Des Moines students protest divisive concepts ban and charter schools at Capitol

[TexasTowelie]

Des Moines Public School students gathered on the steps of the Iowa Capitol on Monday afternoon to protest two education bills: one that would create new pathways for charter schools to form and another to ban certain “divisive concepts” from school training and curricula.

“Diversity means nothing if we aren’t willing or even allowed to acknowledge it,” said protest organizer Lyric Sellers, a junior at East High School in Des Moines. “Diversity means nothing if it doesn’t make us do things differently and commit to liberating our marginalized communities.”

House File 802 would prohibit the inclusion of “divisive concepts” in mandatory school training and curriculum. The list of forbidden concepts includes the idea that an individual is unconsciously racist or sexist due to their race or sex and the idea that the United States or Iowa are “fundamentally or systemically racist or sexist.”

“The education system cannot fully commit to anti-racism and equity if they can’t acknowledge and talk about the harm that marginalized communities have undergone and continue to experience,” said Endi Montalvo-Martinez, a senior at East High School. Montalvo-Martinez, 17, and Sellers, 16, are cofounders of the DMPS Racial Justice and Equity student group.

Read more: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2021/04/26/des-moines-students-protest-divisive-concepts-ban-and-charter-schools-at-capitol/

[madaboutharry]

1. Republicans hate education.

They want people miseducated and ignorant so they can con them with bullshit and turn them into republican voters.

[janterry]

2. There is no problem introducing a THEORY

But schools should present it as an interesting theory - one that might offer an interesting way of conceptualizing how race and discrimination has played out in the US.

The problems have arisen with the way this has been taught.

As I've written before, I took a semester of this in graduate school and for many years thought it had some benefit. However, the central theme of the class required all white people to write that they were racist. It also asked for intimate information about how you were raised, your sexuality, your families social status and religious (or non-religious) beliefs.

If you didn't, you didn't get a good grade. Period. For a long time, I thought that was a helpful exercise. These days, I'm not sure.

Whatever I do or don't believe about CRT - I don't believe it belongs in the work place (no, I don't think employees should sit in a circle and talk about being racist - if they are white - and not - if they are of color). Work is work. Don't discriminate (if you do- be warned/fired). In fact, I think companies should look for more empirical measures to ensure that we are more inclusive (we can track those things very well, if we want to. We need to want to).

But separate white parents of students from parents of color? Make a statement of your 'inherent racism' (write it yourself and have it placed in your employee file? Like at Evergreen College). I don't support that.

Likewise, some of the ways this is introduced in the schools - I don't support. There already are several lawsuits popping up. One by a mother of a student who didn't want to talk about his race, or announce a belief about his so-called gender, or religion.

Why should children HAVE to do that at school?
From the lawsuit: Defendants compelled Plaintiff William Clark to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender, and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded, written homework assignments
https://www.scribd.com/document/489011066/Schoolhouserights-org-Nevada-Complaint#from_embed

FWIW, the plaintiff's mother is black (his deceased father was white).
I don't support banning a theory, of course. That's illiberal.