The totalitarian-minded education establishment and its extreme left-wing allies are starting to freak out as conservatives abandon futile efforts to “reform” government schools in favor of a mass-exodus strategy. Even powerful union bosses are starting to panic.
The trend has been building quietly for years. But it has accelerated rapidly in recent months as a trickle of families fleeing the system became a tidal wave amid face-mask edicts, vaccine mandates, Critical Race Theory, Marxist indoctrination, extreme “sex education,” and other controversies.
The first major shoe to drop in response came on September 30, when the fringe left-wing magazine New Republic released a major article claiming Republicans were now out to destroy the public-school system instead of “reform” it.
“Republicans Don’t Want to Reform Public Education. They Want to End It,” blared the headline in the far-left magazine, famous for lying about and even praising the mass-murdering Soviet dictatorship. “Florida’s recent struggles over masks in schools augur a terrifying shift in the right’s approach to education policy.”
According to the article, conservatives are increasingly abandoning the idea of “reforming” public schools. Instead, the article argues, the new approach is to get as many children as possible out of the system and into private schools or homeschooling.
The article begins by examining a speech by Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran at Hillsdale College. Corcoran noted, correctly, that education will be the key to winning other issues, too. But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the article claims, is at the helm of pursuing the strategy to destroy government education.
“Trading in the decades-old, substantially bipartisan education reform agenda, a formula that was born in Florida, he is mustering a naked attack on the very existence of public schools,” the magazine claimed, arguing that this shift is taking place in the broader Republican Party in general as well.
And bigwigs of the trillion-dollar-per-year “education” regime are getting nervous. For instance, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) boss Randi Weingarten, who is quoted in the New Republic article, blurted out her concerns on Twitter.
“This isn’t just about masks or about Governor DeSantis’ political aspirations,” she said as state-level union bosses parroted her comments as well. “It’s about the complete destabilization of public education so that parents will choose private schools.”
And it is true: Conservative leaders nationwide are increasingly advocating an exit from government schools altogether. Just this weekend, conservative heavyweight Candace Owens urged parents to remove their children from government schools on Fox News.
“Pull your children out of public schools,” Owens told the cable network on Sunday. “The time is now, remove your children from these indoctrination camps, they’re not learning to be smart, they’re not focused on hard academics, they are being brainwashed and and systematically controlled and what they want to produce, by the way, are failures.”
Before that, Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, conservative pundit Dennis Prager, talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh, and many others also called for parents to remove their children in recent years.
Some have been sounding the alarm for decades. Exodus Mandate Director Lt. Col. Ray Moore (Ret.), the godfather of the exodus movement, was thrilled by the shift in the conversation. “After decades of futile efforts to reform government schools, conservatives and Christians are permanently opting out,” Moore told us by phone.
“The dam is about to break,” added Moore, who is also chairman of Public School Exit (where this writer serves as executive director) and the Christian Education Initiative (CEI). “When this happens, on a large scale, Christians and conservatives will become good neighbors again, by providing Christian education services for our nation. This is the great hope for renewal of our families, churches and our nation.”
Conservatives and Christians now have the momentum — the wind is in their sails when it comes to rescuing millions of children from the dumbing down, sexualization, and indoctrination in government schools. The exodus is already happening, and it will accelerate in the years ahead.
As the forces of liberty advance, the next challenge will be to keep the same “education” establishment from destroying homeschooling and private school by providing tax funding with strings attached or other subversive methods. The future of America depends on the outcome of this fight.
Unbelievably, Woke Springfield STILL Isn’t Done Indoctrinating Children
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Warning: Reader Discretion Advised
Leftists in Springfield are still not done using public schools to preach “woke” beliefs to Illinois school children, thereby driving more families out of Illinois—which is a bad thing for Illinoisans who can’t leave—and driving more families out of government schools—which is a good thing except for those who can’t leave.
State Representative Mary Flowers (D-Chicago) has filed a jaw-dropping bill, HB 80, that doesn’t propose merely “standards,” or “guidelines,” or even a type of curriculum. Oh no, Flowers is going for the whole enchilada. If passed, this bill would mandate the teaching of specific books on race and feminism: 20 non-fiction books and 9 fiction. Every book is written by a leftist. There is not one book in Flowers’ list by either a person of color or a colorless person who criticizes or dissents from leftist assumptions on race or feminism.
Flowers’ bill says,
Amends the School Code. Sets forth a list of nonfiction, fiction, and children’s books about racism that shall [must] be required reading for students in every public elementary and secondary school beginning with the 2021-2022 school year. Requires that the instruction in the material presented by each book be age appropriate and taught at the appropriate grade level. Effectively [sic] immediately.
Maybe I missed it, but I can’t remember ever hearing of a lawmaker commanding that every public school in Illinois teach specific books. Did Mary Flowers’ constituents elect her to select texts for their elementary, middle, and high schools?
Having worked with teachers, I can say with a fair degree of certainty, that this bill will not be popular with many of them.
Here are some of the authors and texts on Flowers’ inclusive list of only leftist authors and texts:
bell hooks: Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
Ta-Nehesi Coates: Between the World and Me
Ibram X. Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers): How to Be an Antiracist
Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Ben Crump (opportunist extraordinaire in the mold of Al Sharpton and “Rev.” Jesse Jackson): Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People
Jacquelyn Woodson (black and a lesbian, so a two-fer for intersectional identitarians): Brown Girl Dreaming
Jennifer Harvey (self-described “queer, antiracist-committed … white lesbian/dyke” and Drake University religion professor): Raising White Kids
Jennifer L. Eberhardt: Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
Mikki Kendall: Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Layla F. Saad: Me and White Supremacy
Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Ijeoma Oluo (identifies as a “a black, queer woman who has often found herself demonized at the convenience of white America): So You Want to Talk About Race
Wesley Lowery: They Can’t Kill Us All
Reni Eddo-Lodge: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Phew. Good thing Coates, Kendi, and DiAngelo are here. No “woke” list would be complete without those three Wokateers—all of whom profit handsomely from the racial division they help foment.
National Review’s Rich Lowry writes this about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, which Flowers wants to force all public schools to teach:
Coates has to reduce people to categories and actors in a pantomime of racial plunder to support his worldview. He must erase distinctions and reject complexity.
“‘White America’ is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies,” he writes. What is this “white America”? Is it Nancy Pelosi or Ted Cruz? Is it Massachusetts, or is it Utah?
In a monstrous passage about 9/11, he writes of the police and firefighters who died trying to save people from getting obliterated into dust: “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.”
Really? Firefighters go about shattering the bodies of black people without justification?
I suspect there will be many parents who object to their children being exposed to such a toxic ideology.
Here are just two quotes from the book by racist, pro-“trans,” pro-homosexual feminist Reni Eddo-Lodge titled Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race that Mary Flowers wants to force all Illinois schools to teach:
1.) “[R]acism is a white problem. It reveals the anxieties, hypocrisies and double standards of whiteness. It is a problem in the psyche of whiteness that white people must take responsibility to solve.”
2.) “The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist.”
We can’t overlook the list of books Flowers’ bill identifies as fiction, which includes Justin Simien’s satirical book Dear White People. One chapter in Dear White People is titled “So You’ve Decided to ‘Go Black’ and Not Come Back,” which has a section on busting the myth of “Giant Penises,” ,” that is, giant black penises:
Thanks to rap music and the tendency to exoticize people of color, the myth of the giant black d*ck has endured for some time. … the stereotype can lead to a number of awkward postcoital conversations and explanations. Though this stereotype might be helpful in wooing and courtship, there are few things less sexy than a man having to explain why his d*ck isn’t as big as his lover had hoped it would be. The truth is the average d*ck length and width is the same for men regardless of ethnic background. In spite of the sometimes helpful wide-angle lens on the iPhone used in d*ckpic-ing, most guys are packing between five and seven inches.
Please don’t send any email messages to IFI expressing anger that we have reported this. If you’re upset, contact Mary Flowers. She’s the person who wants to make this book required reading in Illinois schools.
Flowers also wants to force Illinois schools to teach bisexual Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple, which includes lesbian sex and many references to various characters “f*cking.”
And here’s an excerpt from the novel An American Marriage by Tayari Jones that Flowers wants to force Illinois schools to teach:
Looking down at her outline in the dark, I felt myself wanting to explain again. But I could never tell her that I didn’t want to f*ck her like a man who just got out of jail. I wanted to do it like a man who was home visiting his family. I wanted to do it like a local boy made good. I wanted to f*ck like I had money still, like I had a nice office, Italian shoes, and a steel watch. How can you explain to a woman that you want to f*ck her like a human being?
The married black man in this scene has just been released from spending five years in prison for the crime of raping a white woman—a crime he did not commit. The woman with whom he has sex is a friend—not his wife.
Just curious, who decided graphic lesbian sex was “age-appropriate” for any minor children, and what criteria was used to make such a determination? Who will decide which grade level is appropriate for graphic lesbian sex, language about “f*cking” friends, or about the myth of giant black penises?
While Flowers, evidently a devotee of Critical Race Theory, identity politics, and feminism, includes a few token colorless authors, she includes no ideological diversity, demonstrating that the only kind of diversity that matters to leftists pertains to skin color, biological sex, and disordered sexual predilections. What doesn’t matter is ideological diversity and intellectual exploration on these controversial topics.
In the service of inculcating Illinois minors with “progressive” beliefs about race, feminism, and sexual activities, leftists are fully committed to viewpoint discrimination. They have no interest in teaching children how to think critically via distinguishing sound, coherent arguments buttressed with relevant evidence from fallacious arguments deficient in logic, evidence, and coherence. Instead, they want to teach other people’s children what to think uncritically. Kinda, sorta, maybe sounds more like propaganda than pedagogy.
No one disputes the historical reality of the evil of the slave trade, the institution of slavery, and subsequent Jim Crow laws. Nor does anyone dispute the critical importance of ensuring that history is taught accurately.
The dispute broadly speaking is over how the history of racism should be taught. Many—including blacks—believe the way Critical Race Theory (and BLM and the 1619 Project) addresses slavery in America and its legacy is both imbalanced and inaccurate.
Further, the imbalanced and inaccurate coverage of American history promotes a false picture of an evil and systemically racist America, foments racial division, and robs persons of color of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives.
In the racialist—or some would say racist—theories of those whose writing Mary Flowers wants to force into Illinois schools, there’s a difference between being an “antiracist” and being not racist. Being antiracist essentially means embracing all the beliefs of Critical Race Theory, including forced confession and public repentance by whites, and becoming a community organizer. According to the ubiquitous Ibram X. Kendi,
Being antiracist is different for white people than it is for people of color. For white people, being antiracist evolves with their racial identity development. They must acknowledge and understand their privilege, work to change their internalized racism, and interrupt racism when they see it.
Many believe those dogmatic beliefs are divisive and destructive and will accomplish nothing but feed the greedy Intersectional Industrial Complex. And many non-racist parents do not want their children taught the lie that those who harbor no racist views or engage in any racist acts are still racist by virtue of their skin color or lack thereof.
If Flowers and other leftists are genuinely invested in sound education—which necessarily entails the full and free exchange of ideas on race, race relations, feminism, and sexuality—they could and should revise both this bill and existing curricula on these subjects. They could and should remove half of the non-fiction selections to make room for books and essays by Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Carol Swain, Candace Owens, Larry Elder, Jason Riley, Anne Wortham, and Heather MacDonald.
Take ACTION:Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to ask him/her vote against this outrageous proposal that usurps the jurisdiction of local school boards and administrators by mandating specific left-wing reading assignments.
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Drew Brees, the Mob, and the Poisonous Doctrine of Collective Guilt
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New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, a committed Christian, and, before last week, deeply admired and liked by people of all colors and no color, committed an almost unforgivable sin. He said this in response to a specific question about athletes kneeling during the national anthem:
I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. Let me just tell you what I see or what I feel when the national anthem is played, and when I look at the flag of the United States. I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corp, both risking their lives to protect our country and to try to make our country and this world a better place. Every time I stand with my hand over my heart, looking at that flag, and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about, and in many cases, it brings me to tears thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go, but I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better and that we are all part of the solution.” (emphasis added)
“Progressives” became apoplectic and splenetic. Judging from their attacks, one would think Brees had publicly celebrated Derek Chauvin.
Under withering attacks, Brees offered two apologies because the mob hated his first one. Then his wife, Brittany Brees, issued an apology in which she said,
Somehow we as white America … can feel good about not being racist, feel good about loving one another as God loves us. We can feel good about educating our children about the horrors of slavery and history. We can read books to our children about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X., Hank Aaron, Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman.. and feel like we are doing our part to raise our children to love, be unbiased and with no prejudice. To teach them about all of the African Americans that have fought for and risked their lives against racial injustice. Somehow as white Americans we feel like that checks the box of doing the right thing. Not until this week did Drew and I realize THAT THIS IS THE PROBLEM. To say “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” .. I now understand was also saying I don’t understand what the problem really is, I don’t understand what you’re fighting for, and I’m not willing to hear you because of our preconceived notions of what that flag means to us. That’s the problem we are not listening, white America is not hearing. We’re not actively LOOKING for racial prejudice.
If saying “I don’t agree with disrespecting the flag” also says “I don’t understand what the problem really is,” then does kneeling during the national anthem mean both “America is systemically racist” and “I don’t understand why you value the flag and national anthem. I don’t understand what you see that’s good in America. I’m not willing to hear you because of our view of America as pervasively evil and whites as oppressors”?
Unlike Brittany Brees, I can’t speak for all of white America. I don’t know what all of white America feels. But I do know that for a lot of white Americans, teaching our children about the horrors of slavery and lynchings, about Jim Crow laws, and about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Hank Aaron, Jesse Owens, and the Tuskegee Airmen is not about “feeling good.” Raising our children to love others, to hate bigotry, and to stand up for mistreated friends is not about “feeling good” or “checking boxes.” It’s not about virtue-signaling or pride. It’s about serving Christ. It’s about loving our neighbors as ourselves. It’s about truth.
“Progressives” argue that people who explicitly condemn police brutality and all forms of bigotry and who have never said or done anything racist are the problem if they don’t endorse kneeling during the national anthem. Just curious, does that principle of collective guilt apply to all egregious sin? Are people who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children in pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, and sex trafficking, and who have never viewed porn, visited a strip club, hired a prostitute, or trafficked women and children a problem? Should they kneel during the national anthem as a protest against the many Americans who watch porn, leer at women in strip clubs, hire prostitutes, and/or traffic in women and children? Are our flag and national anthem now symbols of the poisonous systemic abuse of women and children that colleges and universities promote through courses that celebrate porn? Are Americans who explicitly oppose the sexual exploitation of women and children, who are pro-actively teaching their children about its evil, and who have never been complicit in it via using porn, visiting strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, or sex-trafficking, the problem if they are not “actively” looking for the sexual exploitation of women and children?
Former NFL player Shannon Sharpe said this about Drew Brees’s response to an interviewer’s question about the knee-taking of athletes:
[Drew] issued an apology … but it’s meaningless because the guys know he spoke his heart the very first time around. I don’t know what Drew’s going to do, but he probably should just go ahead and retire now. He will never be the same. Take it from a guy that has been a leader in the locker room for a number of years. What he said, they will never look at him the same because he spoke his heart. It wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it. He was defiant. I will NEVER [yes, Sharpe shouted that defiantly] respect the man.
BTW, Brees did not speak defiantly as Sharpe falsely claimed—making Sharpe, therefore, a slanderer. Don’t believe me? Well, watch it yourself and see if you think Brees was “defiant”:
Sharpe expresses the “progressive” view of “tolerance,” and this is why “progressivism” will destroy both freedom and the country. Brees saying that he disagrees with knee-taking during the national anthem while at the same time saying the flag represents the sacrifices made during the Civil Rights era and acknowledging that right now we have a lot of work yet to do renders him—in Sharpe’s repugnant view—unsuitable for employment or respect.
Brees’s teammate Malcolm Jenkins castigated him too saying,
Drew Brees, if you don’t understand how hurtful, how insensitive your comments are, you are part of the problem. To think that because your grandfathers served in this country and you have a great respect for the flag that everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts that you do is ridiculous. And it shows that you don’t know history. Because when our grandfathers fought for this country and served and they came back, they didn’t come back to a hero’s welcome. They came back and got attacked for wearing their uniforms. They came back to people, to racism, to complete violence.”
Brees never said anything like “everybody else should have the same ideals and thoughts” that he does. Moreover, Brees is justified in valuing the service of his grandfathers, and he is justified in his respect and love for America—the country to which emigrants the world over seek entry. He’s justified in loving America for her founding—though imperfectly realized—principles. He’s justified in celebrating the incredible integration of peoples of diverse races, ethnicities, and religions in America. He’s justified in appreciating how far we’ve come since slavery and Jim Crow laws.
It is possible for whites both to value the sacrifice and service of their fathers and grandfathers and to feel contempt for the injustice of black fathers and grandfathers being ill-treated following their service and sacrifice.
Vietnam war veterans—both black and white—were spit on by liberals when they returned home. Do we hold liberals who, not only didn’t engage in such behavior but also condemn it, accountable for that injustice? Do we blame such ugly behavior committed by some liberals fifty years ago on all of America? Does the American flag and national anthem symbolize their repugnant acts?
Jenkins continued,
And then here we are in 2020, with the whole country on fire, everybody witnessing a black man dying—being murdered—at the hands of the police, just in cold blood for everybody to see. The whole country’s on fire, and the first thing that you do is criticize one’s peaceful protest that was years ago when we were trying to signal a sign for help and signal for our allies and our white brothers and sisters, the people we consider to be friends, to get involved? It was ignored. And here we are now with the world on fire and you still continue to first criticize how we peacefully protest because it doesn’t fit in what you do and your beliefs without ever acknowledging that the fact that a man was murdered at the hands of police in front of us all and that it’s been continuing for centuries, that the same brothers that you break the huddle down with before every single game, the same guys that you bleed with and go into battle with every single day go home to communities that have been decimated.
Brees didn’t “continue to first criticize.” He has not been continually criticizing the kneeling protests. He didn’t initiate discussion of the topic. Brees was asked by an interviewer what he would do if teammates kneeled during the national anthem.
And while Brees didn’t mention George Floyd, he did acknowledge the suffering of the black community. To remind Jenkins, this is what Brees said:
[I]t brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed, not just [by] those in the military, but … [by] those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and everyone, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go. … we can all do better and … we are all part of the solution.
What exactly did Jenkins mean when he said the kneeling protests were “ignored”? Likely he meant that there were many people who didn’t participate or support the protest. In other words, in Jenkins’ view, the only acceptable way to help decimated black communities is to protest the national anthem. But then isn’t Jenkins doing exactly what he accuses Brees of doing? Isn’t he demanding that everyone believe what he believes about the protests, the flag, and the national anthem?
Jenkins is ignoring that there are white people and black people trying to help decimated black communities. They’ve been trying for years, but they’re shouted down and called bigots for having different views than white and black liberals on how to solve the problems of racism and urban blight. Here are some of their ideas:
How should we address actual racism committed by racist individuals in police departments—most of which are controlled by liberals? Punish them and/or get rid of them. How do we do that? Revisit/reform “qualified immunity” and policies that conceal police misconduct and protect brutal cops.
How should we address crime in black communities? Work on transforming society by getting rid of no-fault divorce and using every resource available to promote true marriage and discourage out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Intact families with a mother and a father are the greatest protections against poverty and crime. And when crime is reduced in communities, businesses will move in.
How do we improve education? Offer impoverished families school choice and end teachers’ unions that promote destructive policies and protect lousy teachers. And stop teaching divisive and false ideas from organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s education arm Teaching Tolerance, or Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, or The 1619 Project that present imbalanced views of American history and teach children of color that because of white oppression, they have no hope of moving up in the world.
How do we help blacks improve their financial position? Deregulate businesses and reduce taxes in order to grow the economy, thereby providing jobs.
How do we help eradicate bigotry, bitterness, and hatred? We preach the gospel—the whole gospel.
If Jenkins is concerned about the decimation in his community, why attack Brees? Why not attack “progressives” who have run the cities in which those decimated communities subsist? Why not attack the racism profiteers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who make bank by fomenting racial division? Why not attack liberal leaders who deny school choice to poor black families? Why not attack teachers’ unions that protect lousy teachers in failing schools? Why not attack fatherlessness that results in criminality? Why not attack Black Lives Matter (BLM) that seeks to dismantle families, which are the single best hope for black children?
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.
Note that mothers and parents are mentioned but not fathers.
Are those principles and goals helpful to black children? Are they unifying? Are they good?
Jenkins was not done with his accusatory screed:
Drew, unfortunately, you’re somebody who doesn’t understand their privilege. You don’t understand the potential that you have to actually be an advocate for the people that you call brothers.
Will Jenkins stand behind whites who advocate for school choice, true marriage, and the end of teachers’ unions? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate against premarital sex and out-of-wedlock births? Will Jenkins cheer whites who advocate for the end of divisive, destructive diversity training and The 1619 Project that teach lies and foster division? Will Jenkins cheer for whites who advocate the ideas of Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell, Ben Carson, Bob Woodson and “1776 Unites” project? Or are whites expected to advocate for only ideas and policies that Jenkins, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 Project scam promulgate?
Liberals have had fifty years to solve the problems endemic to urban communities of color—including eight years with a black president whose presidency saw black unemployment and racial division surge. Is Jenkins willing to listen to the ideas of others on how to help, how to advocate, how to get involved? Is he willing to listen to diverse ideas on how to rebuild suffering communities? Or will he say to black conservatives what he said to Brees: “you should shut the f–k up.”
It’s ironic that progressives have controlled most major cities for decades and have been forcing Americans in government schools and the corporate world to endure years of “diversity training,” “sensitivity” sessions, and “social justice” indoctrination, and yet we just suffered through the worst race riots since 1968 when Boomers and their rotten ideas began corrupting academia.
Their rotten ideas have—as expected and predicted—produced rotten fruit that is poisoning the hearts and minds of Americans. Race relations had been improving slowly but surely until the Boomers’ ideas seeped from sullied towers in bastions of idiocy like Berkeley to countless colleges and universities and then into high schools. Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege Conferences, and Howard Zinn’s revisionist history of the United States turned young teens’ minds into burbling cauldrons of contempt for America and its founding principles—those very principles that had brought us so far from the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and red-lining. With an erroneous understanding of American history, young Americans falsely believe that America was and remains a wholly evil country that must be destroyed and rebuilt in the recriminatory image of “progressives.”
Former NFL coach and Christian Tony Dungy, who likes and respects Drew Brees, expressed disappointment with his initial comments. Dungy said that “we need unifying voices, not divisive voices.” Dungy’s comments were disappointing in that he didn’t address the divisiveness of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, or people like Al Sharpton. He didn’t address the divisiveness of the attacks on Drew Brees for saying—when asked—that he doesn’t agree with kneeling during the national anthem. But you see, Dungy wasn’t asked about any of that, just like Brees was not asked specifically about George Floyd.
Two apologies from Drew Brees and one long one from Mrs. Brees, all of which suggest they have joined BLM. These apologies bring to mind Winston Smith at the end of 1984. Sadly, it doesn’t take torture to get grown men (and women) to capitulate to a destructive ideology. All it takes today is a barrage of insults.
Every day, we see across America signs of hope and progress. We see interracial couples, multi-racial churches, multi-racial groups of friends, and upwardly mobile black families. Is America perfect? Of course not. No society can ever be perfect because humans are fallen creatures. Fallen creatures hate. People of all colors hate. But our founding principles are good, and they are guiding us toward better.
Over a dozen years ago, while working at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, I was helping a high school junior on her paper for American Studies (still co-taught by the same two teachers today). She cheerily told me that by the end of first semester in American Studies, she hated America and hated being an American. “Social justice” mission accomplished.
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