Monday, September 16, 2024
Rhode Island beaches were much healthier this summer, at least when compared to last year’s data.
Beach Closures Declined Sharply
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
The number of beach closure days imposed by state health
officials sharply declined this year. According to data from the Rhode Island
Department of Health, beaches around the state were closed for a combined 71
days between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the traditional summer season. Last
year closures reached an all-time high, with DOH officials closing beaches for
a total of 284 days, the highest number since 2006.
Photo by Will Collette
DOH orders beaches closed when they test positive for
elevated levels of enterococci, a kind of gut bacteria that is used by federal
and state health officials as an indicator for fecal waste contamination in
bodies of water. Any beach with water testing higher than the standard of 60
colony-forming units (CFU) per 100 milliliters is automatically closed by DOH
until the tests produce a passing result again.
Overall the bacteria represents a small health risk for
swimmers and bathers. Swimming in contaminated water can cause gastroenteritis,
an inflammation of the stomach and intestines that can cause symptoms such as
vomiting, headaches, and fever. It can also result in ear, eye, and throat
infections, and in more serious cases salmonella.
Trump's hate is no joke
Trump and Vance lie to stir supporters to commit acts of violence
“They” should not be coming after anyone. There is no place
in our democracy for violence, nor for threats of violence.
Which brings me to Trump’s claim in last week’s debate that
Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs … eating the
cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
It quickly became a vast internet joke, fueling thousands of
hilarious memes and songs. But it’s no laughing matter. Trump’s claim has
already provoked threats of violence.
After JD Vance first began spreading baseless rumors about
Haitians in Springfield, members of the neo-Nazi group “Blood Tribe” marched into the city carrying guns,
wearing body armor, and carrying Neo-Nazi flags. At an August 27 town hall meeting, one claimed that the
city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders,” blamed Jews for the
influx, and warned that “crime and savagery will only increase with every
Haitian you allow in.”
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| For Trump, it's all about hate |
Springfield’s Haitian immigrants say they are afraid. Some
have kept their children home from school, fearing
violence. Others have reported harassment on the street, in their cars, and at
stores. A Springfield family whose son died last year when the bus in which he
was riding accidentally collided with a car driven by a Haitian immigrant has
pleaded for Trump and Vance to stop using their deceased son for political
purposes.
Yet Trump and JD Vance are doubling down. Yesterday, before
the attempt on Trump’s life, Vance said on CNN that
the claims about Haitians eating the pets of Springfield residents came from
“firsthand accounts from my constituents.” When interviewer Dana Bash suggested
that the claims had caused bomb threats, Vance called her a “Democratic propagandist.”
But the connection is indisputable.
Rather than offhand comments, Trump’s and Vance’s claims are
calculated. Trump’s last two posts on Truth Social before the debate were AI
images of cats and ducks — one depicting cats in military fatigues carrying
assault rifles and wearing MAGA hats, the other showing the candidate himself
sitting on a plane amid a crowd of ducks and cats.
Trump is now talking about holding a rally in Springfield.
“We’re going to get these people out,” Trump said in a Friday
news conference. Although Springfield’s Haitian immigrants are in the United
States legally, he promised to stage “the largest deportation in the history of
our country” if reelected.
Trump’s and Vance’s claims are completely bogus. Ohio’s
Republican governor, Mike DeWine, told CBS News on
Wednesday that “these Haitians came in here to work because there were jobs,
and they filled a lot of jobs. And if you talk to employers, they’ve done a
very, very good job and they work very, very hard.”
Another of Trump’s bogus claims is now threatening legal
immigrants in Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb that Trump has repeatedly
asserted is being “taken over” by Venezuelan criminals. “Simply not true,”
Aurora’s Republican mayor and city council member wrote in a joint statement.
As in Springfield, Trump’s baseless claims are harming
innocent people in Aurora. Immigrants there say they have
been told their nationality makes them ineligible for jobs or housing. Trump’s
claims have led to threats and drawn armed groups to the city, claiming to
offer vigilante-style protection.
Trump and Vance are using the oldest of tyrannical ploys —
fueling deep-seated fears by creating an “other” — depicted as subhuman — who
“take over” towns and “devour” loved ones.
In Springfield, the loved ones are peoples’ pets. But how
far is this bogus claim from vicious Nazi claims of Jews devouring children?
Substitute “Jew” for “Haitian” in Springfield or for “Venezuelan” in Aurora,
and you’re back to the Nazis of the 1930s.
In demonizing and dehumanizing migrants, Trump and Vance are
not just seeking to win over a few wavering voters across the nation or making
a play for control of the Senate. They are trying to scare America into
becoming a more fearsome, more racist nation.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said of immigrants at a rally in New
Hampshire eight months ago, virtually quoting Adolf Hitler (who wrote in Mein
Kampf that “All great cultures of the past perished only because the
originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”)
In a last-ditch effort to prevail in their campaign, Trump
and Vance are encouraging the haters. On September 10, Vance told his
followers to “keep the cat memes flowing,” notwithstanding that they were
endangering people in his own state.
Meanwhile, members of Trump’s social media war room —
including Trump confidante Laura Loomer (known for sexist, homophobic,
transphobic, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic posts) — are busily spreading
AI-generated images of dogs and cats being protected by Trump, along with other
content promoting the claim that the pets were being eaten by Haitians.
Let me repeat: There no justification whatsoever for
violence or threats of violence in our democracy. While utterly despicable,
yesterday’s second apparent assassination attempt on Trump can be seen as a
symptom of the hate-filled politics he and Vance are peddling.
This must stop.
Children are increasingly putting in excessive hours and working in dangerous conditions
The Companies Behind the Surge in Illegal Child Labor
Good Jobs First
Read the report.
These include companies controlled by private equity firms, which in this analysis are treated as the parents of their majority-owned portfolio companies. We also associate franchises with their national company names no matter how the national company is owned.
Topping the list is the private equity firm Roark Capital.
Fast-food businesses such as Subway, Dunkin’, Auntie Anne’s and Sonic which are
owned or franchised by Roark portfolio companies, accounted for more than $1.7
million in penalties between 2017, when the current surge in child labor
violations began, and 2023, the most recent year for which complete data is
available.
Roark’s properties received more than 2,000 separate violations during those seven years.
In second place is the McDonald’s chain, whose operations together accounted for slightly less than the Roark penalty dollar total but a higher number of individual violations. Every McDonald’s violation was found at a franchised location.
Blackstone comes in third in total penalties because one of its portfolio companies, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), has been penalized $1.5 million for employing scores of children as young as 13 to perform dangerous cleaning work at meat processing plants in eight states.
Other major companies whose properties have been disciplined most often for child labor misconduct include Berkshire Hathaway (owner of Dairy Queen), and Restaurant Brands International (owner of Burger King and Popeyes).
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Why Men Need To Rethink Their Budding Bromance With the GOP
Democrats Face Growing Gender Divide as Men Shift Toward Trump and GOP
By Max Taves
Poll after poll keeps reaching the same conclusion: Women
are moving left; men, right into Donald Trump’s arms.
“This is the most gendered election America has seen — and
the split has only deepened with Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic
ticket instead of Joe Biden,” Axios recently reported.
While Vice President Harris had the support of 56% of women
in a head-to-head race against Trump in a mid-August CBS News poll of registered voters, only 45% of
men said they’d support her. Trump led by nine points among men in that poll.
In battleground states, the partisan gender divide was wide
four years ago. Now, it’s wider.
On election day 2020, Trump had a 6-point advantage against
Biden among men in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada, per New York
Times/Sienna College data. By mid-August 2024, Trump had a
15-point advantage over Harris among men in those same states, according to a
Times/Sienna survey of likely voters.
R.I. Chooses SouthCoast Wind to Build 200-MW Offshore Wind Facility
Bid award is part of coordinated procurement effort with Massachusetts
By Mary Lhowe / ecoRI News contributor
Rhode Island selected 200 megawatts (MW) from the SouthCoast Wind project,
by developer Ocean
Winds, a 50-50 joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE. Construction
on the project is expected to start in 2025 and to deliver power by 2030.
Massachusetts selected 2,678 MW of power from three
projects. They will include 1,087 MW from SouthCoast Wind; 791 MW from New England Wind 1 (formerly
called Park City Wind), built by the developer Avangrid; and 800 MW
from Vineyard Wind 2, built by the developer Vineyard Offshore.
For comparison, the 65 turbines of Revolution Wind, now
under construction off Rhode Island’s coast, will produce 704 MW to be shared
by Rhode Island and Connecticut, enough to power 350,000 homes.
Through the new procurement, offshore wind will power more
than 125,000 Rhode Island homes and 1.4 million Massachusetts homes, according
to state officials. One megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts. A typical Rhode Island
home uses 500 kilowatt-hours a month.
Some Gulf of Maine seafood has PFAS
Your freshwater fish may not be safe either.
By Claire Sullivan, Rhode Island Current
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Instead of getting fried up, three filets each of haddock, salmon, tuna, and cod, three lobster tails, and some shrimp and scallops were transported by researchers to Dartmouth College in Hanover and frozen at negative 20 degrees Celsius. Then, they were tested for PFAS.
The researchers — spanning institutions across the Northeast — found in a study published this spring that the Gulf of Maine seafood had levels of PFAS that could pose health risks to residents considering how much of the protein is consumed. They observed the highest PFAS concentrations in shrimp and lobster.
The diet staple is just one of many ways that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — the “forever chemicals” better known as PFAS – end up in humans. Almost all Americans have measurable amounts of the synthetic chemicals, of which there are thousands of varieties, in their blood. Even the state’s youngest residents suffer from exposure.
With TV Drug Ads, What You See Is Not Necessarily What You Get
Instead of TV drug ads, cut drug prices
Triumphant music plays as cancer patients go camping, do some gardening, and watch fireworks in ads for Opdivo+Yervoy, a combination of immunotherapies to treat metastatic melanoma and lung cancer. Ads for Skyrizi, a medicine to treat plaque psoriasis and other illnesses, show patients snorkeling and riding bikes — flashing their rash-free elbows. People with Type 2 diabetes dance and sing around their office carrels, tipping their hats to Jardiance. Drugs now come with celebrity endorsements: Wouldn’t you want the migraine treatment endorsed by Lady Gaga, Nurtec ODT?Drug ads are not a new problem, but one that has gotten worse
Drug ads have been ubiquitous on TV since the late 1990s and have spilled onto the internet and social media. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that legally allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. (The European Union was furious when Lady Gaga’s Instagram post promoting the migraine drug was visible on the continent, noting it flagrantly violated its ban on direct-to-consumer advertising.)
Manufacturers have spent more than $1 billion a month on ads in recent years. Last year, three of the top five spenders on TV advertising were drug companies.
Such promotion was banned until 1997, when the FDA reluctantly allowed pharmaceutical ads on TV, so long as they gave an accurate accounting of a medicine’s true benefits and risks, including a list of potential side effects.
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Trump’s tax cuts led to a $20B reduction in charitable giving within a year
Charities took a huge hit from Trump's 2017 tax bill
Daniel Hungerman, University of Notre Dame
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| CC BY-ND |
That helps explain why the U.S. tax code encourages giving by offering some donors a tax break. When those taxpayers give, they get a discount on their tax bill through the charitable deduction.
Overall, this deduction lowers tax revenue by tens of billions of dollars every year. To be sure, since giving is socially valuable, the forgone tax dollars might be worth it.
Many taxpayers stopped taking advantage of this tax break after President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in late 2017.
This law greatly increased the standard deduction. As a result, many people stopped itemizing and started using the standard deduction instead because they could pay less in taxes without itemizing that way.
About 30% of taxpayers itemized their tax returns in 2017, making them free to take advantage of the charitable deduction, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But since 2018, only about 10% have been itemizing.
For the 30 million taxpayers who stopped itemizing, the charitable deduction disappeared. They lost an incentive to support many of their favorite causes.
I am an economist who studies charitable activities and public policy. Working with two colleagues, Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm and Xiao Han, I co-authored a study looking at what happened to charitable giving after the Trump-era tax reforms were enacted.
Still smoking and want to quit?
Scientists Say These 3 Methods Work Best
By University of Massachusetts Amherst
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- Varenicline
– This prescription medication is marketed under brand names such as
Chantix and Champix.
- Cytisine
– Derived from plants, this compound is accessible over the counter as
Cravv® in Canada and across Central and Eastern Europe, and by
prescription in the UK, though it remains less common in the U.S.
- Nicotine
e-cigarettes.
The review, published September 4 in the journal Addiction,
was conducted by the non-profit Cochrane
Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) and led by senior author Jamie
Hartmann-Boyce, assistant professor of health policy and management in the
UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, and lead author
Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, a University of Oxford researcher in
England.
Worldwide, smoking is the leading cause of preventable
disease and death, resulting in more than seven million deaths per year.
More research shows your genetics determine whether coffee is healthy for you
Coffee drinking is a heritable habit, and one that carries a certain amount of genetic baggage.
By University of California - San Diego
She is one of an international
group of researchers who compared coffee consumption characteristics from a
23andMe database with an even larger set of records in the United Kingdom. She
is the corresponding author of a study recently published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Hayley H. A. Thorpe, Ph.D., is the lead author on the paper.
Thorpe, of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Schulich School of
Medicine and Dentistry at Western University in Ontario, explained that the
team collected genetic data as well as self-reported coffee-consumption numbers
to assemble a genome-wide association study (GWAS). The idea was to make
connections between the genes that were known to be associated with coffee
consumption and the traits or conditions related to health.
“We used this data to identify regions on the genome
associated with whether somebody is more or less likely to consume coffee,”
Thorpe explained. “And then identify the genes and biology that could underlie
coffee intake.”
These Household Brands Want to Redefine What Counts as “Recyclable”
Looking for a license to lie
By Lisa Song for ProPublica
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The film that acts as a lid on Dole Sunshine fruit bowls, the rings securing jars of McCormick dried herbs, the straws attached to Juicy Juice boxes, the bags that hold Cheez-Its and Cheerios — they’re all destined for the dumpster.
Now a trade group representing those brands and hundreds more is pressuring regulators to make plastic appear more environmentally friendly, a proposal experts say could worsen a crisis that is flooding the planet and our bodies with the toxic material.
The Consumer Brands Association believes companies should be able to stamp “recyclable” on products that are technically “capable” of being recycled, even if they’re all but guaranteed to end up in a landfill. As ProPublica previously reported, the group argued for a looser definition of “recyclable” in written comments to the Federal Trade Commission as the agency revises the Green Guides — guidelines for advertising products with sustainable attributes.
The association’s board of directors includes officials from some of the world’s richest companies, such as PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Land O’Lakes, Keurig Dr Pepper, Hormel Foods Corporation, Molson Coors Beverage Company, Campbell Soup, Kellanova, Mondelez International, Conagra Brands, J.M. Smucker and Clorox.
Some of the companies own brands that project health, wellness and sustainability. That includes General Mills, owner of Annie’s macaroni and cheese; The Honest Co., whose soaps and baby wipes line the shelves at Whole Foods; and Colgate-Palmolive, which owns the natural deodorant Tom’s of Maine.
ProPublica contacted the 51 companies on the association’s board of directors to ask if they agreed with the trade group’s definition of “recyclable.” Most did not respond. None said they disagreed with the definition. Nine companies referred ProPublica back to the association.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Westerly continues to struggle with policies for transgender students
Westerly School Committee moving forward with plan to edit district's transgender student policy
The Westerly School Committee is finally
making good on its promise [threat?] to rewrite the Rhode Island
Department of Education (RIDE)’s Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Transitioning Student
policy, weakening many of its key protections for trans
students. In March, the Committee voted unanimously to develop a local policy on
transgender students, but since then, according to Committee member Diane
Chiaradio Bowdy at the September 4th meeting I cover
below, “What we've done to date … is nothing.”
Robert Chiaradio, anti-LGBT crusader, from
his post to "Legal Insurrection"
The meeting began with some promise, as Superintendent Mark
Garceau presented on a Food Insecurity Program and
the findings in the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan
Haidt. I include that information here because occasionally these
presentations came up during public testimony.
No school committee in the state can seemingly avoid having
anti-trans activist Robert Chiaradio at the podium, and since
Westerly is where Chiaradio lives, his hateful presence is felt more keenly.
His time at the podium was spent with his usual fearmongering, but he did spend
some time talking about his other favorite subject: banning books he doesn’t
approve of from schools and libraries. More interesting was the testimony of
Westerly resident Diane Goldsmith, who spoke between Chiaradio’s
two times at the podium.
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2024-25 URI Theater Department season has a show for everyone
Season features 'Machinal,' 'Peter and the Starcatcher,' 'Backkhai,' and 'Guys and Dolls'
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URI’s Theatre
Department takes dynamic storytelling to the next level with a lineup
of mainstage student performances ranging from a classic Greek tragedy to a
bread-and-butter American musical. The range in themes and tone of each play
offers students an opportunity to challenge themselves and rise to their
strengths.
“Machinal,” “Peter and the Starcatcher,” and “Bakkhai” will
premiere in J Studio in the Fine Arts Center, 150 Upper College Road. “Guys and
Dolls” will be held at the Robert E. Will Theatre to accommodate the
iconic musical’s scale.
The season will begin Oct. 10 with
“Machinal,” directed by URI’s own Rachel Walshe. The 1928 play by American
playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell is inspired by the real-life case of
convicted and executed murderer Ruth Snyder. The play is considered one of the
high points of expressionist theater in the history of the American stage and
offers contemporary students the opportunity to test the waters of avant-garde
theater.
You Can Beat Diabetes
Study Shows Healthy Habits Reduce Risk for All
By University
of Eastern Finland
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Type 2 diabetes is a global problem. According to the International Diabetes Federation, IDF, one in eleven adults worldwide has diabetes, with type 2 diabetes accounting for 90 percent of the cases.
To date, researchers have identified more than 500 genetic variants that predispose individuals to type 2 diabetes, but lifestyle factors, too, affect the risk of developing the disease. Significant lifestyle-related risk factors include overweight, low intake of dietary fiber, high intake of saturated fats, and lack of exercise.
Previous studies have shown that type 2 diabetes can be effectively prevented
by lifestyle changes, but it has not been explored whether the disease can be
prevented even in individuals carrying numerous genetic variants that predispose
them to type 2 diabetes.
State-by-state data boosts bird conservation planning
Detailed numbers can help sound planning
By Pat Leonard, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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| Photo by Will Collette |
A team of data scientists at eBird, the participatory
science platform, has packaged summaries covering every bird species, in every
state, and made
them available online for free. These data summaries will help states
prepare their federally required 2025 updates to State Wildlife Action Plans.
“As we began to work more closely with state agencies and
regional conservation partnerships, we realized that we needed to significantly
increase the accessibility of eBird information for these partners,” said
Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, assistant director of the Cornell Lab’s Center for
Avian Population Studies and the driving force behind development of the
state summaries.
Thursday, September 12, 2024
R.I. wanted 1,200 megawatts of wind power but it’s only buying a fraction of that.
McKee moves slowly on wind
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
Kind of.
The tentative contract announced Friday between Rhode Island, Massachusetts and developers of the SouthCoast Wind project will bring another 200 megawatts of wind-generated electricity to the Ocean State, providing enough electricity to power 125,000 homes if operating at full capacity.
Gov. Dan McKee in a statement lauded the award as a “historic milestone” that advances Rhode Island’s decarbonization goals.
But the tentative agreement represents just 16% of the amount of 1,200-megawatt maximum the state put out to bid.
“It’s certainly not as much as we had hoped for in Rhode Island,” said Amanda Barker, clean energy program coordinator for Green Energy Consumers Alliance.
And not for lack of choice.
The bid administered by Rhode Island Energy, which closed in March, drew four project proposals representing more than three times the total electricity Rhode Island hoped to buy.
URI ranked No. 1 public university in New England
Among best nationally according to the Wall Street Journal
The WSJ/College Pulse 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. ranking
rates the top 500 universities in the country. The University of Rhode Island
was ranked 84th overall—15 spots ahead of the next closest New England public
university, the University of Connecticut, which ranked 99th. Rhode Island and
Connecticut were the only two New England public universities to earn a spot in
the top 100.
By the numbers
URI’s ranking among the nation’s top 500 universities
- No. 1
ranked public university in New England
- No. 12
ranked public flagship university in the U.S.
- No. 35
ranked public university in the U.S.
- No. 84
ranked university overall (of 500) in the U.S.
- One of
only two New England public universities ranked in the top 100
More RI cases of serious mosquito-borne illness
This is the time of year when mosquito bites are most dangerous
--The state's first human case, in 2024, of Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus in a person from Providence County and in their 70s;
--The state's second probable human case of West Nile Virus (WNV), in 2024, in a Newport County resident in their 60s; and
--The state's first probable human case of WNV, in 2024, that was announced on August 16 (in a person in their 60s from Providence County) has been confirmed by testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This is the first case of EEE in Rhode Island since 2019 and
is 11th case in Rhode Island since 1983.
"We are seeing more human cases of mosquito-borne disease in Rhode Island and in bordering communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut," said Director of Health Jerome Larkin, MD.
"This
underscores how important it is that all Rhode Islanders need to continue
protecting themselves from getting mosquito bites. Avoid outdoor activity at
sunrise and sunset because that's when mosquitoes are most active. If you have
to be outside, wear long-sleeved shirts, pants, and bug spray with DEET or another
EPA-approved repellent."
PFAS influence the development and function of the brain
UFZ study uncovers mechanism of action with new test method
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Using a combination of modern molecular biology methods and the zebrafish
model, the researchers revealed the mechanism of action and identified the
genes involved. These genes are also present in humans. The test procedure
developed at the UFZ could be used for the risk assessment of other neurotoxic
chemicals. The study was recently published in Environmental Health
Perspectives.
Because of their special properties - heat resistance, water and grease repellence, and high durability - PFAS are used in many everyday products (e.g. cosmetics, outdoor clothing, and coated cookware). But it is precisely these properties that make them so problematic. "Because some PFAS are chemically stable, they accumulate in the environment and enter our bodies via air, drinking water, and food", says UFZ toxicologist Prof Dr Tamara Tal.
Even with careful consumption, it is nearly impossible to avoid this
group of substances, which has been produced since the 1950s and now includes
thousands of different compounds. "There is a great need for research,
especially when it comes to developing fast, reliable, and cost-effective test
systems for assessing the risks of PFAS exposure", says Tal. So far, the
environmental and health consequences have been difficult to assess.
In their current study, the researchers investigated how PFAS exposure affects brain development. To do this, they used the zebrafish model, which is frequently used in toxicology research. One advantage of this model is that around 70% of the genes found in zebrafish (Danio rerio) are also found in humans. The findings from the zebrafish model can therefore likely be transferred to humans.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Neither white students nor students of color benefit from laws that censor history, critical thinking, and open dialogue in the classroom.
Teach kids the truth and how to analyze it
By Ian Wright
EDITOR'S NOTE: Locally, this has been especially true at Chariho where ignorant MAGAs and white nationalists have tried to make sure children are not taught anything that challenged a conservative - and usually falsified - version of history. - Will Collette
Critical race theory is an academic concept
acknowledging that racism isn’t simply the result of individual prejudice but
is also embedded in our institutions through laws, regulations, and rules.
As school districts have emphasized, it’s a higher education concept rarely taught
in K-12 schools. But cynical activists have used CRT as a catch-all term to
target a broad range of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — and
seemingly any discussion about race and racism in the classroom.
Since January 2021, 44 states have “introduced bills or
taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit
how teachers can discuss racism and sexism,” according to Education Weekly. And as of this writing, UCLA has
identified 807 anti-CRT “bills, resolutions, executive orders,
opinion letters, statements, and other measures” since September 2020.
Critics claim — falsely — that CRT teaches that all
white people are oppressors, while Black people are simply oppressed victims.
Many opponents claim it teaches white students to “hate their own race,” or to
feel guilty about events that happened before they were born.
In reality, CRT gives students of every race the tools to
understand how our institutions treat people of different races unequally — and
how we can make those systems fairer. That’s learning students of every race
would be better off with.
Seats still available for Wood River paddle
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