CRT Misinformation

Combatting CRT Misinformation

Facts and Truth Win

 

When I see a coordinated campaign of misinformation, I start looking for motivation. The coordinated campaign to ban the teaching of systemic racism in our public schools is but the latest example. 

 

A conservativ writer, Christopher Rufo, picked up on an established law school course called Critical Race Theory, concocted a campaign to sweep K-12 public education into the maelstrom created by the Black Lives Matter movement by accusing public school teachers of indoctrinating youngsters that all white people are racists. He developed a series of talking points, all inaccurate, about how this was a Marxist conspiracy designed to pollute young minds. He set up a strawman caricature of the actual CRT course and it was off to the races. 

 

Many extreme conservatives, lacking a positive message or platform, resort to oppositional messaging designed to scare and get their followers to join in the fray.

 

Ad hominem attacks are the most common. This is a debate device which ignores the content of an opponent’s argument and attacks the opponent’s character. Labels like “Socialist.” “Godless,” “Marxist,” “morally bankrupt,” “leftist,” “liberal,” or, one of my favorites, “lefty gadfly” are just some that folks who cannot debate the issues based on fact throw into their comments. 

 

Conflating things that are not alike to justify a position is another one of these devices. “A drug addict gets free needles or methadone, but my insulin costs a thousand dollars” is a current example meant to disparage one group while invoking sympathy for the other. Effective addiction treatment has nothing to do with the cost of insulin. If you want to complain about the cost of insulin, go after big pharma or support universal health care.

 

Scare tactic messaging is another common way of avoiding a debate on the merits. “Immigrants are taking our jobs,” “Democrats will take our guns,” “that government program will lead to SOCIALISM” are meant to scare people into action without understanding what is really at stake.

 

Exaggeration is another form of deflecting an opponent’s argument.  Saying, “all lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter” ignores the problems faced by African Americans at the hands of police officers by sweeping them into a bigger population. Of course, all lives matter, but not “all of us” have experienced racial profiling by police embodied in the complaints about “driving while Black.”

 

Outright lying about something one opposes is, unfortunately, all too common in today’s political debate. “Covid vaccines contain microchips that allow the government to follow your movements,” is a perfect example meant to discourage vaccination efforts. “Masks don’t work and forcing us to wear them destroys our freedom,” are among the most egregious.

 

Getting back to the Critical Race Theory debate, clearly those opposed rarely really know what they are opposing. Labels are used to invoke fear. The labels are supported by exaggeration and outright lies to bolster the ephemeral arguments made against a practice that does not exist. But, what lies beneath the vehement opposition?

 

Let me suggest that the vocal opposition to the teaching of systemic racism in our public schools is rooted in the very racism that fuels the movement to destroy public education all together. 

 

Fear that white kids mingle with “others” or actually learn about our country’s real history of white invaders’ treatment of peoples of color helped fuel segregated schools in all parts of the country. When racial segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional, private schools sprang up to shelter the offspring of white folks from peoples of color. 

 

As people of more modest means, taught to fear the public-school melting pot, wanted access to private schools for their kids, churches ramped up religious education for their members as an alternative. 

 

As the costs of these alternatives to public education rose, those not wanting their kids exposed to the “others” or curricula they could not control, demanded their public-school taxes be diverted to private school funding. With that, GOP controlled state legislatures created “school choice,” “charter” and voucher systems that take tax dollars away from public schools and send them to private ones following the flight of white kids.

 

Current extreme conservatives are still not satisfied. Public schools still exist and teach things they do not like. They already lost trying to ban teaching about evolution, human sexuality, gender identity, same sex relationships, equality for women, abortion, stem cells, climate change and a host of other issues. This explains the vehement opposition to teaching real history. The opposition is adding more fuel to fires already burning to drive more away from public education and into the arms of the private and “for profit” charter school industry where a rosier world view and white supremacy are the prevailing norms.

 

When looking for the motivation behind the current CRT misinformation campaign, it always helps to follow the money.