Morning Joe airs debate over "critical race theory."

[CTyankee]

I'm on the side of Eddie Glaude Jr. on this one. I guess this was an inevitable debate.

Watch this shorter version of a longer section of the show. Professor Glaude cited enough facts to support CRT that I find the contrary view just crumples for lack of any real reason to oppose this without some real doubts as to the author's ultimate aim with this book.

I am white, growing up middle class in Texas and went to segregated schools. My lack of real information about the role of racism, but have learned. This author seems to be ignorant of the learned life of white people during the days of Jim Crow racism, fostering the imbalance of wealth accumulation in white communities to the detriment of black people.

In short, I call bullshit on this guy's book.

[Warpy]

1. I would love to see history taught

that wasn't fixed on what a bunch of rich and powerful white men did on such and such a date, with inspirational but apocryphal tales of their heroic childhoods thrown in. As it's taught now, it's a whitewashed affair, light as a souffle, intended to make us all obedient and patriotic worker bees.

Until people stumble onto books like "Lies My Teacher Told Me" they're totally lost about what happened to everybody else, including white women as well as all POC. We were all here, fighting our own battles.

"Not My Idea" is endorsed by everybody but white Christian culture warriors, who obviously haven't read it. The title gives you the premise, letting all kids know that it wasn't their idea to design this system but there can be things they can do to change it. White Christian culture warriors find that deeply disturbing. They only want it all made worse.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. He complained about "Not My Idea", so...

... I found that children's book on YouTube.

If that book is a problem to him, he's sick!

[Warpy]

5. He's sick. He's also semiliterate

and wants to cling to comfortable fictions like Washington and the cherry tree and Honest Abe. You know, a braying idiot.

[hlthe2b]

2. I did not believe anything coming out of the mouth of that conservative "writer"

any more than Eddie Glaud did--who, nonetheless was remarkably restrained as he essentially called him the liar he is without-- actually using the words.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Joy Ried destroyed this racist asshole

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[DAngelo136]

6. There Is More To This

This is more than just an attack on how history is told but also a direct attack on African American academia and whether it is considered "legitimate" scholarship.
African Americans have been writing scholarly papers since the days of Benjamin Banneker's retort to Thomas Jefferson's take on African Americans in his "Notes on the State of Virginia".

Scholars like Martin Delaney who was the first Black man to be accepted into Harvard Medical School (only to be forced to leave after white students protested) during the 19th century only to be belittled and ignored by white academia. In the 1930's, Dr.W.E.B Dubois wrote about the history of Reconstruction in "Black Reconstruction" and about how racism affected both Black and white society (the so called psychological wage of whiteness) in "The Souls of Black Folk which is considered a seminal work in sociology. Then there was Dr. Carter G. Woodson who wrote "The Miseducation of The Negro" which opined that African Americans were being culturally indoctrinated rather than educated by the American education system. And that this indoctrination made African Americans dependent on the white society rather than independent. And yet, there is no citation of any of these authors or their works since their publishing over 80 years ago.

Other scholars like Chancellor Williams, C.L.R. James, Dorothy Porter Wesley and Joel A. Rogers are almost unknown to most people not to mention a host of other historians and scholars. Not until Lerone Bennett, Jr. and his book "Before The Mayflower" and Chancellor Williams' "The Destruction of Black Civilization" did anybody recognize that African Americans had a history BEFORE slavery. Not one of these authors are cited or quoted but yet the report by Daniel Patrick Moynihan "The Negro Family: The Case For National Action" is not only frequently cited but also is the backbone of welfare policy implemented by both Liberals and Conservatives.

And now today, the controversy around Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project involves the telling of the American story from who's point of view. Any view that threatens the popular narrative of white supremacy and American exceptionalism will be objected to, downplayed and belittled. Think about this: The Tulsa Massacre of 1921 had only been an urban legend preserved by the survivors and their descendants, ignored and forgotten by white historians deliberately along with other massacres and conflagrations.

Now that facts are coming to light and it can't be prevented, now the white supremacist intelligentsia wants to control the narrative of African American history. So they ignore the Michelle Alexanders, Carol Andersons and never acknowledge the Na'im Akbars, the Amos Wilsons, the Barbara Sizemores, the Frances Cress-Welsings or misrepresent the works of Derrick Bell other African American scholars because they won't fit the white supremacist narratives.

Go and seek out these scholars and their works. You'll be better off for it.

[CTyankee]

7. I was horrified when I learned the truth about the Tulsa Massacre and the extent to which white

mobs utterly destroyed their successful community. I heard NOTHING about that growing up in Texas in the 1950s. I immediately thought about what happened to the Jews in the early days of Hitler's government and leading up to the Final Solution.

I want my grandkids to know the truth. I recently saw "Judgment at Nuremburg" again and was struck by how truthful that movie was about the Germans who "didn't know" about Hitler's planned final solution. It was as powerful today as it was when it was made.

It was good that Morning Joe presented this so honestly. If he and Mika keep doing this on his show, they will have done a great service to our country.