OMB to HR: No more Critical Race Theory or White privilege

[greyhound]

www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910053496/trump-tells-agencies-to-end-trainings-on-white-privilege-and-critical-race-theor

Is this the height of white fragility or has reason struck back? Curious about the opinions on the board and what type of training they have received.

[pepsifan]

As a fed, I attended a training on biases in the decisionmaking. From the blurb that was provided, I expected the training to discuss things like authority bias or the anchoring bias or the halo effect. Things like that. But it turned out to be about race. One presenter told the story about how a young doctor referred to his African-American mother, then a patient, by her first name. It was suggested to him that he refer to her as Miss X (whatever her name was), as that is not uncommon in the AA community. He did so and, to my  understanding, did so without complaint or objection. Nevertheless, the presenter referred to the doctor initially calling his mother by just her first name as a microaggression.

I stopped listening after that.

Then at another fed agency, I and a bunch of others in mass hiring went out-of-state for a training. We had a lot of online training to do before this, but the online training system stopped working and there were online classes we could not take. We were told these would be covered in the in-person training. They weren't. But we did sit through some hours of "Director's corner" where we were educated on race issues (it was around MLK day). We never did get the missed training much more relevant to our jobs. 

[saaao]

I've run into CRT based training both in Fed training and as part of CLE. They biggest objection I have to them is the waste of time and money as most people just tune out due to the issues pepsifan noted. The ones I took generally presented scenarios that found "implicit biases" based on very questionable interpretations of behaviors and reactions. They generally supported their interpretations by citing studies that sounded like they had been reverse engineered to come to the desired conclusions. I do find it ironic that all the CRT based trainings I have had, explicitly or tacitly, treated racial stereotypes as universally true to support their points. The reactions among my classmates and I at each of these has ranged from eye rolling to being mildly insulted. I have anecdotally heard stories of CRT based training where it is taken to the next level and these classes are conducted like maoist style struggle sessions, but I have never talked to anyone who has been personally subjected to something like that and I have never been myself.

I am in favor of Feds, particularly Judges, taking training that gives them perspective on people of different backgrounds. But elimination of CRT based training falls under a victory for reason IMHO, even if the one doing the eliminating isn't usually considered one of Reason's champions.

[greyhound]

Thanks pepsifan and saaao, I agree with both of your assessments and have had similar experiences. I think that the lines between science, religion, philosophy, and politics are often thinner than people imagine. What one person purports to be a scientific perspective on societal problems often sounds very similar (with certain substitutions) to what one might hear in a sermon. The underpinnings of these perspectives are often at odds with the fundamental religious beliefs and or political frameworks of the audience. This is a murky area and I would just as soon the government not attempt to "fix" its employees in a way that clashes with their religious beliefs and political positions.

[nappyloxs]

I hope Pixie locks this thread before it becomes even more ignorant.

[Thomas fka Lance]

Pixie, I concur with nappyloxs, it seems time to lock this thread

[Pixie]

I knew this one wouldn't last too long. Pixie