Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

The title of Steve Singer’s recent Common Dreams post, “Public Schools are Not Indoctrinating  Kids About Racism. Voucher Schools Are” is bluntly accurate and, if anything, an understatement. He opens with this recitation of facts:

Right-wingers claim public schools are indoctrinating America’s youth in lies and deception about race and racism—namely the “lie” that these things remain problems.

They grudgingly concede that racism was a (slight) problem in this country before the civil rights movement, but then Rosa sat down and Martin stood up and—POOF—racism was over.

End of story. Let’s move on.

However, there are several things wrong with this besides its basic reductivism.

First, no public school actually teaches Critical Race Theory.

Second, racism is not over in the US, and talking about the facts of history and how they led to our current situation is not indoctrination. It’s education—the job of public schools.

And finally, if you really want to see taxpayer funded indoctrination, look at private and parochial schools accepting taxpayer funding through voucher and tax credit programs.

After undercutting any notion that any school in America is teaching CRT, Singer notes that schools funded by taxpayers with de facto vouchers offer curricula that do, in fact, brainwash children… and offers example after example of those instances…. including this gem:

And here’s a defense of the kindness of most slave owners from United States History for Christian Schools published by Bob Jones University Press (BJU):

“A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”

And here’s another excerpt from the same book teaching that black people were just as responsible for slavery as white people and that white people suffered from slavery just as much:

“The story of slavery in America is an excellent example of the far-reaching consequences of sin. The sin in this case was greed—greed on the part of the African tribal leaders, on the part of the slave traders, and on the part of slave owners, all of whom allowed their love for profit to outweigh their love for their fellow man. The consequences of such greed and racism extended across society and far into the future. It resulted in untold suffering—most obviously for the black race but for the white race as well.”

I doubt that the slaves themselves would agree that their owners treated them well, but DO agree that greed is at the root of the problem of slavery… and at the root of the problems of unfettered Capitalism— though I doubt that the BJU Press includes that in their curriculum.