Survivor of Cultural Revolution Eviscerates CRT in American Schools

[+OverSword]

Quote

 

A Virginia mom who endured Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution before immigrating to the U.S. ripped a Virginia school board at a public meeting Tuesday over its stubborn support of the controversial critical race theory.

"I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools," Xi Van Fleet told the Loudoun County School Board members. "You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history."

She likened CRT, which critics deride as a form of "neo-racism," to China’s Cultural Revolution, a Mao-led purge that left between 500,000 and 20 million people dead from 1966 to 1976. The estimates vary greatly and many details have been shrouded in secrecy for decades.

 

Link

The article is not long, I encourage you to click the link and read the whole thing.

 

Quote

 

I just want Americans to know that their privilege is to be here living in America, that is just the biggest privilege.

— Xi Van Fleet

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by OverSword

[aztek]

opposition to crt is popping up nation wide, and it's only gaining momentum.  we need to stand up and protest mostly peaceful, if few schools/dept of ed buildings go up in flames overnight, well it would be understandable given how it makes people feel. it would be just a reaction to institutionalized racism.  gvmnt would bear all responsibility

Edited June 10, 2021 by aztek

[Gromdor]

I gotta ask-  Does she really think it's okay for China to delete the Mao purge or the current things happening to the Uighers from history?  Erasing atrocities are an effective way to control your populace- pretend that it never happened and move on.  Our history is what it is good or bad.  I can understand why it is effective but the current crop of conservatives wanting to take a textbook page from China's history control and use it as our standard seems off-putting to me.

I mean imagine if an American moved to China and was put on TV saying we should forget about Mao and know that their privilege is to live in China and that was the biggest privilege.

[+OverSword]

16 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

I gotta ask-  Does she really think it's okay for China to delete the Mao purge or the current things happening to the Uighers from history?  Erasing atrocities are an effective way to control your populace- pretend that it never happened and move on.  Our history is what it is good or bad.  I can understand why it is effective but the current crop of conservatives wanting to take a textbook page from China's history control and use it as our standard seems off-putting to me.

I mean imagine if an American moved to China and was put on TV saying we should forget about Mao and know that their privilege is to live in China and that was the biggest privilege.

Erase the Mao Purge?   Where does she say that?  She says that teaching critical race theory in American schools is very similar to how the great purge started in communist china that ended up with millions dead.  She says that she grew up in it and recognizes that this is the beginning of something similar here and is warning us because this **** is terrifying. She said living in America is the biggest privilege because CRT is undermining that privilege.  She's warning us that we are on the road to losing our freedom.

[papageorge1]

Encyclopedia Brittanica:

Critical race theory (CRT), intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour. Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

 

Geez, those American Whites sound pretty terrible. Well, I'll do my own thinking on those subjects thank you, and do not want my children indoctrinated by thinking I might not agree with. Isn't 'Freedom of Thought' still taught too and considered important. I know Communist countries like China like to program everyone to think the way the party hierarchy wants them to think. Hmmm. Freedom and independent thought formed this country. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

32 minutes ago, OverSword said:

She says that teaching critical race theory in American schools is very similar to how the great purge started in communist china that ended up with millions dead.

Where does it say she even understands what critical race theory is?  Which is of course much different than what Fox News, et al, say it is? Is she an academic or scholar?

She also says 'it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here'.  Huh?  Like where is she experiencing communism 'here'?

33 minutes ago, OverSword said:

She's warning us that we are on the road to losing our freedom.

Ha!  Ever read the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? 

[+OverSword]

9 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Where does it say she even understands what critical race theory is?  Which is of course much different than what Fox News, et al, say it is? Is she an academic or scholar?

She also says 'it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here'.  Huh?  Like where is she experiencing communism 'here'?

Ha!  Ever read the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? 

I don't know her, but since she lived through a purge of the "wrong people" I'll give her enough credit that she can probably recognize a pattern when she sees it.  Her message is valid IMO.  Did you read the article?  

Edited June 10, 2021 by OverSword

[+and-then]

"I can’t really just say what I mean, even though the other side can say whatever," 

Cultural Marxism.  We ignore it at our peril.  We have a "uniparty" in DC that is all about maintaining and growing its own power but only the Democrat side of it is fueling the cultural Marxism.  It's dangerous to this nation and if people don't wake up and stand up against it, it will succeed.

[Gromdor]

<cough> cancel culture <cough>

[+Liquid Gardens]

Just now, OverSword said:

I don't know her, but since she lived through a purge of the "wrong people" I'll give her enough credit that she can probably recognize a pattern when she sees it.  Her message is valid IMO.  Did you read the article?  

Yes.  Did I miss where it indicated how she knows anything about CRT, or again what and where specifically she is experiencing communism here?  Where exactly is she 'experiencing' even CRT here? 

 

[Guyver]

I think it’s great to hear someone criticize CRT, and I agree with the comment that it is neoracism.  It is racism, there is no question about that, and it’s an affront to all the efforts made by so many through the years to not discriminate against people because of their skin color, sex, or religion.  I say shame on any school board or any person who promotes CRT.

[+OverSword]

3 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Yes.  Did I miss where it indicated how she knows anything about CRT, or again what and where specifically she is experiencing communism here?  Where exactly is she 'experiencing' even CRT here? 

 

I think she says something like in china it was done with class (oppressor class) and here it is done with race (oppressor race).  Then she draws other parallels such as the renaming of schools, destruction of monuments, children taught to hate their country and it's history.  If you don't see it you don't see it.  I think you are of the school of thought that CRT is trying to stop racism what could be wrong with that?  I'm of the school of thought that CRT is causing more racism on all sides.  I think it's setting us back and points in the wrong direction.  CRT feels like the goal isn't to fix things it's to turn the table.

[+and-then]

2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I'm of the school of thought that CRT is causing more racism on all sides.  I think it's setting us back and points in the wrong direction.  CRT feels like the goal isn't to fix things it's to turn the table.

This is exactly the conclusion I've come to as well.  This isn't about righting old wrongs.  The essence of this isn't justice, but revenge.  The loudest advocates of this movement will not be satisfied until they see white citizens being reduced to a "lower class" of American.  Hell, it's gone so far as to have an Ivy League psychiatrist speaking openly of murdering whites just for "getting in her way" and that once done, she'd walk away with a "little spring in her step".

I'm tired of people glossing over such rhetoric by trying to parse and excuse everything these activists are saying.  It's become painfully obvious to me over the past year or so that this movement is not going to stop until it meets sufficient public resistance to force it to do so.  I think those who are leading it understand this very well and we are seeing their counter-strategy forming already.  They are using the single example of blowback against their efforts, January 6th, to set in motion the levers of power in DC against those that oppose them.  

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

I think she says something like in china it was done with class (oppressor class) and here it is done with race (oppressor race).

Again, where does it say she has any experience with 'it', CRT, to make this comparison?

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

children taught to hate their country and it's history.

'Hate their history'?  Where is that happening?  I usually see 'hate' mentioned whenever someone dares to doubt that the US is not exceptional in almost every way. 

I'd be happy with children simply being taught history at all.  I think it's absurd that I was fed a hagiography of Christopher Columbus and that I even know about nobodies like Betsy Ross, but didn't find out about the Tulsa Race Massacre until 2020 from a freakin superhero TV show.  

2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I'm of the school of thought that CRT is causing more racism on all sides.

I'm of the school that most people discussing CRT are actually discussing bs they heard from right-wing media, and actually have little clue what CRT entails.  Here are just some of the terms mentioned just on the wikipedia page which isn't exactly known as the most in-depth source:  social constructionism, intersectional theory, standpoint epistemology, essentialism vs anti-essentialism, structural determinism, empathetic fallacy.  You know a single thing about any of those terms?  I don't.  Critical theories are used in academia, so my default is that the most people talking about CRT know as much about what it actually is as they do quantum mechanics:  virtually nothing.

[Gromdor]

So what exactly is this "turning the table" that you guys are so scared of?  Do you fear whites will be treated like minorities were in the past?  

[+OverSword]

53 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Again, where does it say she has any experience with 'it', CRT, to make this comparison?

Do you deny that "whiteness" is seen a negative in CRT and considered oppressive?  Her experience comes from her observations and similarities that she sees with her own eyes I would guess.  How deeply she's delved you will have to ask her yourself.  She is not the first refugee from a repressive regime to note that what she is seeing in America today is all to familiar.  

55 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

'Hate their history'?  Where is that happening?  I usually see 'hate' mentioned whenever someone dares to doubt that the US is not exceptional in almost every way. 

Confederate monuments destroyed, Columbus day a day of infamy, All founding fathers reprehensible evil racists, etc, etc, etc.....

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I'd be happy with children simply being taught history at all.  I think it's absurd that I was fed a hagiography of Christopher Columbus and that I even know about nobodies like Betsy Ross, but didn't find out about the Tulsa Race Massacre until 2020 from a freakin superhero TV show.

Not arguing against that

1 hour ago, Liquid Gardens said:

I'm of the school that most people discussing CRT are actually discussing bs they heard from right-wing media, and actually have little clue what CRT entails.  Here are just some of the terms mentioned just on the wikipedia page which isn't exactly known as the most in-depth source:  social constructionism, intersectional theory, standpoint epistemology, essentialism vs anti-essentialism, structural determinism, empathetic fallacy.  You know a single thing about any of those terms?  I don't.  Critical theories are used in academia, so my default is that the most people talking about CRT know as much about what it actually is as they do quantum mechanics:  virtually nothing.

Yes there is a truth and a legitimate point of view to found in critical race theory.  There is also extreme negativity and hate being utilized in it's name and that is not separate from it, those people live and breathe it.  As a follower of MLK I find abhorrent.  For example CRT classes some corporations, city governments and schools are forcing on people and their children in which being white is practically a crime and should feel guilty as they are oppressors. It's adherents tend toward fanaticism and hate   Jason Rantz rips Seattle city leaders over 'unhinged' email labeling cops White supremacists | Fox News.  Should children be taught that because of their skin color that they are evil oppressors with privilege they should be ashamed of?   Rantz: Teacher uses science class to label white middle schoolers privileged oppressors (mynorthwest.com) No, CRT is just more racism regardless of how reasonable a wikipedia page written by people trying to make it legitimate want to make it seem.  I'm not saying everything about it is a lie, if that were true it would have been torn down by now, I'm saying it is being used in what I and many others feel is in a negative way.

 

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

12 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Do you deny that "whiteness" is seen a negative in CRT and considered oppressive? 

I don't know.  I'd need an actual quote for this idea within some academic literature.  I think whiteness is seen as 'privileged', not sure about 'oppressive'.

13 minutes ago, OverSword said:

She is not the first refugee from a repressive regime to note that what she is seeing in America today is all to familiar.  

Yet my simple question 'where are we experiencing communism here' which she claimed remains unanswered.

15 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Confederate monuments destroyed, Columbus day a day of infamy, All founding fathers reprehensible evil racists

You are adding 'hate' to the above, except the last one which is just extreme and I'm not sure what it has to do with anything.  Do you know why some view Columbus day as a day of infamy, the facts and actual history that this view is based on?  Do you understand why celebrations of the KKK, also part of our history, are frowned on now although they meet your criteria also for 'hating history'?  How about our history of blackface and minstrel shows, are we 'hating history' because that entertainment was 'destroyed', probably by the horror of cancel culture?

Our founding fathers probably were all racists, that is okay to teach, matter of fact there's a very good argument that it is important to teach.  There are always extreme examples of everything including those counter to positions that you and I and everyone take, Fox and CNN thrive off of them, "random somebody somewhere did something outrageous!". So what are your examples of a significant number of children being taught specifically that the founding fathers were 'reprehensively evil'.  There was talk of 'freedom of thought' above and this is what that freedom applies to: what you think and how you feel about facts and history, like viewing the founders as 'reprehensively evil', or instead as 'imperfect but brilliant people' or 'flawless saints' for that matter.  If that's what's actually being said, teachers teaching children that they were 'evil', then although I'm sure there are examples I'm also not surprised there are examples; I'm sure there are also examples of racist and atheist and Christian teachers in schools teaching what someone should think and feel about history also.  I'd need to see something more pervasive.

27 minutes ago, OverSword said:

For example CRT classes some corporations, city governments and schools are forcing on people and their children in which being white is practically a crime and should feel guilty as they are oppressors.

'Forcing' does not apply to corporations, they can do whatever they want and employees can just quit, free market, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, etc.  I'd need to see the actual lesson plan I think or a quote from an actual teacher where children were being taught to feel guilty because they are oppressors.  Your example above in your link about the science class indicates that they were taught about 'systems of oppression'.  The only mention I see of being taught they are 'oppressors' are by a mother who was quoted. 

Teaching about systems of oppression does not equal 'you children should feel guilty because you are oppressors'.  For example, I didn't see any problem with this part:

Quote

Students were shown a BuzzFeed-produced video titled, “What is privilege?” Adult subjects were asked to take a step forward or backward based on their responses to prompts. One prompt asked if the subjects could “show affection for your romantic partner in public without fear of ridicule or violence.” Another asked, “if you are able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault.”

By the end of the exercise, a Black, gay woman had the least privilege. A Black man was not far behind. The most privileged? A white man.

Given the questions that were asked in the exercise and how they define 'privilege' the results all seem factual; there's no arguing that a white man is in front in this exercise.  Is there something wrong with this?  Isn't making people aware of this, i.e 'teaching', a good (possibly 'only') way to bring everyone else up who is oppressed?  I'm all for women being able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault, as well as people of all combinations being able to show (reasonable) affection for each other.

[+OverSword]

@Liquid Gardens I don't disagree with anything you say.  I think the basic point is that you have the intellectual academic theory which is an honest point of view with good observations and you have what the subject of this thread is, the way it's being utilized negatively in practice by some in an official capacity making children feel marginalized because of the color of their skin and that it is being used divisively in corporate training.  And I don't think you should be quick to dismiss the parallels being noted by people that have lived through hell that came from societies that ate themselves alive using standards that they see the practitioners, not the theorists of CRT.  

[+OverSword]

23 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Our founding fathers probably were all racists, that is okay to teach, matter of fact there's a very good argument that it is important to teach. 

Maybe , but can you prove it?  Do you know they were?  By today's standards they most certainly may have been but how about by the standards of their ow era.  You're talking about some of the most open minded liberal people on the planet at the time.  In our own time we don't have enough information to know what will be considered enlightened in a couple hundred years, or that we would be allowed to live by those standards in our current society.  

There is a part that comes to mind in Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey jr in which he and Watson are discussing the the case and Holmes agrees that the supernatural can't be ruled out which I found amusing. You would think that Holmes would have ripped that argument to shreds with common sense and fact. That was thrown in there by the writers to make the point that at the time common wisdom was that the supernatural was real.  The character Holmes was very intelligent but was also a product of his time.  I'm sure Abe Lincoln would be the most ignorant racist around were he magically brought here to our time but in his time he was fairly enlightened and should be judged by those standards not by ours, although there is nothing wrong with observing that in the past people thought differently and had different standards which does not equate to them being bad people.  They are portrayed as bad people now though or at least the effort is there.

Edited June 10, 2021 by OverSword

[Agent0range]

I feel like the right-wing on this forum has been teaching CRT for the past 18 months.  "Joe Biden wrote a law that unfairly and disproportionately imprisoned blacks!"

[+OverSword]

14 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

I feel like the right-wing on this forum has been teaching CRT for the past 18 months.  "Joe Biden wrote a law that unfairly and disproportionately imprisoned blacks!"

Did he not?

[Agent0range]

2 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Did he not?

Absolutely he did...but opponents of critical race theory would argue that race had nothing to do with it, and it should not be taught that way.  So, like I said, the right has been teaching critical race theory for 18 months...

[+OverSword]

3 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

Absolutely he did...but opponents of critical race theory would argue that race had nothing to do with it, and it should not be taught that way.  So, like I said, the right has been teaching critical race theory for 18 months...

Gotcha.  I think it's important to note that I do not disagree with the most of the data behind CRT, what "the right" are talking about is not the academic theoretical part of CRT.  What "the right" are up in arms about is the way it's been utilized as just more racism by the so called practitioners of CRT.

[Agent0range]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

Gotcha.  I think it's important to note that I do not disagree with the most of the data behind CRT, what "the right" are talking about is not the academic theoretical part of CRT.  What "the right" are up in arms about is the way it's been utilized as just more racism by the so called practitioners of CRT.

I really don't follow it that much...but do you have an example of curriculum where it is being utilized as you said?  And no, I don't mean an off the cuff quote from a left-wing nutjob...I mean actual curriculum...

[+OverSword]

6 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

I really don't follow it that much...but do you have an example of curriculum where it is being utilized as you said?  And no, I don't mean an off the cuff quote from a left-wing nutjob...I mean actual curriculum...

You surely must have heard the outrage over the training done by the Coca Cola corporation where the Caucasian employees were told to be less white?  How the hell do you even do that?  By stop repressing everyone all the time no doubt 

 

here is some of the slides that were being used a whistle blower posted on twitter

Edited June 10, 2021 by OverSword