If you’ve taken even a cursory look at The Root in recent months, you’ve probably noticed an uptick in politicians and people nationwide losing their mind over the right wing’s latest boogeyman: Critical Race Theory. The backlash has become so pronounced that one of the nation’s largest teacher unions has come out and said it will stand by any teacher who chooses to teach “honest history.”
According to CNN, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, gave a speech during a virtual conference on Tuesday pledging their support for teachers who face backlash for teaching about race. “Mark my words: Our union will defend any member who gets in trouble for teaching honest history,” she told members. “Teaching the truth is not radical or wrong.”
One of the biggest issues in our country right now is that people just don’t read. I’m sure there’s a person right now writing some headass comment on this post based on the headline alone. If the outraged masses did just like, I don’t know, 10 minutes of research, they’d realize that Critical Race Theory is only really taught in colleges and universities. Weingarten called out those who are using CRT as a catch-all for talking about race.
“But culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as CRT to try to make it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history,” Weingarten said. “This harms students. These culture warriors want to deprive students of a robust understanding of our common history. This will put students at a disadvantage in life by knocking a big hole in their understanding of our country and the world.”
A group of parents at a Tennessee school district are only proving Weingarten’s point. The Tennessean reports that a group of parents and local advocacy groups are up in arms over “Wit & Wisdom,” an English language arts curriculum, potentially being taught in schools. Their beef is that books like “Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” and “Separate is Never Equal,” are included in the curriculum.
Robin Steenman, head of the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said at an recent event held by the organization that “Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” was particularly problematic because the “large crowd of angry white people who didn’t want Black children in a white school” too harshly delineated between Black and white people, and that the book didn’t offer “redemption” at its end.
Nigga.
So either these parents are old as fuck, or they straight up didn’t pay attention when they were in school. I was taught the story of Ruby Bridges when I was in elementary school. We were shown Roots in the fifth grade. This ain’t nothing new and just further proves that they’re nothing but a bunch of reactionary dumbasses who’ll believe anything Facebook tells them.
Also, redemption? We talking about redemption? We just had a white nationalist president and y’all wanna talk about redemption? I can’t with these people, y’all.
I find it deeply ironic that the same white folks who love to talk about how the youth are too sensitive, and how Black people have a victim mentality, are the epitome of bitch-assness when it comes to being truthful about history. If that ain’t the pot calling the kettle a nigger, I don’t know what is.