Critical Race Theory is the Trumpnista's latest outrage, even though it has been around for a couple decades in academic environments and is a rather benign tool for looking at (studying) issues involving the interaction and relationships between societal groups of disparate levels of power in the society. In my opinion it is poorly named, but its name derives from its first usage, the study of American race relations throughout history.
So why is it such a big deal today?? The Trumpnista claim it is because the devil Joe Biden called for teaching it in K-12 schools. An early example of the charge is contained in
The American Spectator. The article immediately accuses Biden of an agenda of teaching Critical Race Theory in American schools based on a single line in his inaugural address, calling for “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda”. A real reach even for the unserious clowns at The American Spectator. No where at no time that I can find has Biden ever called for teaching Critical Race Theory!
The article goes on to lie about what Critical Race Theory is, so as to inflame its very right wing readers. It makes an equivalence between the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory. They are most certainly not the same thing. Critical Race Theory is a tool, the 1619 Project is an American History curriculum. The 1619 Project has gotten a bad reputation certainly among Trumpnista, but also among academic historians of all stripes, well before the Trumpnista had even heard of it. It is a novel way of teaching American history not without some merit, but the curriculum does have ahistorical errors according to historians.
The article then uses a
Department of Education request for comments for a proposal process for grants for novel / unique programs for teaching history and civics. The DOE document makes the mistake of giving examples of possible grant proposals and including the 1619 project for a history proposal, just asking for trouble when the first sentence of the project documentation states:
The 1619 Project, inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation's foundational date.
The 1619 Project as I said does have some problems, but it also has very worthwhile teaching modules within the project. Before the 1619 Project would be acceptable a number of ahistorical passages would have to be corrected and certainly you do not start teaching American history at the point suggested. This however is not really my point.
So the answer to the question "why is it such a big deal today??", is because the right wing has trumped up an argument, not backed up by facts, to outrage their base and hopefully in their minds resonate with independents.
Critical Race Theory is today not taught in K-12 situations, it is a tool developed for graduate education and has perhaps begun to find its way into some undergraduate courses. The democrats could very easily defuse this by calling for the same ban as silly as it is! The only danger is in letting the right wing define Critical Race Theory, which they would undoubtedly miss define in an effort to eliminate some important history being taught today and curriculum changes to teach real and important history tomorrow. All of this becomes much easier to deal with when the discussion is over specific history, not an ill defined right wing boogieman term. They would love to ban teaching the Tulsa Massacre where the majority of Americans find it appropriate and would be against elimination from history curriculum.
In any case as this issue is pushed forward, those states pushing forward illegitimate bans on important history will find its students losing out in competition for spots in top universities and colleges.
Teacher's perspective.
