Trumped Up Hysteria?

The recent whipping boy of the academically disinclined is Critical Race Theory. CRT has been around for decades in higher education. In fact, in 1998 Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy published an article critiquing CRT entitled "What's Wrong With Critical Race Theory: Reopening the Case for Middle Class Values." You can read it here.

Many who proclaim CRT's evils seemingly are unable to define it accurately. For example:

"Folks, we're in a cultural warfare today," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. said at a news conference alongside six other members of the all-Republican House Freedom Caucus. Critical race theory asserts that people with white skin are inherently racist, not because of their actions, words or what they actually believe in their heart - but by virtue of the color of their skin." Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., added "Democrats want to teach your children to hate each other." The governor of Florida said CRT is all about hate: "Critical Race Theory teaches kids to hate our country and to hate each other." 

In a nutshell, CRT is about connecting the past to the present. Historical events did not happen in a vacuum. Race is a connector. Events affected society and pushed the narrative forward. Akin to Newton's Cradle:

The federal government acknowledged this continuation or connection between the past and the present when, in 2008, the House of Representatives adopted H. Res 194, an apology for slavery: " Whereas a century after the official end of slavery in America, Federal action was required during the 1960s to eliminate the dejure and defacto system of Jim Crow throughout parts of the Nation, though its vestiges still linger to this day."

The Texas legislature passed a bill prohibiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick applauded the passage stating "When parents send their children to school, they want their students to learn critical thinking without being indoctrinated with misinformation charging that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism." 

Gov. Abbot signed the 1836 Project into law calling for the promotion of "patriotic education [and ensuring] future generations understand TX values," in a Tweet June 7th. 

What is patriotic education? I presume it's the opposite of CRT. What are "Texas values"? Are they current values? Who will decide what those values are? Who will select the people who will decide what those values are? 

People were allowed to settle in Mexican Texas provided they did not bring slaves, among other requirements. Colonists ignored that requirement and reintroduced slavery into Texas, which abolished slavery in 1829. So will that be taught as part of the "patriotic education' or "Texas values"? 

Did you ever read the Texas Constitution? The one that established Texas as a country. Interestingly, that founding document says much about what the founders thought about race. For example,  slavery was allowed, and "Africans, descendants of Africans and Indians" could not become citizens." I wonder why not? 

Maybe a look into the reason why Texas tried to secede in 1861 will shed some light on this. In "Declaration of Causes" (2 Feb 1861) it states that slavery is to "exist in all future time" in Texas. Furthermore, war was upon their doorstep because the United States refused to recognize the God-given reality of slavery. Also from "Declaration of Causes":

" . . . proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law."

Racial equality goes against the natural order of things? Interesting. So race played a part in the reason why Texas wanted to leave the United States. Might even argue race was central for that reason. 

Then the document goes on the state the relationship between White and Black people: "the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race . . . " 

Texas goes farther than any other slave state that tried to leave the United States in declaring the superiority of the white race as a reason for their secession. 

Will those examples above be part of the "patriotic education"? 

What you cannot do with race is ignore it but that's what the state of Texas wants its K-12 teachers and students to do. Texas is not alone, Idaho and 14 other states have introduced or passed laws banning some form of what is known as Critical Race Theory. 

Maybe the wailing and gnashing of teeth over CRT is the latest version of the backlash against political correctness of the 1990s? 

Part of the outrage against CRT is seemingly an attempt to downplay the role of slavery in this nation's history yet in 2008 the House of Representatives called for the opposite: "the story of the enslavement and de jure segregation of African-Americans and the dehumanizing atrocities committed against them should not be purged from or minimized in the telling of American history."

Yet there are some who argue, without the hysteria, against CRT. The Austin-Statesman published an opinion piece written by Richard Johnson, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Booker T. Washington Initiative.  You can read it here.