FORWARD: For this article on Critical Race Theory in the classroom, all quotes within are taken largely from the reporting of Christopher Rufo, with the full articles and corresponding documentation found at https://christopherrufo.com/. Other sources were used, with each source providing documents, video and audio assets supporting their reports.
Here’s what’s on my mind today.
Many of my well-intentioned liberal pals don't think Critical Race Theory is being taught in elementary and secondary schools. But, now, see, that’s an odd stance in view of the recorded fact that CRT is being taught in elementary and secondary schools.
Here’s yer trouble with that. The first is semantical.
The statement is kind of like saying “I don’t believe in divorce.” Do you not believe it exists? Because it does.
But if you’re saying “I don’t believe in divorce for myself,” that’s all well and good, and most importantly, it aligns with reality. Same with the CRT issue: you may not believe in its dangers for yourself, and in fact you might believe it’s a great tool in promoting America along toward to a fully-equal nation.
But you must believe it is being taught. Because it is.
And we can’t talk about it productively until we agree on that.
Instead, my well-meaning, heartfelt friends describe it as a fairly arcane, certainly complex theory taught only in law school — the commonly-voiced defense, word for word, typically offered by left-leaning people who have the best intentions in mind, but perhaps the least information on the topic.
It may be true, as Marc Thiessen writes in the Post, that "grade-school students are not studying academic treatises on critical race theory," but that "does not mean it is not being taught in schools. Most of these students are also not reading Karl Marx, but if they were being instructed by teachers trained in Marxist thought to see everything through the prism of class struggle, they would be learning Marxism. Well, today children are being instructed by teachers trained in CRT to see everything through the prism of race; to believe that the United States is a systemically racist country; and to believe that society is divided into two classes — oppressors and oppressed — and that which you are is determined by the color of your skin. That is critical race theory."
Here’s a look at CRT being taught in the 5th Grade, featuring the pedagogy of an indoctrinated teacher.
Indeed, it’s a hard argument to stand by, when you have this guy openly teaching Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Antifa-style activism to his students.
In Virginia, where CRT is indeed used as a teaching framework, "documents from Virginia's Loudoun County Public Schools show the district paid more than $34,000 for 55 hours of critical race theory coaching last year, featuring slides contrasting 'White Individualism' with 'Color Group Collectivism.'" If this sounds like a valentine to Marx and Mao, you're right. Because that's what it is.
A mother of two "bi-racial" kids expressed the discomfort many parents felt about the distinction between what the school describes as "white" and "colored" behavior. Talk about some noble savage condescension right there.
She said, "The second slide that really bugged me. Under ‘White Individualism,’ there is an emphasis on white individuals that all they do is think about themselves, or the ‘Color Group Collectivism,’ it emphasized that they’re just worried about the other person or how their needs affect others… they’re placing the child in a category."
And she said that as an African American, she did not relate to the traits listed on the "Color Group Collectivism" slide, which eschews independence and "is associated with shared property," as opposed to the "private property" of "White Individualism." Continuing: "My uncle taught me if I have two hands, two feet – you work hard," she said. "That’s always been a trait in my family. You work hard; you get what you want."
Right here in the Portland area, the West Linn-Wilsonville School District at once denied teaching CRT, but refused to ban it -- this breathtaking contradiction spoken aloud, at an open board meeting. Superintendent Kathy Ludwig played hide-the-sausage further by declaring that while they don't teach CRT, it is "a lens that our school board, staff or students may apply when discussing issues around race and racism."
San Diego Unified signal-bleated its commitment to socialist programming by hiring "Bettina Love, a critical race theorist who believes that children learn better from teachers of the same race," for their radical training program. Vaunted expert Love believes "American schools are guilty of the 'spirit murdering of Black children,' and provided the keynote address for district-wide training on how to “challenge the oppressive practices that live within the systems and structures of school organizations.”
Love preached that "whites are directly responsible for the plight of 'dark children.' She argued that “Whiteness reproduces poverty, failing schools, high unemployment, school closings, and trauma for people of color.” She insisted that "white educators must take responsibility” because they created and derive privileges from “white supremacy culture.”
Declaring that "reform will not work," Love argues for “abolitionist teaching,” a pedagogy designed to “remove oppression from its roots."
In Arizona, the Dept. of Education announced that "babies are not 'colorblind' and that parents must instill 'antiracist attitudes and actions' beginning at birth, in order for their children to not 'absorb bias from the world around them.'" This, friends, is language straight out of the CRT Operators Manual. So call it Cotton Candy Day or Kiss a Unicorn Week -- it's still CRT, and it's still being taught in elementary and secondary curriculums all over America. From the cradle forward, ideally, presuming those AZ educators can get their paws on all those dirty racist 10-week olds, and pry them from their mothers' breasts.
Another recommended reading in AZ claims that “all white people are white in the context of a society that continues to disadvantage people of color based on race.” The document teaches schools how to “change what it means to be white” and inculcate an “antiracist white identity.”
Dateline Cupertino, California: An elementary school there "recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their ‘power and privilege.’”
This started, of all places, in a math class. "The teacher asked all students to create an 'identity map,' listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained that the students live in a 'dominant culture' of 'white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],' who, according to the lesson, 'created and maintained' this culture in order 'to hold power and stay in power.'"
As I mentioned above, the teachers teaching these classes have been trained in this shit in their teachers' courses. So they're teaching this shit through their curricula, no matter what it's called. Sure, they may not shout "CRT uber alles!" in the classroom, but every word, every handout, every subject is that shit, taught through that shit's lens.
The same fellow read from This Book Is Antiracist, where students learned that “those with privilege have power over others” and that “folx who do not benefit from their social identities, who are in the subordinate culture, have little to no privilege and power.”
Folx. Just sayin'. Lordy.
An Asian-not-that-it-matters parent echoed and amplified the parent body response to this, saying "They were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old."
Another added that critical race theory was reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. “[It divides society between] the oppressor and the oppressed, and since these identities are inborn characteristics people cannot change, the only way to change it is via violent revolution,” the parent said. “Growing up in China, I had learned it many times. The outcome is the family will be ripped apart; husband hates wife, children hate parents. I think it is already happening here.”
In the heartland, "A middle school in Springfield, Missouri, recently held a diversity training program that forced teachers to locate themselves on an 'oppression matrix' and watch a video of 'George Floyd’s last words.'" A CRT primer, in other words, in case the teachers hadn't had enough of it in their grad school education.
The trainers were Sullivan & Williamson, who, though they sound like a vaudeville team, aren't funny. Forcing participants to watch this silent, nine-minute black-and-white video of Floyd's last words is a common technique in propaganda promulgation, as it is in DEI trainings, which is saying the same thing. "The intention is to overload the senses of the participants and create an 'emotional anchor' that serves to justify subsequent political arguments, even if they’re non sequiturs."
(In much the same way and for the same purpose, Buffalo Public Schools forces kindergarteners to watch a video of dead black children to teach them about “racist police” and to prove the state sanctions violence against children of color.) Yikes.
Just think of it as their version of "Red Asphalt" or "The Last Prom," 18mm films we had to watch in Drivers Ed to make us throw up and drive safely.
When the white trainers were asked by a white teacher who'd been raised by a black stepdad whether the training was Marxist, they were stunned into silence. And then Sullivan replied, "I know that that’s the roots, I’m aware of all that information.”
So let's cut to the chase, shall we? My liberal pals can tell me, their liberal pal, that CRT isn't being taught in elementary and secondary schools if they want. But they'd be demonstrably wrong. So to align with the truth, there are only two responses to CRT curdling in the cradle, in pre-K, in elementary and in secondary school, to say nothing of infesting colleges and universities.
The first is mine: "CRT is an assault on the foundations of classical liberalism and an attack on the mission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was martyred for it. It creates a world of oppressed and oppressor; it shames one group of boys and girls while condescending to another. It is a Trojan Horse for the Marxist overthrow of the American project, and allowing it to metastasize in the Corpus Americanus (TM to Infinity MaryMac) will kill the body and soul of our country. CRT and its master, Critical Theory, have a singular goal, and that is to topple democracy and replace it with socialism, which never, ever, ever ends well. And after they murder me and the poets and intellectuals, they'll come for you, pal."
I believe this father shares my view.
The second is: "Welp, there's no arguing with the facts. CRT is indeed being utilized throughout America on every educational level, and it's on the rise. But I don't care, because I believe in its concepts, and I support its growth, and not only do I not think it's a bad thing? I think it's awesome, and well overdue."
Either response is OK, because both are based on the facts and our reaction to them. But we gotta face those pesky facts here: CRT is taught in school, at all levels, with increasing frequency.
Now, we can talk about CRT’s merits or demerits, but that’s not what this essay is about. This is about establishing an agreed-to reality before we can have a productive conversation about it. Baby steps.
Wrapping up, here's a CRT scorecard of recent accomplishments, taken from https://christopherrufo.com/critical-race-theory-in-education/:
• Seattle Public Schools tells teachers that the education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and that white teachers must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.”
• San Diego Public Schools accuses white teachers of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and tells them “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.” They recommend that the teachers undergo “antiracist therapy.”
• A Cupertino, California, elementary school forces third-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” They separate the eight-year-old children into oppressors and oppressed.
• A middle school in Springfield, Missouri, forces teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” claiming that white heterosexual Protestant males are inherently oppressors and must atone for their “covert white supremacy.”
• A Philadelphia elementary school forces fifth-graders to celebrate “Black communism” and simulate a Black Power rally to “free Angela Davis” from prison. At this school, 87 percent of students will fail to achieve basic literacy by graduation.
• Buffalo Public Schools teaches students that “all white people” perpetuate systemic racism and forces kindergarteners to watch a video of dead black children warning them about “racist police and state-sanctioned violence” who might kill them at any time.
• The Arizona Department of Education created an “equity” toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children become full racists—”strongly biased in favor of whiteness”—by age five.
• The California Department of Education passed an “ethnic studies” curriculum that calls for the “decolonization” of American society and has students chant to the Aztec god of human sacrifice. The solution, according to one author, is “countergenocide.”
• North Carolina’s largest school district launches a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces”—and encourages teachers to subvert families and push the ideology of “antiracism” directly onto students without parental consent.
• Santa Clara County Office of Education denounces the United States as a “parasitic system” based on the “invasion” of “white male settlers” and encourages teachers to “cash in on kids’ inherent empathy” in order to recruit them into political activism.
Bringing it home: I grew up in a family that fought for the civil rights of all. My father put his life on the line for it in Selma. I believe in our ability to promote this country further and further forward, toward a land of fully-shared equality and justice. I believe the way there is via Enlightenment Values, using classical liberalism as our guide, and it is among my dearest wishes; one that guides my interactions daily.
My essay on classical liberalism, by the way, is here:
Conversely, I believe CRT is destructive and divisive, assaults friendships among children, creates classes and actually encourages racism. My friends believe otherwise, and that’s OK.
Because now that we share a common agreement about CRT’s presence in education, we can disagree on its value for, or violence against, our democracy. As a fellow leftie who cherishes the same things my liberal pals do, I welcome that conversation.
TL;dr? I feel ya. Try this instead:
AFTERWARD: All quotes taken from various articles; all articles have supporting materials proving the claims therein, with the majority taken from christopherrufo.com. My thanks for the resources.