Media

The IRR formally launched the website ‘Educate don’t Indoctrinate’ (Edonti) on Friday 20 August as a resource for parents, teachers and students, to inform them about Critical Race Theory (CRT), how to recognise it and how to respond to it. Through the site we also offer talks, presentations and circumstance-specific advice.

CRT theory holds that every society is divided into two absolute and unbridgeable, racially determined, groups. The first is black: its members are permanently disadvantaged victims of a society which is set up to enforce black poverty and underdevelopment. The second is white: its members are permanently privileged and perpetrate various crimes against the black group in order to secure their unearned privilege and maintain black poverty.

CRT also applies, though to a lesser extent, to issues of gender, women, sexual orientation, the disabled and other minorities. The inversion of the meaning of language and the adoption of ‘equity’ to mean the achievement of the equality of outcomes, point to a theory that, although it has ‘social justice’ as its aim, is just political indoctrination towards socialism. What we associate with ‘wokeness’ and ‘political correctness’ is suffused into the application of CRT.

Its origins lie in American academia and it is based on America’s 200-year history of slavery and its consequences. CRT has evolved in a country where blacks represent about 13% of the population and whites a majority (although ever shrinking).

Like much American academic theory it is being imported into South Africa wholesale, and although we come from an unimaginably cruel past, it is not the solution to race relations in a society where 90% of citizens are black and under 10% white.

Some comments in response to our site launch ask whether CRT actually exists in our schools. It does and although our early experience suggested that it was a private-school phenomenon, it is also emerging in government schools.

Fear

We have been made aware of about seven schools which are taking up CRT to a greater or lesser extent. Generally, teachers are not adherents of CRT, but fear losing employment if they challenge it.

We set out some examples of CRT that we have either heard about or been asked about.

School #1 has an ‘Anti-discrimination Policy’ which states: ‘Saying that you “don’t see colour” is an example of racial discrimination.’ ‘Not seeing colour’ is seen in the CRT context as being opprobrious since seeing colour is exactly what CRT determines a person must do. The contortion of logic required to regard ‘not seeing colour’ as a racist sentiment, rather than the CRT obsession with skin colour, is deeply counterintuitive. The school goes so far as to categorise the comment as ‘hate speech’.

‘Not seeing colour’ is not usually used literally; it simply means that a person doesn’t consider the colour of another person’s skin in interacting with them.

At school #2 the students are prohibited from using the word ‘monkey’ at all even though there are monkeys living in the vegetation around the school. They should rather refer to ‘vervets’. At the same school teachers may not address the students as ‘girls’.

School #3 is a school founded and run according to the precepts of a particular religion. Demands are being made to minimise if not desist from the particular ethos and replace it with ‘social justice’ and ‘inclusion’.

A review of the school’s practices found that interaction between students is racially divided. The review didn’t delve into the reasons for these divisions. Is it a natural division? Is it one engendered by one race or another? Is it possible that the long-standing, active addressing of issues of transformation and diversity are not constructive, but rather destructive of healthy interaction? Are the races so aware and self-conscious of potential racism that separation has grown rather than decreased?

Threatened to destroy careers

School #4 is also a school based on a religious ethos. The school was made aware of anonymous social media messages accusing teachers of racism. These messages threatened to destroy careers, yet no disciplinary action was taken against the students who could be identified, and nor were formal complaints lodged by the students. Nevertheless the teachers were suspended for months before any disciplinary action was taken against them and seven weeks before the charges were provided.

A protest against ‘racism, homophobia and xenophobia’ erupted in and around the school, with mainstream media in attendance. In an all-girls school a protest against homophobia and xenophobia is unlikely to be supported by evidence.

School #5’s transformation programme included the separation of black and white students. The white students have been expected to consider their ‘white supremacy’ and ‘white guilt’. Creepily, they are required to think about their racist thoughts and commit them to writing. It fits the CRT playbook that students are expected to develop guilt for the actions of some white people’s misdeeds in history. This is irrespective of whether their individual experience is in any way relevant to their forebears or their skin colour.

Disturbing has been the school’s recourse to a book as a textbook called Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. We will discuss this book in more detail in a later article, but it’s worth noting some of the observations Saad makes:

• White supremacy is an evil;
• It is a system of oppression, which has been designed to give you benefits at the expense of the lives of BIPOC [blacks and indigenous peoples of colour], and it is living inside of you;
• The process of examining it and dismantling it will necessarily be painful. It will feel like waking up to a virus that has been living inside of you all these years, that you never knew was there;
• Raging against this process and denial is the response of the white fragility and anti-blackness lying within you;
• The student must commit ‘to your own healing’.

Brainwashes

The above examples point to a cult which brainwashes the target into accepting guilt, but with no possibility of redemption.

The school’s workbook, which is based on Saad’s book, holds that ‘(this) workbook is for any person* who holds white privilege**.’

And ‘Who holds white privilege means “persons who are visually identifiable as white, white-passing, or holding white privilege”.’

School #6 has a hair policy that provides for a prohibition on the ‘cultural appropriation’ of hair styles.

School #7 which, when faced with one act of racism by a student, brought ‘consultants’ in to coach all the students. The children were separated by race and a consultant presented views on ‘whiteness’ to the white children. The views of the consultant reflected in some of her writings include statements that ‘South Africa’s rainbow nation is a myth that students need to “unlearn”,’ and that the ‘Democratic Alliance’s Federal Chairman, Helen Zille, should have been jailed for her tweets’.

The school set up a group for parents ‘to create a safe space to share knowledge, facilitate conversations and build relationships and sense of belonging’. The principal advised the parents who had complained about CRT in the school, that he had decided that they weren’t invited to join the group ‘until we feel that you are wanting to come on board to hear/listen and be heard’.

The first group newsletter recommends a podcast by Eusebius McKaiser, and the books White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and I’m still here – Black Dignity in a world made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown.

In 2020 an advert for a history teacher required applicants to teach from a ‘decolonisation perspective’.

CRT is in our schools and, given that its ultimate aim is to overthrow capitalism to create a Marxist state, such indoctrination must be resisted. It is not for schools to decide what political philosophy children adopt.

This theory is perpetuated by creating a method for addressing racism. However, while CRT purports to end racism, it in fact entrenches it.

CRT propounds that blacks are eternal victims of ‘white supremacy’ and whites are eternally guilty as ‘white supremacist’ victimisers, irrespective of their never having participated in the subjugation of blacks.

The theory suggests that the only way to change these black:white power relationships is to destroy “the system”. The theory originated in the United States and is framed in the context of slavery and white dominance in the power structures. This means undermining law enforcement and implementing a Marxist – socialist political governing structure. 

CRT was devised with reference to American history, structures and a 13% minority black population. Like much that originates from American academia, CRT has found its way to our shores. 

CRT is little known in South Africa in general, but of concern is the increasing implementation of it in our schools. This is a pernicious development because it is a form of indoctrination based on Marxist ideas.

CRT seeks to promote the paradigm of victim: victimiser in a society where over 90% of the population is black and under 10% is white. Theoretically it should be relatively easy to marginalise whites from blacks here, particularly given our apartheid history.

Most of us take it as a given that to develop healthy race relations is to know and understand our history; to know what makes us different, but also what makes us similar. It is the humanist response to try to get different races, creeds and religions to understand and appreciate each other as equals. Any idea that promotes victimhood and encourages guilt for historical injustices solely due to the colour of our skin is opprobrious. It is designed to keep people separate and wary of each other – it is the flip side of the apartheid coin.

Schools that implement CRT damage the mental and psychological development of children by teaching them that racial discrimination and segregation are acceptable because different races have mutually incompatible characteristics, beliefs and values that should not be shared across racial lines. This is a very depressing thought.  

CRT came to our attention mostly during the #RhodesMust Fall and #FeesMustFall protests on university campuses from 2015 to 2017. Our concern is that it is being introduced into schools to indoctrinate children into adopting a particular political view. It is not the role of a school to indoctrinate a child into what to think politically – and CRT is a political movement.

It certainly doesn’t preclude a school from dealing with racism and, if that occurs, there must be serious discipline. But If a child says or does something racist, the management may not assume that all the children are racists requiring to be subjected to CRT.

One of the most insidious features of CRT which we have been exposed to at certain schools is the separation of students by race in order to educate each group into the fundamentals of ‘anti-racism’.

We have not been privy to what is communicated in the groups for black students, but what is being reported from parents about what white students are exposed to is deeply disturbing.

In essence, white students are being told that their skin colour identifies them as being ‘associated’ with the harm caused by white colonialism. 

This is terrifying for a number of reasons:

• It is immoral to attribute hackneyed and shameful characteristics to children of any colour simply because of the colour of their skin. Skin colour tells us nothing about the attitudes, morality and opinions of the individual;

• It is bizarre and cruel to attribute guilt to young people for something done historically  by people whose only shared characteristic is their skin colour; 

• No account is thus taken of the person’s personal or family history, which may have been blighted by hardship. Individual white history doesn’t count;

• The same applies to young blacks being told that they are victims, irrespective of whether or not they remain disadvantaged. No weight is given to improvement of their conditions and therefore the mitigation of positions of weakness and victimhood;

• It makes no sense for a society that is trying to overcome recent history of legislated discrimination to perpetuate division, mistrust, and attitudes of superiority and inferiority. It cannot be good for society and gives the lie to CRT’s claim to promoting ‘anti-racism’. 

The insidious appeal of CRT is that it is presented as a way to promote social justice and uses language that supports that goal. For this reason some teachers and parents believe that CRT is aimed at achieving a laudable goal. Many people have the best of intentions in applying CRT to achieve social justice. 

The IRR has developed a website, ‘Educate don’t Indoctrinate’, to provide a resource to explain what CRT is. We explain CRT’s origins, the language it uses, how to identify it and what to do about it. (https://edonti.org)

Parents, teachers and school administrators may feel uncomfortable with what appears to be undertaken for the sake of social justice. We encourage them to seek further information, as their anxiety may be justified.

The teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is starting to take place in South Africa’s private schools.

CRT holds that all black people are victims of a system designed to keep them oppressed and that all white people act together to maintain that system in order to protect their unearned, white privilege. Unique, individual characteristics are irrelevant to CRT.

CRT aims to ensure that racism becomes an eternal obsession, patronising black children and shaming white children.

This obsession with punishing racism disproportionately and separating children so that they ‘learn’ their place will result in alienation, not integration. 

Accordingly, the Institute of Race Relations has launched an initiative ‘Educate, don’t Indoctrinate’ in an attempt to equip parents and teachers with the tools necessary to recognise and resist the spread of the harmful ideas of CRT in schools.

The IRR is aware that a significant number of schools have incorporated elements of CRT in official school policies and are presenting this worldview to students as the only viable and moral way to conceive of social justice.

This way of thinking is divisive and celebrates the kind of race essentialism that we have fought so hard.

CRT’s origins are American with specific reference to American history and a society where blacks are a minority group. Given the fact of our dreadful history and that whites currently comprise less than 10% of the population, the consequences of this racial essentialism will be disastrous.

In addition, CRT rests on the assumption that any disparity in outcome between racial groups is the result of discrimination of one group by another, whether conscious or unconscious. As such, white children are being admonished for their complicity in white supremacy with some schools going so far as to teach white students that white supremacy is an evil they have been born with and need to continually purge themselves of.

The IRR believes that the freedom to question what we are told is a hallmark of a successful society and worth fighting for. The IRR recognises the importance of creating a socially just society. However, it strongly opposes any worldview that does not allow its assumptions to be questioned.

We have discovered that students are being told that to question the assumptions of CRT is to admit racism, and doing so invokes the risk of being vilified as racist.

Students are being told what to think instead of how to think: this is untenable as it is not the function of schools to indoctrinate pupils into one political theory while ignoring all others.

Our overarching goal is to support the education of well-adjusted young men and women of sound character and strong moral standing. We do that by helping to:

• Teach parents and teachers how to spot the danger signs of CRT indoctrination in their children and their schools;
• Educate parents and teachers about the damage that CRT indoctrination does to the psychological development of children;
• Provide them with the resources to become informed enough to oppose CRT indoctrination effectively;
• Provide them with advice and strategies for confronting school governing bodies and teachers that drive such indoctrination.

Please click on to www.edonti.org and complete a form if you wish to contact us regarding CRT at a school, and we will get back to you asap.

Media contacts

• Sara Gon, IRR Head of Strategic Engagement – Tel: 083 555 7952; Email: info@edonti.org
• Caiden Lang, Researcher – Tel: 072 239 6145; Email: caiden@irr.org.za

Media enquiries

• Michael Morris – Tel: 066 302 1968; Email: michael@irr.org.za 
• Kelebogile Leepile – Tel: 079 051 0073; Email: kelebogile@irr.org.za

A new orthodoxy has taken over our educational institutions with frightening speed. People who likely never heard the phrase “critical race theory” (CRT) before this summer are now getting emails from their children’s schools about “Decentering Whiteness at Home.” They are discovering that their children’s elementary-school teacher has read them “a book about whiteness” that teaches them how much “color matters” and encourages them to confront “the painful truth” about their “own family” — i.e., that they are being raised by racists. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This is a dangerous and divisive ideology, one that assigns moral value to people on the basis of their skin color. It is inconceivable that anyone could look back at human history and not see that singling out a particular racial or ethnic group as the cause of all societal problems can quickly lead us to a very bad place.

It is understandable, therefore, that the ascendancy of CRT in our educational institutions is deeply frightening to so many people. People feel like their children are being indoctrinated. In many cases, they are right. This ideology is not simply being presented as one way of looking at the world. It is being taught as the Truth with a capital ‘T,’ and you will be cast into outer darkness or punished for questioning it. Just ask David Flynn, the father of two children in the Dedham, Mass., public schools who was fired from his position as head football coach there after raising concerns about changes to his seventh-grade daughter’s history curriculum. (Flynn is now suing the school district.)

We need to fight the rise of this toxic and destructive orthodoxy if we want America to be a place where, as Martin Luther King said, our children are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. But we have to fight it in the right way, without compromising the very freedoms we seek to preserve.

Recently, a number of state legislatures have begun considering bills that would ban or severely restrict the teaching of CRT and its analogues. The Arkansas legislature, for example, is considering a bill that would prohibit any Arkansas public school from offering “a course, class, event, or activity within its program of instruction that . . . promotes division between, resentment of, or social justice for (A) Race; (B) Gender; (C) Political affiliation; (D) Social class; or (E) Particular class of people.” Anti-CRT bills are also under consideration in Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, and elsewhere.

Yet preventing supporters of this ideology from making their case is not the answer. We know what it is like to have our right to free speech suppressed, because it is happening day in, day out to the critics of CRT and other left-wing ideologies at educational institutions around the country. I understand why it is so tempting to fight fire with fire, but that won’t advance freedom and equality in the long run.

As journalist and author Jonathan Rauch has so eloquently written — in opposition to the kinds of hate-speech prohibitions common on campuses around the country — the tolerance of hateful speech is critical to freedom and progress:

Rauch is right. The battle against these identity-based ideologies needs to be waged in the marketplace of ideas, not through censorship. Proponents of CRT, critical feminist theory, postcolonial theory, etc. have every right to argue for the validity of their positions, just as we have the right to argue for the validity of ours. We must recognize their rights even as we try to convince the world of the dangers of their arguments.

That does not mean, however, that they have the right to indoctrinate our children, or to create a hostile environment in which students or teachers are continually treated as “less than” on the basis of skin color. When these things happen — and they are happening — then we must fight back hard not only in the court of public opinion, but in courts of law as well.

Most people know that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. But it also protects freedom of conscience — that is, the right to hold our personal thoughts and beliefs free from government intrusion. The freedom of conscience is why the Supreme Court ruled that, even during the darkest days of World War II, a public school could not require its students to salute the American flag. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the majority, explained that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The freedom of conscience is also why a Nevada mother is suing a Las Vegas charter school for forcing her son to participate in a mandatory class that “required students to reveal their race, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities and then determine if privilege or oppression is attached to those identities.” In the coming years, the First Amendment right to freedom of conscience will play a crucial role in the fight against the indoctrination of our children.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prevents discrimination, including the creation of a hostile environment, at public and private institutions receiving federal funding (which include most private colleges and universities). Many of these critical race trainings, particularly when mandatory, may create a hostile environment by continually singling people out for criticism solely on the basis of their skin color — such as when an employee at Smith College expressed discomfort at discussing her race publicly and was berated in front of her colleagues and told that her distress was merely a “power play,” a manifestation of white supremacy. These trainings have even infiltrated the corporate world: A whistleblower recently leaked slides from a diversity training for Coca-Cola employees suggesting that they “be less white.”

State legislatures can also fight indoctrination and promote viewpoint diversity in schools without turning to censorship. In Florida, for example, the legislature is considering a bill that would require institutions of higher education “to conduct an annual assessment related to intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity,” in order to ensure that students are exposed to “a variety of ideological and political perspectives.” This could be done at the K–12 level as well, and would help the marketplace of ideas function properly rather than shutting it down.

The bottom line is that our future as a free society depends on fighting back against the pall of orthodoxy that has descended over our educational institutions. But we must resist the temptation to fight back with the traditional tools of our ideological opponents — censorship and repression — and instead stay true to the freedoms we are fighting for.

The real problem about ‘critical race theory’ is that it’s really Uncritical Racist Theory – that is, if you can classify such irrationalist hypocrisy as ‘theory’.

First of all, it is racist because it asserts race as the foundation of human society and of theory. It is no different, theoretically, from Nazism, which also claimed race to be the foundation of society and history.  Hitler graded Jews as sub-human, devilish antagonists of the Germans, who were the pinnacle for him of the Aryan ‘race’. ‘Critical race theory’ simply does Nazism upside down. Whites up – whites down.

Next, ‘critical race theory’ is a liar about the history of Africa, and of black people. It suppresses all reference to the thirteen hundred years of Islamic enslavement of black Africans as ‘kuffar’ (infidels, and therefore legitimate for enslavement), which began not long after the death of the prophet Muhammad, who himself enslaved Jewish women and children he had captured in jihad in what later became known as Medina.

Enslavement of black Africans in southern Africa from tribes that were classified as ‘kuffar’ by black African slave-hunters based at Angoche in northern Mozambique only ended when the Angoche slavemasters were militarily defeated by the Portuguese colonialists in 1910.

As I noted in my article, ‘A lethal censorship of black history’ on Politicsweb on 8 October 2020, ‘Stokely Carmichael made his home in Guinea for the last three decades of his life, without reference to the hundreds of years of Islamic slavery in Guinea as part of the Mali Empire before European colonisation.

‘As the North African Arab scholar, Ibn Khaldun, noted, the grand pilgrimage to Mecca of Malian emperor Mansa Musa in 1324 (724 in Islamic history) consisted of 12 000 slaves.

‘Slave women and men’

‘“At each halt, he would regale us [his entourage] with rare foods and confectionery. His equipment furnishings were carried by 12 000 private slave women (Wasaif) wearing gown and brocade (dibaj) and Yemeni silk […]. Mansa Musa came from his country with 80 loads of gold dust (tibr), each load weighing three qintars. In their own country they use only slave women and men for transport,but for long journeys such as pilgrimages they have mounts.”’

Among Middle Eastern slave-trading states and recipients of African slaves, ‘slavery was legally abolished in Saudi Arabia and Yemen only in 1962, following its abolition in Iran in 1929. In Oman slavery was made illegal only as late as 1970.’ 

The Wikipedia entry, Slavery in Mauritania, states that slavery ‘has been called “deeply rooted” in the structure of the northwestern African country of Mauritania, and “closely tied” to the ethnic composition of the country.

‘In 1905, an end of slavery in Mauritania was declared by the colonial French administration, but the size of Mauritania prevented enforcement. In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery, when a presidential decree abolished the practice.

 ’However, no criminal laws were passed to enforce the ban. In 2007, “under international pressure”, the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted.

‘Despite this, in 2018 Global Slavery Index estimated the number living in slavery in the country to be 90,000 (or 2.1% of the population), which is a reduction from the 140,000 in slavery figure which the same organisation reported in 2013, while in 2017 the BBC reported a figure of 600,000 living in bondage.

‘Sociologist Kevin Bales and Global Slavery Index estimate that Mauritania has the highest proportion of people in slavery of any country in the world. While other countries in the region have people in “slavelike conditions”, the situation in Mauritania is “unusually severe”, according to African history professor Bruce Hall, and comprises largely of a black population enslaved by Arab masters. 

‘The position of the government of Mauritania is that slavery is “totally finished … all people are free”, and that talk of it “suggests manipulation by the West, an act of enmity toward Islam, or influence from the worldwide Jewish conspiracy”. According to some human rights groups, the country might have jailed more anti-slavery activists than slave owners.’

Reminiscent of Adolf Hitler

That anti-Semitic, anti-Western response, reminiscent of Adolf Hitler, has its echo in CRT.

Given that southern and western Mauritania were part of the Mali empire of Mansa Musa, it is clear that slavery there in the 21st century continues a history that began centuries before white Western colonialism.

Captured in Guinea, black slave men and women formed a base in the same way of the despotic and murderous regime in Morocco of Sultan Moulay Ismail many centuries before Morocco was occupied by France, with hundreds of thousands of white Christian men and women enslaved there as well.

In his study, ‘Expediency, ambivalence and inaction: the French Protectorate and domestic slavery in Morocco, 1912-1956’, published in 2013, R. David Goodman noted that ‘a clandestine slave trade continued along with domestic slavery throughout the French Protectorate, from the 1912 Treaty of Fes to independence in 1956. Notably, on the eve of decolonisation, a French colonial official recorded payments for royal slaves without any remark.’

CRT is a racist lie which helps to perpetuate the slavery of black Africans in Mauritania at this very moment.

To the advocates of CRT, I would say: answer that. But they won’t, because they can’t.

The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR

The need to take racism seriously can no longer be ignored, writes Joel M. Modiri, associate professor and acting head of the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Pretoria. This, apparently, is a revelation.

‘Attacks on critical race theory (CRT) intellectuals and ideas,’ he writes, ‘are marked by aggression, bad faith, racist anxiety and ignorance – a toxic mix not easily appeased by facts or argument.’

As if to demonstrate those exact qualities, he begins by describing a ‘ferocious right-wing onslaught’ and ‘viral online conservative screeds decrying the pervasive influence of CRT and “identity politics”’, in which ‘white people increasingly, and without irony, claim to be the greatest contemporary victims of racism at just the time black people’s protest and critique against racial inequality and racial violence is gaining greater political visibility and impact’.

I recently wrote a critique of CRT on Daily Friend, and the Institute of Race Relations has recently published a detailed report by Anthea Jeffery attacking CRT. Marius Roodt has written in these pages that racism is a problem in South Africa – but it is not the problem, and John Kane-Berman has written against ‘race hustlers’ who claim that racism remains ubiquitous and systemic in South Africa.

I can only suppose that Modiri is reacting in part to the IRR’s campaign on the subject when he refers to ‘right-wing conservatives’. Or perhaps the IRR is the ‘discomfited liberals’ to whom he refers.

His frequent use of such denunciatory labels suggests a level of aggression and bad faith that is unbecoming to a professor, but not surprising in a critical race theorist.

The IRR’s position

The Institute for Race Relations is a classical liberal institution, founded in 1929. It has the explicit objective to combat racism, promote equal human rights and non-racialism (which is the same policy that the ANC has always promoted) and to improve relations between South Africa’s races.

The political ideology it upholds, classical liberalism, is neither right- nor left-wing. Some of its economic views are more consistent with right-of-centre politics, while most of its social policy views are very much left-of-centre. It is certainly not conservative, although some of its members may be.

For most of its existence, the IRR was denounced as a left-wing organisation by the Apartheid state. Pigeon-holing it with ‘right-wing conservatives’ is a malicious lie.

Modiri has great disdain for anyone who isn’t a fellow-academic (although I have no doubt he would also disdain academics who disagree with him).

Here he is on CRT’s critics: ‘The degree of caricature, dishonesty and hysteria displayed by opponents of CRT illustrates that they do not even have a basic grasp of this field of academic study – developed over decades through careful analysis and critique of case law, legislation, literature and archival records, blending law, history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, to theorise race from a critical and emancipatory perspective.’

We, in our passionate ignorance, are not worthy of assailing Modiri in his ivory tower.

This would have been a great opportunity for Modiri to enlighten us mere mortals about the glories of CRT and what it really stands for, but unsurprisingly, he makes no such attempt. Perhaps he is not in possession of the facts or arguments to ‘appease’ the critics of CRT and answer the substance of their critiques.

‘We also know that, historically, lack of knowledge has rarely restrained white people from exercising the prerogative to impose their reality on the rest,’ he says. ‘So, the demonisation of CRT by an increasingly global network of white conservatives and liberals is not about intellectual debate and contestation of ideas. It is, as many commentators have pointed out, a full-scale, well-co-ordinated and well-funded political project against any form of racial equality and racial justice.’

Straw man

That’s a glaring straw man and an artful dodge. Modiri doesn’t want it to be about intellectual debate and contestation of ideas. CRT, after all, rejects things like facts and reason as instruments of white supremacy. In Modiri’s polarised world, the only answer for critics of CRT is that they’re hopeless, ignorant, white supremacists.

I, for one, and I’m sure I can speak for the entire IRR, do absolutely not oppose racial equality. We also don’t claim to be victims of racism, nor do we deny that racism is a problem.

The IRR’s view, documented by numerous surveys representative of South Africa’s population, is that addressing racism is not a top priority for most people, including black people. That is not ‘white reality imposed on the rest’, that is the lived experience of black people as expressed by black people.

To further shatter Modiri’s cheap caricature of CRT critics, when I wrote about the racism and the social justice movement five years ago, I explicitly acknowledged having benefited from Apartheid, albeit through no fault of my own. I also acknowledged that I continue to benefit from so-called ‘white privilege’ in many ways, but that I feel no personal guilt about this, though I do feel a sense of responsibility not to exploit that privilege, to empathise with people who don’t enjoy the same, and to do what I can to promote the ideal of a free, non-racial society.

Must learn from history

I also believe we ought to teach the history of racism, slavery, xenophobia, and all other manifestations of bigotry and oppression in schools. It is as critical that we learn from American slavery and Apartheid as it is that we learn from Nazi Germany, slavery in non-Western societies, Cambodia’s killing fields, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and the USSR’s Holodomor. History is full of lessons that we ought to heed.

But CRT does not merely advocate this. Even though I denounce racism, my anti-CRT position will be denounced as inherently racist by Prof Modiri; after all, how can I not be racist when I’m white? However, to the neutral reader, I trust that my views do not appear to be those of some kind of arch-conservative or right-wing extremist.

The late Walter Williams, Bob Woodson, Shelby Steele, and Thomas Sowell all disagree with CRT’s basic tenets. Woodson founded, and Shelby is a supporter of the 1776 Unites movement, which was created by black academics to counter The 1619 Project, which seeks to rewrite history through the ideological lends of CRT. Sowell described CRT as ‘revenge society’ and ‘racism under new management’.

Dismissal of black critics

Modiri, however, glibly dismisses black people who disagree with CRT’s basic tenets as ‘black junior partners’ of the aforementioned ‘right-wing conservatives’.

This is a typical slur critical race theorists aim at critics. If you’re a white and refuse to support CRT, you’re an unreconstructed racist and white supremacist. If you’re black but you don’t share the left’s obsession with identity politics, you’re either ignorant or a race traitor.

His ‘black junior partners’ dismissal is an inch away from saying ‘Uncle Tom’ or ‘house n*****r’, slurs which critical race theorists have certainly used against black critics.

If it sounds intensely patronising and arrogant, that’s because it is. CRT casts black people as victims of systemic racism by white people. It excommunicates as a race traitor any black person who refuses to accept perpetual victimhood status and instead believes in individual freedom and merit.

Modiri pretends that ‘CRT means no harm’, and that it merely seeks racial equality and redress for past wrongs. But that is a misrepresentation of what CRT really stands for. Not only does Modiri claim that laws and institutions remain systemically racist, CRT claims that it cannot be otherwise.

The paper by Prof Derrick Bell which Modiri cites in turn cites Prof Charles Lawrence, who Bell says ‘speaks for many critical race theory adherents when he disagrees with the notion that laws are or can be written from a neutral perspective’ (my italics).

He writes: ‘Lawrence asserts that such a neutral perspective does not, and cannot, exist –that we all speak from a particular point of view, from what he calls a “positioned perspective”. The problem is that not all positioned perspectives are equally valued, equally heard, or equally included. From the perspective of critical race theory, some positions have historically been oppressed, distorted, ignored, silenced, destroyed, appropriated, commodified, and marginalized – and all of this, not accidentally. Conversely, the law simultaneously and systematically privileges subjects who are white.’

There is not a shred of evidence that non-racial laws in fact cannot exist, or if they do, fail to be non-racial in their application. What’s worse, by ‘equally valuing’ all ‘positional perspectives’, CRT elevates subjective experience above objective empiricism as the superior, and perhaps only, valid form of knowledge. This is why CRT has such a problem with terms such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Because, that’s just your white supremacist opinion, man, and your opinion is oppressive!

Modiri entirely ignores one of the key critiques of CRT, that it is rooted in Marxist ‘class struggle’. In his view, one must assume, a perpetual conflict between the races is not only desirable, but necessary, in order to ‘take racism seriously’.

I, and I would wager most liberal critics of CRT, beg to differ. Conflict between races is what got us Nazism and Apartheid. One does not remedy conflict with conflict.

Yes, racism remains a problem. It should be opposed wherever it is found. Arguing that liberals deny this is the epitome of the ‘bad faith’ of which Modiri accuses critics of CRT.

But the future of peace and prosperity lies in promoting individual liberty, human rights, non-racialism and harmonious coexistence, not racial conflict and revolution.

The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR

The persistence of educational inequality –  with poor, primarily black, pupils continuing to attend under-resourced schools and receiving a substandard education – is highlighted in a recent article in Daily Maverick by Faranaaz Veriava, head of the Education Rights programme at Section27, a public interest law centre that advocates for access to healthcare services and basic education.

Veriava is correct in highlighting persistent inequality, but her article goes on to issue a ‘call to elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools to provide spaces where all our youth can belong’.

Referring to the ‘ongoing struggle of black learners attending elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools’, Veriava writes: ‘Because public interest organisations cannot always direct scarce resources to addressing the transformation issues at these schools, it is incumbent on parents and educators to do this more proactively.’

‘Black learners attending elite and middle-class private schools and former white public schools experience racism, other forms of discrimination and alienation in myriad and often subtle guises,’ according to Veriava.

‘To survive at these schools, learners must assimilate to archaic cultural norms or risk having their identities and conduct questioned, if not pathologised, in ways that other learners do not experience.’  

Speaking from personal experience – I am a non-practising lawyer now, but with 17 years of practice, and I also spent 13 years of my children’s schooling on the governing bodies of their government primary and high schools – I believe that to address these concerns, readers need to understand the issues that Veriava talks about.

Particularly, readers who may be perpetrating these acts need to be given concrete examples of the racism, discrimination and alienation. White parents and children may not realise they are being discriminatory. They need to understand what may not be readily clear or better understand what issues are seen to be racial, discriminatory or insensitive.

Fraught disputes

Veriava is probably correct to say that at an unconscious level, black parents feel a gratitude that their children attend these schools. Might there also be an element of guilt because so many other black children are subjected to a substandard education? These issues need to be considered as well when dealing with the potentially fraught disputes that may arise.

Veriava then refers to situation where allegations of discrimination were made, but not whether discrimination was actually found. In this regard, she first refers to the 2015 Curro School incident, where it was ‘reported’ for racially segregating students.

The MEC for Education in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, appointed an independent firm of attorneys to conduct an in-depth investigation of alleged racial segregation. The investigation was later expanded to inquire into the possible existence of racial practices at all the Curro schools in Gauteng.

The attorneys found that Curro was not guilty of racial discrimination. The segregation of classes was not racial, but based on the division between Afrikaans-medium classes and English-medium classes. The practice has been changed.

In 2018 Curro again faced allegations of racial discrimination at Waterfall Castle (Pre-school). The South African Human Rights Commission conducted an investigation and found Curro not guilty of racial discrimination.

Veriava also refers to the infamous Pretoria High School for Girls controversy of 2016. Black students protested against ‘institutional racism’ at the school, their main complaint concerning the implementation of the Code of Conduct, in particular its policy on hairstyles. 

Lesufi literally helicoptered in to ‘sort out’ the problem, having pre-warned the media he’d be there. The incident became a cause célèbre in local and international media. I wrote about it at the time here.

The girls, and Lesufi, were interviewed by the media at the time.

Lesufi, however, prevented staff members from talking to the media.

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga found nothing racist about the school’s hair policy. Nevertheless, Motshekga came under fire for defending school hair policy that some ‘believe’ is racist – note the word ‘believe’.

The event that launched all this controversy occurred when a girl in Zuleika Patel’s class asked whether they could swop places because she couldn’t see the board beyond her afro. Patel cried racism. Patel’s hairstyle is pictured.

Then the matter exploded. Patel, 13 at the time, was a self-proclaimed activist.

The GDE appointed attorneys Harris, Nupen, Malebatsi to investigate claims of racism at PGHS. Their report found that there were instances of racism on the part of some teachers and recommended that disciplinary action be taken. The report did find that Patel had lied.

The report is too extensive to canvass in this article. What is disturbing, however, is that the report failed to examine the role of two political activist groups at the school in the crisis. A protest at the school with girls wearing ANC T-shirts on a civvies day should raise flags. That such groupings should even exist at a school is disturbing.

Veriava talks about statements and acts of unconscious bias ‘that shame our children’ and which ‘make them feel “less than”, which they struggle to name or understand.’  She doesn’t offer suggestions as to how unconscious bias should be handled.

Apparently, according to Veriava, when students challenge transformation in schools, black students tend to be punished more severely than whites. Again a claim is made without substantiation.

Veriava also refers to research into corporal punishment practices which occurred prior to the practice being banned. It reveals that –

•  corporal punishment was used in both black and white boys’ schools;
• white girls’ schools did not practice corporal punishment;
• black girls’ schools did practice corporal punishment.

This research proves nothing and particularly nothing about the main thrust of the article.

Veriava is correct when she says that the Constitution should be the lodestar for transformation charters in schools.  

She cites the numerous prohibitions against unfair discrimination. This includes learners demanding accommodation for their religious and cultural practices in schools’ codes of conduct; learners with disabilities demanding accommodation and equal provisioning; and LGBTQ learners demanding accommodation in respect of uniform requirements. 

These examples are all open to discussion and different schools may have different responses, as not all discrimination would automatically be unfair. For example, not accommodating other religions in a private school based on a Christian ethos may not be unfair. The specifics of each case would have to be scrutinised individually.

What the article also suggests, without saying as much, is that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is becoming the basis for dealing both with issues of discrimination as well as the content of curricula at schools. This is a dangerous development.

CRT is the theory that rights are determined by a hierarchy of eternal victimhood that identifies blacks as victims and all white males (in particular) as eternal oppressors. The fact that a school child has not victimised another child matters not. A child is judged, literally, by the colour of his or her skin only.

CRT is illogical, intended to separate races (irony of ironies!) and create unaccountable guilt for which there is no redemption. It is the next challenge for schools to face.

[Image: Oberholster Venita from Pixabay]

Many parents will have become aware of a theory of social justice commonly known as Critical Social Justice (CSJ). However, many parents are unaware that CSJ has already taken root in their child’s school. The seeds of the worldview have been planted in official school policies and if parents do not take an active role in pushing back against it, its divisive and psychologically damaging doctrine will flourish. 

When I refer to 'activist teachers' I am referring to teachers who have been trained in 'social justice education' or 'critical pedagogy'. Teachers who believe the classroom to be a vehicle for radical social change. These teachers are usually the ones involved in writing social justice policies and who are in charge of making sure that nobody steps outside of the rules and regulations that they have written. They are in the minority but wield the majority of the influence on matters of social justice due to their credentials as ‘experts’. They are the arbiters of morality.  

To them, I write …

Dear activist teacher,

Your doctrine is sceptical of meta-narratives. Do you not see that yours is one? 

When I interact with you and hear you make the case for why your worldview should be treated as true, I can’t help but see myself in you. Your unwavering certainty was my certainty, too. Just like yours, my world was a battle between good and evil – an idea reified in an origin story carried forth in holy texts and vindicated by revelatory experiences and a profound sense of righteous purpose. Just like you, I knelt in supplication to something. I was Christian like you are woke.

Activist teacher, 

You are a member of a priestly class, tasked with spreading the Truth to those whose eyes have not been opened. I imagine that the Christian missionaries felt just as you do when they were sent forth to educate the heathens. Or is yours a nobler calling because it is right and theirs was not?

I disagree with much of your worldview, but I do not hate you. I cannot hate you. I know that you look at the world and see inequality, injustice and pain. I know that you think you have a simple explanation and a simple remedy. I know you want the best for my child and so you teach him your doctrine so that he may join your crusade.

When I was a young man, I’d meet in prayer groups and read John or the letter of Paul, or sometimes Job. I liked the simplicity of it all. I’d have my doubts but it helped that the pastor, elder or deacon understood more than I did. It helped when they assured me that the contradictions I thought I saw were, in fact, no such thing. That I just needed to understand the message and I’d see that. I never really understood the message completely. But they claimed to and I trusted them as my child trusts you. 

I wonder, do you gather with others and read what your prophets and elders have written? Does it keep your faith steadfast?  

Do you read Davis, Crenshaw, Marcuse, Gramsci, Foucault, Giroux, or sometimes even Hegel? When you have doubts do you turn to Kendi and DiAngelo?

I’ve never envied the work of apologists. It looks complicated trying to keep things simple. 

Do you feel vindicated when you hear the testimony of the lived experience of converts to your faith, like I would when the spirit healed somebody or turned a drug addict from his vice? 

I believe that you have the right to worship as you wish, to believe what you want. But, activist teacher, you do not have the right to force your worldview on our children no matter how much you believe it to be true. Maybe it is true. But let my child decide that for himself. 

My child respects you and believes what you say. Please do not betray him.

I’ve read some of your holy texts. I know some of what you believe and what you’re willing to do to reach your promised land – your Equity Utopia – and it concerns me. 

Why do you hide what your doctrine says behind nice-sounding words? I’ve read some of your anti-discrimination policies and your transformation plans. You use words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ but you fail to tell parents and governing bodies that what you mean to do is censor dissenting voices that dare blaspheme. Is it because you know that the majority of parents would push back against you indoctrinating their children? 

Why do you say that every individual is unique and should be treated as such, but then tell students that it’s racist for them to take a colour-blind view of society? Was Martin Luther King Jnr mistaken? Was his dream, in fact, your nightmare? 

You speak about ‘decolonising’ the curriculum and pretend it means including more black authors in the English reading lists. But what you mean to do, according to your doctrine, is peel away the systems that prop up oppression, imagining that some sort of liberation will follow. You’d like to get rid of ‘western’ concepts like equality of opportunity, neutral principles of constitutional law, and enlightenment rationalism. You imagine a pearl in an oyster that does not exist. 

Will telling a black child that mathematics, science, and reason are products of white supremacy, liberate him? What if he wants to be a scientist, lawyer, or engineer? 

Your policies say that students should not be burdened with any specific trait based upon the colour of their skin, and yet you teach children about ‘whiteness’ and ‘white privilege’. You say that you are teaching white children to be aware that the opportunities they have been afforded are often not afforded to black people. That they should be compassionate towards those who are less fortunate than they are. And then you turn around and teach white children that they have been born with the original sin of whiteness and that all they can do is try and be less white. To repent for their sins - to un-eat the fruit you think they have relished in digesting. 

Your doctrine says that a black child is doomed to live life as a member of an oppressed group – a perpetual victim. You give him that burden to carry. Your theory says that the white kid sitting next to him is complicit in his oppression whether he is aware of it or not. You are promoting tribalism. It will leave scars. 

Your mythology is over-simplified. History is complicated and cannot be reduced to good versus evil.

You offer no evidence for your claims but the lived experience of converts as if knowledge of this kind is epistemically sound. You rely on revelation just as I did when I had a god. 

My church thought it was teaching me the ultimate Truth, but where it faltered it was honest. It told me to have faith. That faith was part of the Truth. Your church is different. It pretends to have nothing to do with faith. 

My church taught compassion, love, and forgiveness. Yours teaches no such thing.

When I was a boy, I’d wonder fancifully whether God was as tall as that tree or as tall as that other tree. 

Must my child wonder whether that person is this amount racist or that amount racist? That doesn’t seem as fanciful.

Dear activist teacher,

Your eyes shine bright with some secret knowledge. Mine burned with it, too. I see your golden heart and hope it's not too heavy.

I had a god once. 

I felt him bubbling inside me when I joined the congregation with my hands up in the air. His love was in all of us at once. But then I went to a Metallica concert and felt Him there, too – bubbling in all of us as we held up our hands. The priest told me that this couldn’t be. But I don’t think he’d ever been to a Metallica concert.

I had a god.

One day a young church elder laid hands on my head and told me that the spirit was on its way. I waited, thinking it had someone more worthy to visit, like those around me who had fallen to their knees. I was patient, though. We were joined by more elders. They were younger than the first. They laid their hands on me – preparing the way. And then I felt it. The spirit. It felt just like hands and fingers on my shoulders and my stomach. It was heavy, getting heavier. I kept my eyes closed, wavering under the weight of it all. Unable to bear it, I fell to my knees. The elders left me there alone because I had been saved. The fingerprints have disappeared now but that night the spirit left human bruises on my shoulders.

But I was one of the lucky ones. Do not leave scars on my child that cannot be erased.

Proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor.

Some pundits claim that CRT is exclusively a school of thought taught in legal academia. On her MSNBC show, Joy Reid claimed that “law school is really the only place it is taught. NBC has looked into everywhere.” Former Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tweeted: “I don’t think critical legal studies should be taught in elementary schools, and I am ready to die on that hill[.]”

These definitions are, of course, mutually exclusive. But they both serve to paint parents into a corner. If CRT is defined just as talking about racism, then parental objections to it must be rooted in racism. If CRT is defined just as a thesis discussed in law schools, then parental objections to it must be rooted in ignorance.

There’s no doubt that CRT has become a politicized term. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo forthrightly explained his strategy on this issue as follows: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Liberal writer Freddie DeBoer has argued that CRT is now a “completely floating signifier.” Conservatives label a host of things they don’t like as CRT. Liberals, then, “feel compelled to defend CRT because conservatives attack it,” and defend it by claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the bad things conservatives say.  

He is absolutely right.

• Critical Race Theory is poison.
• It literally teaches division. It teaches children to segregate themselves by skin color and dislike each other.
• CRT is incredibly patronizing toward people of color!

This dude really nails that last point. It's stunning to me that so many people can't see how racist it is to tell people of color, "Oh, you can't make it on your own, let the white people take you by the hand and help you and then maybe you'll be able to achieve something." BULL!

Original article here.

Keisha King, a Duval County parent representing Moms for Liberty, praised school choice and slammed the idea of dividing people on the basis on race 100 years after the Tulsa riots happened.

“Just coming off of May 31st, marking the 100 years of the Tulsa riots, it is sad that we are even contemplating something like critical race theory, where children will be separated by their skin color and deemed permanently oppressors or oppressed in 2021,” she said. “That is not teaching the truth, unless you believe that whites are better than blacks. I have personally heard teachers teaching CRT and we have had an assembly shutdown because a Duval County Public School System consultant thought it would be a great idea to separate students by race. This is unacceptable.”

“CRT is not racial sensitivity, or simply teaching unfavorable American history, or teaching Jim Crow history. CRT is deeper and more dangerous than that,” she continued. “CRT and it’s out working today is a teaching that there is a hierarchy in society where white male heterosexual able-bodied people are deemed the oppressor and anyone else outside of that status is oppressed. That’s why we see corporations like Coca-Cola asking their employees to be less white, which is ridiculous. I don’t know about you, but telling my child or any child that they are in a permanent oppressed status in America because they are black is racist, and saying that white people are automatically above me, my children or any child is racist as well.”

“This is not something that we can stand for in our country,” she concluded. “And don’t take it from me, look at the writers of these types of publications, our ancestors, white, black, and others hung, bled, and died right alongside each other to push America towards that more perfect union. If this continues, we will look back and be responsible for the dismantling of the greatest country in the world by reverting to teaching hate and that race is a determining factor on where your destiny lies.”

Original article here.

“When I hear the ideas of critical race theory, they don’t remind me of my experience here in Chicago at all,” Takyrica Kokoszka, a black woman and Chicago public school teacher, told Fox News.

Kokoszka and her white husband, Martin, live in the toney, liberal Illinois suburb, Oak Park, with their biracial children.

The couple spoke to the outlet about their experience living in the long-integrated neighborhood, where they say the local school administration tells teachers that “all schools are rooted in white supremacy” and that “racism… is truly all around us.”

Oak Park actively integrated in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to years of local activism. Now, the couple believes critical race theory is harming that progress and “dumbing down” issues around race and equality.

“Our school that our kids go to, there’s a lot of questions coming from the community about why not more black students are on grade level,” Takyrica said.

“We are looking to explain it away using critical race theory. Instead of us actually digging deep and looking into all the nuances that are involved with school achievement, we’ve watered it down. We’ve dumbed down the reason now to ‘It’s because the system is racist.'”

In fact, the couple believes the critical race theory movement underestimates and oppresses people of color.

“We believe that it hurts our black and brown community that the message is: ‘You’re a victim. You can never make it until we tear down all these systems and structures,” Martin said.

“Black people overcame slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow… and all of a sudden black people cannot succeed?”

The controversial ideology is also harmful and confusing to interracial children.

“Our kids, are they half-oppressor, half-victim? How does that work?” Martin asked.

Original article here.

The outcome will determine whether our children learn to see themselves and other people as ­individuals, instead of merely members of racial groups. Parents of all ethnicities who never thought they’d get involved in politics must step up.

Under the critical race theory pushed in schools, white kids are shamed as racists and oppressors. Black kids are taught to think of themselves as victims. And the ­nation’s history is being presented as something to despise.

When parents object to this brainwashing, school administrators respond with double-talk, ­insisting schools just want to be ­inclusive and diverse.

That’s why it’s time to shift from complaining to fighting for control of local school boards. These boards hire superintendents, set policies and have the clout to stop CRT. Except in large cities like New York, school boards are where the power is.

In Loudon County, Va., parents are organizing to recall a majority of the school board. They’re distressed that teachers are being ­required to learn about “systemic oppression and implicit bias.” One of the recall organizers explains that Loudon schools are focusing less “on individuals” and “more on identity groups and putting everybody into an identity box.”

Last month, parents in Smithtown Central School District on Long Island put up three school-board candidates and swept all three races. Organizers said they acted to stop the school from promoting the 1619 Project, which recasts America’s founding as driven by slavery. Voter turnout was nearly triple the usual turnout.

In Southlake, a Dallas suburb, parents against “divisive, race-conscious learning” ran candidates committed to promoting the ideal of colorblind fairness. They won, too. Hannah Smith, one of the winning candidates, explained the outcome. “By a landslide,” she said, voters “don’t want racially divisive critical race theory taught to their children.”

Even so, capturing a school board isn’t a cake walk. Unions have a grip on the process. Often, candidates are union members or their races are funded by union ­donations. In Fairport, NY, a suburb of Rochester, two opponents of critical race theory lost in May to candidates supported by the teachers’ union.

In Oregon, Sonja McKenzie, vice president of state’s School Boards Association, says she is disturbed to see board races becoming hotly contested political events. “School-board work is not political work. It’s community work.”

Don’t buy that. Incumbents are posing as nonpartisan, but it’s a ruse. Teachers’ unions give 94 percent of their money to Democrats. School boards tend to be pro-union, pro-Democratic Party and in favor of critical race theory.

Last month in Oregon, ColorPAC described its school-board candidates as living “at the intersection of multiple intersecting oppressions.” Opposing them were parents like Maria Lopez-Dauenhauer, who wants unity. She lost her race.

But there is help on the way. Last week, a national political action committee called the 1776 Project announced it will be supporting school-board candidates battling critical race theory. That could even the playing field somewhat against unions.

In many places, the fight for school boards actually started with parents frustrated that teachers’ unions wouldn’t allow schools to reopen. In Eastchester, NY, Jonah Rizzo-Bleichman never thought he would run for political office. But seeing that “hybrid learning” was “a disaster” for his daughter, he concluded “someone had to step up to fight for reopening the schools.”

Now schools are open, but the stakes in the school-board wars are even higher. Of course, schools should teach about America’s past failures, along with its triumphs, and probe racial injustice where it still exists. But of paramount ­importance, young people should learn that their character and deeds matter more than their race.

Original article here.

And more could follow: Nearly a dozen states have introduced similar Republican-backed bills that would direct what students can and cannot be taught about the role of slavery in American history and the ongoing effects of racism in the U.S. today. But critics say the legislation isn't aimed at what children are learning in the classroom.

Idaho's law prohibits educators from teaching "individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin." 

A proposal in Rhode Island would prevent schools from teaching that Rhode Island or the United States "is fundamentally racist or sexist."

However, proponents of critical race theory say it does not teach that any race is inherently racist or is superior, but how race is ingrained in our history.

Critical race theory is not typically "taught in elementary and secondary schools because it is based in legal theory," Jazmyne Owens, of public policy think tank New America, told CBS News. She said the wave of legislation "is really aimed at erasing and whitewashing American history."

Owens pointed to a Texas bill that just passed in the state's House that opponents say bans any discussion of privilege and white supremacy. "In the long term, bills of this nature, and those that intend to censor the way that race and systemic racism is discussed in the classroom are way more harmful to students," she said.

"Protecting education means being honest about the parts of our history that hurt, particularly chattel slavery, and being proactive in ensuring that we end current reproductions of racism and inequity in classrooms and beyond," Owens said. 

Many of the state bills have similar goals as two executive orders former President Donald Trump introduced in 2020, one that called for patriotic education and a one that sought to ban diversity training and training on critical race theory for federal workers. President Joe Biden has revoked both.

In introducing his executive order on the 1776 Commission, which was created to reinstate "patriotism" in American schools, Mr. Trump blasted critical race theory and the 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Magazine project that details the history of America through a collection of essays and resources that look at how slavery shaped the country since the first slaves arrived. It is available to schools as a teaching resource.

"Critical race theory, the 1619 Project and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison, that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together, will destroy our country," Mr. Trump said.

Journalists on the project consulted with numerous scholars of African-American history, conducted research, and fact-checked, with researchers carefully reviewing with subject-area experts, the Times has said.

Mr. Biden has proposed a grant program that would fund curriculum about bias, discriminatory policies in America and the value of diverse student perspectives and would invoke lessons from the 1619 Project, a proposal Republican Senator Mitch McConnell pushed back on.

"Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil," McConnell said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona asking him to stop the program.

Republican Representative Ken Buck, who called the project "un-American," and Senator Tom Cotton each introduced bills last year that sought to prevent teachers from using the 1619 Project. Neither advanced. 

The National Council for the Social Studies denounced legislation to prevent educators from teaching critical race theory and "resoundingly reject any effort by the federal government to silence social studies curriculum that explicitly addresses the centrality of slavery in the historical narrative of the United States."

"In the National Council for Social Studies, we support social studies education and any legislation that is attempting to curtail our students' equitable access to the real truth, to all of history is problematic to us," Wesley Hedgepeth, a member of the council's board of directors, told CBS News.

The council has also defended the 1619 Project, saying teachers who use it "accurately depict the history of slavery in the United States, broaden the horizons of their students, and prepare citizens for a just democratic society."

Owens said while critical race theory "has been around, and debated for many years," Mr. Trump "seems to have made it a part of a political agenda, and now the subject of potential legislation."

Still, state lawmakers have joined the effort to block the 1619 Project specifically and critical race theory from curricula. 

"Policy happens at the state level and bills at the state level have a much larger chance of passing and remaining in place based on the makeup and power of their legislatures," Owens said. "The federal government can try and set the tone, but it's going to be up to voters and advocates at the state and local levels to ensure those bills do not pass." 

In Missouri, Republican State Representative Brian Seitz introduced an amendment that would specifically ban educators from teaching about the 1619 Project to a bill that would prevent critical race theory lessons.

He called the project "revisionist history, seeking to determine our national origins to be based on a negative act (slavery), therefore, everything that follows, including The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, Capitalism, our healthcare system, road systems, even the foods that we eat are fatally flawed and inherently 'racist.'"

In an email to CBS News, Republican state Representative Patricia Morgan, who sponsored the Rhode Island bill, said that critical race theory "seeks to find racism in every part of American society. It is poisonous. It should have no place in our schools." 

Morgan said Martin Luther King Jr. "looked to the day when all of us would be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin" in his 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech."