THIS right there is our problem. BRAND? How about we move away from corporate speak that is fucking up our public education system. How about we focus on learning instead of corporate indoctrination…We don’t need marketing or advertising or any of that nonsense - we need a robust education system that is flexible and responsive to the needs of local communities, but has some fucking standards.
The truth doesn’t need a brand. It needs advocates!
[ETA] And with regards to white supremacists, IT WILL NOT MATTER HOW YOU BRAND IT. They are part of the conversation BECAUSE of the need to corporatize everything and make it “sellable.” It allows people to claim they are being left out when they are not and to claim that facts don’t matter when they do.
I understand what you’re saying BUT the branding of something like this sends an important message in and of itself. When something is labeled as being objectively out of bounds for reasonable people to advocate or even accept and isn’t treated with kid gloves, that sends a message. So does the converse.
I think there is plenty of room for hate the sin love the sinner in this kind of approach, but unless and until we’re agreed that this is a sin worth Hating with the capital H, we’ll have trouble.
It’s a standard and well-understood term in academic discussions of racism.
The term “racialised” is a recognition of the fact that racial categories are social constructs rather than objective biological facts. The assignment of people to racial groups is the consequence of human actions, not natural laws.
I’m not advocating putting anything out of bounds, or not speaking the truth. And not about love the sinner. None of that.
This is about how do you get people to change their way of thinking. This isn’t a program aimed at people that don’t need it. This is aimed at people who are resistant to the message. It’s about persuasion. Step one is getting them to listen.
Yes we do. They’ve figured out how to get us to do all sorts of stupid stuff. Time to take those tools and use them as a force for good. You’re absolutely right that we are talking about people that claim actual facts don’t matter.
Wanna beat them? Then be sneaky. Avoid putting them on notice and giving them an opportunity to create a counter-factual narrative. Use every tool at your disposal to get them to accept real facts without them even knowing it.
No. We don’t. That’s a major part of the problem, because we see ourselves as individual brands instead of people. That has what made it that much easier to create these divisions in the first place.
We don’t need to brand, we need to make it clear that white supremacy is not acceptable. Full stop.
In that case, leaning into a simulacra of reality will not help. Branding is not reality or facts, it’s corporate speak that elides more than it illuminates.
Ok, I think we might be talking about two different things here. You’re absolutely right about facts and reality. But I may looking at this from a different angle. I’m talking about getting particular education programs adopted as schools. That’s got very specific challenges.
My apologies if this is sounds like you don’t know any of this. I just want to lay some groundwork.
Schools are not federally run. The Feds have very little say in what gets taught. You want to roll out an education program, then you need to convince states and (more importantly) local school boards to implement it.
Now think about which school districts you’d most want to roll out an anti-white-supremacist program. Those that are most prone to having borderline white-supremacists and actual white supremacists. But these folks don’t wear labels. They are just neighbors to most people.
So you introduce the program to the Board or even just a school and ask them to implement it. Word is going to spread via Facebook, etc. Some asshats are going to try and stir up shit and get the program blocked. You’ve got to shape the narrative and head that off. This is where branding is critical. Craft an image of the program so that anyone who stirs up shit looks like an asshat. “Think of the children” kind of thing.
Branding is about creating a perception around something. Create a perception that there’s nothing to worry about this program. That it’s easy, beneficial, cheap, etc. Wanna really sell it, figure out how to say it increases test scores.
Once the program is adopted, then you roll out the content. But you have to get it adopted first.
I agree with that. But branding (corporatizing education that’s seeking to “teach both sides” etc) has not been a step forward for education. Period, full stop. The alt-right has excelled at it and recruited from it, because they sell better lies than educators are able to teach the truth.
Too few people are willing to stand up FOR a good education for everyone, because too many people have bought into the branded narrative pushed by the alt-right. Playing their own game won’t help.
I’d argue that we look at the rest of the world that has a good deal of success crafting robust curriculum that they run from a federal level. It generally includes giving educators more autonomy in the classroom and in paying them well. We don’t need federal level curriculum guidelines if we have educators who get a robust education, get the space to do what they do well, are paid, not just a living wage, but a very good wage, for their very hard work, AND are not treated like the enemy.
Our public schools should not be run like prisons, but should be places for the actual fostering of learning - which is different than what happens at most public schools now a days. I’ve seen the difference between kids who are not forced to sit in desks every day, do busy work, and perform well on a test to kids who ARE treated this way (with a ton of antagonism from over worked teachers, administrators, and parents). Nor should it be assumed that all kids learn in the same way, but instead cater to different learning styles.
Most kids, when given interesting, thoughtful, hands on, challenging work that guides them on how enriching learning new things can be, actually do rise to the occasion and embrace learning.
Warren, along with the rest of the liberal establishment, is actively collaborating in the legitimisation of a fascist coup. Bernie is not.
Have either of them released a detailed policy platform that specifically addresses this issue? No. But the differences between the two responses are not trivial.
I think we may have irreconcilable definitions of “active collaboration” and whether there would be any appreciable difference between either of their actual policy positions on this.
My point is that they had a free and fair election, and should stand by the results of it. Any election held by the current government cannot be free and fair, since they’re already rounding up the opposition. Warren’s tweet clearly implies that such an election could be legitimate, and that the one they just had wasn’t.
If you wanted to avoid that implication, you could easily do so by calling a coup a coup and not suggesting that the next election could be legitimate.
Yeah well, when U.S. corporate interests start extracting Bolivian resources for cell phones and such, I feel pretty certain about which of the two will likely speak out loudly and fight hard against that, and which will likely pay little more than lip service to opposing it.
Do you think that the introduction of “Critical Race Theory” into Arizonan politics was a good thing?
Do you think that the introduction of “Cultural Marxism” (aka Critical Theory, aka “The Frankfurt school” into the 2016 US election cycle was a good thing?
I don’t disagree that education can be better. No arguments there. My wife is a teacher. Uses hands on real world examples to teach challenging subjects. Today she taught statistics to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. They analyzed the data collected from the time it took to solve 3D puzzles they designed last week in CAD and 3D printed.
Why is she teaching this class? Marketing. STEM is hot right now. She was given 2 weeks before the start of the school year to develop a curriculum because the school system was sold on how important it is. STEM has a brand.
You’re free to advocate for federal level robust curriculum. But the reality is school boards decide what gets implemented. You’d hope that logic and reason would guide them. It doesn’t. Bright and shiny gets the attention. Anything that draws negative attention from the community gets shot down.
Don’t believe in branding? You were doing it just now. You are branding a form of education. Very effectively, I might add. Branding is a tool. Ignoring it because people you don’t like use it is putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Want people to adopt your ideas? Make them want to adopt your ideas.
In most cases, thats pretty accurate. But if your complexion is such that you sunburn easily, and you find yourself the only such person -on a bus, maybe, then you may find yourself being racialized all of a sudden.
What I like about this term, “racialized”, is that its something done unto someone, its not something someone does for themself.
