America has faced plenty of external threats before. Each time the United States came through triumphant and stronger.
Today, however, we face a threat that is internal, rather than external; Critical Race Theory. We need to work out how to respond to it as a threat to the American way of life.
Critical Race Theory encourages Americans to lose faith in their own country. Instead of celebrating America’s Founding Ideals, Critical Race Theory teaches young Americans that their nation is founded on hate.
Far from marveling at how people from every country, culture and creed want to come to the USA, Critical Race Theory insists instead that America is inherently racist.
We ought to applaud the progress that has been made towards achieving Martin Luther King’s vision of a country where people are defined by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Instead, Critical Race Theorists want to racialize everything.
Critical Race Theory is a form of race-based Marxism. Old school Marxists divided the world by class, capitalist oppressors vs oppressed workers. Critical Race Theory’s new variant Marxism divides America into oppressor vs oppressed base on skin color. Critical Race Theory specifically rejects the principle of equal protection under the law.
Nowhere is Critical Race Theory more dangerous and destructive than in our education system.
In California, public schools have accused white teachers of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and told them “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.” North Carolina’s largest school district launched a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces”—and encouraged teachers to subvert families and push the ideology of “antiracism” directly onto students without parental consent.
How do we ensure this divisive ideology is not being advanced in public schools here in Mississippi?
Critical Race Theory in the classroom opposes meritocracy, and has caused some school boards in parts of America to abandon standardized testing. It teaches young people that the government must actively discriminate against racial groups deemed privileged.
Most obnoxious of all, it advocates neo-segregation and turns schools into a race re-education program.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy believes these neo-racist theories have no place in the classroom. What can we do about it?
Step one is to find out how prevalent this kind of ideology-based teaching actually is. Then we need action to ensure that public schools do not use public money to indoctrinate students about fringe racial theories that claim one race is superior to another, or that individuals should be treated differently on the basis of race. We are working on producing a draft bill that we believe will go some way to achieving this. Our think tank is leading the way on this.
But tackling Critical Race Theory cannot be done just by passing a law. Whether we like it or not, America is engaged in a battle for her future – and it is a struggle being waged for the hearts and minds of millions of young Americans.
Rather than simply forbid a divisive ideology being taught, we need to make a concerted effort to teach people why America is such an exceptional country.
Young people growing up today, like every generation before them, seek to make sense of the world around them. Why, some will ask, are some people more successful than others? How come some parts of America are prosperous yet others poor? What explains the fact that America is so rich relative to most other countries?
Critical Race Theory offers a superficial, if deeply flawed, explanation. We need to offer young people a better way of understanding the world. It is an absence of freedom and liberty that explains why some societies are less successful than others, not any fringe theory about ‘white fragility’.
As Mississippi’s free market think tank, we aim to educate tens of thousands of young Mississippians, through our online engagement, about liberty, limited government and the American Founding. We seek to show the rising generation that it is individual character, not any intersectional identity, that matters most.
If you would like to learn more about our work combating Critical Race Theory, please sign up for our updates at www.mspolicy.org Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
