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The “racist anti-racist” movement

By Mike Huckabee

June 2, 2022
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I often refer to modern so-called “anti-racist” efforts as the “racist anti-racist” movement. That’s not a partisan pejorative. I honestly believe that the left, under the guise of fighting racism, is actually attempting to divide Americans, foment hatred and suspicion of other races, and bring back the vile days of officially-enforced segregation and judging people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. Why do I think that? Because they just keep telling us over and over.

Here’s the latest example: Under the cloak of “equity,” some schools are now instituting race-based grading. The latest example is in Oak Park, Illinois, but as the linked story reports, it’s a growing trend that started in San Diego and like exotic diseases, wildfires and most awful leftist ideas, started spreading eastward from California.

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/05/31/illinois-high-schools-implement-new-grading-practices-for-equity-n473102

The Illinois plan is typical of leftist policies in that it comes couched in fuzzy four-dollar words to hide its toxicity. It’s called “Transformative Education Professional Development and Grading.” It claims that “traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap” through “outdated practices” and “unconscious biases” like letting “non-academic factors” such as student behavior and whether a student shows up to class interfere with teacher evaluation of students. Things like showing up late, misbehaving in class or handing in work late cannot reduce a student’s overall class grade.

While the Illinois plan doesn’t mention any particular race that this is supposed to benefit, it does condemn the traditional system it’s replacing as a “race-based grading system,” so it’s pretty clear what the insulting thinking is behind this. It used to be called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” but now it’s called “equity.”

This should be abhorrent to people of all races. I do have to say, though, that I admire the one teacher quoted who was brave enough to question what this will do to students. She noted that she has a job where she’s expected to show up on time, do the work and behave professionally. This system will not prepare students for what they’re going to encounter when they leave school and join the real world.

But it is a truly “transformative” system if you want students to be so poorly prepared for the work world that they’re transformed into permanent dependents of the state. I get the feeling that’s the “equity” they’d like to impose on all of us.

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Comments 1-3 of 3

  • JANET JOHNSON

    06/06/2022 06:23 AM

    Regarding the teacher who said "This system will not prepare students for what they’re going to encounter when they leave school and join the real world."

    I submit that this system will prepare students to embrace attitudes that lead to crime and violence - the tools provided by those who encourage rioting, arson, looting, theft, vandalism, mass shootings, drug addiction & the like. People who are thus systematically taught to be victims have no other way to cope with the real world. They have nothing to be proud of.

  • Lydia Prosnier

    06/05/2022 05:36 PM

    In response to this article, I write to ask: have you read the 1951 short story “The Marching Morons” by CM Kornbluth? If not, please do and email me your reaction!!!!!

    Some background: Long time reader, political supporter, born-again Christian. Just retired after teaching HS for 20 years in Visalia, Hanford CA area. Taught French (born in France to Parisian father), German (German great grandfather), Spanish and all levels of English from remedial to AP. Grades based strictly on work product and participation, with which I agree. Separate Citizenship mark which affected student ability to attend Prom or play sports, etc. Very tight rubric which weighed tardies, unexcused absences, class behavior, lack of preparedness for class. Had to call guardian if the grade was a D or F or Citizenship unacceptable; leaving a message did not count. Had to give principal a detailed phone log for each grading period to justify the mark, especially if it would deprive say a senior from going to Prom or playing football!!! Entitled parents of chronic offenders were worst nightmare. I turned 65 thank goodness in God’s blessed timing — retired last school year and was able to exit ÇA just as all the sex Ed requirements and CRT were being forced on teachers.

    I love teaching but the profession has been sabotaged. I was going to substitute here in Scottsdale where I moved back to my childhood neighborhood, but just couldn’t bring myself to go back into the whole “machinery” of it. Plus Scottsdale School Board has been rife with corruption for years and in national news for the shenanigans of monitoring parents, as your newsletter had covered.

    Back to “The Marching Morons”!
    A professor at Fresno State advised our weekend teacher workshop to read it, a “must read” he said. I did and it is bone-chilling. A bit hard to stick with it in the beginning, but then you race to the end with a sick feeling in your gut. And that was 10 years ago!!!! It lays out the dummying down of a society, what I was seeing in our school system from the inside, as well as the lying and deceit from the Democrat Party (as a spirit-filled Christian, one has discernment and can separate the light from the dark).
    Please do read it and give me your reaction!!

    I taught my sophomores the classic “Harrison Bergeron” every year and Night. Before Night, students did a formal college level research paper. I was the only teacher in the district to require a topic of substance — a Genocide of their choosing from any time in history. As their sources, I required they watch a full length documentary, read a book, interview a survivor if possible, in addition to worthy websites. Other teachers gave their students 3 different xeroxed articles on technology, I believe, and all students did the same rote thing. I learned from my students about Falun Gong years ago!!! The Parsley Genocide of Haitians, the Holodomor starvation by Stalin (playing out today??!), the Herero Genocide in Namibia by Germans (almost a test run of sorts of the Holocaust) in 1904!!! I taught Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm to juniors.

    I pray that what they learned for themselves takes seed, that I did affect students for the betterment of our society which is what the whole public education system is supposed to do — uplift a nation and not indoctrinate and destroy.


    Here’s a link to “The Marching Morons.”
    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm


  • Jim Greer

    06/03/2022 01:56 PM

    I think you’re missing the point here. When you lower the bar far enough you can then brag about the accomplishments of all the students who’ve “reached” the goal that was set for them. Of course then SAT/college standards will need to be lowered or eliminated all together so that everyone who feels that a college diploma to hang on the wall won’t be out of reach and… where do we stop?

Mike Huckabee

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