*By Julie Barrett, Founder, Conservative Ladies of Washington
It’s one of the hottest topics of the day – CRT, Critical Race Theory. I could go into all the reasons this is very bad and very dangerous but I’d like to discuss something about CRT that seems to be overlooked by most people on the right side of the political aisle.
CRT is a term primarily used by people on the right. The left avoids the term “CRT” like the plague and instead uses terms like social justice, equity & diversity training, anti-racism, culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-bias, inclusion and more. Businesses, colleges, government institutions and school districts around the country have developed their own, unique titles for this type of teaching and training. You will never hear them call it: Critical Race Theory. This makes it easy for the left to say things like: “We’re not teaching CRT” or “CRT is a term made up by Republicans” or “CRT is a QAnon/right wing conspiracy theory.” While these institutions may not specifically call it Critical Race Theory/CRT, we all know it is alive and well. It’s not new. And the left is engaged in a game of semantics.
I guess we should thank Covid for bringing the classroom into our homes and allowing parents and citizens all over the country to see firsthand exactly what is being taught to our children. Students of all ages – from kindergarten to high school and college – are being taught Critical Race Theory, anti-racism, REJ (Racial Equity & Justice), DE&I (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) – call it whatever you want, the bottom line is, it’s teaching RACISM to children. The school teachings are really what has opened our eyes to the indoctrination going on in every level of our society.
In our battle against the left, we’ve got to be strategic. That means, we use their own language (REJ, DE&I, anti-racism training, whatever!) to make our case against why this racist, garbage indoctrination of our children is not okay and we are not going to stand for it.
And don’t think for one second they won’t use their own language against us:
“Why don’t you want justice?”
“Don’t you think equity and inclusion are a good thing?”
I’ve been there. I’ve had this exact conversation with the high school principal at the school where two of my children attend. Yes, I want justice. Yes, I want to include people. But that’s not what is going on here. What the schools are doing is making our children pay for the sins of their ancestors. They’re teaching our kids that a person can pick their gender – and there’s an unlimited number of genders or sexual identities for one to choose from. This is not appropriate for school. Folks are welcome to think and do whatever they want, but they do not have the authority or permission to push that ideology onto other people’s children. And finally…we, as parents and citizens are seeing it first hand and we’re not having it anymore!
Today, the Biden Administration walked back their support for Abolitionist Teaching Network, a group that pushes Critical Race Theory and calls on educators to “disrupt whiteness.” Biden’s Department of Education included information and resources from Abolitionist Teaching Network, whose primary mission is teaching CRT to students in its return to the classroom guidelines. Realizing the error in what they had done, thanks to Fox News for exposing them, they distanced themselves from the whole idea of CRT. But it was too late.
They said the quiet part out loud. They said what we already know. CRT is the agenda and it’s already in our schools and its not new, it’s just more blatant. So what do we do?
If your school district is anything like mine, they don’t call it CRT and people who use that term are crazy, right-wing conspiracy theorists. Find out what your school district calls it, usually you can find it on the district website. It will be concealed as a number of different things. Most common is something including “social justice”, “equity and diversity”, “multicultural education”, “SEL – Social emotional learning” (this is the most deceptive because it doesn’t sound like it involves race at all!) Once you learn what they call it, start using their terminology. Fight fire with fire. Find a teacher in your school district who isn’t on board with this kind of teaching. Maybe you can get that teacher to share with you what curriculum the school is using – if any. In my experience, teachers can be left to find their own resources (I hardly consider Buzzfeed a credible teaching source) and are encouraged to source their own lessons from any resources they see fit. This is particularly dangerous, considering many school districts are hiring “activist teachers” – these are teachers who are self-proclaimed experts in “racial education” and are usually involved with movements like BLM. Talk to your children. The best thing we can do is indoctrinate our own children. Teach them the truth and arm them with facts about CRT so they know how to identify it in school so they can report back to you.
And then what? Expose it. Send it to conservative media. Post it on social media. Go to the school board meetings and speak to the board, email the board. Send it to all your parent friends and ask them to make calls and send emails as well. Most of all, let the school know your student will not participate in these lessons. Tell the school they need to find an alternative assignment or they can just excuse your child altogether. Our children do not need to be subjected to this training to be successful in life, so don’t worry about sports or college or whatever you think they won’t be able to do if they miss class.
Friends, this is a war and we have to fight smart and strategically. That’s what the left does and it’s time for us to catch up. It’s time for us to be smarter and beat them at their own game. It’s difficult to do with such an emotionally charged issue, but if we can take a step back, look at it from a higher level and approach this strategically we can and we will win the battle for the soul of our country.
