Politics Should schools teach Critical Race Theory? (4 Viewers)

[ABM]

No, ABM does not and resents the insinuation therein.

 

[Minstrel]

No, ABM does not and resents the insinuation therein.

There was no insinuation within. I said precisely what I meant, based on all the things you've said about race relations, protests, etc.

 

[ABM]

There was no insinuation within. I said precisely what I meant, based on all the things you've said about race relations, protests, etc.

Based upon what you've just insinuated above, you'd be completely wrong. Now, if you'd like to expound on something more in depth or, even better, actually quote me, I'd be happy to discuss/clarify.

EDIT:

For the record, I've never really trusted the BLM "organization's" leadership (or lack thereof), and am much more inclined to get behind efforts such as the Woodson Center. But, it seems in here, you say one thing counter to anything related to BLM, and you get castigated.

 

[Chris Craig]

ABM likes black people who think black people are the problem and should deal with the effects of prejudice and bigotry themselves.

This may or may not be so, but attack his posts ascertaining to this observation.

 

[Minstrel]

This may or may not be so, but attack his posts ascertaining to this observation.

I'm attacking his position, which is perfectly acceptable. There was no personal insult.

 

[ABM]

I'm attacking his position, which is perfectly acceptable. There was no personal insult.

No, you've stated my position, which I've denied having.

 

[ABM]

This may or may not be so, but attack his posts ascertaining to this observation.

Thank you, Chris.

 

[Minstrel]

No, you've stated my position, which I've denied having.

Giving my view on your position is, again, perfectly within the rules. Craig doesn't seem to understand forum policy too well, unfortunately.

 

[Chris Craig]

I'm attacking his position, which is perfectly acceptable. There was no personal insult.

You may be attacking his position, but you are not replying to a post. You are not attacking a post, you are attacking a poster. Go read rule #7

 

[Chris Craig]

Giving my view on your position is, again, perfectly within the rules. Craig doesn't seem to understand forum policy too well, unfortunately.

I understand it quite well

 

[Minstrel]

You may be attacking his position, but you are not replying to a post. You are not attacking a post, you are attacking a poster. Go read rule #7

I'm not attacking a poster. I'm attacking a poster's position. Saying that it has to be in response to a particular post is simplistic and silly and we've never enforced it that way before. Nor should we.

 

[ABM]

Giving my view on your position is, again, perfectly within the rules. Craig doesn't seem to understand forum policy too well, unfortunately.

It felt more like an insult to me. But, oh well. However, I did ask you to quantify it.

 

[Minstrel]

It felt more like an insult to me.

That's because you thought I was insinuating something. I clearly replied that I wasn't.

 

[Chris Craig]

I'm not attacking a poster. I'm attacking a poster's position. Saying that it has to be in response to a particular post is simplistic and silly and we've never enforced it that way before. Nor should we.

Then quote the posts you see him taking that position in. I enforce it that way all the time. It's not simplistic or silly. Without reference you are just going after a poster for a position you perceive him as having. Again he may or may not hold that position.

 

[Minstrel]

Then quote the posts you seem him taking that position in.

I'm basing it on his posts over the past few years. I'm not going to compile them and I don't need to. The rule is not to attack posters personally, but to attack their positions, which is precisely what I did.

Without reference you are just going after a poster for a position you perceive him as having. Again he may or may not hold that position.

None of this is against the rules. Yes, I'm criticizing the position I perceive him as holding. Even if I quoted the posts that led to the perception, that would still be true. How posts are perceived is subjective--it doesn't become objective just because you quote the posts. The posts ABM has written has led me to view his position as what I said--if ABM disagrees that that's how he feels, that's fine. It doesn't make what I said a personal insult or against the rules.

 

[Chris Craig]

I'm basing it on his posts over the past few years. I'm not going to compile them and I don't need to. The rule is not to attack posters personally, but to attack their positions, which is precisely what I did.



None of this is against the rules. Yes, I'm criticizing the position I perceive him as holding. Even if I quoted the posts that led to the perception, that would still be true. How posts are perceived is subjective--it doesn't become objective just because you quote the posts. The posts ABM has written has led me to view his position as what I said--if ABM disagrees that that's how he feels, that's fine. It doesn't make what I said a personal insult or against the rules.

But, it does become objective. Without reference it is a generalization aimed at the poster and not his posts and can be perceived as an insult or attack on a poster. Which it was.

I get that you think I am being silly and perhaps too literal in my interpretation of the rule. I'm in fact being consistent.

 

[Minstrel]

But, it does become objective. Without reference it is a generalization aimed at the poster and not his posts and can be perceived as an insult or attack on a poster. Which it was.

It never becomes objective. I don't think you understand what "objective" means. You think if I simply quoted all of ABM's race-related posts, he'd suddenly say "Oh, you're right, that is my position?" I perceived his posts a certain way, a way he's unlikely ever to agree with. That would be true if I quoted the posts or not.

If it makes you feel better, pretend I quoted this:

I'm pretty much solutions-based. Owens may very well be tooting the horn for change. Moreover, organizations such as the Woodson Center (whom I financially support) are in the trenches making the yoeman's efforts.

https://woodsoncenter.org/how-we-help/programs/

There, it's "objective" now, apparently.

 

[Natebishop3]

If you call someone a racist, is that a personal attack or an attack on "their position?"

 

[Chris Craig]

It never becomes objective. I don't think you understand what "objective" means. You think if I simply quoted all of ABM's race-related posts, he'd suddenly say "Oh, you're right, that is my position?" I perceived his posts a certain way, a way he's unlikely ever to agree with. That would be true if I quoted the posts or not.

If it makes you feel better, pretend I quoted this:



There, it's "objective" now, apparently.

It manner it does become objective because you are referring to a post...you are referring to the posters words or in the case of the video you quoted what is being said in the video or the meaning behind the video. Even though there is still subjectivity involved it is more concrete and is focused on the post than the poster.

 

[Chris Craig]

If you call someone a racist, is that a personal attack or an attack on "their position?"

It's a personal attack. If someone posts something racist, and you reply to said post to say that it was a racist post, then that is attacking the post (and posts that are racist or likewise sexist, homophobic or otherwise hateful should be called out).

 

[Minstrel]

It manner it does become objective because you are referring to a post...you are referring to the posters words or in the case of the video you quoted what is being said in the video or the meaning behind the video. Even though there is still subjectivity involved it is more concrete and is focused on the post than the poster.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Chris Craig]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Ok then

 

[SlyPokerDog]

"ABM likes black people who think black people are the problem and should deal with the effects of prejudice and bigotry themselves."

I've never known @Minstrel hurl personal insults at people before so I believe him when he says that was never his intention. I can also see where some are reading that as a personal insult.

So let's see if we can fix this so everyone is happy or if not happy then everyone can be pissed at me.

I'm going to edit @Minstrel's post so it says...

"Many of ABM's posts read like he prefers black people who think black people are the problem and should deal with the effects of prejudice and bigotry themselves."

 

[Chris Craig]

I don't know that anyone is unhappy so to speak. @Minstrel and I hold different interpretations of the rules. We agreed to disagree.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

@ABM here is why some, including myself, are confused about your views on CRT. Here are some quotes from you in another thread.

David French

May 30

How old were you the first time you heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre? I’m ashamed to say that I was in my forties. Some of my readers might be today years old when they learn of one of the most horrific and brutal events in American history. And it didn’t occur in the early days of the republic. It didn’t occur in the midst of the American Indian wars.

It happened 100 years ago this weekend. On May 31, 1921, a 19-year-old black man named Dick Rowland was arrested after an encounter in an elevator with a 17-year-old white elevator operator named Sarah Page. We don’t know definitively what happened in that elevator, but Page apparently screamed, Rowland ran, and word soon spread across town that a black man had been arrested for sexually assaulting a white woman.

As an angry white lynch mob numbering in the hundreds gathered, a small band of 25 armed black men arrived to try to protect Rowland’s life. At the sight of armed black men, a number of white men left to gather their guns, and the white crowd continued to grow. Approximately 75 more black men arrived to help protect Rowland. At around 10:00 p.m., one of the white men demanded that a black World War I veteran surrender his sidearm. He refused, a shot was fired, and immediately a gun battle broke out in the streets--killing people of both races.

As the outnumbered black men retreated, the white mob surged forward into Tulsa’s prosperous Greenwood District, home of Black Wall Street, a thriving neighborhood of black-owned businesses. What happened next is beyond horrifying. The district was set ablaze. In spite of valiant attempts at self-defense, black Americans were shot dead by the dozens (unofficial accounts put the number as high as 300), and there were reports white attackers dropped incendiary devices on the neighborhood from the air. By the end of the massacre an entire neighborhood lay in ruins, black men and women were herded into internment centers, and the dead were buried in mass graves.

This was Greenwood ablaze:



This was Greenwood after the riot:



I would urge you to read the entire report of the 2001 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Race Riot. It contains an hour-by-hour chronology of an urban massacre, and it includes these infuriating words: “Not one of these criminal acts was then or ever has been prosecuted or punished by government at any level, municipal, county, state, or federal.”

In my entire adult life, I don’t think America’s dialogue about race has been as toxic as it is today. Extremists dominate, pushing us into ever-more-polarized ideological corners. If you live in right-wing spaces and spend time talking about contemporary racism or the ongoing, persistent consequences of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and segregation, extremists will quickly label you “woke.” And no one should listen to anyone woke.

If you live in left-wing spaces and you push back against emerging “anti-racist” ideologies that sometimes declare the nation foundationally evil, engage in their own forms of gross racial stereotyping (including unremitting hatred for “whiteness”), and seek to defund and discredit policing itself, extremists will quickly label you “racist.” And no one should listen to anyone racist.

At the center of the conversation is a battle about the past, and it’s not just a battle over what we should remember, but how we should remember it. What is it that defines us as a nation? There are some events that we can’t seem to remember enough—when was the last time you heard anyone say that we pay too much attention to June 6, 1944 and the veterans of Omaha Beach?

Indeed, one of the best things our nation does is remember and honor the men who fought, bled, and died to preserve American liberty. That’s the purpose of this very weekend. The memorials to their sacrifice deservedly and rightfully cover this country. When we look at their courage and valor—and repeat those stories to our children and grandchildren—we aren’t just remembering the past, we’re defining the present. We’re saying this is who we are.

Indeed, we often even derive a sense of unearned pride and self-worth from the sacrifices of our ancestors. We delight in telling about the great-grandfather at Iwo Jima or the great uncle at Midway. My own family’s legacy of service begins in the bitter cold of Valley Forge.

It’s that deep emotional tie to the present that renders battles over our past so bitter and brutal. We’re more than willing to feel pride over the virtues of our ancestors. But when the past is grim, we separate ourselves. We forget. We grow defiant. “How dare you,” we say, “impose any responsibility or accountability on me for something I did not do.”

But how should the people of God view the past? Should we be so defensive? The book of 2 Kings, Chapter 22 gives us part of the answer. If you grew up in church, you’ve likely heard this story. In the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, king of Judah, the king ordered the Temple repaired. During the repairs, the high priest found the Book of the Law. The king’s secretary then read the book to the king.

Josiah’s response is profound. “Go, inquire of the Lord for me,” he says, “and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.” (Emphasis added.)

Josiah perceived God’s present wrath for the kingdom’s past sin—past sin that had a present consequence. There was no sense of defiance. There was no deflection of blame. Instead, as the chapter later describes, he “tore his clothes” and “wept” before God. But he did more than weep. He changed. The king “made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.”

Josiah is not alone. Daniel confessed the sins of Israel’s fathers. In the book of Nehemiah, the Israelites confessed the “sins and iniquities” of their fathers. In the book of Leviticus, God commands the Israelites to “confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers.” In short, we cannot and must not ignore our ancestors’ sins.

American believers should remember and lament the terrible violence of May 31, 1921. We should remember and change. And one thing we should remember is the profound sin of the church. One church that remembers and laments is First Baptist Tulsa, a congregation located just a few blocks from the Greenwood District. It has a prayer room dedicated to remembering the massacre, and its purpose is to “provide a place for our church and our community to explore the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and to prayerfully oppose the sin of racism in our world, in our churches and in our heart.”

It does not flinch from facing Christian complicity. A friend sent me pictures from the walls, pictures of quotes by Christian ministers in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. They’re so grotesquely racist that I hesitate to share any of their words, but these, from the Rev. Harold Cooke, of Centenary Methodist Church, come from a heart of darkness:

There has been a great deal of loose-mouthed and loose-minded talk about the white people of Tulsa being equally to blame with the blacks. This is not true. Any person that makes this assertion makes an assertion that is false to the core. It should be a lesson learned, once and for all that the colored man is a colored man and a white man is a white man, and there can never be anything like social equality between the races. Many negroes realize this and are the better element of the colored race.

And what of First Baptist Church? What did its leaders say? The prayer room contains a placard that humbly and simply says this:

No record exists of what was publicly said by Dr. William O. Anderson, the pastor of First Baptist Tulsa. The church archives are mysteriously silent. However, we have little reason to hope that his statements departed from that of the other pastors that history happened to record.

Thank God that we do not live in the America of 1921. Thank God that we do not have the church of 1921. But we do live in an America that was shaped by 1921. We live with the legacy of 1921. And the posture of the present American church should not be some version of “how dare you try to make me feel bad for crimes I did not commit.”

While the violence in Tulsa was stunning, American history is littered with examples of street battles, racist uprisings, and mass killings. The history of the 1898 Wilmington, North Carolina, massacre and coup, in which a racist mob overthrew the city government, is its own category of chilling. So is the Rosewood Massacre. The list goes on.

It is not “hating America” to acknowledge this is part of our story. It is not unpatriotic to understand that much of our present reality exists because the legacy of past atrocities does not fade as quickly as their memory.

So, what do we do? Perhaps we can take a cue from the way in which we honor the glories of the past, but with a very different emphasis. When it comes to our great moments, we remember them, we celebrate them, and we teach our children to emulate the courage and virtue of our heroes. We cover the countryside with tributes.

If it is right to celebrate, it is also right to mourn. When it comes to our darkest moments, we should remember them, we should lament them, and we should take a page from Josiah and seek reform to ameliorate their effects. Unless we remember our worst moments, we simply can’t truly understand our own nation, nor can we relate to all its people.

Humanity has not transformed its fundamental nature in the last 100 years. A nation full of people no better than us can do great good. A nation full of people no worse than us can commit great evil. Remembering our nation’s virtues helps give us hope. Remembering our sin gives us humility. Remembering both gives us the motivation and the inspiration necessary to repair our land.

Actually, I'm a subscriber of the Dispatch and regularly receive all of their content. As to French's poignant piece, I absolutely am in tune with his sentiments here. Moreover, remembering/mourning the travesties of our past definitely provides greater insights - while also securing an anchor of right moral values and behaviors. Now, and in the future.

Now oddly enough Oklahoma has passed legislation outlawing the teaching of CRT. And this seems something that you support. Incidents like the Tulsa Race Massacre are going to be removed from school curriculum. The essay you support and posted about the Tulsa Race Massacre says it has been forgotten to history up until recently. So here you are with you supporting the "remembering/mourning" of this but against the teaching of it in schools. Can you see how some are confused by your positions?

 

[Chris Craig]

I will say my rule of thumb is...and maybe I'm wrong...but it's... if a post aimed towards a certain poster can in anyway be perceived as an insult...then it should be treated as such. Maybe I'm just too by the book.

But as Mods in the past we have been accused of being biased in how we interpret the rules. So, I have taken a black and white approach to the rules. I take them quite literally.

7. Everyone is here to offer their opinions, so be prepared to have people disagree with your opinions. There is a difference between attacking someone's post (their opinion) and attacking the poster with the latter not allowed. The staff is here to monitor for such occurrences.

If you are aiming a statement at a poster and not his post is that attacking them or their post? I get that the parenthesized portion of the rule leaves a loophole or perhaps a subjective lens. Yes, I know what the word means.

 

[RR7]

I would think this would be similar to saying someone is a CJ hater, or a Stotts hater. Without quoting specific posts about it, it still doesn't seem like a personal attack in the way it has generally been enforced, but a general observation about a body of work from those posters.

 

[ehizzy3]

Minstrel is always right imo

 

[RR7]

Minstrel is always right imo

Found @Minstrel 's burner account!

 

[crandc]

Does ABM agree with Candace Owens that January 6 was just folks taking selfies?