Chinese New Year
In February 2018, CACAGNY celebrated Chinese New Year โ€‹in a parade in Flushing, N.Y.
This past weekend, I spoke at an online conference of CAPA-Fairfax County, a local chapter of Chinese-American parent groups in the country, mobilizing to defend merit-based education in the United States.

As some participants spoke in Chinese, I could make out some key phrases: "'moral courage," "public service," and "Cultural Revolution."

When it came my turn to speak, I told the Chinese-American parents: you can save America. After surviving the Cultural Revolution, they uniquely recognize the dangers to an ideology like critical race theory, the race-based philosophy that dismantles core principles in our society, such as the idea of the American Dream, replacing the idea of equality with the disingenuous notion of "equity," and punishing Asian-American children for their advanced academics.

They cheered their potential role in the country that they love.

And now we see just that kind of moral leadership by another association, CACAGNYโ€‹ โ€‹็ด็ด„ๅŒๆบๆœƒ, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater, based in New York, which published a letter yesterday denouncing critical race theory as "a hateful, divisive, manipulative fraud." A member @queens_parents published the letter on Twitter, and it can be found here online at their website www.cacagny.org.

On Twitter, follow parent advocate Chien Kwok @Chien_Kwok, former CACAGNY president Wai Wah Chin, and others, such as @ycinnewyork, who all reveal great moral leadership standing up the dumbing down of gifted education in New York City. Kwok was one of the first people I contacted when we started organizing at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, against the divisive critical race theory activists who lobbied successfully to removed the merit-based admissions test, in their bid to reduce the number of Asian-American students at the school. We continue to fight them.

I've republished the full letter here so that you can be inspired to stand up with these parents for a simple hope: to challenge the divisive, bigoted and racist ideas of critical race theory and advocate for an America where children are valued for the "content of their character," as Martin Luther King said, not the color of their skin.

February 23, 2021

CACAGNY Denounces Critical Race Theory as Hateful Fraud

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a hateful, divisive, manipulative fraud.

CRT appears in our workplaces under the cover of โ€‹implicit bias/sensitivityโ€‹ โ€‹trainingโ€‹. It infiltrates our schools pretending to be โ€‹culturally/ethnically responsiveโ€‹ โ€‹pedagogyโ€‹, with curricula such as the New York Times' โ€‹1619 Projectโ€‹ and Seattle's โ€‹ethnomathematics. Hate groups, with allies in politics, the press and education, pass CRT off as โ€‹anti-racismโ€‹ and โ€‹diversity, equity and inclusionโ€‹, but CRT is exactly the opposite. From its very roots, CRT is racist, repressive, discriminatory, and divisive.

What is CRT?

Heavily influenced by such hate promoters as Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Schmitt, Marcuse, Foucault and Freire, but with โ€‹race struggleโ€‹ replacing โ€‹class struggleโ€‹, CRT's main ideological dogmas are:
  • You are not a person. You are only your โ€‹race,โ€‹ and โ€‹by your race alone you will be judgedโ€‹.โ€‹ (1)
  • Justice is about equal โ€‹rightsโ€‹, but โ€‹Socialโ€‹ Justice, or โ€‹equity,โ€‹ is about equal โ€‹outcomesโ€‹. Only Socialโ€‹ Justice matters; Justice does not. To achieve equal outcomes, โ€‹forget equal rightsโ€‹.
  • All unequal outcomes by race -- โ€‹inequityโ€‹ for short -- are the result of racial โ€‹oppressionโ€‹.
  • All Blacks are oppressed and all Whites are oppressors. This is โ€‹systemicโ€‹:โ€‹ never ask โ€‹whether oppression occurred, only โ€‹how it occurred. Everyone and everything White is โ€‹complicitโ€‹.
  • If you are White and won't admit you are racist, you are racist by โ€‹implicit biasโ€‹. To reduce implicit bias, you must self-criticize, confess to โ€‹privilegeโ€‹, apologize to the oppressed race.โ€‹ (2)
  • Whitenessโ€‹ is belief in, among others: โ€‹achievementโ€‹, โ€‹delayed gratificationโ€‹, โ€‹progress,โ€‹ schedulesโ€‹ and โ€‹deadlinesโ€‹, โ€‹meritocracyโ€‹, โ€‹race-blindnessโ€‹, the โ€‹written wordโ€‹, โ€‹factsโ€‹ and โ€‹objectivity (they denyโ€‹ lived experience)โ€‹, โ€‹logicโ€‹ and โ€‹reason (they denyโ€‹ empathyโ€‹), โ€‹mathematicsโ€‹ and science โ€‹(until they are โ€‹de-colonized aโ€‹nd โ€‹humanizedโ€‹).โ€‹ (3)
  • CRT suppresses dissent with โ€‹cancel cultureโ€‹: publications withdrawn, college admissions rescinded, online presence wiped out, business relationships ended, jobs terminated.โ€‹ (4)
Today, the best-paid promoters of CRT are probably Robin DeAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. Notable CRT critics include James Lindsay, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Chris Rufo, Thomas Sowell.

CRT: Three Examples

In June 2020, the City of Seattle ran an โ€‹anti-racismโ€‹ training session for the City's White staff. The session began with instruction that all White people have a โ€‹natural senseโ€‹ of racial superiority. The session then required participants to confess their โ€‹complicityโ€‹ in a โ€‹system of White supremacyโ€‹, โ€‹undo their Whiteness,โ€‹ โ€‹be less White,โ€‹ and โ€‹become accountable to Blacksโ€‹ in their โ€‹every thoughtโ€‹.โ€‹ (5)

In August 2017, a 12th grader at a public charter school in Nevada, William Clark, took a civics class that was required for graduation. In this class, students were told to declare their race, gender, etc. The class was then bombarded with material singling out Whites as โ€‹racistsโ€‹ who โ€‹enjoy the privilegesโ€‹ of an โ€‹oppressive structure.โ€‹ Because he was identified as White, William was subsequently harassed by classmates, teachers and administrators. Escalating abuses followed, including bad grades from the class. William and his mother have since taken the case to Court.โ€‹ (6)

In January 2021, third-graders in a Cupertino, California elementary school math class were told that they lived in a โ€‹dominant cultureโ€‹ of โ€‹Whiteโ€‹, โ€‹cisgenderโ€‹, โ€‹educatedโ€‹ โ€‹Christiansโ€‹, and this culture was created to โ€‹hoardโ€‹ โ€‹power.โ€‹ The kids were then told to check themselves off on a list of victimization categories -- race, gender, religion, family structure -- to find out which categories made them oppressors,โ€‹ and which made them โ€‹oppressedโ€‹. A Chinese parent found out about this and organized parents to stop it. It reminded them of Mao's bloody Cultural Revolution. The school later decided that the material was not grade-appropriate, but will still use it for older classes.โ€‹ (7)

What CRT Means for Americans of Chinese Descent

Chinese Americans areโ€‹ people of colorโ€‹ and therefore start from the โ€‹oppressed โ€‹side of CRT's binary. But as we overcome discrimination and achieve upward mobility, we are now โ€‹White by adjacencyโ€‹. In New York City, โ€‹Black Lives Matterโ€‹ rioters with CRT signs assaulted our rally supporting merit-based education. We have come into CRT's crosshair.

Education is the main area where CRT attacked us. CRT, naturally, demands automatic preferences for Blacks in admissions to selective institutions and programs. That is unacceptable to us: such racial preferences come at the expense of our children, at the expense of academic standards, and at the expense of basic fairness.

For top colleges, CRT uses the ruse of โ€‹multiple-criteriaโ€‹ โ€‹holistic admissionsโ€‹, which allows Harvard to reject Asians with better academic and extra-curricular credentials than those of admitted applicants. Despite never having met the applicants, Harvard admissions officers somehow conclude that Asian applicants โ€‹lack integrity and courageโ€‹ -- directly contradicting evaluations from interviewers who met the applicants, and from teachers who've known the applicants for months if not years. If smearing Asians this way isn't โ€‹hate speech,โ€‹ then what is? Call it โ€‹diversity, equity and inclusionโ€‹.

For top high schools and grade schools, CRT uses the scheme of โ€‹lotteriesโ€‹ to lower admission standards. Just lowering admission cutoffs isn't enough; when cutoffs were lowered, โ€‹too many Asiansโ€‹ still passed the cutoffs and had to be admitted. Lotteries does the trick: with the luck of the draw, lotteries let lower-qualified Blacks skip over better-qualified Asians. Lotteries have been proposed or are used against Americans of Asian descent in Boston, San Francisco, Northern Virginia, and here in New York City, all under the banner of โ€‹Social Justice โ€‹andโ€‹ equityโ€‹.

One way or another, CRT wants to get rid of โ€‹too many Asiansโ€‹ in good schools. Asians are over-represented.โ€‹ CRT is today's Chinese Exclusion Act. CRT is the real โ€‹hate crimeโ€‹ against Asians.


Some of CRT's โ€‹hate speechesโ€‹ against Asians are obvious: โ€‹too many Asiansโ€‹ and โ€‹Stuyvesant doesn't look like the Cityโ€‹ need no explanation. They can also be subtle. For example: โ€‹Stuyvesant is not diverse.โ€‹ Since when is it not diverse for a school to have dozens of languages spoken at home, all major world faiths practiced, most cultural experiences inherited, from ancient civilization-building to rise and fall of empires, to slavery, colonization, revolution, and diaspora? Even if CRT dismisses all this and reduces everything to just โ€‹looksโ€‹ -- do โ€‹all Asians look alikeโ€‹ to them?

Another trend that should concern us is CRT's coming collision with immigrants. Black militancy was always receptive to the view that immigrants steal jobs and resources from Blacks, but the bigger irritant is โ€‹immigrant valuesโ€‹. Arriving with little more than their human capital, immigrants are grateful to be here, work hard and educate their children hard, and believe in the American dream under the Constitutional guarantee of โ€‹equal rightsโ€‹. Most infuriating for CRT is that immigrants, including Blacks from West Africa and the Caribbean, are making real progress. When CRT eventually clashes with immigrants, we will find CRT's racism and hate against us ratcheted up another notch.

We Have to Start Fighting Back!

We need to recognize CRT through its fraudulent packaging, call it out, โ€‹resistโ€‹. Parents need to watch for CRT in schools, talk to each other, and organize, like the Cupertino Chinese parents.

Regardless, parents need to speak with their kids to โ€‹anti-indoctrinateโ€‹ (or โ€‹un-doctrinateโ€‹) them at home. This needs to start early, because CRT indoctrination also starts early. Don't trust schools and teachers blindly.

On the political front, President Trump issued an executive order to ban CRT indoctrination at the Federal level. President Biden rescinded that order upon taking office, so our best hopes now rest with the states, several of which have proposals to ban CRT indoctrination. New York legislators don't lean that way, so we must โ€‹voteโ€‹ to elect state legislators who represent our views on CRT!

On the legal front, several CRT lawsuits have been filed, relating to freedom of speech, compelled speech, and hostile work environment. Parents should keep abreast of these cases and seek counsel when appropriate -- the brave people filing these lawsuits are regular folks just like us!

CACAGNYโ€‹ โ€‹็ด็ด„ๅŒๆบๆœƒ
Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York PO Box 130024
New York, New York 10013
www.cacagny.org

Footnotes:
  1. When race โ€‹intersectsโ€‹ with other victimization categories, e.g. gender, raceโ€‹ โ€‹is always primary.
  2. Public โ€‹struggle sessionsโ€‹ in schools and offices are sometimes called โ€‹courageous conversations.โ€‹
  3. This list proves beyond any doubt CRT's shocking bigotry and utter condescension against Blacks.
  4. When cancel culture is paired with โ€‹racial hyper-sensitivityโ€‹, outcomes can be farcical. That's what got a popular business communications professor suspended over the โ€‹Chinese filler ้‚ฃๅ€‹, ้‚ฃๅ€‹.
  5. Black staff weren't invited to anti-racism training because โ€‹it is impossible for Blacks to be racistโ€‹.
  6. Also in Court is Dave Flynn, coach at a Massachusetts school. He was fired after he complained to the school about similar โ€‹Black Lives Matterโ€‹ CRT material in his daughter's 7th grade class.
  7. When the Berkeley, California School District used similar CRT material on older grades, they had to suspend it because anti-White bullying got out of control.