Critical Race Theory: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Summary

The video examines the controversy around critical race theory (CRT) and its portrayal in media and politics. It explains what CRT actually is - legal scholarship analyzing why racism persists post-civil rights. The video then explores how CRT has become a catchall term used by some to resist broader conversations about race, targeting diversity trainings and lessons. It traces connections between the anti-CRT movement and groups pushing for school choice and revising history curriculums. The host argues that shutting down discussions of race in schools fails to address racism and advocates for more constructive dialogue, rather than bans, around these complex topics.

Takeaways

• 😡 The panic over critical race theory (CRT) is being used by some conservatives to push school choice and restrict discussions of race
• 😕 CRT is complex legal scholarship about systemic racism, not what critics claim it is
• 🤔 The CRT backlash shows many don't understand CRT or discussions of race in schools
• 😠 Laws restricting CRT discussions could limit honest engagement with US history
• 😢 MLK later questioned his 'I Have a Dream' optimism about racial harmony
• 😠 Voucher schools promoted by anti-CRT activists sometimes teach distorted history
• 😡 Anti-CRT activist Chris Rufo admits pushing panic deliberately over CRT in schools
• 😩 Discussing race is uncomfortable but conversations shouldn't be shut down
• 😔 Marginalized students don't have the luxury of not thinking about race
• 🙂 We should have thoughtful discussions about race instead of banning topics

Q & A

What is critical race theory and where did it originate?

Critical race theory is a body of legal scholarship that began in the 1970s. It attempts to understand why racism and inequality persisted after the civil rights movement. The core idea is that racism is embedded in legal systems and policies, not just a product of individual bias.

How has conservative activist Christopher Rufo contributed to the panic over critical race theory?

Rufo has rebranded critical race theory into a broader category encompassing any conversations about race that conservatives want to shut down. He's cherry-picked extreme examples to portray CRT negatively and make people associate it with anything crazy or objectionable related to race.

What are some key goals of the anti-CRT movement beyond banning it from schools?

Some anti-CRT activists like Rufo have admitted they are using the panic over CRT to advance school choice agendas. Others see it as a way to sanitize and whitewash school curriculums, removing honest discussions of racism and promoting conservative values.

What have been some consequences of the anti-CRT panic so far?

Teachers and administrators have lost jobs over CRT controversies, even without evidence behind the accusations. Many states have introduced bills to restrict teachings on racism. Book bans are increasing. Terms like "diversity" and "white privilege" are being avoided.

How does the anti-CRT use of MLK quotes distort his views and the history?

They cherry-pick aspirational early quotes, ignoring his later reflections questioning superficial optimism and calling for white self-examination. This promotes a false narrative that MLK solved racism in his lifetime.

How could anti-CRT laws negatively impact classroom discussions of race?

They could give parents broad ability to sue over kids feeling discomfort, guilt or anguish because of their race. This could lead schools to severely limit discussions of racism to avoid controversy.

What are some alternatives to banning critical race theory?

Rather than bans, schools need to prioritize helping teachers improve their ability to facilitate complex discussions on racism in constructive ways appropriate for students' ages.

Whose discomfort is really being prioritized by the anti-CRT movement?

The discomfort of white/conservative parents is trumping that of students of color, who don't have the option not to experience racism. Avoiding the topic doesn't eliminate their discomfort.

How might voucher academies that replace public schools make racial issues worse?

Many use textbooks that sanitize slavery and downplay systemic racism. Kids may receive warped, conservative views of history and racial inequities rather than truthful accounts.

Why can't racism just be ignored until it disappears, as some anti-CRT activists suggest?

Racism shapes everyday experiences for people of color regardless of acknowledgment or discussion. Refusing to address issues does not make them vanish.

Outlines

00:00

😮Definition and explanations of critical race theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship from the 1970s attempting to understand why racism persisted after the civil rights movement. The core idea is that racism is embedded in legal systems and policies, not just individual prejudice. CRT is graduate-level theory not being directly taught to kids. Critics present distorted ideas of CRT being taught in schools.

05:02

😊CRT encourages honest conversations about inequality

CRT scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw says CRT encourages paying attention to how the past impacts differential outcomes today, so America can become the equal country it claims to be. CRT promotes conversations about inequality, which is more patriotic than opposing it.

10:02

😖Examples of clumsy lessons about race

There are bad implementations of lessons about race, like privilege bingo cards or eye-color discrimination activities, especially in diverse classrooms. But many educators work hard to teach about race properly. Teachers deserve credit for what students learn given the challenges they face.

15:04

😡Using MLK quotes incorrectly to oppose CRT

Anti-CRT activists incorrectly invoke MLK's dream speech as if it described reality then rather than aspirations. King himself later challenged white Americans' self-deception on progress. Banning discomfort about race misrepresents history.

20:06

😞Prioritizing some students' discomfort over others'

Laws restricting CRT lessons prioritize some students' discomfort over others'. Students of color don't get to avoid talking about race. White parents could exploit discomfort clauses to control curriculums based on their sensibilities.

25:07

😤Need for honest conversations about race

Discussions about race may sometimes be uncomfortable, but learning and growing isn't always comfortable. Generations have been taught fairy tales about race. Maybe it's time to talk honestly, rather than insist racism ended with MLK and electing Obama.

Keywords

💡Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Critical Race Theory refers to an academic framework that examines how racism is embedded in societal structures and policies. The video discusses how conservative activists and media figures have intentionally rebranded CRT to apply broadly to any discussion of race, racism or inequality in order to manufacture outrage. The video aims to clarify what CRT actually entails and analyze the actual consequences of the manufactured panic surrounding it.

💡systemic racism

Systemic racism refers to how societal systems and policies - not just individual people - can perpetuate racial inequity and discrimination over time. The video argues that CRT seeks to analyze and reveal systemic racism that persists despite civil rights progress, which clashes with the conservative view that racism is only an issue of individual attitudes.

💡racial panic

The video examines how conservative activists and media figures have deliberately created panic regarding CRT and classroom discussions of race in order to advance their political goals. Terms like 'racial panic' and 'manufactured outrage' are used to highlight how the current controversy is more politically motivated than based on genuine concerns.

💡indoctrination

Some CRT opponents claim it 'indoctrinates' students to hate America or fuels racial divisions. But the video argues these claims are false and exaggerate simple discussions of history and race issues into something radical. The indoctrination claims are meant to fuel racial panic.

💡school choice

Some conservatives hope to leverage racial controversies and panic to advance 'school choice' policies that would redirect public funds to private schools. The video traces links between past efforts to avoid integration and current use of CRT panic to push voucher programs.

💡sanitized history

There is a long history of smoothing over difficult aspects of history related to racism and slavery within school curriculums. The video argues attempts to ban CRT or limit race discussions perpetuate this issue of presenting students with a 'sanitized', inaccurate history.

💡white privilege

The concept of innate advantages for white people is referenced directly multiple times. Backlash against the mere discussion of this idea in classrooms, including calls for teachers to be fired, is presented as an example of overreach by CRT opponents.

💡race discussions

A core argument the video makes is discussions of race, history and inequality should not be avoided in classrooms but conducted carefully and constructively. It states bans on CRT, which is not even taught in K-12 schools, can inhibit beneficial race dialogues.

💡discomfort

Laws prohibiting classroom discussions that cause racial discomfort or guilt are discussed. The video contends prioritizing the comfort of some parents over the needs and realities of students of color is the wrong approach.

💡MLK ideals

Conservatives commonly invoke MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech to argue he stood against current race dialogues, while ignoring his later statements on continued injustice. The video argues this promotes a simplified fairy tale version of King and U.S. racial progress.

Highlights

Critical race theory is a body of legal scholarship that attempted to understand why racism and inequality persisted after the civil rights movement

Critical race theory says let's pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes

Conservatives have rebranded critical race theory into a broad category that encompasses any conversation about race that someone does not want to have

You can find examples of clumsy, insensitive lessons about race, but many educators are working very hard to find age-appropriate ways to talk about these issues

The roots of the school choice movement trace back to states adopting voucher programs after Brown v. Board of Education to facilitate white flight from integrated schools

37 states have introduced legislation restricting teaching critical race theory or limiting how teachers can discuss racism

Lawmakers are trying to micromanage school curriculums to satisfy the most conservative parents, resulting in more book bans

MLK later reflected on his 'I Have a Dream' speech and challenged white Americans to look more deeply at themselves regarding racism

New laws could bend school curriculums to the sensibilities of the most conservative parents and restrict honest conversations about race

Talking about race is unavoidable, and shutting down those conversations privileges the discomfort of white parents over students of color

Kids learn about race at a young age no matter what; we should teach all students about it equitably so we can work on it together

The end goal of this critical race theory panic is to shut down discussions of race in public schools while promoting private voucher academies

We've told generations of kids fairy tales about race in this country, insisting things like racism ended with MLK and Obama's election

We should learn how to have better conversations about race instead of banning them, because that hasn't solved anything

Our discomfort is necessary for growth; we should expose the fairy tales told about racism and have open discussions, not run from them

Transcripts

[Music]

moving on

our main story tonight concerns school

it's the only setting in which a child

dissecting a frog is not an immediate

red flag

we teach kids a lot in school from

reading to long division to how to play

the recorder for some reason but

recently there has been a lot of concern

over one particular thing that people

worry that kids are learning

critical race theory is being taught in

our schools

critical race theory is bunk critical

race theory is a lie from the first word

to the last from start to finish racist

critical race theory critical race

theory critical race theory in the

schools and the wokeness let me tell you

right now critical race theory is

bigoted it is a lie and it is every bit

as racist as the klansmen in white

sheets

i do not like that ted cruz man

i do not like him shouting clan i do not

like him in a room i do not like him in

cancun

i do not like him playing ball i do not

like his face at all i wish he'd lose

his cushy job that man ted cruz is a

knob but here's the thing

it is true you have probably heard

people yelling about critical race

theory on tv for more than a year now

and people have been listening to that

noise especially judging by what's been

happening at school board meetings

across the country

[Applause]

the western culture and values that

brought forth christianity in the

founding documents are being called evil

and racist i am not co-parenting with

the government it is not your job to

force these ideas onto my child the

narrative in this country is that we're

all inherently racist and i'm about sick

of it it's a marxist ideology and we all

know it all of these lessons have the

intent to make our children feel disgust

towards our nation this country isn't

even a racist country we elected obama

for two times wait hold on hold on

america can't be racist because of obama

i don't know if you remember the 2008

election but things got pretty racist

back then people kept saying he was born

in kenya people said he was a secret

muslim and then a few years later we

elected that people president so let's

just agree to disagree on that one shall

we that first meeting was in loudoun

county virginia and it got so out of

hand that the meeting was shut down

early and one guy passionately railing

against crt was arrested for trespassing

only to pop up on tugger carlson the

very next day so clearly a lot of people

are getting very mad about critical race

theory right now and instinctively

you probably know it's a manufactured

panic but the fact is the fear around it

is having real effects last year glenn

younkin won the governor's race in

virginia after repeatedly promising that

on his first day in office he'd ban crt

from being taught in schools multiple

states have passed laws outlawing the

teaching of it and republicans are

likely to make it a major focus of the

midterms when it comes to critical race

theory think of it like rihanna's

pregnancy

even if you think it has nothing to do

with you believe me you're going to be

hearing a lot about it this year

so given that we thought tonight we take

a step back and look at what critical

race theory is and isn't why the panic

around it has spread and what the

consequences might be for everyone

involved and i realize some of you may

already know what crt is after all

explainers honest have become one of the

most common sites on the internet along

with mediocre wordle scores and ugly

monkey jpegs sold by and four

but

but many are still very confused a

recent survey found that an overwhelming

majority of u.s residents have a hard

time articulating exactly what crt is

and that even goes for some of those

who've been yelling about it the loudest

i i've never figured out what a critical

race theory is to be totally honest

after a year of talking about it they're

teaching that some races are morally

superior to others that some are

inherently sinful and some are

inherently saintly and that's immoral to

teach that because it's wrong

wow i don't know if i've ever seen a

person confidently complain about

something just seconds after admitting

they don't know about it

look i've never figured out how a car

engine works to be honest but there's a

chimpanzee under the hood turning a

crank and when you press the accelerator

it pokes it with a sharp stick and makes

him crank faster and it's immoral to do

that because it's wrong

but obviously that is not what critical

race theory is it's the name given to a

body of legal scholarship that began in

the 1970s that attempted to understand

why racism and inequality persisted

after the civil rights movement the core

idea is that racism is not merely the

product of individual bias or prejudice

but also something that is embedded in

legal systems and policies as for

tucker's notion that it teaches that

some races are superior to others or

that parents claim that it teaches kids

to hate america none of that is remotely

true as kimberley crenshaw one of crt's

leading scholars points out

critic cory's theory just says let's pay

attention to what has happened in this

country and how what has happened in

this country is continuing to create

differential outcomes so we can become

that country that we say we are so

critically siri is not anti-patriotic in

fact it is more patriotic than those who

are opposed to it because we believe in

the 13th and the 14th and the 15th

amendment we believe in the promises of

equality and we know we can't get there

if we can't confront and talk honestly

about inequality yeah she's right and

incidentally if you've just found

yourself there wondering what the 13th

14th and 15th amendments are that alone

might be a good sign that we don't talk

about this stuff in schools enough and

to be clear seot is graduate level legal

theory so unless your five-year-old is

currently pursuing a law degree they're

not reading kimberley crenshaw but

critics of it argue that the ideas

behind crt are being taught in schools

and often present a hyperbolically

distorted version of what those ideas

are and a key person here is this man a

conservative activist named christopher

ruffo he claims crt is actually a

revolutionary program that would

overturn the principles of the

declaration and destroy the remaining

structure of the constitution which it

just isn't it isn't that

but in the wake of the george floyd

protests just as america was beginning

to grapple with systemic racism fox news

began featuring roofo on air a lot as

part of their efforts to swing that

pendulum back hard and in one appearance

he pointed to diversity trainings in

government as evidence of crt's

influence and he spoke directly to

president trump through the camera about

what he wanted to see happen

the president at the white house it's

within their authority and power to

immediately issue an executive order

abolishing critical race theory

trainings from the federal government

and i call on the president to

immediately issue this executive order

and and stamp out this destructive

divisive

pseudo-scientific ideology at its root

now did trump see that i don't know is

the pope a catholic is the reason big

died the fact that carrie didn't call

9-1-1 fast enough the answer to all

those questions is yes and also she was

right not to do it no big loss

because mark meadows trump's chief of

staff has since revealed president trump

saw that interview and when roofo said i

call on the president to immediately

issue this executive order quote that's

what we did which is weird there should

be more steps than that it shouldn't

just go one yell your wish at the

president then two it happens

ideally you want an executive branch

that's a little more complicated than

siri

and with that

crt or crucially rufo's definition of it

was suddenly absolutely everywhere fox

news kept pushing it mentioning the term

critical race theory nearly 5 000 times

last year alone and the network zeroed

in on its supposed use in schools with

ruffo telling fox's audience that crt

has really become the default ideology

of the public education system and what

rufo has been cleverly doing is cherry

picking the worst examples that he can

find of lessons in classrooms or

training materials for teachers and

saying that is crt and he's openly

admitted that he's been engaged in a

deliberate rebranding exercise tweeting

we have successfully frozen their brand

critical race theory into the public

conversation and are steadily driving up

negative perceptions the goal is to have

the public read something crazy in the

newspaper and immediately think critical

race theory and the thing is it

worked because whenever you hear crt now

you are not hearing about the academic

discipline you're hearing about a

category so broad it encompasses both

the craziest thing in the newspaper and

also crucially any conversation about

race that someone does not want to have

and look

i am not saying discussing race in a

classroom is easy or even always done

well experts in this field will readily

admit that

now have you seen bad implementations of

this of course

right that's like asking have i seen a

bad math lesson right like

yes

teachers are humans especially as we're

trying to figure out how to teach about

race and racism

exactly teachers are human and can make

mistakes frankly i'm surprised they

don't make more they wake up insanely

early and spend all day getting low-key

roasted by teenagers for an amount of

money best described as completely

harrowing the very fact any student in

america knows what a covalent bond is is

a miracle and every adult

involved deserves the congressional

medal of honor

and the fact is you can find examples of

clumsy shitty lessons one school used a

privilege bingo card which sure seems

like a glib way to handle a very serious

subject another classic lesson over the

years has been to teach about prejudice

metaphorically by dividing a classroom

up by eye color with brown eyed people

for instance being the lowest tier and

then being treated terribly and if you

do that in a diverse classroom and think

for even a second about who is more

likely to have brown eyes

you can probably immediately see just

how badly that lesson could go that

actually happened in at least one school

in the chicago area and the reason i

know that is that this kid was in the

class that day and she's one of our

writers now ali what did you think of

that lesson

it was pretty up yeah yeah i bet

it was

but the fact is

many educators are working very hard to

find age-appropriate ways to talk about

race and racism in the classroom and if

you do it right you don't stop at the

civil rights movement you tell the story

all the way to the present day which

kids want and need they have questions

about what they can see with their own

eyes and they deserve good answers and

it is frankly far better for them to

have these discussions in a supportive

educational environment rather than the

potential alternative during a screaming

match at thanksgiving but the panic over

crt threatens to shut those

conversations down and that is not all

it is likely to do because some pushing

this panic the hardest are actually

using it to advance a much bigger agenda

that they've wanted for a very long time

and that is school choice basically

letting parents take tax dollars

afforded to the public schooling of

their kid and use them at any school

they like here is chris ruffo again

laying out that exact strategy

first uh we have to just get it out of

schools we have to ban it and abolish it

but in the long term what we need to do

is give every parent in this country a

right to exit failing institutions no

child should be trapped in a failing

public school that violates his sense of

conscience that violates the values of

the parents every parent should take

those education dollars anywhere that

they wish school choice will liberate

people it will empower people and it

will actually depolarize some of these

national fights that we've seen

oh so you're doing all of this to tone

down part of that fight are you chris

very cool of you you've probably noticed

that general wave of calm chill vibes

sweeping the nation lately if there is

one word i would use to describe every

image coming out of a school board

meeting these days it is

depolarized

look

it is not just rufo conservative

organizations that have long pushed for

school choice like the heritage

foundation and freedom works have poured

money into this fight and of course no

school choice push would be complete

without lifelong rich person and

occasional education secretary betsy

devos who wrote an op-ed titled let's

liberate kids from race indoctrination

with school choice and you should know

this is just nothing new there is a long

history of responding to racial panic

with a push for school choice in fact

the roots of the school choice movement

trace back to the brown versus board of

education decision when southern states

adopted voucher programs to facilitate

the creation of private schools called

segregation academies and some of those

taking advantage of school choice today

sure seem to be doing some heavy

indoctrination of their own take florida

it is one of the states that allows

public money to go to voucher schools

and a few years back an investigation

into some of them found commonly used

textbooks that downplayed the horrors of

slavery one of them is this one america

land i love which has all the kind of

that you would expect the civil

war was fought for states rights but it

also states that during the antebellum

period the slave who knew christ had

more freedom than a free person who did

not know the savior which is not just

offensive it is profoundly stupid any

kid reading that absolute trombone slide

of a sentence

would instantly dropped two full grades

it sounds less like something you'd find

in a textbook and more like something

you'd find crocheted on a throw pillow

in paula dean's living room

so if you want to talk about racial

indoctrination of school kids this might

be a better place to start but the thing

is

even a manufactured panic is a panic

those parents at school board meetings

are genuinely angry and as any little

league coach knows

once you reach a critical mass of angry

white parents there will be consequences

in texas this high school principal was

forced out of his job after being

accused at a school board meeting of

promoting crt by someone who wasn't even

a parent at his school and in tennessee

this current affairs teacher was fired

for not giving varying points of view

after he gave students a tanahassee coat

article and showed them kyla janae

lacy's poem white privilege and he

actually had a pretty decent response to

that criticism i think to me

the varying viewpoint

is

kyla janet lacey and is tanahasi coates

those are perspectives that my students

aren't exposed to on a daily basis

because

you know we live in that white dominant

evangelical

environment

right when you live in a mostly white

environment the voices of black people

can be the varying point of view and not

just on current events either on lots of

things that white people might otherwise

assume even trivial ones like it's okay

to go out in a blizzard in shorts and if

i argue with this cop i can probably get

out of a ticket and time travel would be

a fun and stress-free activity

the 1930s i can't wait to look around

unfortunately though those situations

are now only likely to become more

common since january of last year 37

states have introduced bills or taken

other steps that would restrict teaching

critical race theory or limit how

teachers can discuss racism and the

justification for these has often been

more than a little flimsy here is one

tennessee lawmaker explaining why he was

pushing for his state's bill listen to

the following quotes from an email

forwarded to me concerning a

seven-year-old girl in williamson county

the little girl told her mother

i'm ashamed that i'm white

the daughter then asked her mother

is there something wrong with me

why am i hated so much

okay i hear that i really do but the

thing to do in that situation isn't to

pass a law limiting the discussion of

race in the classroom is to ask

literally one follow-up question like

what was happening to make you think the

other kids hate you or did any adults

step in when you felt this way or do you

even exist because you should know when

reporters looked into this they found no

parent had come forward to that school's

principal teachers or district officials

with that complaint and administrators

there weren't able to pinpoint any

students who might be upset or lessons

that could have been upsetting and if

that is how we are arguing things now i

should probably mention that i too just

so happen to have an email forward from

a different little white girl way cuter

than the first one by the way who said

that that first girl story is complete

and the thing is by tennessee

law it seems i simply have to believe

her

but that that lawmaker actually

illustrates the problem facing

legislators currently trying to outlaw

something that they cannot define

because what are you then gonna do

pass a law saying kids can't feel bad

well it turns out yes because that is

exactly what tennessee did they passed a

law prohibiting any teaching that would

cause discomfort guilt anguish or

distress solely because of the

individual's race or sex which is very

broad and you know what you're not going

to believe this but i just received

another email this second

from a third tennessee white girl who

says what idiots are writing

these laws and how many fictitious

children are they gonna make up to

justify them p.s i honestly preferred

the new zazu and wow what a nice thing

to say from a definitely real child

and look the thing is

we have talked before on this show about

the multiple problems with teaching kids

a sanitized version of us history and

how as far back as a century ago groups

like the united daughters of the

confederacy were reshaping textbooks to

downplay its horrors and it seems

here we go again i guess because

lawmakers are trying to micromanage

school curriculums sometimes pretty

ineptly a bill proposed in virginia

contains a section listing some of the

founding documents that is okay to teach

a list that includes the declaration of

independence the constitution and the

first debate between abraham lincoln and

frederick douglass which i hope you know

is not a thing that happened

the lincoln douglas debates were of

course between senator stephen douglas

and his opponent a 2020 lincoln

navigator so

read your history everyone facts matter

here

but maybe the most insulting distortion

of history is in the quote that every

single anti-crt activist seems to love

to invoke

you think about what mlk uh stood for he

said he didn't want people judged on the

color of their skin but on the content

of their character you know i i believe

it was martin luther king said you know

when he was talking about his children

that he didn't want his children to be

judged on the color of their skin but by

the content of their character content

of their character not by the color of

their skin content of our character not

the color of our skin and the immortal

words of dr martin luther king ring in

our ears that we must judge others not

by the color of their skin by the

content of their character the left

wants us to constantly focus on skin

color it's destructive martin luther

king jr is rolling over in his grave

yeah you know what i bet he is actually

in fact i'm pretty sure every time

someone uses his words that way dr

king's illustrious remains spin fast

enough to power the eastern

seaboards

here is the thing though that dream

speech was clearly an aspirational goal

not a description of things as they

stood and in fact king himself later put

a pretty major asterisk on it

i must confess that

that dream that i had that day has many

points

turned into a nightmare and i've come to

see that we have many more difficult

days ahead

and some of the old optimism

was a little superficial and now it must

be tempered with a solid realism yeah

exactly and in a book published that

same year he wrote that while the

majority of white americans consider

themselves sincerely committed to

justice for the negro and they believe

that american society is essentially

hospitable to fair play and to steady

growth toward a middle-class utopia

embodying racial harmony unfortunately

this is a fantasy of self-deception and

comfortable vanity so while it is

clearly very appealing to create a

version of history where mlk was a kind

figure who existed solely to help white

people win arguments

the truth is he later reflected on his

own message and challenged white people

to look more deeply at themselves and

that is something the kids should

absolutely be learning about in school

but the problem is they won't if these

laws continue a white parent could

plausibly claim that reading mlk's

writing made their child feel discomfort

on the basis of their race and some of

these laws seem designed to bend schools

curriculums to the sensibilities of the

most conservative alarmed parents in

florida ron desantis is pushing a stop

woke act that was him unveiling it just

a minute ago with chris ruffo by the way

right behind him and that would give

parents private right of action to sue

if they think their kids are being

taught crt and all of these laws are

already having chilling effects book

bans are on the rise around the country

and one oklahoma school district has

even told teachers simply to avoid using

terms like diversity and white privilege

and look here's the thing you can ban

all the books you want you can try and

legislate it away but as any black woman

on the bachelor can tell you

talking about race is unavoidable and it

is not just unavoidable it's essential

especially in the places where people

are most panicked about crt and this

actually brings us

all the way back to where this story

began in loudoun county virginia where

that school board meeting got so very

far out of hand here is one of the

leaders of the anti-crt push there

explaining just why she is so fiercely

opposed to it being taught in loudoun

county this is the wealthiest county in

the country

there's not a lot of racism

there are

silly people that say stupid things but

if you talk about it less you're gonna

notice that division less i don't look

at the person based on their skin color

i look at them based on their character

okay so there's a lot of obvious red

flags there from confidently asserting

there's not a lot of racism here to the

i don't see skin color to the you won't

notice division so much if you just

don't talk about it and hey

if the problem with racism in america

was only it's bumming patty mendes out

then yeah shutting up about it would

probably solve the whole issue but guess

how long it takes for that conversation

to take a real turn

i think there are a lot of there are

probably plenty of people that would

agree with exactly that but just to be

fair on the other side there are people

especially young black men for example

would say i would love to not be judged

on the color of my skin do you think

it's more on the color of their skin or

their actions

how they're dressed how they perceive

how they respect others

if you have a kid that's pulled over by

a cop does it really matter what color

they are or is it the respect that they

give to that police officer

wow when you respond to someone

mentioning young black men would like to

be treated better by automatically

envisioning them dressed terribly and

acting disrespectfully while being

arrested by the police you are telling

on yourself patty you are snitching on

your very soul

and as for her claim there that there is

not a lot of racism in loudoun county

you probably already assumed that that

was but you should know an

assessment of public schools there found

that it was shocking the extent to which

students report the use of the n-word

and i think as a society we've now

agreed white people should not be using

the n-word a shocking number of times

unless that is they have a lucrative

podcast deal with spotify but that is

absolutely it and all of this brings us

to the main point here that for all the

laws being passed to prevent discomfort

or anguish on account of an individual's

race

whose discomfort exactly are we

prioritizing here because kids of color

can tell you they don't get a choice do

not talk about race and have it go away

like this graduate of loudoun county

schools i do understand that many

parents don't want their children

learning about race at such a young age

but i beg to differ in that sense we

learn about race every day when we're

the only colored kid in our classrooms

or when we're learning about slavery and

all the heads turn to us so one way or

another one group of students will learn

about race before another so we believe

that it would be equitable if all

students learned about race in the same

context so we can work together on it to

improve our future

yeah

children of color learn about race from

a very young age from realizing you

celebrate different holidays or get

different safety talks or the first time

you go to a white friend's house and you

served a casserole you realize very

quickly in that moment we are different

people with different cultures so look

by this point it should be pretty clear

the debate around critical race theory

is both very loud and very very dumb but

unfortunately it is important to engage

with it because if we don't the end

point that we are heading toward is that

honest discussions of race will be shut

out of public schools even as some

parents off to voucher academies

where their kids can learn a version of

history that's basically antebellum fan

fiction and i'm not saying the

discussions on race will always be

comfortable for everyone in a classroom

but think about it like this when was

learning and growing as a person ever

really comfortable

the thing to do here isn't to run from

those discussions or past laws banning

them it is to learn how to have them

better because for generation after

generation we've told school kids fairy

tales about race in this country and

maybe it's time we stop doing that

because all it's done so far is get us

to the point that we're at right now

with full-grown adults insisting america

can't be racist because we elected obama

twice that racism will go away if we

just don't mention it and that martin

luther king's i have a dream speech

wasn't an aspiration we have yet to

fulfill but some kind of magic spell

that ended prejudice then and there that

is our show thank you so much for

watching we'll see you next week good

night

john john i've got more stories okay in

third grade we did an oregon trail unit

my teacher put me and the other black

kid in the class together and said we

were a family of freed slaves heading

west to make our fortune like what am i

supposed to do with that in sixth grade

i told my teacher that reading role of

thunder hear my cry made me

uncomfortable and she told me it all

works out in the end okay in the end one

of the characters almost gets lynched

howas almost gets lynched a happy ending

for ella's island day i said my family

didn't immigrate and we don't know where

in africa we're from and my teacher said

well guess sounds like you guess

there were only two black kids in the

whole class and we were the freed slaves

going west okay

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you