Pages

Friday, June 18, 2021

The Critical Race Theory Challenge: and The Race Theory I Fear

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

Walt Disney broke the racial barrier of people, such as Black and White, with his cartoons of animal characters of many colors.  Who didn't want Mickey or Minnie Mouse as a friend or Bugs Bunny?  It was Mel Blanc (born Melvin Jerome Blank ] May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) who  was an American voice actor and radio personality who was responsible.   After beginning his over-60-year career performing in radio, he became known for his work in animation as the voices of Bugs BunnyDaffy DuckPorky Pig, and most of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons during the golden age of American animation.   He was born in Portland, Oregon and went to Failing Grade School with my father. 

Both Mel and Morrie were Jewish.

                                                        

    Notice that this Star Trek crew is not all the same race, but all are different and

 are treated equally.  

                                                             

The next starship crew exploring the Final Frontier of Star Trek has arrived. No, it’s not guest stars for Picard Season 2, or a full break-down of the rest of the Strange New Worlds gang. Instead, after a decent amount of speculation, the full cast and character list for the upcoming animated series Star Trek: Prodigy has been revealed. And, it turns out there are some massive deep cuts to old school Star Trek canon, specifically, The Original Series

Star Trek is another example of seeing all sorts of shapes and colors of existing life 

from planets cooperating and working together.  If children haven't been exposed to 

children who look different, here's where they get used to seeing and loving people.

It's their world.

What I'm afraid of is the Nazi idea of race, and how they indoctrinated so much of 

Germany into believing as Hitler did.  It started in the early 30s. By 1939 it was out of 

hand. 

Germany taught that their race was the best.  Hitler spread his beliefs in racial "purity" and in the superiority of the "Germanic race"—what he called an Aryan "master race." He pronounced that his race must remain pure in order to one day take over the world. For Hitler, the ideal "Aryan" was blond, blue-eyed, and tall. 

 Hitler and other Nazi leaders viewed the Jews not as a religious group, but as a poisonous "race," which "lived off" the other races and weakened them. After Hitler took power, Nazi teachers in school classrooms began to apply the "principles" of racial science. They measured skull size and nose length, and recorded the color of their pupils' hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the true "Aryan race." Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) students were often humiliated in the process. 

The conception of racism began to take on a new aspect in the 19th century.  The realization of the existence of the Aryan and Semitic families of languages led to the theory of the existence of Aryan and Semitic races and later, to the classification of their subsections, the Teutons exemplifying the former and the Jews the latter.  

The theory was based on the belief, since rejected by scientists, that :

1. Jews were physically homogeneous : as in consisting of parts all of the same kind.  "culturally speaking the farmers constitute an extremely homogeneous group."  

2. There was a correlation between physical type and mental-cultural characteristics.  

"Jews and certain other groups were regarded as "racially inferior." by the Nazis of Germany.  At the end of the 19th century, this became a basic conception of the revived anti-Jewish movement in "Germany which, in the new era of tolerance, could no longer base itself exclusively on religion and, moreover was confronted with large numbers of Jews in whose lives Judaism played no part."  

"Thus, what had been an innocuous if unsound theory, became in the hands of E. Duhring, Wilhelm Marr,  H.S. Chamberlain, A. Rosenberg, a deadly weapon.  A fundamental principal of the Nazi movement from the outset, was called National Socialism.  It was officially and precisely formulated by the NUREMBERG LAWS in 1935.  Intermarriage between Jews and "Aryans" were sternly forbidden and the new Jewish disabilities were extended to all persons with 2 or more Jewish grandparents.  This conception was applies somewhat less rigorously in Fascist Italy in 1938 and in various Nazi-occupied countries of Europe  from 1939 to 1945, the length of World War II."  

On it was based the extermination policy carried out by the Germans in this period, extending in many instances to persons with only the vaguest Jewish associations and even to Christian clergymen and priests.  The alleged "scientific " evidence of racialism, based on craniometry, etc, are wholly untenable.  They measured the head and made decisions about race and people. "

"Germany has had to face this in their education since their government allowed 6 million Jews to be exterminated.  They were teaching racism and treating Jews as being sub-human.  "According to historian Alon Confino, the Nazis and other Germans made 1,448 laws, policies, and decrees designed to remove Jews from the country’s political, economic, and cultural life between January 31, 1933, and August 31, 1939. In 1933 alone, 316 anti-Jewish measures were taken in Germany by the national, state, regional, and local governments as well as by civic associations throughout the country. The following is a partial list of the anti-Jewish laws, policies, and decrees made in 1933."  This is what racism does.

  • Berlin: Jewish physicians are excluded from the list of doctors approved to receive patients under welfare and health insurance plans.
  • Prussia: Jewish judges and lawyers working at courts are immediately removed from office; the percentage of licensed Jewish lawyers should be equal to the percentage of Jews in the population; Jewish lawyers cannot represent the state.
  • Cologne: Jews cannot use the city’s sports facilities.
  • Frankfurt: Jews must submit their passports for verification."
  • The final solution: murdering 6 million Jews.
  • This is why I feel that any teaching about "race" in elementary school is wrong.  I don't trust the motives or the teachers who would be involved.  High school might be able to handle problems we see today, such as the Blacks and whites in different cities not getting along and why not?  
  • Teaching about the Holocaust is a little different and should be taught in all high schools.  It's history and includes the Nazi idea of race.  
  • I'm a proponent of learning about our DNA.  If you study that and the migrations of people, you'll see some facts about the human race.  They can learn about genetic genealogy as a field to go into in college.  That's using science, not prejudice, which the critical race theory might be aiming at or even using, even unintentionally. 
  •  It cannot be right to put down one type in favor of another.  All this time Whites have been putting down Blacks, and now they're doing the very same thing by calling Whites names.  Two wrongs don't make a right. 
  •  The original Golden Rule by Hillel states as: Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE), used this verse as a most important message of the Torah for his teachings. Once, he was challenged by a gentile who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism but, drawing on Leviticus 19:18, briefed the man:
  • What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

    — Babylonian Talmud                                                            
  • The Saturday Evening Post: cover, April 1, 1961.

    A group of people of different religions, races and ethnicity served as the backdrop for the inscription "Do Unto Other As You Would Have Them Do Unto You." Rockwell was a compassionate man, and this simple phrase reflected his philosophy.
    "I'd been reading up on comparative religion. The thing is that all major religions have the Golden Rule in Common. 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Not always the same words but the same meaning."
  • Why aren't people following the Golden Rule?  
  • Update:  July 4, 2021 :  https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05
  • Update: July 15, 2021: 
  • Law professors Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that critical race theory lacks supporting evidence, relies on an implausible belief that reality is socially constructed, rejects evidence in favor of storytelling, rejects truth and merit as expressions of political dominance, and rejects the rule of law.[17] Farber and Sherry additionally posit that the anti-meritocratic tenets in critical race theory, critical feminism, and critical legal studies may unintentionally lead to antisemitic and anti-Asian implications.[59][60] In particular, they suggest that the success of Jews and Asians within what critical race theorists argue is a structurally unfair system may lend itself to allegations of cheating, advantage-taking, or other such claims. A series of responses to Farber and Sherry on this matter was published in the Harvard Law Review.[61] These responses argue that there is a difference between criticizing an unfair system and criticizing individuals who perform well inside that system.[17][61]

    In a 1997 Boston College Law Review article, Jeffrey Pyle argued that critical race theory undermined confidence in the rule of law, writing that "critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law".[62]

    Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals argued in 1997 that critical race theory "turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative", and that "by repudiating reasoned argumentation, [critical race theorists] reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites."[18] Former Judge Alex Kozinski, who served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, criticized critical race theorists in 1997 for raising "insuperable barriers to mutual understanding" and thus eliminating opportunities for "meaningful dialogue"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Criticism

Resource;

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/06/along-with-three-rs-us-teaching-racist.html

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-prodigy-crew-characters-deep-connections-

history/

2 comments:

  1. the wonderful golden rule. i remember that from early in my life in sunday school.
    i remember growing up in the south and yes i saw some degree of prejudice. not extreme but still prejudice just the same. i remember once when i was part of saying something condescending to some indian children on the school bus. i went along with some older kids to do it but when i got home i felt terrible nadene. terrible! and do you know that haunted me for years afterward! i would happen to remember it and feel terrible and cry all over again and ask God's forgiveness for doing that. i prayed that those two indian children grew up with good treatment after all. so i feel that experience helped me later in life to not behave that way. in fact when my family moved to montana then the tables turned on me! native girls in p.e. class were extra rough during dodgeball--would aim the ball at my face and it came at me hard. they would gang up on me and other white girls after school. 2 to 7 their favor and they would surround you and say mean things and often thought they might hurt me. it scared me! my little sister made friends with a native girl and it was terrible how other native girls beat her up for having a white friend. so i have seen things go both directions.
    and doing my dna i found out--guess what?--i have american indian in me too! i am so happy to have that in my heritage! (mississippi choctaw :) ...in me!)
    i recently saw the movie driving miss daisy and i was touched that it was scenes that looked so familiar from my southern upbringing--and how the old lady and the old black gentleman became so close...but it took some time. it blessed me because i have been told of something similar from a family story from when daddy was a little boy in mississippi.
    2 wrongs never make things right--you are spot on.
    people need to give each other respect and love can flow from that. might take practice and some time but worth it--and good for the soul! do we ever need that now!
    thanks for yet another good post nadene!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Andre. That was said beautifully! What a perfect example. Actually, that experience was the best lesson anyone could ever have, and it has passed on with loving kindness from you to others ever since.

    ReplyDelete