As I used to tell my college students for 20 years, point to another country without faults, mistakes, or horrendous decisions, and then put those decisions within the context of the times in which they were made.
I don’t know, John. I think we’ve both benefitted from an educational system that promoted critical thinking and attempted to show America’s successes and failures even-handedly. From my perspective, the people pushing the most against DEI are the ones wanting to sell a white-washed version of American history and denying differing perspectives. To criticize America and want it to live up to its ideals is not to be un-American (Note: not suggesting you feel that way). It’s telling to me that flying an American flag or wearing an American flag pin is often to be associated with the hard right, when they should be symbols we all can embrace.
The issue with DEI-based education is not perspectives but the elimination of them. College courses on the American Civil War now concentrate on the slave experiences and ignore those trying to keep the country together, and the international ramifications of the conflict. A college syllabus I came across on America in the early 1800s concentrated on...wait for it...the immigration of Muslims into North America and their interactions with gay culture. How, exactly, is a student supposed to learn anything about the US with such syllabi?
Yes, we all need to embrace the flag and all it stands for, but DEI loudly and consistently spits on it as a matter of course. We both learned about the slave trade, but we don't share any guilt about it and we sure as...don't have to pay reparations to people of a certain phenotype because ours is lighter than theirs. DEI teaches that such attitudes are "racist" at best and "white supremacist" at worst, and you and I need reeducation.
As I used to tell my college students for 20 years, point to another country without faults, mistakes, or horrendous decisions, and then put those decisions within the context of the times in which they were made.
I don’t know, John. I think we’ve both benefitted from an educational system that promoted critical thinking and attempted to show America’s successes and failures even-handedly. From my perspective, the people pushing the most against DEI are the ones wanting to sell a white-washed version of American history and denying differing perspectives. To criticize America and want it to live up to its ideals is not to be un-American (Note: not suggesting you feel that way). It’s telling to me that flying an American flag or wearing an American flag pin is often to be associated with the hard right, when they should be symbols we all can embrace.
Thanks for reading, Mike, and for reaching out.
The issue with DEI-based education is not perspectives but the elimination of them. College courses on the American Civil War now concentrate on the slave experiences and ignore those trying to keep the country together, and the international ramifications of the conflict. A college syllabus I came across on America in the early 1800s concentrated on...wait for it...the immigration of Muslims into North America and their interactions with gay culture. How, exactly, is a student supposed to learn anything about the US with such syllabi?
Yes, we all need to embrace the flag and all it stands for, but DEI loudly and consistently spits on it as a matter of course. We both learned about the slave trade, but we don't share any guilt about it and we sure as...don't have to pay reparations to people of a certain phenotype because ours is lighter than theirs. DEI teaches that such attitudes are "racist" at best and "white supremacist" at worst, and you and I need reeducation.
Do we?