DEI driven community college curriculum, argh!

[Shadow Wolf]

All I can think is that you didn't actually read it?

You think that, yet multiple people have said the same thing about it and it's not as ridiculously outlandish as you claimed.
Do you think it might be you who didn't understand it?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I concur with your second sentence while being far from convinced that the first is accurate and fair. Could you give me a couple of examples of adversarial identity groups being created and reinforced with the intent to be divisive?

It speaks up for marginalized groups amd says they don't have to take or be second class citizens to white men. That's why racial tensions today are Obama's fault, because it showed black people doijg things other than accepting their place in society, so much so that it has to be denied he's black.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I concur with your second sentence while being far from convinced that the first is accurate and fair. Could you give me a couple of examples of adversarial identity groups being created and reinforced with the intent to be divisive?

It speaks up for marginalized groups amd says they don't have to take or be second class citizens to white men. That's why racial tensions today are Obama's fault, because it showed black people doijg things other than accepting their place in society, so much so that it has to be denied he's black.

It was a question posed to @icehorse.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It was a question posed to @icehorse.

Yup. But that's the answer for many of such a mentality, even if they won't say it (other than their allegations against Obama and insisting a man who's skin is clearly black isn't black).

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

It just makes bigots mad because it calls out their crap.

Do you not see the risks associated with, for example, replacing meritocratic programs with race-based quotas? You should.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Do you not see the risks associated with, for example, replacing meritocratic programs with race-based quotas? You should.

What race based quotas? The topic is erasing prejudice and bias in education, and trying to inform people that doesn't mean "culturally sensitive Ohm's Law." That's just silly. But boys being favored in STEM subjects is real life amd a disservice that hurts boys, girls amd society at large.

 

[icehorse]

I concur with your second sentence while being far from convinced that the first is accurate and fair. Could you give me a couple of examples of adversarial identity groups being created and reinforced with the intent to be divisive?

- experts vs. those with lived experience
- supporters of academic freedom and integrity vs. supporters of equity principles and those who have been traumatized
- colonizers vs. colonized
- Eurocentric vs. equity minded
- DEI supporters vs. those who construct barriers
- teacher vs. co-learner
- supporters of traditional curriculum vs. student agency in creating curriculum
- experts vs. an anti-racist collective
- traditional teachers vs. those with cultural humility

I will acknowledge that the language in the document is not overly, overtly divisive. But I think we need to recognize that the authors knew what they were doing when they crafted this piece. They knew that they were fostering / spreading these various "us vs. them" narratives. The entire format of the document supports my claim. We have the "traditional" column set side by side with the "equity" column, and the purpose of the document is to supplant the "traditional" with the "equity" based.

 

[icehorse]

You think that, yet multiple people have said the same thing about it and it's not as ridiculously outlandish as you claimed.
Do you think it might be you who didn't understand it?

Again, why don't you try - as an intellectual challenge - to restrain from using logical fallacies such as "appeal to irrelevant authority".

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

What race based quotas?

Affirmative action, of course.

But boys being favored in STEM subjects is real life amd a disservice that hurts boys, girls amd society at large.

They're not "favored". Men and women have different interests, different values, and slightly different aptitudes. It's the same reason that nursing and psychology are dominated by women. When left to their own devices, men and women, on average, make different career choices. When I was in school, I had a female friend that wanted to pursue mechanical engineering. She definitely had the smarts for it, but eventually dropped that pursuit in favor of mental health therapy. Conversely, I (a male) initially pursued nursing but eventually dropped out to become a medical laboratory scientist. Seriously, I would have to be drugged 24/7 to tolerate a patient-centered job. Generally speaking, men are more interested in technology and women are more interested in people. This isn't speculation. This is what research tells us.

 

[Revoltingest]

Affirmative action, of course.

They're not "favored". Men and women have different interests, different values, and slightly different aptitudes. It's the same reason that nursing and psychology are dominated by women. When left to their own devices, men and women, on average, make different career choices. When I was in school, I had a female friend that wanted to pursue mechanical engineering. She definitely had the smarts for it, but eventually dropped that pursuit in favor of mental health therapy. Conversely, I (a male) initially pursued nursing but eventually dropped out to become a medical laboratory scientist. Seriously, I would have to be drugged 24/7 to tolerate a patient-centered job. Generally speaking, men are more interested in technology and women are more interested in people. This isn't speculation. This is what research tells us.

People are the worst....needy whiny uncooperative troubled things they are.
Here's what happens when a man goes into therapy.....

 

[YmirGF]

People are the worst....needy whiny uncooperative troubled things they are.
Here's what happens when a man goes into therapy.....

LOL. At one time, I gave serious thought to becoming a counsellor, but quickly realized I do not have the temperament required. I imagined myself jumping across a desk in order to throttle someone who wasn't listening. Probably not the best thing to do.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Again, why don't you try - as an intellectual challenge - to restrain from using logical fallacies such as "appeal to irrelevant authority".

Well, fine. It's no concern of me if you want to keeo wearing your blinders and refuse to accept your wrong and presented a caricature of it instead if what it really is. We've been giving you examples, but go ahead. There does really come a time when we must ask is the problem with me or everyone else when we are entirely at odds. It's very rare for the problem to be everybody else.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They're not "favored". Men and women have different interests, different values, and slightly different aptitudes.

Yes, they are. Such as, it's widely and broadly assumed women are incompetent with cars. Doesn't matter how good of a mechanic she really is, she's a she and therefore widely and broadly dismissed.
Generally having different interests is not at all what I'm even talking about.

This isn't speculation. This is what research tells us.

And not even in tye same ball park of what I was talking about.

Affirmative action, of course.

Again, not the topic.

 

[icehorse]

Well, fine. It's no concern of me if you want to keeo wearing your blinders and refuse to accept your wrong and presented a caricature of it instead if what it really is. We've been giving you examples, but go ahead. There does really come a time when we must ask is the problem with me or everyone else when we are entirely at odds. It's very rare for the problem to be everybody else.

By "we" I assume you mean your "woke" cohort? (And BTW, I'm using "woke" as a placeholder term until you tell me how you'd like us all to refer to people who share your views on things like identity politics and intersectionality and such.)

So it's no surprise that you and your cohort agree with each other. That's not a meaningful argument. And finally, it's simply not the case that I'm alone in thinking the way I do on this topic, as the "likes" indicate.

All of this could also have been said more simply: you're still appealing to irrelevant authority. Your cohort has no authority. You must rely on logic and evidence, thank goodness!

 

[Shadow Wolf]

By "we" I assume you mean your "woke" cohort? (And BTW, I'm using "woke" as a placeholder term until you tell me how you'd like us all to refer to people who share your views on things like identity politics and intersectionality and such.)

Good grief.

Your cohort has no authority.

Yeah, actually, some of us do. Some are even educators. And regardless you clearly aren't understanding it as well as others given your gross mischaracterization of what the document actually says.
But, yes. Keep ignoring our examples. You'll have to if you want to continue with white guilt physics and diveristy Ohm's Law.

You must rely on logic and evidence, thank goodness!

Then start doing it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Good grief.

I really want a "Woke Cohort" hoodie!

 

[icehorse]

Keep ignoring our examples

I do not believe I have ignored any examples. In fact, I think the opposite is true.

But don't let the actual history dissuade you, by all means carry on!

 

[Augustus]

The above excerpt strikes me as a tad too dichotomous, as if a continuity of pre-colonial African history couldn't also be affected by events and policies enacted by colonial powers during their rule over the region.

“I suggest that the preoccupation of many Africans with decolonising is inseparable from our placing colonialism as the defining framework within which to understand and narrate African life and thought. Our past—designated ‘precolonial’—is understood in terms determined by colonialism, and our future—postcolonial—is tied to our obsession with leaving it behind. How we expect to do the latter while privileging colonialism in our own understanding of our history and letting it characterise our discourses beats me.... If there was never a time when any part of Africa was hermetically sealed from the rest of the global exchange of human discourses and ideas, then to suppose that what needs to be changed or made sense of in our current experience is best traced to modern European colonialism is at least implausible and possibly wrong.

His argument is that the history of Africa is one of continued interaction with the world. Africa was influenced by Christianity, Islam and other 'foreign' ideas from the start. Parts of Africa were colonised by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans etc. not to mention other Africans who were equally 'foreign' in many cases. Moreover, Africans themselves colonised parts of Europe and the Middle East.

Why should we insist the British Gold Coast was more important than the Empire of Ghana, and isn't it a bit absurd to label African and Arab Empires as designating a purer "pre-colonial" era?

He notes that European colonial powers often supported more conservative traditional rulers and opposed modernisation, yet for many modernisation is akin to colonisation hence the nostalgic desire to return to a mythical pre-colonial past.

Since people are largely shaped by the educational, religious, geographical, socioeconomic, and political circumstances of their societies—all of which are tangible, material conditions that colonialism can affect and has affected—I think it is impossible to accurately put a society's actions into perspective without analyzing this backdrop. There's no magical cut-off point after which the primary and secondary effects of colonialism on a society completely disappear, especially when they bleed into other aspects that in turn have their own effects, such as the proliferation of anti-contraceptive beliefs in some countries following Christian missionary work whose effects have lingered far past the official "end date" of the peak of missionary work in Africa.

That's largely his point.

There is no cut off point and everything bleeds into everything else and thus no reason to grant European colonialism exceptional status with regard to earlier Arab, African, etc. colonialism.

For something like Christianity, it has been in Africa longer than most of 'Europe'. The 20th C expansion of Christianity was largely driven by African missionaries and evangelists, not Europeans. It is almost comical how inept European missionaries were when you read their histories, often they would get literally no converts in a decade (before dying of malaria).

The seedbed of missionary schools etc would have some long term impact of course, but the Africanisation of Christianity by Africans is responsible for the massive 20th C growth.

Also the idea that 'European' Catholicism is significantly responsible for lack of contraceptive use is very dubious given religious demographics

This is not to say that Africans have no agency or that human nature won't consistently lead to the same results no matter where one looks in the world, and Africa is no exception. It's just that the way people exercise their agency is still informed and influenced by numerous factors that are inevitably shaped whether partially or fully by past and current circumstances. It's no coincidence that many former French and British colonies still speak French and English respectively, for example, despite having agency to change their official languages to completely exclude both (which would be impractical and extremely unrealistic, despite being theoretically possible).

We can say the same about why so many speak Bantu languages or Arabic. As someone said "we are here because the past happened".

It's like in Europe where people want to believe the Enlightenment was a break from the past rather than its latest iteration. Periodisation of history tends to create magically divisions between eras, rather than convenient literary constructs to note when certain long term trends become apparent. It's like believing it was only the last straw that broke the camel's back.

The designation "African" is a very arbitrary construct, but for many (not saying you) white colonisation of brown/black people is somehow different from black/brown colonisation of black of black/brown people or white colonisation of white.

(In parts of South Africa, white colonisers have been there longer than Zulu colonisers. Both used violence to displace the 'traditional owners of the land' yet only the former are considered colonisers).

His argument is rejecting the framing allows people to start to appreciate the complexity of history, rather than the facile "oppressor/oppressed" version harking back to a mythical past that is favoured by "decolonisers".

 

[Valjean]

I like to think of myself as a Democrat that hasn't moved too far. Not only am I worried about the GOP, but I'm also worried about the far left, or however you'd like me to refer to them. The folks who - for example - are SO invested in identity politics.

 

[icehorse]

I agree that the right has shifted radically and dangerously, no argument there.

But sadly, there is now also a radical left that the video ignored. Although, FWIW, I feel like the guy left of center who hasn't really moved.