Tag: Racism

Minnesota School District Adopts Black Lives Matter Slogan as Privileged ‘Government Speech’

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BLM protest

Many schools promote racial justice slogans such as Black Lives Matter. But one district in Minnesota has gone a step further, adopting several slogans as uniquely privileged “official government speech” tacitly exempt from challenge by dissenting opinion ordinarily protected under the First Amendment.

Rochester Public Schools board members unanimously approved a sweeping resolution that authorizes the superintendent to promote the slogans Black Lives Matter, Brown Lives Matter, Indigenous Lives Matter, All Are Welcome Here, and Stop Asian Hate.

The official is directed to take all actions “that further the objectives” of the resolution, including by approving “messaging, signage, and visuals” for the slogans. The district also adopted the six-color “pride flag” as government speech to support “a message of inclusion” within schools.

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Commentary: A Tribute to Mothers with Inspiration from Maya Angelou

RealClearWire
Maya Angelou speaking

You wouldn’t think any possible controversy could append itself to that day, except that we are living in preternaturally contentious times. Two days ago, Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Democrat from St. Louis, was testifying about racial disparities in health care, focusing specifically on childbirth. While describing her own medical experiences, Bush used the unwieldy phrase “birthing people” instead of “mothers.” Apparently, this was an awkward attempt to use inclusive language.

Predictably, this rhetorical gambit earned her a fair amount of ridicule on social media. I’m sure Rep. Bush has many virtues, but neither self-awareness nor self-deprecating humor are at the top of that list. Just as predictably, Bush lashed out at those who mocked her wording for their “racism and transphobia.” She also accused her critics of trivializing an important subject, which was a more substantive rejoinder. Bush was discussing racial disparities in America’s medical system, which is no laughing matter, and invoking her own harrowing experiences in hospital delivery rooms to do it.

Yet breezily trying to replace the word “mothers” as a sign of wokeness a few days before Mother’s Day wasn’t likely to go down well. It was Cori Bush’s own peculiar choice of words that distracted listeners from her story.

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Tennessee Legislature Moves to Ban Critical Race Theory from K-12 Schools

Corinne Murdock
State Representative John Ragan

Critical race theory (CRT) should be banned from Tennessee’s schools, according to an amended bill pending a final hearing in the Senate. Although the words “critical race theory” don’t appear in the amendment, it does address CRT tenets at length.

The bill now prohibits schools from using curriculum or any supplemental materials that promote conclusions of hierarchies or prejudices based on race or sex, or depict the United States as “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist” and therefore worthy of overthrow. If any school violates these provisions, the Education Commissioner may withhold any amount of state funding from that school. These provisions appear at the tail end of the 14-page bill.

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Commentary: Two Studies on Immigration and Race, with Surprising Details

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Group of people holding small American flags

Two mainstream think tanks have published new studies on immigration and race in America that come to the typical, safe conclusions. But a look at the data inside shows something more interesting.

A new Cato Institute report defending immigration begins by contending that immigrants are unlikely to negatively affect states’ fiscal health. But within the study’s findings, Cato may have inadvertently provided a new reason to oppose immigration.

Using state budgets as a proxy for the quality of economic institutions from 1970-2010, the authors of the Cato study assert that “a larger share of immigrants at the state level is correlated with slower state revenue and spending growth in the short-term, measured by total per capita government revenue and expenditure growth.” In other words, the more immigrants there are in a state, the less the state tends to take in in taxes and the less it spends on services. This is hardly groundbreaking; we have always known that immigration is linked to welfare chauvinism.

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Department of Education Is Stalling Complaints Against Race, Sex Segregation, Critics Say

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University of Denver

When the University of Denver hosted race-based gatherings for students, faculty and staff “to process the outcome” of the November election, a student filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Christi Collins got a quick response from an enforcement attorney in OCR’s Denver office, and they scheduled a phone call. Then the attorney asked to postpone, and disappeared for two months. Their last contact was Feb. 22.

“At this time, OCR is evaluating your complaint, and I apologize for the delay and inconvenience,” Lori Welker wrote in the email, one of several communications Collins shared with Just the News. “I will be in touch when we have completed the evaluation.”

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Commentary: Critical Race Theory Is About to Face Its Day(s) in Court

RealClearWire
New York State Education Building, Albany, New York

As recently as last summer, few people outside academia had heard of critical race theory, whose central claim is that racism, not liberty, is the founding value and guiding vision of American society. Then, President Trump issued an executive order last September banning the teaching of this “malign ideology” to federal employees and federal contractors.

Trump’s ban was blocked by a federal judge in December and immediately revoked by Joe Biden upon occupying the White House in January. Since then, federal agencies and federal contractors have resumed staff training on unconscious bias, microaggressions, systemic racism and white privilege – some of the most common but also most disputed concepts associated with the four-decade-old academic theory.

Now critical race theory is about to face a major real-world test: a spate of lawsuits alleging that it encourages discrimination and other illegal policies targeting whites, males and Christians. But unlike Trump’s executive order, which ran into First Amendment problems by prohibiting controversial speech, the lawsuits name specific policies and practices that allegedly discriminate, harass, blame and humiliate people based on their race.

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Police Groups, Unions to Argue Against Minneapolis Police Racism Probe in Meeting with DOJ

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Minneapolis Police Department

Top police organizations and unions will reportedly express concern to Attorney General Merrick Garland about his racism probe into the Minneapolis Police Department, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The groups are expected to confront Garland and other Justice Department (DOJ) officials about the investigations during a meeting Friday afternoon, the WSJ reported. While many of the groups’ leaders have endorsed various police reforms since George Floyd’s death last year, they worried a broad probe would be unproductive and hurt rank-and-file officers.

“We recognize that there needs to be more oversight, there needs to be some reform in place, but we need DOJ to work with us because there has to be buy-in from the line men and women who do this job,” David Mahoney, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association and sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin, told the WSJ.

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‘Anti-Racist’ Professor with BLM Syllabus Offers ‘Diversity Bingo’ Extra Credit

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Black Lives Matter sign

A University of Florida professor gave students a “Diversity Bingo” extra credit assignment, which called for students to find people of various ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations.

The course, titled Problem Solving with Computer Software, is a general requirement course for all business majors at the University of Florida. “Diversity Bingo” was offered to students in the class as an extra credit assignment.

The assignment appears within a chapter dedicated to problem-solving specify, using groups and critical thinking strategies. Within this chapter students learned about Problem Definition, Idea Generation, and Decision making. The professor also included this assignment as being relevant to the material.

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Email Shows Biden Nominee Pushed Essay Comparing Police to KKK

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Kristen Clarke

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division circulated an essay from self-proclaimed Marxist poet Amiri Baraka defending cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and referring to police officers as members of the Ku Klux Klan, according an email from her days at Columbia University.

Kristen Clarke forwarded the Baraka essay in an email on June 25, 1999, to her mentor, the late historian Manning Marable.

She suggested that the essay, entitled “Mumia, ‘Lynch Law’ & Imperialism” be placed in a magazine Marable edited and used for a panel on the death penalty.

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Commentary: Election Integrity and the Jim Crow Slur

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Person with mask on at a computer.

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine took umbrage at a Facebook post that compared a proposed “vaccination passport” to the requirement that Jews in Nazi Germany carry papers identifying them as such. As a Jew, my friend argued that such a comparison trivialized the horrors of the Nazi regime that culminated in the Holocaust.

My friend’s objection was justified. But this same individual has not hesitated to join the president of the United States in comparing the recent Georgia voting law to Jim Crow. Anyone who makes such a claim has no idea of what Jim Crow entailed. Second only to slavery, the Jim Crow era represents the darkest period in U.S. racial history, far darker than Reconstruction or the decade that followed.

Indeed, the racial oppression, segregation, and violence that prevailed throughout the South during the era of Jim Crow in many respects exceeded that of the period of slavery. At least during slavery, there were free blacks in the South who, while denied most civil rights, were protected by laws that left them free to go about their business unmolested and did not prevent commercial interactions between the races.

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Commentary: Proposed Education Department Rule Would Prioritize Funding Critical Race Theory Grant Applications

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Close up of person writing

The Biden Administration is wasting no time in working to promote highly controversial critical race theory and anti-racism concepts into curriculums nationwide.

A proposed rule from the U.S. Education Department seeks to prioritize funding grant proposals that support diversity and inclusion narratives within American History and Civics Education programs.

The department states on the Federal Register that such a move would “support the development of culturally responsive teaching.”

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Medical Journal Forces Out Editor Who Questioned ‘Structural Racism,’ Professors Rejoice

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Edward Livingston

A leading medical journal terminated an editor who questioned the existence of structural racism. His fellow medical professors expressed approval of the firing.

The American Medical Association wrote in a statement that it was “deeply disturbed” and “angered” by a recent Journal of the American Medical Association podcast that “questioned the existence of structural racism.” Though the organization claimed that “JAMA has editorial independence from AMA,” the statement added that “this tweet and podcast are inconsistent with the policies and views of AMA.”

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Teaching Assistant Docks Point on Conservative Student’s Black Panther Essay: ‘White People Cannot Experience Racism’

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Alyssa Jones

A student at Virginia Tech University was told by a teaching assistant that “White people cannot experience racism” when asked why she received a low grade on her final paper.

Students in the Nations and Nationalities class at Virginia Tech were asked to complete a paper describing a hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list, and analyze how that group justifies its worldview, according to Alyssa Jones, a student in the class.

Jones is also the president of the Virginia Tech University Turning Point USA chapter and a campus ambassador for The Leadership Institute, the parent organization of Campus Reform.

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Brown University Students Overwhelmingly Vote in Favor of Reparations for Black Students

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Brown University

On Monday, Students at the Ivy League school Brown University voted in favor of two resolutions approving reparations for black students, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Both resolutions seek to identify any black students who are direct descendants of slaves, or “who were entangled with and/or afflicted by the University and Brown family and their associates,” in reference to the university’s founder Nicholas Brown Jr.

One resolution would give priority admission to any such black students, while the other would give direct monetary payments to said students. In the vote amongst all students on campus, the admissions resolution received 89 percent of the vote, while the financial payment resolution received 85 percent. The vote was held after the student government at Brown passed a resolution, introduced by the student government president Jason Carroll, “calling upon Brown to attempt to identify and reparate the descendants of slaves entangled with the university.”

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Streaming Service Hulu to Release Series Based on 1619 Project

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Holding a phone with Hulu on the screen

The streaming website Hulu has announced that it has acquired the rights to stream an upcoming series on the “1619 Project,” a far-left narrative that falsely claims the United States was built on racism, as reported by The Hill.

The series, based on a series of articles at the New York Times by Nikole Hannah-Jones, will be produced by Roger Williams, Geoff Martz, and Shoshana guy. The production will be carried out by Lionsgate Films and Oprah Winfrey’s studio Harpo Films, as previously reported.

In a statement to Variety magazine, Williams called the 1619 Project “an essential reframing of American history,” and falsely claimed that “our most cherished ideals and achievements cannot be understood without acknowledging both systemic racism and the contribution of black Americans.”

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Middle School Lesson Separates Students into ‘Privileged’ and ‘Targeted’ Groups

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A sixth-grade teacher in Minnesota recently offered her charges a lesson in “oppression” when she separated them into groups dubbed “privileged” and “targeted.”

According to documents obtained by The Blaze.com, Sunrise Park Middle School teacher Odelis Anderson prefaced the lesson by reminding students it is easier for the privileged to talk about race, while “much harder” for those who are not.

Students then were asked to consider what group they belonged to based on five types of oppression: racism, sexism, religious oppression, heterosexism, and xenophobia. Among the “privileged”: whites, men, Christians and heterosexuals.

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California Reopening Plan ‘Propagates Racism,’ LA Teachers Union Says

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The Los Angeles teachers union said Monday California’s school reopening plan is a “recipe” for propagating racism and will unfairly punish minority communities.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) representatives argued that teachers are being asked to make up for the leadership failings of elected officials “from Washington DC to Sacramento to LA” during a press conference Monday. Since California’s plan calls on schools in communities with low infection rates to reopen, the union said reopening funding will only go to white communities since they have less transmission.

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Michigan Public School Forced to Change Mascot over Racism Concerns

Peter D'Abrosca

Saugatuck Public Schools will no longer use the nickname “Indians,” after an 11-year saga culminated into the changing of the school system’s mascot over concerns of racial insensitivity. 

According to Tuesday reports, the school will now use the nickname “Trailblazers,” following the trend of professional and other sports teams changing their nicknames from anything related to Native American culture. 

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Commentary: The Origin and True Agenda of ‘Anti-Racist’ Politics

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With President Biden and Kamala Harris steering the American ship of state, there isn’t much left at the federal level to stop “woke” politics from encroaching even further into all aspects of American society. In every federal agency including the military, in corporate America including sports and entertainment, throughout the colleges and universities, and even down into the K-12 public schools, “woke” ideology now permeates the culture. It is a seductive, divisive philosophy that emphasizes group conflict over individual competition and achievement. If it isn’t stopped, it will destroy everything that has made America great.

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Michigan State Senator Demands Apologies So She Can Forgive Republican Colleagues, Suggests They’re All Racists and Sexists

Peter D'Abrosca

In a bizarre speech on the floor of the Michigan legislature, a Democrat state Senator fought back tears while demanding apologies from unspecified Republican colleagues, while insinuating that they were racists and sexists. 

The following is a transcript from the speech, given by Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-1st District: 

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University of Tennessee Chattanooga ‘Race Discussion Guide’ Singles Out White People

Corinne Murdock

A “Race Discussion Guide” issued by the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC) emphasizes its focus on the role and reality of White people. The Office of Equity and Inclusion created the guide with the purpose of helping UTC students, faculty, and staff navigate conversations on race.

In the 7 pages of information offered, the guide exclusively referenced White people no less than 17 times. Many of those references were linked to assumptions about White people or relationships with White people. Nowhere in the guide does it mention any other group of people by their skin color, such as Black individuals.

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Commentary: Scholastic Corp. Pushes a False Racial Narrative to Elementary Children

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What do George Floyd, Thanksgiving, and the Civil War all have in common? The publicly traded Scholastic Corporation has made a conscious decision to weave them into a twisted account of American History (their label) portraying our country as systemically racist, fundamentally flawed, and essentially evil. Articles written in their weekly Scholastic News Review are mandatory classroom reading and discussion for our children—6 million in total from first through sixth grade across the country, according to Scholastic.

During back-to-school week in August, these 6 million mostly elementary-age students were welcomed back with an article titled “Demanding Justice,” with the subheading: “Protests spread across the United States after a Black man is killed by police.”

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Rep. Ilhan Omar Calls Trump Campaign Events ‘Klan Rallies’

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U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar referred to President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies as “Klan rallies” during a Monday interview.

Omar, who’s frequently criticized by the president during his rallies, made the comment in an interview with the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart.

“On a personal level, I have gotten accustomed to standing up to bullies in my life, and so on a personal level, it hasn’t really impacted me besides having my children be exposed to it,” said Omar.

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Smith College Employee Whistleblower Exposes Anti-White Racism

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An employee at Smith College in Massachusetts has been making videos detailing the creation of a “hostile work environment” for her as a white person.

“I am very, very concerned about this issue, not just for the Smith community, but for communities at other colleges and workplaces too,” Jodi Shaw told The College Fix in an email.

Shaw, an alumnus of the school, currently works as an administrative assistant in the Department of Student Affairs at the elite women’s college.

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Loudoun County Schools Clarifies to Parents That White Children Can Participate, But Not Speak as Equity Ambassadors

Corinne Murdock

A Loudoun County Public Schools Equity Advisor told parents that White students may only become equity ambassadors to “amplify the voice of Students of Color.” When the parent asked for in a followup email if their child could discuss the personal accounts of White students, the advisor said no.

“This LCPS endeavor is specific to amplifying the voice of Students of Color by engaging in discussions about their experiences regarding issues of racism, injustice, and inequity. Though all students (white or otherwise) are more than welcome to potentially serve as ambassadors, their focus would be to raise the voice of their classmates of color during these meetings.”

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Virginia Department of Education Leader Accused of Appropriating Government Resources to Speak on Equity at Loudoun County Public Schools

Corinne Murdock

Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) Director of Equity and Community Engagement Leah Dozier Walker will moderate a Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) event on equity. Walker also advocates other issues including Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, critical race theory, and social justice. 

Earlier this year, Virginia Inspector General Michael Westfall accused Walker of appropriating government resources to set up her private consulting business. Westfall noted in his report that Walker had accumulated nearly 100 hours of unexplained absences the previous year, as well as offered consulting services that were almost the same as her state duties.

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Attorney General Mark Herring Fights Trump’s Order on Diversity Training

Corinne Murdock

Ahead of the election, Attorney General Mark Herring asked President Donald Trump to rescind his executive order on diversity training.

Herring co-signed a letter complaining about the potential limitations imposed on “implicit bias trainings for federal contractors and federal grantees.” Implicit bias refers to the idea that individuals aren’t aware of their attitudes or stereotypes about others.

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Analysis: Social Ills That Plague African Americans Coincide with Leftism, Not Racism

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Many people blame racism for the grave problems that afflict a greater portion of black people than whites, including substandard educational outcomes, poverty, violence, incarceration, and poor health. However, comprehensive facts reveal no association between racism and these afflictions—much less evidence of causation. In fact, many of these problems grew worse with declining racism and rising levels of political and social power held by minorities.

In contrast, there are very strong associations between these scourges and leftist public policies and mindsets. Because association does not prove causation, these connections cannot prove that leftism caused these outcomes, but they open the door to this possibility. Other facts reinforce this prospect because minorities who are distanced from leftist environments and ideals don’t suffer like those who are surrounded by them.

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Tennessee DCS Revokes Foster Parent ‘Cultural Awareness’ Curriculum for Violating Executive Order on Diversity Trainings

Corinne Murdock

The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) revoked a cultural awareness training on Tuesday for violating President Trump’s Executive Order. DCS is reviewing the program, Cultural Awareness for Foster Parents, currently.

DCS sent the memo to agency provider trainers on the same day the curriculum was pulled.

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Cancel Culture Claims Another: Virginia Military Institute Superintendent General Peay Resigns

Corinne Murdock

Virginia Military Institute (VMI) Superintendent, retired four-star Army General J.H. Binford Peay III (’62), resigned on Monday. Peay shared that Governor Ralph Northam prompted the resignation.
“On Friday, 23 October 2020, the Governor’s Chief of Staff conveyed that the Governor and certain legislative leaders had lost confidence in my leadership as Superintendent of Virginia Military Institute and desired my resignation.”

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San Diego School Districts Abolish Grades to Combat Racism

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In an effort to combat racial discrimination the San Diego Unified School District last week announced plans to abolish the traditional grading system, Fox News reports.

According to the data, black students received D or F grades 20 percent of the time and hispanic students received them 23 percent of the time, while white students received them 7 percent of the time and asian students received them 6 percent of the time from the first semester of the last school year, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

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Ohio State Prof Says Clarence Thomas Not ‘Authentically Black’

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At a symposium hosted by Texas A&M University at Commerce, titled, “What the Truth Sounds Like,” Professor Donna Ford argued that one of the significant problems in education is White females. She also noted that diversity of “skin color” is not enough, considering that she wouldn’t want “Clarence Thomas teaching my damn kids.”

“There is a monopoly on education, where White females being about 85 percent of the teaching force, and then you know pretty much the same thing with white administrators. So White females I’m speaking to you, and I’m saying you’ve got to get your sh- stuff together,” said Ford during her lecture.

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Commentary: Implicit Bias Training Is a Total Waste of Taxpayer Dollars

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Police officers in a majority of states are now mandated to receive “implicit bias training,” where they are informed they are subconsciously racist and must admit to and deliberately overcome their racism.

The trainings, which exploded in popularity following the Ferguson riots in 2014, directly respond to accusations that racist police officers are shooting unarmed African Americans. Following the death of George Floyd, multiple states, including Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas, joined the list of states mandating the training for all their officers.

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Carol Swain Commentary: Critical Race Theory and the Decline of American Justice

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Is racism in the DNA of white people, and is it a permanent part of American society? Critical race theorists argue that American society is structured to give white people undeserved advantages over people of color. They say people who look like me (Black) are victims. We are supposedly powerless to free ourselves from systemic racism, institutional structures, and cultural stereotypes that keep us in bondage. Systemic racism permeates every facet of our lives, including institutions and laws. The only hope is for whites to become “woke,” or conscious, of their racism and commit themselves to becoming antiracist. So, where did we get these ideas that now undergird the diversity, equity, and inclusion industry that rests on top of existing affirmative action programs that have been around since the mid-1960s?

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Conservative Clergy of Color Offers Corporate Training Program As Alternative to Racist Narrative Pushed by Black Lives Matter

Jason M. Reynolds

The Conservative Clergy of Color wants businesses to know they have an alternative to the racist rhetoric being thrown around for diversity training.

The organization this week announced the “Getting to All Lives Matter,” a fact-based, six-step training program that operates on the assumption all Americans want to build a better society. This is an alternative to the rhetoric pushed by Black Lives Matter, which attempts to scare businesses, they said.

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Professor Blames ‘White Christian Privilege’ for Slavery, Genocide

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by Matt Lamb   A professor from Fairleigh Dickinson University recently presented for Rutgers University and explained how “white Christian privilege” and “Christian privilege” are responsible for slavery, genocide and colonialism. Rutgers University held the lecture on September 9 to explore the topic of “white Christian privilege.” The law school’s Center for Security, Race and Rights hosted Professor Khyati Joshi for the presentation. Joshi published a book in July with the same title as her presentation, called “White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America.” The professor of education also said she consults regularly with employers and schools on these topics. Joshi’s presentation discussed how whiteness and Christianity are responsible for “genocide,” “slavery” and “colonialism.” She said she wants people to understand “the role Christianity has had in the construction of whiteness.” . @SikhProf writes on @ProfKJoshi's new book, saying that it argues "that our perception of whiteness suffers from an “optical illusion”: that religion is one place where there is equality in America."https://t.co/oBexCPqsJx — RNS (@RNS) July 24, 2020 She said that concepts like manifest destiny, the idea that colonizers were led by God to take over land, prove her points about white supremacy and Christianity. “We…

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