You may not have heard the academic phrase "critical race theory," but it's playing an increasingly large role in the Republican campaign against Democrats this season.
To greatly simplify, critical race theory offers an intellectual framework for examining the way white supremacy is baked into all aspects of American life.
It's a concept worth examining, especially at a moment when the country is in the grip of a pandemic that is disproportionately killing people of color and a convulsive reckoning over race and equal justice under the law.
As you might imagine, though, President Donald Trump and his allies see the reassessment of American's founding ideals as an affront, as well as a way to agitate white voters and improve his chance of remaining in office for another term.
Last week, Trump threatened to defund schools that use the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, named for the year enslaved Black Africans first landed on American shores, in their curriculum. The project is a deep dive into how this country was not just built on the backs of the enslaved, but also on a foundational premise _ "all men are created equal" _ that was, on its face, a lie.
"Department of Education is looking at this," Trump tweeted. "If so, they will not be funded!"
(Not that it matters to Trump, but he doesn't control school funding.)
The Office of Management and Budget got into the act last week, too, deciding that this was the right moment to condemn racial sensitivity training for federal workers.
Its director, Russell Vought, announced, via tweet, that "the days of taxpayer funded indoctrination trainings that sow division and racism are over." He added, "Under the direction of @POTUS, we are directing agencies to halt critical race theory trainings immediately."
In a memo, Vought elaborated: "It has come to the president's attention that executive branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date 'training' government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda.... (A)ccording to press reports, employees across the executive branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that 'virtually all white people contribute to racism' or where they are required to say that they 'benefit from racism.'"
Gosh, press reports? If you were running the government, don't you think you'd be able to get firsthand information about these training sessions and not force yourself to rely on what _ just guessing here _ Fox News is telling you?
For the record, if you are a white American and can't admit that you have benefited from structural racism, or the privilege automatically accorded to your skin color, then you really do need that training, as painful as it may be.
