CRT, Systemic Racism, Multi-Culturalism

My son asked a difficult question last night. He asked about Black Lives Matter, and how it seemed to him that we all live in harmoney, so he didn't understand.

I was trying to put things delicately because as far as he's concerned, he's right. He goes to a very interracial school. He practices and trains with kids of all colors and creeds and has for three years now. His friends are kids of all races and creeds too. And his father and I have worked very hard to not bias him while also giving a full picture.

For example, he came home telling us about a story called "The Drinking Gourd" and said it was how the Big Dipper was named before others erased it, and we told him the neat thing about the constellations and stars was that cultures all over the world were able to recognize the patterns in the stars and name them and sometimes even name after objects that served the same function in their cultures. And those cultures even used the constellations for similar purposes -- navigation at night or to tell what season it was. So while one culture was naming it the Drinking Gourd, another was calling it after Dippers and there were likely other cultures calling it other things, but they all saw the same pattern and recognized it. And that's the truly neat thing about the constellations and human cultures.

We even told him that if you go to the Southern Hemisphere, they see a different set of constellations.

He talked about them learning about a black hero on the underground railroad, and we asked if they'd taught him also about the Abolitionists who set up and maintained the stops on the way to Canada. He said no, and we told him that the whole effort was a combined thing between those escaped slaves and free blacks and the white abolitionists who felt slavery was wrong, and without either side it would not have happened like it did. To know about one group takes nothing away from the courage and bravery of the others and without one group the others would have had a much, much harder time succeeding in what they were trying to do. It was a team effort and very dangerous for all involved.

But it got me thinking about our modern times and the embraced ideologies and theories we are now operating under.

We are supposed to be heavily multi-cultural and embrace the differences of different cultures and celebrate them. That's all fine. It definitely goes too far thought when the celebration and embracing of cultures leads to cries of appropriation. The ultimate appreciation and embracing of a thing is to try it out for yourself even if you aren't of that culture. We learn to understand by doing and experiencing, of course.

But I digress. To celebrate and understand the idea of different cultures, you also have to understand that this leads to differences among peoples of all races and creeds. Different choices, different practices, different values ...

But then you run into the ideas of systemic races and critical race theory which measure themselves against the idea of the proportion of a racial or sexual orientation or religious group represented in an activity or place of work, etc., as evidence of discrimination. How does that work out? It seems ultimately contradictory and doomed to fail if we're embracing the one and yet also believing in the other.

If I'm believing that people ought to embrace the idea of separate cultures and their differences, then you have to also believe it will lead to the various groups choosing to act and be and do in different ways, make different choices, group in different places, value different things and activities, even different professions, so how can you expect to get a perfectly proportional society as evidence that you have finally beaten systemic racism and discrimination if you let people make their own choices and follow their own values and cultures and even encourage them to do it?

It is good to hear you raise your child without bias..... a very rare thing to hear today but the US school system will soon take that dream away and your child will filter out the BS and see the truth on a national scale.

a reply to: ketsuko

Out of curiosity, do they teach Anishnabe or any First Nations culture at his school?

a reply to: ketsuko

I am so dreading when I son gets old enough for school, I miss the days of you do you Ill do me and at the end of the day were all americans and thats good enough.

a reply to: TzarChasm

I know he did some Native American last year, but this year they've really gone all in on the teaching everything from the BIPOC perspective and China.

We saw it coming after the George Floyd incident.

There doesn't seem to be much balance at all.

To be clear, we don't mind that they're teaching the other bits of history, but it seems they're making an effort to cut all European influences out or refer to them as "erasing" like they did with "The Drinking Gourd" which does bother us. Our son is mixed race, but as my husband was adopted and raised European white and I'm European white, our son might as well be that too and he certainly looks it. So that's how he'll be treated in the Brave New World, and that puts him at the very bottom of the pecking order where things are already tough enough for boys as it is, no matter their racial background.

a reply to: ketsuko

The wife and kids are descended from first nations and that's why I ask if their culture is present in the updated curriculum. There is a persistent concern that such topics are steadily suppressed or ignored in the classroom. I worry for the future of the native american history and those trusted to pass it on to the next generation.

Racism still exists! I think that people just overlook it. I was watching Fox News, and there was a black reporter on there who had his facts straight and knew what he was talking about. The white reporters were straight-up retarded, yet treated him as if he was lower on the hierarchy than them just because of his skin color. They bullied him and told him to shut up, etc.

In an ideal society, that black guy should have been railing on the white reporters for being so dumb. But I think the white reporters enjoy being able to be retarded and not put in the effort. All they have to be is be white to bully the black guy - no hard work needed!

originally posted by: Irishhaf


I am so dreading when I son gets old enough for school, I miss the days of you do you Ill do me and at the end of the day were all americans and thats good enough.

That wasn't the experience for many people. Hence the ideas in the original post.

originally posted by: Whodathunkdatcheese

originally posted by: Irishhaf


I am so dreading when I son gets old enough for school, I miss the days of you do you Ill do me and at the end of the day were all americans and thats good enough.

That wasn't the experience for many people. Hence the ideas in the original post.

*yawns* yea yea guess what your Anecdotal evidence does not negate my anecdotal evidence.

There always have been bad people and there will always be bad people even in the woke cancel culture mess we are racing into.

originally posted by: darkbake
Racism still exists! I think that people just overlook it. I was watching Fox News, and there was a black reporter on there who had his facts straight and knew what he was talking about. The white reporters were straight-up retarded, yet treated him as if he was lower on the hierarchy than them just because of his skin color. They bullied him and told him to shut up, etc.

In an ideal society, that black guy should have been railing on the white reporters for being so dumb. But I think the white reporters enjoy being able to be retarded and not put in the effort. All they have to be is be white to bully the black guy - no hard work needed!

Interesting. Would you mind providing a link to that interview?

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: ketsuko

The wife and kids are descended from first nations and that's why I ask if their culture is present in the updated curriculum. There is a persistent concern that such topics are steadily suppressed or ignored in the classroom. I worry for the future of the native american history and those trusted to pass it on to the next generation.

The only thing public schools should be teaching is good old Americana. If certain parents want to teach their kids about their cultural heritage, they are free to do so, but that should not be done by the public school system. All it should do is the three R's...

Just tell him to read some Malcom X an Grim's Fairy Tales.