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Tim Coyle

Critical Race Theory on the Rise

A while ago, I introduced you to a movement in the country that asserts if you’re white you are inherently racist. It further says the U.S. has a despicable racial past that needs to be systemically corrected.

It’s called “critical race theory” (CRT) and it’s growing in popularity. As a training exercise, CRT is spreading beyond the halls of academic institutions – where it was hatched – and into the regular regimens of federal government, the corporate world and public schools. Indeed, the teachings of CRT are aimed at revising American history.

The Marx-inspired CRT is dangerous. It proclaims America is inherently and systematically racist. It promotes the idea that it’s shameful to be white-skinned and unless you repudiate your Anglo-centric ethnicity and conform to a prescribed remedy – like reparations – you are racist.

Americans of all stripes are being targeted. If you are a federal worker or corporate employee or a public school teacher chances are you’ve already been subjected to a CRT training session, or it’s on the schedule. And, make no mistake – the CRT instructors are true believers. For example, most enthusiasts think school teachers today are perpetrating a race-based fraud that needs fixing.

Explains University of Texas academician Keffrelyn Brown, “the dominant, (dis)embodied and normalized culture of whiteness, white privilege and white hegemony pervades contemporary teacher education and presents a formidable challenge to the goal of preparing teachers to teach in a manner that is relevant, critical and humanizing while also socially and individually transformative.”

A more recent explanation of CRT sheds a little more light on the subject. A scholar associated with the American Bar Association (ABA) said last month the current initiative recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation and the alleged imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of the nation.

Some think CRT is simply being thrust into public consciousness to shame whites for the death of George Floyd. After all, wasn’t it white supremacy that led to the shooting of Trevon Martin in Florida? Or that of Ferguson’s Michael Brown? And Floyd in Minneapolis? Isn’t CRT just a response to institutionalized racism?

Regardless, the CRT offensive is taking hold. If successful it will indoctrinate the current generation of K-12 students and those that follow. Indeed, the sentiment behind this nationwide campaign to institute CRT in our public cathedrals ultimately wants to make it part of our daily lives. Even officials of the People’s Republic of China are starting to refer to Americans as white supremacists hailing from years of white privilege.

The following are just a few examples that show the CRT campaign is already well underway in this country:

• The Buffalo, NY public schools have adopted a form of CRT and today are carrying out the program.
• Under Armour and Coca Cola corporations have recently announced plans for CRT training.
• As applied, “critical consciousness” – the ability to analyze systems of racial inequality – creates a predicate for overthrowing oppressors.
• Race-based concerns over how to equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccination serums are causing serious delays in several states.
• Pressure is growing on employers to guard against perpetuating “unconscious discrimination” – prejudicial mistreatment of individuals resulting from the subconscious aversion to certain social groups.
• Similarly, in Massachusetts, the ACLU is citing “unconscious discrimination” in defending a Black student in a lawsuit against Smith College.
• Recently, the Cartoon Network issued a public service announcement (PSA) warning viewers not to be racist.

But, re-telling history will be trouble – in the immediate term and in the longer term. The authors of a new, CRT-driven history are sure to get it wrong – particularly in the current emotionally charged environment. Says Christopher Rufo of The Discovery Institute, “It (CRT) states that facts, data and the scientific method are ‘white concepts’. So, if you use facts and data to disprove an argument against a Black person or an oppressed person, you are proving you are racist because, again, facts and data are the result of whiteness.”

The Federalist further worries that by teaching the youth of America CRT it’s telling them “to hate their country and distrust their institutions (which continue to discriminate against Black Americans) and their fellow countrymen.” The Federalist also says that CRT schooling gives students “a warped view of America and completely misrepresents history as a discipline.”

I’m not ashamed to be white. In fact, I’m proud of my heritage. And, my lengthy career in public policy has been punctuated by regular instances of helping people of modest, even inferior means – including women and people of color – to improve themselves and their stake in their individual orbits.

That’s the form racial harmony should take. Not a radical remake of history.

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