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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31056 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Just saw the headlines about DeSantis banning an AP African-American Studies course. According to AP news, "Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable."

I have two questions about this.

  1. What reason would there be to not say what about the content was objectionable? Would it violate copyright, or some kind of NDA?

If the DeSantis administration's objections to the content are reasonable, then sharing the content would make it impossible for intellectually honest people to say that DeSantis doesn't want the history of American slavery to be taught. Because the objections are left ambiguous, a person can fill in the blanks with whatever best fits their priors, and if someone who doesn't have exposure to current year progressive narratives on race, then their priors probably are "those backwards hicks just don't want their kids to learn things that challenge them." If I hadn't updated my priors since the debates on evolution and intelligent design, that's what I'd assume is happening. But because I've been paying some attention to cultural changes this past decade, my prior is now that some version of disparate impact/critical race theory/systemic racism/Ibram X Kendi's personal philosophy is in the course. But like my hypothetical leftist, I'm using my priors to fill in blanks that ideally the government would be filling in for me.

  1. Is there any information anywhere online about what material was in this course?

The government may not be able to tell us, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean the information isn't out there.

This is why the right loses. It finds itself in a hair splitting debate which it eventually loses. Trying to make 'more accurate' African history courses is not answer. The answer is such courses should not exist at all.

Why not? If people are interested, then I think these courses should be offered as electives.

Because it is akin to the government subsidizing courses to teach QAnon conspiracy theories as the truth.

This is a pretty low-effort hot take. You aren't even talking about teaching Critical Racial Theory, you're just broadly asserting that "teaching African-American history" is equivalent to teaching QAnon conspiracy theories. This is inflammatory enough that you should at least make some effort to justify such a claim.

Really? I'd think the hot take would be that any critical studies curriculum is utter garbage would be the default anywhere that isn't a left wing echo chamber. But lets examine.

The College Board has refused to pre-release its entire curriculum. Red flag.

African American Studies courses typically taught in colleges are almost universally utilizing CRT and are pro-socialism and communism.

Lets start with the Wiki, go to the history portion:

A specific aim and objective of this interdisciplinary field of study is to help students broaden their knowledge of the worldwide human experience by presenting an aspect of that experience—the Black Experience—which has traditionally been neglected or distorted by educational institutions.

Oh, so the whole endeavor is, indeed, founded on a conspiracy theory.

Now, its quite hard to get detailed course curriculum/syllabi for the entry level courses at most the major universities I looked at from their websites. Here's one of the more detailed ones I can find from a large uni Georgetown.

The introduction to African American Studies, which currently satisfies a General Education Requirement, traces the African American experience, which spans four hundred years from the colonization of the US and the installation of trans-Atlantic slavery to the present day. Throughout their expansive history, African Americans have consistently created modes of self-fashioning even in the midst of institutionalized anti-black racism. African Americans developed rituals, traditions, music, art, dance, literature, and spiritual practices; kinship structures and communities; and political and social theories and practices that negotiate the contradiction at the core of the uneven experience of US democracy.

Through an examination of primary and secondary sources, this course will introduce students to the distinct epistemologies and methodologies of African American Studies. As Robin D. G. Kelley states, African American Studies “interrogate[s] the construction of race, the persistence of inequality, and the process by which the category of ‘black’ or ‘African’ came into being as a chief feature of Western thought. Students learn how slavery was central to the emergence of capitalism and modernity, presenting political and moral philosophers their most fundamental challenge.” Organized chronologically, the course begins with the historical and philosophical foundations to modern black experience from slavery to the Harlem Renaissance. The course then takes up how black thought and political action shaped the years from the Great Depression to the present.

So even in this brief introduction we are introduced to a wild eyed conspiracy theory.

Here's a syllabus for a course.

Kimberle Crenshaw, University of Chicago Legal Forum, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Class: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policy,” pg. 139-167

Week 11: African American LGBTQ Communities

Week 12: African American LGBTQ Communities

So certainly at least one required reading containing a conspiracy theory and two whole weeks dedicated to a highly intersectional topic.

So yes. There is a mountain of evidence the median AA Studies course will teach, as truth, at least one unhinged conspiracy theory. Likely multiple. On top of that if the NRO reporting contains even a grain of truth on this, there is ample amount of space for such things in the college board's course.

Really? I'd think the hot take would be that any critical studies curriculum is utter garbage would be the default anywhere that isn't a left wing echo chamber. But lets examine.

"African-American history" != "critical studies."

So yes. There is a mountain of evidence the median AA Studies course will teach, as truth, at least one unhinged conspiracy theory.

I'm not going to argue with you about whether you've provided a "mountain of evidence" about the "median" AA studies course, only say that your initial post did not even put this much effort into justifying your assertion, and you are like several posters who've been reprimanded recently for assuming that all you have to do is say "African-American" and the most low-effort weakman sneers will speak for themselves.

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