时代周刊:一所特许学校的种族争议（3）（在线收听）

The Teaching of race in American schools has become a front-burner political issue.

美国学校的种族教育已经成为一个迫在眉睫的政治问题。

New laws regulating curricula have passed from coast to coast, and education was a dominant topic in Virginia's recent gubernatorial election,

全美各地都通过了规范课程的新法律，教育成为最近弗吉尼亚州州长选举中的一个主要话题。

which saw Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin ride a critique of state policy to an upset.

在选举中，共和党候选人格伦·杨金(Glenn Youngkin)对该州政策的批判引发了不安。

Yet the debate has generated more heat than light, with conservatives charging that students are being brain washed with "critical race theory” while liberals insist they merely want the teaching of history to better reflect the country's complicated past.

然而，这场辩论徒有热度，却没有带来什么希望，保守派指责学生被“批判性种族理论”洗脑，而自由派坚称，他们只是希望历史教学能更好地反映该国复杂的过去。

The Mystic Valley controversy helps illustrate that both arguments are misleading, or at least incomplete.

神秘谷的争议有助于说明这两种观点都具有误导性，或者至少是不完整的。

What's really at issue is not the past but the future: how the next generation of Americans are taught to regard their own identities in relation to society and their peers.

真正有争议的不是过去，而是未来：教育下一代美国人如何在社会和同龄人中看待自己的身份。

In Virginia, political attention focused on a white mother upset that her high schooler was assigned Toni Morrison and a sexual-assault case apparently unrelated to bathroom- gender policies.

在弗吉尼亚州，政治关注的焦点集中在一位白人母亲身上，她上高中的孩子被安排的任务涉及托尼·莫里森(Toni Morrison)的小说和一起显然与厕所性别政策无关的性侵案，这让她感到不安。

But parents in the state have also protested the reorienting of the state's social-studies curriculum to focus on "antiracism”;

但是该州的家长们也反对该州将社会研究课程的重点调整为“反种族主义”;

an attempt to eliminate advanced math classes in the name of equity; new "social emotional learning” standards that ask children to contemplate their racial and gender identity beginning in elementary school;

反对试图以公平的名义取消高等数学课; 反对要求孩子们从小学开始思考他们的种族和性别认同的新“社会情绪学习”标准;

and the elimination of admissions testing at Thomas Jefferson, an Alexandria high school ranked No. 1 in the nation.

反对取消托马斯·杰斐逊高中的入学考试，这所亚历山大高中在全国排名第一。

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, Boston's prestigious public "exam schools” have sought to eliminate admissions tests as discriminatory,

在马萨诸塞州的其他地方，波士顿著名的公立“考试学校”试图取消招生考试，认为这是一种歧视

a move also under way in liberal cities like New York and San Francisco.

，纽约和旧金山等自由城市也在实施这一举措。

These are potentially seismic shifts to the public educational system. None was put to a public vote.

这可能是公共教育系统的巨大转变。没有一项是由公众投票决定的。

As in Mystic Valley's case, the push for change has as often come from activists and bureaucrats as from parents or politicians.

与神秘谷的案例一样，推动变革的努力往往来自活动家和官僚，也来自父母或政治家。

Whether critical race theory is the source of the changes is a red herring.

批判的种族理论是这些变化的根源，还是一种转移注意力的说法。

"Call it whatever you want, it's just bad ideas,” says Asra Nomani of the anti-CRT group Parents Defending Education.

“随便你怎么说，这都是坏主意，”反CRT组织——“家长捍卫教育”的阿斯拉·诺马尼（Asra Nomani）说。

An Indian American liberal who grew up in West Virginia, Nomani founded a parents' group to protest the changes at Thomas Jefferson, from which her son graduated this year.

作为一名在西弗吉尼亚州长大的印第安裔美国自由主义者，诺马尼成立了一个家长团体，抗议托马斯·杰斐逊大学的改革，她的儿子今年毕业于该大学。

"We're all in agreement as a nation that we have to dismantle the old hierarchy of human value that perpetuated discrimination and racism,” she says.

她说:“作为一个国家，我们所有人都同意，我们必须打破长期存在歧视和种族主义的旧人类价值等级制度。”

"But these ideologues want to replace it with a new hierarchy of human value that's racist, intolerant, shaming and bigoted.

"但这些理论家希望用一种新的人类价值等级取而代之，这种等级制度是种族主义的，不宽容的，羞辱的和偏执的。

What they are doing is messing at the earliest age with a child's sense of self.”

他们所做的是在孩子很小的时候就扰乱他们的自我意识。”

What Mystic Valley's proponents and critics agree on is that its colorblind approach is at the heart of the controversy.

神秘谷的支持者和批评者一致认为，其不分肤色的做法是争议的核心。

"Their view is, we're a melting pot, there are no racial differences, no cultural differences—essentially, as long as you accept white culture, you're fine,” says Greg Bartlett, secretary of the local NAACP branch.

“他们的观点是，我们是一个大熔炉，没有种族差异，没有文化差异——说到底，只要你接受白人文化就没问题，”全国有色人种协进会当地分会秘书格雷格·巴特利特(Greg Bartlett)说。

Students of color may be getting good test scores, but they are not safe, he says.

他说，有色人种学生可能会在考试中取得好成绩，但他们并不安全。“

"In my judgment, the school isn't overtly racist, but it's clear there's a lot of hurt going on.”

在我看来，这所学校并没有公然地进行种族歧视，但很明显，有很多伤害正在发生。”