In the eye of a leftist storm.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks after being sworn in to begin his second term during an inauguration ceremony outside the Old Capitol on Jan. 3, 2023, in Tallahassee, Fla. DeSantis’ administration has blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African-American studies from being taught in high schools, saying the class violates state law and that it is historically inaccurate. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

Paul GleiserIn the eye of a leftist storm.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is being buffeted by a leftist-created storm over his actions to keep Critical Race Theory out of Florida high schools.

Let’s be clear. Critical Race Theory isn’t about teaching the history of slavery and discrimination in the United States. No thinking person believes these things shouldn’t be taught. The slavery of 18th and 19th century America and the discrimination that persisted into the 20th century are indelible parts of our history. No one could possibly call himself or herself educated absent the knowledge of black America’s long struggle for equality. (Would that it could be possible for every American to sit in Miss Thornell’s class during my junior year of high school. Her teaching of these dark chapters of American history was pitch perfect.)

Miss Thornell would be appalled by Critical Race Theory, or “CRT” as it is often called. CRT is a radical leftist ideology that promotes the idea that white people are naturally born as oppressors and that ‘people of color’ – most particularly black people – are naturally born oppressed.

CRT is a toxic belief system that is antithetical to the nation’s founding ideals. It inflames rather than calms racial tension. It makes wholesale discard of the American founding. CRT is willfully blind to all that the American founders got right. Promoters of CRT reject the indisputable fact that for all its acknowledged human faults, America has lifted more people out of poverty and freed more people from the chains of bondage than any other nation in all of history.

I believe it’s fair to say that racial tension in America is mostly, though by no means exclusively, a black/white issue. And I believe it will be a continuing blight until such time as black people in America are represented in the middle class in the same proportion as white people. If that ever happens – and it should have by now and still could with proper national policy – racial tension will largely disappear.

The problem is that most of America’s (mostly) well-intentioned efforts toward black economic parity have backfired. Since embarking on Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in 1965, American taxpayers have thrown more than $22 trillion at the problem of black economic underperformance. In that nearly six decades, even as the black middle class has expanded – albeit at a lower rate than prior to the Great Society – the problems of black crime, black educational underperformance, black incarceration and black family breakdown have nevertheless all gotten worse.

Meanwhile, ignored by most of academe and the media, is the demonstrable fact that black kids who stay in school, avoid addiction and avoid unwed pregnancy now enter the American middle class at roughly the same rate as white kids.

Three things, tantalizingly simple in concept and yet, given the deleterious effects of six decades of welfare policy, so difficult to put into practice.

Finish high school. Stay off drugs. Don’t get pregnant until you’re married.

These three simple tenets should undergird and inform American educational and social policy.

Not Critical Race Theory.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Paul Gleiser

Paul L. Gleiser is president of ATW Media, LLC, licensee of radio stations KTBB 97.5 FM/AM600, 92.1 The TEAM FM in Tyler-Longview, Texas.

You may also like...

7 Responses

  1. Linda M says:

    For as far back as I can remember, the left has USED CHILDREN to further their agendas. You will NEVER get the truth out of the left about anything. Everything they put out there is to further the leftist agenda AND who better than to raise that agenda up than to start with the most vulnerable…THE CHILDREN? This is nothing new mind you, Hitler took children and raised them up to what he want them to be…good little Nazis.
    But NOW…and for some time, the race card has been used. Only now, it involves CHILDREN to start the divide as young as kindergarten. Making children feel bad because they are white. To further this agenda, they throw CRT into the mix to further damage the CHILDREN. This is not by accident, it is planned. Thank GOD for Gov. Ron DeSantis who isn’t afraid to push back and PROTECT the CHILDREN! He is what every Governor in every state should be doing, PROTECTING the children from this bs. Children can not be CHILDREN anymore and that is a right down shame, no matter what their skin color!

  2. Buddy Saunders says:

    I have a friend, a recently retired attorney, who last summer approached the Arlington ISD with questions regarding the teaching of critical race theory and gender policy. He is working his way through the “citizen grievance” procedure, yet after months of effort, he is no closer to getting answers than when he started. His questions are very simple, basic, and straightforward, questions that could be easily answered.

    I attended as an observer during my friend’s two most recent meetings with a school district administrator assigned to his grievance. The impression I have from those two meetings, and having read over all the earlier documentation from both sides, it is clear to me that school district’s “grievance system” is designed to impede and if at all possible prevent parents and taxpayers from getting the information that they reasonably request and should be given ready access to.

    Having been a prosecutor, my friend is wise to the games being played by the Arlington ISD. This seemingly endless stonewalling by the school district personnel is designed to wear down and confound the average citizen until they throw up their hands and give up. Buy my friend is not giving up. And as an observer, I will enjoy attending future “grievance” meetings where the school district will continue to paint itself into a corner.

    The impression I took away from the two meetings, and from reading transcripts of prior meetings, is that the Arlington ISD administration is determined to hide something from the public, something parents will not like, yet something that parents in particular and the public in general have every right to know.

    My son was a student in the Arlington public schools when the teaching of the basics was a priority. He went on to attend and graduate from MIT.

    When my son attended Arlington schools the school system was still pretty good. But I fear that it is no longer so.

    • Paul Gleiser says:

      Buddy, I have no doubt that every word of what you say is true.

      We have our electoral priorities upside down. Everyone turns out to vote for president. Almost nobody turns out for a school board election.

      Yet I would argue that school board elections in the end have a much more profound impact on the health of the republic than presidential elections.

      To save the republic, we must save the schools. And we’re extremely late to the battle.

      • Buddy Saunders says:

        Paul, I am in full agreement with you. Parents, citizens, taxpayers, we all need to be aware of what is occurring right here at the local level, in our schools, city government, and county. If only a fraction of the people who get excited over sports events would just refocus some of that energy on local government activity–which impacts their lives and pocketbooks far more profoundly–and then vote based on what they find, we citizens and our children all be far better off.

  3. Buddy Saunders says:

    Sad that you got so few responses to this, another of your excellent columns on a very important subject, the future our children, the next generation to come.

  4. Mike says:

    I will humbly ask to repost my last comment on the Baltimore School System and further add a comment on the Chicago School System and the numbers of “Meeting Expectations” in all subject matter. Last Post, ” My wife and I saw a segment on FOX exposing the Baltimore, Maryland school system’s failures particularly in Math scores. Twenty-Three schools (23) out of the 79 schools in that system had ZERO students proficient in math; that was Zippo! So, my wife being a retired teacher picked up her laptop and went to the Baltimore School System’s website. O M G!!! I suggest this site as a “Must Read” to get a real sense at the blatant, unrepenting woke, racist, Progressive agenda for our kids. The site makes no bones about their goals of nothing short of ridding the school system of anybody and anything “White” and that “studies” show minority students “want and do better with minority teachers….” Obviously, this theory is destroyed by the very fact that 23 schools did not achieve a single passing score in math!!!! It is beyond reason and decency for these children. I will give them credit for one aspect; they do not hide anything. If you are of any other race other than African American, you need not apply. Go check it out; it is sobering indeed!!!

    Now, in all fairness; the FOX segment interviewed parents of these students. The parents were in tears and were very angry as they should be. But, these same parents are going up against the Woke, Progressive machine, a.k.a. National Teacher’s Union and really do not have a chance. Compounded with the Chinese virus and closure of these schools during the height of the Pandemic, these kids are doomed. It is painfully obviously the Baltimore teachers are all in on lowering the bar as far as they can force it to drop all the while padding their six figure salaries. Baltimore is definitely not short on Federal Government funds for the schools, it is short on professionals who give a darn about these kids and the future of our Country.”

    Per Bill O’Reilly on Friday, February 17, 2023, Chicago Schools; all 91 or 92 of them, only had a 10 % passing rate or meeting expectations. That is out of the entire school system!!! Arlington, TX schools sound as if they are heading in such a direction. Absolutely Education is the Number One issue facing our Country and future of the USA. It does begin in our own communities.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *