Category Archives: Political Correctness

Charles Koch. (Patrick T. Fallon / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

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Once again, the forces of capitalism are harnessing racism to do their dirty work.

More than 25 states have introduced legislation or taken other action that, backers claim, is aimed at banning critical race theory (CRT) from schools and government programs. Several states have already passed these bills, and discussion on this topic leads Fox News every night.

The common story about this surge of action is that this is a new Tea Party momenta genuine uprising by grassroots Americans who are furious about CRT and demanding action from their state legislatures. But that story ignores the clear influence of a carefully built campaign by the network of radical free-market capitalist think tanks and action groups supported by billionaire businessman Charles Koch and his late brother David.

At least to some extent, Koch-funded entities have manufactured this cycle of outrage, and it is dangerous to ignore the role they are playing and their motivations. This is not just a guess. UnKoch My Campus did the research, and we know its true. State politicians were almost entirely silent on the topic until the Koch network started pushing the issue earlier this year, months after it was first raised by Fox News commentators.Related Articles

When the right wing talks about critical race theory, it is really hijacking an obscure academic concept to attack any approach to education or policy that acknowledges the existence of historic and structural racism in this country. The popular storyheard not just on Fox News but repeated by the The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the The Atlanticis that CRT became a national issue when a single conservative activist, Chris Rufo, appeared on Tucker Carlson in September 2020. President Trump, an avid Carlson fan, quickly responded with an executive order banning federal contractors for any diversity training that examined systemic racism. Since then, the story goes, the grassroots rage at CRT has boiled over.

Such a narrative is powerful, when true, because it gives an air of populist legitimacy to the cause. But that story doesnt fit the facts.

Because after that brief moment in September, the debate around critical race theory went dormant for months. Almost no legislation was introduced at the state level in this period, according to Education Week. Fox News stopped talking about it, according to an analysis by Media Matters. Then, as the Biden administration took over, something happened. Mentions of CRT skyrocketed on Fox News. At the same time, state legislators started introducing bills. What was behind the surge, months after Rufos appearance?Current Issue

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Our research makes the answer clear: It was the Koch network.

As the head of UnKoch My Campus, I have spent years working to research and expose the insidious nationwide network of think tanks, action groups, and academics funded by the Kochs. While the network is often diffuse and hard to track, all of its branches purport to be dedicated to supporting free market capitalism.

But I have always known, as a Black woman, that the Koch brothers brand of radical capitalism relies on maintaining a system of white supremacy. That reality has rarely been as clear as now, when the Koch network is essentially working to manufacture a crisis to prove its case for privatizing education.

Unkoch My Campus reviewed the published materials of 28 conservative think tanks and political organizations with known ties to the Koch network from June 2020 to June 2021 and found that they had collectively published 79 articles, podcasts, reports or videos about Critical Race Theory.

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These articles came out in a trickle last year, but then suddenly became a flood starting in February 2021, as President Biden took office and the threat to corporate profits became real. An average of five pieces per week dropped from late March to June 30, 2021. The pace of propaganda surged in both late May and late Junecoinciding with the surge in action by state politicians.

Both the highly influential Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has known ties to the Kochs and a long history of driving conservative state legislation, held webinars devoted to attacking CRT. The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research alone devoted 43 separate articles or videos to the topic.

Why is the Koch network so dedicated to this cause? It is a prime example of how the network has built up an alliance between the three pillars of the right wing: the Republican Party, rich corporate elites, and conservative white and evangelical voters opposed to racial progress.

The CRT fight helps all three. Republicans get a manufactured controversy that motivates their base to keep them in power, and they get the financial support of the Kochs and their corporate friends. The Kochs and other radical capitalists get a false panic around the state of public education, which helps their ongoing campaign to privatize schools, and they gain allies who will push the economic agenda that keeps them at the top. The overwhelmingly white Republican base is rewarded with a story that is easier for them to accept than the true onea story where they are both the heroes of American history and the true victims of the American present, oppressed by political correctness.

As my organization wrote in our expansive report, Advancing White Supremacy, the Koch network has purposefully exploited this relationship for years. The network has long-standing ties to white nationalist scholars and has used their research to drive policies that serve its economic goals at the expense of people of color, including efforts to resegregate our nations schools, dismantle voting rights, and expand the prison-industrial complex.

You can see this play out in how the Koch think tanks we studied propose solving the CRT problems. They propose solutions like deregulating teacher licensing and relaxing restrictions on which public schools parents can send their kids to, both long-standing goals of the organization. This dramatic mismatch between supposedly existential stakes on the one hand and technocratic fixes on the other exposes their true intentions. They are inciting outrages against racial justice, and then using that outrage as a Trojan horse for entrenching radical free market ideology in every institution possible.

Even a casual look at the facts makes it nearly impossible to deny the existence of structural racism and the deep harm it has caused the Black community. But the Koch forces are trying to make it invisible all the same. If they succeed, it will not be a triumph for white Americans. It will be a triumph for Charles Koch, his rich friendsand the politicians who gave them what they wanted.

See more here:

The Radical Capitalist Behind the Critical Race Theory Furor - The Nation

Although the day after has not yet dawned and although it would be premature to draw any conclusions about the causes behind the devastating wildfires, the cacophony is already in full swing. You have the experts and the ignorant pundits who parade on the media, the laments and the curses of the fire victims, the vitriol flung by the online psychos, the supposedly coolheaded analyses and recommendations from the self-styled champions of political correctness, the desperate efforts of the opposition to incriminate the conservative government, particularly from SYRIZA, which is trying to take political revenge over the aftermath of the 2018 wildfires in eastern Attica, and the governments efforts to contain the political cost.

All that is, to some degree, natural, given that the magnitude of the disaster is almost incalculable in the short term but more important, in the long term. Also because in Greece moderation and objectivity are hard to come by. On the other hand, it has become clear that Greece is significantly affected by a hyperbole and a particularity which beget risk.

There is no point in repeating the adverse impacts of climate change which are, after all, felt worldwide. The question is what must and what can be done in Greece in order to limit the consequences of this phenomenon. The only measure everyone would agree on is the quick and meaningful relief of the fire victims, which are, if we wish to be honest, part of the political game anyway.

The emphasis should be placed on what must and can be done. And this is because experience shows that, in Greece, wordy pledges come hand in hand with a mix of weak collective memory, of opposition from big and small interests, of reaction from obsolete mentalities and widespread ignorance, poor education, ineptitude and inability to plan and organize, and large numbers of ill-intended individuals. All the above are unfortunately big and inherent obstacles to preventing future disasters.

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Inherent obstacles to prevention - Kathimerini English Edition

Original sequel story featured 'Political Correctness' villain using 'Cancel Culture' attack

Digimon Tamers screenwriter Chiaki J. Konaka responded to overseas backlash over the anime's 20th anniversary live script-reading play in a blog post on Monday. The original story, which served as a sequel to Digimon Tamers set in the modern day, featured a number of politically charged words and themes, including "political correctness" and "cancel culture."

In the play, the Tamers are reunited to fight against a new villain, which takes the form of "Political Correctness," that threatens the real and digital worlds. Chief officer Yamaki dramatically describes it as "the greatest problem facing the internet and media" because it forces people to "conform to a single values system" and "censors real news to replace them with fake news." Although the Tamers are initially nonplussed by Yamaki's breathless call to action, they are shaken when "Political Correctness" takes on a physical form and launches into attack. The villain's special attack is called "Cancel Culture."

Konaka opened the post by stating that the content of the play was entirely his responsibility, and not at all that of Toei Animation Inc. or the Digifest Organizing Committee.

"Some of the words I used were controversial," he wrote. "However, I did not intend to condemn any particular person or group in this drama." He also denied expressing any particular political beliefs.

Nevertheless, Konaka admitted that his feelings regarding the mass media's exclusion of "alternative journalists" during the COVID-19 pandemic were "reflected in Yamaki's strong words."

"When the pandemic started, I stopped opening Twitter for about a year. I also stopped watching CNN/US, which I had subscribed to on cable to see what was really going on. And I've been reading what independent alternative journalists are gathering from open sources, referring to links as I go," he wrote. Konaka wrote that in his opinion COVID-19 is real but incorrectly claimed that "SARS-CoV-2 has not been isolated and segregated."

That claim is false according to Reuters fact checkers. The false claim spread via social media last year as a method to question the validity of the COVID vaccines.

Konaka's post also stated that he would delete any comments that criticized him as a "bad person."

In an earlier blog post from May, Konaka decried the deplatforming of the YouTuber James Corbett. He wrote that while he did not agree with everything Corbett said, he described him as someone who "analyzed the situation rationally, and simply continued to sound the alarm around the dangers, not just of the illness but of the societal situation happening in the world."

Corbett's views have included blaming Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for "manipulating" the virus and pandemic, that the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and the Apollo Moon Landing was a hoax, along with other unsupported conspiracies.

At the time, Konaka remarked that the situation has inspired him with his fiction, and that he has been looking for ways to portray it through symmetry and symbolism, even if it does not exactly match reality.

Konaka's recent post explains that the situation has changed since when he first wrote the reading play script in early spring. "This is not so much about Japan as it is about the new difficulties that countries around the world are facing. So, it was no longer timely to send out messages to the rest of the world."

He finished by apologizing for creating a divisive story.

"A lot of people have defended me and told me not to apologize, but it's very hard to see such a divide among the fans.Let me just apologize for the fact that I caused it to happen. I don't want any more debate on this issue," he concluded.

The DigiFest 2021 event was streamed within Japan until August 7. Konaka wrote that he refrained from commenting on the event until after it concluded streaming.

As background context, the post also mentions that he had once pitched an official sequel to Digimon Tamers set 20 years later, but the pitch was turned down. He also mentioned that it was difficult to reassemble the old cast and/or make them play significantly older versions of their characters, so the 2021 reading play was conceived as a continuation of the earlier 2018 play instead.

The Digimon Tamers anime debuted in Japan on April 1, 2001.

Source: Chiaki J. Konaka's blog

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Digimon Tamers Writer Chiaki J. Konaka Responds to Overseas Backlash Over 20th Anniversary Stage Play - Anime News Network

Demonstrators gather during a protest to end the shutdown due to COVID-19 at Queens Park in Toronto on April 25, 2020.

Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press

Jonathan Berman is a physiologist and an assistant professor in the Department of Basic Sciences at NYITCOM-Arkansas and the author of Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement.

One cannot help but look at the current state of anti-vaccine rhetoric and action, and wonder: How did we get here? Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many viewed the anti-vaccine movement as sufficiently marginalized and fringe enough as to be effectively irrelevant. After all, as of 2017, the childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey found that children in Canada were near to vaccination goals for Hib, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, pertussis and diphtheria. When I set out to write about the anti-vaccine movement in that same year, the most common question I was asked is, Why? Who cares? They havent convinced anyone. One academic, rather than schedule an interview, linked me to an article he had written about how overstated he believed fears about the anti-vaccine movement to be.

Taking a historical perspective, the anti-vaccine movement is alarming, even in times of relative quiescence. At times, anti-vaccine proponents have become violent, organized large marches and threatened vaccine supplies. Modern anti-public-health protests are history repeating. A myth attributes near total responsibility for the existence of the modern anti-vaccine movement to a single disgraced former physician involved in research misconduct, who started a vaccine scare. These events played a role in exacerbating parental fears, and linking vaccines to autism in the popular consciousness but these were reinventions of old fears, not the discovery of new ones.

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The language used by campaigners against smallpox vaccination mirrors the language used against SARS-CoV-2 vaccination almost perfectly, because it is driven by the same fears. Humans have not changed, and our anxieties are universal across time. Amid these fears of taking foreign materials into our bodies, or ceding control of our health to government entities, eras of distrust in institutions and expertise and partisan polarization are especially exacerbating.

Certainly partisan polarization of the anti-vaccine movement has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was fairly evenly distributed between those with more conservative and liberal views. Now, vaccine hesitancy and vaccination rates fall along distinctly political lines during a time of mistrust in experts and institutions. Over the past decade, right-wing populist movements have seen growth in Western democracies, with groups such as the National Rally in France, the Lega Nord in Italy and UKIP in the U.K. all gaining seats in parliaments, and similar forces pushing U.S. and Brazilian politics to the extreme right. Right-wing populism requires an enemy in the establishment and intellectuals. Populist movements define politics as a struggle between such social elites and so-called ordinary people. Scientists, physicians, public-health experts and social agencies may not view themselves as elite, but populist movements often do.

Simultaneously, systematic attacks have been made on universities and academics with claims of cancel culture, bias against conservatives, and attempts to make the teaching of concepts such as critical race theory a wedge issue (often even at schools and in programs that do not teach CRT). All of these attacks serve the same anti-intellectual goal of casting universities as places of indoctrination and experts as radicals who are pushing an agenda. Although certain academic specialties such as gender studies have often been the subject of these attacks, they represent only a small fraction of degrees, as fewer than 10 per cent of students major in humanities.

These attacks are not new. Complaints about cancel culture are simply a rebranding of attacks on political correctness from the 1980s. Historian Richard Hofstadter identified these trends back in the 1960s, arguing they arose from a kind of class resentment. Although anti-intellectualism can be an effective political strategy, it fails as a means of dealing with real-world problems.

Anti-intellectual political impulses did not subside when the pandemic began to spread. The former U.S. president spent much of his time as steward of a government overseeing a pandemic response by playing down its extent, and casting news of its severity and persistence as personal attacks designed to make him look bad. Lockdowns and quarantines measures meant to slow the spread of the pandemic while a vaccine could be developed faced heavy opposition as well, as the economic costs were deemed too great. Even early in the spread of the pandemic, prominent media voices were calling COVID-19 a hoax.

When widespread distribution of vaccines began earlier this year, it was already difficult to reference the issue of vaccination without framing it in terms of culture wars. The vaccine-hesitant were framed as rural ignoramuses, too uneducated to do what was right for their own (and others) good. Vaccine advocates were framed as out-of-touch elites at best, and nefarious liars inventing a false pandemic to create economic ruin at worst.

At the same time, anti-vaccine groups saw an opportunity to reach a greater audience. Funded and led by a handful of misinformation superspreaders, they were quick to adapt to whichever political identity was most convenient. Anti-vaccine groups attended BLM rallies during the worldwide protests last summer, hoping to convince people that vaccination is a form of medical racism. They also worked with conservative anti-mask groups to craft messaging that would reach a wider audience. Major media figures repeated anti-vaccine talking points, seeing it as a cultural wedge issue.

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We are now seeing the consequences of these events. In the United States, case counts have risen close to their peak of last summer as states with low vaccination coverage have been hit hardest. In Arkansas, the state where I currently work, only 3 per cent of ICU beds are available as of this writing. Canadian case counts have started to rise as well, threatening the cancellation of events and the renewal of public-health interventions once intended as stopgaps before vaccines became available. In the short term, immediate pandemic needs must be addressed but its clear that in the long term, trust in experts and institutions must be rebuilt.

The first step is recognition that there is in fact a trust relationship between experts and the public. Merely possessing an advanced degree, having a lengthy CV, or occupying a position of influence does not automatically bequeath trust. We would like to think that a track record of success would be enough to gain trust; but in reality, driven by emotions, trust is harder to win and easy to lose. Merely providing correct information is not enough to convince. It is not enough to simply be right we must also be connected to the communities that we serve.

Experts must ask two questions: Do I trust those I ask to trust me? and How have I earned the publics trust? We cannot assume that we deserve something that we refuse to reciprocate. Trust in the process of science is perennially strong. However, few seek out scientific sources, and few scientists bother to speak directly with their communities.

Unearned trust is fragile, and not premised on mutual respect. In 2017, I co-chaired the March for Science, an international protest calling for governments to consider scientific evidence when setting policy, and simultaneously asking scientists and their professional societies to engage with political decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates that these goals are yet to be accomplished. The consequences of both goals remaining incomplete are weighty: How many have died because governments around the world have failed to follow the science of this pandemic and expert recommendations? How many have we lost because of the eroded edifice of trust? As a medical scientist, I wonder daily if I could have done more. Could I have made specific demands, raised my voice louder in protest, or crafted a clearer message?

To lament and mourn the deaths from COVID is also to seek solutions to prevent a repeat in the future, rather than casting blame. Too many responses to the rise of Delta variant cases have been mean-spirited no one deserves death, even those whose poor decisions played a role in their own illness. Much of the commentary seems designed to provoke a backfire effect making entrenched views more intractable, and minds harder to change. The death of an anti-vaxxer is not karma or justice only a preventable tragedy. Seeking to end this pandemic should be a humanist goal, driven by compassion.

Scientists rarely acknowledge that they hold power. The democratization of knowledge through digital resources has not democratized that power. To participate in a scientific dialogue, formal education is still expected. Academic degrees and institutional affiliations still carry weight. That same democratization of knowledge supplants one kind of trust with another instead of experts, many turn to media personalities, social media, meme pages and troll farms. These sources as or more biased than the trusted sources they replace offer quick access to the feeling of power and restore a sense of equality: Make up your own mind. Do your own research. The naive view that lack of access to information was the cause of science denial has proved false. Complicated information benefits from expert interpretation, and that interpretation needs to overlap with trust networks.

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The worst thing we could do is bury our heads in the sand and hope that the anti-vaccine movement and other manifestations of science denial go away and that we can simply return to a paternalistic era of unexamined institutionalism. Mr. Hofstadter identified the mystique of the practical as a draw of anti-intellectual populist movements. The epistemology of knowledge, hard won through empirical testing, experimentation and analysis, is as practical as anyone could want. The fruits of scientific labour, and the methods of scientific inquiry, are the birthright of every human being.

Trust between institutions, experts and the public built on mutual respect, compassion and a sense of shared mission is a project that may take decades for the scientific community to accomplish. It must compete with political and financial interests that benefit from misinformation. It comes up against our own instincts to circle the wagons and protect ourselves. It demands of us that we not only change others minds, but our own minds but remains, especially today, an essential project.

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As the consequences of vaccine hesitancy ripple through the pandemic, trust in experts and institutions must be rebuilt - The Globe and Mail

FOX Business' Stuart Varney discusses San Francisco's costly trash can initiative, arguing that 'getting rid of trash cans does not get rid of trash.'

In his latest "My Take," "Varney & Co." host Stuart Varney describes San Franciscos growing trash problem as "the tip of the idiocy iceberg," arguing that the once-bustling city is "sinking under the weight of absurd political correctness."

STUART VARNEY: You may think this is trivial, not worthy of editorial time. I disagree: Its not just about trash cans. Its about a city, like many others,thats gone off the rails.

The story begins when Gavin Newsom was the mayor. He's now the governor of California, but back in the day, hizzoner decided to remove 1,500 trash cans because, well, there was too much trash getting spilled all over by the homeless. Of course, as the homeless population continued to grow, the trash problem grew. Getting rid of trash cans does not get rid of trash.

SAN FRANCISCO CONSIDERS TESTING $20,000 PROTOTYPE TRASH CANS: 'INSANE'

Enter Mohammed Nuru. He was the director of the Public Works department. He's the father of the $12,000 trash can debacle.

He has since been arrested in a corruption scandal, from which it emerged that he'd dated the current mayor, London Breed, and given her gifts. But lets not digress.

Instead of bringing back the old trash cans, the city decided it needed new ones, which would have to withstand the homeless. Thats how the city got to the $12,000 cans that will be deployed by the thousand. Can you imagine? $12,000 each!

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They won't solve the trash problem. Or the homeless problem. Or the tourist problem who wants to visit a vast homeless camp?

Or the crime problem the radical activist, Chesa Boudin, is the DA and he's not going to prosecute the shoplifters who've been walking out of stores with bags full of loot!

I used to live in San Francisco. Got my start in TV there back in 1975. Bought my first house there. It was a great city.

And now? Its not. Its sinking under the weight of absurd political correctness. The $12,000 trash cans are just the tip of the idiocy iceberg.

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Varney: San Francisco trash can debacle the 'tip of the idiocy iceberg' - Fox Business

Its as frustrating as it is typical that cultural critics treat each new development in society as just another phase, as though it were an angsty adolescent trying out a new identity. In some ways, the thought that this or that specific trend is a phase with a beginning and an end may be comforting and easier to understand, but in other ways, it leads to inadequate solutions and circular arguments.

I suspect that a big reason for this is that most of these critics write for a living and often lack regular contact with the issues they analyze. They may be well read, well connected, and keep up with the news cycle, but too often this only grants a surface-level knowledge of the matter at hand. It does not give the full picture that comes from working directly with affected individuals on a daily basis.

With that said, Jeremy Adams, a teacher as well as a writer, is an important exception. His new book Hollowed Out: A Warning about Americas Next Generation combines the best of both of these worlds. As a writer, Adams clearly argues that younger generations are encountering serious social problems that threaten imminent nationwide decline. As a teacher, he can personally testify to his subject and speak authentically.

In Hollowed Out, Adams is like Virgil walking Dante through the Inferno, except that he walks the reader through the excruciatingly empty world of todays iGens and younger millennials. They are ignorant, unambitious, anti-social, uncurious, materialistic, narcissistic, and profoundly unhappy. Yet they are strangely proud of all this and expect their free, prosperous world to continue as it always has. Worse still is that they have convinced so many of the older generations to expect this as well.

This situation prompts Adams to ask at the outset of his book, What if the self-isolation and despair, the consumerism and cult of celebrity, the hectoring political correctness, the disdain for country and the retreat from kin, the fetishization of feelings and the relativization of ethics, and the indulgence of vulgarity and obscenity are not ordinary generational schisms, but rather symptoms of something far worse, a powerful pestilence of the collective soul?

In other words, what if this not another phase, but a terrifying new normal?

To begin, Adams asserts the hollowness originates from an undefined worldview: We are at odds over the basics: what it means to be human, to find fulfillment, to use freedom to obtain higher or transcendent or objective goods. The reason so many young people waste their reason, heart, and spirit on frivolities is that they dont believe in anything more than that. Despite all the attempts of the world to engage them, young people are profoundly disengaged and not forging deep and meaningful connections to people, places, and traditions.

For parents and teachers who work with these young people, this has immediate implications. That includes a complacent listlessness: While teachers strive to help students become their best selves, many students dont feel inclined to become anything more than what they already are, because, from their perspective, there is nothing to aspire to, no hierarchy of the good, and they can imagine no higher power than an anodyne god who asks nothing of them.

Under this framework, the very actions that define a fulfilled life are rendered meaningless. Life is not about what a person can do (which, for many young people, is next to nothing), but what a person is.

While some may contend its completely natural that young people be a little shallow, Adams explains at length this is not true. Something has changed in the past decade, and its no secret what it is their phones.

Its an inconvenient truth that is quickly forgotten, but Adams makes it clear: Young people spend up to nine hours a day on their phones, most of it on social media platforms with a vapid parade of posts, comments, and pictures. Unlike the real world, which imposes certain demands on its participants, the virtual world demands nothing and actively discourages things like introspection, reflection, and accountability.

Along with making them shallow, this also makes them lonely. Real connections are impossible, and virtual connections are designed to indulge users vanity. They dont want friends; they want followers: To many young people, a moment is only truly significant if it is observed and approved by others. Celebrity is the goal.

That is, if there even is a goal. Otherwise, constant distraction is the goal, and the young person drifts further and further away from himself and others.

Adams follows this observation with a story of his students pushing him to get a blue checkmark. As they explain, Twitter verified means you are important. It means youre, you know, big time. If a person is not big time, is that failure? Perhaps, but the bigger problem here is that the whole pursuit of celebrity is pointless, with Adams concluding, Unlike my students, I dont care what Twitter thinks of me. What I care about is that my students think about more than Twitter and every other social media platform.

Not surprisingly, this lonely life devoid of meaning or accomplishment leads many people to remain stuck in adolescence, particularly men. Adams notes so many dont marry or even work, but play video games in their parents basement and somehow feel fine about it: Grown adults in the past would have thought that moving back home was embarrassing, emblematic of personal failure.

In Adamss view, the lack of self-awareness in this regard betrays a barren, unromantic culture where escapism seems like the best option. The personal milestones that motivated people to mature and achieve have vanished. But, as Adams reminds his students and readers, Avoiding responsibility might seem like a good idea as a young adult, but you are likely to regret it later when your career prospects have diminished, marriage and children seem unattainable, and you realize that your life is a story of talent and opportunity wasted.

Surely then, Adams, an acclaimed teacher, would recommend educational reform as the remedy to this problem. Except that he doesnt, since education has been hollowed out, too. Teachers cannot put broken families back together. They cannot remake their students backgrounds. They cannot bring jobs to impoverished neighborhoods. This is not a counsel of despair. There is a way outand we, as a society, need to do a much better job of pointing students (and their parents) towards it, he writes.

This doesnt mean education couldnt be improved. Schools have adopted all sorts of gimmicks that have, more often than not, worsened the situation. Specifically, Adams mentions the bogus disciplinary model of restorative justice and bad humanities instruction.

In the first case, so many campuses have traded away punishment for therapy, which in practical terms simply means they have mostly created a rationale keeping bad students in the classroom to terrorize their teachers and classmates. Not only have restorative discipline and similar theories inhibited learning, they have rendered whole schools dysfunctional and often dangerous.

In the second case, many districts have adopted bad instructional strategies and lousy curriculum that lacks substance and relevance. Adams doesnt even try to defend these pedagogical decisions as most teachers would, but decries the implicit societal death wish. To abandonalmost completely, as school curricula routinely now doa broad and robust exposure to the thinkers and books that set Western civilization in motion is not just a willful act of cultural amnesia. It is dangerous, he observes.

This leaves faith and family as possible sources of redemption for a benighted generation that knows nothing and strives for nothing. However, judging from young peoples disavowal of religion and familial ties, no one should expect any new Great Awakening. Rather, they can expect a Deep Sleep of illiterate geriatrics spending their last moments of life worshiping a false version of themselves on a screen.

Perhaps sensing the readers need for a small respite from an increasingly bleak description, Adams mentions in this section two lost habits that, if revived, could reverse some of what of he describes: reading and eating together as a family. Both are powerful tools for raising happy, competent children. The numerous studies and personal accounts he lists provide some indication of where to begin if one wants to save his children from being hollowed out.

Finally, Adams finishes strong with his final chapter: Hollowed-Out Democracy, which drives home his argument and inspires the reader to start addressing the real problems affecting society today.

He starts this chapter by bringing up the familiar problem of increasing political division and how this has not only ruined our personal lives, but also our conception of community and governance: Elections are no longer about setting policy priorities for the next two to four years; they are dangerous exercises in personal affirmation at the expense of others, because for so many of us, in our hollowed-out selves, we are our political views.

Adams remarks this has made patriotism partisan and generational. Young people have learned to hate their country and take their blessings for granted. This has made them cynical and fatalistic.

Yet there is an entire cottage industry of very smart, creative, and influential people in our political and cultural life today who peddle vicious cynicism to our children, who poison them with the idea that they are now and always will be victims of an unjust society, he writes. This is the main problem with Critical Race Theory. It pushes a false narrative that deprives students of agency and encourages a pessimistic view of effort and accomplishment.

Adams responds to this problem forcefully and beautifully: I teach high school social studies. But somethingcommon sense, real-world experience, intuitiontells me that if you teach young Americans that there is nothing they can do to improve themselves, then you have lied to them. The American dream is not a lie. I have seen it lived out over and over again. The big lie is that our students are hopeless, powerless victims. It is a lie that brings passivity and cynicism, that encourages finger-pointing and hate, that is a harmful counsel of despair.

Like that, Adams manages to leave the reader uplifted even after this book details the lifelessness and misery plaguing younger generations. Even after seeing what he has seen, he testifies that success and happiness are possible, even if they dont seem very likely.

Still, the reader might wish for more answers from Adams. While identifying the problem is a good first step, it never hurts to offer a few paths forward, even if it adds a few more pages.

Furthermore, readers may want to have more storiesand a teacher like Adams easily has plenty of themto break up the piles of quotes and statistics that can be found in many other books. Adams is at his best when he writes about these experiences, and its a missed opportunity he doesnt do it more often.

Even with those small criticisms (which are really just a plea for more), Hollowed Out is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is elegantly written and insightful. Adams doesnt write clunky sentences, nor does he clutter his writing with superfluous statements and observations. His work is concise and quite readable.

More importantly, its wise. Adams calls this book his magnum opus, and rightly so. It reflects so many years of lived experience and deep thought, and yet it is accessible and is universally relevant. It offers numerous points to mull over as it presents a detailed picture of what the world has become. It makes sense of the increasing confusion in a way that most other nonfiction does not.

In short, Hollowed Out helps readers understand themselves and those around them. As such, it begins a long-deferred conversation about where our society is headed. Hopefully, readers will take Adamss warnings to heart and begin the work of filling in this world that has become so dreadfully hollow.

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A Teacher Explains The Challenges The Young Don't Want To Face - The Federalist

Over the past few weeks, we have taken a look at the origins of the critical race theory now so popular among some sectors of the American population, pundits, and politicians among them. Today lets tackle the theory itself.

We are taking a look at the theory largely because it is based on an interpretation of history, and I am a professional historian and we need a professional look, rather than an opinion from a drop-in politician, reporter, journalist, or any other curious onlooker, from a Black Lives Matter communist to a Trump capitalist.

We are in a national crisis and as we move to solve it, we need to be as clear as possible where we came from history to understand where we are and, even more important, where we want to go.

So, what is the critical race theory?

It is basically a rejection of the principles of liberty and freedom which underlay the making of our country, from when the first Englishmen arrived in Virginia and New England in the early 17th century to today.

And, in the place of those principles, which include individualism, self-control, the power of the vote, liberty, personal responsibility, true equality, freedom, a devotion to Christianity, and a host of other principles derived from those, critical race theoryputs race at the center of our history, with tangents such as systemic racism, white fragility, black entitlements, and the 1619 Project as the proof offered of its true vision of America. Historians of national repute have debunked the 1619 Project as patently false.

Why is critical race theory being promoted? There are three goals; to bring its promoters to power, two, to expand the power of the State, and three, to replace the traditional sources of personal responsibility to factors beyond the control of individuals, principally race.

Blame is central to critical race theory.

The traditional white rulers in the nation are held to account for ruling the country by systematically exploiting African people, first introduced as slaves in 1619, held in bondage until the Civil War, and then through laws and institutions think Jim Crow, segregation, etc. until the 1960s.

What is happening today, from indoctrinating first-graders to rioting and burning in the cities, is directly attributable to the critical race theory agenda. In the colleges and universities, it is thinly disguised as programs and divisions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, with the emphasis on equity.

Equity is not the same as equality. Equity demands two things. One, all students, regardless of race, sexual preference, gender, ethnicity (Hispanics, Asians, etc.), intelligence and other factors (grades, IQ, etc.) be admitted to higher education. Two, equity demands an equal outcome for all students regardless of their intelligence, background, study, work habits, and other traditional factors that govern outcomes in higher education.

In other words, equity replaces excellence as the standard in determining not only admissions, but also outcomes such as grades, achievements, graduation, etc.

The theory is that everyone is exploited in some form or another by white racists. Rather than advancement being based on achievements and excellence, it is based on race alone.

Some races have triumphed over others, and now the system Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will make it right. And since all racesAfrican-American, Hispanics, Asians, Africans, etc. have been exploited by whites, now whites will be stripped of their privileges and everyone will be equal in the world envisioned by the Wokes, or those who have awakened to the existence of white privilege and racism.

If this sounds like something envisioned by such as Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Karl Marxand Fidel Castro, you are right. Socialism/Communism expects all to be subjects of and obedient to the state which will determine everything in your life.

And whites, in a subset of the Woke theory called white fragility, cant deny they are racist since denial is simply a subconscious measure that affirms their racism. Or the more you deny it, the more it confirms the truth of your racism. You cant escape it.

That the Wokes are themselves indulging in racism is so transparently clear that one has to wonder at their process of thinking if their logic and/or ideology can be called thinking.

Children as young as 5and 6years old are being taught about institutional racism, cultural humility, and at the higher grades the history of marginalization and institutional racism, implicit bias, and other tropes from the Woke curriculum. As one website noted, forget a fundamental understanding of reading, writing, math or civics, La Crosse [Wisconsin] would rather make their teachers and students experts in political correctness instead.

What you have read above just runs over the surface of how oursociety and lives are being undermined by the Woke generation that is promoting the end of America as most of you know it. There are movements right here in Alabama working to bring down this incredibly destructive ideology. Right now, for example, there are bills being prepared for our state Legislature to forbid critical race theoryfrom being administered and taught in our schools. Stand by for more.

Larry Clayton is a retired University of Alabama history professor. Readers can email him atlarryclayton7@gmail.com.

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THE PORT RAIL: So, what is the critical race theory? - Tuscaloosa News

John Carpenters Escape From L.A. hit screens 25 years ago this week, dropping in at the tail end of a summer season that featured Independence Day, Mission Impossible, Twister, and The Rock. The return of Snake Plissken, with Kurt Russell donning the eye patch for the first time in 15 years (or four if you count Captain Ron, and I do) should have allowed the film to fit right in amongst the other blockbusters of 96, but instead, it got its clock cleaned on its opening weekend by Jack. Do you remember Jack? No, you do not, but its a family drama from Francis Ford Coppola featuring Robin Williams as a kid with a disease that makes him age super fast. Critics HATED it, but it made more than twice Escape From L.A.s $25 million domestic take. This is further proof that box office has little to do with quality. But that number seems light, right? I mean, Snake Plissken! But maybe not!

Carpenter and Russell are both icons, and not in the participation trophy way with which the word often gets applied. Theyre honest to goodness game-changers who have done great things individually, but their team-ups are extra special, specifically Escape From New York, The Thing, and Big Trouble In Little China. Shockingly, however, the combined domestic box office for those three films is a little more than $50 million. That doesnt quite make them failures when adjusting for todays dollars and taking their budgets and expectations into account, but its notable because a studio somehow gave Carpenter about that much money to make Escape From L.A. expecting a lot more ROI than they should have based on prior returns. Silly studio, thats approximately 8X the budget he had on Escape From New York. This was great, because Carpenter had, historically, made big things happen on smaller budgets, and so those hubris bucks gave him the chance to embrace the full breadth of his ambition, and the weirdo result, paired with the innate badassery of Russell, is why the film is still worth talking about.

Lets get the plot description out of the way for anyone who has forgotten or who hasnt seen the film (which you can and should rent on Amazon).

The year is 2013 and America is under the reign of a divide and conquer totalitarian President (Cliff Robertson) with rats nest hair and near-certain brain worms. Hes been elected for life on a platform thats a mix of weaponized political correctness and moral cleansing, sending people to the freshly made badlands of L.A. (which has broken off from the mainland after an earthquake) if they arent cut out of a Rockwell painting. Hes a coward, hypocrite, and the clear villain of the film. What a mixed message for proto-red hats in the 90s who would have surely latched onto the anti-PC slice of that pie, no wonder they turned to Limp Bizkit music to clarify their rage.

The Presidents daughter (A.J. Langer) betrays her father, stealing a superweapon for Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), her L.A.-based rebel leader boyfriend. He has bad intentions, but the government isnt keen to let him start a war. Enter Plissken. After being arrested and injected with a virus, Plisken heads to dystopian L.A. with only a short time to retrieve the weapon and get back to the mainland for an antidote. Heres where things get wonderfully weird.

See Steve Buscemi as a fast-talking con man and goon, the guy from Revenge Of The Nerds as a knife-throwing skinhead, and Bruce Campbell as a demented plastic surgeon with a parade of freaks! Experience a burnt-out L.A., the very best fake future tech that Radio Shack had to offer, hang gliding machine gunnery at a pseudo-Magic Kingdom, and a key scene where Snake surfs a tsunami with Peter Fonda using effects that inspired the person behind them to publicly apologize for the entire sequence.

This is called Surfboard Car Chase Scene. He is wrong.

The sh*tty CGI of this film is a feature, not a glitch. Does Big Trouble In Little China have pristine effects? Hell no, neither does The Thing. Its part of their charm.

The trailer doesnt shy away from those moments, mixing the surfing and hang gliding scenes with hardcore metal, Langer in her underwear, more metal, and a bunch of random clips of Snake kicking ass and talking up his distaste for rules. The 90s! Anyway, what Carpenter did not show in the trailer is the films secret weapon: a leather-clad Kurt Russell being forced to take on the ultimate basketball challenge within Cuervo Jones makeshift gladiatorial arena at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

I give you the death of Snaaaaake Plissken! shouts Cuervo to the disparate groups of baddies cheering on the bloodsport. Not quite!

Please realize that, if you go by Russells age at the time of the films release, Snake was in his mid-40s when he walked onto the court. The character was also feeling heavy effects from the virus hed been dosed with. Russell is a former pro athlete and he was clearly in great shape, but on his best day I doubt Snake could have gone end to end with a 10-second clock, sinking every shot for 2 points (no 3 point bullshit Cuervo Jones was not made for the modern game) with the threat of execution hanging over him should he miss. I dont know who could. Remember, Cuervo warned him that no one had ever survived. But somehow, Snake rallies and finds MJ Flu Game energy.

I love Snakes reaction after the rules are explained to him. Not angry, not scared. Just annoyed, like, do I really have to ball out on these f*ckers without my Reebok pumps?

As you can see in the clip, Snake is the original four-level scorer, going from layups to mid-range, to half court, and then a heave from full court that gracefully drops. I have, over the years, read a few things on this movie and I have no idea if Kurt Russell is the one who shot those shots or if some kind of trickery was deployed. Do you believe in miracles? Wrong movie, but yes, I want to.

The movie ends with a less bonkers but equally inspired twist that echoes the end of Escape From New York albeit with more broadly felt consequences as Snake decides that the world needs a hard reboot. Its cynical and limiting when it comes to sequels unless Carpenter and Russell ever want to come back and take Snake fully into Man With No Name full-on western territory (oh, god, please do exactly that). But its also pitch-perfect, affording this mishmash of wild ideas the big damn exclamation point it deserves.

While there has been talk about additional films (including one in space) and a TV show, both men seem to be winding down their prodigious careers. Carpenter hasnt directed a feature since 2010 (but that certainly doesnt mean hes retired) and there have been rumors that Russell wants his work in the Christmas Chronicles as Santa Clause (which he plays the hell out of) to be his swan song. But who knows?

A reboot is always possible. Robert Rodriguez was attached once, which is interesting for a lot of reasons, but primarily because if you squint during scenes like the Surfboard Car Chase, it almost looks like a shot from Rodriguez and Frank Millers Sin City.

More recently, The Invisible Man writer/director Leigh Whannell took the reigns, but it doesnt sound like anything is imminent. Which is fine. Im all for recasts, reboots, remakes, reimaginings, etc. Stories get passed from generation to generation. I await the moment when nostalgia boys crack under the weight of the news that someone else will play Indiana Jones deep into the future (you know its coming). But with Snake, its more than the challenge of filling Kurt Russells boots.

Can you even imagine a modern take on this anti-modern anti-hero character? Snake is 2D and it serves him (and us) when hes dropped into 3D worlds of chaos and excess. If someone reflexively tried to probe his backstory to give him more layers or invent comical quirks or a deeper motivation beyond survival, the character would lose his specialness, wither, and die. Like an over-annunciated word, it would stab the ear and reek of overthink. Carpenter understood that perfectly, which is why he could make the world and the story bigger, more ridiculous, and with higher stakes and a bigger message at the end in Escape From L.A. All while Snake stayed largely the same. Anything else probably wouldnt have saved it from box office failure, it just would have made it less interesting and entertaining.

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The Weirdness Of 'Escape From LA' Saved It From Irrelevancy - UPROXX

The recent spate of laws restricting how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in the classroom has generated outrage from some educators, and praise from others. And its rekindled a perennial debate: Who gets to decide what history we teach?

Over the past year, Republican state lawmakers have championed measures that could prevent teachers from teaching about the history of racist oppression in the United States, or in one case, describing slavery as anything other than a departure from American ideals.

At the same time, parents have poured into school board meetings in districts across the country, challenging lessons and books about discrimination, bias, and anti-racismbut also about historical events, like school segregation.

In many cases, critics of these materials and lessons argue that schools are placing too much emphasis on the darker moments in American history, to students detriment. The narrow and slanted obsession on historical mistakes reveals a heavily biased agenda, one that makes children hate their country, each other, and/or themselves, wrote a representative from Williamson County Moms for Liberty, a group in Tennessee, in a complaint about books on the civil rights movement used in a 2nd grade curriculum.

But this central conflicthow should educators portray and make sense of the nations pastis hardly new.

For decades, competing interests have fought over this issuein controversies over revisions to state standards, in (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to develop national history standards, and in local challenges to curricula and other materials.

In this explainer, Education Week breaks down how politics and civic values have long been embedded in these decisions about what kids learn, and how new laws and other state level actions may affect this process.

There are no national history or civics standards in the United States. Each state develops its own50 states, 50 different sets of criteria for what students should learn in social studies. These guidelines are usually developed by committees of educators, curriculum specialists at the state department of education, academics, and community members. States update them periodicallygenerally every seven to 10 years through a revision process. State boards of education, which vote to adopt or not adopt revisions, are the final decisionmakers.

For reference, the Common Core State Standards were an attempt to get states to adopt similar learning goals for math and English/language arts across the country. But ultimately states made their own decisions on adopting and revising them.

Hammering out what should be in history and social studies standards has long been a contentious process, underpinned by deeper debates about politics and values. Take Texas social studies standards revision in 2010 as an example.

The majority-conservative school board voted to require students to examine the unintended consequences of affirmative action and Title IX, and to encourage high schoolers to question the separation of church and state. Critics of these and other changes accused the board of pushing a right-wing agenda, but the conservative members argued that they were counteracting long-standing liberal bias in the field.

More recently, in North Carolina, opponents of new standards have argued that they lean too far left. Revised standards, adopted in February 2021, place more emphasis on the experiences of marginalized groups and require learning about discrimination in U.S. history. Proponents of the new document say it places a long-overdue emphasis on how racism has shaped the country and our notions of citizenship. Critics argue that the standards paint too negative a view of Americas past.

But not all the differences between states come down to a left vs. right political bent. Theres also a great deal of variation in how specific social studies standards are about what to teach.

Some states focus more on broad concepts and themes. Others note key eras, actors, and events that students need to study and interpret. In Rhode Island, for instance, 3rd and 4th graders are expected to demonstrate an understanding that innovations, inventions, change, and expansion cause increased interaction among people. Tennessees standards are more specific, asking 3rd graders to identify the economic, political, and religious reasons for founding the Thirteen Colonies and the role of indentured servitude and slavery in their settlement.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, put out a report earlier this year giving higher ratings to states with more specific standards. Those results can be found here.

There are a few sets of guiding documents at the national level that address social studies skills. But none of them outline what specific content students should know.

The most well-known of these might be the C3 Framework, developed by the National Council for the Social Studies with a coalition of teachers, academics, and professional organizations in 2013.

The framework doesnt list names and dates; instead, it was designed as a conceptual guide for states to use as they developed standards in geography, civics, economics, and history. It focuses on four skill-based dimensions:

The common-core standards also includes a section on social studies literacy. It outlines expectations for how students parse informational text in history, politics, and other related fieldssaying, for instance, that middle schoolers should have the ability to distinguish between fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment.

Its not happenstance that these national guides skirt the question of what history is most important to teach: The decision is in the crosshairs of the culture wars, and its incredibly hard to come to consensus.

National history standards were last considered almost three decades ago, in 1992. Bringing together about 200 educators and academics from across the political spectrum, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities funded an extensive development process that spanned almost two years and more than 6,000 drafts. But on the eve of the final versions public release, the document sparked a firestorm of controversy.

Lynne Cheney, the head of the NEH when the project was funded, came out in strong opposition to the standards her agency had crafted, saying they were too concerned with political correctness. The U.S. Senate voted to condemn the standards, 99-1. (Cheney is also mother to Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman from Wyoming who sits on the commission charged with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.)

In the years since, echoes of these concerns have reverberated through critiques of national efforts to diversify and broaden schools telling of the American storyeven before the recent debate over critical race theory exploded.

At the high school level, there is one course that operates under a uniform set of national standards for U.S. history: the Advancement Placement course for that subject. While states all set their own guidelines for general high school history courses, AP teachers all work from the same frameworks and their students take the same tests.

In 2012, the College Board released an overhauled AP U.S. History framework. A few months after it went into effect during the 2014-15 school year, Republican state legislators and school board members started to voice complaints: The new framework put too strong an emphasis on the negative aspects of American history and didnt underscore American exceptionalism. The pushback eventually led to another rewrite, which offered more detail on the founding fathers, the U.S.s positive contributions to world affairs, and the productive role of free enterprise.

Even as efforts to come to a definitive consensus on what to teach in history are thwarted again and again, organizations havent stopped trying.

Most recently, a national panel of dozens of academics, educators, and civic nonprofit leaders released the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a history and civics framework for K-12. The guiding documentwhich its creators are quick to emphasize is not an attempt to create national standardscenters on the idea of reflective patriotism, or the notion that students should learn a commitment to American ideals while also being able to recognize when the country has failed to meet them.

At the macro-level, about half of state departments prepare a list of approved resources for districts to choose from. This can include textbooks, but also curricula or other materials from publishers and social studies education organizations. Many of these states also allow districts to apply for waivers for materials that are not on these lists. The rest of the states allow districts to pick their own.

Because different states require that different content be covered in their standards, commercial publishers often create several versions of their materials to meet these competing requirements. This can lead to the same textbook telling vastly different stories in different states, as illustrated by a 2020 New York Times comparison of U.S. History textbooks from Texas and California.

Of course, textbooks and year-long curricula are not the only resources that teachers use in the classroom. Many school systems also choose to adopt other materials at the district level, like standalone units that cover certain historical periods or aspects of civic life. For example, Chicago Public Schools mandated a curriculum on the history of police torture in the city.

And individual teachers often bring in other resources that they source or create themselves. Groups like the Bill of Rights Institute, the Zinn Education Project, the National Constitution Center, and Learning for Justice all provide standalone lessons on certain historical events or civic ideas. Theres also a host of social studies materials of varying quality available on lesson-sharing websites, like Teachers Pay Teachers.

Because there are so many different resources available, and because the landscape is so fragmented, its very difficult to say definitively what materials teachers are actually using in classroomsdespite the existence of state-approved adoption lists.

Theres not much external vetting of social studies materialsat least, not compared to the evaluation metrics that have been developed for other core subjects.

From time to time, high-profile examples of lessons gone wrong make headlines, often around historically inaccurate or insensitive treatment of slavery. But theres no one source thats responsible. Sometimes, activities that ask students to play-act as enslaved Africans or justify slavery have come from lesson-sharing websites. Other times, problematic language is in the textbook itselflike in 2015, when a Texas student highlighted an excerpt in a McGraw Hill book that called enslaved people workers.

Recently, Johns Hopkins University attempted to conduct a broader survey of the landscape. Its Institute for Education Policy released a series of knowledge maps this summer that outline the content covered (and omitted) in five sets of social studies materials.

In deciding what content to look for in these materials, Johns Hopkins considered what knowledge students would need to be successful in college courses, and consulted social studies knowledge standards in Canadian provinces and the United Kingdom.

Its kind of a landscape analysis of the potential areas that a social studies curriculum could attend to, said Ashley Rogers Berner, the director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. Were not making a normative judgment about what should be covered. Thats up to individual school systems, she said.

And therein lies the challenge of trying to evaluate social studies materials, or even social studies standards: It requires making normative judgments about whats good and whats not good, whats important to include and what can be left out.

Is it better to place more emphasis on the founding fathers, or on the economic and social lives of regular people? How do we define citizenship? Should teachers say that slavery is a core part of our founding, or a deviation from our ideals?

These kinds of questions are animating the current national firestorm over history education. And theyre one of the factors driving the steps that Republicans have taken, in 11 states, to restrict how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in the classroom.

Its hard to know for sure. Some of the actions taken by state lawmakers and officials explicitly ban certain resourceslike Floridas new department of education rule, which states that instruction cant use materials from the 1619 Project, a New York Times series that reframes the American story by putting the legacy of slavery and African American history at the center.

Even more complicated is the question of what to do when these laws seem to contradict state standards.

Texas law, for instance, states that a teacher cant be compelled to discuss a particular current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs. If they choose to do so, they have to present the issue from diverse perspectives.

But the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for U.S. Government, the states standards in the course, require teachers to cover things that could easily fall under the category of a widely debated and currently controversial issue. For example, students are required to analyze contemporary examples of citizen movements to bring about political change or to maintain continuity.

So, could a Texas teacher present a lesson supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement and claim cover under the TEKS? Not necessarily, if the way they present it doesnt follow the laws requirements, said Lynn Rossi Scott, an attorney with the law firm of Brackett and Ellis in Fort Worth, Texas.

But she added that its possible for teachers to follow the standards without breaking the law. When students are discussing current political or social issues, teachers have two optionsthey can let students guide the discussion, or they can make sure to present both sides, Rossi Scott said.

Again, its hard to know yet. There has been at least one challenge to materials under one of the new state laws, in Tennessee. In Williamson County Schools, a group called Moms for Liberty challenged four books in the Wit and Wisdom English/language arts curriculum, published by Great Minds. The books included Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story, written by Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years old was one of the first Black children to integrate New Orleans segregated school system.

The group complained that the book, and other materials in the program, sent the message that all white people were bad and oppressed Black people.

Chad Colby, Great Minds senior director of communications, said that the materials develop background knowledge in part through the study of history, which should include historical figures like Ruby Bridges and Martin Luther King, Jr.

None of Great Minds curricular materials teach Critical Race Theory and Wit & Wisdom is in full compliance with the Tennessee legislation, he said in an email.

Education Week also reached out to several of the largest educational publishers, McGraw Hill, Savvas Learning Company (formerly Pearson), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Cengage, asking if they planned to change any of their products in response to new laws and other state-level actions.

Weve been following, and will continue to follow, the development and passage of this legislation to understand what the effects will be, and listening to our educator and administrator partners to hear what schools and districts will need from us, said Tyler Reed, the senior director of communications at McGraw Hill.

A Cengage company spokesperson also said the company was actively monitoring legislative developments on a state level. The spokesperson also affirmed the companys commitment to diversity and multicultural content.

In a statement, Houghton Mifflin Harcourts general manager of core solutions, Jim ONeill, said that the companys programs dont draw upon or cover critical race theory, nor do they advocate for a particular ideology or agenda. He said that HMH has a commitment to developing inclusive, culturally responsive, respectful and balanced content, but also that the company aims to provide resources that can be tailored to districts individual needs.

Savvas did not respond to request for comment.

School board meetings have become a central battlefield in the culture wars over critical race theory, with parents packing into meetings in Loudon County, Va., Fort Worth, Texas, and other communities.

Voicing critiques at local school board meetings can lead to changes in instructionwithin the areas that local systems can control, like curriculum choices, materials selection, or personnel issues like disciplining teachers. Local school boards dont have the power to change state standards, though.

Just last month, a district in Pennsylvania tabled a donation of books to elementary school libraries because parents complained that the books taught critical race theory. Titles included Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story and Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race.

The parents who spoke to the board didnt challenge these books under any kind of state law regarding how teachers discuss racismPennsylvania is considering such a bill, but it hasnt passedbut rather on the grounds that the books were inappropriate for the school community.

While parents may now invoke critical race theory to support book challenges, the concept of petitioning a school system over books deemed inappropriate is hardly unique to this era of anti-CRT pushback. The American Library Association has long tracked these kinds of challenges and bans and provides data on its website about the most contested titles going back three decades.

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Who Decides What History We Teach? An Explainer - Education Week

This month, Netflix added a shock-humor movie to its library that may be even more controversial now than the day it first came out. The streamer picked up Team America: World Police on Sunday, Aug. 1, and it is already stirring up a new conversation. It has many people reflecting on how political correctness has evolved in less than two decades.

Team America: World Police comes from the creative team behind South Park Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Pam Brady. It is a stop-motion animated film meant to satirize the hyper-militarization of the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with the title reflecting the criticism that the U.S. tries to "police the world." In the process, it also pokes fun at big-budget action movies in general.

Team America uses a form of puppetry called Supermarionation. It stars Parker, Stone, Kristen MIller, Masana, Daran Norris, Phil Hendrie, Maurice LaMarche, Chelsea Marguerite, Jeremy Shada and Fred Tatasciore in voice-over. If anything, the puppetry format only enhances the shock value of the crudest and most graphic moments in the film.

The plot generally follows a fictional paramilitary organization from the U.S. fighting terrorism all over the world except in the U.S. Each main member of the team is a play on classic action movie tropes, but the villains are more realistic. It also heavily criticizes Hollywood for its hollow political rhetoric, referring often to the fictional "Film Actors' Guild" by its obscene acronym.

Naturally, critics acknowledged the offensive material in Team America at the time, although many argued that it was justified for the topic at hand. The movie has a 77 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, with a critical consensus reading: "Team America will either offend you or leave you in stitches. It'll probably do both."

Still, the social and political climates have changed drastically in the years since the movie was first released, and new viewers may take more issue with the flippant homophobia and racism portrayed in the movie. This would not be the first time that a piece of media from the early 2000s was relitigated on social media, nor the first debate about the function of satire in a plot this long.

For better or worse, Team America: World Police has its way back into popular discourse this month, and it may influence Stone and Parker's ongoing work today. The movie is streaming on Netflix now.

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Netflix Just Added an Incredibly Controversial Movie - PopCulture.com