William Jacobson, the founder the popular website Legal Insurrection and a professor at Cornell University, recently joined The Political Insider’s Brett Smith to discuss his new Equal Protection Project, as well as why he and his organization are continuing to shed a light on discriminatory practices in education and the growing, dangerous concept of Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Contrary to what its defenders claim, CRT is not just some high-minded, little-mentioned principle limited to law schools. Far from it.
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Nothing but a “Non-Problem?”
At the beginning of their discussion, Smith asked Jacobson whether CRT was in fact a major issue and should be opposed, or whether it was a “non-problem” as many in the media have argued.
“We get into this definition argument, OK. You remember Bill Clinton arguing over what the meaning of ‘is’ is, and so that’s kinda what we’ve gotten into. Because the phrase Critical Race Theory was used, and I think Chris Rufo [conservative education activist] was the one who said we’ve got to call this something and this is what we’re gonna call it and he’s not wrong,” Jacobson explained.
“Now they’ve been arguing for two years to three years, ‘well its not really Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory is something only taught in law schools.’ Yeah, maybe, maybe not, but the point is, I’d like to refer to it as the racialization of education,” he continued. “Critical Race Theory has certain tenants, certain basics, such as we are a systemically racist society, that apparently neutral, legal, and other mechanisms of forced discrimination.”
He continued:
“So they’ve got all these concepts, OK. Those concepts are all being taught in elementary school and high schools and universities and everywhere,” Jacobson added. “And it is true, as much as we’ve covered this we’ve never found a third grade book called ‘Introduction to Critical Race Theory’ and that is not how it works.”
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Jacobson explained that examples of CRT principles and teachings instituted at the elementary school level include things such as “privilege wheels, and they talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
As a great example, Kindergartners in D.C. schools were forced to participate in an “Anti-racism fight club.”
“And they talk about Ibram Kendi’s anti-racism notion, which itself is a misnomer because its anything but anti-racist. But they have all these other words for it, but when you get down to it at their core, they are teaching the principles of Critical Race Theory, which is that we’re systemically racist, that there’s a white privilege, that people of color in one way or another are victims of our society, that there’s nothing anybody can do about it. That you have to continuously fight against the system. Simply being not-racist, in Ibram Kendi’s words in a tweet that I saved that he later deleted, there is no such thing as not-racist. You are either an activist fighting to dismantle the system or you are a racist.”
Perfectly, succinctly explained.
Ibram X. Kendi, whom Jacobson had referred to, is a black “anti-racist” activist and so-called historian who made CRT concepts more mainstream in his book How to be an Anti-racist.
Watch:
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A Real Problem
Jacobson continued to emphasize that students at all levels are being molded to see themselves and others as either anti-racist activists or part of the problem.
“So you’re an anti-racist activist or you’re a racist, that’s the Ibram Kendi model, that’s the model that’s been adopted almost everywhere,” Jacobson said.
The professor states that all Americans, not just parents, should oppose CRT because of “…it’s hyper focus on race. It views race as the default answer to every disparity in society. And it views race as the focus of who we are as people in this country, and I think that its not just divisive, I have the word ‘divisive’, it’s destructive.”
Jacobson further warned that its impact on our culture and society at large is “turning us into Yugoslavia, its turning us into Rwanda, where people’s allegiances are not to the greater nation, its to their tribe or to their ethnicity or to their ethnic group and it doesn’t advance anything, it doesn’t help anything.”
“Having children look at their peers in third grade and think of them as members of a group identity rather than just the kid I play with is so destructive to society.”
It’s important for all Americans, but especially those who have kids or grandkids in school.
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