For 25% of Virginia voters, Critical Race Theory was the single most important issue to consider when they ultimately elected Republican Glenn Youngkin. In all, 72% of voters said CRT was an important factor when deciding who to vote for. (x) Ask them to explain it however…
Since this well-informed voter can’t explain what it is, I’ll try. Critical Race Theory is an area of study in higher academia (typically law school) that examines how racism has affected the development of US policy.
CRT is an approach to studying U.S. policies and institutions that is most often taught in law schools. Its foundations date back to the 1970s, when law professors including Harvard Law School’s Derrick Bell began exploring how race and racism have shaped American law and society.
The theory rests on the premise that racial bias – intentional or not – is baked into U.S. laws and institutions.
(cont. Reuters)
In short, your 10th grader is not being taught CRT. Your kindergartener can’t even spell critical yet. Even in college, most of us never really come across CRT as part of a curriculum. However, Republicans got together in a room somewhere and decided this would be the next assault on the Left. They have once again successfully harnessed the power of the media, stupidity, and racism to make CRT into a boogeyman that’s going to make little Jimothy run home from elementary school ashamed to be white.
Those of us who have common sense have spent the past few months repeating this line: CRT isn’t being taught in schools! This is a non issue!
(PBS)
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) repeatedly claims critical race theory is being taught in Virginia, despite CNN’s Brianna Keilar assuring him it’s not. pic.twitter.com/bdlO8vsnXp
— The Recount (@therecount) November 8, 2021
(NBC News)
Critical Race Theory is NOT taught in Virginia K-12 schools.
— Leslieoo7 (@Leslieoo7) November 1, 2021
Pass it on, because the race could turn on this lie.
None of this matters when the people being pandered to by the Right don’t know what Critical Race Theory is in the first place. If they cannot define it, but they still “hate” it, then it does not matter if you tell them it’s not taking place in schools. People they trust have told them it’s being taught. People who they do not trust cannot convince them otherwise.
So why are we trying? Republicans have now taken CRT from an obscure corner of academia and made it a generic term for anything about race that makes white people uncomfortable, so we should be forcing those people to stand ten toes down on their racist opinion. Instead of telling them to define CRT with that very Liberal air of “I know you’re stupid and I can’t wait for you to prove it to me so I can laugh with my friends,” tell them CRT is great and your kids should be learning about race in school. If you won’t properly educate your children, then somebody needs to.
Do you know who is actually being taught CRT? And I mean the Republican definition, not the actual academic definition.
Black children. We start learning about race in America as soon as we are made aware that race is being used to categorize us. Last year I wrote down some lessons I had learned as a Black man, and the first was in elementary school:
The first time I realized white people could do things I can’t, I was about 8 or 9 years old. I grew up in the rural South and it wasn’t uncommon for my mom to tell me to run into a store and grab something while the car idled at the entrance. I loved it; I was a big boy. She sent me into K-Mart to buy something (I don’t remember what it was anymore), and on my way out, the theft detection sensor went off. A white woman was leaving at the same time I was, but the greeter stopped me, called a security guard on me, told me to stay put while he waved the white woman on and told her to have a nice day. I wasn’t in the security office for very long before my mom, who sensed I’d been gone too long, rescued me and took me home.
I learned to wait until the doorway is clear before I leave a store, so someone else’s theft doesn’t land me in handcuffs one day.
This is a common age for children of color to start learning about race.
In 2nd grade, a white teacher picked me up by my collar. That same teacher denied me going to the restroom for so long I pissed myself in class.
— Dana White (@ItsDanaWhite) November 4, 2021
In 6th grade, I was called the n-word and jumped by white boys.
I’d say Black kids are learning about race from pretty early in life https://t.co/r6RpoRLY7G
I was in kindergarten when kids pulled up the corners of their eyes and “ching chong”’d me me so let’s be honest – the education began at home and all school can do is try to catch up https://t.co/92LxhnYMc3
— Esther Choo, MD MPH (@choo_ek) November 5, 2021
I was 5 years old when I learned the color of my skin made me a suspect at the supermarket, and my Mom tore into a security guard for profiling me.
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) November 5, 2021
If WE have to learn about racism at an early age, then why can't White kids? https://t.co/xO4ze6OxgE
I think I was in kindergarten when a girl in my class said she couldn’t be my friend because I was Black. Some kids don’t have the luxury of being “too young” to be taught about race https://t.co/OKtfHVxshY
— Jonquilyn Hill (@jonquilynhill) November 5, 2021
well I was six when a white boy handed me a note saying “I don’t like Coreans” so maybe start at the same time as the spelling lessons https://t.co/nguety3FTH
— R.O. Kwon 권오경 (@rokwon) November 5, 2021
Those last two tweets are the reason why white parents don’t want race being taught in school — they are racist and they have been teaching their kids to be racist, whether intentionally or unknowingly. Their reaction to CRT comes from one of two places. Either they believe in white supremacy with their whole chest and have proudly said racist things around their children, or they are afraid to be confronted with their latent racism that they are unprepared to face or admit.
White people who have never addressed their unconscious (or conscious!) bias are the people who believe themselves to be good. Those are the suburban white moms who turned out to vote against Trump last time but flipped to support Youngkin for Governor. They believe themselves to be good people who couldn’t possibly be racist because they have a vague sense that everybody should be equal, but deep down they know they will be forced to confront viewpoints they didn’t know they had. The discomfort means they don’t want their kid in school learning about how the threads of race make cobwebs in every corner of American discourse because they didn’t learn it and they’re not prepared to. They have a nightmare scenario where they don’t recognize Hayleigh and Skylar anymore because one has so much white guilt and the other is so woke they challenge mommy and daddy’s racism at the dinner table.
Their children do not want to be racist.
https://twitter.com/FredTJoseph/status/1458620935305678854And those parents cannot face the fact that their kids want to be better than they are.
There is no way to address race if most of the people in the conversation are unaware of how race affects policy. Children of color are the ones who are forced to learn about race in kindergarten. Waiting for white kids to come to some arbitrary age of majority to learn how to function in society wastes two decades of learning where we could have been having conversations together. All of a sudden they go off to college and are confronted with an array of racial discussions they’ve been unaware of, and we are expected to teach white people for free because their parents were too afraid to let them learn how the world works before patterns and biases started to solidify.
So if a white parent asks me if CRT should be taught in school, I’m saying absolutely. If a white parent says they don’t want their children learning critical race theory, I’m not asking them to define it and I’m not explaining to them it’s not being taught. I’m telling them that I had to learn about race at five. If you are so concerned about your kids being left behind in school, you need to acknowledge the fact that by the time they’re in college, they’re about 15 years behind in racial dynamics. If you want to protect your kids, protect them from being called a racist for spouting misinformation that should’ve been corrected in 7th grade if you were a better parent.
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