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Comment by bopbeepboop | Hacker News Reader

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You've identified a number of real things here, but you've also swallowed a few whoppers. "CRT" was originally something that a few scholars discussed in university settings. Now it is mostly a non-existent right-wing bogeyman that YouTube weirdos hype for clicks. No one is going to teach your little daughters and sons that they are inherently evil. (Although, isn't that the Christian doctrine of Original Sin?) However, some of their better teachers might teach some history that you didn't learn in school.

You're being naive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRXNaUz5LGY

"Indicrat" is certainly one of those "YouTube weirdos" referenced above. The lecture audience seen in that clip were old white women, not young white children. If those women hadn't heard about racism before then they should have.

Also, obviously the woman in the form-fitting attire was using intentionally provocative language. She doesn't really believe in demons. She was even giggling during part of the clip. There is nothing wrong with provocative language, unless one is a cancel-culture moron with easily hurt feelings.

You're refusing to just accept that CRT is in fact embraced, advocated, and shaping discourse and attitudes among people. This example did not spring up out of the blue. Your dismissal of it as a right-wing fiction is either naive, or dishonest.

If that were the case, CRT Chickens Little would be able to come up with some evidence of it. Actual evidence, not the amusing video linked above. Which precious white children have run crying from elementary school?

To be clear: I'm sure that (adult) white Americans have been informed of their racism. I'm sure that 1950s lynchings and other uncomfortably recent events have been taught in some history courses. I'm sure that racist aspects of various contemporary institutions have been discussed. I'm sure that you have been very uncomfortable with all of that.

All of those are good things. Stop hiding behind hypothetical traumatized children.

So you agree that all white people are racist, and carry responsibility for lynchings in the 1950s? Even recent immigrants who have no relation to the perpetrators of said lynchings? We're supposed to be uncomfortable too, just because we bear a passing resemblance to some assholes? Isn't that a bit... racist?

Also, so far as CRT being taught to children: https://nypost.com/2021/04/13/nyc-teacher-were-damaging-kids...

Please explain to me how a young child can be an oppressor.

That appears to be about a parochial high school in NYC. It's my impression that we're supposed to be very concerned about "young children" in public elementary schools in the heartland. There's really no accounting for the shenanigans these weird churches will get up to.

I don't consider myself responsible for lynchings that occurred before my birth. I feel like I have to take a bit of blame for e.g. Michael Brown's murder, since I've voted in Missouri for years. But if someone wants to criticize me for both of them, it won't break my heart. Occasionally humans face discomfort.

> That appears to be about a parochial high school in NYC

How about all of these then: https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-lawsuits-say-antiracism...

Acting like these are small isolated events and don't represent a wider shift in educational policy just doesn't seem sincere. This article identifies some of the very same practices of using race to determine whether students fall into oppressor or oppressed classes. Excerpts:

> She alleges that teachers and students are required to participate in racially segregated antiracist exercises and that teachers are required to teach material depicting white people as inherently racist oppressors

> ...a biracial high-school student who claims he received a failing grade in a required “Sociology of Change” class because he declined to complete an assignment that required students to identify their gender, racial and religious identities to determine whether they qualified as oppressors

This is racism.

> I feel like I have to take a bit of blame for e.g. Michael Brown's murder, since I've voted in Missouri for years.

If you feel like taking some of the blame off of Darren Wilson's shoulders, I can't stop you. I would however object to any placing of blame onto other Missouri residents who didn't kill anybody. It seems like this would allude to a disagreement about whether responsibility for action is fundamentally collective or individual.

In any case, it's a total strawman in the context of this argument. We could waste our time trying to reconcile two extremist identities that we don't align with, or we could get back on topic and try to find a mutually amicable solution to this problem.

And people wonder why nothing bipartisan ever gets done...

No, you're missing the point completely. You can't address something by pretending it is inconsequential or worse doesn't really exist (ie. gaslighting). This narrative that far-left extremist views are only right-wing paranoia is dishonest and short-circuits any bipartisan debate about how to proceed.

The person above even defending this particular example saying it was colorful rhetoric and not serious. Would he have done that if it had been said about Jews or Blacks? Until we can have honest discussion with integrity instead of partisanship, nothing will ever get done.

My belief is that we should take the extremists on our side of the debate to task. The left should do everything they can to diffuse the far-left... call out unreasonable positions of the left. And the right should do the same against the far-right. It would go a long way to making the center more inhabitable and productive.

The lecturer only said that white Americans are racist. That is certainly true. (I.e., we certainly are racist.) What analogous description would you like to suggest "about Jews or Blacks"? You will successfully continue the racism that blacks face in USA as long as you can convince idiots that it's "extreme" to acknowledge racism. Unfortunately for you, that type of idiot is growing more rare over time.

You're 100% correct and the people down voting should think about what happens if they lose control of the censors and censorship starts being run by right-wing zealots instead of the far left.

Sad seeing the parent comment getting flagged. Censorship by flagging a very real problem on HN, but from what I can tell its mainly the users abusing it not the mod team who are generally well-balanced.

Yeah, I don't think of a fair moderation system as censorship. Groups of people should have the freedom to keep a discussion focused on whatever they desire.

Still, it's disappointing just how easy it is for us to be completely blind to things that go against our own preferences, even when they're blindingly obvious to others.

I agree it's so easy not to see our own biases reflected in our own censorship actions. We all have blind spots, but censoring parts of a discussion simply because you don't like them isn't healthy.

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