Digging Deeper into CRT

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm Dr. Michael Brown and welcome to Truth Network. Today, we're going to talk about the subject of CRT, critical race theory, and whether it is being taught in the schools, whether things are being taught in a healthy or an unhealthy way, whether people are trying to indoctrinate our children into falsehood and wrong thinking, or whether people don't want our children to know the hard truths. What is it?

Which is it? So, I have not spoken about this or written about this a lot over the months. One reason being I've wanted to see the dust settle a little bit more and I've wanted to do my best to sort out, okay, what's really happening? What isn't happening? What is being taught?

What isn't being taught? What do people mean by critical race theory? Tucker Carlson recently said, I saw it quoted Newsweek, that after a year of reading academic discussion about CRT, he doesn't even know what it means.

Obviously, some ridiculed him like, how can you be so stupid? The point he was trying to make, whether you agree with him or not, the point he's trying to make is it can mean different things to different people. Again, some have said, well, the founders of critical race theory get to define what it is. And we'll hear from some of those founders. We'll read some of their quotes. Others say, well, it doesn't matter how it was originally framed.

The question is, how is it being used today and what does it mean in pop culture? So today there's going to be more light than heat. All right, there's going to be more light than heat, but we may step on some toes. So if you disagree with me at any point, if you think I'm missing something, if you think I've got a blind spot, if you think that I just don't get the point, please give me a call. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. Not just for me, but for the benefit of everyone else listening. At the same time, at the same time, if you say, you better believe this is what's happening in the schools, and I've got grave concerns, and let me tell you what my kid's coming home with, or let me tell you as an educator what we're dealing with in our schools, by all means give us a call as well, 866-34-TRUTH.

I'm not taking calls on other subjects, general Bible theology, none of that, just this focus today. So I was interacting with a colleague of mine, an educator, and he sent me this clip from Dr. Martin Luther King, and said if this was taught in our children's schools, would I consider it CRT? So before we give you any definitions, right, before we try to break this down and see what it means to different people, and whether this should be an area of concern or not, I want you to listen to this interview, this brief clip with Dr. King, and then I'll give you my response as to whether if this was being taught in schools, I would consider it CRT.

Let's listen. At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give the land, they built land-grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm, not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming, not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms, not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. All right, now, King has then asked subsequently about that very thing and says, hey, wherever you can lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, you ought to, but you've had inequities in America's dealing with the Africans that had brought over here in their treatment, even after they were liberated from slavery, as opposed to dealing with its white citizens. There have been inequities and the results of those inequities were still there, still felt when King spoke these words and here in the 1960s is assassinated tragically in 1968. So there was that clip and a little bit more that my friend sent to me and said, if that was taught in schools, would I consider that critical race theory? I said, what's critical race theory about it? In other words, and I don't know all the details of the history that he just explained there in terms of what happened with white peasants coming from Europe, et cetera. But to the extent he gave an accurate portrayal, yes, we should teach American history, the beautiful and the ugly, the good, the bad, the inspiring and the painful.

We should. When we teach world history, we do our best to do that fairly. But I've said this before, the very, very little that I remember hearing about Native Americans, American Indians when I was in school, the very little that I remember hearing painted them basically as savages that did bad things to us and we killed them. That I remember when it comes to slavery and how things were presented. I never remember hearing anything about inferiority of blacks or Africans, but certainly the whole story was not told.

What whole story? Well, the ongoing inequities. Well, the things that were never set right. The lack of adequate attempts to level the playing field for many, many years. Or even with many attempts to level the playing field, you have equal opportunity, but you can't have equal outcome. To try to enforce equal outcome is where you have disaster.

All right. So you do your best as a society or freedom loving society like ours to have equal opportunities for people, but you can't guarantee equal outcomes. So to the extent that the playing field didn't get leveled over the years, yeah, that's part of our history. It should be taught. Not in a way that makes one group feel guilty, as if you're a white kid today that you enslaved people generations ago, or if you're a white kid today that you were pro segregation 70 years ago. No, it shouldn't be taught in that way, but in a constructive way.

It's part of it. Teach it as accurately as possible that all the beautiful, all the good, all the inspiring, all the positive and the bad and the ugly. I believe that should be taught to you. Do you want your kids to know the whole truth about America? An exceptional country in many ways. Remember, we're being compared to other countries. An outstanding country in many ways. An amazing country in many ways.

And a country that did many wrong, evil, ugly things over the centuries as well. It's both and you don't want to airbrush the history, but you don't want to teach it in a way that that is inaccurate. You know, as I've said before, you don't fix old racism with racism with new racism.

All right. So what exactly is critical race theory? How is it being defined? Let's take a little while to break this down, and then I've got some pretty intense clips I'm going to play for you a little later in the broadcast. And again, feel free to weigh in wherever you like, either in affirmation or in disagreement with me, or just with more information that you want to provide or get your voice out to be heard as well.

866-342. OK, let's look at this first slide. This was an educator, a friend of mine posted this. CRT is a graduate level course which is not taught in public schools for your information.

It is a straw man. Again, ask the folks who are anti CRT what it is according to documents and about those photos displaying a racist past and if they should be analyzed by students. Actually, this was not the slide with the definition, but this is the reality. He was saying, hey, it's not taught in our schools. In other words, the actual class of what CRT is is not taught. But he's saying, let's say you show things just from the 50s and the blatant racism that was common in America and the images and things like that. Would it be CRT to talk about those things? No, not my view, not at all. So here's here's a simple definition of CRT provided by Tyler O'Neill. CRT is, quote, a framework that involves deconstructing aspects of society to discover systemic racism beneath the surface. Is that good?

Is that bad? Well, if it's really there, if the systemic racism is really there, then uncover it. If it's not, then you're kind of looking for the boogeyman. Right.

But if it's really there, uncover it. What should be done in schools? How much should be done in schools? Interacting with my friend that said CRT is not taught in schools. Then when I asked, well, is are things taught through the lens of CRT informed by CRT said, oh, that's a whole other question. So let's take a look at Neil Shenvy's apologetics website. He asked, what is critical race theory?

So he's going to give some definitions here. So this is Neil Shenvy talking about critical race theory from the book by Harper, Patton and Wooden Access and Equity for African-American students in higher education. Actually, an article, Critical Race Historical Analysis of Policy Efforts Journal of Higher Education, 2009.

While no single definition exists for CRT, many scholars agree on the centrality of seven tenets. Tenant one, racism is not was, but is a normal part of American life, often lacking the ability to be distinctively recognized. A CRT lens unveils the various forms in which racism continually manifests itself, despite espoused institutional values regarding equity and social justice. Tenant two, ideas like liberalism, neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, meritocracy, camouflage, how racial advantage propels the self-interest, power and privileges of the dominant group. Tenant three, CRT gives voice to the unique perspectives and lived experiences of people of color. CRT uses counter narratives as a way to highlight discrimination, offer racially different interpretations of policy, and challenge the universality of assumptions made about people of color. Tenant four, CRT recognizes interest convergence, the process whereby the white power structure will tolerate or encourage racial advantages, advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest. Tenant five, revisionist history, is another tenet of CRT which suggests that American history be closely scrutinized and reinterpreted as opposed to being accepted at face value and truth. Tenant six, CRT also relies on racial realists or individuals who not only recognize race as a social construct, but also realize that racism is a means by which society allocates privilege and status.

Tenant seven, CRT critiques claims that, A, colorblindness will eliminate racism, B, racism is a matter of individuals, not systems, and C, one can fight racism without paying attention to sexism, homophobia, economic exploitation, and other forms of oppression or injustice. Is that in our schools? Are things being taught through that lens?

Are children being indoctrinated in this way? It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

I just spotted a new article on the stream about CRT. Is it being taught in our schools? And the answer is yes and no.

So we're going to explore this. Listen, we don't want to be punching the air. We don't want to be swinging at nothing. On the other hand, we don't want to be denying reality. There are some who do not want the full American story taught in schools because it makes America look bad. We teach the good, but we don't want to teach the bad. No, we've got to teach it all. We've got to teach it all. And we've got to give people an understanding of how we got where we are today, both the good and the bad, right? At the same time, there are others who want to rewrite and reshape history, such as the 1619 Project. There are some who want to paint everything of the Revolutionary War was fought in order to preserve slavery and ridiculous things like that. And that want to lay guilt trips and identify, OK, you're part of the oppressor group and you're a part of the oppressed group and and separate kids over that. That's got no place in our children's schools. So for those that don't want the whole truth taught because it's uncomfortable.

Grow up this reality. We can't stick our head in the sand. We've got the beautiful. We've got the ugly when it comes to our history. On the flip side, let's not rewrite history and replace one form of racism with another another form of racism. Both both are bad and ugly and destructive. So my heart is always for truth. Let the chips fall where they may. Eight, six, six, three, four, truth. OK, before we dig deeper and play some clips for you and this be a little technical, I want to do my best to simplify as much as possible because it's the world in which we live.

And this is a battle being fought across America right now with many parents, many educators on the front lines of it and our kids being affected. Before I do that, don't forget to visit my vitamin mission dot com. And if you want to bless people for the holidays, you want to encourage them to be healthy, you know, they're trying to live healthier lives. And hey, get them some stuff for their immune system, give them some multivitamins, give them some things. If you know some areas where they struggle a bit and find out what supplements will be a blessing to them.

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That's vitaminmission dot com. Let's just look at this one line description of CRT, which many will say, oh, it's not detailed enough. But just as a little to work with and we can say where we think it's right or not. CRT is a framework that involves deconstructing aspects of society to discover systemic racism beneath the surface.

Now, some would say it's oversimplified. But again, friends, if there is systemic racism, we want to uncover it. As followers of Jesus and lovers of righteousness, we want to address it. We want to expose it. But when it doesn't exist, then then we want to deal with. We don't want to create it when it's not there. Let's step back.

I want to throw something out. Okay. I'm only smiling because someone may get offended with me saying this and I don't mean it to offend. But but tell me if you think I'm right about this. Okay. As I thought long and hard about many of these issues with the the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. And then with with the death of of my namesake, Michael Brown and Ferguson. We talked a lot about our perceptions of these things, our understanding of what happened. Was there right, wrong?

How could we understand this? Look at this. Where was racism involved? Where wasn't it involved?

And I really thought I prayed. I listened. I listened to so many that interacted with me. And what I concluded was that often white Americans do not see racism when it is there. It was because of their own experience, life experience.

This is broad. I'm speaking in generalities. Often white Americans do not see racism when it is there.

Okay. Conversely, many black Americans, because of their life experience, often see racism when it's not there. Or perhaps we can see say sometimes rather than often in both ways. So white Americans often see racism when it isn't there.

Excuse me. Don't see it when it is there. Often white Americans don't see racism when it is there. Black Americans often see racism when it isn't there or sometimes. Now, maybe you're coming from a different background, Hispanic American, Asian American, and you've got it. You can weigh in with a different perspective. But you think what I'm saying has truth to it.

And can that help us understand things better here? Look, if I get pulled over by a cop. The first thought in my mind, the last thought in my mind is not I got pulled over because of race.

It never occurred to me. Now, if I was driving in Nigeria and I got pulled over, that'd probably be the first thing that I thought. Or just at least I'm a foreigner.

All right. But here in America, if I get pulled over, I'm thinking, OK, what did I do? Was I over the speed limit? Is there some issue? Did I swerve until it?

What did I do? Is there a tail light out or something? That's what I'm wondering about. I'm never thinking I got pulled over because I'm white. Why? Because it's not my life experience. Because as a rule, I imagine the rarest of exceptions, you don't get pulled over in America by a policeman just because you're white. That doesn't happen. So in my experience, I'm not I'm not thinking racism.

Right. However, if you're a 20 year old black man. Maybe driving a nicer car, maybe in a neighborhood that's almost all white, you get pulled over by a policeman. What's your first thought? I got pulled over because of race.

Now, maybe it was a tail light or maybe you went through a stop sign. But because of your life experience and racial profile, that's your first thought, isn't it? I wouldn't tell me if I'm wrong. So our life experiences will play into things.

The reality could be different. I was I was at a place getting a blood test the other day and the receptionist happened to be black. So I'm white. And she was as nasty, condescending, had an attitude towards me. And I remember thinking, is it that she doesn't like white people or is it she's having a bad day or is it she's just nasty to everybody? Either way, I was just thinking I could process it different ways.

Right. But my attitude was I'm going to smile as much as I can and be as friendly as I can and be. And to the extent that she's nasty, I'm going to be nice. Well, you know, go into the clinic, you know, check on the blood, whatever it was, I had to follow up with something. No health issues.

Just just checking on some things. And, you know, black lady receptionist as sweet, pleasant, friendly, happy go lucky as could be. What do I think? Well, she's bending over backwards because I had nothing to do with her. I had nothing to do with race.

She's just a nice person. Maybe the other is just nasty or having a bad day, whatever. But I could have read race into the thing and had zero to do with race. And in other places, it could be race. It could be that you notice the white person behind the counter, you know, where you live in the south, whatever, to this day.

If you're white, they treat you one way, black another. There could be reality to it. All I'm saying is we can often perceive things based on our life experience that are not necessarily accurate. Right. And then on the other hand, we notice things that others don't notice. Because our life experiences have informed us. So we just have to factor that in. Fair enough. And I'll get to some of your responses in a moment. OK, back to Neil Shenvey. Here is Heartlip critical race theory, an examination of its past, present and future implications.

This was 2009. He lists five major components or tenets of CRT. One, the notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational.

Two, the idea of an interest conversions. Three, the social construction of race. Four, the idea of storytelling and counter storytelling. And five, the notion that whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation. Now, let me move over to another article by Neil Shenvey, critical race theory and Christianity.

And he says it's an academic discipline that attempts to understand race and racism primarily through the lens of power. In responding to CRT, he says Christians can fall into two opposite errors, alarmism and denialism. CRT alarmism equates any discussion of race with CRT and refuses to recognize that CRT offers any true insights. We hear a lot of this alarmism across America. Some of it is merit.

Some of it isn't. In contrast, CRT denialism refuses to recognize that CRT includes ideas that are false and dangerous or that CRT is growing in influence within evangelicalism. And you'll hear this a lot on the secular left-wing media, CRT. No, CRT is not being taught schools.

It's just a racist dog list. So you get the denialism. He said assessing CRT requires us to steer a middle course which recognizes that CRT can provide real insights into the nature of racism. While also recognizing that many of its ideas, if followed to their logical conclusions, will have devastating consequences on the life and health of the church. In other words, he's saying using this as a tool, we can see where racism still exists, where it still has influence.

But if it's used the way others are using it, it will be destructive not just on the society but on the church. So what's happening in our kids' schools? We've got a video clip when we come back. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks, friends, for joining us today on the Line of Fire. Is critical race theory being taught in schools? You can see clip after clip of the media and article after article saying, no, no, no, it's not taught in our children's schools. Listen to what this educator from Indiana has to say.

We'll play clip number two. I'm the science coach and admin in the largest public school district in Indiana. I'm in dozens of classrooms a week, so I see exactly what we're teaching our students. When we tell you that schools aren't teaching critical race theory, that it's nowhere in our standards, that's misdirection.

We don't have the quotes and theories as state standards per se. We do have critical race theory in how we teach. We tell our teachers to treat students differently based on color. We tell our students that every problem is a result of white men and that everything Western civilization built is racist. Capitalism is a tool of white supremacy. Those are straight out of Kimberle Crenshaw's main points, verbatim in critical race theory, the writings that formed the movement.

This is in math, history, science, English, the arts, and it's not slowing down. If students of color have lower reading scores, it's because of inequity. Therefore, we take from the white students and give to the color students.

That's Richard Delgado straight out of CRT and introduction. All teaching is political, with reality and facts taking the back seat. That's Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, who outlined how she saw critical race theory flushed out in public schools in 1995. When schools tell you that we aren't teaching critical race theory, it means one thing.

Go away and look into our affairs no further. It isn't about transparency. It isn't about cultural relevance. It's race essentialism painted to look like the district cares about students of color. We call it anti-racism, so you feel bad if you disagree with our segregationist pedagogy. It's taking advantage of kids' vulnerability and parents' inactivity to preen over social snake oil schemes designed to create division. Parents, when we tell you critical race theory isn't taught in our schools, we're lying.

Keep looking. He's recently been on Fox News articulating these very things, saying we're lying about it. Now, some are not lying. What they mean is the actual theory is not being taught to kids. Okay, we're going to teach what critical race theory is, but an educational curricula, mindset, guidelines, classes, attitudes, colored by CRT, influenced by CRT, through the lens of CRT, absolutely, yes, taught in our children's schools.

Here's what someone else sent me as a definition of CRT. The understanding that race impacts politics, economics, and class in this society in favor of white people historically, which is predicated by slavery and the profits and privilege associated with it reverberated today. It's a study of law and systems rooted in a racial hierarchy that puts one race at an advantage to others. So, to say this happened historically, there's much truth to that. Not exclusively, there are others that always fought for equality. But, does this shape much of our history, the inequality between races?

Yes. Here, let's take Native Americans. We have some of our grads have been ministering for years and years and years. I think it's the poorest county in all of America, and it's largely Native Americans. So, the level of alcoholism, the level of depression, the level of suicide, the level of unemployment, the level of sexual abuse, it's off the charts. It's mind-boggling.

It's horrific. Well, this is ultimately the legacy. This is ultimately the result of what happened with our treatment of Native Americans through history. Now, were there some who reached out with compassion to Native Americans? Yes.

Were there some that wanted to bring them to Jesus, show them kindness, and treated them as fellow human beings? Yes. Were there those that kept their word and promises? Yes. Did our government often break our word?

Yes. You know, the whole idea of white men speaking with a forked tongue, there was a reason that American Indians said that over the centuries. So, you can't just say, okay, I'm going to come in, bring you this money, do this. That doesn't fix it. But, to me, it's still a grievous thing, and this has never been a major focus of our ministry, but to the extent of interacting with Native American Christians and those involved in ministry to them, and especially our missionaries that have worked with them side by side for years and years in a sacrificial way, and just, it's so hard to bring about change, and we're there with them, and they know we love them, and we're not going anywhere. But it's just challenging to break through the strongholds, the history. It's so deep. So, that remains a blemish.

Yes? That remains an issue to this day. When you look at, say, the average net worth of the average black American family compared to the average net worth of the average white American family, the average net worth is much, much higher, as well as the overall educational outcome is higher for the average white American family. Now, that to me is not a matter of, well, we have to make reparations for the past. That to me is not a matter of, well, I should feel guilty because I'm white, although my parents come over here, my mother basically is an orphan from England, and then my grandparents from Russia come over as poor immigrants.

My grandfather, who I never met, never met either of my grandfathers, but my grandfather, who I never met, died in his 40s of cancer related to fumes because of painting, and that's how he made a living to support the family, and my dad had to start working to basically run the home and care for the family when he was about 11, 12 years old. So, to make me feel guilty about the past is utterly absurd, or I'm going to feel bad about white privilege. No, that's not it. But to say that issues remain, that's the thing. And then say, okay, how can we address these and move forward as a society, especially the church? Is it just doing our best to help with education? Is it standing alongside the family structure more? What can be done to help level things out?

Because even if we dealt with so much of the civil rights acts in 64 and so many things before that, and then a century before that fought a bloody, costly civil war, what do we do moving forward? Is that fair? Is that righteous? Should believers think like this?

Yeah, why not? But the idea of, well, you're guilty because of this, or we're going to make you feel like you're the oppressor, or rewrite history. No, that's bogus.

That is destructive. Okay, let's look at this article in Newsweek from Charles Love, host of the Charles Love Show. Just wrote a new book, I think called Race Crazy. So, if you're watching, you see from the picture that we just put up, he's African American. He says, no, it's not racist to oppose critical race theory, the op-ed in Newsweek. He says, before the results of the Virginia governor's race were in, many on the left were scrambling to find an explanation for the surprising lead the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin was enjoying.

Of course, to the rest of us, this was no surprise. The myriad concerns Americans are facing provided adequate explanation for voters and patients with the Democrats, from the COVID-19 pandemic, to inflation, to supply chain shortages, to political polarization. And yet, rather than look to these explanations, the mainstream media, seemingly in unison, settled on a single culprit, white supremacy. He said, what is most troubling about this accusation of racism is the extreme lengths to which the left and many in the mainstream media are willing to go to level it. Youngkin, who had been trailing for much of the campaign, got a big bump when his challenger, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, said during a debate, I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. McAuliffe had receipts for how strongly he held this view.

He proudly reminded voters that he vetoed a bill that would let parents pick books in schools. The media is right that this single issue may have tanked McAuliffe's campaign, though not because his was the position of fighting a losing war against racism as they would have it. Indeed, it was the smugness of McCauley's delivery that shifted the race, a smugness mirrored by the liberal media's framing of the debate surrounding critical race theory. CRT. Hey guys, get clip number three ready.

I want to play that in a moment. I'm going to read more of this op-ed by Charles Love. But the denial that things were taught in Virginia schools or taught through the lens of CRT, that's really where parents were pushing back. Not because of white racism or white supremacy, but saying you better believe this is being taught.

Check out clip number three. Before the election, what we were doing is we were looking at the contracts, we were looking at the books, we were looking at the curriculum. And it's just as Carol said, I mean, there is a divide between this book, which is called Pedagogy of the Oppressed. So there's literally this approach that is brought into the classrooms. It becomes this critical race theory and then somehow we end up with woke baby.

And how does that happen? Our parents have been investigating all of this and it's through contracts. This is an equity collaborative contract with Loudoun County and it literally says coaching support for LCPS teachers, follow-up meetings focused on critical race theory development. So this is how it then gets into the classroom. And right down the street from me here on Route 7, we have this class being taught to educators. And it is how to be an anti-racist educator.

And down here it says we are going to understand and explore whiteness. And so it's just like Carol and Keisha say, they are then bringing this into the classroom. And that is how we end up with this tragedy of woke baby becoming the thesis in our classrooms. And this is what all of our parents in Virginia stood up against. And I want to encourage everybody everywhere all across the country to study the contracts, look at the curriculum and don't let them gaslight you. So here's someone saying, look, things are being taught through that lens. When Terry McAuliffe was governor, they were being taught through that lens. In fact, look at this tweet from Christopher Rufo, who some look at as a hero. He's exposing all this CRT stuff and others say, oh, no, no, he's just playing to the fears of white parents. So just look at the information for yourself. He says in 2015, then Governor McAuliffe's Department of Education instructed Virginia public schools to, quote, embrace critical race theory in order to, quote, re-engineer attitudes and belief systems. They explicitly endorsed CRT. He can't wiggle out of this one with word games.

And then it's got actual pictures, pictures from the documents that are still available. And some of them, as far as I know, online to this day as to what Terry McAuliffe as governor wanted taught. So the right thing to do, friends, is is for him to say, yes, I wanted this taught for these reasons, because I believe it's going to help create a positive environment in the schools and then face the music over that. People push back and say, well, it's not creating a positive environment.

But friends, I want to say this once more. We want truth. We want honesty. We do not want to airbrush the past. And we do not want to replace one form of racism with another form of racism. Where things are going, teaching through the lens of CRT in our children's schools is having a destructive impact and is replacing an old racism with a new racism. I'm going to read some more things to you.

Pretty intense. We'll be right here. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Again, is Dr. Michael Brown. Let me go back to Charles Love and his editorial in Newsweek. Newsweek has been publishing a bunch of very interesting perspectives that one of my friends wrote to me said they're becoming centrist.

They're hitting things from both angles. Very interesting. So Charles Love wrote this while the right has unified around the position that CRT is a toxic racist ideology that is being forced on students amid concerns from parents. The detractors on the left insist that CRT is not being taught in schools. They claim what is being pushed is simply a correction of whitewashed history. And those who oppose it are racist trying to suppress black history and using CRT as a proxy.

He says, well, I believe the CRT debate has devolved into a debate about definitions and technicalities. What I know is that divisive, highly problematic topics and course works are being presented to kids and parents are rightly upset about it. It's simply a fact that schools across the country are adding race focused curricula to the classrooms.

That is a fact that this is not being done in a nuanced way to start a conversation. It is leftist propaganda openly stating that races are different and whiteness is bad. New York City's teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, is openly promoting the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement, which includes social and restorative justice, reapportioning city and state funds to black communities and being queer and trans affirming. Many schools are teaching the 1619 Project, a racist work to fictionalize history, which realizes that anti-black racism is the DNA of America. And they are teaching this with no counter narrative to point out the flaws, its flaws or lies of omission. The project further argues that every problem black Americans face today can be directly linked to slavery. This is patently false and irresponsible.

And yet the project was in 4500 schools, including in cities such as Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York, within months of its release. He continues and says schools are focusing on white privileges, white privilege and asking white students to identify as oppressors. For minority students, they are for focus on culturally relevant learning, arguing that in order for them to achieve academically, the materials must be taught with an emphasis on their culture. This implies, for instance, that in order for blacks to excel at math, they must be taught the way that blacks would understand it.

This is just blatantly racist. And beyond race, there is also an unhealthy focus on gender and sex. Children are being trained to accept gender fluidity and ask their sexual preferences in California. Teachers are being encouraged to talk to students about gender identity and masturbation.

The details of these conversations are being hidden from parents. Parents are right to be concerned about what is happening in their schools and it's beyond shameful to attack them and label them white supremacists or domestic terrorists for voicing their concerns. No one can look at what parents are being sent, what teachers are saying and what the teachers unions are bragging about and honestly make the argument that it is about black history. And while the media is right that Youngkin used the education issue as a political tool, so did McAuliffe. He argued on teachers' behalf as hard as Youngkin did for parents. McAuliffe had United Federation of Teachers President Randy Weingarten on a campaign stop with him and talk constantly about critical race theory, not being in schools, and how parents were wrong. If it's okay for McAuliffe, it should be okay for Youngkin. The real takeaway from the Virginia election is that McAuliffe failed to understand the human condition.

And this is a great quote. You cannot call people racist and tell them their concerns are not real and think they will vote for you. Worse, if the Democrats continue to double down on the white supremacist soccer marms, they will eventually create one. The Virginia election was less a win for Republicans than a rejection of Democrats and if they're smarter, wake up call. If they don't realize they have to listen to what voters are saying rather than telling them what is best for them and calling them racist, they will continue to see results like this. Here's an article, just point out the headline to you on National Review.

This is Daniel Buck and Anthony Kennett. We're educators, critical race theory is in fact in the schools. And then another article on Fox, critical race theory taught at many of America's 50 most elite private K-12 schools according to new study.

If you want to look into this, check out criticalrace.org and dig. If you're concerned as a parent, educator, you don't know what to believe, you want truth taught in a fair way, again, the beautiful and the ugly of America's history, what makes us wonderful and exceptional and what makes us shameful is both in our... Is there not both in our past? Yeah, of course there is. Why? Because we're human beings. Because America is not the kingdom of God. America may have many Judeo-Christian principles and then a lot of how we lived was contrary to those principles. That's reality.

Why? Because this is not heaven on earth. You say, yeah, but people are flocking to America. Yeah, it's an amazing country. It is the land of opportunity. It's the land of possibility. So with all the inequities in all of our history, we had a black president elected not once but twice. We have people of color in every different aspect of our society, from the Supreme Court down to you name it.

Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that this is the kingdom of God on earth. This doesn't mean that America is different than every other... No, America is a fallen country like every other country on the planet as far as it's made up of fallen human beings, all right, that need redemption.

Here, more... I'm not critiquing the MAGA chant here, OK? But more than MAGA being my mantra, I want to see America saved. I want to see Americans saved. I want to see God's kingdom come in power and I want to see repentance. That's my goal. Bring America to repentance again. So what's that? Bring America to repentance again.

Brara doesn't really work as a... Well, you get the point of it, OK? That's what I want to see, revival, awakening. That's why revival or we die, great awakening is our only hope.

So that's my perspective. But again, friends, we've really got to watch what kids are being taught in school. Listen, I was talking to a pastor, a multiracial pastor in a major city.

I said multiracial church in a major city in America, especially with a lot of Gen Z and millennials in his church. And he said for years they have been learning things in certain ways, be it through the lens of gay activism, be it through the lens of other social, structural critiques, however you want to describe it. And he said they have grown up with very wrong ideas about many things, be it the ideas of entitlement, be it certain negative attitudes towards America.

They're enjoying all the freedoms and benefits, but now their role is just to critique evil, ugly America. You know, it's just like views about Israel, recognizing how God brought the Jewish people back to the land, recognizing the birth of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust, the miraculous preservation of Israel in its earliest days, from that to Israel as the evil, ugly oppressor committing genocide on the Palestinians. We have these radical shifts in perception.

And it's the same way in our country. And he's saying you can now see by choices that they're making, if they haven't had their minds renewed, if they haven't been adequately and rightly discipled, then their worldview is askew, their worldview is off. So once again, here's my counsel when it comes to CRT. When someone brings it up, ask, what do you think that means? What does it mean to you? How do you define it or describe it? In fact, just out of curiosity, I'm just going to put critical race.

I didn't think of doing this before the show. I'm just going to put this in and see what I just say definition, because I'm reading all these articles and books that go into things in depth. Do I just have something with a simple definition?

No, it's whole articles that are coming up. OK, I was just curious to see if there'd be like a short definition somewhere. Again, you've got to dig. But that's the first thing. What do you mean by it?

OK, you can't define it exactly, but what do you think it's teaching basically? So that's the first thing to flesh out. And when someone fleshes it out, you might say, oh, if that's what you mean by it, OK, I understand.

I see how that could be a useful tool. Or it's like, no way. I don't agree with that at all.

That's ugly. So start with definitions. Remember, the goal is not to win an argument, but to advance truth, to advance righteousness, to advance justice, to advance goodness.

Right, to advance understanding. That's the greater goal, not win an argument. OK, I'm going to pound you into the ground. I'm going to pound you into the ground. Well, why not talk first instead of pounding each other? All right.

So that's the first thing. Then what's actually being taught in the schools? How is this filtering into the classroom with your kids? It could be from pre-K.

It could be in 12th grade. How is it filtering out? OK, now ask deeper questions. Do you want white kids to feel guilty because they're white? Do you think that whiteness is essentially bad, just like we used to think blackness was essentially bad? Is that your view? Is that your position? I categorically reject it.

That's ugly, destructive. Do you want to separate people into classes, the oppressor class, or that you have to water things down for this group and you're going to make racial distinctions in that regard? As opposed to having culturally sensitive education, where if you know in a certain inner city setting or a country setting that vocabulary can be used a little differently, then you want to recognize that when you're explaining things, make sure kids are getting the concepts, et cetera. Another question. Do you want truthful history of America taught? Do you want your kids to know the great things in American history and the tragic things in American history? Do you want them to know this?

If not, that's a problem. If yes, OK, then we're in agreement. So let's let's find out where we agree. Let's find out where we disagree and let us protect our kids. How? By teaching them the truth and by not falling into a new racism that is only going to lead to cultural destruction. I hope this has helped at least a little. Another program powered by the Truth Network.