“Antiracism,” at first glance, suggests a noble idea challenging any form of racial supremacy. Yet as an ideology, it’s a highly effective weapon in the Left’s armory. But do Americans truly understand the core beliefs and values associated with the concept? Or how it works as a powerful tool to indoctrinate our children and young adults? Or how it’s used to convince people that it’s a righteous, responsible ideal we should not only embrace but celebrate?
A pervasive term in progressive dogma, “antiracism” demands that an “oppressor class,” i.e., white, straight, Christian males, must atone for its “power and privilege.” And today, “antiracism,” as an orthodoxy, is becoming increasingly prevalent and elevated in public schools and government institutions, as well as the corporate workplace and even some religious communities.
Originating from 19th-century revolutionary ideals drawn from Marxist principles — which sought to overthrow capitalist governments and replace them with socialist ones, no matter the human cost — “antiracism” embodies the Orwellian idea of “ending racism by seeing it everywhere,” as proposed by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose in their book Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity — And Why This Harms Everyone.
People cannot simply describe themselves as “not racist,” says antiracist expert Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. “In order to be truly antiracist, you also have to be truly anti-capitalist.”
In Kendi’s America, “identity is the means and Marxism is the end,” explains documentary filmmaker and author Christopher Rufo in his essay, “Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It.” Under this worldview, capitalism is overthrown by (racial or sexual) identity- and equity-based politics, resulting in “An equity-based form of government [that] would mean the end of not only private property, but also of individual rights, equality under the law, federalism, and freedom of speech. These would be replaced by race-based redistribution of wealth, group-based rights, active discrimination, and omnipotent bureaucratic authority,” writes Rufo.
An idea infiltrating our institutions through a methodology known as critical race theory (CRT), which holds that “race is a social construct that was created by white privilege and white supremacy,” according to Lindsay and Pluckrose, is the notion that all white people contribute to racism, and thus must conform to “antiracism.”
For decades, budding leftists have worked stealthily and subtly to transform and undermine the American education system and basic American freedoms. While Americans were sleeping, “woke” college professors have indoctrinated millions of millennials, who have strayed from family values and norms and entered a workforce prizing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as defined by a singular worldview.
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In September 2020, when President Trump banned CRT training in federal government agencies, the Left bore down even harder, with President Biden reversing Trump’s order and dissolving the 1776 Project, which sought to reinstate patriotic curriculum in the schools.
From “Common Core” to “Culturally Responsive”
Today, Democrat-led states, such as Illinois, Washington, Oregon, New York, and California, require educators to abide by rigorous new rules, including Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards (CRTL Standards), which demand teachers become “culturally responsive” to a host of social and political issues, and “create curriculum content to include a counter narrative to dominant culture,” among other mandates.
These new regulations are setting a strong precedence, to be incorporated into all teacher trainings and certification requirements. Moreover, teachers who refuse to comply could face disciplinary action or termination.
Just this week, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed into law Senate Bill 5044, ensuring K-12 educators will “continue the important work of dismantling institutional racism in public schools and recognize the importance of increasing equity, diversity, inclusion, antiracism, and cultural competency training throughout the entire public school system by providing training programs for classified staff, certificated instructional staff, certificated administrative staff, superintendents, and school directors.”
Per this bill, as illustrated in a report by the state Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education, teachers will adopt “updated cultural competency standards” comprised of “anti-racism standards, an equity framework, and culturally responsive instruction.”
Additionally, educators must demonstrate knowledge of the following concepts:
- cultural competency, or “awareness of student cultural histories and contexts, as well as family norms and values in different cultures”
- diversity, “the presence of similarities and differences within a given setting, collective, or group based on multiple factors including race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, age, etc.”
- equity, “developing, strengthening, and supporting procedural and outcome fairness in systems, procedures, and resource distribution mechanisms to create equitable opportunities for all individuals.”
- inclusion, “describes intentional efforts and consistent sets of actions to create and sustain a sense of respect, belonging, safety, and attention to individual needs and backgrounds.”
Long gone are the three Rs, as none of the foundational concepts of reading, writing, and arithmetic are mentioned in the new standards. Moreover, using taxpayer funds, the Washington state school district will require educators to complete several days of professional learning during the school year, focusing on one or more of the topics of cultural competency, diversity, equity, or inclusion.
In a recent presentation, Alex Newman, education writer and executive director of Public School Exit, likened government schools to a burning building from which parents must get their children out. “Do not let your children be brainwashed to believe these lies,” said Newman, who encourages homeschooling as the primary solution to pushing back on a system that increasingly divides children into “oppressed” and “oppressor groups” and claims that “white teachers are guilty of spirit murdering black children.”
Rufo, who is spearheading the movement to abolish critical race theory indoctrination in America’s public institutions, has been tracking introduced legislation in states across the country, including Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, and Louisiana, among others, that are banning the promotion of “race essentialism, collective guilt, and state-sanctioned racism.”
These Republican-controlled states are prohibiting “divisive” and “dangerous” bills that demand children identify their race, gender (at this point in time there are more than 60 terms for gender identities), and sexual orientation based on alleged notions of “oppression,” “white privilege,” and “systemic racism,” for the purpose of advancing social activism.
House bills in Texas, Tennessee, and Missouri, for example, bar “the teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ in state agencies and public schools, including universities.” Other states, such as Iowa, have initiated House and Senate bills that prohibit “race stereotyping and divisive concepts in state agencies, including schools; restrict funding to public schools, including universities, for teaching 1619 Project curriculum materials; and offer First Amendment protections, prohibiting race and sex stereotyping and divisive concepts in public institutions.”
The debate must move from the academic to the political realm, as Rufo suggests, and we are beginning to see that happen, which is a step in the right direction.
Since 2010, when Common Core ushered in a cornucopia of government-issued standards of education, far-left ideologues have been rewriting the roles of educators. The CRTL standards are also game-changing, and will alter public education for a generation of children. Teachers and parents nationwide must be made aware of the proposed revisions, as the impact of these states’ decision to embrace critical race theory will be lifelong.
“When they see what is happening, Americans are naturally outraged,” writes Rufo. “Critical race theory promotes three ideas — race essentialism, collective guilt, and neo-segregation — which violate the basic principles of liberty and justice…. We must have courage — the fundamental virtue required in our time…. Truth and justice are on our side. If we can muster the courage, we will win.”
