Days after taking office in his second term, Donald Trump issued an executive order to withhold federal funds to schools engaged in Critical Race Theory (CRT) training. He cited it as a divisive concept that diverts attention from core academic pursuits; it is not only wrong, but socially destructive.
On cue, the familiar gang of Leftist ideologues went into high gear, claiming that Trump is seeking to curtail educational freedom, promote racism, and roll back decades of teaching progress. As usual with the Left, nothing could be further from the truth and they themselves are guilty of the very offenses of which they accuse others.
A Bogus Concept for Perpetual Apologists
What exactly is CRT? It is a legal and academic framework that concludes racism is systemic in America – embedded in institutions, laws, programs, and policies – and that it is not merely a result of individual prejudice. In short, CRT contends that America is an irreparably racist nation.
Has CRT dried up and blown away? Unfortunately, it has not. As with all inane leftist viewpoints, it lingers on and, in some cases, goes underground. Concurrently, the fakestream press works overtime to spread lies and keep dividing us.
In California – surprise, surprise – at all levels of schooling, many tenets of CRT are still being taught. Nationwide, particularly in urban areas, elements of CRT are currently being presented in the classroom of grades K-12. As of late, 16 states have passed legislation restricting the teaching of CRT and 19 states are considering doing the same. Even if all 19 states proceed accordingly, that leaves 15 defiant states.
The roster of states where CRT legislation has been vetoed, overturned, or stalled reads like the “who's who” of blue states in the union; among them are Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Combating the Nonsense
Suppose you attend a gathering or are having an email exchange with someone, and CRT is mentioned. You grapple with an effective retort about the legitimacy of CRT, which, among other tenets, contends that if you’re Caucasian, by virtue of your skin color, you are an irredeemable racist, and that every aspect of our “evil” American society oppresses minorities.
Faced with bogus accusations, here is an array of retorts to present to CRT advocates:
- Slavery has existed on every continent throughout human history including ancient Egypt, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Greece, Rome, other parts of the Roman Empire, and the Islamic Caliphate. As well, the Turks, Mongols, Persians, Chinese, Huns, Goths, and countless other societies held slaves.
- African slaves, shipped to America, were rounded up and sold by other Africans. African Americans, in some instances, owned African slaves.
- The Pilgrims and the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution. Nine of the original 13 colonies -- VT, NH, MA, CT, NY, PA, NY, DE, and MD – eschewed slavery and eventually outlawed it. VA, NC, SC, and GA did not. All men (people) are created equal; all cultures and subcultures are not. The U.S. slave states were sordid cultures.
- Legions of Northerners were abolitionists. Some gave their lives for the cause. In all, at least 360,000 white Union Soldiers died in the Civil War.
- The U.S., Denmark, and Great Britain led the world in stopping the African slave trade.
- Since 1965, the U.S. has paid $21 trillion either directly to African Americans or for countless programs designed to help them achieve parity and overcome any residual effects of Jim Crow and discrimination. This sum equals at lest $13,000 per Black person alive in each of the years from 1965 to the present, summing to more than $500,000 to any individual alive for more than 40 years during this stretch.
- Barack Obama was elected president twice, which is not possible based on CRT doctrine.
Their Response: Wait for It
Ask a CRT advocate to presume that every single one of the 50.3 million black people in the U.S. is this or that (fill in your own character trait). How racist would that be? Well, CRT does the same thing to whites, resorting to grand-scale stereotyping disguised as high-minded scholarship.
Grand-scale stereotyping is not high-minded, and it is not scholarship. Frankly, CRT is a toxic ideology that invariably breeds hostility and keeps people apart. Paradoxically, for CRT proponents, countless surveys show that the U.S. is among the least racist nations on earth. Every other country has deep divisions and unspoken hostilities, even Scandinavian countries.
What does this all lead to? When supposed scholars have never looked intently beyond our borders, they derive questionable theories and skewed interpretations. Welcome to CRT!