> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-sta...
Put another way, it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist.
However, I think you will find that the definition is heavily swayed by your political bent (especially if you are a politician).
It's much too weak a phrasing to say that it only "allows for the possibility." Its core doctrine is that 1) the idea of race itself is a social construct used to oppress/exploit, and 2) laws and institutions are racist and function to create and maintain inequalities.
I'm reminded of this aphorism: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.".
Similarly, while cops might arrest/stop the people they see breaking the law, if they're disproportionately patrolling minority-majority neighborhoods there will be an unequal effect.
> cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law
In the country where I was brought up that was just part of history/society classes instead of a separate thing, but racial tensions in the US seems more extreme than anywhere else so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?
In the same way that number theory is its own thing, and algebra is its own thing, and you might take separate classes on each; algebraic number theory is its own thing and you probably wouldn't take a class on it before grad school.
It's a tool used by some politicians to paint the other side as insane radicals. Insane news stories are pointed at and accused of being a result of CRT, and of course their own side would outlaw it.
That's why they ban books without even saying which books are banned: so they are seen as taking action against the enemy, CRT. In reality there is perhaps some corruption and they want to help a specific publisher.
In all actuality it is the idea that race doesn't exist, it's just something made up by people to exploit other people with different skin color.
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. The word critical in its name is an academic term that refers to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.
A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender and disability. Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis. One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.
CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order, where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.
Conservatives news sources spend alot of air time on the idea of this happening than reality. The general idea is that they don’t like unpleasant history for their children, that they preemptively call revisionist. This has now become a boogeyman in conservative leaning states and affecting real world things.
Perhaps we should also remind people that there's plenty of black folks outside the U.S. too. U.S. history is only a tiny, even negligible fraction of history taken as a whole.
I'm a fourth generation Floridian, and I've lived in the state for 42 years. I plan on moving my family out of here sometime in the next few years, as I don't think the future holds anything better here.
This is the first time in US history where a Governor has unilaterally drafted map redistricting an entire state, and it will give the GOP a 4:1 advantage. That's not democracy, it's a rigged system, and removes the will of the people from the equation.
For me, it's not a liberal/conservative issue, it's a representation issue, and an issue of priorities. Basically, I'm tired of the bullshit, and I think there are better places to raise a family, so I'll be taking my talent and tax dollars elsewhere.
Ridiculous
Regardless of ones political stance, the ruthless drive to win at all costs is causing serious damage to our society.
https://drgregmaguire.org/2020/02/06/why-are-so-many-people-...
Old people are looking to move to Florida for the weather. I don't think that many liberals are looking to move there for the politics. Especially if you have a family—who on earth would want to give up the New York State school system, to raise your kids in the Florida school system? I can't imagine any blue state liberals would want that.
I also understand that including critical race theory in math books seems wildly irrelevant (unless I miss something) and therefor not fit for the curriculum. But I'm interested to hear how that happens in the first place? Who includes education about "intersection of race, society, and law" in mathematical books, for what purpose? Shouldn't that belong to some other educational program instead, like society or history classes?
I could also imagine it being something much more benign. I really wish we could see what it actually was so we could see if the DoE's judgement here was reasonable or not.
That does seems a bit unnecessary example since there is high racial tensions and the book is supposed to be about math. You could just use another example in that case. If it was about cases like that, I might just agree with them being rejected.
> I really wish we could see what it actually was so we could see if the DoE's judgement here was reasonable or not.
Agree, seems weird to not show people what the problem was if it's easy to justify. But then again, a lot of judicial, government and politics from America seems weird to me so...
It would be so nice if politicians could show us precisely what they're protecting our children from, so we wouldn't need to rely on HideousKojima's imagination for examples.
https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/21/desantis-examples-critica...
Title may as well have been "dear leader protects children".
That's the thing, they don't. And this is all a farce to line the pockets of some publisher in bed with some lawmakers.
Some Florida politicians have asked for the info and the media has filed FOIA or the Florida equivalent for the details.
This is not a new battle ground
Writing textbooks for core subject areas, with material stirring controversy seems to be the new battleground for educators.
Ever notice how someone can create a hostile environment without doing anything hostile? Or someone can push right to edge, then back off, claiming "not my intent".
There is an analogous concept in physical therapy. You move a body part as far as you can, to test range of motion and limits. Then try it again, except the therapist assists you to move it farther, even supporting it while you rest a moment. Then you repeat the test, almost always going significantly farther.
You move the bar, the limit, the acceptable range of motion, or speech, or teaching social justice under the guise of core math.
So what else could they do? Don't write about it?
Correct. DeSantis is using the journalistic practice of branding something as some flavor of offensive, without citing any examples. This is the first time I see journalists complain about it and demand specifics.
The books can still be bought and sold, they just wont be with public dollars.
Is Harry Potter "banned" now by most of Twitter too?
Knowing past history of these types of things in other states I doubt there is much to hang a hat on.
Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news. Or, mentioned in a tiny column in the newspaper on some page. Most people wouldn't have come into contact with it. Let alone with such vigor that it led to an us v. them dynamic. It would have been a somewhat pointless gesture that would have been quickly forgotten.
Editorial discretion would have pulled to something more "important" such as Presidents pressuring interns into sexual activity.
Today, due to the attentional nature of the internet, the same story is quite attractive. No matter what your stance, you click on it, at least once, because it's bizarre. It's distilled catnip. On HN as well.
People and machines notice that you're clicking on it. So people start talking about it on social media. Which you engage with. And so more of it is served to you by the machines looped in. On and on until you spend an hour or more of your life on a topic you probably wouldn't have touched or known about thirty years ago.
The emotional valence created by the issue is overpowering as compared to the past, and it's self-sustaining. Forever propagating through the intellectual wastelands we're self-curating.
Humans have been dying on pointless hills for thousands of years. But our technology has amplified it to quite an art form.
Not because of some unique effect of social media; race in education has been that kind of culture war centerpiece for a long time; it was more than 25 years ago that a major national controversy erupted because of a single local school board decision on recognizing African American English as a distinct source language that students come with and which impacts teaching of Standard American English.
(It's true that decisions to impose a racist view of American society by the same faction that has pushed anti-CRT policies in the states where they have recently passed anti-CRT laws wouldn't be news, but that's more the same shift of the center on educational content that the anti-CRT movement is part of the response to than anything about social media.)
I know you're being facetious about interns, but issues today go so far beyond this. There's an actual war on in Europe, inflation is the highest it's been since the 70's and the pandemic is still wreaking havoc on global supply chains. There are very real crises to deal with, but there's political hay to be made from culture war divisions.
You'd hope they'd be a better source of news that better serves all political parties. (And avoid those that seem partisan.)
That feels like enough to discuss to me.
What is Florida's process? How does it differ from other states? What is the role of human discretion? What are some other examples of how this process plays out?
We are left to guess. Or maybe some comments here will offer the information. Either way, a bad, clickbait article.
If public school teachers made the decisions than the government would be making the decisions. Public school teachers in Florida (and frankly elsewhere in the US) are government employees. This is a government setting teaching standards for itself, its literally what government has been doing since it got into the public education business.
In Florida (and frankly elsewhere in the US) private schools can set and choose their own curriculums. If the public curriculum is not to your liking, go private. I believe even in Florida, you can opt in to charter schools too, which have more curriculum flexibility than the public schools.
What's crazy is that he only won the Governor election by very small margins. He's acting like Florida is a deep red state. It's going to backfire on him IMO.
This appears to be the list of the 132 books submitted for review: https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2021-22-S...
And this I believe is the list of books that were approved: https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathA...
Books accepted https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2122MathA...
Books rejected https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2021-22-S...
https://twitter.com/AnnaForFlorida/status/151603980914330009...
(No, I see nothing in NPR's story to suggest that they compared Florida's stated reasons for rejecting various textbooks with the actual contents of the textbooks.)