Mark Ousley, aka "Unwokable” and I sat down to talk about the politics of fighting woke ideas, and warned us not to make blanket assumptions based on political party affiliation. We also talked about how more conservative states may be accidentally promoting very bad ideas because of what he calls the “innately corrupt” system of education we have now.
Using his home state of Oklahoma to illustrate his point, he explained the way lawmakers and other public officials don’t know what they don’t know, and are resistant to changing course even once they find out how things really work. Objective data be-damned, preserving political power is job-one, and the price of taking a bold stand will be too high for them.
At the same time, Mark is careful not to impugn intentions. These otherwise “conservative” politicians are not actively trying to promote the woke ideas, but they are loath to go after the administrative state, which includes DEI Directors and their departments. Conservatives tend to go after teachers, rather than these administrators, but even like-minded, conservative teachers are at their mercy.
Mark’s beef? Politicians appoint the people who appoint these people, and yet refuse to hold them accountable for political reasons. So nothing stands in the way of the funding for these unelected bureaucrats who are responsible for implementing the umbrella policy for all woke curricula: DEI.
This is the second show Mark and I have done together, and I’m grateful to Mark for joining me because he has deep knowledge of both sides of this subject. I encourage you to watch our other show, and to subscribe to his YouTube and Substack, and follow him on Twitter @AcsAgainstCRT
0:00 Introductions
5:00 The innately corrupt system
16:00 Why DEI is the real problem
27:00 “Enforcement” is really what the “E” stands for
43:41 A solution in search of a problem
55:00 Destroying the truth
1:08:00 The rise of the administrative state
1:22:00 The Republicans have a huge hand in this problem
1:36:00 People have forgotten what “conservatism” really is
1:52:51 The system has its own immune system
1:59:00 We have to hold our own accountable, and the devil is in the details
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Performative Political Opposition to Woke Ideology in K12 Schools