Source: Robert Gauthier / Getty
One thing about Republicans: once they get ahold of a juicy piece of factless propaganda, they refuse to let it go. (See the MAGA world’s continued baseless assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, or the thoroughly refuted idea that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.)
So, it should surprise no one that, on Wednesday, GOP lawmakers joined a hearing in a U.S. House education panel so they could resurrect their feelings-over-facts-based war on critical race theory.
From Raw Story:
Though critical race theory is used in college and graduate-level programs, GOP members on the U.S. House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education said the framework is also being taught in K-12 schools.
The federal government has no role in K-12 curriculum, which is set by states and districts across the country, leaving the House panel without any authority to legislate the matter.
Subcommittee Chairman Aaron Bean pointed to negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational outcomes and asked why schools “taught race-inspired ideology” instead of focusing on bouncing back from the pandemic-era setbacks.
The Florida Republican added that critical race theory is “now reshaping how young people interpret their identity, and it’s changing how they see themselves, each other, in our country.”
Bean probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s telling on himself, his Party and his ideology with that statement. Why shouldn’t “young people,” or anyone for that matter, “reshape” or at least question their identity, or “how they see themselves, each other,” and “our country?” Why should the perception of America and racial identity within the nation be so ironclad that the status quo goes unchallenged throughout generations? Why shouldn’t these things be examined? Why do conservatives consider any examination or interpretation of America that doesn’t fall in line with their jingoistic brand of so-called patriotism to be “indoctrination,” while they attempt to force their idealistic (and delusional) “shining city on the hill” version of the nation down every American’s throat — a practice they conveniently don’t consider to constitute indoctrination?
Republicans aren’t afraid of CRT because it’s being taught in K-12 schools (it’s not) or because they even have a clear understanding of what CRT is (they don’t). White conservatives hate CRT and everything else they consider “woke” because those ideas challenge their worldview and their comfort within the realm of whiteness.
In fact, Republicans have never really been able to cite specific, unambiguous instances where the academic framework that is CRT has been taught to anyone not at the college level, so they resort to being as vague as possible, which generally means re-defining CRT as an umbrella term for literally everything that makes white people uncomfortable.
“I never had any professional development that separated me by race and taught this because it is just not taught or discussed at the K-12 level, so not really sure why it’s a part of this hearing today — it is a legal theory taught in law school,” said Connecticut Democrat Rep. Jahana Hayes, who was a public school history teacher for 15 years.
More from Raw Story:
Ian Rowe, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, pointed to “specific practices undergirded by the ideology driving critical race theory.”
Rowe, who is also a senior visiting fellow at the nonprofit Woodson Center, offered examples, such as learning exercises where children are in a line and a teacher says: “Take two steps forward if you’re white, take three steps backward if you’re Black.”
He did not specify where this occurred.
Bean brought in panelists from organizations and initiatives he said were built to “emphasize the importance of civics, understanding America’s founding principles and promoting a free exchange of ideas.”
Civics has become a hot-button issue within education culture wars, and the 2024 Republican Party platform called for promoting “love of country” through “authentic civics education.”
Your civics lesson is neither “authentic” nor objective when you’re presenting it with an expressed agenda, such as promoting “love of country,” and you’re certainly not “promoting a free exchange of ideas” when you’re seeking to ban one interpretation of America into white and fragile oblivion while seeking to uphold your perception of America as the only perception that should ever be taught to students.
Of course, Republicans have successfully reelected the president who made popular the propaganda surrounding the conservative war on CRT. Trump did that through lies, racism, white nationalism and white grievance pandering, and the rest of his Party simply followed suit.
We can expect much more of that in the coming four years of his second presidency, and we must be steadfast in fighting that indoctrination.
SEE ALSO:
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw Breaks Down The True Essence Of Critical Race Theory
Arkansas Moves To Confiscate All African American Studies Materials Over Critical Race Theory Fears
