William Jacobson recently spoke at the Parents Unite Conference. His talk was about messaging, or framing the message – counter-framing it, really on the matter of divisive concepts or race-based education in your schools.
We’ve got a small mountain of content on the topic, more colloquially referred to as Critical Race Theory or just Theory.
You can read all of Jacobson’s remarks here, but these two paragraphs stood out to me as critical, no pub intended, when engaging on this topic with anyone.
You are for equality. Equality is our highest standard as Americans. You are for non-discrimination. You oppose, and the word that I like to use is, the “racialization” of education. Because by using that term and focusing on the fact that they are focused obsessively on race, that they are pitting students against each other, pitting parents against each other, you are really focusing on what you want to happen.
Don’t get involved in their word games over, is this CRT or is it not? There are many good examples. If they’re teaching students that their destiny is based on the color of their skin, that they should view classmates based on the color of their skin, et cetera, they are teaching the principles of critical race theory. You will never find a fifth grade book called “Critical Race Theory.” That’s not how it happens.
Teaching divisive concepts in taxpayer-funded schools is illegal in New Hampshire. That is the use of a curriculum that deliberately quantifies people into tribes based on race, sex, age, religion. It prohibits teaching that smears them, race-shaming them, branding them based on the conduct of their ancestors.
This new law makes it illegal to teach, train or advocate that a person, because of their membership in one or more identified group(s), is inherently either: (1) racist, sexist, or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously or (2) superior or inferior to people of another identified group.
The Left has lied a good deal about what the NH statute does, and this piece covers some of that, but at it’s simplest, Professor Jacobson’s pull-quote above is essential.
You support equality and non-discrimination. Period. No one’s destiny should be defined by the color of their skin, and curriculums that try to corral kids into tribes based on these sorts of measures are divisive, not inclusive; and claiming otherwise is discriminatory, dishonest, and destructive.
Do not let them pretend they have the moral high ground because they do not. Race shaming any kid or group of kids is bullying, which is also illegal in the state of New Hampshire.
