Yesterday, on the day commemorating the most important event in American history, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Columbia and UCLA law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw all about how Critical Race Theory opponents want to “ban and bury” the darker moments of our history in schools:
On 7-4, my meditation on the duality of our nation's memory – – the heroic past that people want to own and celebrate today, and the ugly past they want to ban and bury. But CRT won't look away. Racism is the evil twin that won't stay locked in the closet. https://t.co/r7vQxYcZ1p
— Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) July 5, 2021
We struggled to find an excerpt to post here, because in all honesty, the entire piece is a hot mess of dishonest insanity. But hopefully her conclusion will give you an idea of where Crenshaw is coming from:
The impulse to quash discussion of racism comes out of the same political movement that believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election — and that mobs ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 were justified in their bloodthirsty assault on democracy because they contend they were there to save it. Understood in context with parallel efforts to suppress democracy and protest, it should be clear that the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Indeed, beyond this incendiary 2022 campaign strategy lies the future of America. We cannot fight to realize our loftiest values if past and present injustices are made unspeakable. This is why anyone who marched for justice for George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery or Breonna Taylor, anyone who can acknowledge that a sanitized history of the Civil War and Reconstruction led to nearly a century of segregation, anyone who does not want their children insulated from our nation’s past, anyone who is concerned about a creeping authoritarianism and the myths of the past that abet it, and anyone who believes in a truly multiracial democracy should be relentless in opposing the new efforts to banish anti-racist thought and speech from public institutions.
When it comes to racial reckoning, the future of our country depends not on whether we litigate who among us is guilty but whether we all see ourselves as responsible. Let us together stand up to these cynical attacks — we have seen them too many times before to fall prey to another cycle of race, reform and retrenchment.
Crenshaw also emphasizes that she’s “been a leading scholar in developing” Critical Race Theory, which explains why she’s so hellbent on defending it. It’s her legacy. But her entire argument is predicated on the false claim that examining history from a modern perspective requires some kind of racial reckoning from those who had literally nothing to do with that history. According to Crenshaw, opposition to Critical Race Theory is rooted in opposition to studying history. But Critical Race Theory is decidedly anti-history, using past historical events to shame young people for being white.
And if it screws up kids, you know that AFT President Randi Weingarten fully supports it:
Incredibly important piece from @sandylocks about why these bans on teaching history and discussing racism in the classroom are so dangerous. Our students deserve to have the freedom to learn and discuss this in school. https://t.co/kyeN3rUaT7
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) July 4, 2021
Four Pinocchios, Randi.
This is so dishonest.
— Anita B (@danlilr) July 4, 2021
Hard to tell if you’re ignorant or lying. Based on your work, it could be either.
— Anthony Bialy (@AnthonyBialy) July 5, 2021
There is no ban on teaching history or discussing racism. Why lie?
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) July 4, 2021
Incredibly deceitful to pretend that teaching and discussing racism can only happen in the framework of CRT.
— Daniela Oertli (@danielaoertli) July 5, 2021
CRT is a method and a framework. It’s a perspective on history. Not history.
— Article V Convention of States please (@philthatremains) July 4, 2021
Teaching history and discussing racism is fine. CRT is neither history nor a “discussion” on racism. It’s a one-sided view that does not allow for a “discussion”.
— libertybelle (@LibertyBellaDon) July 4, 2021
No one is banning teaching history. They are banning the designation of oppressors on today's kids.
— MongoSantaMaria (@MongoMaria) July 4, 2021
What @rweingarten AFT is proposing is not education but indoctrination pure & simple.
— howardrgold (@howardrgold1) July 4, 2021
Our students do have the freedom to learn and discuss history in school. What many of them don’t have, however, is the freedom to learn without the sinister influence of teachers’ unions.
You're a liar, and your sole function in life is to take money that should be going to educate children.
— The Partyman (@PartymanRandy) July 5, 2021
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