Springfield Leftist Mary Flowers Mandating CRT Reading List
Leftists in Springfield are still not done using public schools to preach “woke” beliefs to Illinois school children, thereby driving more families out of Illinois—which is a bad thing for Illinoisans who can’t leave—and driving more families out of government schools—which is a good thing except for those who can’t leave.
Leftist lawmakers are nothing if not tenacious. They are also bigoted propagandists as well. My evidence for those claims is the new-ish bill introduced by State Representative Mary Flowers, a Democrat from Chicago, who seeks to force all Illinois schools to promote racism. The jaw-dropping bill she filed on Jan. 12, 2023, doesn’t propose merely “standards,” or “guidelines,” or even a type of curriculum. Oh no, Flowers is going for the whole enchilada.
If passed, HB1011 https://ilga.gov/legislation/103/HB/10300HB1011.htm will require public school students to read 10,000 pages of critical race theory-infused books between kindergarten and senior year in high school. Flowers tried but failed to pass this bill a year ago.
HB 1011 mandates the teaching of specific books on race: twenty non-fiction books and 9 fiction. Every book is written by a leftist. There is not one book on Flowers’ list written by anyone who criticizes or dissents from leftist assumptions on race.
Just as parents across the nation are rising up in opposition to “woke” indoctrination in public schools, Flowers’ is rising up to propose an unprecedented bill that mandates increased indoctrination. Her bill is unprecedented in that lawmakers rarely, if ever, mandate the teaching of specific texts.
Flowers’ reading list bill states the following:
Amends the School Code. Sets forth a list of nonfiction, fiction, and children’s books about racism that shall [must] be required reading for students in every public elementary and secondary school beginning with the 2023-2024 school year. Requires that the instruction in the material presented by each book be age appropriate and taught at the appropriate grade level. Effective immediately.
Leftists become apoplectic when conservative lawmakers propose a bill that prohibits teaching material that advances controversial theories. Imagine how leftists would respond if conservative lawmakers proposed a bill that required the teaching of thirty specific books in public schools--starting in kindergarten—that espouse conservative views and conservative views only on critical race theory (CRT).
Remember, Flowers’ bill would add to the list of laws that require indoctrination of minors with leftist views on race, “gender,” and sexuality, views that are transforming government schools into woke re-education camps and children into leftists.
Here are some of the authors and texts on Flowers’ list of only leftist authors and texts (so much for the “diversity” and “inclusion” parts of DEI) Let’s call this veritable who’s who of racist CRT writers who self-identify as “anti-racists” the “How to Be an Anti-White Racist” list:
• Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers)
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People by Ben Crump (opportunist extraordinaire in the mold of Al Sharpton and “Rev.” Jesse Jackson)
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacquelyn Woodson (black and a lesbian, so a two-fer for intersectional identitarians)
• Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey (self-described “queer, antiracist-committed … white lesbian/dyke” and Drake University religion professor)
• Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt
• Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (How about requiring Illinois students to read something from the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald on mass incarceration.)
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (identifies as a “a black, queer woman who has often found herself demonized at the convenience of white America)
• They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery:
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote this about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, which Flowers wants to force all public school students to read:
In a monstrous passage about 9/11, he writes of the police and firefighters who died trying to save people from getting obliterated into dust: “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.” Really? Firefighters go about shattering the bodies of black people without justification?
Here are just two quotes from the book by racist, pro-“trans,” pro-homosexual feminist Reni Eddo-Lodge titled Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race that Flowers wants to force all Illinois schools to teach:
1.) “[R]acism is a white problem. It reveals the anxieties, hypocrisies and double standards of whiteness. It is a problem in the psyche of whiteness that white people must take responsibility to solve.”
2.) “The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist.”
Let’s not overlook the list of books Flowers’ bill identifies as fiction, which includes Justin Simien’s satirical book Dear White People. One chapter in Dear White People is titled “So You’ve Decided to ‘Go Black’ and Not Come Back,” which has a section on busting the myth of “Giant Penises,”—that is, giant black penises:
Thanks to rap music and the tendency to exoticize people of color, the myth of the giant black d*ck has endured for some time. … the stereotype can lead to a number of awkward postcoital conversations and explanations. Though this stereotype might be helpful in wooing and courtship, there are few things less sexy than a man having to explain why his d*ck isn’t as big as his lover had hoped it would be. The truth is the average d*ck length and width is the same for men regardless of ethnic background. In spite of the sometimes helpful wide-angle lens on the iPhone used in d*ckpic-ing, most guys are packing between five and seven inches."
Flowers also wants to force Illinois schools to teach bisexual Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple, which includes lesbian sex and many references to various characters “f*cking.”
And here’s an excerpt from the novel An American Marriage by Tayari Jones that Flowers wants to force Illinois schools to teach:
Looking down at her outline in the dark, I felt myself wanting to explain again. But I could never tell her that I didn’t want to f*ck her like a man who just got out of jail. I wanted to do it like a man who was home visiting his family. I wanted to do it like a local boy made good. I wanted to f*ck like I had money still, like I had a nice office, Italian shoes, and a steel watch. How can you explain to a woman that you want to f*ck her like a human being?
The married black man in this scene has just been released from spending five years in prison for the crime of raping a white woman—a crime he did not commit. The woman with whom he has sex is a friend—not his wife.
Who decided graphic lesbian sex was “age-appropriate” for any minor children? What criteria were used to make that determination? And who specifically created the criteria? Who will decide which grade level is appropriate for graphic lesbian sex, language about “f*cking” friends, or about the myth of giant black penises?
As noted, some of the books Flowers is trying to mandate include profane and obscene language and images that many consider unfit for students of any age. Flowers is attempting to force adults to expose minors to obscenity. Isn’t that? #irony
While Flowers includes a few token colorless authors, she includes no ideological diversity, demonstrating that the only kind of diversity that matters to leftists pertains to skin color, biological sex, and disordered sexual predilections. What doesn’t matter is ideological diversity and intellectual exploration on these controversial topics.
Leftists like Flowers want to teach other people’s children what to think uncritically. Kinda, sorta, maybe sounds more like propaganda than pedagogy.
No one disputes the historical reality of the evil of the slave trade, the institution of slavery, and subsequent Jim Crow laws. Nor does anyone dispute the importance of ensuring that history is taught accurately.
The dispute broadly speaking is over how the history of racism should be taught. Many—including many blacks—believe the way CRT (and BLM and the 1619 Project) addresses slavery in America and the world and its legacy is both imbalanced and inaccurate.
Further, the imbalanced and inaccurate coverage of American history promotes a false picture of an evil and systemically racist America, foments racial division, and robs persons of color of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives.
Flowers’ wildly controversial and politically partisan bill is yet another attempt by leftists to use publicly subsidized schools to indoctrinate Illinois children with divisive leftist views on race derived from critical race theory and foments the very racial division leftists purport to want to end.