Today my daughter told me that she was told in class that it was racist to say the name “skhul cave” too many times (apparently because they liked the sound of it or thought the name was funny). Apparently, not liking drum music was also deemed racist by her teacher. I understand that the teacher is probably asking the kids not to make fun of things that are different, but there is a better way to do it than just labeling everything as racist.
My son’s class started to read a story about Japanese Internment in their story sessions. I asked him what the takeaway was and he said that the teacher said that “the [US] government is systemally (sic) racist”. I asked when the story happened and what the context was, and he didn’t seem to know.
Something noteworthy is they are not saying at some point in the past the US did something racist and wrong, or “was” racist, the key takeaway apparently is the US Government “is” systemically racist.
The other was, the kids 9 right? This is some heavy stuff to be drilling into 9 year olds.
If George Takei wasn’t a hilarious person to follow on social media around the year 2013, I never even would have known about Japanese internment. I LOVED everything WWII as a kid, yet every book and movie that I soaked up failed to mention that the US locked up everyone on US soil with Japanese ancestry exclusively based on the fact that their ancestors came from Japan. If that’s not the US government being racist, there is no such thing as racism.
Not only did I never learn about it in school (including AP US history!!!), my parents didn’t even know about it. I went to a very good public high school and I went to a junior high that had a VERY strong social injustice slant (soooo much time spent on the slave trade…). To be honest, I was furious that we spent so much time learning about all the things everyone else did while we failed to mention what had happened at home. I’m glad some school is at least mentioning that it happened.
That just drives home how racist the US government is, regardless of political party?
Yes, I was taught about it in primary school and high school “American History” courses. When we learned about it, it was part of the entire story of American history, in context. Not as a one off seemingly used as an example of how America is endemically racist.
Once again, apparently I live in two different universes from everyone else. When George Takei made his broadway musical about his experience in internment as a kid, not one person I knew was like “oh cool, he made a musical”. It was a lot of “wait, the US locked up all the Japanese in the US during WWII? Why the hell didn’t we learn about this in school?”. 100% upper middle class, well-educated white people. To this day, I will randomly bring it up with random Americans and they have no idea what I am talking about.
I have literally never met an adult American who doesn’t know that Japanese internment happened. I’m sure they’re out there…just look at those late night “ask people on the street” comedy skits…but I’ve never met one. Of course, it isn’t a common topic of conversation.
Sure, if we’re going to admit that every human being acts on what they know and have experienced in life, in which their race and their experience with the race of others is inherently a part of that, you can call that “CRT territory”.