Critical Race Theory has become the latest scare tactic in the toolbox of the Republican Party. States like Florida, Texas, and Mississippi have drawn up or passed legislation to ban it from being taught in schools. Taking a step further, Florida may even allow parents to sue schools that teach it. After all, we can’t let kids know racism is embedded inside our institutions to begin correcting the problem, right? No, that would be way too easy.
Reverend Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., argues that the debate around Critical Race Theory is not the target we should be focused on. (she’s right). According to Newsweek, King stated the nation needed a “shift in priorities” while speaking at Atlanta’s King Center on Monday.
Expanding on that, she said it, “helps us understand we can’t commemorate my father on the one hand while also promoting false narratives under the banner of critical race theory.”
“CRT is not the problem,” she also said during her address. “Racism is the problem, poverty or extreme materialism is the problem, and militarism, war is the problem.”
“I also know that there are many people who are not as urgently concerned about that unfortunately,” King said during the address to announce events for the upcoming holiday in honor of her father. “There’s a wind of discontent for some and a wave of apathy for others that has settled into the hearts and minds of not only an increasing number of people in the United States, but throughout the world.”
This isn’t the first time that King has spoken about CRT. In December, she tweeted about how the concept was being twisted for political gain.
King’s speech happened a day before President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris went to Morehouse College and urged Congress to pass voting rights protections quickly. The attacks on Critical Race Theory around the country are an extravagant distraction by Republicans to have an issue to rally behind for the upcoming elections.
History needs to be taught in a constructive and informative way, so we don’t repeat it. Our primary focus must get at the root of the racism trying to be whitewashed in those same textbooks.