Please indulge me on this day of reflection on "Doing the work: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness," by Ian Buruma

Friends,

Please indulge me on this day of reflection on "Doing the work: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness," by Bard College Professor Ian Buruma in this July, 2023 piece in Harper's Magazine that I'm sure will get widely read. He blames Protestantism for ostensibly caving in to "woke culture," more readily than might be found among Catholics or Jews. While an interesting hypothesis, I think it is a somewhat misplaced concern.

What I most appreciate about Buruma's piece is just how deeply it made me think not so much about his sensed correlation between weak-kneed Protestantism capitulating to "wokeness" via cancel culture, engaging in forms of public apology, and virtue signaling, but rather about his simple solution of a return to a more tempered and less puritanical mindset that would benefit progressive causes. While this would clearly help, it's insufficient in light of race/ethnicity and class dynamics that I outline below.

Buruma takes aim at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, essentially blaming "identity politics" for going too far and forgetting about the white working class. This is a misrepresentation of DEI programs as they have in fact evolved to incorporate students with disability, veterans, and persons of rural origins that may be of any race or ethnicity. Plus, race and ethnicity frequently overlap with class background such that the former is often a proxy for the latter.

As importantly, Buruma fails to acknowledge white's identity politics that we may otherwise term, white supremacy politics that you can learn about in Ashely Jardina's (2019) book titled, White Identity Politics that she also maintains, are bigger than the KKK in her Washington Post piece titled, "White identity politics isn’t just about white supremacy. It’s much bigger."

I also think that Buruma is unfair on not only placing the onus for a lack of solidarity across class on people of color when considering long histories as we have enjoyed in Texas of interracial and interethnic coalitions in politics where we actually consistently advocate on issues like school finance and vouchers that benefit the rich and not the poor (see yesterday's post on vouchers, for example). School finance is another area.

Consider, as well, the decades-long work of one of our state's most significant education coalitions of our day, namely, he Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition headed by Dr. Chloe Sikes, a former student of ours in the UT-Education Policy and Planning doctoral program. Consider, as well the storied Texas Organizing Project that is featured in Steve Phillip's national best-seller, How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.

There are also incredible stories and histories of in Krochmal and Moye's masterful anthology on this very subject titled, Civil rights in black and brown: Histories of resistance and struggle in Texas.

Consider, as well, the divide and conquer techniques that have worked to fracture the working class across time consisting, for example, of a lack of pay equity and wage gaps within the working class. This creates resentment and competition, fostering divisions at work. When inflected by race, this oftentimes doesn't address underlying dynamics of workers' exploitation, but rather gets addressed as a racial, as opposed to both a race and class issue related to working conditions, salaries, and opportunities for promotion. These dynamics play out within the professional occupations, as well, as exemplified by the Independent Equity Committee in their widely-read, highly impactful report recently at the University of Texas at Austin.

We must, in the same breath, be mindful of how as a consequence of the inter-ethnic competition that exists as a result of historic divide-and-conquer strategies, coalition-building is really hard work and often manifest internally via racial power dynamics within both the U.S. working and professional classes, respectively.

Omi and Winant (2014) similarly note in their seminal text, Racial Formation in the United States, that throughout history, the white working class that has historically either broken ranks with the Black and Brown members of the working class or in instances of cooperation, including unionization, still often seeks to rule over their Black and Brown segments.

Context is king, as well. Do note that according to Wilson (2016), by 2032, individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds will constitute the majority of the American working class. Eliminating our understandings of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies as currently getting legislated in states like Texas, Florida and North Carolina, ill-prepare us for an inexorably diverse future.

Last, but not least, I am very proud of our work in Black Brown Dialogues on Policy in promoting awareness of this vitally important work of building interracial and interethnic coalitions of conscience. I encourage you to view our recorded Facebook live event last week at the Texas State Capitol that I also announced on this blog.







I also encourage you to hear the student voices who reflected on their own experiences, as well as on what was shared throughout the day.





The testimonies were awe-inspiring. The students melt my heart.

My friends, this is the precise political work motivates community solidarity across struggles. It is exactly this coalitional work—of the kind that defeated vouchers yesterday—that holds enormous promise for a brighter future in our state and nation.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Jardina, A. (2019). White identity politics. Cambridge University Press.

Jardina, A. (2017). White Identity Politics Isn’t Just about White Supremacy: It’s Much Bigger, WashingtonPost. com, August, 16(2).

Krochmal, M., & Moye, T. (Eds.). (2021). Civil rights in black and brown: Histories of resistance and struggle in Texas. University of Texas Press.

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial formation in the United States. Routledge.

Phillips, S. (2022). How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good. The New Press.

Wilson, V. (2016, June 9). People of color will be a majority of the American working class in 2032: What this means for the effort to grow wages and reduce inequality, Economic Policy Institute.

Doing the Work: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness

by Ian Buruma | July 2023 | Harpers

Writing about “Woke” has at least two pitfalls. One is that any criticism of its excesses provokes accusations of racism, xenophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or white supremacy. The other problem is the word itself, which has been a term of abuse employed by the far right, a battle cry for the progressive left, and an embarrassment to many liberals.

No one can agree on what woke is supposed to mean. The right has blamed it for everything from the spike in school shootings to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, while many who are described as woke on the left see themselves as fighting a long-overdue battle for social and racial justice. These disagreements are not just political. In fact, they sometimes seem to be antipolitical. Arguments over wokeness are often tests, as the word indicates, of moral and spiritual enlightenment.

This is why John McWhorter, the author of Woke Racism, decided to drop woke as a descriptor of antiracism evangelists and instead call them “the Elect.” This has the right religious and class connotations. The Elect, he writes, are people who “see themselves as having been chosen . . . as understanding something most do not.” Like pre-modern Christians, the Elect must either convert or punish those who have not seen the light.

Extremists are Using the State to Consciously Manipulate People's Opinions to Both Control and Shrink the Public Mind

Things are heating up at the Texas SBOE. They're wanting to delay decisions until a more conservative board comes in. The basic request is for a first reading this week of the Social Studies TEKS. The fringe groups like the Texas Freedom Caucus diverge from what parents and educators want and know to make for a good education. A first reading will allow the public to then weigh in on the proposed changes in a deliberative, civil manner. 

If you have any question about what Texans really want, read the Charles Butt Foundation Report titled, Connected Through Our Schools where Texans overwhelmingly express the following:

#2 Texans expect and value what public schools do for students, families, and communities.

Student opportunities: Critical thinking and problem-solving skills (92%)

Self-management, interpersonal skills, and decision-making skills (91%)

Preparation to succeed in the workforce (91%)

Texans don't want Texans to be ignorant, much less for education to be engineered. Anything short of this is censorship of the kind that fascist, totalitarian governments are fond of doing. 

That is, these extremists use the state to consciously manipulate people's opinions to control the public mind, that is inclusive of their habits, tastes, and even their memories. This is the antithesis of an expansive, inclusive, and most of all, respectful and representative curriculum.

When will they learn just how much they harm not just society, but also themselves, as well as their children and grandchildren, by narrowing thought and opinion that propagate small minds?

We're struggling for inclusion not just for our children, but for theirs, as well. And that's healthy and good for Texas. Below are their numbers where they can be reached. Do consider reaching out to them.

-Angela Valenzuela

Connect with your SBOE Representative

Reach out to your SBOE representative and tell them to do their job by scheduling first reading of the Work Group drafts and complete the TEKS review process in 2022. We encourage you to focus on the starred numbers and your rep. Find your rep here. We will be updating talking points here; the existing ones have not changed so if you are ready now, go ahead and connect! Also, if you have the time, send a note to SBOE Members Davis, Pérez-Díaz, and Bell-Metereau for their unwavering commitment to the process and their prioritization of truth and humanity.

District	Name	Email and Twitter	Phone
1	Georgina Perez	georgina.perez@tea.texas.gov @ginaTXSBOE1	(915) 261–8663
2	Ruben Cortez, Jr.	rubencortezfortexas@gmail.com @RubenforTexas	(956) 639–9171
3	Marisa Perez-Diaz	marisa.perez@tea.texas.gov @Marisa4PubEd	(512) 422–9019
4	Lawrence Allen, Jr.	sboesupport@tea.texas.gov	(713) 203–1355
5	Rebecca Bell-Metereau	rebecca.bellmetereau@tea.texas.gov @voterebecca	(512) 665–2157
6	Will Hickman	will.hickman@tea.texas.gov	(832) 304–0051
7	Matt Robinson	matt.robinson@tea.texas.gov @MRDist7SBOE	(281) 635–1962*
8	Audrey Young	audrey.young@tea.texas.gov	(936) 569–3150*
9	Keven Ellis	ellisSBOE@gmail.com @KevenEllisDC	(512) 710–7915*
10	Tom Maynard	tom@maynardfortexas.com	(512) 763–2801
11	Patricia Hardy	pat.hardy.1109@gmail.com @pathardy2008	(817) 732–1786*
12	Pam Little	pam.little@tea.texas.gov	(972) 342–6697*
13	Aicha Davis	Aicha.Davis@tea.texas.gov	(469) 340–3643
14	Sue Melton-Malone	smelton51@gmail.com	(254) 749–0415*
15	Jay Johnson	jay.johnson@tea.texas.gov	(806) 680–3245*

Texas education board moves to delay updates to social studies curriculum after conservative pushback

Opponents of the recommended changes, including Republican legislators, complained that they downplayed Texan and American exceptionalism and didn't present opposing views on the gay rights movement.

by Brian Lopez | Texas Tribune |  AUG. 30, 2022

After facing pressure from conservatives over proposed updates to the state’s social studies curriculum scheduled for this year, the State Board of Education on Tuesday took a step to delay the revision until 2025.

Instead, the board agreed in a 7-2 preliminary vote to only adjust the curriculum with directives to comply with the state’s 2021 law targeting “critical race theory.” Those include adding civics and literacy standards. A final vote on the decision is set to take place Friday, the last day of the board’s weeklong meeting.

“This is essentially a motion that’s saying we’re giving up,” said board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Democrat.

The elected board had been evaluating a recommendation that would have had Texas students spend kindergarten through second grade learning about Texas, U.S. and world history. From the third to fifth grades, students would have focused on world history. In grades sixth through eighth, students would have focused on American and Texas history.

That proposal would have eliminated dedicated years — fourth grade and seventh grade — for students to specifically study Texas history. In a separate vote on Tuesday, the board voted 8-5 in favor of using Republican board member Will Hickman’s proposed order of teaching history as a starting point. His method has children getting two dedicated years of U.S. history and two of Texas history.

The Texas Education Agency asserted that the original proposal would have increased the teaching of Texas history overall, as it would have been taught in more grade levels. But opponents argued it diminished the teaching of Texas exceptionalism.

On Monday, the Texas Freedom Caucus, a group of hardline Republican lawmakers in the state House, wrote a letter to the education board threatening legislative intervention if no “substantial changes” were made to the proposal.

“In a stunning reversal of the spirit in which the Legislature passed several reforms meant to protect children last session, the proposed changes require educators to, among other things, violate Texas laws by, for example, teaching subjects associated with critical race theory,” the letter said.

The Texas history provision was one of many changes being floated. Other proposed updates included possibly teaching second graders about Juneteenth with a book that describes George Floyd’s murder as “brutal” and “race-driven” and how the incident spurred national attention to the holiday. The LGBTQ Pride movement would have been taught in eighth grade alongside the Civil Rights and women’s liberation movements.

But while the proponents of the changes said they would be a step forward for inclusion and diversity, lawmakers and parents who spoke out in opposition this week argued that they represent the “critical race theory” and indoctrination that the state’s leadership opposes.

Board members who voted to delay the vote said they did not like the proposed order in which kids would be taught Texas, U.S. and world history, even though the board had initially accepted the framework months ago. Now, the board members said they needed more time to research and come up with a new order.

Delaying the process could allow more conservative, “anti-critical race theory” candidates to be on the State Board of Education when the standards are revisited. Several Texas Republicans against critical race theory advanced to the State Board of Education general election in November after winning their primaries this spring.

The State Board of Education, an elected 15-member board, takes up revisions to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for social studies about every decade. The curriculum sets the standards for how the state’s 5.5 million public school students of all grades learn the subject.

The debate over this year’s revisions has grown heated as conflict continues to swirl over how America’s history of racism should be taught and what books kids should be able access on campuses. State lawmakers made their move last year by passing laws to limit how America’s history of slavery and racism is taught in schools. The laws were promoted as a response to the supposed spread of “critical race theory,” an academic discipline not usually taught in schools that posits that racism is embedded in all aspects of society. Meanwhile, an organized segment of parents and school boards around the state have tried to limit diversity plans and discussions in school about LGBTQ people, claiming their children are being indoctrinated.

State Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, author of one “anti-critical race theory” law and a member of the Freedom Caucus, warned that if the State Board of Education didn’t change the proposed standards then lawmakers would take action next legislative session — or the state may sue.

During Tuesday’s meeting, most of the arguments from parents and conservative advocates complained that the draft recommendation didn’t sufficiently promote American exceptionalism, touched on critical race theory at times and wrongly included lessons on the Pride movement or the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, known as GLAAD.

Jolyn Potenza, a resident of Southlake — a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb that has become a hotspot for fights over race and education — said she and hundreds of the city’s parents oppose the recommended curriculum because it promotes a “globalist view.”

“It reduces the mention of America’s resilience, trust in God and celebration of our Declaration of Independence and freedom week,” Potenza said.

But Carisa Lopez, senior political director at the Texas Freedom Network, a left-leaning watchdog group often involved in public education issues, told board members that they should “reject the avalanche of falsehoods and misinformation” coming to them and do what is best for Texas students.

“Things have gone completely off the rails when extremists make outrageous claims and then quote the Bible,” Lopez said. “Don’t let those pushing a political agenda hijack your process at the 11th hour.”

The proposed curriculum updates include teachings on the role of the Founding Fathers and documents such as the U.S. Constitution. They call for learning the value of patriotism and include learning about Christianity and the role of Jesus. But there are also teachings about the dark parts of America’s history such as centuries of slavery and the incarceration of Japanese Americans after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Orlando Lara, a parent, said he wants his daughter to learn how to be a global citizen as well as an American one.

“Just because she’s an American citizen, it doesn’t mean she’s more important or valuable than anybody else in the world,” Lara said.

Leading up to the meeting, the Texas Freedom Caucus claimed that teaching Pride — a movement dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQ voices, celebration of LGBTQ culture and the support of LGBTQ rights — is a “controversial” issue and thus violates state law.

That law says if a teacher talks about a controversial issue, they should explore both sides of the topic without giving preference to one side.

“The lesson is based on the assumption that the ‘pride’ movement is good for society,” the caucus members wrote.

Toth said discussions about the Pride movement should be between a child and their parents.

Mary Castle, senior policy advisor for Texas Values, a conservative organization, said the board should remove mentions of the Pride movement and GLAAD. Castle said including these mentions gives teachers space to promote advocacy and involvement in the LGBTQ community.

“We have seen the evidence of how they use this to introduce inappropriate books in the libraries and appropriate materials in the classroom,” Castle said.

But Democrats on the board questioned why the board wouldn’t include a social movement that is part of American history.

Member Marisa B. Perez-Diaz, a Democrat, also questioned how the state can teach kids to love America if their history and experiences are ignored.

“That’s a missing piece to this puzzle and part of those stories are that America hasn’t always been exceptional,” Perez-Diaz said.

Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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White Anxiety, Redefined: The psychic wages of disfiguring the meaning of critical race theory, by Anthony Conwright

There is so much wisdom to be gleaned from this piece authored by Anthony Conwright writing for the African American Policy Forum in the context of the current political and policy context with respect to the anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT), extremist moment we're in. 

What makes this piece important is its signaling of psychic wages to white people who, as Conwright aptly states, "no longer know who they are when Black people avow their autonomy," resulting in a caricatured view of CRT spun "into groundless abstraction [that denotes] its effective social meaning to be anything that triggers anxiety in white people."

What this extremist agenda seeks is to numb children—and society, as whole—to the horrors of slavery and genocide not unlike that which Holocaust deniers seek. Conwright writes cogently on the impact of this agenda on white people themselves:

"If society is numb to the murder and structural oppression of Black Americans, then society will not be moved to change the laws that govern these evils.  The white Americans who denounce critical race theory as an unthinkable source of inner angst and distress thus betray their own rarely acknowledged psychic investment in the justification of systemic violence meted out toward Black people in the service of white supremacy."

 Again, Conwright gets to the heart of the matter:

"Indeed, this core evasion of Black Americans’ humanity has become so compelling, some white people are willing to destroy their history at the cost of their own humanity." 

White people manifesting white anxiety clearly need grounding opposite that which is indifferent toward, or numb to, black and brown people's suffering. Do note that people of color can similarly fall prey to such ideologies through an internalization of white supremacy that manifests as self-hatred, or hatred toward one's own racial or ethnic group.  

A good first start is to stand up against this unethical re-writing of history, these legislated sins of omission, that reinscribe a white identity that ill-serves white people anyway.

-Angela Valenzuela

White Anxiety, Redefined

The psychic wages of disfiguring the meaning of critical race theory

Anthony Conwright | March 31, 2022

To loot an object of its meaning, the object must be seized and its identity erased through an abracadabra flourish of semantics so it can be made anew. Philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon described this process in his 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks. “I am overdetermined from without. I am the slave not of the ‘idea’ that others have of me but of my own appearance,” Fanon wrote. “And already I am being dissected under white eyes, the only real eyes. I am fixed. Having adjusted their microtomes, they objectively cut away slices of my reality. I am laid bare. I feel, I see in those white faces that it is not a new man who has come in, but a new kind of man, a new genus. Why, it’s a Negro!”        The project of overdetermining Black people extends well beyond the corporal form and bleeds into academia. Under the lenses of “white eyes,” Black studies, hip-hop scholarship, and critical race theory are not what their pioneers defined them to be. These fields of study are seized, undressed and converted into symbols that marshal anxiety among white Americans who no longer know who they are when Black people avow their autonomy. We’ve witnessed this process at close remove in recent months, as much the same rhetoric and legislation that transmogrified enslaved Africans into non-beings have been revived to spin the definition of critical race theory (CRT) off into groundless abstraction—and then denote its effective social meaning to be anything that triggers anxiety in white people.        If this sounds hyperbolic, just consider the testimony of the lead propagandist in today’s CRT moral panic. “Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American,” said Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo. “ ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain.” True to his word, Rufo has been aggressively promoting a wholly imaginary version of CRT while projecting just about every conceivable brand of white anxiety onto it—in exactly the fashion that Fanon long ago diagrammed.        Seizing on this new front in the right-wing culture wars, legislators across 33 states have appointed themselves expert interpreters of critical race theory, further disfiguring its meaning and assailing it as “divisive.” This ritualized exercise in bad-faith demagogy not only means that conservatives are undermining the basic facts of their own identity as Americans benefiting from long-established racial hierarchies; it also serves to hollow out the history of the country into a series of untrue, inoffensive nostrums. Today’s anti-CRT inquisitors thus condemn educators who seek to tell the truth about America’s identity to silence themselves—or else join in the make-believe and bowdlerized version of the country’s racial history—at the cost of their own livelihoods.            To see this process in action, consider an episode that actually predates the full onset of the CRT moral panic. On August 27, 2020 Matthew Hahn, a former teacher in Sullivan Central High School in Sullivan County, Tennessee, talked about “white privilege” with his students during his Contemporary Issues course. During the lesson, Hawn showed a video of the family of Jacob Blake, an African American shot by police officers in Kenosha, Wis., speaking to the press. He also showed a picture of Kyle Rittenhouse with one hand on his rifle and the other hand in the air walking toward police. Rittenhouse, a white American, shot and killed two people in Kenosha during protests of Blake’s shooting. After showing the media to his students, Hawn said, “this is white privilege and it is a fact. Not up for debate, but what are we going to do about racism in the U.S.?”        On September 9, Hawn received an email from Dr. Brent Palmer, Director of High Schools for Sullivan County Schools. Palmer suggested that Hawn was in violation of the Tennessee Teacher Code of Ethics, which says that an educator “shall not unreasonably deny the students access to a varying points of view.” Palmer took issue with Hawn saying white privilege “is a fact.” After receiving Palmer’s email, Hawn did not talk about racism in his classroom until the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when a mob of predominantly white Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building as they sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.        On January 13, Hawn assigned “Donald Trump: The First White President,” an Atlantic article written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, that argues white supremacy is the reason Donald Trump won white voters of every economic class during the 2016 presidential election. Hawn stipulated to his class that the article represents one viewpoint, but four days after he assigned the article a parent complained that Hawn did not offer an opposing viewpoint.        On February 13, Hawn received a formal letter of reprimand. Hawn revisited the concept of “white privilege” in April 2021. This time, he asked if there was such a thing as “Black privilege,” and included a CNN.com article by John Blake called “It’s Time to Talk about Black Privilege”—a clearly varying viewpoint on notions of privilege. This effort did not alleviate anxiety among school leadership; Hawn received formal dismissal papers on May 5, 2021. “Your job is not to teach one perspective,” Ingrid Deloach, the assistant director of Sullivan County Schools, told him. “Your job is also not to ensure students simply adopt your own personal perspective.”

Legislation that defines critical race theory as a “divisive concept” has no standing as a logical or moral argument, and, much like the bid to neuter Holocaust denial, is entirely dishonest.