CRT and Whiteness for Elementary Students.

[flacaltenn]

Of course there's only so much "theory" you can teach to 8 - 12 yr olds. But that won't stop some dedicated prejudicial black authors from condensing the elements of CRT and whiteness down to their basic elements and weaving a "storyline" into it..

From a listing at Barnes & Noble with the industry reviews ---
Not My Idea
Children's Book
60th in book sales for children

An honest explanation about how power and privilege factor into the lives of white children, at the expense of other groups, and how they can help seek justice. —THE NEW YORK TIMES
**A WHITE RAVEN 2019 SELECTION**

NAMED ONE OF SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2018

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness is a picture book about racism and racial justice, inviting white children and parents to become curious about racism, accept that it's real, and cultivate justice.

This book does a phenomenal job of explaining how power and privilege affect us from birth, and how we can educate ourselves...Not My Idea is an incredibly important book, one that we should all be using as a catalyst for our anti-racist education. —THE TINY ACTIVIST

Quite frankly, the first book I’ve seen that provides an honest explanation for kids about the state of race in America today. —ELIZABETH BIRD, librarian

“It’s that exact mix of true-to-life humor and unflinching honesty that makes Higginbotham’s book work so well…”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (*Starred Review)
A much-needed title that provides a strong foundation for critical discussions of white people and racism, particularly for young audiences. Recommended for all collections. —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (*Starred Review)

A necessary children's book about whiteness, white supremacy, and resistance… Important, accessible, needed. —KIRKUS REVIEWS

A timely story that addresses racism, civic responsibility, and the concept of whiteness. —FOREWORD REVIEWS

For white folks who aren’t sure how to talk to their kids about race, this book is the perfect beginning. —O MAGAZINE

About the Author
ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM is the author and illustrator of Divorce Is the Worst, Death Is Stupid, and Tell Me About Sex, Grandma—all part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series. She lives in Brooklyn.
Librarians love her, but not as much as she loves them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Best pages of this work.. The DEVIL makes a white kid sign the contract.

------------------------------

More than 24 public schools push kids book with 'whiteness' contract

A private Manhattan elementary school which charges $55,000-a-year tuition is among dozens of schools across the US teaching from children's book that features a shadowy devil figure that offers the reader a 'whiteness contract.'

Rufo says the book, 'traffics in the noxious principles of race essentialism, collective guilt and anti-whiteness.'

Also according to the book: 'Skin color makes a difference in how the world sees you and in how you see the world,' and 'your skin color affects the most ordinary daily experiences.'

The suit alleges Illinois' Evanston-Skokie district was treating students and employees differently based on race.

In one instance, for example, suit says the district asked teachers to take part in racially segregated 'affinity groups' for an exercise.

It also alleges that teachers were forced to undergo 'antiracist training,' and uses the teaching of Not My Idea in the district as one of the examples of ways the district is discriminating against white people.

This is how I WISH this thread will go.. It's a debate covered in the Atlantic between the AUTHOR and a lefty staff writer for the Atlantic who disagrees with the author's way of introducing young children to the race issue.. It's CIVIL and CORDIAL and useful.. Just like the members of USMB are use to hearing.. I've heavily snipped it. Go READ IT before you comment..

‘Nobody Wants White Kids to Feel Bad About Their Race’

The children’s-book author Anastasia Higginbotham and I disagree about how to teach young Americans about police killings and racism.

www.theatlantic.com

Clearly we had deep disagreements over an issue families and educators all over America are grappling with: What exactly should we teach children about race, police killings, and the relationship between the two? I suggested to Higginbotham that we air our differences through an email exchange, and she agreed.

Read: How to talk to kids about racism and police

She argues that, at the earliest possible age, white kids should be taught to identify whiteness as the root of racial injustice so that they can reject the pervasive racism that they would otherwise embody. I think her account of what causes police killings is too monocausal and that her zeal for uprooting racism sometimes strays into overgeneralization based in racial stereotyping. Regardless, her message that kids can choose to reject racism is laudable, and many school districts find it valuable. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our discussion.

Higginbotham: The book I made teaches young children about whiteness—it is not about police brutality. The problem in the book is not that police kill innocent people; it’s that the child’s white family refuses to discuss the significance of these killings with the child, who is left alone in confusion and self-doubt. No matter the crisis, my focus is on growing up by knowing yourself and your world. My books guide a child toward the resources of their own instincts and imagination, as well as family members who can offer support. In Not My Idea, white family members turn away from the child’s pain in the face of racist violence, and so my book points them to the library.

You call my assertion that violent white supremacy is embedded into all of our systems too “complex” for children to evaluate. But racism is not complex; the human beings who perpetuate it are. I have perpetuated racism without believing in it—that is complicated. Racism itself is ridiculous. Elevating a people’s worthiness, morality, intelligence, cleanliness, aptitude, and dignity based on skin tone—that is a terrible idea, it was not my idea, and I will spend my life revealing and unlearning that nonsense and making sure kids can, too, as young as possible.

You write, “Many systems in America are clearly neither violent nor white supremacist.” But that’s not how whiteness works. Any place where there are white people has violent white supremacy embedded into it because it is embedded in us. Do I kill people? No. Does my call to 911? It might. So long as we give the lies and distortions of whiteness space inside our bodies and minds, we are its hosts. We bring it into every room, interaction, classroom, and child we raise unprepared to question it.

You write, “Many systems in America are clearly neither violent nor white supremacist.” But that’s not how whiteness works. Any place where there are white people has violent white supremacy embedded into it because it is embedded in us. Do I kill people? No. Does my call to 911? It might. So long as we give the lies and distortions of whiteness space inside our bodies and minds, we are its hosts. We bring it into every room, interaction, classroom, and child we raise unprepared to question it.

 

[Moonglow]

Can't you handle the truth? The only problem is the book is narrow minded, it should show how every race does it whether it is to the same race or another.

 

[WelfareQueen]

White people are becoming Der Juden to the progressive establishment. Pretty soon white kids are gonna have to sew this on their school uniforms.

It's getting bad.

 

[flacaltenn]

TO ME -- where Higginbotham (in her own words above) FAILS is

Elevating a people’s worthiness, morality, intelligence, cleanliness, aptitude, and dignity based on skin tone—that is a terrible idea, it was not my idea, and I will spend my life revealing and unlearning that nonsense and making sure kids can, too, as young as possible.

She's gonna spend her whole life using the tactics and arguments of WHITE SUPREMACISTS to even the score. Afterall -- who HERE in this kid's book is DENIGRATING a person's worthiness, aptitude, dignity, ect by basing EVERYTHING on the skin tone they were born with and all the acts of their ancestors in perpetuity..

She loses the high ground and the argument RIGHT THERE.

 

[flacaltenn]

Can't you handle the truth? The only problem is the book is narrow minded, it should show how every race does it whether it is to the same race or another.

Missed the point Dude. To these activists - folks of different color cant discuss "blackness".. No such concept as yellownish or brownish or alien blueness.

BUT the movement is pushing the SAME useless generalizations and stereotypes that WHITE supremacists claim that POColor are born into.. With the same meanness and dedication to DEGRADING white folks.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Seems to me that if anybody opposes this racist crap in the greater culture, they should oppose it here at USMB, too.


.....but that's just me.

 

[night_son]

Of course there's only so much "theory" you can teach to 8 - 12 yr olds. But that won't stop some dedicated prejudicial black authors from condensing the elements of CRT and whiteness down to their basic elements and weaving a "storyline" into it..

From a listing at Barnes & Noble with the industry reviews ---
Not My Idea
Children's Book
60th in book sales for children

An honest explanation about how power and privilege factor into the lives of white children, at the expense of other groups, and how they can help seek justice. —THE NEW YORK TIMES
**A WHITE RAVEN 2019 SELECTION**

NAMED ONE OF SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2018

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness is a picture book about racism and racial justice, inviting white children and parents to become curious about racism, accept that it's real, and cultivate justice.

This book does a phenomenal job of explaining how power and privilege affect us from birth, and how we can educate ourselves...Not My Idea is an incredibly important book, one that we should all be using as a catalyst for our anti-racist education. —THE TINY ACTIVIST

Quite frankly, the first book I’ve seen that provides an honest explanation for kids about the state of race in America today. —ELIZABETH BIRD, librarian

“It’s that exact mix of true-to-life humor and unflinching honesty that makes Higginbotham’s book work so well…”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (*Starred Review)
A much-needed title that provides a strong foundation for critical discussions of white people and racism, particularly for young audiences. Recommended for all collections. —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (*Starred Review)

A necessary children's book about whiteness, white supremacy, and resistance… Important, accessible, needed. —KIRKUS REVIEWS

A timely story that addresses racism, civic responsibility, and the concept of whiteness. —FOREWORD REVIEWS

For white folks who aren’t sure how to talk to their kids about race, this book is the perfect beginning. —O MAGAZINE

About the Author
ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM is the author and illustrator of Divorce Is the Worst, Death Is Stupid, and Tell Me About Sex, Grandma—all part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series. She lives in Brooklyn.
Librarians love her, but not as much as she loves them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Best pages of this work.. The DEVIL makes a white kid sign the contract.

View attachment 560130


------------------------------

More than 24 public schools push kids book with 'whiteness' contract

A private Manhattan elementary school which charges $55,000-a-year tuition is among dozens of schools across the US teaching from children's book that features a shadowy devil figure that offers the reader a 'whiteness contract.'

Rufo says the book, 'traffics in the noxious principles of race essentialism, collective guilt and anti-whiteness.'

Also according to the book: 'Skin color makes a difference in how the world sees you and in how you see the world,' and 'your skin color affects the most ordinary daily experiences.'

The suit alleges Illinois' Evanston-Skokie district was treating students and employees differently based on race.

In one instance, for example, suit says the district asked teachers to take part in racially segregated 'affinity groups' for an exercise.

It also alleges that teachers were forced to undergo 'antiracist training,' and uses the teaching of Not My Idea in the district as one of the examples of ways the district is discriminating against white people.

This is how I WISH this thread will go.. It's a debate covered in the Atlantic between the AUTHOR and a lefty staff writer for the Atlantic who disagrees with the author's way of introducing young children to the race issue.. It's CIVIL and CORDIAL and useful.. Just like the members of USMB are use to hearing.. I've heavily snipped it. Go READ IT before you comment..

‘Nobody Wants White Kids to Feel Bad About Their Race’

The children’s-book author Anastasia Higginbotham and I disagree about how to teach young Americans about police killings and racism.

www.theatlantic.com

Clearly we had deep disagreements over an issue families and educators all over America are grappling with: What exactly should we teach children about race, police killings, and the relationship between the two? I suggested to Higginbotham that we air our differences through an email exchange, and she agreed.

Read: How to talk to kids about racism and police

She argues that, at the earliest possible age, white kids should be taught to identify whiteness as the root of racial injustice so that they can reject the pervasive racism that they would otherwise embody. I think her account of what causes police killings is too monocausal and that her zeal for uprooting racism sometimes strays into overgeneralization based in racial stereotyping. Regardless, her message that kids can choose to reject racism is laudable, and many school districts find it valuable. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our discussion.

Higginbotham: The book I made teaches young children about whiteness—it is not about police brutality. The problem in the book is not that police kill innocent people; it’s that the child’s white family refuses to discuss the significance of these killings with the child, who is left alone in confusion and self-doubt. No matter the crisis, my focus is on growing up by knowing yourself and your world. My books guide a child toward the resources of their own instincts and imagination, as well as family members who can offer support. In Not My Idea, white family members turn away from the child’s pain in the face of racist violence, and so my book points them to the library.

You call my assertion that violent white supremacy is embedded into all of our systems too “complex” for children to evaluate. But racism is not complex; the human beings who perpetuate it are. I have perpetuated racism without believing in it—that is complicated. Racism itself is ridiculous. Elevating a people’s worthiness, morality, intelligence, cleanliness, aptitude, and dignity based on skin tone—that is a terrible idea, it was not my idea, and I will spend my life revealing and unlearning that nonsense and making sure kids can, too, as young as possible.

You write, “Many systems in America are clearly neither violent nor white supremacist.” But that’s not how whiteness works. Any place where there are white people has violent white supremacy embedded into it because it is embedded in us. Do I kill people? No. Does my call to 911? It might. So long as we give the lies and distortions of whiteness space inside our bodies and minds, we are its hosts. We bring it into every room, interaction, classroom, and child we raise unprepared to question it.

You write, “Many systems in America are clearly neither violent nor white supremacist.” But that’s not how whiteness works. Any place where there are white people has violent white supremacy embedded into it because it is embedded in us. Do I kill people? No. Does my call to 911? It might. So long as we give the lies and distortions of whiteness space inside our bodies and minds, we are its hosts. We bring it into every room, interaction, classroom, and child we raise unprepared to question it.

And we Americans were all getting along so good for so long, up until about what? 2008? All of this race warfare insanity is precisely engineered to divide us so we as a people collectively, Americans, are easier to exploit—in every way imaginable. Just another reason to fear for our children, to put ourselves in their trusting little shoes and try to experience the daily hell this evil ideology pushes them into. It is not even about Black Americans seeking revenge but rather other white Americans, radical cultist leftists, who view blacks as nothing more than a herd of political sheep to be fleeced indefinitely for power and wealth.

 

[flacaltenn]

The review from the NYtimes REALLY irks me..

An honest explanation about how power and privilege factor into the lives of white children, at the expense of other groups, and how they can help seek justice.

Yup.. Dem racist white 10 yr olds are ALREADY ruining the lives of all the black children in the class. And since WHEN can NYTIMES judge "honest explanations".. These folks are irretrievable from what ails them..

 

[EvilCat Breath]

White people are becoming Der Juden to the progressive establishment. Pretty soon white kids are gonna have to sew this on their school uniforms.

It's getting bad.

What they are really after is to convince these children that they are evil. There is no cure for whiteness but suicide.

 

[flacaltenn]

Seems to me that if anybody opposes this racist crap in the greater culture, they should oppose it here at USMB, too.


.....but that's just me.

I guess I'm opposing it HERE -- the way it SHOULD BE DONE.. Without mandates for reading and using the power of debate.

If you had anything else in mind -- please keep it to yourself..

 

[night_son]

What they are really after is to convince these children that they are evil. There is no cure for whiteness but suicide.

Yes. They want white people to fall on swords of guilt. But there is a larger objective sought after by CRT: the permanent weakening of every aspect of traditional Western Civilization through the psychological destruction of our young minds.

 

[flacaltenn]

What they are really after is to convince these children that they are evil. There is no cure for whiteness but suicide.

You could go back to 90s and preach self-esteem to the extreme where failing performance got you trophy points and such.. I think -- in part -- that's how we got here. Colleges full of kids with too MUCH self esteem and not enough actual accomplishment.

Because ALL of this "whiteness" CRT cult is just awful to read. FILLED with contradictions and bad logic and reasoning.. And not much humility in what they dont know..

 

[flacaltenn]

And we Americans were all getting along so good for so long, up until about what? 2008? All of this race warfare insanity is precisely engineered to divide us so we as a people collectively, Americans, are easier to exploit—in every way imaginable. Just another reason to fear for our children, to put ourselves in their trusting little shoes and try to experience the daily hell this evil ideology pushes them into. It is not even about Black Americans seeking revenge but rather other white Americans, radical cultist leftists, who view blacks as nothing more than a herd of political sheep to be fleeced indefinitely for power and wealth.

We were getting along increasingly well until the Colleges starting pumping out that stream of race baiting "minority studies" students. Corporations are THICK with them stuffed off in HR Depts. Good for the accounting on minority hires.

Except it ISNT good for those students or the corporations. Because REAL EQUITY would look like 2/3rds of those grads in STEM degrees working in the science/engineering/planning depts and NOT cranking out memoes on the next mandatory corporate "diversity/inclusion" classes...

 

[Dogmaphobe]

I guess I'm opposing it HERE -- the way it SHOULD BE DONE.. Without mandates for reading and using the power of debate.

If you had anything else in mind -- please keep it to yourself..

Your demanding I "keep it to myself" totally undermines your claim of using the power of debate. You do realize that, don't you?

As far as what I had in mind, I would say there is often quite the difference between a position people support when discussed as an abstraction and that which they support when an involving an actual application, so my suggestion involved bringing these two concepts into alignment.

 

[flacaltenn]

Your demanding I "keep it to myself" totally undermines your claim of using the power of debate. You do realize that, don't you?

As far as what I had in mind, I would say there is often quite the difference between a position people support when discussed as an abstraction and that which they support when an involving an actual application, so my suggestion involved bringing these two concepts into alignment.

Should we BAN them? Maybe CENSOR them? Keep it to yourself.. I'm not inclined to entertain those things at all.. Because it doesn't trigger my "white fragility" enough to use those powers...

 

[Damaged Eagle]

You forgot to invite those followers with their tiki torches if you want to talk about changing the woke agenda.

Funny thing how they're all Lincoln Project followers and not KKK.

I would say any reasonable discussion has to have both sides being honest.

Until then there will be no progress.

*****CHUCKLE*****

 

[Unkotare]

TO ME -- where Higginbotham (in her own words above) FAILS is



She's gonna spend her whole life using the tactics and arguments of WHITE SUPREMACISTS to even the score. Afterall -- who HERE in this kid's book is DENIGRATING a person's worthiness, aptitude, dignity, ect by basing EVERYTHING on the skin tone they were born with and all the acts of their ancestors in perpetuity..

She loses the high ground and the argument RIGHT THERE.

That's what will puncture all this nonsense before too long. Leftists always go too far, competing with each other to see who can be more radical. Even in the democrat party there are only so many people occupying the farthest of the far left. Watch the mid-terms to witness the process in action.

 

[Coyote]

School decisions should be local politics, not national politics, but again…everything seems nationalized.

How SHOULD the issue of race and racism both historically and currently be taught?

Everyone is so busy ginning up outrage, attacking teachers and school board members (who themselves are locals and parents with kids in those schools) that they avoid coming with solutions.

For those with short term memory problems…remember when Texas was going to adopt a textbook that referred to slaves as immigrant workers, left out most of Jim Crowe and it’s legacy, and barely a nod to the civil rights era? Or when educators tried to teach that not all slaves were unhappy and there were positive aspects to being a slave?

So, how should we teach these things?

 

[Dogmaphobe]

To listen to the dishonest woke Stalinists, one would think that schools have always taught that slavery was a GOOD thing. I am 66, so that makes me older than many in this thread, and elementary schools were certainly not whitewashing slavery when I was a kid. It was taught as HISTORY as children should be learning about HISTORY, and was taught as an abomination that an an unforgiveable abrogation of human rights -- as it should be.

Woke isn't about eliminating the racism behind slavery, however. It is about sustaining racism. All it does is reverse the target of the racism and has become such an industry that even mentioning this obvious reversal of targets results in one being called a racist, thus creating a closed loop self-fulfilling prophesy.

We should not be teaching children to be racist PERIOD. We should be teaching them history rather than making an entire industry out of race issues. If we want to eliminate racism, we need to embrace commonality rather than distinctiveness, ideals rather than identity, and strive for a color blind society instead of one that is all ABOUT color. CRT does the exact opposite of that.

 

[IM2]

And we Americans were all getting along so good for so long, up until about what? 2008? All of this race warfare insanity is precisely engineered to divide us so we as a people collectively, Americans, are easier to exploit—in every way imaginable. Just another reason to fear for our children, to put ourselves in their trusting little shoes and try to experience the daily hell this evil ideology pushes them into. It is not even about Black Americans seeking revenge but rather other white Americans, radical cultist leftists, who view blacks as nothing more than a herd of political sheep to be fleeced indefinitely for power and wealth.

What? Apparently you must have moved to America in 2008.

Stay delusional.