The Jefferson Educational Society in Erie, Pennsylvania bills itself as “Erie’s Think Tank for Community Progress.” Founded in 2008 to “promote civic enlightenment . . . through the study, research, and discussion of ideas and events that have influenced the human condition,” it serves as a vehicle to explore solutions to pressing community problems and controversial issues. This is accomplished through hosting the thoughts of a wide variety of “Residential Scholars”—individuals whose expertise and opinions are offered as guidance to the community on a wide array of subjects.
Over the past two years that I've been a member, I’ve found their essays and programs both enriching and informative. When, however, their scholars include erroneous information or fail to cite sources for the data used in their opinions—especially on highly controversial subjects—I’ve expressed my concern to the Society. In response to such concerns, I was informed the Society invites noted experts whose credentials qualify them as ‘experts’ in their subject. The current guidelines of the Society leave it up to the scholars themselves whether or not endnotes or footnotes are to be included in their essays. The Society likewise has taken the position to not allow public comment or corrections to such articles for fear that personal attacks, obscenities, and misinformation would be the inevitable result. That countless newspapers, media outlets, blogs, and other sites do this on a daily basis was not a convincing argument for them to change this policy.
As a result, I’ve occasionally written to the Society that it has a responsibility as a “Think Tank” to remain unbiased if it wishes to live up to its non-partisan mission. Moreover, when scholars offer misinformation or personal opinions on partisan or controversial subjects, the Society should offer its readers information from alternative sources and experts. This is especially the case since there is no way for others to correct or post alternative views on their website.
Recently, I sent both the Society and its guest “Residential Scholar”—Dr. Parris J. Baker—three individual responses to his series of articles related to the subject of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the pernicious effects of “Whiteness.” Links to his original article as well as my own commentary follow.
MEMO to:
Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator cuneo@jeserie.org
Ferki Ferati, President ferati@jeserie.org
Ben Speggen, Vice President speggen@jeserie.org
Re: Parris J. Baker’s “Whiteness Must be at the Center of Discussions on Critical Race Theory” -- April 26, 2022. (available here)
Once again I applaud the JES for bringing to your community of readers such an important topic as contemporary race relations and the impact of Critical Race Theory upon our nation. Once again, however, I find it necessary to pick up my pen to write you about the same two issues that I’ve written to you before—namely, to share what I perceive are significant historical errors of your newest “resident scholar” and the very vital need for the Society to temper such inaccurate views with countering opinions on the same topic. Without balanced reporting on such a controversial issue, such bias only serves to continue to miseducate the public and promulgate greater division and racial discord in our nation. Dr. Parris Baker’s epistle on “Whiteness Must be at the Center of Discussions on Critical Race Theory” is one such example.
After reading that Dr. Baker and I shared the common experience of attending McKinley Elementary School on Erie’s east side and that we both are tied to Gannon University, I found myself heavily disagreeing with his basic academic points.
First, he falsely charges ”It is an undeniable truth that white people were largely responsible for establishing and maintaining the institution of slavery and constructing systems of racism, race, and religion to support its continuance.” Really? Dr. Baker seems to forget the very word “slave” has its origins in the fact that millions of Slavic whites, the majority of them women, were enslaved by non-western brown and black Muslim slave traders on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov during the late middle ages. Non-western Islamic slave traders from the continent of Africa continued to prey upon white Europeans for their slave markets and harems for hundreds of years into the modern era. And while it may be correct to lay some of the blame for the Atlantic Slave trade upon what later became the United States, it may be worthy to note that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were confronted with the reality of Islamic white slavery perpetrated against the citizens of this nation. To dare to assign solitary blame to whites for being even “largely” responsible for creating the institution of slavery is a statement that borders on academic recklessness.
Dr. Baker continues in his biased approach to “whiteness.” Ignoring the fact that all societies practiced slavery and that by the 1850s most northerners in this nation were opposed to the institution, he quotes an Alexander Stephens speech in 1861 as if it represented mainstream American thinking. He conveniently forgets to mention that this mostly white nation--led by white elites--has been the only one in history to wage a war costing 750,000 lives to free an oppressed people of a race other than their own.
Dr. Baker finally draws his attention to the papal Bull of 1455 permitting King Alfonso of Portugal to “invade … and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever” and to enslave and expropriate the property of such infidels. Again, the reader is left to wonder how quoting an obscure Pontiff’s position was in any way different from the views of Chinese Emperors or typical Islamic rulers of the time. That non-European societies had been guilty of the same mentality of Pope Nicholas V for thousands of years and that Saracens, in particular, had subjugated and oppressed two-thirds of the known Christian world before the Crusades is somehow omitted by Dr. Baker. Moreover, as stated earlier, these non-western societies continued to practice the slavery, subjugation, and genocide of ‘others’ well into the twentieth century.
Far from proving that “…white people were largely responsible for establishing the institution of slavery” it would be more “truthful” for Dr. Baker to admit that white people have been virtually alone amongst the races in eradicating the institution of slavery. I’ve looked for years in vain to find the equivalent of the huge anti-slavery campaigns that dominated the United States and European nations in the mid-nineteenth century in non-white cultures. Although Dr. Baker might find one or two singular examples of benevolent rulers from other societies, I doubt he can cite any similar non-western movement dominated by the likes of Wm Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, Garrett Smith, Levi Coffin, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Garrett, Garrett Smith, John Brown and countless other white men and women. When he can cite examples in the last 1,000 years of any racial group sacrificing 750,000 lives to free a people of an entirely different race, I’ll stop thinking that Western civilization and this nation, in particular, are ‘exceptional.’
I look forward to reading Dr. Baker’s more recent essays with the hope his views are not so biased or extreme.
Again, without some better balance on today’s racial and social issues with the likes of Larry Elder, Jason Whitlock, Thomas Sowell, Candice Owens, Jason Riley, Ben Carson, Glenn Lowry, Burgess Owens, Bob Woodson, or John McWorter, etc. etc. the Jefferson Educational Society’s propensity to tell only one side of the civil rights story perpetuates myth and engenders division and resentment. Without an accurate portrayal of the past and without balancing opposing views on such controversial issues, such articles can only lead to more Buffalo’s, more Charleston’s, more Waukesha’s, and more subway shootings like that of Frank James. And what’s worse, the racial animus that leads to such sufferings—much like the false “hands up, don’t shoot” mantra of Black Lives Matter adherents—will largely have been promulgated from erroneous beliefs.
Yours in the hope that through honest dialogue, we all benefit.
Jack Bovee
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MEMO to:
Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator cuneo@jeserie.org
Ferki Ferati, President ferati@jeserie.org
Ben Speggen, Vice President speggen@jeserie.org
I was pleasantly surprised to read in Dr. Baker’s opening paragraph that after a lifetime of “experiencing, studying, and discussing” race that he was tired of it all. What surprised me, even more, was his statement that he was also tired from attempting to dissuade “well-intentioned white folks that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not a threat to America or to white children.” More about that later.
Dr. Baker then proceeds to defend CRT and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as “simple messages” that have somehow been “perceived as pernicious, hostile, or intimidating by some white Americans.” Despite his lifetime of study into matters of race Dr. Baker admits that he finds such fears “wildly confounding and draining.” To illustrate his point, Scholar in Residence Dr. Baker provides his readers with a ridiculous analogy. He equates the attempt to censor the teaching of such controversial doctrines to primary school children as the equivalent of eradicating six letters of the alphabet. “Imagine singing the alphabet song without those letters. Tragic. . . . removing the letter “B” from the alphabet is that the 14,359 words that begin with B will all have to change.” From here he digresses into how the names of popular soap operas and NFL teams (Browns, Bengals, and the Buccaneers) will have to change. “Silly, isn’t it?” he admits. Yet his analogy to equate justifiable opposition to the precepts of BLM and CRT to an assault upon the English alphabet is worse than “silly.” It represents an insult to the millions of Americans who have likewise studied both doctrines and have come to oppose them for the false, divisive, and even racist content they espouse.
Here are just a few problems with each: the riots of 2020 have been called the "Black Lives Matter Riots” and they resulted in dozens of deaths, thousands of police officer injuries, and even the assassinations of police officers. It resulted in the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars damage, countless businesses—many minority-owned—destroyed, and thousands of arrests (but few prosecutions.) The founders of BLM have candidly announced their affinity to Marxist thought and action. The BLM organization opposes the nuclear family and much of western civilization. Its leaders have failed to file proper tax records on the hundreds of millions of dollars they have been given, and they espouse a false narrative—that police prey upon innocent Black males—that has indirectly caused thousands of innocent black lives through the “Ferguson effect.” CRT opposes the concept of a color-blind society envisioned by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan and Dr. Martin Luther King. It condones race-based decisions for almost everything and would return us to the days previous to Brown vs Board. It rejects the idea of equality before the law in favor of race-based equity measures that clearly discriminate against people based upon the color of their skin. (I’m happy to provide footnotes and evidence for each of the charges above.) And yet Dr. Baker remains mystified that some white Americans oppose these doctrines?
Dr. Baker has discovered from his lifetime of study on race relations that “some white Americans feel ill-equipped and genuinely unprepared for conversations regarding America’s appalling race-related histories.” One reason for this is that any white person who objects is immediately called a racist, is often threatened with the loss of a job and livelihood, or is literally threatened with physical harm. [Again, examples of each of these charges are far too numerous for this short rebuttal, but I’d be happy to supply dozens for each should Dr. Baker or your Board wish.]
As with most white males today, I’ll leave it to several Black conservatives to critique the philosophy Dr. Baker so ardently subscribes to. Several times before I’ve strongly suggested the Jefferson Educational Society inject better balance into its readings. I’ve suggested other ‘Think Tanks” from which you can find respectable and thought-provoking alternative authors that could help our community arrive at responsible solutions to some of the current issues plaguing our region and nation. One group I’ll suggest again is FAIR – the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. Another is The Federalist Society. Still more would be the views of the many conservative Black commentators I’ve provided in previous emails. Here a but a few examples that your Board and Dr. Baker might find instructive on the topic of CRT:
-- “Why race-based framings of social issues hurt us all” by Greg Thomas (of FAIR - available
here)
-- “How ‘Social Justice’ Policies are Causing Mass Violence and Injustice in New York City” by Grace Bydalek of the Federalist Society. (available ‘
here’)
-- “Why Violence is An Inevitable Outcome of Critical Race Theory” by J. Allen Cartwright (available ‘
here’ by the Federalist Society
Finally, here is a video of commentator Larry Elder dismantling the ideas of Ibram Kendi, whose book is highly recommended by Dr. Baker. Available ‘
here’ (20:14)
Perhaps Dr. Baker will take up the challenge of responding to Mr. Elder for the benefit of all readers.
Again, while I applaud your many articles designed to educate readers on topics of current importance, I urge that your Board provide a better balance to today's controversial issues. DOING SO WOULD FURTHER EDUCATE YOUR READERS ON ALL SIDES OF THE ISSUE.
Sincerely,
Jack Bovee
Millcreek
_________________________________________________
MEMO to:
Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator cuneo@jeserie.org
Ferki Ferati, President ferati@jeserie.org
Ben Speggen, Vice President speggen@jeserie.org
Once again I feel it necessary to point out the problems associated with the definitions and historical interpretations of Scholar in Residence Dr. Parris J. Baker. In his second of the recent JES series, “Truth in Love,” he examines “How to Understand Doctrine of Discovery, the International law of Colonialism, and [a] Key 1823 Supreme Court Case.” After reading through this particular essay, I hope I’ll be forgiven if I don’t feel it was written in either “truth” or with much “love.”
Like many WOKE intellectuals in today’s marketplace of ideas, he casts a broad brush of faulty generalizations when getting to his main point. That point is, namely, that “white supremacy” has given “birth” to the “intersections of power, pigmentation, and privilege.” While it is perfectly fine to expose the sins of western civilization and America toward non-white cultures in the modern era, his repeated attempts to taint only the West, the United States, and European civilization with crimes against humanity reveals what only can be called deliberate malice.
Dr. Baker begins his essay with an attack upon the classical view of Columbus as once portrayed in a popular poem from a bygone era. This is nothing new. Since the publication of Kirkpatrick Sale’s controversial book, “The Conquest of Paradise” in 1990, Leftists have been dragging the Italian navigator through the mud. (Whether Sale and professor Baker are justified in their assessment of Chris, however, is another matter.) Moreover, there is little argument with Dr. Baker’s assertion that “there is nothing romantic or poetic concerning colonialism.”[1]
Dr. Baker, of course, deliberately chooses to inform his audience only of those examples of colonization from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries that are white and European in origin. Left in this context of history, readers naturally assume that Christianity and ‘whiteness’ are the sole causes of colonialism, racism, and genocide. While it’s perfectly fine for Dr. Baker to place the sins of western civilization during the last several hundred years under his overwhelmingly negative microscope, his refusal to acknowledge that the sins of power, racism, and mistreatment of others run rampant in all cultures and civilizations reveals an inaccurate portrayal of the past and causes one to wonder at his motives. That these same Eurocentric cultures would later forge legal systems and societies that guaranteed individuals from all religions and races the greatest degree of human freedom in the history of the world is somehow never mentioned in this essay.
In this article, Dr. Baker continues to repeat the mantra of today’s Marxist Critical Race Theory. A closer examination of his claim that “the intersections of power, privilege, and pigmentation” were “birthed” in the events associated with European expansion in the 15th century will be instructive. According to Dr. Baker in this essay, “White supremacy, as an ideology, can be traced to the Crusades in Muslim-controlled territories and in the Protestant colonization of Ireland.” Dr. Baker does not explain how the subjugation of white Irishmen by white Englishmen led to the creation of a white supremacist ideology. Nor does Dr. Baker acknowledge that the savage Muslim conquest of two-thirds of Christendom and their subsequent subjugation and enslavement might have been a primary reason for the Crusades. Rather than provide historical context to his outlandish charges, Dr. Baker then proceeds to inform readers it’s clearly “evident” today that “on the way to Auschwitz the road’s path led straight through the heart of the Indies and of North and South America.” What?
During the same time that Dr. Baker is aiming his weapon at the West, he not only ignored the advances of Muslim powers into Christian Europe, but he also ignores the continued enslavement of over one and one-half million white Europeans by white, brown, and black slave traders from North Africa. Nor are the ten tenets of the “Doctrine of Discovery” applied to expansionistic cultures such as the Han Chinese, Shinto Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Barbary Coast States, the Aztec and Mayan empires, or Shaka Zulu. This is a deliberate attempt to weaponize history. For example, if his readers were reminded of the hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices that were perpetrated upon other Native Americans by Mayan and Aztec overlords they might better understand why leading European thinkers indulged the thought that theirs was a ‘superior’ way of life in 1500. In believing this the Europeans would, of course, be no different from countless others in history.
To offer an alternative viewpoint, here are just a few examples of ‘racism,’ ‘subjugation,’ and ‘genocide’ of others within the same period of time that Dr. Baker wishes to remind us of the dangers of “whiteness.”
-- The Mfecane, literally ‘the crushing,’ was caused by the violent expansionistic wars of the Zulu empire in South Africa between 1820 and 1840. It caused an estimated 2 million deaths and displaced less powerful African tribes throughout the southern half of the African continent.
-- The Fulani War (1804-1808) pitted the Fulani people against the Hausa and created the Sokoto Empire in West Central Africa—an Islamic state that became one of the largest states in Africa in the 19th century. Hundreds of thousands were killed and brutalized.
-- During the course of World War I and in the years immediately following that conflict, the Turkish nation engaged in the systematic genocide of their non-Islamic Christian Greek and Armenian peoples who were viewed as lesser than-equal members of the “new Turkey.” Millions were brutalized, raped, starved, and tortured in one of the most massive ethnic and religious cleansings of the last couple hundred years.
-- In 1947 when India and Pakistan both declared their independence from Britain, the ‘religiously’ and ethnically supremacist beliefs of both groups prevented their being able to co-exist in one nation. Before the British, scores of millions of Hindus had been subjugated and oppressed by Muslim overlords who viewed them as less than equal infidels. The separation between the two groups after World War II displaced tens of millions of persons and the deaths of an estimated one to two million persons. While it appears to Dr. Baker that only whites and Westerners can harbor ‘supremacist’ tendencies, it may be important to argue that only through the efforts of whites had these two groups been prevented from committing acts of genocide against one another for two hundred years. Today, murderous acts between the two groups continue to threaten the lives of millions.
-- In the 1972 Burundi Genocide the Tutsi-dominated military and government slew an estimated 150,000 Hutu in order to subjugate them. They were considered vermin despite the common blackness of their skin.
-- In 1967 the Igbos people of Biafra declared independence from the Hausa-Fulani dominated Nigeria resulting in the deaths of between one and two million innocents from genocide and starvation. The International Red Cross estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 innocents starved to death each day during the blockade of basic food and medical supplies to the province. The leader of a Nigerian peace conference delegation said in 1968 that "starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and we have every intention of using it …”[2]
Legal scholar Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and other academics argued that the Biafran war was in fact a genocide, for which no perpetrators have been held accountable. Biafra made a formal complaint of genocide against Igbos to the International Committee on the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide, which concluded that the actions undertaken by the Nigerian government against the Igbo amounted to a genocide. With special reference to the Asaba Massacre, jurist Emma Okocha described the killings as "the first black-on-black genocide".[3]
-- In1994 a Hutu genocide of over 500,000 Tutsi in Rwanda took place with the systemic rape of over 250,000 women.
-- Not the last example, today’s expansionistic Boko Harem’s (literally--“westernization is sacrilege”) Muslim jihad against Nigerian Christians has resulted in the kidnapping, rape, and murder of tens of thousands.
Nowhere does Dr. Baker dare utter the fact that in the last three-quarters century, western governments have—for the most part--rushed aid and used their influence to either end the brutality or ameliorate the suffering of brown and black innocent victims. (The brutal subjugation and genocide of Nigerian Christians by Black Muslims in West Africa is an exception to this pattern.)
Once again, I believe it important to lay out the need for JES to better balance its reporting on current issues.
Sincerely,
Jack Bovee
Millcreek
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