Critical Race Theory (CRT)
What It Is and Is Not
Photo Credit: Public Source
Issue #529 The Choice Monday, March 11, 2024
Recently, the “Stop Woke” campaign by Republican Florida Governor and failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has encountered some setbacks, including from the very conservative Florida 11th Circuit Appeals Court. Part of his “Where Woke Goes to Die” initiatives includes efforts to re-write American history to downplay the racial incidents that have occurred since before the United States was even a country.
According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the term “critical race theory” has been co-opted by opponents as a catch-all and rallying cry to silence any discussions about systemic racism, ban the truthful teaching of American history, and reverse progress toward racial justice. The term has been unjustifiably used to include all diversity and inclusion efforts, race-conscious policies, and education about racism, whether or not they draw from CRT. Attempts to ban CRT are really attacks on free speech, on discussions about the truthful history of race and racism in the U.S., and the lived experiences of Black people and other people of color.
Some right-wing officials have gone as far as to call for the elimination of the jobs of public school teachers and college professors and even for them to be imprisoned for teaching what they call “CRT”.
So what really is CRT? How can we ensure that all of American History, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is taught and discussed?
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a framework that examines how race and racism are embedded in the laws, policies, and institutions of society. It looks at how systemic racism impacts individuals and communities, particularly people of color.
The scholarly framework holds that racism goes far beyond just individually held prejudices and that it is in fact a systemic phenomenon woven into the laws and institutions of this nation.
The true meaning and intent of CRT is to challenge the status quo and push for a more equitable society by understanding the historical and present-day impacts of racism. It is about analyzing systems of power and privilege that perpetuate inequality.
It is important to note that CRT is an academic theory used primarily in legal studies and other disciplines to better understand the complexities of race and racism. CRT is only studied in graduate schools and law schools.
It is not a curriculum taught in K-12 schools as some critics claim. The attempts to ban CRT in schools are actually efforts to silence discussions about systemic racism and prevent students from learning about the true history of race relations in the United States.
The right wing is attempting to take over school boards and encourage school systems to implement privately developed alternative curricula that “whitewash” American history and facts, such as pretending that slavery was actually good for the enslaved people and omitting or rewriting biographies of Black people and other people of color and liberals with policies they do not like.
As parents, teachers, and citizens who desire the truth to be taught, we must be very vigilant about what is and is not taught in our schools, and dismantle the efforts to privatize our public schools and re-write American history to their false notions of what really happened.
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