As many on this blog are aware, I have long been an advocate of public education and we feel deeply fortunate to have sent all four of our kids to public schools in Alexandria and McLean in Fairfax County. I still have one child in the Fairfax system. I was therefore shocked like many Fairfax parents to see the videotape of Michelle Leete, Vice President of Training at the Virginia PTA, Vice President of Communications for the Fairfax County PTA and First Vice President of the Fairfax County NAACP as she lashed out against those who oppose critical race theory and identity divisional lessons in school. What was even more unnerving is the applause from other parents to her “let them die” declaration.
The video was taken by a Fairfax parent, Asra Nomani, whose son recently graduated from Fairfax County Public Schools and helps run the watchdog group Parents Defending Education. The speech was reportedly held at a counter-protest a meeting billed as “STOP CRT RALLY.” Nomani included the video in her posting below.
Leete railed against those objecting to the identity-based lesson plans. Notably, Leete fell back on the same shaming of parents with opposing views — accusing them of hating everything and everyone because they do not want this material to be taught to their children. Keep in mind that this would encompass the majority of parents according to recent polls.
“So let’s meet and remain steadfast in speaking truth, tearing down double standards, and refuting double talk. Let’s not allow any double downing on lies. Let’s prepare our children for a world they deserve. Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let live people. Let them die. Don’t let these uncomfortable people, don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.”
In some ways, Fairfax is still better than many jurisdictions that are eliminating elite schools and advanced courses because of the race of the students in those programs.
It is incredibly sad to see this type of reckless rhetoric in our school district. Many of us came to Fairfax because it has always been viewed as a district that put academic excellence as the highest priority. We have found the schools in McLean to be terrific and the teachers to be incredibly supportive. I hate to see that long-successful approach swamped by the unrestrained rage and divisions of our contemporary politics.
Update: The PTA has announced that it has accepted Leete’s resignation. The Virginia Parent-Teacher Association declared that
“Today, the Virginia PTA executive committee requested and received the resignation of Michelle Leete, who served as Vice President of Training. The actions & rhetoric of Ms. Leete & all of the like-minded partisan supporters of the SB are deeply disappointing. It evinces a deep lack of concern for children & parents, particularly where the wellbeing of children & families clash with political considerations.”
I had written: “A lot of gibberish was used by both you and the author. ”
Svelaz, I see you could not answer a load of questions about the accuracy of your claims. You cannot respond because you were wrong and don’t dare to admit it. You would provide answers to prove otherwise, but you can’t.
You were wrong about NYC charter schools that benefit Blacks. The Democrats and teachers union don’t like them even though vast numbers of Blacks succeeded where they would have failed if left in the public school system,
You are mean and perhaps racist since you wish to deny inner city Blacks the opportunities you likely had. You believe racism is the answer to all problems. You think MLK was wrong and that color is more important than character.
The results of CRT are seen in the NYC school system. You weren’t smart enough to pick it up when I brought up Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Those schools had to forgo rigid academic standards to keep bright Asians out and put in minorities who didn’t meet the high standards.
It appears you may not realize that admission to charter schools in NYC is obtained randomly. You seemed very confused in your prior statement.
You talk about following The Science all the time, but apparently, you don’t know what science is. You used anecdote instead of fact and didn’t recognize the anecdote’s weakness. Not too bright. Should I have expected more?
The Black community’s problems are created by people like you that refuse to look at what benefits blacks instead of following only what their ideologic masters tell them.
SM
judging by the mainstream news coverage and the aftermath of it
jan 6th was americas reichstag fire moment
keep in mind that it was only 8 years from the original reichstag fire in 1933 until construction of the first death camp began in poland in 1941
and also that by 1936 or 1937 all the pieces were probably in place for something like the final solution to become inevitable at some point
which means the importance of the 2022 midterm election cannot be overstated
its likely our last best chance to change the trajectory were on
and vote our way out of whats coming
because after that…it gets ugly…
Speaking from my 35 years of living in California:
there are no bigger group of racists than Black and Hispanic Democrats!
They tried to pass Proposition 16, which means college admission, jobs, etc. are determined by race, not by ability.
Even after Prop 16 was defeated, Asian students with 4.2 GPA are not accepted into UCLA; Hispanic students with 3.2 GPA are accepted. We know because they are from the same high school.
Companies are forced to hire Hispanics and Blacks, no matter how incompetent they are, in comparison to Whites and Asians.
If you are White and Asian, and you vote Democrat, you are dooming your children and grand children to discrimination.
It’s Black and Hispanic privilege!
CRT is a racist ideology. The current CRT agenda is clearly very well-funded and not a grass roots operation. Who is funding it? Who’s in charge? It has to be top-down and well-planned out.
Svelaz, I didn’t see direct responses to some of these statements and I believe you may have thrown around some conflicting statements. I send this unanswered response so you can straighten things out.
—
“S. Meyer, I have defined CRT to you using my own words”
Svelaz, your words must have been muddled and said very little. It saves space if instead of complaining (victimhood) you repeated your words.
“It’s a research paper”
I did a research paper in 6th grade. Should I use that to promote social change?
“Whether it’s peer reviewed or not is irrelevant.”
It’s not irrelevant though the paper was good enough to discuss on your level even though it was juvenile. I provided a few thoughts and am willing to go through that paper with you sentence by sentence.
“It correlates to what I have been saying in my own words,”
OK. That means you believe color is more important than character.
“it is the same thing that is being debated today.”
The debate has changed since 2009. Parents today are fighting school boards to stop CRT from being taught. Are you ignorant of what is happening in 2021?
“Not just a student, it’s a PhD who is also a student.”
You are mistaken. It clearly states he wasn’t a PhD. If you paid attention to the paper you would know that. You are proving you didn’t analyze what you were reading.
“Oh I read the paper S. Meyer. I know all you did was just read the cover page and stopped there.”
That is why I know he wasn’t a PhD and that is why I discussed some of the things he said. You are wrong again. You either didn’t read the paper or didn’t understand what you read.
“Cite the relevant passage so I know you read it.”
Those citations exist in part 2 written right after part one. I also said we could start our discussion there and then continue, but I am not going to analyze the entire paper with my perspective for you. First you have to be willing to deal with parts of tenet 1that I discussed and then we can finish tenet 1 and work onward, sentence by sentence.
CRT. Sounds like something the Nazis would come up with.
Maybe they will do as good a job at indoctrinating our children with anti-American, pro-communist propaganda as they do teaching mathematics. If this were the case, then we have nothing to worry about.
Professor Turley, you often use the word chilling. You are absolutely right. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is a matter of a radical, pro-Marxist, domestic terrorism organization running with the agenda to destroy the fabric of this nation. The common sense, pro-American Democrats I know, do not buy into this attempted takeover of the United States of America. This begs the question, “Why? Why now?”
I have said it many times, we are marching to Jonestown. What I mean by that is that radical cults follow a predictable pattern. The word denotes religious fanatics but they are also present in politics and business. In politics examples include N. Korea, Iran, Cuba, the former U.S.S.R., CCP, etc. The goal is to disrupt the follower’s normal life patters. Keep them disoriented, upset, in fear. COVID was dream situation. Whether it was intended or just a consequence of stupidity, it offered fertile ground for the those seeking power and destruction of the norm. Phrases such as, “The new normal” are red flags.
Cut off the sources of news. You mentioned that 21% of Americans trust the news. Who are they that trust the news? Are they the 41% of students who have a 1.0 GPA or lower? If there is dissenting news, then lash out at the reporters and news organizations that do not follow lockstep in the “talking points.” Attack the credibility of dissenters. How many people simply “Google” what they are looking for? News flash, Google ranks searches and if they don’t want you to see something, they will bury it. I sat next to a Google engineer on a long flight. He joked that if you want to bury a dead body, put it on page 2 of Google.
If a person who thinks for themselves voices concerns, hit them hard with half truths and gaslight them so that they will doubt themselves. Twist truth and mix it with lies. Exploit finances, manipulation or dependence. Use group methods of indoctrination, discourage individualism, instill dependency and obedience.
Distort information, keep people busy or disoriented so that they cannot do research for themselves. Use outsider/insider doctrines, Allow leadership to decide what a person can hear. Use a buddy system to inform on a person not following along. Misquote and use statements out of context. Confessions.
Thought control that requires the person to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth. Instill black and white thinking, Decide between good and evil. Organize people into us vs. them. Use loaded language and reduce complexities into buzzwords. Encourage good and proper thoughts. Rejection of critical and rational thinking. Label alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful. Instill new map of reality.
Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader or the group. Promote feelings of unworthiness or guilt such as social or historical guilt. Instill fear of thinking independently, enemies. Shunning if a person leaves.
” …mind control can be determined when the overall effect of the components promotes dependency and obedience to some leader or cause.” — Steven Hasan (Freedom of Mind and the “BITE” method)
This is indeed chilling and it is imperative that a person is armed with understanding how mind control and manipulation really works. It is often the very intelligent individual who is easily swayed and radicalized. That is why valid understanding of real truth is important but it is also important a person really understands the propaganda methods involved. I have heard it said, “Group think is unchallenged thinking.”
We are experiencing dangerous times and if this is not fought tooth and nail, it won’t be long before people are lining up for a refreshing cup of Kool-Aid. This is not a Democrat, Independent or Republican issue. This is anti-American and if it is not stopped, the consequences will be grave. We must lay down our ideological differences and fight for our country and our freedom. If not for us, than for our children and grandchildren.
Ms. Leete is the PTA’s Vice President of Training and Communications. She has demonstrated that she is incapable of holding either of those roles. Where is the PTA leadership and why aren’t they terminating her immediately? Or, if they agree with her, they should say so clearly for all of us to hear.
The PTA has responded to this incident, by calling this outburst “disturbing”, and assigning the speaker to Sensitivity Training.
Book it, had she used those words in reference to backers of CRT, we’d have heard a torrent of demands for her to resign.
i don’t have a dog in this fight so to speak, but can definitely appreciate those who do. This CRT thing is like state sanctioned brainwashing. Its a way of creating ingrained systematic state sanctioned racism for the up and coming generations. So I am at a loss here for how to address it but I am glad someone is addressing it. If anyone can you can.
But just a thought professor, something you said; ” I hate to see that long-successful approach swamped by the unrestrained rage and divisions of our contemporary politics.”
I concur wholeheartedly, but I’m curious as to whether you have 1 eye, or 2.
Now I’m no expert, but perhaps using terms straight out of the Reichstag speeches like “Liberalism is a disease, a cancer, that should be eradicated” isn’t perhaps the best approach, …assuming that sentiment is sincere and not merely grammatical window dressing.
And gee, I dunno, again, no expert here, … and you’re really smart, …but I don’t know maybe rallying armed civilians outside of a black President’s public addresses with signs threatening “this time we came unloaded” might be yielded to a more amicable approach, you know what I mean? …like maybe instead of brandishing firearms at a sitting President, … a sitting Black President, … by a bunch of overweight angry white guys…., might be better approached by brandishing , … gee I dunno, Bratwurst?
Or something equally enticing.
And I would think not downplaying a bunch of home grown wannabe Rambo’s storming OUR house of Congress to overthrow OUR Government, …the Peoples govt, and not just the people who like it or don’t like it’s govt, …because that’s what they were trying to do and all the infantile “what who us, we were just playin….” bulls#$ .excuses are just white noise, literally. It was a crime like none other, because it happened with a sitting President cheering it on. We all saw it. We hear the bullsh#$ now, but we saw the bullsh#$ happen. Live. They just didn’t have the balls to do what they said they were there to do and as always chickened out once they realized that the real law enforcement was going to stand up to their dumb asses and Trump wasn’t going to keep his promise and March down there “shortly” to swear them all into his new “by the gun Govt”…..like they do in Burma. Mike Pence proved that he had some mettle and stood up to the little dictator and like the thugs he sent to the Capitol he didn’t have the balls to go it alone so it died there. But that was an outright public, televised and documented attempt by a sitting president to overthrow the govt using violent means by his supporters. One that resulted in the deaths of US citizens.
So downplaying, making excuses, or worse supporting that sort of high treason and murderous intent doesn’t seem in line with your earnest sounding concerns about unrestrained rage and divisions in politics.
And that’s fine, you do what you want. Free country,… sorta.
But if you really are this concerned, then did it ever occur to you, …and again I’m nobody and you’re really smart …but, …did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe…, this sort of thing might just be what’s bringing out the all these equally absurd and equally totalitarian and equally criminal responses from the left, like trying to silence free speech, control discourse, leverage Covid to control the economy, small business, unseat a sitting President, ……
You know what I’m saying Professor? I’m sure you do. Bet your Mom used to say it to you. Mine did. Remember?
“It takes two, to Tango.”
Physician of law, heal thyself.
How perfectly passive aggressive of you. The Capitol “insurrectionists” have almost all been arrested–560 of them. Meanwhile in Portland and other cities (Settle and Minneapolis are two) even if someone is arrested for firebombing a federal building, committing arson or committing assault they are very often let go or otherwise not prosecuted which is why you are seeing them being arrested again and again and again. Nonetheless we’re supposed to believe that the left is “resorting” to authoritarian hate speech one sided censorship because there is no one to defend them? That’s pretty good, Karl.
The good news is when the time comes for the 21st Century genocidal Hitler Youth the teachers are raising up to be dealt with as needed, they’ll be too stupid, ignorant, incompetent and lacking in any reality based skills or knowledge to do anything about it.
Black racism at 2:00.
Insane.
These nihilists if allowed to continue will destroy this country. Name one country in the world that is removing advanced math courses from secondary education. I can think of no other example of the perniciousness and malign intensions of these barbarians. Where will the engineers, chemists, medical researchers come from? Without STEM courses there is no future. The racial composition of secondary school football and basketball teams is also skewed. Where is the call to terminate varsity sports because they harm the self esteem of the unathletic? I often hear the term “crazy” in reference to these policies. No they are evil
Thomas Jefferson:———- “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the Labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them”—————–“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Jefferson had great clairvoyance and would be appalled at the current Democratic parties platforms.
The public education system is going hard Left. They are teaching young children that gender is not determined by genes, genitalia, behavior, or dress. It’s just an indefinable state of mind, which can change at any given time of day. Gender dysphoria leads to castration, and has a high rate of suicide. Increasing the rate of gender dysphoria is a bad thing. They are teaching children that blacks are born oppressed and whites are born oppressors. They fail to teach that slavery was a universal evil, that Western civilization was at the vanguard of ending it, and that it still is common in African nations today, such as Eritrea. They have turned sex ed from a biology class to a how-to on porn. In fact, there was even a school that thought teaching “porn literacy” to young children was a good idea, including cartoons showing children masturbating. Normally, showing children sexualized content would get you arrested, but somehow schools are immune.
These schools struggle to teach children to read and do math at grade level, yet somehow they still find the time and the funding to indoctrinate your kids on far Left, extremist viewpoints that lead them to hate themselves, hate America, and hate their parents. Graduating kids who think capitalism is bad and socialism is good is a damning condemnation of the quality of public education. It should be obvious to the meanest understanding that socialism leads to human rights abuses, starvation, and mass murder, while capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system, merely by touching on world history.
If your local school district is veering hard Left, take your children out of school. Put them in a charter or private school that focuses on academics, not propaganda, or homeschool them.
Schools won’t respect your criticism. They don’t care how you feel about what they teach. But they will miss the funding when the students leave.
Well written and I agree with this statement. It’s a very simple matter to create a private educational association, rent a classroom, hire teachers paid for through private tuition. And it’s relatively affordable. So why not, why not just reprivatize public education? Yes we can!
This is exhibit 456 on why conservatives view the Left as totalitarian, and why we are so concerned that the Democrat Party has moved so far Left.
Dissent is punished.
CRT is a blatantly racist ideology.
The Left openly discriminates against Asians in order to promote black people who are not competitive in a meritocracy. Under the previous system, if a black student were admitted to Thomas Jefferson High School, he could stand tall and be proud of his accomplishment. Everyone viewed TJ students as having extraordinary academic talent. Once again, the Left has lowered the bar because they don’t think black students can compete. It’s the bigotry of low expectations. The people who stay out of trouble, study hard, barely have a social life because they are always either studying or engaging in extracurricular activities like classical music are now told that they are just too successful. Their good choices are deemed “acting white”. Their hard work paid off. They got top grades. They earned a coveted spot in TJ, which is one of the reasons they worked so hard. Yet that spot was taken from them because members of the Asian race statistically have a culture that values academics, hard work, and obeying rules, and it was given to someone else because of the color of their skin.
THIS is systemic racism, where one race is deliberately targeted, in this case the academic system. The goal was to get more of a particular race in TJ High School, while the presence of a large number of successful Asian students was viewed as a bad thing. Decreasing one race and increasing another was the open goal of doing away with the meritocracy of the admissions process. That is quite literally racist.
Conservatives recoil from the racism of the Left. All the Left seems to have to do is deny their own racism and claim everyone else is racist. Inexplicably, this works. Democrats go on national TV and call black conservatives racist slurs, they discriminate against Asians in school admissions, they use racist identity politics, and they have normalized racist rhetoric against whites, yet they portray conservatives as the racist ones. Their voters must be either deaf and blind, or just never question what they’re told, in order to believe this drabble.
Asians dominated my major in college, indeed in the entire sciences part of campus. It never occurred to me to think this was unfair. They choose the sciences in large numbers, and Asian cultures tend to value academic performance. How can you turn an Asian away because of their race? This is appalling.
All the Left seems to have to do is deny their own racism and claim everyone else is racist.
Of course Democrats are racists, it’s in their DNA. Their party began as racists and they’ve been dragged into the 21st century still kicking and screaming as the systemic racist totalitarians that they are.
When exactly did the nation’s teacher’s unions abandon advocacy for educating our children?
These latest allegations build off of previously-revealed evidence that multiple teachers’ unions – including the largest one in the nation, the American Federation of Teachers – had directly influenced the CDC’s decision-making process when it came to school reopening guidelines. In May, multiple emails were released by APT which showed collusion between the CDC and the AFT, including one email in which CDC Director Rochelle Walensky described the AFT as a “thought partner” to the CDC.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/16/cdc-sued-by-watchdog-group-for-withholding-communications-records-with-teachers-unions/
https://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/afb071621dAPR20210716054525.jpg
Don’t let these uncomfortable people, don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.
All her anti’s add up to anti-rights for the parents. What she’s saying is don’t let these parents, don’t let these citizens, don’t let these taxpayers have a say in what we teach their children. These Marxists insist that parents can’t define what CRT is. It doesn’t matter what it is, all that matters is what it does. And if the parents object to this march towards race-based indoctrination of their children, then they have every right to end it.
Blacks and white pandering liberals are THE problem with almost everything in America.