This background helps you understand the controversy:
Our nation is suffering from a number of huge problems that need huge solutions. But instead of solving the problems, the right wing and the Republican Party keep promoting fear and hatred and ignorance. They have no practical solutions for the problems, so they want to distract the public and promote cruelty.
Recently the right wing and the Republican Party have become obsessed with denouncing Critical Race Theory. Actually, CRT has existed for decades but was not noticed until right-wingers started publicizing it in grossly false ways.
Law school professors developed Critical Race Theory decades ago in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Students in law schools learn how the law is supposed to work — in theory — but professors recognized that the law works differently in practice. Instead of justice being “blind,” justice actually looked at people’s colors and behaved differently for different races. Many scientifically designed research investigations kept discovering, for example, that black people were more likely to be convicted and more likely to be sentenced harshly than white people even if the crimes were similar. Racial differences in many, many sectors of society — including housing, health care, voting rights, etc. — were proven over and over again.
Clearly something other than “blind justice” was operating. Law school professors developed Critical Race Theory to explain these differences.
But conservatives and Republicans refuse to understand the validity of CRT and have recently been using it to inflame the emotions of white people. It was the major campaign issue in the 2021 election for Virginia’s governor. State legislatures and school boards have been passing deceptive measures based on fears and racism and right-wing pressures.
These articles inform people of the realities:
This article (titled How Not to Talk About Race) explains how some people distort what Critical Race Theory is. The right wing wants to convince America that critical race theory is a sinister program of indoctrination. See this article: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/talk-about-race/
This article examines how some news media misrepresent what Critical Race Theory is: https://fair.org/home/how-not-to-cover-critical-race-theory/
This article says some of the attacks on Critical Race Theory seek to insert fascist politics into education. This article’s second paragraph says: “This is a form of apartheid pedagogy whose purpose is to prevent any form of critical thinking in the schools and to create a formative educational culture that whitewashes history, and makes racism in its institutional and historical forms disappear. It undermines the critical pedagogical conditions that empower students and others to develop the habits of critical thought, informed judgment, and power that enable them to be critical, informed and engaged citizens.” Here is the article: https://truthout.org/audio/attacks-on-critical-race-theory-seek-to-insert-fascist-politics-into-education/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=dfdc6c9c-c23d-4b43-8834-b67c3e177e61
The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund provided this explanation: https://www.naacpldf.org/critical-race-theory-faq/?emci=555dbdf0-0efa-eb11-b563-501ac57b8fa7&emdi=4a6f81c2-27fa-eb11-b563-501ac57b8fa7&ceid=115400
A very savvy non-profit organization that studies and reports on media distortions published this information about how the right wing has distorted the meaning of Critical Race Theory. See their article here: https://fair.org/slider/the-far-rights-manufactured-meaning-of-critical-race-theory/
The same media critiquing organization I cited above also posted this information about how the Wall Street Journal has deceived its readers about Critical Race Theory: https://fair.org/home/the-two-big-lies-of-wsjs-attack-on-critical-race-theory/
I started this blog post by explaining that Critical Race Theory emerged decades ago as a legal concept with academic roots. It is a sensible way to understand race in our nation. The racist right wing perverted it into a gimmick to make white people oppose support for racial justice. Please understand the legal and academic concept of Critical Race Theory. This article explains: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/
An organization that exposes and opposes the right-wing propaganda and activities of the Koch network issued this report: “Koch Funded Moral Panic: Ultra Right Think Tanks and Critical Race Theory,” which analyzes published materials from Koch network think tanks and reveals that the anti-Critical Race Theory movement is a product of a coordinated dark money campaign. The researchers reviewed the published materials of 28 think tanks and political organizations affiliated with the Koch network and analyzed the rhetorical tactics Koch network think tanks have deployed around Critical Race Theory(CRT) and their efforts to ban it from public schools. During the investigation period, they found that Koch network think tanks published 146 articles, podcasts, reports, or videos about CRT. You can download their report from this link: http://www.unkochmycampus.org/crt-report?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=6886d4b0-eee0-4380-817b-7a7d3be9118a
Conservatives Are Hellbent On Attacking Critical Race Theory. They’re Whitewashing Structural Racism. Mother Jones reported this on June 15, 2021: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/conservatives-are-hellbent-on-attacking-critical-race-theory-theyre-whitewashing-structural-racism/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-06-15-2021
I have a few more articles on this topic, but the ones I linked above are sufficient for now. If you want more, contact me.
