The National Education Association’s (NEA) annual convention took place last week in Chicago. It opened with a theatrical speech act by NEA president, Rebecca (Becky) Pringle who has no dearth of pride in the “amazing accomplishments” of the NEA members. Pringle cited as inspiration for world transformation—not systemically oppressed persons of color like Thomas Sowell, Carol Swain, or Glenn Loury—but communist and former Black Panther who studied under Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis:

We must share [the] view Professor Davis holds dear whether it is a mind, a heart, a school, a community, or our world, transformation is always possible, change is always possible, NEA, because of you. [wild applause for themselves]

Of the many troubling things Pringle emoted, this may be the most troubling:

NEA, you are answering my call to lead a movement that unites, not just our members, but this entire nation, to reclaim public education as a common good, as the foundation of this democracy, and then transform it into something it was never designed to be—a racially and socially just and equitable system that prepares every student, every student, EVERY STUDENT, EVERY ONE TO SUCCEED IN THIS DIVERSE AND INTERDEPENDENT WORLD!

Yes, she was cacophonously shouting about the NEA’s goal to transform public education into something it was never designed to be.

Precisely how are “socially just and equitable” defined and by whom? How does the NEA propose to achieve their socially constructed goal?

The NEA plans to achieve that goal by using taxpayer funded schools with captive audiences to promote sexual perversity, sexual confusion, science denial, the slaughter of the unborn, compulsory language mandates, censorship of ideas they hate, and the destruction of the nuclear family. That’s how.

Pringle went on to bemoan recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions:

… [T]he rights many of us have spent a lifetime fighting to secure are being stripped away in our lifetimes.

… we’ve known since 2016, since that fateful election, that this day would come—that we would feel the effects of a radicalized Supreme Court, issuing decisions that do not reflect the views or the values of America.

We knew that the ground had shifted and the stage had been set to move us further away from the promise of America for all Americans, from decisions on school prayer that attack religious freedom to vouchers that threaten the right to a universal public education to the long-term devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to hijack the fundamental freedom to decide for ourselves when and how to have a family.

The U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade—a decision that even leftist law professors have long acknowledged had no grounding in the Constitution—is “radical” but the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned marriage for the whole country was not?

Allowing more powerful, more privileged “pregnant persons” the legal right to have powerless, non-privileged humans killed constitutes the “promise of America”? And here I thought the promise of America was to recognize that all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with the unalienable right to life. Has Pringle read any books on history, civics, or government other than Howard Zinn’s People’s History of America and the 1619 Project?

Allowing a coach the freedom to choose to pray silently on a football field after a game constitutes an attack on religious freedom?

Providing school vouchers that help give impoverished families a tiny bit of freedom to choose where and how their children are educated constitutes threatening the right to a universal public education?

What Pringle and her thought-control collaborators don’t want is for moms and dads who must work two jobs in order to make ends meet to be allowed to choose not to have their children indoctrinated by leftists who want to turn public education into something it was never intended to be.

Pringle then began shrieking:

As we have for decades, we will fight tirelessly for the right to choose. We will never stop. We will fight unceasingly for the rights of our LGBTQ plus students and educators. We will say gay. We will say trans. We will use the words that validate our students and their families–words that encourage them to walk in their authenticity, to love themselves fully, to become who they are meant to be! 

What if walking in their authenticity includes sadomasochism, polyamory, infantilism, or any other of the myriad paraphilias that delight fallen humans? Will Pringle encourage those students to love themselves fully and become who they are meant to be?

Who exactly intends people to be “gay” or “cross-sex” impersonators, and how does Pringle know that’s how some people are meant to be? Is it the mere presence of persistent, unchosen desire that tells Pringle how someone or something intended those people to be? Do all unchosen, powerful, persistent desires have to be affirmed, in order for humans to fully love themselves?

Pringle’s proclamations “We will say gay. We will say trans,” are an allusion to the Florida law that prohibits teachers from initiating conversations about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation in grades K-3. Pringle has announced defiantly that creepy members of the NEA should violate Florida law in order to impose their socially constructed assumptions about sexuality on other people’s 5–9-year-olds.

Funny how leftists, who now treat the appointments of Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett as an outrage and insult to the Democratic process, were never exercised when, according to Politico,

Democrats almost exclusively named federal judges and Supreme Court justices for decades. … Of the 22 open Supreme Court seats between 1933 and 1968, 17 were filled by Democratic presidents. And Eisenhower’s five nominees included Earl Warren and William Brennan, two future progressive icons.

Pringle believes that the NEA’s ideological world domination goals are thwarted by unceasing attacks:

We have weathered countless attacks on our profession, on us. We have become exhausted by the demands created by a crippling educator shortage. We have felt our voices grow hoarse from demanding professional pay and the respect we deserve.

Maybe the NEA has something to do with the crippling educator shortage.

Maybe liberty-loving young people don’t want to enter the teaching profession because it is controlled by leftists who demand ideological conformity from faculty, who demand that teachers promote sexual deviance and ideas derived from critical theory, and who disrespect parental rights and transparency.

Maybe veteran teachers are dropping out for the same reasons.

Maybe teachers young and old don’t want to be forced to be vaccinated. Maybe conservative teachers young and old are tired of being “attacked” by taxpayers for the inappropriate decisions leftist teachers make and which dissenting educators are not free to criticize.

Maybe leftist “educators” are getting paid too much and are getting all the respect they deserve.

Maybe teachers or those considering the teaching profession don’t support the commitment of the NEA to profile

the largest 25 organizations “that are actively working to diminish a student’s right to honesty in education, freedom of sexual and gender identity, and teacher autonomy.”

Maybe they object to the NEA’s plan to “spend more than $47 million to elect friendly candidates …, pro-labor judges, lobby for or against legislation, and support state and local affiliates in ballot measure campaigns.”

Maybe they object to the NEA’s decision to “publicly stand in defense of abortion and reproductive rights and encourage members to participate in activities including rallies and demonstrations, lobbying and political campaigns, educational events, and other actions to support the right to abortion.”

The self-important Pringle arrogantly declares to the NEA members the importance of the NEA’s work:

You understand that our work is fundamental to this nation. You have accepted the profound trust that has been placed in us. 

No, the work of the NEA is not fundamental to this nation. In reality, the NEA’s work is fundamental to no one and nothing but leftist ideologues—their beliefs, their systems, and their socio-political agenda.

No leftist event would be complete without an attack on the 2^nd Amendment, and Pringle did not disappoint. She claimed to have “listened to the stories of young people who experience gun violence in their communities every day,” but Pringle never mentioned that virtually every mass killer in America’s history has come from a broken, dysfunctional family. Leftists can’t say that because they are committed to the lie that all family structures serve children equally.

The NEA’s work contributes to the slaughter of the unborn; to a false understanding of sexual differentiation, sexual ethics, marriage, and family; to an imbalanced/erroneous view of history; to the dismantling of democratic institutions; to the erosion of liberty, tolerance, ideological diversity, and civility. The NEA is destroying public education, disrespects parental rights, and foments division. The NEA is plucking out all the threads that hold society together. 

At least Pringle admits two true things:

You have found a way to resist even as you hold on to joy. Creative and courageous, prepared and persistent, you stand in the power of the N-E-A, and the NEA stands in the power that is you [wild applause for themselves].

It is true that the NEA has power—too much power. And it is true that the NEA resists. It resists relinquishing power.

Pringle waxes melodramatic as she focuses—not on the needs of children and their families—but on the weepiness of poor pitiful NEA members:

For over a year I have traveled this nation to listen to the voices of, to learn from and to be inspired by our NEA members. … I’ve listened to educators describe their challenges as tears stream down their cheeks.

Today’s “educators” live and move and have their being in narcissism, narrative, and DEEP FEELINGS, so anecdotes about themselves weeping are even better than self-congratulations.

There was little to inspire truth-seekers in Pringle’s performance, but there was this:

Resistance is the secret of joy.

It’s good to know that Pringle looks favorably on resistance, because finally parents are resisting the efforts of public servants to force their socially constructed views on the nature and morality of cross-sex impersonation, homoeroticism, and human slaughter on all American children.

I hope Pringle realizes that one person’s “attack” on the NEA is another person’s act of resistance—which Pringle believes is the secret of joy.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-National-Education-Association-Convention.mp3

Wheaton College, once one of the finest Christian colleges in the country, proves yet again that evangelicalism has been corrupted by anti-biblical worldviews.

Recently, during a question-and-answer time following chapel, Wheaton College president, Philip Ryken, was asked if Wheaton teaches critical race theory (CRT). Presumably, the student was not asking whether professors teach about CRT as a much-criticized theory. Presumably, the student was asking if any professors promote or affirm CRT as they teach it. It has been reported that Ryken seemed uncomfortable with the question, but ultimately admitted that yes, Wheaton College does teach CRT.

As I wrote earlier (“Wildly Woke Wheaton College Professor Nathan Cartagena,” “Critical Race Theory Finds a Home a Wheaton College” ) Wheaton College Assistant Professor of Philosophy Nathan Cartagena teaches CRT. His faculty webpage says, “His teaching and scholarship focus on race, racism, [and] critical race theory.” So committed is he to promoting CRT that he made employment at Wheaton conditional on his freedom to promote it.

Cartagena is not alone. Here is the content of several slides Wheaton College Associate Professor of Anthropology Christine Jeske recently showed in class:

1. Race is a concept that was created by white people to gain social and economic privileges.
2. “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us.’ (Peggy McIntosh)
3. whiteness—A normative structure in society that marginalizes People of Color and privileges White People
4. Assumed racial comfort of whiteness—the habitus of whiteness learned in the United States includes: ▫ white people being able to avoid thinking about race ▫ white fragility

On Oct. 29, 2021, another Wheaton College anthropology professor, Brian Howell, tweeted twice on an article appearing in First Things Magazine and the subsequent response from a Wheaton College theology professor:

1. “Thank you, @commentmag, for providing space for a thoughtful response to a lamentable piece [by Gerald McDermott in First Things Magazine]. You model the sort of Christian commentary we desperately need today.”
2. This is exactly the right response to a lamentable piece from @firstthingsmag. Thank you, @vbacote! Please. Do better, First Things

In both tweets, Howell linked to the “thoughtful response” by Wheaton’s Vince Bacote, Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics.

The “lamentable” article to which Bacote was responding is titled “Woke Theory at Evangelical Colleges”  by Gerald McDermott, editor of the anthology Race and Covenant, that includes essays by, among others, Alveda King, Carol Swain, Glenn C. Loury, and Robert L. Woodson, Sr.

In a measured tone, McDermott warns Christian parents who “assume that evangelical institutions are free from” secular ideologies like CRT to look more closely at such institutions given some recent events at Wheaton College, Baylor University, and Samford University. He provides specific evidence to justify his concerns.

Bacote begins his “thoughtful response” by expressing his “exasperation and anger” about McDermott’s “lamentable” article, which Bacote claims suffers from “minimal evidence, anonymous voices, and suggestions of infidelity to the faith.” He described the article as “ephemeral” and “thin, because the article seems not to be the result of an effort to know what is really happening at institutions like my own and others.”  Bacote “wonders whether McDermott thought to go to the sources of purported wokeness at Wheaton, Baylor, and Samford, instead of merely to the voices of concern or worry.”

Bacote also acknowledged the temptation to take the “road of holy rage,” but decided instead to write “from a place of lament.” Yeah, right.

Bacote blames the adoption of a “secular gospel” by “evangelical institutions”—presumably including evangelical colleges like Wheaton—on the failure of these institutions to do the following:

to become places founded on the biblical truth of a God who wants His people to be agents of justice, places that are part of a kingdom whose citizens pursue a primary fidelity to God alone … places filled with kingdom citizens who love their neighbors as themselves  … places that lead the way in showing how people across races and cultures can live well together; places whose members seek a sanctified life expressed by forms of public engagement that help our country become a place of flourishing for all citizens.

Ironically, Bacote doesn’t provide any evidence for his rather breathtaking indictment of evangelical institutions. He doesn’t even try to prove that evangelical institutions have failed to become places founded on the biblical truth of a God who wants His people to become agents of justice or that they have failed to become places filled with kingdom citizens who love their neighbors as themselves. Bacote provides less evidence for his expansive charges than McDermott does for his limited claims.

Bacote alleges McDermott took a statement made by Dr. Sheila Caldwell out of context—a statement McDermott included as evidence for his claim that Wheaton may be awokening.

Until June, Caldwell was Wheaton’s Chief Cultural Engagement Officer, a position she left to become Southern Illinois University System’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer. In order to fill in the gap that so incensed Bacote, I will provide more of the context of Caldwell’s surprising (and some would say inappropriate) speech to students at Wheaton’s “Inaugural Racialized Minority Recognition Ceremony” (to clarify the murky sophistry, this was Wheaton’s first racially segregated graduation ceremony). Here is the larger context of the quote McDermott included in his “lamentable” article. These are the words of Dr. Sheila Caldwell:

We must resist America and her institutions when they place limits on our God-given abilities and attempt to regulate us to a caste system, which is defined as a system that presumes the supremacy of one group over another based on arbitrary boundaries to keep the right groups in their assigned place. In other words, if you are a racialized ethnic minority, the caste system communicates that your place in society is beneath the majority or privileged caste. …

As a black woman, many have tried to condition me to believe that if I do not assimilate or if I do not conform to the white power structures or if I’m not deferential and submissive to the patriarchy, then I’m a problem, [that] if I speak boldly, and directly, and clearly that I’ll be perceived as someone who is angry or ill-tempered. Their aim is to have me shrink myself to make them feel more comfortable and to not resist the caste position that was not only assigned to me but my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents in America.

And I’m not the only woman from a racialized ethnic background that has been imprisoned by a tyrannical caste system. One aspect of living with dignity is acknowledging others who have suffered under the dominant caste. Dr. Larycia Hawkins was another woman who experienced more pain than protection because she was not a member of the privileged group.

During my early tenure at Wheaton College, I embarked on a listening tour and came to learn from the testimonies of over ninety individuals that Dr. Hawkins was deeply admired by faculty, staff, students as well as alumni in the Wheaton College community. Every last one of them initiated a conversation without my prompting. I’ve never spoken to Dr. Hawkins. I’ve never met her. But without my prompting, over ninety people decided they wanted me to know what they thought of her.

The overwhelming majority spoke favorably about her unflappable disposition and deep convictions that was [sic] misinterpreted by some as insolence and insubordination.

As I close out my tenure at Wheaton College, I continue to bend my ear to stories told and untold about Dr. Hawkins. Stories that speak to her walking with dignity and declaring her full humanity as a black woman, stories of her maintaining grace, integrity, and composure when she was pressured to know her place and stay in her place. She refused to defer to structures and processes that would cement her position in the American caste system.

In the same way, I would encourage you to not only resist powerful, inequitable infrastructures but to work relentlessly and passionately to pursue anti-racism—not only for yourselves—but for all who are equally, wonderfully, and fearfully made in the image of God.

What I would also like to say is that the spirit of God led me to say that, so please don’t call the Alumni Office. Please don’t email SAC [Senior Administrative Cabinet].

Does it concern Bacote or Howell that while First Things subscribers were free to read McDermott’s article or not, Caldwell delivered her screed to a captive audience there to see their children’s accomplishments honored—not to hear an embittered social justice warrior accuse without evidence Wheaton College of racism?

I’m not sure how Caldwell knew that it was the spirit of God that led her to condemn her employers at a graduation ceremony and without providing evidence. And I’m not sure how she knew it was the spirit of God that led her to remain silent on other aspects of the Larycia Hawkins mess—aspects that many of the parents in the audience might not have known.

For example, Caldwell could have mentioned that Larycia Hawkins said Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Wheaton administrators and the Board of Trustees may have found that more significant than Hawkins’ unflappability.

On Dec. 10, 2016, Hawkins wrote in a Facebook post,

I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.

I wonder too if Bacote was troubled by the absence of evidence from Caldwell for her claims.

Who tried to condition Caldwell to believe that she had to assimilate or conform to white power structures or to believe that if she spoke directly and clearly, she would be perceived as angry?

How did that conditioning happen?

What specifically are the white power structures to which she was conditioned to assimilate?

Was this conditioning implemented by one person, two, ten? Were the conditioners white or black? Was the conditioning part of a system, or was it committed by sinful individuals? If it was part of a structure, what was the structure?

Who misinterpreted Larycia Hawkins’ “deep convictions”?

What specifically did Hawkins say that was viewed as “insolence and insubordination”? Who viewed Hawkins’ mysterious statements as “insolence and insubordination”?

Since “Every last one” of the ninety people “initiated a conversation” with Caldwell about Hawkins without Caldwell’s “prompting,” what exactly was she asking when she embarked on her listening tour over three years ago? It’s odd that alumni would seek out a new employee to share their unsolicited feelings about a person who hadn’t worked at Wheaton for three years. Enquiring minds would like to know a bit about the political orientation of the ninety people who pursued Caldwell to share their unsolicited feelings about Hawkins.

One wonders if Caldwell thought to go to the sources of purported lack of protection for or misinterpretation of Hawkins or if Bacote thought to go to Caldwell for the names and evidence.

Bacote may have a point about the failure of evangelical institutions to address justice from a biblical perspective. I can’t recall hearing from Wheaton College professors or President Ryken about the injustice of men masquerading as women and invading women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. I can’t recall hearing about Wheaton profs protesting the manifestly unjust sexual integration of women’s sports or the efforts to compel teachers to refer to students by incorrect pronouns that deny God’s created order. Do the social justice warriors among Wheaton faculty protest the obscene novels and plays purchased with their tax dollars and which promote biblically prohibited sexual deviance to children? Do Bacote, Howell, and other wokesters at this leading evangelical institution lead the fight against the chemical and surgical mutilation of minors and adults as a “treatment” for healthy bodies created by God? Do those failures exasperate and enrage Vince Bacote and Brian Howell?

In conclusion, Gerald McDermott’s thoughtful warnings are warranted.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Wheaton-College-Is-Not-Your-Grandfathers-College.mp3

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the New York Times Magazine reporter who wrote the 1619 Project which is being used in many schools across the country. The 1619 Project postulates that America began in 1619, when the first black slaves were brought here—not 1776, when the founders declared independence.

Hannah-Jones made an historical faux pas in a tweet the other day, in which she said that the U.S. Civil War began in 1865. She later apologized, claiming that her tweet was just “poorly worded.” She said she knows the conflict that ultimately ended slavery in America began in 1861 and ended in 1865.

We all make mistakes, but I can’t help but feel her historical error reveals her lack of a true grasp of our history. We’re all entitled to our own opinions, but we’re not entitled to our own facts.

Hannah-Jones coincidentally doesn’t have a firm grasp on the concept of parental rights, either. She recently told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught. I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science….I think we should leave that to the educators.”

Gary Bauer, former Under Secretary of Education for President Reagan, reacts to her remarks: “She admits that she’s not a professional educator. She’s right about that. She’s a professional left-wing agitator.”

Bauer adds, “Parents, policymakers and state legislators are right to ban the 1619 Project. It’s garbage! Numerous professional historians have thoroughly debunked it. It has no business in our schools. But she thinks banning her radical screed is a sign of oppression.”

Dr. Carol M. Swain is a prominent black scholar who has taught at Vanderbilt Law School and at Princeton. I spoke with her on my radio show about the ongoing battle over American history.

She told me the 1619 Project presents a “revisionist history. [It postulates that] the country is racist to the core. Black people built the country. Racism defines who we are as a nation.” Swain would remind us: “When slavery was introduced into America, we were British colonists.”

When I asked her about the idea of America being “systemically racist” today, she said that the passage of the Civil Rights laws in the 1960s, “really ended systemic racism under the law. And any racism that continues is not because of our national structure.”

It pains her to see the distortion of our history which is propagandizing whole new generations against America. She said, “I care about America. And I care about race relations, and anything [the Left] pushes takes us backwards.”

Swain also notes that this America-is-and-always-was-racist message has a “crippling” effect to underprivileged children because “they give up before they ever get started.” What a tragedy.

Nonetheless, the “historian” peddling this false narrative of American history is feted today by the left. Fox News notes that Hannah-Jones “was named to TIME’s list of the ‘100 most influential people’ in 2021.” That is scary since she peddles this false narrative that America began because of slavery.

America became America despite the evil practice of slavery. The American founders created the framework whereby slavery could one day be uprooted. And it was—at the cost of about 700,000 lives.

Civil rights leader Bob Woodson of the Woodson Center created the group 1776 Unites, which aims to address our history in an accurate way. He has recently compiled a book entitled, Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers.

I’ve interviewed Woodson on a couple of occasions. He told me in reference to the 1619 Project, “There are all kinds of historical inaccuracies. We at the Woodson center organized 23-plus scholars and activists to confront this 1619. We called ourselves the 1776 Unites.” Many of these scholars are African-American.

There is a battle over history today. But there are a few historical resources that I would point people to. I have a set of The Annals of America, which is a series of volumes put together by the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1976. The first three volumes in this 20-or so book set focus on the settling and the founding eras of America. It provides the text (and context) of the leading documents in American history. God and the Christian faith can be found all over in many of these original sources.

Meanwhile, Yale University has put such key documents on-line as part of their Avalon Project. This is much more trustworthy—since it’s the original sources—than revisionist claptrap sold to us today by the likes of Nikole Hannah-Jones.

There’s a battle over history in our time. And this battle has big implications as to what our nation was, is, and ever will be.

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings to hardworking Illinoisans—which, by definition, excludes members of the Chicago Teachers’ Union—but there’s more news on the education front. Lefty swamp creatures in Springfield wallowing in their own presumptuousness and power have yet more changes in store for the unfortunate Illinois school children who haven’t yet been freed from the re-education camps that self-identify as schools.

The newest offenses from Springfield are buried in the thousands of words of a new bill just signed into law by Governor J. B. Pritzker on Monday March 8, 2021.

The first offense is providing general revenue funds to be used for the creation of a network of Chicago Freedom Schools (CFS) which will be breeding grounds for leftist social activists. This is an official photo from the school. Currently, Chicago has one Freedom School—a non-profit organization—which opened its doors to budding young social justice warriors in 2007. But leftists believe that one CFS and all public schools are not creating nearly enough community agitators.

The law states,

The State Board of Education shall establish a Freedom School network to supplement the learning taking place in public schools by creating a 6-week summer program. … A Freedom School shall intentionally and imaginatively implement strategies that focus on … Racial justice and equity. … The Freedom Schools Fund is created as a special fund in the State treasury. the [sic] Fund shall consist of appropriations from the General Revenue Fund, grant funds from the federal government, and donations from educational and private foundations.

The CFS makes clear its BLM/Critical Race Theory mission and tactics:

CFS uses social justice and anti-oppression practices to work to transform oppression into liberation by naming, analyzing, implementing and teaching actions that dismantle systems of supremacy that give power and privileges to some at the expense of others.

CFS invites “young leaders of color ages 13-17” who are “passionate about social justice” to apply for a Freedom Fellowship in order to build “community organizing skills” and “become community change-makers” by exploring current issues such as racism and climate change in order to “develop skills” for “dismantling injustice.” I’m not sure, but I think limiting government-subsidized fellowships to leaders “of color” might be racist and violate anti-discrimination law.

The CFS’s Summer Leadership Institute studies “issues of systemic oppression like racism, heterosexism, food justice, the school to prison pipelines, sexism, and more.” Something tells me that discussions of the pipeline to prison don’t include discussions of premarital sex, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and fatherlessness.

  2019 CFS fundraiser entertainment

Let your fingers do the walking right on over to the Chicago Freedom School’s Facebook page and take a gander at the photos of the school that your taxes will now be used to replicate all around Chicago. Check out the photos of their November 2019 fundraiser titled Moments of Justice: Unmasking Our Ancestral Gifts. By “unmasking,” they evidently mean unclothing, and by “gifts,” they evidently mean—well, you can see for yourself.

The man in the furry black vest is homosexual activist Tony Alverado-Rivera who is the executive director of Chicago’s only Freedom School. He wants to defund police, abolish ICE, and remove Chicago Police from dangerous Chicago schools. CFS supports “trans”-cultism and BLM, and offers workshops to help other leftist agitators build “social justice practices” into their schools, which presumably includes public schools.

And now, thanks to leftists in Springfield and the taxes of Illinoisans, Chicago won’t have just one ideological factory churning out activists; Illinois will have an entire network. And to make matters worse, it appears the law grants carte blanche to the reliably leftist Illinois State Board of Education to implement the Freedom Schools project for creating social justice change-agents:

The State Board of Education may adopt any rules necessary to implement this Section. (emphasis added)

The new law also includes a change in the school code regarding what must be taught during Black History Month. The school code already required every elementary, middle, and high school to teach a unit that addresses the following:

[T]he events of Black History, including the history of the African slave trade, slavery in America, and the vestiges of slavery in this country. These events shall include not only the contributions made by individual African-Americans in government and in the arts, humanities and sciences to the economic, cultural and political development of the United States and Africa, but also the socio-economic struggle which African-Americans experienced collectively in striving to achieve fair and equal treatment under the laws of this nation.

Further, existing law said, “The studying of this material shall [must] constitute an affirmation by students of their commitment to respect the dignity of all races and peoples and to forever eschew every form of discrimination in their lives and careers.”

While many Illinois schools haven’t yet been able through the study of “material” to get students to affirm the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, lawmakers think they will be able to get them to “forever eschew every form of discrimination in their lives and careers.” Wowzer!

As noble a goal as ensuring students forever eschew every form of discrimination in their lives and careers is, is that really the role and responsibility of government employees? And is there a comprehensive list of every form of discrimination that leftist lawmakers believe students must be indoctrinated to eschew in their lives and careers?

Remember, Springfield swampsters and their leftist allies on the Illinois State Board of Education believe that disapproval of volitional homosexual acts is a form of discrimination. The belief that marriage is by nature a sexually differentiated union is a form of discrimination. The belief that biological men—also known as men—don’t belong in women’s sports or locker rooms is a form of discrimination.

But, the social justice despots who rule Illinois are nowhere near done tinkering with laws in order to manipulate the minds of other people’s children. The new law adds the following to everything else that must be taught to Illinois children in order to satiate leftists who want to use public schools to turn children’s hearts against America and turn children into social justice warriors. Now, the Black History unit will have to include,

[T]he history of the pre-enslavement of Black people from 3,000 BCE to AD 1619 … the study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved … and the study of the American civil rights renaissance.

This change to the study of black history constitutes a means to weasel controversial 1619 Project ideas into curricula without Illinoisans realizing it.

Classroom time does not permit any public K-12 school to teach the history of any country or identity group comprehensively. The partisan view that K-12 schools should teach about “the pre-enslavement of Black people from 3,000 BCE to AD 1619” is both absurd and doctrinaire. Why just the history of blacks from that period? And why those specific dates? Well, we know why the dates. They’re lifted straight out of the much-condemned 1619 Project written by non-historian New York Times writer /social justice agitator Nikole Hannah-Jones.

If public schools are going to mandate the “study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved,” are they going to require that students study those reasons in context of the worldwide history of slavery and the participation of African blacks in the slave trade? Are they going to make clear that more black slaves were sold to Europe, South America, and the Caribbean than to the United States? Are they going to require students study the history of the role of Christianity in the abolition movement? Will resources used include those by conservative blacks like Carol Swain, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter?

Doubtful, because the goal of leftists is not historical accuracy or exploring diverse ideas. Their goal is partisan politics.

There will be no satiating the swamp creatures in Springfield who, in cahoots with leftist “educators,” are drowning government schools in leftist ideology, thereby turning education into indoctrination and Illinois children into leftist activists.

Read more:

Despite Nationwide Condemnation, Illinois Passes Leftist Teacher-Training Mandate (Laurie Higgins)

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Another-Woke-Education-Law-Just-Signed-by-Pritzker.mp3

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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.

This proposed bill adds to the list of bills and laws that are transforming our government schools into woke re-education camps and our children into leftists. The list now includes the re-introduced REACH Act that will require comprehensive sex ed starting in kindergarten;  the proposed “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards”; the existing “LGBT” school indoctrination law; the homosexuality- affirming “anti-bullying” law passed in 2010; and the novels, plays, movies, essays, and articles teachers are already choosing to teach.

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.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Springfield-STILL-Isnt-Done-Indoctrinating-Children.mp3

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Tax-funded propagandists in media and academia across Illinois are demonizing the historic 1776 Report report on the public’s dime, without offering any examples of errors or inaccuracies among the facts presented by President Donald J. Trump‘s 1776 Commission.

Trump’s commission was created partly as a response to the debunked 1619 Project by the New York Times, which used deliberate lies to paint the United States as evil yet is being taught in government schools across Illinois. In particular, the previous administration sought to provide a counterweight to the indoctrination taking place in public schools. The goal:

“enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.”

Among the taxpayer-supported Illinois critics of the historical document was fringe “history” professor Lionel Kimble Jr. with Chicago State University. In his ramblings against the report, quoted by Chicago’s tax-funded NPR radio station WBEZ, Kimble did not challenge a single fact presented by the commission.

“I went between laughter to confusion to utter disdain,” Kimble told the tax-funded “news” station, as if ridicule were a substitute for facts, logic, and evidence. “I had this visceral reaction as I read it, and I just was shaking my head through most of it.” Calling it “ahistorical,” and with “no basis in historical fact,” the far-left professor said he “wasted my time reading it.”

In reality, the 40-page report was absolutely filled with historical facts, as anyone can verify by reading it. Indeed, much of the report is composed of direct quotes and excerpts from primary-source documents and historical statements by key figures in American history such as the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and more.

Saying that the report has “no basis in historical fact” when it is packed with primary-source documents and quotes from key historical figures shows Kimble either never read the report, knows nothing about what constitutes history, or is deliberately trying to mislead the people of Chicago.

Kimble then proceeded to offer powerful evidence that he had never actually read the report that supposedly made him laugh between his disdain and confusion. Ironically, he blasted the Trump administration because it “put this document out to say that America was perfect” right before the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

If Kimble had read the report, he would know that it dealt extensively with America’s failings. Indeed, the largest section in the report other than the appendix was about “challenges to America’s principles” including slavery (a scourge that has plagued virtually every human culture and civilization throughout history).

When asked by the Chicago NPR propagandist about its release before the MLK holiday, Kimble truly stepped in it. “I think that casts a long shadow on King’s assassination,” claimed the fringe “history” professor, whose book glorifying Big Government has not received a single review on Amazon in five years. “It tells people who believe in King and believe the things that he stood for that he died for nothing.”

But again, if Kimble had actually read the report, he would know that King was one of the most extensively quoted figures in the report. And ironically, considering his anti-American attitude, it appears that it is Kimble, not the 1776 Commission, who wants people to reject “the things that [King] stood for.”

Consider King’s own words quoted in the 1776 Report. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King said, adding that the founding documents protected the unalienable rights of black and white Americans.

Kimble’s rambling interview continued by claiming America is a “historical wasteland” where Americans “don’t talk about things” because “it doesn’t make Americans feel good about the atrocities that we’ve done as a nation.” Then he suggested that America, like National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, must repent more.

Yes, seriously; Brought to you by the taxpayers of Illinois and the Unites States of America. Efforts to reach Kimble to explain his bizarre comments were unsuccessful. A phone number listed for him on Chicago State University’s website had been disconnected, and no alternate number was provided by the recording.

Kimble and Chicago’s NPR were not the only tax-funded extremists to demonize the report and America without actually citing a single example of something wrong with it. Tax-funded propagandists at NPR Illinois did the same thing, quoting a tax-funded academic blasting the 1776 Commission’s report without identifying a single error in the document.

Legitimate journalists would have at least provided balance. They could have done this by quoting or interviewing any of the scholars and experts behind the report — people like the highly respected Dr. Carol Swain, the co-chair of the 1776 Commission and a (black) former law professor at Vanderbilt Law School, for example.

Instead, tax-funded propaganda outlets in Illinois chose to interview tax-funded pseudo-“scholars” whose specialty appears to be the fact-free demonization of America. No wonder opposition to tax subsidies for NPR and other far-left propaganda is growing so quickly across America.

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