In Indiana, as in many parts of the country,
there have been efforts predominantly by right wingers to stop certain
things from being taught under the rubric of opposing Critical Race theory.
But going obviously way beyond that, since these sorts of generally middle and
high schools don't teach critical race theory.
Books have been banned, authors have been banned, but
it's almost worse than that in the area of not explicit bands.
But schools becoming so
worried about bands that could come attacks that could come.
National coverage from places like Fox news,
that might shed a bad light on them or open them up to harassment by teachers.
That they are now beginning to sort of opt into this,
before they're even required to comply with right wing cancel culture.
They're doing some incredibly weird things.
And we've got example of that coming from Spring Nika elementary School in Nevada
indiana.
So they've made what I feel like is an unprecedented
change where Black History Month lessons can be opted out of.
And we know this thanks to the leak of this letter,
which will show you a shot of and then we'll give you a little bit.
So that goes out to the parents and obviously a parent needs to sign this.
So in it, the school counselor, Benjamin White explains that he will quote,
be coming around in teaching lessons related to equity, caring and
understanding differences.
Says that these lessons will occur during the weeks of February 14th to 25th and
that these lessons can provide a great impact on students and
help facilitate a better environment.
For also seems very positive towards these lessons and
using the opportunity of Black History month to do this.
However, if you would like to opt out your child for receiving these lessons,
then sign the form below and
have your child return it to the school to give to the teacher.
And what sort of environment have we produced where school counselors who
seem to want to teach about equity and understanding?
And all of this stuff was feel like, well I have to at least
give them the opportunity to opt out or it's going to become a major scandal.
>> I mean this is the snowflake.
He is of the snowflake he is with John, I'm not gonna lie,
I kind of want to go the other way with this.
How many years of black history and all the good it's done us,
all these years of George Washington carver and the peanut Thurgood Marshall.
The first black Supreme Court judge has done is what good is it Dennis?
Maybe now when white folks find black history and they do so voluntarily,
they'll actually get the real stuff.
Maybe they'll get some stuff about Paul Robinson, dirty rotten commie that he was,
he's a hero though, I didn't learn about Paul Robinson in school.
You don't really learn about stuff like Marcus Garvey in school like and so
I don't know, maybe this stuff isn't that necessary.
Anyway, maybe John McCain in Arizona was onto something, Get rid of the holiday,
get rid of black history.
We're done, John, weve done.
>> I love the, I love the casual John McCain under the bus in that segment.
Well look, if anything can be allowed, as long as parents are allowed to opt out
was I would like to send you tune in Nevada indiana.
And you can teach your version of black history that might have
a stronger impact on these kids.
>> I would say, hey listen, I would love to talk to these fools about
the NWA Dr Dre these fools made black history last month.
You know, f the police.
That's black history to me, John.
>> Well, okay, well hold on.
I saw how people freaked out about the Super Bowl halftime show.
I don't know what they're gonna say about these lessons were about to be teaching.
Now, I'm a little bit worried.
>> Damn Greer, that's black history to me.
>> [LAUGH] There you go.
We can we can get into that area too.
Yeah, and look, we can certainly have a debate about the content of the classes
and like virtually every other aspect of elementary schools.
I think that they can certainly be modernized, and
we can question some of the ways that we do things.
But I don't want councilors to be constantly terrified and
I don't want, like we saw a couple of weeks ago.
Librarians now preemptively like going through their libraries and
trying to find books that parents might complain about.
So they can get them out of there, so they don't get in trouble or fired.
They want you to believe that cancel culture is like the Dr.
Seuss publisher being like, hey we got these books that like nobody's buying,
we're not gonna do any more.
That's not what a true cancel culture is when you have librarians
terrified of what people might be offended by some day.
I feel like that's more in the area of an actual culture of canceling.
>> Yeah, and I just love the idea that their kids should have a right to
grow up without like feeling guilty about the color of their skin.
I don't know, as a black person, I can't really speak to or relate to white guilt.
But is that how it works?
You just hear about like Thomas, Jefferson and his slaves and you just automatically
fall into a deep dark depression of just like, my God, what was me?
Why do I have to eat so much tuna casserole?
>> No, I don't know, I don't know.
I there's something wrong with me was I thought this for
a while that I'm not broken in the way I'm supposed to be.
I don't take all of this incredibly personally.
I learned about white privilege and I accepted that it exists.
And for some reason I didn't fall apart and I've never understood why,
why couldn't I fall apart too?
>> You're not a good white john that you're not one of the good ones.
I'm told that online, don't worry anyway, to get your stuff together.
And by the way, I don't know, this school counselor obviously, but
it seems like wants to do the right thing, no, come on parrot,.
Seriously this would be really beneficial.
You should totally do this, but fine if you have to opt out, you can.
They're trying to create an environment where good people will not
want to be in these schools anymore and they will not want to have to go,
they already suffered like innumerable.
Massive obstacles to doing their job with basically no support, effectively,
no money.
And now we're just making it harder, nebulous lee harder.
You have to constantly predicting the ways that they're gonna come at you next.
And they're less well positioned in terms of financing and
institutional support to accept that sort of environment than virtually anyone else.
>> Journalists documentarians, here's a free idea.
Go back 15, 10 years from now, and talk to the kids that were being
shielded from critical race theory and just talk to me like, did it work?
Do you feel great about being white now?
Please, for the love of God, folks calm down well.
>> And, in any event between now and then,
just start fitting in little bits of critical race theory and
black history into like random, like TikTok videos and stuff like that.
In the middle of like a TikTok dance, a Fortnite dance emotes.
Just have them mention the peanuts or something.
Just make sure that people are absorbing at least a little bit of this.
>> I think the black God made the yellow light to John.
If this is some of the stuff that I'm remembering from schooling about black
history month, it's just these arbitrary facts.
Dude, nobody was hurt in the process of that schooling.