Trending Issues & Discussion

Have you heard of Critical Race Theory? If you haven’t, you will. It’s coming to a high school, college, or workplace diversity training session near you. What do you need to know about it, and what can you do to stop it? FOLLOW PragerU! Facebook: 👉https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: 👉https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: 👉https://instagram.com/prageru/ SUBSCRIBE 👉 https://www.prageru.com/join/ To view the script, sources, quiz, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/what-is-critical-race-theory Join PragerU's text list! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. SHOP! Love PragerU? Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ Script: Have you heard about Critical Race Theory? I'm guessing you probably have. It has already insinuated itself into many institutions and is making rapid progress into others. If it takes hold, it will completely change the very nature of America and the way you live. Critical Race Theory holds that the most important thing about you is your race. The color of your skin. That's who you are. Not your behavior. Not your values. Not your environment. Your race. In Critical Race Theory, if you are a member of a "minoritized" racial group—their term, not mine—you are a victim of a system that is rigged against you, a system that doesn't want you to succeed. On the other hand, if your race is "privileged," you're an exploiter—whether you intend to be or not. Critical Race Theory begins from the assumption that racism occurs in all interactions. To see how this works, consider this thought experiment: Imagine you own a shop, and two customers enter at the same time—one white and one black. Who do you help first? If you help the black person first, Critical Race Theory would say you did so because you don't trust black people to be left alone in your store. That's racist. If you helped the white person first instead, Critical Race Theory would say you did so because you think blacks are second-class citizens. That's racist, too. That's Critical Race Theory. It can find racism in anything, even if it has to read your mind to do it. Critical Race Theory is a uniquely American invention. Brewed up at Harvard Law School in the ‘70s, now part of the academic and media mainstream, it is also uniquely un-American because it rejects the core tenets of the American, classically liberal, Judeo-Christian value system. It turns the bedrock American idea upside down. Here it is in the words of Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, two leading proponents: "Critical Race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral principles of constitutional law." It does this because Critical Race Theory proponents assume racism is present everywhere and always, and they look for it "critically" until they find it. And they always find it. It has to be there because that's how the imperial European powers, and then America, set things up.   Here, as in all dangerous academic theories, there is a kernel of truth. Human beings were not preoccupied with race until the 16th century when Europeans began to explore and then colonize other parts of the world. Drawing distinctions between the races reached its peak in the 19th century with the widespread use of slave labor in North and South America.   No one denies this. But since then, the Western world and, most especially, America has spent a lot of time, money, and blood breaking free of its racist past. It's been a rocky road, for sure, but great progress has been made.  Critical Race Theory says all this progress is a mirage: racism never died—never even faded a little bit. It just hid itself better. Critical Race Theory, therefore, is not a continuation of the Civil Rights Movement. It is, in fact, a repudiation of it. To Critical Race theorists, Martin Luther King was both wrong and naïve. White Americans can never judge blacks by the content of their character. They can only judge them, always unfavorably—consciously or unconsciously, by the color of their skin. Ironically, not since the Aryan obsession in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, or South African Apartheid in the second half of the 20th century, has a social movement been so obsessed with race. Critical Race Theory is, then, in a very real sense, a counter-American Revolution. But that's a positive, not a negative, to those who subscribe to the theory. The American experiment was given a 400-year try-out, and it doesn't work. So let's scrap it. That's what they believe. Is that what you believe? I'm going to guess that most of you don't. For the complete script visit https://www.prageru.com/video/what-is-critical-race-theory

In the mainstream media, women on the left are almost always portrayed as paragons of compassion and virtue. But when it comes to conservative women, it’s a different story. Why is this? Heather Higgins, chairman of Independent Women's Forum and CEO of Independent Women's Voice, explains the reasons behind the double standard.  For more information on Independent Women's Forum visit IWF.org Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h To view the script, sources, quiz, and study guides, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/who-does-the-media-most-want-to-silence VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com Get PragerU bonus content for free! https://www.prageru.com/bonus-content Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! SHOP! Love PragerU? Now you can wear PragerU merchandise! Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9 Script: Who's the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court? My guess is that most Americans would answer: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She’s so famous now that she is often referred to just by her initials—RBG. Elevated to the high court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, the left-leaning Justice Ginsburg was the subject of not one, but two movies in 2018 alone. But she isn’t the first female Supreme Court justice. She’s the second. The first doesn’t have a movie named after her. That’s because Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan. We hear a lot about “the year of the woman,” “the women’s march,” and “the war against women.” But if the major media—the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, CBS and others—were more interested in accuracy than advocacy, it would be that they are promoting “the year of leftist woman” or “the leftist women’s march.” The major media like to pretend that all women think alike and that conservative women are just the exception that proves the rule. But according to a 2018 Pew Research study, about a third of women are Democrats; a little less than a third are Republican; and a little more than a third are independents. So if there are all these conservative women around, how does the media make it seem like they barely exist? They use three strategies. The first is Omission: If you don’t see something, you don’t have to deal with it. Open up a glossy magazine. Every liberal woman is glamorized. Stylishly dressed, beautifully photographed, their personal stories are almost always an inspirational version of Joan of Arc: they have overcome overwhelming obstacles to make the world a more compassionate and tolerant place. Glamour magazine recognized eleven Democrat women among their 2018 Women of the Year. No Republican made the cut. First Lady Michelle Obama was on the cover of Vogue three times. First Lady and former fashion model Melania Trump? So far, not once. Every now and again, the major media will do a story about a female conservative to “balance things out.” But, let’s be honest, it’s not balance—it’s tokenism. The second strategy the media uses to diminish conservative women is Mocking: Making fun of a woman’s appearance discounts what she says. You would think the major media would resist this kind of objectification. But they don’t. Not if the target is a conservative woman. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, and Kellyanne Conway, the first woman to run a winning presidential campaign, are routinely belittled for their hair, their eye makeup, or their weight. Their significant accomplishments, in contrast, are rarely acknowledged. Why? Because the media doesn’t like their boss. And it treats women who work for him as traitors to their sex. The third strategy the media uses to demean conservative women is Labeling: Using stereotypes precludes there being a valid reason for conservative women to hold the positions they do. The major media simply can’t accept that conservatives have serious and important reasons for their beliefs. So they have to come up with answers to explain this seeming anomaly to themselves: these women must be racist or self-hating or just weak-minded. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/who-does-the-media-most-want-to-silence

Brandon Tatum doesn’t forgive you for your white privilege. How can he forgive you for something that doesn’t even exist? So, where did the notion of white privilege come from? Who does it benefit? And who does it hurt? The answers might surprise you. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h To view the script, sources, quiz, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/how-to-end-white-privilege Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ SHOP! Love PragerU? Now you can wear PragerU merchandise! Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9 Script: “Woke” white people, I’d like to ask you a favor:  Please stop asking for forgiveness for your “white privilege.” You’re not fooling anybody. You’re not helping black people—or any other minority. And your public confessions don’t make you look virtuous. They make you look disingenuous, which is a really nice way of saying fake, phony, and fraudulent. For starters, what is “white privilege” anyway? Because you were born with white skin, you have all these advantages that I don’t have?  Like what?  Like, you can get a mortgage loan that I can’t get? Hmm. I got a loan—at a great rate, by the way—and I got the house. Why would a banker not give a loan to someone who met the loan requirements? He doesn’t want to make money? I’ve never heard of such a banker.  Or, how about this: You can enter a store and not be looked upon with suspicion, but I—a black person—cannot. Except...that has never happened to me.  But if I was a young dude with my pants hanging down to my butt, I could understand why a store owner would be concerned. I used to be a cop. Believe me, I understand. If I owned the store, I’d be tracking that kid, too—whether he was black, white, or anything else. Or, what if I had a store that had a history of being shoplifted by young black women, and a young black woman with a bad attitude walked in. Would I be suspicious? Yeah, I would. Who wouldn’t?  I call that common sense, not bigotry.  But there’s another way of looking at this: In many ways, in today’s America, blacks have more privilege than whites. It’s been my experience that whites bend over backwards to give blacks every possible advantage. If two people are equally qualified for a job, the black person will usually get it. Big companies and prestigious universities fall all over one another trying to sign up talented black people.  If you deny this, you are denying reality.  Which is what the person who dreamed up this whole thing did—a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College by the name of Peggy McIntosh. She wrote an article in 1988 about all the “white privilege” she thought she had. She listed 46, including this one: “I can choose…bandages in ‘flesh’ color and have them more or less match my skin.” Wow, that’s some kind of privilege! Soon others took up the cause. Today, these so-called progressives dominate our colleges and universities, imposing this absurd notion of white privilege on their students. That’s too bad. Because it does nothing good for white students. And it does nothing good for black students. But of the two, ironically, the white students get the better of the deal.  Let me explain: To acknowledge your white privilege is supposed to make you feel bad. Only it doesn’t. It makes you feel good because by acknowledging your white privilege, you’re declaring yourself to be enlightened. And as a virtue-bonus, it also makes you a better person than those whites who don’t acknowledge their privilege.  White privilege, which is supposed to make you feel bad, ends up making you feel good. Meanwhile, the real damage is to blacks. What makes whites feel good makes blacks angry. More than 50 years after the start of the Civil Rights movement, the message is: “You’re still oppressed.” How can this not create a victim mentality? And anyone—of any color—who sees himself as a victim gets angry. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/how-to-end-white-privilege

Dan Collins is the proud father of thirteen children. Eight are white and five, adopted, are black. He’s inclined to support the Black Lives Matter movement but would like some questions answered before he commits. FOLLOW us! Facebook: 👉https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: 👉https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: 👉https://instagram.com/prageru/ SUBSCRIBE so you never miss a new video! 👉 https://www.prageru.com/join/ To view the script, sources, quiz, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/a-fathers-questions-for-black-lives-matter Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways, and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. SHOP! Love PragerU? Now you can wear PragerU merchandise! Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ Script: I consider myself to be a typical, “Main Street” American.  One thing that is different about me is that I have a big family—not so common in America these days. I'm the proud father of thirteen children. Eight are white and five, adopted, are black. My family is my greatest joy, and my life is dedicated to their well-being and happiness. I'm struggling right now, because I genuinely don't know how best to support my black children through this tumultuous and painful period in our history. Some say I should get involved with the Black Lives Matter movement, while others say I should avoid it at all costs. To help me figure this out, I have some questions for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Before asking, let me preface my questions with some background. In the summer of 2020, a peaceful BLM demonstration in my hometown of La Mesa, California turned violent as protesters began rioting, looting, and setting fires. The next day, I took my 14-year-old black son downtown to help with the clean-up. As we walked past the charred remains of Chase Bank, I noticed the letters "BLM" graffitied onto a wall amid the rubble. It was unsettling—as if Black Lives Matter was claiming credit for the bank's destruction. I didn't want to believe that.  Just as any parent who has adopted and biological children, I love them all the same. Obviously, I never want to see any of them wrongly accused, mistreated, or targeted because of their skin color. I would happily support any peaceful movement that helps to secure racial justice and equality.  I also recognize the need for law and order. No community can survive, let alone thrive, without that. This is the source of my conflict and confusion: Is it possible for my family to support the Black Lives Matter movement while also supporting the police? I went to your website, looking for answers. But I came away with more questions. You state that your mission is to “…eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes." But you don't explain how you're going to do that. What is your definition of "white supremacy"? Of "local power"? By "state," I assume you mean police. Who are the "vigilantes" you're referring to? And how do you propose to "intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities"? Honestly, I can't tell whether you intend to pursue your mission through peaceful or violent methods. Until recently, your website also declared that you will "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure." Does my family fit that description? Why would you want to disrupt my family structure? That language has been quietly removed. Does that mean that you no longer hold that view? Or was it just the expedient thing to do? I reached out to my local chapter of Black Lives Matter, hoping to speak with someone who could help me sort all this out. I then contacted your regional and national headquarters. I got no response. So I began doing my own research.  That led me to an interview on the internet with one of your founders, Patrisse Cullors. "We are trained Marxists," she said. "We are super-versed on ideological theories." Which theories are those? Is Black Lives Matter a Marxist-inspired organization? Marx advocated for the "forcible overthrow" of our civilization. Is that what BLM wants also? For the complete script visit https://www.prageru.com/video/a-fathers-questions-for-black-lives-matter

In August of 2019, the New York Times published The 1619 Project. Its goal is to redefine the American experiment as rooted not in liberty but in slavery. In this video, Wilfred Reilly, Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University, responds to The 1619 Project’s major claims. FOLLOW us! Facebook: 👉https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: 👉https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: 👉https://instagram.com/prageru/ SUBSCRIBE so you never miss a new video! 👉 https://www.prageru.com/join/ To view the script, sources, quiz, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-the-1619-project Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. SHOP! Love PragerU? Now you can wear PragerU merchandise! Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ Script: Have you heard of The 1619 Project? It was published by the New York Times in August of 2019. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020. Its thesis: The United States was founded in 1619, when the first slave was brought to North America. Wait—that brings up some questions… What happened to 1776? To July 4th? The Declaration of Independence? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison? According to The 1619 Project, the Founding Fathers pushed for all that “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” stuff to protect their slave holdings. Independence from England? That was just a smoke screen. To them, everything that’s wrong with America is tied to her “original sin” of slavery: from segregation to traffic jams (yes—traffic jams!). For The 1619 Project authors, racism is not a part of the American experience; it is the American experience. Is this true? Let’s look at three of the project’s major claims: 1. Preserving slavery was the real cause of the American Revolution. If you asked the Founders why they no longer wanted to be a British colony, they would have given you a long list of reasons: Taxation without representation, conflicts over debts from the French and Indian War, and the Stamp Act would be just a few. Probably most important was the burning desire to be free—to chart their own destiny as a sovereign nation. Protecting slavery? Slavery was not under threat from the British. In fact, Britain didn’t free the slaves in its overseas colonies until 1833—57 years later, after the Declaration of Independence. Yes, the subject of slavery was hotly debated at the Constitutional Convention, but that was after the war was won. 2. Slavery made America rich. Slavery made some Americans rich—true enough. Eli Yale, for example, made a fortune in the slave trade. He donated money and land for the university that is named after him. But the institution of slavery didn’t make America rich. In fact, the slave system badly slowed the economic development of half the country. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, in 1860, just one year before the Civil War began, the South had only one-sixth as many factories as the North. Almost 90% of the country’s skilled, well-paid laborers and professionals were based in the North. Banking, railroads, manufacturing—all were concentrated in the North. The South was an economic backwater. And the cost of abolishing slavery was enormous—not merely in terms of dollars (Lincoln borrowed billions to pay for it), but also in terms of human life: 360,000 Union soldiers died in order to free 4 million slaves. That works out to about one soldier in blue for every ten slaves freed. It’s hard to look at that butcher’s bill and conclude that the nation turned a profit from slavery. And many things have happened since 1865. In the almost 200 years since the Civil War, the population of the country has grown almost 900% and our national GDP has increased 12,000%. Slavery did not make America rich. 3. Racism is an unchangeable part of America. This argument is more philosophical than scholarly, but it undergirds the entire 1619 Project. It’s also pernicious because it suggests that the United States is an inherently racist country that can’t overcome its flaws. Yet that’s exactly what it’s done. Today, America is the most successful multi-racial country in history, the only white majority country to elect a black President—twice. Of course, progress has not always been smooth. There have been terrible setbacks. But to compare American attitudes about race today to America a hundred years ago, let alone to 1619, is absurd. For the complete script visit https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-the-1619-project

Wow. You have to hear what this painfully-woke Disney writer has to say to white women. 🙄 Ben Shapiro lights it up.

Brian Keating is an astrophysicist at a major university. Science is his life. But when he hears someone say to “follow the science,” he gets nervous. Because that’s not how science works. And never has. Follow Brian on social media: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating Buy his book: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA Watch The Book Club: https://www.prageru.com/presenter/brian-keating FOLLOW PragerU! Facebook: 👉https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: 👉https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: 👉https://instagram.com/prageru/ SUBSCRIBE 👉 https://www.prageru.com/join/ To view the script, sources, quiz, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/follow-the-science Join PragerU's text list! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. SHOP! Love PragerU? Visit our store today! https://shop.prageru.com/ Script: I'm an astrophysicist at a major university. Science is my life. But when I hear somebody somberly intone, "science says" or "follow the science," I get very nervous.  Science doesn't belong to any ideology. Science is the never-ending search for new knowledge. That's what science means in Latin, by the way—knowledge. Not wisdom. Not morality. Not social policy. Knowledge. What we do with that knowledge is where wisdom, morality, and social policy enter the picture.  Knowledge, it turns out, isn't so easy to come by. And sometimes what we think we know for certain (the earth sure does look flat when we're standing on it) turns out not to be so certain. Of course, I trust in basic scientific truths—those things for which there is overwhelming evidence like, say, gravity; even that humans play a role in the warming of the planet. But scientists—even the best ones—can get things wrong. The brilliant astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle believed the universe existed in a steady state forever and had no beginning. But his view, once held sacrosanct by all astrophysicists, no longer holds. It's been superseded by the Big Bang theory that the universe had a beginning and is still expanding. In the 20th century, some of the most respected scientists in the world, including Nobel Prize winners, believed in eugenics—the reprehensible idea that the human race could be improved by selective breeding. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the Rockefeller Foundation supported it. By the middle of the century, it had been thoroughly rejected as quackery. No reputable scientist would have anything to do with this idea. So, we all need to get over this notion that just because someone—be it a politician, a bureaucrat, or even a scientist—employs the phrase "science says" means whatever they're saying is right. It might be right. But it might also be wrong. And if it's wrong, it won't necessarily be a bunch of scientists who say it's wrong. It might be one guy.  Ask Einstein. One hundred scientists wrote a book explaining why his theory of relativity was wrong. He quipped, “If I were wrong, then one would've been enough.''   It takes a lot to convince scientists to accept a new theory, especially if that new theory refutes what they have always believed—in some cases, what they've staked their entire careers on. As Richard Feynman, one of the most eminent physicists of the 20th century, famously said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts…" What Feynman is saying is that a good scientist should always maintain a healthy amount of skepticism. Science is, by its nature, provisional. Science would stagnate if we merely accepted proclamations of past authorities.  So how do we do good science? This is not a new question. Since the 17th century, scientists have employed the so-called scientific method to guide their work. It's not a perfect guide by any means, but it's pretty darn good.  The method involves: 1. Formulating a theory. 2. Predicting the evidence that should be found if the theory is true. 3. Collecting data. 4. Analyzing the data. 5. Refining the theory and presenting evidence to other experts.  The philosopher Karl Popper added one more item to this list. Popper said that a subject is scientific if, and only if, it can be falsified. In other words, if your theory can't be tested—if it can't be proven wrong, it's probably not good science.  This is just one reason why we have to be very careful about putting too much faith in "models." They often can't be tested. Models are predictions of the future based on current data. They can easily get things wrong. First of all, the future (in case you hadn't noticed) is very hard to predict. And the further out you go into the future, the less secure the prediction. For the complete script visit https://www.prageru.com/video/follow-the-science

If every high school principal said this, it would change students' lives and would change America. So what exactly should every high school principal say? Dennis Prager explains. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2ylo1Yt Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they're released. http://prageru.com/signup Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/29SgPaX JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2c8vsff Script: If every high school principal gave the following speech, America would be a much better place. To the students and faculty of our high school: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people. I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if you are black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, European, Latin American or Asian, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity this school will recognize is your individual identity—your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will recognize is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans. If you wish to affirm here an ethnic or racial identity—or a national identity other than American —you will have to attend another school. This includes after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on identities such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in our society. Those clubs cultivate narcissism—an unhealthy preoccupation with the self—while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. This school’s clubs will be based on interests and passions—clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnicity, race or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you. Second, I do not care whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America’s citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. Furthermore, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the job market, if you leave this school without excellent English-language skills. We will learn other languages here—it’s deplorable that most Americans only speak English—but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not the right school for you. Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning’s elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. There will be a dress code at this school. And you will address all teachers by their title, not by their first name. They are your teachers, not your pals. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/every-high-school-principal-should-say