I never said that the default of American Exceptionalism (only, exclusively) was a good idea either.
What you focus on is important. That does not mean that the standard curricula is ideal, or even good. There certainly is an important place for teaching historical injustices, especially because “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. However it also does not mean that every change in that regard is a good one. Not even if you say only true things.
For instance, right now I have a choice of how I engage with your new post. Do I return to how you said “GMAFB” in response to a thoughtful article about unexpectedly large cognitive effects? It’s certainly true that you said it. You certainly didn’t engage intellectually with the content. Maybe it’s really important to understand this as context. Maybe it shows bad faith, or intellectual sloth, which should inform our perspective on everything else you say. Maybe, even though I called you on it before, you’re still doing it, given the “bull excrement” comment. This is all completely true. But is it helpful?
Or, alternatively, I could engage with the new content. I could point out that I didn’t mean that teaching about the immoral side of Jefferson and others was the problem, because that’s not the primary novel message of Critical Race Theory AND that’s comparatively unlikely to trigger stereotype threat. The question is over how all-encompassing you view racism as shaping our modern society and history (if you’re teaching history); to what extent do you teach intersectionalism, to what extent do you teach individualism, and to what extent do you teach community-mindedness? Do you convey the CRT-esque message that everything is about power, especially racial power and suppression?
William Tate, one of the pioneers of Critical Race Theory in education, contrasts the conventional multicultural approach:
Multicultural education has been conceptualized as a reform movement
designed to effect change in the “school and other educational institu-
tions so that students from diverse racial, ethnic, and other social-class
groups will experience educational equality.”[…] Current practical demonstrations of multicultural education in schools
often reduce it to trivial examples and artifacts of cultures such as eating
ethnic or cultural foods, singing songs or dancing, reading folktales, and
other less than scholarly pursuits
with an (unspecified but more radical) CRT approach:
Instead of creating radically new paradigms that
ensure justice, multicultural reforms are routinely “sucked back into the
system” and just as traditional civil rights law is based on a foundation of
human rights, the current multicultural paradigm is mired in liberal ideol-
ogy that offers no radical change in the current order.9 3 Thus, critical race
theory in education, like its antecedent in legal scholarship, is a radical cri-
tique of both the status quo and the purported reforms.
So, let’s see whether this more radical approach is being applied. Take, for instance, Oregon’s official Anti-Racist Text guide (https://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/standards/socialsciences/Documents/Racial%20Justice%20Text%20Tool.pdf). It says things like,
In what ways does this text connect to the lived experiences of students
in a culturally relevant and responsive way? Is the text building on the
cultural wealth students bring into the classroom? Educators must also be
aware of the Narratives many students bring with them into the classroom.
How does the text or supplemental text challenge or support these
Narratives?
Ooh, hello, we don’t see any inkling of CRT there, do we?
It is integral to our role as educators to challenge the Eurocentric
Narrative and center our work and resources around the identities and lives
of historically marginalized communities and thus the communities we
serve.
Nope, no hint of CRT. (Note: Oregon’s public schools are 60% white.)
If you read the whole thing, you’ll find that there’s not one mention of success, triumph, accomplishment — except specifically when “overcoming oppression”.
This isn’t the original legal Critical Race Theory. But it is very much motivated by and in the vein of the educational Critical Race Theory. It uses the jargon, focuses on the topics, adopts the goals.
And that might be fine.
But to deny that it’s happening — to call claims that it is akin to the claims of voter fraud — is profoundly, embarrassingly wrong. Something is happening, and it’s not a small thing.
To what extent is it good? To what extent is it bad? To what extent does it depend on the details of how it’s done? These are things that are worth debating.
I don’t deny that the topic is important, or that traditional education has swept important aspects of history and modern culture under the rug. But I do worry that the approach which has the most traction as an alternative is not even a good approach, let alone an ideal one. I’m perfectly happy to be convinced otherwise.
But you have to start by admitting that more than nothing is happening, and that even if it isn’t the original legal Critical Race Theory, there’s something intellectually related to it that’s very much in play right now.