Mark Hoppus stressed the importance of paying attention to changes in one’s body and getting them checked out when offering his addition to the viral “How It Started vs. How It’s Going” challenge on social media.
Hoppus, who was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, is currently undergoing chemotherapy to treat the illness.
Taking to his Instagram story, the Blink-182 bassist shared how his cancer battle started by posting a screenshot of a text conversation he had with his doctor on April 20.
The text reads, “Hi Jill. For the past couple of days I’ve had this dull sore lump in my shoulder kind of right where it connects to my neck that could either be fatal lymphoma or a sore muscle.”
Hoppus, 49, also asked, “At what point should I be concerned and have it looked at?”
His doctor encouraged him to set up an appointment for that afternoon.
In the next story, Hoppus showed “How it’s going” by flashing the peace sign while undergoing chemotherapy.
The subsequent story linked to a post from former band mate Tom DeLonge, who announced that Hoppus is “is almost done with his treatment” and in the “last stretch.”
Late July, Hoppus assured fans that his cancer treatment is working and proved it by hopping on the live-streaming site Twitch to play the bass, something he said he hadn’t been able to do since he was diagnosed.
“I still have months of treatment ahead, but it’s the best possible news,” he said at the time.
Reese Witherspoon let fans know that she is doing more than fine now that summer vacation is over.
The Legally Blonde star shared a hilarious life update to her Instagram on Wednesday, where she is fully celebrating the start of the school year.
“When the kids go back to school and you have the house to yourself,” she wrote in the caption, adding in three cartwheeling emojis.
The video, set to Junior Senior‘s “Move Your Feet,” shows Reese dancing barefoot in her kitchen while wearing a mustard yellow sweat shirt and matching pants.
The actress also pours herself a cup of coffee and flashes a grin from different angles before shoving her bare hand inside a recently made funfetti cake. The video ends with her grinning widely as she shoves the huge hunk of cake into her mouth.
The video’s comment section was filled to the brim with crying laughing emojis, with several coming from famous friends like Diane Keaton, Uzo Aduba and fellow Morning Show co-star Karen Pittman.
In addition, fans also celebrated the official start of school by sharing with Reese how they rejoiced when their kids loaded up on the school bus.
The 45-year-old actress is the mom of three children, 21-year-old Ava Phillippe and 17-year-old Deacon Phillippe, as well as Tennessee James, who is eight.
Reese shares Ava and Deacon with ex Ryan Phillippe. She shares Tennessee with husband and producing partner Jim Toth.
Britney Spears is feeling thankful for her boyfriend, Sam Asghari. So much so, that the pop star took to social media to lovingly shout him out.
Sharing a snapshot of the two together on Instagram, Britney, 39, wrote, “Not only has this cute a****** been with me through the hardest years of my life but he happens to be an extremely good cook ! Fast & Furious franchise, don’t miss out on your next star.”
Sam, 27, cheekily responded, “Yes F that a–hole,” followed by the crying laughing emoji.
Britney and Sam began dating in 2016 after meeting on the set of her “Slumber Party” music video. He’s remained by her side since then, which means he’s been there as the pop star deals with her ongoing conservatorship woes.
Most recently, the “Toxic” singer has been under investigation for alleged battery stemming from an altercation with an employee August 16, according to Capt. Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. The employee alleges Britney struck them, though they weren’t injured. Britney’s attorney, Matthew Rosengart, called the allegation “overblown sensational tabloid fodder.”
Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government’s collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
Approximately 95,700 people have been evacuated since the effort began on Aug. 14, the White House said Wednesday, while the Pentagon said the military will keep the evacuation mission going until the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.
President Joe Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House last week, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden has also addressed the nation several times since.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 26, 10:05 am
Biden briefed on explosion outside airport in Kabul
A U.S. official confirms the explosion was at Abbey Gate — one of the main entrances to the airport — and that they are assessing casualty numbers right now.
A White House official told ABC News that Biden has been briefed on the situation.
The explosion outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul follows the U.S. Embassy in Kabul warning Americans on Wednesday night to leave the airport gates immediately due to a credible security threat.
Aug 26, 9:50 am
Explosion outside airport in Kabul: Pentagon
“We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can,” the tweet read.
U.S. officials had been warning of a credible security threat to the airport for several days.
Aug 26, 8:12 am
US, allies evacuate 13,400 people from Kabul in past 24 hours
The United States has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of some 95,700 people from Kabul since Aug. 14 when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital, according to a White House official.
In a 24-hour period from Wednesday to Thursday, 17 U.S. military flights carried approximately 5,100 evacuees out of Kabul. Another 8,300 people were evacuated via 74 coalition aircraft. Since the end of July, approximately 101,300 people have been relocated from Kabul via U.S. military and coalition flights, the White House official said.
Aug 26, 6:31 am
‘Very credible reporting of an imminent attack” at Kabul airport, UK minister warns
U.K. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey warned Thursday morning that there was “very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack” at the main international airport in Kabul, possibly within hours.
“There is now very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack and hence why the Foreign Office advice was changed last night,” Heappey said in interviews with BBC News. “The credibility of the reporting has now reached the stage where we believe that there is a very imminent, highly lethal attack possible within Kabul.”
As thousands race to evacuate Taliban-ruled Afghanistan before the Aug. 31 deadline for the United States to totally withdraw its troops, Heappey acknowledged that people are “desperate” and “there is an appetite by many in the queue to take their chances, but the reporting of this threat is very credible indeed and there is a real imminence to it.”
“There is every chance that as further reporting comes in, we may be able to change the advice again and process people anew but there’s no guarantee of that,” he added.
When asked in an interview with Sky News whether an attack could occur in the next few hours, Heappey replied: “Yes.”
The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office released new guidance on Wednesday night telling people not to travel to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
“There is an ongoing and high threat of terrorist attack,” the office said. “If you are in the area of the airport, move away to a safe location and await further advice.”
Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security alert warning of “security threats outside the gates of Kabul Airport” and advising Americans “to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates,” unless they “receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.”
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” the embassy said.
Aug 25, 8:05 pm
US Embassy alert tells people to avoid airport, leave certain gates immediately
The U.S. embassy in Kabul issued another alert, but this one with an urgent warning.
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” it said.
The alert says U.S. citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid the airport gates “unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so” — the same instructions they have given in recent days.
In a statement later Wednesday, a State Department spokesperson said, “As a general rule, we do not speak to intelligence, but this is a dynamic and volatile security situation on the ground. We take seriously the priority we attach to the safety and security of American citizens.”
If life imitates art, then Jennifer Lawrence was way ahead of the curve when she famously took a spill at the 2013 Academy Awards.
On Wednesday, the official poster for the Kristen Stewart-led film Spencer, a movie about the late Princess Diana, was released. While the image depicts Diana weeping into a satin gown, people said it reminded them of JLaw’s infamous tumble.
Both women are wearing white, strapless gowns in the photos and have their backs turned to the camera as their hands cover their face.
Fans were quick to poke fun of the movie poster online, with one person sharing the two stills side-by-side, and writing, “Can’t believe they’re making a movie about Jennifer Lawrence falling at the Oscars.” Others joked that the Spencer poster is actually a tribute to the Hunger Games star.
A few even suggested that the artistic team behind the Spencer poster is hinting that the movie is Oscar-worthy, as Lawrence famously fell on the stairs as she was about to collect the award for Best Actress, for Silver Linings Playbook.
Pablo Larraín‘s Spencer, which is set in 1991 and chronicles the breakdown of Diana and Prince Charles‘ marriage, is due in theaters November 5.
Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan’s government’s collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America’s 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule.
The U.S. has evacuated approximately 83,000 people since the effort began on Aug. 14, the White House said Wednesday, while the Pentagon said the military will keep the evacuation mission going until the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.
President Joe Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for an exclusive one-on-one interview at the White House last week, the president’s first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden has also addressed the nation several times since.
Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:
Aug 26, 8:12 am
US, allies evacuate 13,400 people from Kabul in past 24 hours
The United States has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of some 95,700 people from Kabul since Aug. 14 when the Taliban closed in on Afghanistan’s capital, according to a White House official.
In a 24-hour period from Wednesday to Thursday, 17 U.S. military flights carried approximately 5,100 evacuees out of Kabul. Another 8,300 people were evacuated via 74 coalition aircraft. Since the end of July, approximately 101,300 people have been relocated from Kabul via U.S. military and coalition flights, the White House official said.
Aug 26, 6:31 am
‘Very credible reporting of an imminent attack” at Kabul airport, UK minister warns
U.K. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey warned Thursday morning that there was “very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack” at the main international airport in Kabul, possibly within hours.
“There is now very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack and hence why the Foreign Office advice was changed last night,” Heappey said in interviews with BBC News. “The credibility of the reporting has now reached the stage where we believe that there is a very imminent, highly lethal attack possible within Kabul.”
As thousands race to evacuate Taliban-ruled Afghanistan before the Aug. 31 deadline for the United States to totally withdraw its troops, Heappey acknowledged that people are “desperate” and “there is an appetite by many in the queue to take their chances, but the reporting of this threat is very credible indeed and there is a real imminence to it.”
“There is every chance that as further reporting comes in, we may be able to change the advice again and process people anew but there’s no guarantee of that,” he added.
When asked in an interview with Sky News whether an attack could occur in the next few hours, Heappey replied: “Yes.”
The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office released new guidance on Wednesday night telling people not to travel to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
“There is an ongoing and high threat of terrorist attack,” the office said. “If you are in the area of the airport, move away to a safe location and await further advice.”
Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a security alert warning of “security threats outside the gates of Kabul Airport” and advising Americans “to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates,” unless they “receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.”
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” the embassy said.
Aug 25, 8:05 pm
US Embassy alert tells people to avoid airport, leave certain gates immediately
The U.S. embassy in Kabul issued another alert, but this one with an urgent warning.
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” it said.
The alert says U.S. citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid the airport gates “unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so” — the same instructions they have given in recent days.
In a statement later Wednesday, a State Department spokesperson said, “As a general rule, we do not speak to intelligence, but this is a dynamic and volatile security situation on the ground. We take seriously the priority we attach to the safety and security of American citizens.”
Lil Nas X finally let us know when we’ll be able to hold a physical copy of his long-awaited debut album — and that day is very, very soon.
The “Industry Baby” rapper dropped a feature-length trailer late Wednesday to officially reveal that Montero, the album, will drop September 17.
In addition to the reveal, Lil Nas X also teased a snippet of an upcoming new single, but declined to reveal its name.
The video promo begins with a fake newscast, where the Grammy winner plays a homophobic newscaster who’s covering Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” prison escape and uses the same disparaging language his online haters hurl at him. The blonde, bowl-cut newscaster persona then snatches a fly mid-air with his frog-like tongue.
The video then begins playing Lil Nas X’s untitled new single as it cuts to him speeding down the highway in a vintage Chevrolet Impala convertible, toward the town of Montero.
The montage ends with the “Old Town Road” rapper stopping by an old phone booth and dialing a code, which triggers a rainbow to shoot from the ground — causing him to fall through the hole Alice in Wonderland-style. As he tumbles, he’s eclipsed by an oversized message that reads, “Lil Nas X presents the debut album Montero coming September 17.”
“Creating this album has been therapy for me. i’ve learned to let go of trying to control people’s perception of who i am, what i can do, and where i will be,” the 22-year-old shared on his Twitter. “I’ve realized the only opinion of me that really matters is my own.”
Montero is available to pre-order and pre-save now on Lil Nas X’s official website.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has been briefed on a classified report from his intelligence community probing the origins of COVID-19, White House officials told ABC News.
As the assessment made its way to Biden’s desk, intelligence agencies were working in tandem to prepare an unclassified summary for public consumption, officials said.
The delivery of the assessment met the deadline for Biden’s 90-day deeper dig into the virus’ origins, which was launched when the president directed intelligence agencies in May to “redouble their efforts” after prior efforts failed to yield a definitive conclusion.
But with one deadline met, international scientists tasked with studying the virus’ origins warned Wednesday that another crucial window is “closing fast”: the shrinking opportunity for any thorough scientific study to be completed. As time wears on, potential evidence wanes, and tracing back biologic breadcrumbs will yield diminishing returns, said more than ten of the authors of a World Health Organization-led report that is urging action to “fast-track the follow-up scientific work required” for better answers by the WHO.
Assessing the intelligence and raw data available this spring, it became apparent to Biden and his top officials that a large cache of information had yet to be fully analyzed, officials told ABC News — including potential evidence that could hold clues to the virus that has now claimed more than four million lives worldwide.
Consensus among top officials in the Biden administration has been that the pandemic originated in one of two ways: The virus emerged from human contact with an infected animal, or from a laboratory accident.
But with no “smoking gun” and limited access to raw data, discussion of the science has played out in a haze of circumstantial evidence.
Following Biden’s call for clarity in May, intelligence agencies have spent the last three months poring over an untapped trove of information, and have amassed classified records and communications, genomic fingerprints of the virus, and early signals as to where and when the virus may have flared up first.
Biden’s August deadline marks zero hour for the next phase of a larger international quest: to trace back the virus in order to hold the responsible parties to account, and to understand its inception in order to prevent the next one.
Any emerging answers, however, come amid a roiling geopolitical debate, as COVID-19’s origins have become a contentious wedge issue at home — while abroad, the Chinese government vehemently denies the virus could have come from one of its labs.
“What the U.S. cares about is not facts and truth, but how to consume and malign China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Wednesday ahead of the U.S. report, claiming that China had welcomed collaborative research which “laid the foundation for the next-phase global origins tracing work.”
The Chinese government rejected the World Health Organization’s proposed audits of Wuhan’s labs in July, part of the UN agency’s recommended phase two study — saying they could not accept needless “repetitive research” when “clear conclusions” had already been reached.
But there have been no definitive conclusions as to where COVID-19 came from. The joint WHO-led team presented a range of options in their March report, calling a lab leak “extremely unlikely,” but offering pathways for further investigation. Team members have voiced frustration with the lack of cooperation from the Chinese government — echoed in international criticism that politics had stymied science.
Since then, the WHO has become increasingly receptive to the possibility that the virus resulted from a lab leak. In July, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged that ruling out a lab leak theory was “premature” and recommended audits of the Wuhan labs in further studies. China’s subsequent rebuff left the WHO to proceed without them.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has underscored that the U.S. will continue the “diplomatic spadework” of rallying support for the WHO-led study — while warning that the administration will not accept Beijing’s stonewalling.
“Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where [COVID-19] came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,” Sullivan told Fox News in June.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers urged Biden not to let this month’s deadline hamstring a thorough investigation.
“If the 90-day effort you have announced does not yield conclusions in which the United States has a high degree of confidence, we urge you to direct the intelligence community to continue prioritizing this inquiry until such conclusions are possible,” Sens. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a late July letter to the president.
Asked about the report’s release, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it would take “several days” for an unclassified and collated version to come together, but that agencies were working “expeditiously to prepare that.”
With no definitive proof of the virus’ origin, scientists and policymakers alike have been left to speculate. Some of the first COVID-19 clusters occurred around Wuhan’s wet markets, where exotic wild fare was sold in close quarters, offering ample opportunity for the virus to jump from animals to humans, as in past epidemics.
No direct animal host for COVID-19 has been identified, and if there is one, it could take years to find, experts say. While environmental samples from the Wuhan markets tested positive, animal samples that were tested did not. Transmission earlier on and within the wider community would suggest the market was not the original source of the pandemic, experts say.
In late summer and early autumn of 2019, satellite imagery shared exclusively with ABC showed dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major Wuhan hospitals — suggesting the virus may have been spreading long before the world was alerted. U.S. intelligence officials had already been warning that a contagion was sweeping through the region as far back as late November 2019, changing patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the populations, according to sources briefed on the matter.
Proponents of the lab-leak theory point to gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a controversial study that amplifies a virus’ potency to understand how to neutralize it better. They also point to concerns over biosafety at the WIV’s facilities, where researchers had worked with bat coronavirus samples 96% similar to SARS-CoV-2 — as well as workers at the lab who were hospitalized with “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in November 2019.
Advocates of zoonotic origin, however, emphasize that the 4% discrepancy means a world of genetic difference — and WIV lead researcher Shi Zhengli insists that she tested all her workers for COVID-19 antibodies, and all tests came back negative.
Despite pressure to approach the “high degree of confidence” desired by the public and requested in the lawmakers’ July letter, such certainty remains elusive — something presaged by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in an interview with Yahoo News earlier this summer.
“We’re hoping to find a smoking gun,” Haines said. “It’s challenging to do that.”
(CHESTERFIELD, Mo.) — Dr. Steven Brown is on the front line of the battle against the surge of COVID-19 cases. But for him, the front line is also the home front.
Working overnights, the 66-year-old critical care specialist manages hundreds of intensive care unit patients in hospitals across the Midwest, more than half of them COVID cases, many on ventilators. And he does it from his living room in suburban St. Louis.
Sitting before an array of four large computer screens and two laptops, he compares his work to that of an air traffic controller. He can read charts, scans, X-rays and even look in on patients with the help of sophisticated cameras in the ICUs.
“Each room has its own camera in it and I’m remotely operating it,” he told ABC News.
So despite being distant from his patients, his care is intimate. “I can look in a throat. I can look at how they’re using their muscles of respiration and whether they have disordered breathing. I’m able to do extreme fine-tuning of the ventilator settings for patients.”
And lately, more and more of his cases are COVID patients on ventilators. On his regular 12-hour shifts, he reports that the “amount of disease I am seeing is amplified. While some critical care doctors on a night shift might be managing eight or 10 patients with COVID-19 who are on ventilators for their shift, I’m managing 10 times as many because I’m managing patients in multiple sites.”
Remote care is not new for Brown, who had been working that way alongside colleagues at Mercy Virtual Care Center for more than 12 years. However, age and other factors put him at higher risk for COVID-19. So, when the pandemic struck, he got installed in his home the equipment needed to continue working there and has done so now for more than a year and a half.
“There are a lot of telemedicine physicians and providers and vendors out there,” Bethany Pope, spokesperson for Mercy Virtual, told ABC News. “There are likely very few who are doing critical care medicine from home.”
Working from home, however, does not mean working less. Brown forecasts that the surge in the disease will mean a surge in his already grueling work schedule, from 10 straight days of 7 p.m. to 7 a.m shifts to 12 days in a row or more.
But while the current situation is grim, he thinks a good outcome is still possible, perhaps even a Hollywood ending. “Initially this felt, at the end of 2020, as being like the end of the first original Star Wars movie,” he said. “We’re in the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ right now with the delta variant. And we’re going to have a happy sequel, but there’s a lot of work ahead for us.”
(NEW YORK) — Teachers are gathering in more than 115 cities this weekend to “teach truth” in protest of the anti-race education and anti-critical race theory legislation being proposed across the country.
In Philadelphia, teachers, students and activists are gathering at the home of George Washington to tell the stories of enslaved people who played a role in the creation of the nation. Specifically, they’ll discuss the people that the first U.S. president kept as slaves.
Nine slaves served him at the executive mansion, according to the National Park Service. At the time of his death, Washington enslaved more than 100 people.
In Kansas City, Missouri, demonstrators will march from Lincoln College Preparatory Academy — one of the first schools for Black students — to the Black Archives of Mid-America, a museum that documents the social, economic, political and cultural history of Black Americans.
These lessons, among others, may soon be banned from being taught in classrooms.
“It’s really important as educators that we don’t allow these bills to put us on the defensive, and instead we use the opportunity to take these actions to highlight the racist path of our country, of our states, of our cities, that needs to be reckoned with,” said Adam Sanchez, a history teacher in Philadelphia.
Lawmakers in at least 27 states have introduced or implemented legislation that would require teachers to remove certain lessons about the role of racism, sexism and oppression in U.S. history.
Many of the bills, which have almost identical texts, state that teachers are banned from teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”
It also bars teachers from discussing whether “a meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist, or designed by a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex.” Classroom discussions are also barred from touching on whether “the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”
The Days of Action, from Aug. 27 to 29, is part of the Teach Truth pledge, which has been signed by more than 6,600 teachers nationwide. “We, the undersigned educators, refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events,” the pledge reads.
The Day of Action and Teach Truth Pledge are hosted by the Zinn Education Project, a collaboration between education advocacy groups Rethinking Schools and Teaching For Change.
“By censoring and restricting what teachers can teach, that is censoring what students learn and it’s going to change the trajectory of our country,” said Nelva Williamson, a history teacher in Houston. “We are not doing harm to students by teaching them the history of this country — the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Some teachers said the vague language in these bills blocks them from teaching history and having truthful conversations with their students about inequality and oppression in America.
“This history and the cultures within the history should never be an option to talk about,” said Rozlyn Grady, a paraeducator in Anchorage, Alaska. “We just want our folks, our teachers to not be afraid to teach what they know to be the truth. … That’s what I want all of our teachers to be able to do without fear of retribution or penalty.”
Critical race theory has been blamed for this recent push by Republican legislators. Critical race theory is the study of American institutions and the way in which laws and policies help perpetuate racism.
It also analyzes white privilege, the idea that white people have advantages since they are not affected by race-based discrimination in the legal system.
This academic discipline, typically used in higher education, has been invoked by legislators pushing these bills that limit lessons on oppression, though the vast majority of the bills don’t mention it in their texts.
Some legislators, like Pennsylvania state Reps. Russ Diamond and Barbara Gleim, who introduced a bill in their state, said the teachings can be hurtful to children.
“The manner in which important concepts such as racial and gender equality are taught in our schools could not be more important in defining the type of society we have,” Diamond and Gleim wrote in a legislative memorandum. “Teaching our children that they are inferior or inherently bad based on immutable characteristics such as race and sex can be extremely damaging to their emotional and mental well-being.”
The outcry over critical race theory has placed a harsh spotlight on teachers. Some have been doxxed by anti-critical race theory protestors online and others fear that they’ll be disciplined for teaching events with racialized histories, according to the teacher advocacy group Zinn Education Project.
But that won’t stop teachers and activists who say the legislation erases history and turns back the clock on racial progress.
“These nostalgic narratives that have become what we call American history are incomplete,” said Cornell Ellis, a former teacher and founder of Brothers Liberating Our Communities, a network for Black educators. “They’re calling it critical race theory but we’re calling this accurate and inclusive history in social studies.”
