Critical Race Theory is teaching white kids to feel guilty about things they had no part of!
There are people pushing that story, but it's not true
It's a liberal rewriting of history that says white people are racist by default, teaches kids to be ashamed of their heritage, and makes everything about race.
If that was what CRT was about, that'd be concerning. But it's not
CRT is a broad field of study, primarily focused on legal theory
Laws can impact people differently, regardless of intent, right?
Of course
Given the history of racism in our country, we understand that groups of Black people were harmed for generations by unequal, bigoted laws, policies, and enforcement. Like red lining, and Jim Crow laws. Right?
Yeah, but that's all in the past
Those differences still have an impact today, and that means we have significant gaps in resources. And laws that unequally impact people without wealth, can automatically hurt Black folks more. It's like kicking someone when they are down
And it's not just economic. We see inequities in so many other areas, like criminal justice, access to quality education, and job opportunities
Ok, fair enough
So CRT is examining those disparities, and looking from a legal perspective where we can reform laws to be more fair, and create better outcomes for everyone
Well that's reasonable, but the big issue is teaching kids that they are racist because they are white, and making them guilty for things they didn't do!
That is indeed the claim of some fearmongers, yes! But that has nothing to do with CRT, or the current laws being passed to outlaw teaching certain aspects of history
Understanding our history helps teach us how we move forward as a society.
The actions of the past impact our reality today. As a society we bear the responsibility of fixing past harm
Teaching history accurately is fine, but there's so much radical revisionism being pushed, and that's dangerous
That's why we had so many laws passed to protect our kids from liberal progaganda
1. The laws in question, and even the whole CRT issue itself, was drummed up as a political distraction by a divided party trying to distract their base. That's not a politically motivated take, that's pretty much what the leaders are saying
2. Restricting teachers free speech is incredibly problematic. Politicians restricting speech they don't like is an element of government overreach that should concern people from any political party
They are just making sure teachers teach the truth
If there were inaccuracies in what was being taught, we already have review boards and processes to address that
Well the 1619 project was an inaccurate, radical project teaching that we should be ashamed of our heritage and be ashamed of being white!
The 1619 project was looking at history from a very specific viewpoint, highlighting details that are often overlooked in history
History is not just a list of facts and dates. It is stories about our past, and those stories always have a perspective. We need to make sure we include enough perspectives to be fair and objective and complete
It was inaccurate and had to be retracted!
There was a statement in it that the author toned down when it was critiqued. That doesn't negate the entire work, which has held up under significant scholarly scrutiny, including the historians who critiqued the statement.
We should focus on uniting everyone to ignore race, instead of dividing everyone by focusing on it
If we were all on an equal footing, then we could move forward without focusing on race. But as long as inequities exist because of it, we have to recognize it's impact and work on fixing those inequities
We do not reach MLK Jr's dream of color blindness until we do the work of repairing the bigotry in our history. Otherwise we're using color blindness as an excuse to whitewash reality