Republicans don't want people to understand the world, especially the country and states where they live and their histories. This includes discouraging young people from questioning the status quo. Why? To make people easier to manipulate and control. And make it more difficult for minority communities to advance economically. Hurting public education and banning books are the easiest tactics.
Republicans don't want people to understand the world, especially the country and states where they live and their histories. This includes discouraging young people from questioning the status quo. Why? To make people easier to manipulate and control. And make it more difficult for minority communities to advance economically. Hurting public education and banning books are the easiest tactics.
“Education is the point at which we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young would be inevitable.
And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” (Hannah Arendt, from Between Past and Future, p.193)
I realize it's a oversimplification, but it seems to me that the world is divided, at least to a large extent, between those who primarily wish to empower humanity and those who prefer to dominate.
Michael Bales, yes, repubs, conservatives, work to prevent truth and equality in education. Not just the South. 8 states voted against an anti spanking law that even included schools. But “we” historically don’t want government interfering except for funding. The United Nations developed “The Convention on the Rights of the Child.” At one point only Somalia and USA had not ratified . And now it’s just USA that has signed but not ratified. Why?
“The George W. Bush Administration opposed CRC and expressed serious political and legal concerns with the treaty, arguing that it conflicted with U.S. laws regarding privacy and family rights. The election of President Obama in 2008 focused renewed attention on the possibility of U.S. ratification. May 7, 2022”
W was a critical factor in the education debacle, or rather the enablers (sort of like chump). Never will forgive Ted Kennedy for his kumbaya with W on this.
Proverbs 11:29: ''He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.'' Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind about the Scopes Monkey Trial. Here we go again…
We got ourselves a "troll"! They drop little irritating tidbits in order to get a reaction. Probably didn't get enough attention when growing up. Sadly, that's quite common.
Chris Buczinsky - "Open up to the possibility that 'troll' is a quick way to avoid engagement with someone who genuinely disagrees."
I agree. I may fault Mr. Carroll for making many statements without explanation (supporting evidence) but I find that his stating disagreement on many issues to be a legitimate use of this Forum. If you find flaws or errors in his theories (opinions?) then you should clearly state them. Name-calling will never get anyone to a "meeting of the minds." In other words, we would never get outside the "Communication Silo" that groups such as this are at risk.
David Carroll is a long-standing -- let's say, "contrarian" -- on this site. He's been accused of everything from spiteful trollery to paid trollery. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But his view isn't really very interesting. He generally responds to attempts to engage in dialogue with escalating rudeness. He NEVER offers a cogent dialogue or debate: he instructs in the Right Way, and mocks any alternative view.
He comes, and he goes. We've had a long silent period, but he's BAAAACK!
In terms of what Christ was and what he taught, anti-Christian.
These people would like to restore the social order of the Roman Empire at the time when Jesus lived.
But they can't. It is far too advanced for them.
*
I was a schoolkid in South Africa when Apartheid was being brought in, so one of the first things I understood was the plan to place a low ceiling on non-whites' education, so that "the lesser breeds" should never rise above the station kindly allotted to them by their "betters"...
Unfortunately, the white suprematists are working to turn America into a backwater, trailing far behind the rest of a world they can only rob and exploit.
Peter, Here is a way to look backward that I hope spurs us forward as well.
” Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.” – W. E. B. Du Bois
Du Bois was and is a giant, an American sociologist, socialist, historian and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist; he was also the author of 21 books. The most remarkable among them, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, a 1903 work of American literature, It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, a cornerstone of African-American literature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk
He was a founder of the Niagara Movement, a collective of civil rights activists who drew up a statement of principles opposed to the Atlanta Compromise, a speech given by Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 18, 1895. The Niagara Movement was a movement comprised of African-American intellectuals founded in 1905 at Niagara Falls. It was dedicated to obtaining civil rights for African-Americans. For more about the movement, see below.
Niagara Movement - Oberlin College and Conservatory
Du Bois was also a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and edited its journal, The Crisis. ‘… using his perch to draw attention to the still widespread practice of lynching, pushing for nationwide legislation that would outlaw the cruel extrajudicial killings. A 1915 article in the journal gave a year-by-year list of more than 2,700 lynchings over the previous three decades.’ (NAACP) See link below.
Du Bois is known for the concept of the “talented tenth.” ‘He believed that full citizenship and equal rights for African Americans would be brought about through the efforts of an intellectual elite; for this reason, he was an advocate of a broad liberal arts education at the college level.’
The more I look at the antics of politicians, the more I remember my cynical Neapolitan colleague's parting shot on returning to work after a coffee break:
"Andiamo far finta..."
(Let's go back and pretend to work.)
(The Soviet variation:
"They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work...")
Who can keep up with the speed and stupefying acceleration of change today?
Some few may understand what's going on but most politicians ran after the train and missed it... a long time ago...
So now they're like kids at play, giving us a great mime show, pretending the train's just coming in and they are getting on it... They who didn't even buy a ticket... and when they did, it was for the wrong train...
Many or most should in any case be kept well away from trains and the exercise of adult responsibilities, as they know only how to wreck things.
No, if the world's to be saved, it will be by ordinary people. Mainly, I suspect, women, thanks to greater mental flexibility. People who dare to be themselves, people who, when they see what needs doing -- and no one doing it -- just roll up their sleeves and get on with doing what needs to be done.
Some rare politicians fit this profile. Like Stacey Abrams.
Yes, Peter, as you wrote '..., if the world's to be saved, it will be by ordinary people.' We must see and act against what is happening before our eyes -- the Republicans, chief among them, DeSantis, are STOMPING on education, the precious lives of our children and the future of the country.
'And now, in 2022, we are in a new educational moment. Between January 2021 and January 2022, the legislatures of 35 states introduced 137 bills to keep students from learning about issues of race, LBGTQ+ issues, politics, and American history. More recently, the Republican-dominated legislature of Florida passed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act, tightly controlling how schools and employee training can talk about race or gender discrimination.'
'Republican-dominated legislatures and school districts are also purging books from school libraries and notifying parents each time a child checks out a book. Most of the books removed are by or about Black people, people of color, or LGBTQ+ individuals.' (Letter)
Stay tuned for information about how states are destroying public school education.
Censorship by fascists. Our free speech needs to be revisited due to extremists' mind-control propagandist tactics. They sure are petrified of Democracy, Truth, Justice and our Melting Pot!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this, Fern, especially for that first quote. I'm a retired teacher and am finding it very painful to see what my former colleagues (and their students) are experiencing now. Also, I have read ABOUT W.E.B. Du Bois but have never read any of his actual works. Now I know where to start (I copied and pasted this into my notes app). Education is a lifelong endeavor.
Judith, I had an emotional response to your generosity. My readings of W.E.B. Du Bois began when I was ready, past fifty. It is natural for me to think of him, particularly, now. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this, Fern. You capture the essence and brilliance of Du Bois. “The Talented Tenth.” And you also capture the “poverty “ and racism of our America, a country that since 1619 has marginalized and brutalized the African American. And any other human being who might be called “the other”.
I wonder how much of the non-graduating numbers have to do with the irrelevant, misleading history that’s taught in schools? Kids respond to relevant, frank information and respectful listening to their take on their moment in time. Pushing this narrow view of our history onto them is ludicrous. They see the falsity of it everyday. It’s only a formula for shutting down their minds.
Thought so. If you were to continue to educate yourself further, by continuing to study in this forum, you might be endangered as Derek Black was when he left his white supremacist community and attended college. His new friends helped him learn about his racist propagandist approach to life and he truly woke up.
Derek Black, is a former leader of the white nationalist movement, a movement that emerged rebranded from white supremacy. Derek was raised in the movement. His father, Don Black, is a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as was his godfather, David Duke, long time leader of the KKK. The internet's largest white nationalist site, was and maybe still is, Stormfront.
When Derek was in his teens, he started the companion website Kids' Stormfront. (nice hatred indoctrination website for American and non-Americas kiddies. Derek made speeches, hosted a radio show and was considered the movement's heir apparent. After spending the first 22 years of his life in the movement, he left in 2013 and renounced his former views. His life and why he left the movement he helped lead is the subject of the new book "Rising Out Of Hatred" by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow. Thank God Derek went to college and stopped indoctrinating innocent youth with white supremacist hogwash.
Republicans don't want people to understand the world, especially the country and states where they live and their histories. This includes discouraging young people from questioning the status quo. Why? To make people easier to manipulate and control. And make it more difficult for minority communities to advance economically. Hurting public education and banning books are the easiest tactics.
“Education is the point at which we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young would be inevitable.
And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” (Hannah Arendt, from Between Past and Future, p.193)
Rowshan, Five stars!!!!
Thank you, Irene!
I realize it's a oversimplification, but it seems to me that the world is divided, at least to a large extent, between those who primarily wish to empower humanity and those who prefer to dominate.
'Twas ever thus
Modern life is complex in your head, but the laws of nature are unchanging.
The black Columbia linguist John McWhorter has a recent book out, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Betrayed Black America.
Michael Bales, yes, repubs, conservatives, work to prevent truth and equality in education. Not just the South. 8 states voted against an anti spanking law that even included schools. But “we” historically don’t want government interfering except for funding. The United Nations developed “The Convention on the Rights of the Child.” At one point only Somalia and USA had not ratified . And now it’s just USA that has signed but not ratified. Why?
“The George W. Bush Administration opposed CRC and expressed serious political and legal concerns with the treaty, arguing that it conflicted with U.S. laws regarding privacy and family rights. The election of President Obama in 2008 focused renewed attention on the possibility of U.S. ratification. May 7, 2022”
https://www.google.com/search?q=un+rights+of+the+child+2022&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
W was a critical factor in the education debacle, or rather the enablers (sort of like chump). Never will forgive Ted Kennedy for his kumbaya with W on this.
Proverbs 11:29: ''He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.'' Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind about the Scopes Monkey Trial. Here we go again…
A lot of 'em don't understand the world, themselves. (Although Dems have a few blinders, too. But it's a much bigger problem with repubs.)
BS
???
Wouldn't it help, Mr Carroll, if you stopped making noises, polite or rude, and explained yourself?
We got ourselves a "troll"! They drop little irritating tidbits in order to get a reaction. Probably didn't get enough attention when growing up. Sadly, that's quite common.
Chris Buczinsky - "Open up to the possibility that 'troll' is a quick way to avoid engagement with someone who genuinely disagrees."
I agree. I may fault Mr. Carroll for making many statements without explanation (supporting evidence) but I find that his stating disagreement on many issues to be a legitimate use of this Forum. If you find flaws or errors in his theories (opinions?) then you should clearly state them. Name-calling will never get anyone to a "meeting of the minds." In other words, we would never get outside the "Communication Silo" that groups such as this are at risk.
David Carroll is a long-standing -- let's say, "contrarian" -- on this site. He's been accused of everything from spiteful trollery to paid trollery. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But his view isn't really very interesting. He generally responds to attempts to engage in dialogue with escalating rudeness. He NEVER offers a cogent dialogue or debate: he instructs in the Right Way, and mocks any alternative view.
He comes, and he goes. We've had a long silent period, but he's BAAAACK!
Engage at your own risk.
Hmm, “A Bridge Too Far”, perhaps
Ah, there’s that “respectful” disagreement rising to the surface
Explain bs. Repubs are who think the last election was stolen no? They are more captured by fictions. But are not alone.
Pseudo-Christian, Spooky, pseudo-Christian.
In terms of what Christ was and what he taught, anti-Christian.
These people would like to restore the social order of the Roman Empire at the time when Jesus lived.
But they can't. It is far too advanced for them.
*
I was a schoolkid in South Africa when Apartheid was being brought in, so one of the first things I understood was the plan to place a low ceiling on non-whites' education, so that "the lesser breeds" should never rise above the station kindly allotted to them by their "betters"...
Unfortunately, the white suprematists are working to turn America into a backwater, trailing far behind the rest of a world they can only rob and exploit.
Peter, Here is a way to look backward that I hope spurs us forward as well.
” Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.” – W. E. B. Du Bois
Du Bois was and is a giant, an American sociologist, socialist, historian and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist; he was also the author of 21 books. The most remarkable among them, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, a 1903 work of American literature, It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, a cornerstone of African-American literature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Souls_of_Black_Folk
He was a founder of the Niagara Movement, a collective of civil rights activists who drew up a statement of principles opposed to the Atlanta Compromise, a speech given by Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 18, 1895. The Niagara Movement was a movement comprised of African-American intellectuals founded in 1905 at Niagara Falls. It was dedicated to obtaining civil rights for African-Americans. For more about the movement, see below.
Niagara Movement - Oberlin College and Conservatory
https://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/Niagara%20Movement/niagaramain.htm
Du Bois was also a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and edited its journal, The Crisis. ‘… using his perch to draw attention to the still widespread practice of lynching, pushing for nationwide legislation that would outlaw the cruel extrajudicial killings. A 1915 article in the journal gave a year-by-year list of more than 2,700 lynchings over the previous three decades.’ (NAACP) See link below.
https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/web-du-bois
Du Bois is known for the concept of the “talented tenth.” ‘He believed that full citizenship and equal rights for African Americans would be brought about through the efforts of an intellectual elite; for this reason, he was an advocate of a broad liberal arts education at the college level.’
W.E.B. Du Bois and the Rise of Black Education
Thank you, Fern. This is precious.
*
The more I look at the antics of politicians, the more I remember my cynical Neapolitan colleague's parting shot on returning to work after a coffee break:
"Andiamo far finta..."
(Let's go back and pretend to work.)
(The Soviet variation:
"They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work...")
Who can keep up with the speed and stupefying acceleration of change today?
Some few may understand what's going on but most politicians ran after the train and missed it... a long time ago...
So now they're like kids at play, giving us a great mime show, pretending the train's just coming in and they are getting on it... They who didn't even buy a ticket... and when they did, it was for the wrong train...
Many or most should in any case be kept well away from trains and the exercise of adult responsibilities, as they know only how to wreck things.
No, if the world's to be saved, it will be by ordinary people. Mainly, I suspect, women, thanks to greater mental flexibility. People who dare to be themselves, people who, when they see what needs doing -- and no one doing it -- just roll up their sleeves and get on with doing what needs to be done.
Some rare politicians fit this profile. Like Stacey Abrams.
Yes, Peter, as you wrote '..., if the world's to be saved, it will be by ordinary people.' We must see and act against what is happening before our eyes -- the Republicans, chief among them, DeSantis, are STOMPING on education, the precious lives of our children and the future of the country.
'And now, in 2022, we are in a new educational moment. Between January 2021 and January 2022, the legislatures of 35 states introduced 137 bills to keep students from learning about issues of race, LBGTQ+ issues, politics, and American history. More recently, the Republican-dominated legislature of Florida passed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act, tightly controlling how schools and employee training can talk about race or gender discrimination.'
'Republican-dominated legislatures and school districts are also purging books from school libraries and notifying parents each time a child checks out a book. Most of the books removed are by or about Black people, people of color, or LGBTQ+ individuals.' (Letter)
Stay tuned for information about how states are destroying public school education.
Censorship by fascists. Our free speech needs to be revisited due to extremists' mind-control propagandist tactics. They sure are petrified of Democracy, Truth, Justice and our Melting Pot!
Peter, I love your analogy of people "missing the train". It is so accurate of many in the rethuglican party.
❤️❤️❣️ What you said, Peter!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this, Fern, especially for that first quote. I'm a retired teacher and am finding it very painful to see what my former colleagues (and their students) are experiencing now. Also, I have read ABOUT W.E.B. Du Bois but have never read any of his actual works. Now I know where to start (I copied and pasted this into my notes app). Education is a lifelong endeavor.
Just yesterday I received a Summer Reads newsletter from Foreign Affairs with an article by W.E.B. Du Bois. It's from 1935, about Ethiopia/Abyssinia in the context of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. It's one of the limited number of articles available to non-subscribers. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ethiopia/1935-10-01/inter-racial-implications-ethiopian-crisis
At the end of this article are links to two other articles, one of them also by Du Bois.
Thank you!
Judith, I had an emotional response to your generosity. My readings of W.E.B. Du Bois began when I was ready, past fifty. It is natural for me to think of him, particularly, now. Thank you.
Dear Pat, Now, more than ever, I remember the teachers who are part of my understanding, knowledge and care. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this, Fern. You capture the essence and brilliance of Du Bois. “The Talented Tenth.” And you also capture the “poverty “ and racism of our America, a country that since 1619 has marginalized and brutalized the African American. And any other human being who might be called “the other”.
attempted like
Thank you, Citizen60. I am happy that you read it.
❤
Thanks Fern. Essential. Link to Niagara Movement info?
G. Zinn, Please see 'Niagara Movement -Oberlin College and Conservatory after opening the link.
https://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/Niagara%20Movement/niagaramain.htm
❤️
I wonder how much of the non-graduating numbers have to do with the irrelevant, misleading history that’s taught in schools? Kids respond to relevant, frank information and respectful listening to their take on their moment in time. Pushing this narrow view of our history onto them is ludicrous. They see the falsity of it everyday. It’s only a formula for shutting down their minds.
I respectfully disagree
Is that because you are white, Christian nationalist?
At times, is it possible that the specificity of labels fail us?
The New Thesaurus is still in draft stage as the editors gag on the infinity of self myopia
That must be it :)
Thought so. If you were to continue to educate yourself further, by continuing to study in this forum, you might be endangered as Derek Black was when he left his white supremacist community and attended college. His new friends helped him learn about his racist propagandist approach to life and he truly woke up.
Derek Black, is a former leader of the white nationalist movement, a movement that emerged rebranded from white supremacy. Derek was raised in the movement. His father, Don Black, is a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as was his godfather, David Duke, long time leader of the KKK. The internet's largest white nationalist site, was and maybe still is, Stormfront.
When Derek was in his teens, he started the companion website Kids' Stormfront. (nice hatred indoctrination website for American and non-Americas kiddies. Derek made speeches, hosted a radio show and was considered the movement's heir apparent. After spending the first 22 years of his life in the movement, he left in 2013 and renounced his former views. His life and why he left the movement he helped lead is the subject of the new book "Rising Out Of Hatred" by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow. Thank God Derek went to college and stopped indoctrinating innocent youth with white supremacist hogwash.
Ouch.