so long.....AND also see the damage that global free trade has done to the working class.
History is complex and Free Trade globalism fairly young....I don't see why we can't talk about both stories. I fail to understand why so many white guys want to deny the undeniable. Racism exists....the people who chronicle it don't have 'victim mindsets' Frank....that's just a reductive claim that seeks to silence truths the white majority doesn't want to hear.
It's hard to keep up with everything...........but white patriarchs attacking critical race theory..........as if they know better than the people involved what racism is or how it operates.......seems to me to be Racism revised. It's a tad pathetic but hey!!!
Let's just deny racism is the problem. Make 'the victim mindset' the problem....and voila!!!! The working class remains the focus...the white working class.............and we can all vote for the Donald and get things back in line with western theology.
It's not that simple. INJUSTICE NEEDS RACISM.....AND SEXISM... Once true equality is the goal.........the elite that you think you belong to will fade into history as well Frank. Social justice advocates look forward to that.
We all belong.......and our diversity is our strength, not our genitals. And certainly not our skin colour.
There is no material racism causing the low outcomes for blacks. Just look at Asians that had to deal with a ton of historical racism. And give me a break about your high and mighty Canadian platform as slavery existed everywhere and it was an industry that existed in Africa way before American was even founded.
The problems we face today with respect to discrimination and bias are 100% class... not race... not gender... not anything else. Trans is a entire different issues as it is considered a fashion choice by many, and not anything else.
Diversity is our strength if only diversity of perspectives serving a common set of goals and national ethos. Multiculturalism is a failure. Globalism is a failure. The large the country the bigger the failure.
When asked by his host Don Lemon what he thought we could do to improve race relations in this country, Morgan Freeman said: "Stop talking about it. Stop calling me and you and black man. We are just a man."
This was the dream... to judge by character and not skin tone. That was the next step to civil rights progress. But then the race conflict industry and Democrats noted how disastrous this would be for their power and bank account, and so off they go to create the perpetual victim narrative of blacks. Meanwhile Asians enjoy outcomes in excess of whites. No material racism... but yes, plenty of material classism.
Real marxists indulge in ideological twaddle sometimes as well. Purity of mind and intention is all very well.....but when it assumes anyone with a different perspective is 'using socialist jargon' its just revealing its own narrow mind. Where I come from, very few were 'real marxists' (a few were), but we created a single payer medical system that expanded to our entire country and has kept us in better health than most Americans can imagine.
Tacking a label on our lapel and going off on a shooting spree of everyone who doesn't have that label is purity at its most deadly. What you folks south of our border need is more solidarity ....and less in fighting. You know an interesting thing....our national health authority recently did a study on the results of the pandemic. They claim that had we just done what Americans did in Canada, over 70,000 more Canadians would have died.
If more of you Americans knew less and acted more.......you wouldn't still be living in the 19th C. when it comes to health care. Real Marxists!!?? You've failed miserably.
My healthcare is marvelous. The best in the world. Rich Canadians come here to get it when they need it.
I do agree that we folks south of the border need more solidity. The problem is that we have exported too much economic opportunity and imported too many poor and uneducated people from other places. We have become too big to govern.
Canada works sort of because is it is still generally low population density and with a small enough population that it can be governed. If you look at all the countries that liberals laud as great places, they are all generally small population places with low population density.
"Your health care' is not the issue Frank.......though you likely will have trouble getting that. You had the highest death toll from the pandemic of all western countries........and you had those results in part because Americans like you 'with excellent health care' don't give a hoot about the capitalist rip off that is private insurance in your imperial state.
We had the highest per-capital REPORTED death toll as we have a lot of fat and unhealthy people that died from COVID and a lot of young and healthy people are still dying from the mandated jabs the the harm caused by the draconian lockdowns and restrictions.
Insurance isn't the problem. High healthcare costs are related to the fact that US medical employees are the highest paid in the industrialized world, and our medical advances are the best in the industrialized world.
Canadian wait times for specialty procedures are some of the longest in the OECD world. Wealthy Canadians just come to the US for the procedures.
Dumb right wing anti science. You had more deaths because you have 1. more anti vaccer, anti science know nothings and 2. less robust public health. A third possibility is that more of you think freedom is some kind of absolute and no one can make you do squat.
You're an essentially unequal free enterprise system..........and as for how high your medical personnel are paid.......that's likely hokem too. Stats don't lie my dear......Americans died like flies during the worst of the pandemic....
But Americans don't care; they'll just twist the data and claim it isn't so.
Chris, I have to disagree with you about critical race theory. Along with the World Socialist Web Site, I contend that CRT is an offshoot of the NYT's 1619 Project, and the 1619 Project is a massive falsification of history. I agree with the rest of your article, regarding the fact that it was a crime to teach a slave to read in the South. And segregating schools was a continuation of that idea by making it extremely difficult for people of color to get an educaation. But identity politics of any kind are anathema to Marxists, whether it be CRT, MeToo, or LGBTQ+ (and their time-wasting obsession with "correct pronouns"). These separatist movements divide the working class, much to the delight of the ruling class.
Carolyn, Can you provide an example of where the 1619 Project falsified history? Just one example is enough. I want to avoid blind faith (in anything) and so I welcome examples that help me spot propaganda. I read the original 1619 Project in the NYT and am now reading the book for a book discussion group. I have not found falsifications but that does not mean there aren’t any. I welcome a chance to be critical--it will help me learn--and I can bring it up in our discussion group which is meeting this Friday.
Probably no examples. It is just fashionable to criticize good works without any evidence. Remember the great Howard Zinn. I'm not a very well informed person so I don't know of negative reactions toward "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson which is an interesting and credible comparison between the caste systems of India, Nazi Germany and our America that taught me a lot that I suspect many of the commentators here don't want to know.
100%. I work in a juvenile jail in Maine and run the college program there. Most of my students didn’t think that they would graduate from high school let alone contemplate college. It’s sad to watch them leave and go back to exactly what brought them into the system in the first place.
We can all speak our truths........sing our song........as that playrite urged us to do so many years ago. Truth and social justice are beautiful melodies.........we shouldn't hide them under a bushel...or a false sense of modesty.
Thank you. Another brilliant article. Couldn't agree more. I read your recent book (Our Class) on your prison work and found it enlightening and inspiring. Very grateful for all you do.
Teaching true history cannot be racist at all. What bothers me is the increasing censoring in the teaching institutions. The youth at college level should be already capable of deciding by themselves which points of view are the most valid. Teaching me that slavery and Jim Crow were immoral should not make me feel ashamed of being white because I didn't participate in these crimes. What I should be ashamed of is to support the suppression of truth.
Thanks for this.......I'm going to read some crt....I have phd work behind me and can read complex theoretical material. But from outside this debate....which seems a tad silly to me.....it seems obvious that you can't deny the history of racism in the United States.. And to look critically at that history is certainly not racist. I'm a bit sceptical because as a woman who lived through the feminist years.........it was almost laughable how the gender that kept women out of professional gathering spaces like our Petroleum Club....for years........was quick to call sexism if abuse victims wanted to have meetings that excluded men.
Sometimes the demographic that benefitted from certain exclusions is pretty thin skinned about being called out on anything that names them part of the problem.
Double standards are held easily by the privileged.
A shortcut would be to look at John McWorter’s “it bears mentioning” substack. He was sterilizing his book, 6 chapters as I remember. He gave it up when he was hired by the New York Times but it’s still available for free (I think).
Congratulations on the PhD what an accomplishment! I almost got my honours BA from York University in Toronto.
If you're as young as I suspect....finish it. The Phd classes changed me...even though it made no difference in the pay I received when I went back teaching high school. Learning is a wonderful longevity activity. Our mind craves it.
I’ll probably go back and do the last two courses - both electives - I have 18 of 20 credits for an honours BA in history and humanities, (aka an Uber driver). As for a PHD, you should be proud!
I am 58, but young at heart, that’s must be what you sensed.
I have tried to get people to listen and read some of the works that Chris and others make available to us. But people get about a paragraph into it and they throw up their hands and go this is too heady and they stop.
I really think that some of these words should be abridged so as to make them more easily understandable by the very people you're discussing who may not have the privilege of education.
This would include a culmination of all of your work and the work of all the great authors in this country and world. But really narrowed down to basic facts.
It would start out with; Here is a list of the giant businesses who run our country. They throw their people in Washington called lobbyists and their big money to get the politicians to do their work because without the money that they give to the politicians, the politicians are not getting reelected and of course politicians want to keep their jobs, it's only normal. So that's why and how these giant businesses run the country.
Then, here's a list of the names of rich and powerful people who do not want regular people educated because it helps them.
By having most of the people going through our school system have as little education as possible, that helps them. That is why they ban books and educational materials that have anything to do with what's really going on in this world today. That's also why they have their kids go to privy little private schools that regular people do not have access to.
One of the most important things these rich and powerful people and the giant companies believe in is, a very strong prison system and a very weak school system. They want as many people to be the underdogs of the world because it keeps them in power.
The same way the giant businesses have lobbyists they have lobbyists as well and they have good buddies that keep the system as it is.
So the less regular people know about how big money and big power run this country the more successful they will stay and they are very successful.
I know that many of you know these things in your hearts but I think it's important that we put names to those who have their thumbs on us.
Even though many of our founding fathers were slave owners they said something very important "We the people". They didn't know America's was going to end up the way it is now, but we are the people our vote matters, our opinion matters and we should never let the giant companies or the very rich and powerful tell us how to be.
By having a better education system and a better understanding of how things are, we and the country would be a much better place for everybody, including the very rich and the big companies. There's nothing wrong with them that's just how they protect themselves they are just wrong, thinking that they need to control everything at any price no matter who gets squashed.
This is just my opinion and the big question would be, how to get this information to a broader audience so that more people would understand what's really going on.
I understand so much more than I did 5 years ago when I first started listening to Chris and his voice opened up a plethora of voices that help me understand the truth better than NPR ever did in the 30 years I've been listening to them. Seek out Democracy Now they are not afraid of having true voices heard.
Thank you very much. It is never explained WHY such pathological hate of democratic capitalist Russia and total support of Nazi-dominated Ukraine government !!
Roots for this propaganda predate the Russia-gate FBI-DNC hoax and FBI 2020 election theft.
Stand with Russia – it fights for all of us against bipartisan fascist US/UK warmongering clique.
Jacob Dreizin – Oct. 13 – Racism and anti-Semitism in Ukraine
Checked it out but didn't finish it.......when a news site keeps calling someone dumb with next to no evidence, I pretty quickly figure out who's dumb. I even start getting a sense of who they might work for, but my IQ and educational qualifications have rendered me incapable of continuing to read drivel. If there's little substance in the first few paragraphs (in this case mostly single sentences) I can't go on.
Having re read this report, I am even more shocked by the forces of denial. Education should be the next thing to free.........for all students who show ability. Prosperous societies need well educated workers....and there are lots of studies that show rising inequality leads to everything but social prosperity. Fear grows with rising inequality, life expectancy falls, violence accelerates, loneliness increases. An interesting study THE SPIRIT LEVEL...documents the differences in quality of life, contrasting societies like the Scandinavian countries with more 'competitive, free market' social models............it also contrasts blue and red states in the US of A.....and the data is consistent.
Social inequality leads to bad outcomes for everyone. That a right wing, mean spirited little band of billionaires and their cheerleaders, continues to create the ignorance and poverty that Chris documents here.......is a crime.
Know it all-ism is mentioned in this report. Knowitallism is a sign of a bad education system....where bullies who haven't read much, dictate to all our children what they will NOT be able to read or view or study.
That is a crime. That its committed by folks who want to erase the history of American racism, classism and sexism seems apparent. More of us who have managed to gain access to a good education need to step up, speak up and become politically active.
Ignorance won't save us. And tolerating bigotry isn't tolerance....its cowardice.
Spin baby spin!
"The poor, especially poor people of color , remain rigidly segregated within educational systems. The backlash against critical race theory (CRT), explorations of LGBTQ+ identities and the banning of books by historians such as Howard Zinn and writers such as Toni Morrison, are extensions of this attempt to deny the oppressed their song."
The postmodernist cultural Marxists in charge of the teachers unions and the k-12 education establishment and connect to the Democrat political machine control this education system and their critical theory ideology calls for segregation and practices it within and without the education system.
These people also align with the globalist corporatist oligarchs that want to insure everyone else joins the black minority on the plantation of dependency while they, along with their partners in the elite ruling class, can continue to consolidate and grow THEIR wealth and power.
The main problem with this article is that it fails to connect the dots to perpetrator of the crimes it trumpets. That is why I just did. You are welcome.
Take away economic opportunity for the masses except for the elites, including destroying the public education system that the masses would otherwise rely on to advance, and then buy the media to point the finger of blame at others... others that are actually similarly victimized by the elites as are the minorities.
Frank - I get tired of your misreadings, which can't be made in good faith at this point:
You claim:
"The main problem with this article is that it fails to connect the dots to perpetrator of the crimes it trumpets. "
How did you possibly miss this:
"Those, like Du Bois, who was blacklisted and driven into exile, who pull the veil from our eyes are especially targeted by the state. Rosa Luxemberg. Eugene V. Debs. Malcolm X. Martin Luther King. Noam Chomsky. Ralph Nader. Cornel West. Julian Assange. Alice Walker. They speak a truth the powerful and the rich do not want heard. They, like Bynum, help us find our song."
Please just stop.
Hey Bill. How are ya? I hope well.
Did you miss this part:
"The backlash against critical race theory (CRT), explorations of LGBTQ+ identities and the banning of books by historians such as Howard Zinn and writers such as Toni Morrison, are extensions of this attempt to deny the oppressed their song."
Let me explain. Those that fight against CRT and the woke ideology are in fact attempting to break the economic and educational oppression of the poor and working class that is currently the only real thing holding back the black community. Singing songs of racial and group victimology designed primarily by 3rd wave feminists and weak men will not get the job done.
Everybody wants the same things that you and I have buddy... including our brothers and sisters of the black community. That fact energizes me. I hope it doesn't cause you to worry about the additional competition.
CRT is nonsense
Bet you haven't even read any of it.
Hard to know what your talking about after the line....slinging songs of racial ad group victimology designed primarily by 3rth wave feminists and weak men....
You realize I assume that patriarchy is at the root of most current problems....if you can look down on your mother or your sister............there's nor arrogance you aren't capable of.
The patriarchy rocks. Built everything around you that you take for granted. If a matriarchal system worked we would have example throughout history. We don't have any.
Violence works for sure. Up to a point.
Perhaps you can't imagine what we might have accomplished if thick witted men hadn't banded together to keep women in the home.........or the nunnery, working for free.
But to continue to argue at this late date that 'patriarchy rocks' is to have Rocks in your head. And testosterone coloured glasses distorting your view.
Aw... there we have it... a 3rd wave feminist. Probably either a lesbian (not that there is anything wrong with that... except if bitter) or resentful that no strong man is interested and thus a man-hating mindset developed.
If you think a world with strong men is dangerous, just wait until it is dominated by weak men.
Exactly....but its difficult trying to be on the side of the angels, when you have so much hatred inside you. The mess the world is in is complex, but unless something is happening in American education that I'm not aware of, as a retired Canadian teacher....this fellow seems to be barking up the traditional American fascistic tree.....
We have the same angry right wingers in Canada. They all expected to get rich off globalism, their gender and skin colour qualified them.........and now they are mad as hell, because for reasons of Marxist fiddling, they've been left out.
As if...!
"Hatred" LOL. No, I don't hate in politics. I am hear to debate for the benefit of future generations.
I really don't know what you are talking about with "they expected to get rich off globalism". That is inane.
There are two paths... globalist collectivism that you advocate, and democratic nationalism that they advocate. Brexit my dear. Trump. Elections in Italy, England, Sweden... the tide is turning. Canada might be late to the game because it is cold and brain cells are slower to work. But the Trudeau globalists will be ejected too.
It's not inane Frank.....we all bought into globalism at some level at the beginning. Very few saw those free trade deals for the death blows they were to local economies and good working class jobs. Now we're seeing the fall out.
But its complex. And white western patriarchy is part of it...unfortunately. Too few of us had the education to consider that Thatcherism/Reganism was just the latest turn of the imperial screw....we fell for 'wealth creation'....have had to listen to blather about our wonderful 'entreproners'(misspelling intentional) for decades.
Perhaps you and I weren't fooled. But you and I were part of a very small group and most of us did very little. Remember Seattle? I was teaching at the time....and I followed them as much as I had the time to. But did it change anything?
The wealthy class wanted to become Wealth Creators. And we let them.
Now a lot of bad stuff is coming home to roost, and we're doing exactly what the elites want us to do...........moving to the fascistic right, fighting among ourselves, getting our tails in knots about something most of us haven't read...'critical race theory'. Transgender people also knock us over with outrage....
So sex and class still operate to divide us. We get in a dather about stuff that doesn't matter.........look for someone to blame...go off half cocked if anyone suggests an idea we don't have already....
And the saddest, funniest part of it is: We think we are on the side of the angels. But I've got news for all of us: There are no angels.
Just people Frank. ....many of them little children with no future to speak of. Our clever energy entreproners and our rip and ship magnates, will see to that.
While you and I debate straws. And capitalists and fascists duke it out. It's humbug my friend.
If utter incoherence is the goal here, well played sir!
It is over your head. But I am sure a lot of things are over your head.
Insult masquerading as brains. Smart people don't talk like this. Try to be civil in your posts.
LOL. Interesting that you did not try to shame little Adam for the first insult. You lose all credibility for being a high and mighty shame giver of civility when it is only one-sided.
If you stopped bashing those who disagree with you........I'd have done enough good work for one day. The labels flying about in the USA just now are mostly counter productive....and don't actually name anything very real.
Real Marxists abhor postmodernism and its exponents. You are referring to what Marxists call lthe pseudo-left, who are really just bourgeois liberals using socialist jargon to mask their middle-class and postmodernist nonsense.
Yes, that is why I called them cultural Marxists. They share in the common motivation behind all ideological movements... they believe that the change will benefit them in attaining hierarchical power and wealth. The interesting point of history is that no cultural revolution ever succeeds without the support of the elites. That is why there is such uncomfortable, but warm and fuzzy, relations between the cultural Marxists and the economic Marxists. The really notable break in credibility with the economic Marxists is that they hate Trump as much as the cultural Marxists and Trump was/is truly the working-class advocate and against the corporatist cabal of the elites. If the economic Marxists were true to their ideological calling they would have joined the Trump train. They did not and have not, and so there is really not but a hair's width difference between them and the cultural Marxists.
Utter garbage. Pathological liars don't work for anyone, except themselves. They are too far out of the reality loop to know what social justice work looks like. Moreover, they've always found lying works for them so that they don't have to work.
Trump working for the working class!!!! That is hilarious. Although he may have duped some desperate folks into believing he's their man.........he's used their anger and frustration to gain power. That's all.
The party line
Frank Lee speaks for me!
I'm pretty sure that those fighting against CRT are not "attempting to break the economical and educational oppression of the poor and working class" that you say are "the only thing holding back the black community". I would be interested to hear from you how you believe that critical race theory being taught in colleges is holding back the black community.
Victim mindset. It is the most debilitating malady within the human condition. Tell me I cannot because of discrimination against my racial (or other) identity enough times, and I have a setback or two that I can blame in it, then blame I will. Adversity is the common experience. Those that succeed learn how to cope with it and overcome it. Those that don't tend to blame others for their lack of life satisfaction. However, the ability for low income blacks to advance into the middle class was eroded beginning in the 1970s about the same time that civil rights progress should have opened the door for them. Our stupid trade policies that were basically Wall Street and big corporation demands for them to access cheap foreign labor were basically an Eff You to the American poor and working class. Add the flood of cheap labor from the southern border... and the black community destructed because men could no longer find work to provide for their families. Then Democrats exploded the welfare state to lock them into a cycle of government dependency.
Blacks are victims, but not from racism today. They are victims of the elites and Democrats who have systematically ripped out all the paths for them to attain a good economic life. And the social decay, including all the crime, is a consequence of that.
I'm not sure that you and I can equate our experiences of adversity with those that most, possibly all, black americans have encountered. I don't agree with "adversity (as) the common experience" in that context. A setback or two is one thing; the racist culture that black americans have historically had to contend with day to day is another. How dim would you have to be as a black american to be unaware of the cultural and financial friction that historically racist systems apply to your 'upward mobility' as you attempt to make your way in the world? It is difficult enough to make your way up in a competitive environment without the added weight of discrimination and worse.
You mentioned that transnational capitalists have betrayed the working class in the US. That is true. The first wave though, was the de-industrialization starting in the early sixties. The black middle class was the first to go. The welfare state was introduced to replace industrial employment. I noticed this as a young person growing up in San Francisco.
As to the southern border: the horse has already left the barn as far as industry in america is concerned. The murderous coup that H. Clinton and other villains facilitated in Honduras is driving victims of violence to our borders.
Thanks for your considerate thoughts.
I'm not sure that you and I can equate our experiences of adversity with those that most, possibly all, black americans have encountered.”
Naw. In the 80s and 90s I worked in corporate IT. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, female, straight, gay… all professionals. Worked together. Were all friends. We all got promoted based on drive and demonstrated capability. We wondered then what you educated leftist were babbling about. It never made sense. But now it does. Your decades of failed liberal policies decimated the lower class and blacks have been the most hurt. And so you educated left elites came up with a new ideology to blame others. But you are class bigots and always have been. Your guilt about this drives you insane.
‘I don't agree with "adversity (as) the common experience"
Clearly an elite that has not had much diversity to overcome. It is for most people. Especially today… except for most upper middle class females… life is good for them today.
With respect to black Americans, this simply is not reality based on my experience. The only real material bias roadblocks to middle class prosperity other than the Wall Street / globalist-focused elites exporting working class economic opportunity to China and Mexico, are class-related as of the 1970s and 80s... not race. That is the same today. There were and are just too many middle class and upper middle class blacks prominent in and integrated in society for the claim of historical or modern racism still being a cause of black strife. Sorry, but you don't get to carry that through multiple generations as a victim excuse. It is just bullshit. Everyone has challenges and roadblocks. A plump short dude with freckles and red hair would have as much if not more psychical trait discrimination than would someone black. It has been that way for decades since the 80s at least. But blacks are over-represented in lower socioeconomic class. The reason is decades of failed liberal policies that have locked generations in cycles of government benefit dependency combined with the eradication of middle class economic opportunity and crappy schools. Their urban culture and language can be compared to low-class southern whites, who are in the same decline for similar reasons, in terms of access to the keys to prosperity in our modern economy and social system. It is in fact racist to make this claim that blacks today are incapable of achievement because they are victims of the history of their ancestors. It is modern luxury virtue signaling from generally white educated elites that has the same effect if locking those "victims" on a plantation where they, the white educated elites, have to take care of them.
The de-industrialization timing sucked in that it started happening right after our civil rights progress where blacks should have entered the middle class. It was not targeting blacks, it was done by a combination of Wall Street and big corporation financial interest and stupid ivory-tower academics... the former to maximize profit and shareholder value... and the latter with their stupid idea that the US could afford to export middle class prosperity to other counties at the expense of our own middle class so that these other countries would become peaceful economic partners. See China for how fucked up that idea was.
We are not driving victims of violence to our borders as our cities are as violent or more violent than these other countries, and all but a small percentage of the 5+ million of illegals that have come here since Biden are true justified asylum seekers. There are coming here because of our tremendous welfare state. And they have been displacing black and uneducated white economic opportunity by increasing the population of lower-class, uneducated people competing for good paying jobs.
It is possible to tell the truth about racism and the oppressions it kept in place in your country for so long.....AND also see the damage that global free trade has done to the working class.
History is complex and Free Trade globalism fairly young....I don't see why we can't talk about both stories. I fail to understand why so many white guys want to deny the undeniable. Racism exists....the people who chronicle it don't have 'victim mindsets' Frank....that's just a reductive claim that seeks to silence truths the white majority doesn't want to hear.
It's hard to keep up with everything...........but white patriarchs attacking critical race theory..........as if they know better than the people involved what racism is or how it operates.......seems to me to be Racism revised. It's a tad pathetic but hey!!!
Let's just deny racism is the problem. Make 'the victim mindset' the problem....and voila!!!! The working class remains the focus...the white working class.............and we can all vote for the Donald and get things back in line with western theology.
It's not that simple. INJUSTICE NEEDS RACISM.....AND SEXISM... Once true equality is the goal.........the elite that you think you belong to will fade into history as well Frank. Social justice advocates look forward to that.
We all belong.......and our diversity is our strength, not our genitals. And certainly not our skin colour.
There is no material racism causing the low outcomes for blacks. Just look at Asians that had to deal with a ton of historical racism. And give me a break about your high and mighty Canadian platform as slavery existed everywhere and it was an industry that existed in Africa way before American was even founded.
The problems we face today with respect to discrimination and bias are 100% class... not race... not gender... not anything else. Trans is a entire different issues as it is considered a fashion choice by many, and not anything else.
Diversity is our strength if only diversity of perspectives serving a common set of goals and national ethos. Multiculturalism is a failure. Globalism is a failure. The large the country the bigger the failure.
When asked by his host Don Lemon what he thought we could do to improve race relations in this country, Morgan Freeman said: "Stop talking about it. Stop calling me and you and black man. We are just a man."
This was the dream... to judge by character and not skin tone. That was the next step to civil rights progress. But then the race conflict industry and Democrats noted how disastrous this would be for their power and bank account, and so off they go to create the perpetual victim narrative of blacks. Meanwhile Asians enjoy outcomes in excess of whites. No material racism... but yes, plenty of material classism.
Real marxists indulge in ideological twaddle sometimes as well. Purity of mind and intention is all very well.....but when it assumes anyone with a different perspective is 'using socialist jargon' its just revealing its own narrow mind. Where I come from, very few were 'real marxists' (a few were), but we created a single payer medical system that expanded to our entire country and has kept us in better health than most Americans can imagine.
Tacking a label on our lapel and going off on a shooting spree of everyone who doesn't have that label is purity at its most deadly. What you folks south of our border need is more solidarity ....and less in fighting. You know an interesting thing....our national health authority recently did a study on the results of the pandemic. They claim that had we just done what Americans did in Canada, over 70,000 more Canadians would have died.
If more of you Americans knew less and acted more.......you wouldn't still be living in the 19th C. when it comes to health care. Real Marxists!!?? You've failed miserably.
My healthcare is marvelous. The best in the world. Rich Canadians come here to get it when they need it.
I do agree that we folks south of the border need more solidity. The problem is that we have exported too much economic opportunity and imported too many poor and uneducated people from other places. We have become too big to govern.
Canada works sort of because is it is still generally low population density and with a small enough population that it can be governed. If you look at all the countries that liberals laud as great places, they are all generally small population places with low population density.
"Your health care' is not the issue Frank.......though you likely will have trouble getting that. You had the highest death toll from the pandemic of all western countries........and you had those results in part because Americans like you 'with excellent health care' don't give a hoot about the capitalist rip off that is private insurance in your imperial state.
I repeat: It's not about you.
We had the highest per-capital REPORTED death toll as we have a lot of fat and unhealthy people that died from COVID and a lot of young and healthy people are still dying from the mandated jabs the the harm caused by the draconian lockdowns and restrictions.
Insurance isn't the problem. High healthcare costs are related to the fact that US medical employees are the highest paid in the industrialized world, and our medical advances are the best in the industrialized world.
Canadian wait times for specialty procedures are some of the longest in the OECD world. Wealthy Canadians just come to the US for the procedures.
Dumb right wing anti science. You had more deaths because you have 1. more anti vaccer, anti science know nothings and 2. less robust public health. A third possibility is that more of you think freedom is some kind of absolute and no one can make you do squat.
You're an essentially unequal free enterprise system..........and as for how high your medical personnel are paid.......that's likely hokem too. Stats don't lie my dear......Americans died like flies during the worst of the pandemic....
But Americans don't care; they'll just twist the data and claim it isn't so.
Sucks to be you.
Chris, I have to disagree with you about critical race theory. Along with the World Socialist Web Site, I contend that CRT is an offshoot of the NYT's 1619 Project, and the 1619 Project is a massive falsification of history. I agree with the rest of your article, regarding the fact that it was a crime to teach a slave to read in the South. And segregating schools was a continuation of that idea by making it extremely difficult for people of color to get an educaation. But identity politics of any kind are anathema to Marxists, whether it be CRT, MeToo, or LGBTQ+ (and their time-wasting obsession with "correct pronouns"). These separatist movements divide the working class, much to the delight of the ruling class.
Carolyn, Can you provide an example of where the 1619 Project falsified history? Just one example is enough. I want to avoid blind faith (in anything) and so I welcome examples that help me spot propaganda. I read the original 1619 Project in the NYT and am now reading the book for a book discussion group. I have not found falsifications but that does not mean there aren’t any. I welcome a chance to be critical--it will help me learn--and I can bring it up in our discussion group which is meeting this Friday.
Probably no examples. It is just fashionable to criticize good works without any evidence. Remember the great Howard Zinn. I'm not a very well informed person so I don't know of negative reactions toward "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson which is an interesting and credible comparison between the caste systems of India, Nazi Germany and our America that taught me a lot that I suspect many of the commentators here don't want to know.
100%. I work in a juvenile jail in Maine and run the college program there. Most of my students didn’t think that they would graduate from high school let alone contemplate college. It’s sad to watch them leave and go back to exactly what brought them into the system in the first place.
God bless you for trying....more teachers on the ground and fewer experts on these comment threads, and things would get better.
We can all speak our truths........sing our song........as that playrite urged us to do so many years ago. Truth and social justice are beautiful melodies.........we shouldn't hide them under a bushel...or a false sense of modesty.
Once the aristocracy identified universities specifically and education in general as a threat that must be controlled, it was all over.
During the last 50 years the upward redistribution of wealth in the US has been 50 trillion dollars. https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
It is no accident that so many are being crushed by economic and intellectual poverty.
Thank you. Another brilliant article. Couldn't agree more. I read your recent book (Our Class) on your prison work and found it enlightening and inspiring. Very grateful for all you do.
A very powerful essay!
How can one support your “prison work”?
CRT is racist
Teaching true history cannot be racist at all. What bothers me is the increasing censoring in the teaching institutions. The youth at college level should be already capable of deciding by themselves which points of view are the most valid. Teaching me that slavery and Jim Crow were immoral should not make me feel ashamed of being white because I didn't participate in these crimes. What I should be ashamed of is to support the suppression of truth.
Professor John McWorter did not beat around the bush, his book is called “woke racism”. CRT is racist.
Thanks for this.......I'm going to read some crt....I have phd work behind me and can read complex theoretical material. But from outside this debate....which seems a tad silly to me.....it seems obvious that you can't deny the history of racism in the United States.. And to look critically at that history is certainly not racist. I'm a bit sceptical because as a woman who lived through the feminist years.........it was almost laughable how the gender that kept women out of professional gathering spaces like our Petroleum Club....for years........was quick to call sexism if abuse victims wanted to have meetings that excluded men.
Sometimes the demographic that benefitted from certain exclusions is pretty thin skinned about being called out on anything that names them part of the problem.
Double standards are held easily by the privileged.
A shortcut would be to look at John McWorter’s “it bears mentioning” substack. He was sterilizing his book, 6 chapters as I remember. He gave it up when he was hired by the New York Times but it’s still available for free (I think).
Congratulations on the PhD what an accomplishment! I almost got my honours BA from York University in Toronto.
If you're as young as I suspect....finish it. The Phd classes changed me...even though it made no difference in the pay I received when I went back teaching high school. Learning is a wonderful longevity activity. Our mind craves it.
I’ll probably go back and do the last two courses - both electives - I have 18 of 20 credits for an honours BA in history and humanities, (aka an Uber driver). As for a PHD, you should be proud!
I am 58, but young at heart, that’s must be what you sensed.
Well said
White supremacy is racist.
I have tried to get people to listen and read some of the works that Chris and others make available to us. But people get about a paragraph into it and they throw up their hands and go this is too heady and they stop.
I really think that some of these words should be abridged so as to make them more easily understandable by the very people you're discussing who may not have the privilege of education.
This would include a culmination of all of your work and the work of all the great authors in this country and world. But really narrowed down to basic facts.
It would start out with; Here is a list of the giant businesses who run our country. They throw their people in Washington called lobbyists and their big money to get the politicians to do their work because without the money that they give to the politicians, the politicians are not getting reelected and of course politicians want to keep their jobs, it's only normal. So that's why and how these giant businesses run the country.
Then, here's a list of the names of rich and powerful people who do not want regular people educated because it helps them.
By having most of the people going through our school system have as little education as possible, that helps them. That is why they ban books and educational materials that have anything to do with what's really going on in this world today. That's also why they have their kids go to privy little private schools that regular people do not have access to.
One of the most important things these rich and powerful people and the giant companies believe in is, a very strong prison system and a very weak school system. They want as many people to be the underdogs of the world because it keeps them in power.
The same way the giant businesses have lobbyists they have lobbyists as well and they have good buddies that keep the system as it is.
So the less regular people know about how big money and big power run this country the more successful they will stay and they are very successful.
I know that many of you know these things in your hearts but I think it's important that we put names to those who have their thumbs on us.
Even though many of our founding fathers were slave owners they said something very important "We the people". They didn't know America's was going to end up the way it is now, but we are the people our vote matters, our opinion matters and we should never let the giant companies or the very rich and powerful tell us how to be.
By having a better education system and a better understanding of how things are, we and the country would be a much better place for everybody, including the very rich and the big companies. There's nothing wrong with them that's just how they protect themselves they are just wrong, thinking that they need to control everything at any price no matter who gets squashed.
This is just my opinion and the big question would be, how to get this information to a broader audience so that more people would understand what's really going on.
I understand so much more than I did 5 years ago when I first started listening to Chris and his voice opened up a plethora of voices that help me understand the truth better than NPR ever did in the 30 years I've been listening to them. Seek out Democracy Now they are not afraid of having true voices heard.
Thank you Chris Hedges.
Davidwmiller.substack.com
Thank you very much. It is never explained WHY such pathological hate of democratic capitalist Russia and total support of Nazi-dominated Ukraine government !!
Roots for this propaganda predate the Russia-gate FBI-DNC hoax and FBI 2020 election theft.
Stand with Russia – it fights for all of us against bipartisan fascist US/UK warmongering clique.
Jacob Dreizin – Oct. 13 – Racism and anti-Semitism in Ukraine
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/10/12/shut-up-dumb-surfer-girl/
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/10/09/war-crimes-2/
Jacob Dreizin – Oct. 13 – Racism in Ukraine
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/10/12/shut-up-dumb-surfer-girl/
Checked it out but didn't finish it.......when a news site keeps calling someone dumb with next to no evidence, I pretty quickly figure out who's dumb. I even start getting a sense of who they might work for, but my IQ and educational qualifications have rendered me incapable of continuing to read drivel. If there's little substance in the first few paragraphs (in this case mostly single sentences) I can't go on.
Hatchet jobs aren't news.
About strange nude man attack on Pelosi: Paul Pelosi was most likely attacked by a male prostitute
An unavoidable conclusion about Paul Pelosi
1. Assailant in his underpants
2. Paul Pelosi knows his name and tells police he’s a “friend.”
3. Assailant asks “where’s Nancy?” to make sure she’s not home.
4. Pelosi takes bathroom break from spat and makes 911 call
Conclusion: This guy was a sex partner or male prostitute!
I don't know how to get the app. No smart phone. Can I get it on my computer?
Carol
Having re read this report, I am even more shocked by the forces of denial. Education should be the next thing to free.........for all students who show ability. Prosperous societies need well educated workers....and there are lots of studies that show rising inequality leads to everything but social prosperity. Fear grows with rising inequality, life expectancy falls, violence accelerates, loneliness increases. An interesting study THE SPIRIT LEVEL...documents the differences in quality of life, contrasting societies like the Scandinavian countries with more 'competitive, free market' social models............it also contrasts blue and red states in the US of A.....and the data is consistent.
Social inequality leads to bad outcomes for everyone. That a right wing, mean spirited little band of billionaires and their cheerleaders, continues to create the ignorance and poverty that Chris documents here.......is a crime.
Know it all-ism is mentioned in this report. Knowitallism is a sign of a bad education system....where bullies who haven't read much, dictate to all our children what they will NOT be able to read or view or study.
That is a crime. That its committed by folks who want to erase the history of American racism, classism and sexism seems apparent. More of us who have managed to gain access to a good education need to step up, speak up and become politically active.
Ignorance won't save us. And tolerating bigotry isn't tolerance....its cowardice.
Thank you, Chris.