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In recent months Republican lawmakers in close to a dozen states have aggressively made legislative advances against the GOPs latest culture war target: critical race theory. Idaho governor Brad Little last month signed a bill supposedly designed to bar state-funded schools and universities from indoctrinating students into the view that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior. While Idahos law, which is the first of its kind, may not sound disagreeable in theory, it is a different story in action, as the legislation could ostensibly ban educators from teaching that present-day financial inequality is linked to Americas history of systemic racism. Critics of the legislation have also warned that it will stifle the First Amendment rights of teachers. Oklahoma, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Rhode Island have all introduced similar bills or amendments, or have proposed state mandates that would have a similar impact on schools.

While endorsing this legislative push during a presser with members of the House Freedom Caucus last month, GOP rep. Ralph Norman insisted that the country is in the middle of cultural warfare today, adding, Critical race theory asserts that people with white skin are inherently racist, not because of their actions, words, or what they actually believe in their heartbut by virtue of the color of their skin. Normans Freedom Caucus colleague Rep. Lauren Boebert accused Democrats of trying to teach our children to hate each other. Donald Trump deployed a similar narrative while issuing an executive mandate that barred federal agencies from giving certain sensitivity training. They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, its a racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country, explained Trump, whose order was ultimately rescinded by Joe Biden after previously being blocked by a federal judge.

Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a law last month similar to that in Idaho. It claims to put a stop to schools teaching that moral character is inherently determined by his or her race or sex and bans lessons that could potentially cause students to feel discomfort or guilt on account of his or her race or sex. But the law will actually limit how openly Oklahomas educators, who teach in a state that was home to one of the worst instances of racial violence in U.S. history, can discuss racism and inequality. With Americas classrooms serving as the battleground for this culture war, educators even fear that their livelihoods will be caught in the crossfire. During an interview with NPR, a high school teacher in Oklahoma City explained that she is now unsure whether she is allowed to discuss present-day civil rights issues, including the murder of George Floyd. We need to do it, because our students desire it, Telannia Norfar told the outlet. But how do we do that without opening Oklahoma City public schools up to a lawsuit? Oklahoma City School Board chairperson Paula Lewis expressed the anxiety that the new legislation has caused for teachers, remarking to NPR, What if they say the wrong thing? What if somebody in their class during the critical thinking brings up the word oppression or systemic racism? Are they in danger? Is their job in danger?

The ACLU has condemned the new batch of legislation and questioned if the proposals violate the free speech rights of educators and students. A nationwide attempt to censor discussions of race in the classroom is underway, the free speech advocacy group wrote in a statement. These bills dont just set back progress in addressing systemic issues, they also rob young people of an inclusive education and blatantly suppress speech about race. Its up to state governors across the country to veto these harmful bills.

The Republicans push against antiracism teaching is only likely to accelerate ahead of the midterms, as Axioss Margaret Talev wrote this week that the partys strategy for the 2022 elections and beyond virtually assures raceand racismwill be central to political debate for years to come. Given that the right has struggled to demonize Biden, who enjoys higher approval ratings than his predecessor, it seems inevitable that Republicans will seize on culture war battles in hopes of winning back Congress next year. As pollster Christine Matthews told NPR, Republicans are wanting to make this about othering the Democrats and making them seem as extreme and threatening to white culture as possible.

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The GOPs Critical Race Theory Freakout Is Spreading Across America - Vanity Fair

During last weeks Louisiana House debate over restricting the rights of transgender teens to participate in school athletics, newly elected Rep. Laurie Schlegel, the Jefferson Republican handling the bill, was asked for a single example of this being a problem.

She answered that it happened recently in Connecticut, before jumping into a speed reading of all the states she said had passed similar bills. Schlegel then refused to take any more questions.

Actually, what happened in Connecticut was a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming female athletes were put at a competitive disadvantage to women listed as male on their birth certificates. Of the 28 states considering similar legislation, only a few have turned them into law, including Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Legislation that would bar transgender teens from participating on sports teams that do not align with their assigned gender at birth won fina

What hasnt been turned into law or even cleared the necessary hurdles is the tax revamp promised by Republican legislative leadership. They made a session goal of simplifying the states complex tax system with lower rates for all not just special interest taxpayers represented by high-priced lobbyists in Baton Rouge.

Those promises have been sidelined, so far, by grievance politics that these days not only energize the GOP base, but core Democrats as well.

It was Chalmette Republican Rep. Ray Garofalos House Bill 564 banning the teaching of divisive concepts, which include not assigning fault for racially based policies and not criticizing capitalism. He made some unfortunate comments, which he took back immediately, but that led Democratic House members to withhold their necessary support on issues such as changing taxes that need a two-thirds majority.

It wasnt until Wednesday, a month into the delay and 15 days from the end of the session, that House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, officially removed Garofalo from his chairmanship on the House Education committee. The previous night, conservative Republican House members, angered by the fractious nature of their near supermajority status, began by-invitation-only caucus to better exert GOP influence.

The chairman of the House Education Committee was formally removed from his post Wednesday night, ending a monthlong controversy ignited by a

The first thing caucus chair Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said was that tax policy, not culture wars, is the foremost interest of most House Republicans.

Still, they voted for transgender restrictions and school curricula impositions, such as requiring public schools toteach World War II and the Holocaust in greater detail as well as an emphasis on the nations important documents.

Not that such subjects are bad for Louisiana students to learn, but patriotic education is a strategy that crowds out conversations about race and its impact on American society. Louisiana educators oppose legislators dictating curriculum.

Southern legislatures since the 1920s have tried to tell educators what to teach. Evolution, for instance, was banned for three decades and even through the 1960s teachers were prevented from discussing the philosophical basis of communism, which at the time ruled half the world.

Republican-controlled legislatures are taking up measures that would ban or limit the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. Idaho, Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma have passed laws similar to the ones the Louisiana House advanced last week and now sit in the Senate Education Committee.

An academic concept developed in the 1970s, critical race theory holds that unresolved racism has become so ingrained in U.S. history and systems that laws and policies hinder minority advancement. Though the term is rarely uttered, the theory is at the root of more diverse faculty hirings and holistic admissions that open university doors to more minorities by placing more emphasis on grades than on test scores.

Grappling with a volatile topic, the Louisiana House on Monday night approved a bill that would require high school students to get instructio

As president, Donald Trump created the 1776 Commission to counter teaching concepts based on critical race theory in schools. President Joe Biden dismantled that commission on his first day in office.

Still, 44% of White eighth graders 14% of Black students were found to have math proficiency in 2019 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. From education to housing to health care to criminal justice, disparities between White and Black people have remained pronounced and statistically evident. A reasonable argument can be made that understanding the history of racial inequities is a better use of time for Louisiana students than hearing again that Adolf Hitler was a bad man.

All of which was underscored on the House floor last week when Denham Springs Republican Rep. Valarie Hodges, who sponsored the two curriculum measures, acknowledged with huhs that she didnt know about the middle passage used to transport Black people across the Atlantic to work as slaves.

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Mark Ballard: Culture wars bills get in the way of legislative substance, like tax reform - The Advocate

Are the UKs culture wars real, imagined, exaggerated or manufactured? This is becoming one of the key questions of our times, but, as with so much else in culture war debates, you can always find evidence to support your preferred interpretation.

For example, our new study shows that three-quarters of the public think that the media often makes the country feel more divided than it really is. Nearly half agree that politicians invent or exaggerate culture wars as a political tactic, and only one in ten actively disagree with this.

More generally, few people have very strong feelings on many of the cultural issues at the heart of prominent debates. For example, only one in ten or fewer strongly agree or strongly disagree that UK culture is changing too fast, or that theyd like the UK to be the way it used to be.

Originally posted here:
Opinion: We should take the idea of Britain's 'culture wars' seriously understanding division is important - The Independent

Did the pictures of Boris Johnsons third, secret wedding charm and disarm you? Spellbound, were you, by the images showing his barefoot bride in a crown of fresh flowers and a rented designer dress (45)?

Millions clearly were. Anything resembling the frock was sold out online. In one masterstroke, these two made themselves into the nations sweethearts.

Those devastating accusations made by Dominic Cummings, Carries costly flat makeover paid for by the Cabinet Office, lies daily tossed out by key government ministers, were all forgotten as the sun shone down on the couple. Cynicism was as unwelcome as a fart at the laden table.

A guide to today's talking points, straight to your inbox

For voters interested in gung-ho pursuits, the Government lays on daily brawls in public spaces between the un-woke proud patriots, protectors of buffed histories and defenders of the realm and their imagined enemies.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, a man of low presence and low cunning, appears to be on a cultural cleansing mission. Arts and heritage institutions and academia are packed, or so he feverishly believes, with Marxists and other traitors. Board members suspected of being liberal, left or egalitarian are being edged out and replaced with men and women loyal to the Governments agenda.

A new Heritage Advisory board has been created, chaired by Trevor Phillips, the black Briton most trusted by the great and the good from left to right. He agrees with Mr Dowden, who wants institutions to retain and explain symbols of contested histories. How will establishment bowdlerizers explain slavery and the oppression of the powerless in this country and the colonies?

A new, large survey by Ipsos Mori for the Policy Institute at Kings College, London, found that 44 per cent of those polled think politicians invent or exaggerate culture wars as a political tactic. Furthermore, only a minority are not proud to be British, or are uncomfortable with the pace of change.

These findings will not discourage right wing- media outlets or government ministers and their well-chosen friends in high places. They will carry on serving their own interests indefatigably.

Juvenal, a Roman poet from the early second century, fretted about the way people, diverted by bread and circuses, were failing in their civic duties to hold rulers to account. Our population is similarly appeased with circuses, even though millions are wretched or falling into indescribable hardships.

Among them are two million private renters who will no longer be protected from eviction at the end of this week. According to the homelessness charity Shelter, 72 per cent are terrified of losing their homes. They have already cut back on heating and food bills. Their children are hungry.

Shelter, where I once worked, was set up in 1966, a time when the country had a massive housing crisis, slum dwellings, and an unseen, unheard underclass few cared about. Ken Loachs film Cathy Come Home, which depicts a young, homeless family and was shown in that year, shamed and aroused the nation. During the pandemic, 37,000 people sought help from Shelter. But today most folk are indifferent to their plight and pain.

Our state schools are falling ever further into disrepair. Tory and collation governments alike have delayed embarking on this major, urgent project and now the bill has reached 11bn. Just before lockdown I went to one school in the East End of London. The toilet walls were black with damp; there had been a rat infestation in the kitchen and the classrooms were truly grim. To the governing elite men like Ian Duncan Smith, George Osborne, David Cameron, Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak these lost and failed children must be collateral damage, or perhaps sacrifices to appease the gods of capitalism.

According to government estimates from March this year, up to 14.5 million people one in four were in poverty in 2019-20. The Big Issue reports that another 700,000 people were plunged into hardship during the pandemic.

The Chancellor has given some state help to needy households, but not nearly enough. More than 3 million self-employed citizens have had nothing.

The Trussell Trust, which runs 1,200 food bank centres, had distributed 2.5 million food parcels in the year between April 2020 and March 2021, the equivalent of more than two parcels every minute and vastly more than ever before.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror recently reported that Sunaks billionaire wife claimed 100,000 in furlough money last December; while Samantha Cameron claimed thousands to pay her staff. Mr Johnson and his missus got 27,000 of posh organic food delivered to them in unmarked bags, some of it paid for by the wife of a Tory donor, according to the Daily Mail.

Britons should be full of wrath, but most are occupied by the frolics of Mr and Mrs Johnson and performative populism, both calculated, organised diversions. How can anyone with a conscience feel proud of this outrageously manipulated democracy.

Continued here:
Boris Johnsons wedding and the culture wars are designed to distract us from the UKs spiralling poverty - iNews

I havent agreed with every position Gov. Eric Holcomb has taken, but overall, he has reminded me of the Republican Party to which I used to belonga time when serious people concerned themselves with issues of governance rather than initiating constant battles in Americas culture wars.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is a perfect example of the culture warriors who dominate todays GOP, so I was startled when he joined members of the General Assembly in defending residents right to control their own bodies, a position admirably articulated by Martinsville Rep. Peggy Mayfield:

Hoosiers should have the right to make health care decisions that best suit their families, their personal medical circumstances, and a broad interpretation of their religious beliefsa concept that were disappointed to see Indiana University has rejected.

The genesis of this remarkable turnaroundnot just by our desperate-for-attention AG, but from a number of firmly anti-choice legislatorswas Indiana Universitys decision to require students and employees to be vaccinated in order to return to in-person instruction. In an opinion that most lawyersand several members of the General Assemblydescribed as a reach, Rokita is claiming that a bill passed during the last legislative session prohibits the university from doing so.

I will leave the legal arguments to practicing lawyers, but I cant restrain myself from pointing to the unbelievable hypocrisy displayed by Rokitas sudden support for the fundamental liberties protected by the Bill of Rights.

The statement that Hoosiers should have the right to make health care decisions that best suit their families and religious beliefs is, without a doubt, correct. It is precisely the point of the pro-choice position, which I will note is not a pro-abortion position. The issue is not what decision is madeit is who has the authority to make it.

What is particularly ludicrous about this sudden concern for an individuals right to control of his or her own bodycoming as it does from rabidly pro-life folksis that it is so inconsistent with their willingness to trample those same constitutional protections in order to appeal to constituencies displaying absolutely no regard for the protection of personal autonomy.

Ironically, Indiana Universitys decision to require vaccinations is self-evidently a pro-life decision. The university is following the science and acting to protect the life and health of the entire university community. (Of course, the people they are protecting have already been born, which evidently makes a difference.) And as a friend recently noted, IUs action protects the lives of multiple individuals who are not similarly endangered by a womans decision to terminate a pregnancy.

Republicans in Indianas Legislaturedominated as that body is by rural interests, thanks to gerrymanderinghave stridently opposed Holcombs efforts to minimize the dangers of the pandemic. They have moved to erode the governors power to act swiftly to mitigate future threats to Hoosier health and safety, all in the name of a freedom they are manifestly unwilling to extend to people who use that freedom in ways with which they disagree.

Our ambitious attorney general has cast his lot with those Republicans, whoit must be admittedare representative of what the Grand Old Party has become. Rick Wilsonone of the Lincoln Group of prominent ex-Republicansrecently opined that todays GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln; it is now the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The grandstanders, culture warriors and conspiracy theorists are waging war on Holcomb and other remnants of the old GOP.

__________

Kennedy recently retired as professor of law and public policy at the Paul H. ONeill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI.

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Sheila Kennedy: Holcomb, Rokita and the radicalization of the GOP - Indianapolis Business Journal