How To Diffuse The Critical Race Theory Time Bomb

It isn’t that complicated. It really isn’t.

For the past few years, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been a hot-button issue. The Left insists it’s only taught in law schools and that any similarities found in K-12 schools are really just about teaching kids untold parts of history. The Right insists it’s part of a larger long-term Marxist conspiracy to eradicate all Anglo-Saxon people from Earth.

And then we have the folks who don’t know what to believe.

I know what I believe. I view CRT as an academic discipline that has become increasingly amorphous as players from all across the political spectrum attempt to hijack it on behalf of their own agendas.

If we don’t get past the spin and the misdirects, American society is ultimately all but certain to face dire electoral consequences.

So I’m going to break it all down, here — and plead for Americans with good sense to take a breath…and then refocus on some sensible goals.

The Concept of CRT

In a May 2021 piece for EducationWeek, Stephen Sawchuck produces a concise definition for what CRT was originally intended to convey:

The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

Amidst his summary, Sawchuck credits academic minds such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado for pioneering the foundational tenets of Critical Race Theory.

When taken by itself, Sawchuck’s definition sounds reasonable and accurate.

The overarching problem arises when individual educators infuse curriculums with their own ideological sentiments of absolutism. They might look at Sawchuck’s definition, and then rewrite it to say:

“Racism is only systemic. Mistreatment and toxicity directed against White students is merely ‘prejudice.’ Students of Color can never be racist; only White students can be.”

I’ve previously dismantled this illiberal worldview in my op-ed piece entitled “Here’s How You Can Identify an -Ism”:

But a more egalitarian discussion of privilege and oppression is apparently too much to ask from the hyperwoke Greek chorus.

In turn, this creates a backlash from right-wing extremists who seize this evil specter of CRT as an excuse to impose their own theocratic “values” and “morals” upon everybody else. Thus, it snowballs into state legislatures passing CRT bans that could turn into a slippery slope censoring other areas of education.

It also translates into victories for Republican candidates, as we saw with Glenn Youngkin’s November 2021 gubernatorial upset in Virginia. During that same election cycle, Jack Ciattarelli similarly almost defeated Governor Phil Murphy in New Jersey.

And we’ve witnessed Governor Ron DeSantis weaponize it in Florida as part of his legislative agenda. His Stop W.O.K.E. Act will inevitably be used as a trophy through which he can show GOP primary voters how he’s battling The_Lib*RULS* when he runs for the presidency.

That nightmare scenario would have far-reaching ramifications that go beyond education itself.

Where the Confusion Arises

Another factor that throws off the general public in regard to CRT is when people try to conflate it with the idea of “antiracism.”

Of course, that’s a tall order to diplomatically challenge. After all, who wants to be accused of being racist? So if specific thoughts and ideas are packaged as “antiracism” from the onset — and especially when they’re marketed to younger students in a forum where those students are too intimidated to dissent — a Robin DiAngelo-style Kafka trap gets created.

Teachers may present a given concept to their students as “antiracist.” Since most kids fear accusations of “racism” against them, nobody dares to challenge that teacher — not even politely — in a classroom setting. Until the parents catch wind of it, of course.

And then all hell breaks loose.

While these interpretations of so-called “antiracism” aren’t identical to the theories set forth by Bell or Crenshaw or Delgado, they do loosely draw from them.

In her Medium piece from December 2021, Gabrielle D’Arcy characterizes such a philosophy as follows:

One of the foundational beliefs of anti-racism is that all [W]hite people are complicit in the system of white supremacy, [so] it’s permissible to hate [W]hite people, because to be [W]hite is to be a bigot.

Or, as Luke Lattanzi wrote about, a few months earlier — CRT proponents will claim that CRT isn’t actually being taught in schools; yet, then they’ll still attempt to peddle anti-White rhetoric that sprouted from some “antiracist” thought-curators, which itself was born out of Critical Race Theory.

TaraElla puts it best, in her November 2021 editorial, where she rationally defends skeptics of CRT as “opposing a worldview that puts individuals into rigid ‘classes’ based on their immutable characteristics.”

How It Has Gone Awry

Discussing race in the classroom should be encouraged. This is especially true when it comes to educating America’s students about systemic contexts linked to history.

Marvin Lynn wrote an entire handbook about it.

But there are common sense ways in which to do it…and not to do it! That’s what these debates should be about. Instead, we have two entrenched factions digging in their heels and talking past one another.

Teaching history along an accurate, multicultural framework is a positive goal. But because of the blurring of lines between “CRT” and “antiracism,” many educators have turned what should be a public service into a taxpayer-funded group therapy session to work through their own white guilt and performative rage:

A handful of examples of how the legitimate teachings of CRT can take a warped and sinister turn within schools:

• in Las Vegas, Nevada: A parent named Gabrielle Clark mounted a P.R. campaign against the Agassi Democracy Prep charter school after her biracial son was racially profiled as “white-passing”
• in Cupertino, California: At R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School, a Third-Grade math teacher instructed students to rank their multiple identities according to a binary rubric of privilege and oppression
• in Blacksburg, Virginia: At Blacksburg High School, an English teacher likened certain behaviors, such as sitting quietly and following directions, to “white supremacy”
• in the Evanston/Skokie, Illinois school district: Kindergarten students were assigned Anastasia Higginbotham’s children’s book Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness as an at-home reading exercise with their parents

By contrast, here’s an example of a lesson plan organized by my high school English teacher, Mrs. Hornby, which I viewed as an impeccable model for CRT-adjacent teaching:

Again, many CRT proponents might even reject these particular tactics. But when administrators and teachers embrace them, it enables irrational people to point out some valid flaws contained within educational curriculums.

Like clockwork, those Angry Parents turn it into an expanded witch hunt against anything that they personally have decided to associate with “liberalism.”

The mastermind behind this anti-CRT crusade has been Christopher Rufo, a filmmaker and conservative activist who has made it his mission to brand GOP politicians into power. Through a combination of public tweeting and private consulting, Rufo has given Republicans a primer on how to weaponize the CRT dog-whistle against liberal and progressive candidates up and down the ballot.

Clearly, Rufo’s motives are duplicitous and self-serving.

But you hyperwoke DiAngelo-cultists make it all that much easier for the Christopher Rufos of the world to get away with manipulating the public in this manner — when you embrace the flavor of illiberal “wokeness” I’ve spotlighted in the bulleted examples above.

You try to distort any person who is remotely skeptical of CRT or “antiracism” as holding a position that:

Discussing white privilege will make White students “feel bad.”

Um, no, Precious — we just don’t want to see the straw man of “feelings” weaponized.

This can be done, in one direction or the other, to avoid the substance of topical conversations:

And then we get ridiculousness, such as Danielle Scarpellino’s “Truth in Education” campaign in Guilford, Connecticut — where Angry Parents commandeer a bandwagon to ban from schools any mention of race or gender whatsoever.

And conservative politicians jump aboard that train.

And the media endlessly covers that.

And we keep going around in circles.

Reframing the Discussion

Despite the manipulation that exists on both sides — and, yes, it exists on both sides — there is a path forward.

For example, in his November 2021 Medium piece, educator Eric Sentell outlines his approach of carefully defining terms such as “systemic racism” and “implicit bias.” Doing this makes it much harder for bad-faith actors to misrepresent the actual lesson plans.

Or, let’s stop tolerating intellectual dishonesty. As linguist/historian John McWhorter skillfully and authentically phrased it, when promoting his book Woke Racism during a November 2, 2021 C-SPAN Book Talk:

It doesn’t have to be [the formal definition of] Critical Race Theory itself, but if your kids are being taught that whiteness is a kind of inherent guilt, if your kids are being taught that blackness is a kind of eternal victimhood, if your kids are being taught that all issues need to be looked at through the lens of power relations — especially between White and Brown people — if that’s what your kids are being taught to any appreciable extent such as they would come home and say ‘I’m not enjoying this, Mom’ — that’s [a bastardized version of] Critical Race Theory. And anybody who denies that that’s an issue either doesn’t know [what’s going on]…or you’re being willfully naïve because you’re trying to placate a certain [hyperwoke] base and get elected, and I would completely understand that too.

But that means that we can’t listen to that fight between these two [factions] for a reflection of what’s actually happening. Either way, yes, there is something really scary going on in education today.

We should also establish what common goals and values, if any, exist from people on all sides.

Which teachers just want all students to feel included and represented in the curriculum?

Which teachers mostly want to preach at their students and indoctrinate them with a one-sided worldview?

Which parents support multicultural curriculums when presented in thoughtful, nuanced, provocative ways that promote civilized discussion and debate?

Which parents simply wish to scream at their local school boards because they’re angered by mistruths about American education that Fox News has fed to them?

Let’s start embracing productive dialogue. We won’t accomplish this by banning books, concepts, or topic areas.

Instead, students should be encouraged to learn critical thinking skills. They should be empowered with the ability to counter disagreeable speech with more (and better) speech of their own.

I’ve mapped out a sample template for doing this, legislatively:

We should also be honest about the multidirectional nature of racism.

The acronym BIPOC means:

“Black, Indigenous, *and* People of Color”

Not…

“Black & Indigenous People of Color”

The former references how people of Latin American, North African, Middle Eastern, West Asian, Central Asian, and South Asian descent all experience systemic racism in addition to Black and Indigenous folks.

The latter (disingenuously) implies that it’s only Black, Indigenous, Mestizo/a, East Asian, and Pacific Islander folks who are considered BIPOC.

While we’re at it: Let’s capitalize the term “White,” too — the way we already capitalize “Black,” “Asian,” “Latino/a,” “Chicano/a,” “Hispanic,” “Pacific Islander,” “Middle Eastern,” “Desi,” “Arabic,” and “North African.”

We can still talk about the very real epidemic of white privilege while simultaneously giving White people the referential dignity of capitalization.

Putting Everything in Context

Critical Race Theory can be a positive thing, when it’s laser-focused on teaching students about the accuracies of history and layers of systemic racism.

But we must also consider nuance, unintended consequences, and running all permutations of how students might incorrectly process this information.

Just because Christopher Rufo and Robin DiAngelo want to be one another’s playground rivals…the rest of us don’t have to sink to their level.

“Pro-CRT” people often don’t understand how race-conscious curriculums could possibly harm students.

“Anti-CRT” people often don’t understand why multiculturalism in schools is a long-overdue necessity.

So let’s quit talking past each other…and be candid about what exactly we want our students to get out of these educational curriculums.

And let’s do this before it explodes to an irreparable extreme from which authoritarians are empowered to capture 100% control of our federal government.

Because once they dominate all of those levers of power…they’re never going to relinquish them.

To hear my expanded commentary on these (and other) social dynamics, check out either of my appearances on two episodes from Paul LeCrone’s podcast:

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