For years now, the educational establishment and the Democrat Party have colluded to damage pride of accomplishment within the black community.  Now that the Democrat Party is essentially a Marxist outlet, the drive for weakening American children's education is on full display. In fact, "dumbing down education [is the] key to dismantling America." It is the communists' dream to destroy the American dream. 

As the debate over Critical Race Theory has emerged, Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., explains "the insidious nature of this radical new ideology now being taught to American schoolchildren and the myriad ways in which public school students are being groomed to carry out the agendas of the Left."  It is also ultimately the pathway to pit white people against black people.

Candace Owens clearly articulates what is happening.

“...they’re trying to teach a Marxist ideology.’ Hard academics such as learning science and mathematics subjects are being replaced.

'They’re learning how to hate white people. They’re learning how to hate their country, and this is problematic for the future. What they’re trying to do is guarantee that they have an ignorant group of people that vote based on emotion. It’s a Democrat long-term strategy, and it’s finally coming into fruition.'

And in perfect lockstep, the latest example can be found in the Arlington County School Board in Virginia, which has introduced a proposal that would eradicate the traditional grading system. 

The justification for this change is that "certain basic standards -- like having late penalties -- could potentially harm poor and minority children who they claim may not have access to resources necessary to complete assignments on time." Or "students should not be graded on homework assignments because the fear of making mistakes will have a negative impact on their learning process."

This comes as no surprise as the Left tightens its rapacious control over every aspect of society.

In 2015 Marc Tucker, president emeritus and a distinguished senior fellow of the National Center on Education and the Economy wrote that "…we appear to have lowered our standards for our college students to the standards we used to demand of our high school students and, at the same time, to have more or less destroyed what was once a first-class vocational and technical education system."

In 2021, Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University explained that in the "'quest to achieve such commendable objectives as racial justice, greater intergenerational income mobility, and more economic diversity in picking students to attend top schools, we may lose sight of the fact that truly superlative 'higher' education can be fully achieved only by students who are cognitively superior and highly motivated. There may be a trade-off here: achieving full socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic diversity may be possible only by sacrificing high academic standards. If we are too aggressive in pursuing non-purely academically meritorious standards, we may lose America’s reputation of having a disproportionate number of the best educational institutions in the world. Perhaps this is a price we should pay to right past injustices -- but there is a price."

Indeed.

Yet, lowering of standards has become the norm in this country and it is why American students fare so poorly in critical thinking skills.  It is a deliberate and calculated move.  It is particularly aimed at minority children.

A voice from the past bears witness. During the Yellow Fever outbreak in 1794, black people helped their white neighbors during this plague. This has been documented by Jim Murphy, who cites a narrative written by the free black community in Philadelphia; "it is the very first document published in the United States in which leaders of the black community confronted an accuser directly and attempted to articulate the depth of their anger. It is a remarkable essay, tightly argued and organized, passionate and unrelenting."

Titled A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, In the year 1793: and a refutation of some censures thrown upon them in some late publications, it was written by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen to counter the unfair condemnation of blacks who had helped their white neighbors during the terrible outbreak of Yellow Fever.  It refuted misleading claims that black people who had assisted those who had fallen ill, were "plundering the distressed."  It documents the failure to acknowledge the dangerous work of black people who assisted those of any race during this horrible time. 

And as I perused this lengthy document, one sentence jumped out at me as the authors also demand an end to the heinous system of slavery.

We believe if you would try the experiment of taking a few black children, and cultivate their minds with the same care, and let them have the same prospect in view, as to living in the world, as you would wish for your own children, you would find upon the trial, they were not inferior in mental endowments.

Yet, some 228 years later, the entire American educational system works to enslave the American minority child.  The actual physical chains may no longer exist, but the perpetual soft bigotry of low expectations continues to expand in this country.  Because the educational establishment has all but been taken over by the Left, it debases the black child, as well as demeans the white child.  Its deadly tentacles afflict both white and black because of the false contrasts it implicitly sends.

This was articulated in Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," when he wrote that segregation was "unjust" because it "distorts the soul and damages the personality [since] it gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. "

Now that the Left has succeeded in demoralizing the minority child, it aims its slings at all children. This alleged "equal-opportunity grading system and debasing of education" is also sinful because it damages any child who sees no reason to work hard and achieve.  It completely ends any motivation to strive. 

Under the guise of compassion, one finds race hustlers who use the age-old snake oil approach to sell a rotten product.  Among leftist liars, there is not a whit of genuine concern for any children.

It is the communist blueprint as it works to completely upend the true American philosophy.                                      

It is the epitome of covert racism and it is deadly.  Since when can't a black child learn to be on time with work?  Since when can't a poor child learn to make mistakes and be corrected? Since when should homework be prohibited from being graded at all because some children don't have resources?  Whatever happened to pen and paper if a computer is not available?  Children should be held to the highest standards, not the lowest ones if they are to be productive and proud citizens of this country.

People of any melanin level should not be fooled.  Instead, they should link arms and demand an end to the reduction of the quality of education in the country for all children.  Doing so will energize the country and crush the Left, who hate everything America stands for.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com

Image: Picryl