According to Plato the two most important questions for society is who will teach the children and what is taught to them. That was true 2,500 years ago and it is still true today. Sadly, today there simply is no agreement on who teaches the children and nothing but confusion and wildly different positions on what should be taught.

Therein lies the greatest threat to children in our modern age.

Children are inundated from all sides with conflicting messages. Some say that America is the greatest country to ever exist, while others assert that America has never been great. The United States always rushes aid to areas anywhere in the world that suffers any kind of disaster. Yet we remain reviled by many for greed, corruption and overuse of natural resources. We fought a civil war to free the slaves, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and many more than that disabled. Yet there are a significant number of people who claim we remain a systemically racist nation. Some believe and teach that we should be sexually abstinent until marriage, while others encourage sexual experimentation whenever and with whomever you want, at any age.

In many of our schools it is the dark view of America that is being taught to students. Since 2003 the percentage of Americans who report they are extremely proud of our country fell from 70% to 38% today. For those 18 to 34 years old it’s fallen to 25%. Increasingly, our schools are indoctrinating children with negative messages about our history, about our form of government, about the state of our environment, about racial and sexual injustices. Children are simultaneously becoming hooked on a host of social media platforms which have been designed, intentionally, to be addictive. Much of what we learn about current events is learned through ideologically skewed and biased social media.

Entertainment—television, movies, music, video games—likewise has become a vehicle for promoting a progressive ideology. Even formerly family friendly Disney has become fully woke, promoting race and sex-based agendas. The left leaning tilt of corporate entertainment is now being mimicked by the rest of the corporate world under the guise of ESG (environmental, social, governance).

Government at all levels has adopted one of two polar opposite approaches, progressive vs. populist. The progressives aim for more centralized government control, more socialist policies. The populists favor smaller government, more personal control and more free market polices.

Children do not understand these differences. Not even high school students have brains that are developed sufficiently to effectively sort through the key factors necessary even to understand the differences. The brain continues to grow until about age 25, when the frontal lobe, the center of reason, becomes fully developed. Until then, children tend to be governed by their feelings and are highly vulnerable to suggestion and to manipulation by adults.

Parents today largely are disengaged from their children’s education, involvement with their children’s friends, even with their extra-curricular school activities—other than acting as cab drivers. This leaves the education and influence of their children mostly in the hands of other people. Many parents do not even know what their children are learning in school, other than in very general terms. They may pay no attention to what they are watching on television, what movies they go to, who their friends are or anything about their friends or their friends’ families. Nor do they often have any idea how their children are using the smart phone they gave them or the computers and laptops they use. On average, those between 8 and 28 spend 44.5 hours a week on their digital devices, according to the Center for Parenting Education.

Remember, all during these 44.8 hours per week, as well as in school, or hanging our with their friends, children are being bathed in conflicting information. Conflicting information they are mentally incapable of resolving other than by relying on those who are most influential in their lives. Too often the most influential are peers or teachers whose values and perspectives may not align with those of the parents. Frequently, children remain confused, depressed and anxious as a result of the conflict and chaos that reigns in most elements of our culture.

It is unhealthy for children to live in this state of confusion. Children need clarity, certainty, stability. Our society is increasingly becoming hostile to childhood. In 2020, 12% of children 3 to 17 years old “had reported as having ever experienced anxiety or depression, up from 9% in 2016.” It’s no wonder. Children increasingly are being taught that it’s not even certain they are boys or girls. Instead, the educational trend now is to teach children that doctors guess what sex they are based on how they look at birth. It is up to the child, they say, to determine as they grow older what sex they really are.

One of the lesser-known experiments by Ivan Pavlov involved dogs distinguishing between a circle and an oval. The dog would be rewarded if it pointed to a circle, but punished if it pointed at an oval. The experiment involved gradually changing the oval to look more and more like a circle to see how the dogs reacted. At some point the dogs became confused. Some dogs refused to choose, but others became agitated and anxious, spinning around in circles, barking and yelping. This is what we are doing to our children.

Parents need to retake control of what their children are being taught. We can no longer depend on proxies to do our job.

The most important job of a parent is to provide a stable, safe and secure home. A big part of that is for parents to be actively engaged in what their children are being taught at school, involved in their children’s activities, fully knowledgeable about their children’s friends and their families, and actively involved in supervising their children’s online life. If parents do these things, many of the dangers children face in our culture become somewhat insignificant.

It is especially important to help their children differentiate between right and wrong, between true and false, between good touch and bad touch, between safe people and unsafe people. They need to know the difference between good guys and bad guys. And don’t neglect describing what the wolves look like.

Children need to be raised with clearly understood values, preferably Christian values. If parents do not have a clear understanding of a biblical worldview (less than 10% of Christians do) then they need to educate themselves to pass it along to their children. The Bible identifies three kinds of people: the wise person, the foolish person and the evil person. There are no other kinds. Learn how to identify them, and teach your children to do so as well.

Predators, whether sexual predators or other kinds of predators, tend to target lonely children whose parents are not engaged or whose parents are easily fooled. They capitalize on the confusion of children in order to emotionally manipulate and exploit them. Children whose parents have not provided emotional stability or are uninvolved in the child’s life, are prime targets.

Don’t let your child become one.

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A little while back, we addressed the topic of “ableist language.” Yes, “ableist” is now a word—enshrined in academia at the highest level. Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) considers it offensive to use the term “stand-up meeting” to refer to a brief rendezvous, because people in wheelchairs are unable to physically stand, and therefore the term demeans them. Instead, we ought to use the substitute, “quick meeting.”

I spent a decent amount of ink analyzing “ableism,” because the whole concept struck me as an oddly far-fetched grasp at solving a problem that wasn’t there. But it turns out that “ableism” was only the first of several taboos on the EHLI wanted list—if you keep reading, you’ll find another category that’s much more commonly discussed than ableism: racism. I’m sad to report, however, that the EHLI’s stance on what counts as race-based offense makes no more sense than their stance on ability-based offense.

Exhibit A: “Blackbox.” According to Stanford, the preferred phrases would be “hidden,” “mystery box,” “opaque box,” or “flight recorder,” because the word “blackbox . . . assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term.”

The glaring assumption in this line of reasoning is that the color’s negative connotation is racial in character. I will agree with one thing: there are things in the world that are black and have negative connotations, such as nighttime, mold, or assassin clothing. However, I decidedly disagree that referring to a black thing as a bad thing automatically invokes race. Night-time is black, and many people are scared of the dark. Are they scared of the dark because it reminds them of African skin tones and they hate African people? No! They’re scared of the dark because dark is the absence of light, and the less you can see your surroundings, the more uncertain you are about whether you’re safe. Whether you’re a kid scared of the monster in his closet or a hunter scared of the cougar that might be trailing him, we all can relate to this phenomenon. Fear of “black night” has nothing to do with “hate for black people;” so just because we refer to any black thing as a bad thing does not mean we are referring to black people.

Given this, the Stanford explanation is actually one of the most counter-productive efforts at political correctness I have ever seen. Let’s look at that very last phrase in Stanford’s explanation: using the word “blackbox” is “racializing the term.” Just so we’re all clear, to “racialize” is to “make racial in tone or character.” For example, if you were telling me about the wisdom of the founding fathers, and I pointed out that they were all white and therefore their perspective couldn’t be trusted, I have just racialized the subject of America’s founders. Broadly speaking, the principle is thus: I am talking with you about Thing A, and in the context of our discussion, Thing A normally would have no racial association. However, I suddenly use race-based terminology to refer to Thing A, so that now, when you think about Thing A, you think about race. Now, I have just “racialized” Thing A.

However, when the EHL includes the term “blackbox” in its list of racist language, it is therefore using race-based categories to refer to it something that previously had no racial connotation! I have heard the word “blackbox” dozens of times in my life, and never once thought of it as connected to someone with darker skin. Stanford’s document was probably the first time I had ever encountered the idea. By dragging race into conversations about airplane equipment, Stanford is actually racializing the term “blackbox.” Stanford, no one was thinking about race until you mentioned it.

I have a dream that my children can grow up in a world where words can actually have multiple meanings. As our language dictators would have it, one use of the word “black” (to refer to the color of skin with a greater amount of melanin in it) now permeates many other uses of the word “black” which did not carry racial connotations in our minds until the “experts” told us they did. It seems to me that this kind of connotation-smearing is a symptom of a larger cultural problem: the fight against racism has become almost a religion. Our culture has become so obsessed with not offending anyone because of the color of their skin that any possible race-based meaning of a word is now the lens through which we view all other meanings of that word. That’s what any religion does—it permeates your thought, so that no matter where you look, that’s what you see. When Christianity is our lens, it is liberating. But when misguided social philosophy is our lens, it is crippling.

Does racism exist? Yes. Is it sin? Absolutely. All men and women came from the same two people and thus are all brothers and sisters no matter what they look like. But is scrubbing words like “blackbox” or “white paper” from our vocabulary the way to fight such evil? Absolutely not. We’ve slapped the wrong lens on our camera.

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After receiving complaints from donors and bad press, the Salvation Army has removed the guide, “Let’s Talk About Race.” The removal of the guide is a step in the right direction, and we should applaud the charity for its willingness to remove the document. Nonetheless, the organization has not disavowed Critical Race Theory (CRT) or apologized to those they may have offended with divisive statements. Christians, therefore, may praise the move to remove the guide but should remain diligent in the fight against Critical Race Theory and Marxism.

The Salvation Army has released several statements denouncing that they asked donors to apologize for being white. They state, “The Salvation Army has made repeated efforts to clarify that we have never claimed that we believe our donors should apologize for their skin color. … Regardless, false claims that were designed to harm our ability to make Christmas bright for more than 2.5 million Americans in need continue to be repeated by many.” Although some may have made this “false claim,” most understand a demand for an apology based on race was not published in the guide.

Instead, most have criticized the language that was present in the guide. For example, the guide said that donors may be guilty of “White supremacy, White-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society.” These statements are taken directly from CRT and were crucial elements of the “Let’s Talk About Race” guide. Many have a problem with the language used—not with the Salvation Army taking a stand against racism. All Christians should stand against acts of bigotry. The issue was that the organization utilized language from CRT, a politicized academic philosophy that has no business in any church or charity organization.

Removing the guide is undoubtedly a positive move by the Salvation Army, and we should be encouraged by their willingness to examine the documents they are publishing. However, Christians should not let their guard down. Marxism and CRT are ever-present dangers to the church and are philosophies bent on the destruction of Christianity.

The Salvation Army should go further in its efforts to heal our nation by renouncing any ties to both Marxism and CRT. They should apologize for causing harm, even if it was caused inadvertently. Unity and healing of racial divides can only occur in the foundation of the Word of God and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, not in leftist agendas.

It is far past time that Christians stop allowing Marxism and collectivism to inform a Christian worldview. The Bible tells us,

“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). 

We should no longer seek justice as the world sees it, but instead, we should seek God’s redemption and become one body regardless of our race or history.

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28).

If we are walking in the Word of God, neither racism nor Marxist ideology will be present in our lives. Continue to be vigilant in ensuring that your church and the Christian organizations you respect and support do not become corrupted by men’s philosophies and empty deceits.

Take ACTION: Take a moment to thank the Salvation Army for their action in removing the guide. Click HERE to send an email to Commander Brian Peddle and/or visit The Salvation Army’s social media sites to ask that they continue their charity and love through a Gospel based on the Word of God and not political ideologies. Moreover, please click the following links to visit their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages to urge them to reject CRT and Marxism.

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The Salvation Army, best known for the red kettles and bell ringers during the Christmas season, recently released disturbing statements regarding racism. These statements included several social justice and Critical Race Theory (CRT) buzzwords. As a result, numerous donors have pulled their financial support from the charity.

 

The International Social Justice Commission, a division of the charity, released “Let’s Talk About Racism,” a guidebook for donors. In the book, the organization asserts that donors may be guilty of “White supremacy, White-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society.” The group also asks white donors and Salvationists (as their members are called) to apologize and “lament and repent” for any racism.

 

The charity also released a “Study Guide on Racism.” In this guide, they state “that Salvationists have sometimes shared in the sins of racism and conformed to economic, organizational and social pressures that perpetuate racism.” It is uncertain in what ways they believe that members are or have been involved in racism. The terminology suggests that they are applying the leftist woke gospel and dividing people rather than uniting diverse groups. 

 

Progressivism is not new to the Salvation Army. But the question remains. Why does a charitable Christian organization want to promote wokeness? It may be that someone in the organization is promoting these left-leaning ideologies.

 

The two guides included a great deal of language taken from leftist Ibram X. Kendi, Professor at Boston University and Director of the Center for Antiracist Research. There was also language and information from author Robin DiAngelo, who wrote White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Much of this language is very divisive, paints all white people as racists, and insists that all people of color are victims of oppression at all times. 

 

In 2017, the Salvation Army released an “International Positional Statement” on racism. Professor Jeffery Long, an evolutionary anthropologist who teaches human genetics and Darwinism at the University of New Mexico, was utilized as a source. It is confounding why a Christian charity would use resources from academics that believes in a philosophy that directly conflicts with the Bible.

 

As a direct result of the woke ideology printed in the literature of the Salvation Army, several donors have stopped financial donations to the charity. The Salvation Army issued a response to the claims in the media that they had asked donors to apologize for being “white.” The Salvation Army has refuted making any such statement and also claims that those making such claims “mislabel” the charity for “their own agenda.” Although it is accurate to say the charity never asked donors to apologize for being white, it is also true that the guidebook and the various other materials and resources regarding racism have the language of CRT and left-leaning philosophies. The Salvation Army has also used information from leftist academics and anti-Biblical ideology such as Darwinism. As a result, the charity may have done a great disservice to themselves but more importantly to the families and individuals that have come to depend on their services. 

 

The Salvation Army not only provides food and clothing to the needy but also has numerous other services. According to their “2021 Annual Report,” they were able to help 63,000 households with rent or mortgage assistance, served over 2 million with holiday assistance, provided over 7 million with disaster assistance, and helped 121,570 individuals fight substance abuse. The group also ran numerous centers, including 126 rehabilitation centers and 29 centers to assist those rescued from human trafficking. The good that the Salvation Army has done in the past should not be overwhelmed by woke ideology. 

 

The motto of the Salvation Army is “Doing the Most Good.” Indeed, all Christians should strive for unity and end all racism. Yet if we continue to divide ourselves using the Left’s narrative, this is not “Doing the Most Good.” The act of racism perpetrated by individuals is sin, and these individuals should repent. Nevertheless, demanding that an entire group be held responsible for the sin of racism purely based on the color of their skin is in and of itself racism. Christians best exemplify unity and anti-racism when we work, live, and worship together without the need to create racial division through fake social justice. Instead, we should seek God’s justice and spread the true gospel of Jesus Christ. As it says in Romans 3:22-23:

 

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (emphasis added)

 

Perhaps the best thing for the Salvation Army (and all Christians) is to leave behind the leftist woke ideology and do the “most good” by returning to the charitable demonstration of the love of Christ by giving freely to all people regardless of race. 

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send an email to Commander Brian Peddle and/or visit The Salvation Army’s social media sites to let them know that they are alienating many potential supporters who reject the left-wing agenda to divide Americans by race. Please click the following links to visit their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages to urge them to abandon  this politically “woke,” intellectually slumbering, and morally superficial agenda.

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In America today, when it comes to the question of Critical Race Theory (CRT), we are like ships – really, like battleships – passing each other in the night. One side shouts, “We’ve got to get CRT out of our schools! It is hurting our children!” The other side responds, “CRT is not being taught in our children’s schools! This is just a racist dog whistle!” Is there any way to bridge the divide?

To illustrate the depth of our divisions, an August 2021 article posted on the Brookings.edu website stated, “Fox News has mentioned ‘critical race theory’ 1,300 times in less than four months. Why? Because critical race theory (CRT) has become a new boogie man for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present.”

That is quite a serious charge.

Is Fox really engaging in white supremacist fearmongering? Or are fair-minded parents across America genuinely concerned about a destructive educational agenda in their kids’ schools?

That’s why I said that, when it comes to CRT, we are like battleships passing each other in the night – and shooting at each other as we pass by.

Yet I do believe that some of these divisions are more artificial than real, with the first problem being one of definitions. When we speak of CRT, are we speaking about the same thing? Can we even define it in our own words?

If you say, “CRT is good” and I say, “CRT is bad,” do we mean the same thing by CRT?

If we want to move beyond the current impasse, our first question should be, “What, exactly, do you mean by CRT? Can you define it?”

A colleague of mine asked me these same questions, writing to me from the perspective of a God-fearing, Bible-believing, highly respected black educator.

This led to a fruitful and insightful discussion, one through which we understood one another better and could better define where we agreed and disagreed.

But we can’t debate CRT if we can’t define it. So, let this be our starting point: What, exactly, do you mean by CRT?

This leads to the next: “Do you believe that CRT is being taught in our children’s schools (meaning, K-12)?”

My colleague assured me that, in his state (Virginia), CRT was not being taught in the schools. Instead, he explained, CRT was an academic theory taught at college or grad school levels.

But when I asked him if classes were being taught through the lens of CRT or if teachers were being informed by CRT, he said that was a very different question. Yet that was the very thing I meant when I referred to CRT being taught in our schools. Our interaction brought this difference to the surface.

It is the viewpoint of the black civil rights leader Bob Woodson that CRT is “explicitly and implicitly a racist approach to education,” and that approach is increasingly infiltrating our schools. That is what many parents are reacting to, and that’s why children’s education was such a hot topic in Virginia and beyond in the recent elections.

It was not a chimera or a racist dog whistle. It was (and is) an issue of real concern.

Britt Hume put it like this: “There’s ample evidence that critical race theory very much influences and is injected into what is being taught in those schools and these parents knew that.” That was the point I was making to my colleague, and that would be true even if many parents could not define CRT with precision.

Hume continued, “Now, you could say technically it is not being taught in the sense of volumes have been written on critical race theory and it’s not been handed out as a textbook” – which was the point my colleague was making to me – “but its influence and its tenants are in those schools.”

That, again, is the crux of the matter, and that’s what brings me to an approach that, hopefully, can help us work together for the betterment of our children, exposing bigoted and racists attitudes on all sides.

We continue to dig deeper with two sets of questions for parents.

• Do you want your children to gain a truthful and accurate of perspective of American history which includes the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad? That would exclude things like the 1619 Project, given its deep flaws and biases. It would also exclude an airbrushed telling of our national story. Do we want balance and honesty here? If so, can we agree on which textbooks and curricula to use? And can we help educate one another and fill in each other’s blind spots?

• Do you agree that it is wrong to make a child feel guilty or inferior or evil because of the color of their skin? Do you also agree that is wrong to separate children into different groups, based on skin color and ethnicity? And do you agree that it is wrong to identify some children as part of the oppressed class and others as part of the oppressor class?

If we can say yes to the first set of questions, that rebuts the idea that parents who oppose CRT don’t want their kids to know the truth about slavery and segregation (and more). To the contrary, these parents are saying, “Yes, let the whole story be told, but in a fair and accurate way.”

If we can say yes to the second set of questions, that rebuts the idea that proponents of CRT want white children to feel guilty or that they want to incorporate identity politics into the classroom. To the contrary, they are saying, “We have no desire to lay a guilt trip on white Americans.”

On the other hand, those who want to whitewash our history will expose their own bigotry by saying “No” to the first set of questions, while those who have replaced anti-black racism with anti-white racism will expose their bigotry by saying “No” to the second set of questions.

But at least this way, we can expose and confront bigotry and bias while working with others of like heart and mind to do our best to continue to move forward as a nation.

Can we at least give this a shot by putting these questions on the table? It’s sure better than fomenting more division and anger by yelling and accusing as we sail by each other’s ships in the dark of night.

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This article was originally published by AskDrBrown.org.

In his November 1 op-ed for The Hill, Fox News Analyst Juan Williams claimed that the “parents’ rights’ mantra in the Virginia gubernatorial elections is simply “a code for white race politics.” To the contrary, this really is about parents’ rights and about what is best for all children. To inject charges of white supremacy and racism is to miss the whole point of why so many parents are so upset. In all candor and with due respect, I would have expected better from Mr. Williams.

The fact is that these parents are concerned with the injection of racism into every phase of their children’s education, not to mention the injection of an extreme LGBTQ agenda. Williams should be standing with these parents, not against them. With reference to campaigning strategies in the 2018 elections, he wrote,

“Virginia Republicans are back with a new and improved ‘Culture Wars’ campaign for 2021. The closing argument is once again full of racial division — but this time it is dressed up as a defense of little children.”

Specifically, he claimed that,

“It is a campaign to stop classroom discussion of Black Lives Matter protests or slavery because it could upset some children, especially white children who might feel guilt.”

To the contrary, every white Christian parent with whom I have interacted wants their children to know the truth about slavery, segregation, and the lasting effects of those sinful institutions. And they want to see equal opportunities for all.

But they do not want their children thinking they are evil because they are white (this is actually happening). And they do not want their children to feel guilty for having a nice home or good educational opportunities, as if all success of all white Americans was built on the shoulders of slaves. In the words of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,

“The way we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.”

Most of all, these parents do not want everything to be about race, to the point that math can be seen as racist. Or that famous European poets and historians are cancelled because of their whiteness.

Remarkably, to make his case, Williams repeats the “very fine people” lie, writing, “Recall, it was Trump who famously said there were ‘very fine people’ on both sides of the violence sparked by ‘Unite the Right,’ the 2017 rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va.”

Surely Williams must know that this has been debunked time and time again. But why let a good lie die? He also claims that,

“Critical race theory — broadly, a focus on racial disparities as a fact of American life — is not explicitly taught in Virginia’s public schools or anywhere in American public schools. But Republicans nationwide have made it a boogeyman to excite racial divisions and get their base to the polls.”

To be sure, there are different ways to define CRT. For some, it is healthy, positive, and objective. For others, it is unhealthy, negative, and biased. So, before we debate CRT, it’s important to ask, “What, exactly, do you mean by the term?”

And clearly, CRT in its full-blown, academic form, is not being taught to kids in Virginia (and elsewhere). But are classes taught through the lens of CRT? Without question.

As a Daily Wire headline announced on October 31, “Terry McAuliffe Claims CRT Has ‘Never Been’ In Virginia Schools. His Administration Pushed It, Documents Show.” The documentation is clear and undeniable.

Yet Williams approvingly cites McAuliffe, who said, “[Gubernatorial candidate Glenn] Youngkin’s closing message of book banning and silencing esteemed Black authors is a racist dog whistle designed to gin up support from the most extreme elements of his party — mainly his top endorser and surrogate, Donald Trump.”

To the contrary, it is authors with extremist views that are under scrutiny, or, at the least, authors whose views are being exploited by educators with extremist agendas, while contrary views are rejected and banned. (As an aside, but for the record, Youngkin largely campaigned as himself and for himself, not as an extension of Trump, as other political commentators have noted.)

To be clear, I would not deny that white racism remains an issue for some (perhaps many?) families in Virginia. Nor would I deny that some of them would prefer that the full truth about slavery and its legacy not be taught in schools. May they have a change of heart, may they face the facts, and may they enlighten their children. There is no place for white supremacy anywhere and at any time.

Unfortunately, Williams is guilty of a reverse racism, one that projects all kind of nefarious motives on to parents who really do care and who really want their kids to get a solid education rather than cultural brainwashing. In that spirit, I recently tweeted,

“The solution to anti-black racism is not anti-white racism (or anti-Asian racism, etc.). Instead, it is cultivating mutual understanding, respect, and love, with a real desire to see others thrive and enjoy the best of what America has to offer.”

Mr. Williams, I invite you to step higher with me so that, together, we could advance that mutual understanding, respect, and love – based on truth – rather than engage in an endless game of biased and racially charged sniping.

Surely America in 2021 deserves better.

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This article was originally posted at AskDrBrown.org.

Critical Race Theory is hard to understand, perhaps deliberately so. Its advocates use common terms differently than do the rest of us. For example, almost everybody associates “racist”[1] with someone who thinks one race is superior to others. But to these advocates, every American is automatically racist, even if no racial intent exists at all.

Even Christians are being deceived by Critical Race Theory. For example, one religious college held a conference that claimed “there is no such thing as being white and being a Christian.”[2] This statement underscores the need to understand the claims of Critical Race Theory and how it impacts Christianity. This article:

• Provides a simplified definition of Critical Race Theory.

• Examines its most important claims.

• Compares these claims with what the Bible says about having equal justice for all.

• Demonstrates that Critical Race Theory is anti-Christian, and wouldn’t fix racism anyway.

• Shows that, although using Critical Race Theory is both illegal and unconstitutional, it is already found in our schools and government.

• Asserts that this push for Critical Race Theory is an evangelistic push for the Marxist worldview. It’s a religious battle for American hearts.

The Bible is our baseline

The promoters of Critical Race Theory claim that America is racist, that:

…the United States was founded as a racist society, that racism is thus embedded in all social institutions, structures, and social relations within our society.[3]

One of these advocates, Robin DiAngelo,[4] in her book Is Everyone Really Equal?, says that:

we do not intend to inspire guilt or assign blame… But each of us does have a choice about whether we are going to work to interrupt and dismantle these systems [of injustice] or support their existence by ignoring them. There is no neutral ground; to choose not to act against injustice is to choose to allow it.[5]

These are strong assertions, but are they legitimate? To evaluate these claims we need to go back to first principles (Hebrews 5:12-14), such as why are we here, and what God has required of us. Otherwise, we can fall under the spell of false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-4). Remember what got Adam into the most trouble? It was deciding that he, himself, would decide what was right and wrong (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:4-6, 22-24).

The first thing to understand is that everything in the universe begins and ends with God. He created it (Genesis 1:1), judges the peoples throughout history (Leviticus 18:24-28; Jeremiah 18:5-10; Acts 12:21-23), and will bring all of creation to an end (Revelation 20:11-21:27). If short, everything always is all about Him (Colossians 1:15-17).

Once we understand that God is not an “absent watchmaker,” but one who even today interacts with His creation, we need to know what He requires of us. Sensible answers to this are found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, of 1648. Here are its first three questions.

1. What is the chief purpose for which man is made?
A: The chief purpose for which man is made is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

2. What rule has God given to direct us how to glorify and enjoy him?
A: The Word of God, which consists of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how to glorify and enjoy him.

3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.[6]

We’re to search through the Bible to understand the meaning of right and wrong, how to interact righteously with each other, and how to build a God-fearing society. Then we’re to use our understanding in our personal and social activities. Religion is not merely what goes on in your head (James 2:14-26).

The Bible has plenty to say about justice and a just society. Here is a traditional on-line dictionary definition of justice:

• the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.

• rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.

• the moral principle determining just conduct.

• conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.

• the administering of deserved punishment or reward.

• the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.[7]

That is, justice means having some standards by which your deeds or work will be measured, and then being impartially judged against those standards. Note that this particular on-line dictionary has this other definition:

• just treatment of all members of society with regard to a specified public issue, including equitable distribution of resources and participation in decision-making[8]

By adding this new definition the editors are chasing “social justice,” which isn’t justice at all. In fact, this new clause contradicts the other clauses. For a more detailed discussion, see my previous article Social Justice: what does it really mean?[9]

In the United States our laws, our justice, are based on English common law, which in its turn comes from a Bible-based culture. We charge individuals, and bring them before judges, for actions they committed. There is no legal concept of group guilt, or that “it is society’s fault.”

One feature of true justice is the expectation of evenhandedness, that the judge, and jury if there is one, will impartially examine the facts and rule on them. They must not favor, or disfavor, a person because of wealth, fame, power, or race. As the Bible describes it:

• Provide even-handed and truthful justice (Amos 5:12).

• Give judgments that don’t favor either the rich or the poor (Leviticus 19:5).

• Be even-handed in our treatment the aliens in our midst (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

With Christians there is to be no favoritism of men or women, or of race, in Christ Jesus (Acts 10:34-35; Galatians 3:28; I Timothy 5:21; James 2:1). A Christian society is to be no respecter of persons or of race – a colorblind society.

Now that have our baseline – that this is God’s show, and that we’re to build a just society according to God’s version of justice – we can examine Critical Race Theory and its claims.

What is Critical Race Theory?

It’s hard to find a simple description of Critical Race Theory. The most accessible one I’ve found comes from Got Questions, a reliable Christian blog:

Critical race theory is a modern approach to social change, developed from the broader critical theory, which developed out of Marxism. Critical race theory (CRT) approaches issues such as justice, racism, and inequality, with a specific intent of reforming or reshaping society. In practice, this is applied almost exclusively to the United States. Critical race theory is grounded in several key assumptions. Among these are the following:

• • American government, law, culture, and society are inherently and inescapably racist.
• • Everyone, even those without racist views, perpetuates racism by supporting those structures.
• • The personal perception of the oppressed—their “narrative”—outweighs the actions or intents of others.
• • Oppressed groups will never overcome disadvantages until the racist structures are replaced.
• • Oppressor race or class groups never change out of altruism; they only change for self-benefit.
• • Application of laws and fundamental rights should be different based on the race or class group of the individual(s) involved.

In short, critical race theory presupposes that everything about American society is thoroughly racist, and minority groups will never be equal until American society is entirely reformed. This position is extremely controversial, even in secular circles. Critical race theory is often posed as a solution to white supremacy or white nationalism. Yet, in practice, it essentially does nothing other than inverting the oppressed and oppressor groups.[10]

Critical Race Theory concepts, such as “each race gets different laws,” show its anti-Christian roots. If we should remake our society on its concepts, then we also abandon our society’s Christian worldview, beliefs, and laws. After all, no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). We either base our lives on honoring God’s word, or on dishonoring it.

How does Critical Race Theory dishonor Christianity? Let’s look at these key assumptions, to see if they align with a Christian worldview:

• America is inescapably racist.

• The personal perception of the oppressed trumps evidence.

• Our laws should have on-purpose discrimination according to race.

Is America is inescapably racist? Or is it false guilt?

The Bible condemns racism. It is judging, and treating, people by their appearances (I Samuel 16:7; Luke 16:14-15; John 7:24). Our society is to have have equal justice for all, including any foreigners (Exodus 22:21; 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34).

Is America now so racist that it can’t possibly be redeemed? Must our society be smashed and rebuilt, using blueprints provided by Critical Race Theory activists? Addressing these assertions requires a walk through American history.

1. Early in American colonization, many places legalized the ownership of slaves.
2. In forming our new nation, the Founding Fathers recognized that some states had, and liked, their “peculiar institution” of slavery[11] But the founders also looked at ending slavery, such as through the Constitution’s Slave Trade Clause.[12]
3. The long-forecast reckoning with slavery occurred with the American Civil War. In its aftermath, the Constitution was changed to ban slavery (13^th Amendment), prevent racial discrimination in laws (14^th Amendment), and guarantee voting rights regardless of race (15^th Amendment).[13]
4. However, the former slave states still retained much racial animus. For example, the “separate but equal” discrimination against black people.[14]
5. Not until the 1950s did we see the breaking of “separate but equal” laws.[15]
6. In the 1960s came new laws, such as the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights Act. These laws were effective in removing obstacles to racial equality, letting black people finally enjoy their Constitutional rights.
7. In our current era there are few incidents of actual racism. After all, if there were actual incidents then we’d hear about them. There are stories of people making false claims,[16] but fake racism wouldn’t be needed where the real thing was easy to find. And if real racist acts do occur, you’ll see prosecutors jumping to indict people. You’d also hear about the incidents from any number of watchdog organizations.

When you peruse this timeline you see a trend towards a race-neutral society. Our progress has been jumpy, but America has been “escaping from racism” for a long while. However, the advocates of Critical Race Theory think otherwise, that racism is in the very air we breathe. DiAngelo says:

“Antiracist education recognizes racism as embedded in all aspects of society and the socialization process; no one who is born into and raised in Western culture can escape being socialized to participate in racist relations.”[17]

How do they justify this claim? After all, they don’t have racist incidents to support their arguments. Rather, they look to statistics, to spreadsheets, saying that “unequal outcomes” between racial groups amounts to “systemic racism.”[18] They find, or create, studies that makes their arguments look good, and call it proof.

Let’s look at one prominent claim. Studies show that black people are jailed at a much higher rate than are non-blacks.[19] The advocates claim that this disparity proves racism. I see the higher rate, but I don’t buy that this is racism. It looks more like the disparity in jailing is influenced by the effects of many unrelated decisions. Not that this is the only rational explanation, but it’s a reasonable and non-racist one. This is my explanation:

• Since the 1960s American industry largely left the cities. Thanks to improved transportation methods, factories could satisfy their customers even from foreign locations. Was this trend caused by many decisions of individual company presidents? Was it encouraged by the lack of government policies to keep factory jobs here? Whatever the reasons, one effect of this trend has been cities lacking jobs having “raise a family” wages.

• In its “War on Poverty” initiative, the federal government made policies that discouraged welfare recipients from being married.[20] You now see a great many unwed mothers in the urban black community, proportionally far more than for any other group of American society. Without fathers at home, how do urban black youths learn good morals? And why try to excel at school if there won’t be good jobs waiting for them when they graduate?

• Law enforcement in American cities have largely given up trying to stop people from buying “recreational drugs.” The demand for these drugs is being satisfied through urban street gangs. A lot of idle urban youth will join these gangs for money and a sense of belonging. However, gang warfare is the major driver of murder and violence in our cities.[21] So we see high rates of black arrests, along with the resulting convictions.

Our suburbs don’t have these same circumstances. The people who live there already have good jobs. They tend to have stable two-parent families, who train their children to be responsible citizens. Drug dealers avoid these suburbs, and there are fewer opportunities to get involved in street gangs. Hence, suburbanites have fewer temptations to crime.

It isn’t that black people are prone to crime any more than are non-black people. But enough of them in the cities yield to temptations, then do crimes for which they’re jailed. And their stories become part of arguments about disparities in incarcerations. That said, where is the racism in all of this?

• The individual decisions about factory locations weren’t racist.

• The policies about welfare and single-mothers weren’t racist.

• The policies about not persecuting drug users, and instead going after drug sellers, wasn’t racist. By the way, it was the same policy used in the Prohibition era.

• The theft, or murder, was probably of another black person. That wasn’t racism.

Yet the bottom line is supposedly invisible systemic racism, because black people are in jail more often. Suppose that the decisions turned out somehow different, and non-white people had the higher incarceration rates. According to the advocates, that outcome isn’t racism. On this DiAngelo says:

“This chapter also explains the difference between concepts such as race prejudice, which anyone can hold, and racism, which occurs at the group level and is only perpetuated by the group that holds social, ideological, economic, and institutional power.”[22]

That is, non-whites can’t experience racism. To Critical Race Theory advocates, statistical outcomes become racist proofs only if the outcomes support their arguments. Their cries of “racism!” are phony, because there isn’t any actual racism going on. They’re complaining about certain supportive statistics. Their goal isn’t to fix racism, but to inflict America with a false guilt about it.

To finish this discussion on racism, what wisdom do these Critical Race Theory advocates have for bringing true racial harmony? As we’ll see in later sections, they only want to bring more racism, and more pointed than ever.

What have we learned about claims of American racism?

• America is not “inescapably racist.”

• It is hard to fix problems by instituting policies. As with the decisions affecting the jobs in our cities, there can be many unexpected side effects.

• The Critical Race Theory advocates can’t find actual racism in America. They wave around selected studies and call it proof of racism.

• The accusations of “systemic racism” are meant to trigger false guilt.

Do personal perceptions trump evidence?

You’ve just been accused, and the charges are quite serious. What process will be used to judge your guilt or innocence? The answer to this depends on whether you have Bible-based justice, or justice according to Critical Race Theory.

The Bible says that because God shows no favoritism (Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25), our judgments shouldn’t either. We must confine our judgments to the evidence (Deuteronomy 19:15-19; Matthew 18:16; II Corinthians 13:1, I John 4:1-3). We must not be influenced by money, power, friendship, or race (Exodus 23:8; Leviticus 19:15; James 2:1). Finally, an informed verdict can be reached only after both the accusers and defendants have been heard from (Proverbs 18:17). The American legal system follows this pattern because is based on English common law.

However, if our society is rebuilt around ideas from Critical Race Theory, then the standards for evidence will change. Critical Race Theory wants us to consider personal perceptions, sometimes called “life experiences” or anecdotes, as being unassailable truth.

For example, a signature of CRT is revisionist history. This method “reexamines America’s historical record” to replace narratives that only reflect the majority perspective with those that include the perspectives and lived experiences of minority populations. In this way revisionist history attempts “to unearth little-known chapters of racial struggle” that can validate the current experiences of minorities and support the desire for change. This is just one example of how CRT can be used to elevate minority voices and work towards equity….

This means that the community and their experience is only seen through the filter of the dominant culture. To resist this erasure, counter-storytelling creates space for community voices to create the narrative that defines their own experiences and lives. By giving power to the voices of individuals and communities, counter-storytelling fights against the dominant culture narratives that lack the knowledge and wisdom that minority individuals hold about themselves and their traditions, cultures, communities, homes, struggles, and needs.[23]

In “replacing narratives” the activists aren’t talking about remaking old movies to include minority subplots. Rather, laws and policies would be rewritten, influenced by anecdotal testimony. The “knowledge and wisdom that minority individuals hold” would acquire the same legal weight as findings of fact by a court. Says the American Bar Association:

Therefore, as many critical race theorists have noted, CRT calls for a radical reordering of society and a reckoning with the structures and systems that intersect to perpetuate racial inequality.

For civil rights lawyers, this necessitates an examination of the legal system and the ways it reproduces racial injustice. It also necessitates a rethinking of interpersonal interactions, including the role of the civil rights lawyer. It means a centering of the stories and voices of those who are impacted by the laws, systems, and structures that so many civil rights advocates work to improve.[24]

This “centering on the stories” intends to use the experiences as though they were validated facts. The idea is to shut down dissent, crediting these storytellers with “absolute moral authority.”

Storytelling serves a particularly important function in CRT. Since each identity group has “different histories and experiences with oppression,” this gives “black, Indian, Asian, or Latino/a writers and thinkers” a unique voice that may be able to “communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know.” Because they are minorities, they alone are uniquely capable of speaking about their experience of oppression. This has led some CRT proponents to tell white people they have no right to dispute any claims about the lived experience of any minorities, and that, instead, oppressors should just shut up and listen (an actual term in CRT) to the stories of marginalized peoples.[25]

That roughly means “you’re guilty because I say so.” Compare that to the Bible: “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” (John 7:51). There is no justice if only one side in a trial gets to present evidence. What’s more, the testimony and evidence must itself be tested. For example, a judge makes witnesses swear that they’re telling the truth. The courts know that people, even those having “absolute moral authority,” sometimes make things up.

The advocates of Critical Race Theory won’t stop at changing our legal system. To achieve their goal of breaking American society, they want our cultural communities to believe that they have nothing in common with anybody else.

One of the greatest concerns over CRT is that it denies the importance of being able to reason in a dialogue or debate. Traditional ways of establishing truth—through empirical evidence, rational argument, or even the scriptures, are considered to be forms of investigation that come from “white, male-centered forms of thinking that have characterized much of Western thought.” They also argue that “objective truth, like merit, does not exist, at least in social science and politics. In these realms, truth is a social construct created to suit the purposes of the dominant group.”

Since members of any hegemonic group (especially white males) can never understand the experience of a member of a minority group, critical race theorists say persons of a dominant race are never permitted to dispute the views of a person in a minority group who is sharing their lived experience of oppression. Determining truth through individual perspective is called standpoint epistemology. This is why the phrase “that’s your truth” is popular in our culture.[26]

If they’re successful in convincing communities that they can have their own facts, their own truth, then that would break American culture. After all, what is culture but the overwhelming consensus of shared beliefs and customs? They would replace our culture with tribalism, with each community fighting for a share of power and resources. And in a land of non-cooperating interests, most anything can become possible, especially for men with evil intent.

What have we learned about using personal perceptions as evidence?

• When judging a case, testimony from both sides is needed.

• All of the evidence and testimony must be tested for truthfulness.

• “Lived experiences” are pushed not for its truthfulness, but to silence opponents.

• Critical Race Theory advocates want to break America’s cultural consensus.

• A land without common beliefs is not a nation. It is ripe to be remade into something else.

Deliberately adding discrimination to our laws

The Bible speaks of equality in how we’re ruled and judged (Exodus 23:6-9; Leviticus 19:15; II Chronicles 19:5-7; Galatians 3:28). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[27] sought this equality for each of his children when he said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.[28]

But Critical Race Theory advocates don’t want to see racial equality. That would hinder their goal to replace our individualist culture with a form of group or class struggle.

With regard to public policy, critical race theory’s key analytical and rhetorical framework is to portray every instance of racial disparity as evidence of racial discrimination. In the metaphor of one recent paper, “white supremacy” is the “spider in our web of causation” that leads to “immense disparity in wealth, access to resources, segregation, and thus, family well-being.”  To adopt the vocabulary of the race theorists, the forces of “hegemonic whiteness” have created society’s current inequalities, which we can overcome only by “dismantling,” “decolonizing,” and “deconstructing” that whiteness.  In their theoretical formulations, the critical race theorists reduce the social order to an equation of power, which they propose to overturn through a countervailing application of force.

Practically, by defining every disparity between racial groups as an expression of “systemic racism,” the critical race theorists lay the foundation for a political program of revolution. If, in the widely traveled phrase of author bell hooks, American society is an “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” radical changes are needed. Although critical race theory has sought in some cases to distinguish itself from Marxism, the leading policy proposals from critical race theorists are focused on the race-based redistribution of wealth and power—a kind of identity-based rather than class-based Marxism.[29]

If these advocates get their way, America would know more racial conflict than ever. But this time each racial group would be fighting to get money and property already controlled by the other groups. They’d be looking for the government to discriminate, this time in their favor.

In one of the founding texts of critical race theory, Cheryl Harris argues that property rights, enshrined in the Constitution, are in actuality a form of white racial domination. She claims that “whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law,” and that “the existing state of inequitable distribution is the product of institutionalized white supremacy and economic exploitation, [which] is seen by whites as part of the natural order of things that cannot legitimately be disturbed.”

Harris, on the other hand, believes that this system must be disturbed, even subverted. She argues that the basic conceptual vocabulary of the constructional system—“‘rights,’ ‘equality,’ ‘property,’ ‘neutrality,’ and ‘power’”—are mere illusions used to maintain a white-dominated racial hierarchy. In reality, Harris believes, “rights mean shields from interference; equality means formal equality; property means the settled expectations that are to be protected; neutrality means the existing distribution, which is natural; and, power is the mechanism for guarding all of this.”

The solution for Harris is to replace the system of property rights and equal protection—which she calls “mere nondiscrimination”—with a system of positive discrimination tasked with “redistributing power and resources in order to rectify inequities and to achieve real equality.” To achieve this goal, she advocates a large-scale wealth and property redistribution based on the African decolonial model. Harris envisions a suspension of existing property rights followed by a governmental campaign to “address directly the distribution of property and power” through wealth confiscation and race-based redistribution. “Property rights will then be respected, but they will not be absolute and will be considered against a societal requirement of affirmative action.  In Harris’s formulation, if rights are a mechanism of white supremacy, they must be curtailed; the imperative of addressing race-based disparities must be given priority over the constitutional guarantees of equality, property, and neutrality.[30]

Our new “anti-racist” society would steal (redistribute) to satisfy claimed wrongs, and would keep stealing: “property rights…will be considered against a societal requirement of affirmative action”. To enable this redistribution, the government would nationalize property. You’d merely get to hold onto “your stuff” until they find a need for it. America would have all of the hallmarks of biblically corrupt government: discrimination, favoritism, bribery, theft, and no fear of God. The Thirteen Colonies went to war with England over less tyranny than that.[31]

So far we’ve seen that Critical Race Theory:

• Can’t find actual racism in America, only invented statistics.

• Would weaken justice by accepting anecdotal stories as though they were verified truth.

• Would replace our largely-Christian worldview with something foreign.

• Would introduce permanent forms of discrimination and racism.

People are listening to Critical Race Theory, and think that there must be good in there somewhere. However, the Bible says that “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:15-20). Critical Race Theory comes out of Marxism, a very bad tree.

In simple terms, critical race theory reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of white and black. However, the political foundations of critical race theory maintain a clear Marxist economic orientation.[32]

Christians can’t accept the claims of Critical Race Theory and also remain true to God. After all, no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Critical Race Theory is the gospel of an anti-Christian worldview.

Critical Race Theory is already in our schools

We know that Critical Race Theory means to destroy our society. So why are our schools, both public[33] and private,[34] teaching it to our children? Perhaps some teachers don’t know any better, but their unions are certainly pushing it. At the National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, its delegates passed these resolutions about Critical Race Theory.

The resolution “New Business Item A” further encourages teaching the theory in schools.

The National Education Association, in coordination with national partners, NEA state and local affiliates, racial justice advocates, allies, and community activists, shall build powerful education communities and continue our work together to eradicate institutional racism in our public school system by:

…

2. Supporting and leading campaigns that:

…

Result in increasing the implementation of culturally responsive education, critical race theory, and ethnic (Native people, Asian, Black, Latin(o/a/x), Middle Eastern, North African, and Pacific Islander) Studies curriculum in pre- K-12 and higher education;[35]

The resolution “New Business Item 39” instructs teachers to fight through parent opposition.

The NEA will, with guidance on implementation from the NEA president and chairs of the Ethnic Minority Affairs Caucuses:

A. Share and publicize, through existing channels, information already available on critical race theory (CRT) — what it is and what it is not; have a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric; and share information with other NEA members as well as their community members.
…

C. Publicly (through existing media) convey its support for the accurate and honest teaching of social studies topics, including truthful and age-appropriate accountings of unpleasant aspects of American history, such as slavery, and the oppression and discrimination of Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other peoples of color, as well as the continued impact this history has on our current society. The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.
…

E. Conduct a virtual listening tour that will educate members on the tools and resources needed to defend honesty in education including but not limited to tools like CRT.

F. Commit President Becky Pringle to make public statements across all lines of media that support racial honesty in education including but not limited to critical race theory.[36]

The resolution “New Business Item 2” authorizes spending money on opposition research.

NEA will research the organizations attacking educators doing anti-racist work and/or use the research already done and put together a list of resources and recommendations for state affiliates, locals, and individual educators to utilize when they are attacked. The research, resources, and recommendations will be shared with members through NEA’s social media, an article in NEA Today, and a recorded virtual presentation/webinar.[37]

The NEA has gone all-in on Critical Race Theory, committing resources so that “our members can continue this important work.”[38] The American Federation of Teachers prefers to obfuscate, pretending to not teach Critical Race Theory by instead calling it “honest history.”[39] What these unions are doing underscores the trend in schools nationwide. They encourage the schools to teach what they please, and then to hide their doings.[40] Sometimes they’ll resort to the courts to keep an investigation at bay.[41]

There are dozens of articles about schools hiding their curriculum from the parents. Listing them might lead you to outrage at their audacity, but won’t help you to solve anything. Instead, here are some resources to help you monitor and influence your schools.

• How To See If Critical Race Theory Is In Your Kids’ School—And Fight It[42]

Discusses buzzwords like social justice, equity, diversity training, anti-racism, culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-bias, inclusion. Reminds you to talk to your children about what they’re learning. Gives suggestions on auditing your school board.

• How to Identify Critical Race Theory[43]

Discusses buzzwords like “systemic racism,” whiteness, equity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).” Provides details on how to properly monitor and audit your school board, such as filing FOIA requests, engaging your school board. Encourages you to be a whistleblower about any moves to teach Critical Race Theory concepts in your local schools.

• How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?[44]

Lists buzzwords with their definitions, too many of them to show here. But its most important resource is is a downloadable PDF.[45] This document describes Critical Race Theory, shows you how to build a network of activists to monitor your school board, and finally how to become your school board. After all, the incumbents are showing that they’re unfit to teach your children. Why not replace them?

• LIST: CRITICAL RACE THEORY TERMS[46]

Lists 86 terms frequently found when discussing Critical Race Theory. Since saying “Critical Race Theory” gives away their game, buzzwords are used in internal school communications.

• Critical Race Training in Higher Education[47]

This site is primarily concerned with how colleges and universities are handling Critical Race Theory. Has an institution issued a statement on Critical Race Theory, or put it into its lesson plans? It gets listed here. As a bonus, it has lists of articles in these categories:

• • A long, and readable, description of Critical Race Theory. It also has many articles on rebutting it.
• • Lists of articles tracking how Critical Race Theory is being spread in elementary and high schools.
• • Lists of articles tracking the “1619 Project,” bad history that works hand-in-hand with Critical Race Theory.

When misdirecting you, school administrators will tell you things like “We talk about the Civil Rights Movement. We talk about the causes of the Civil War, we talk about the experiences of Black Americans, of white Americans. It’s comprehensive history, but it’s not critical race theory.”[48] They misdirect you. Our complaints aren’t really with the history topics. It’s with the added Critical Race Theory spin.

Critical Race Theory is unconstitutional

When officials plan and govern, they’re bound by what the law says. They’re not free to act according to what they’d like the law to be. But with Critical Race Theory we have officials not respecting the law. As examples:

• An Evanston, IL, public school teacher sued her school board about its Critical Race Theory training. She asserts that the emphasis on equity violates Constitutional provisions of non-discrimination. The school board excused its actions in this statement:

“When you challenge policies and protocols established to ensure an equitable experience for Black and brown students,” the board reportedly said in an open letter, “you are part of a continuum of resistance to equity and desire to maintain white supremacy.”[49]

• Five thousand public school teachers vow to base their lessons on Critical Race Theory, even when they’re legally banned from doing so.[50] Said one signatory: “I refuse to teach my students an alternate history rewritten by the suppressors in power.”

• President Biden issued an executive order meant to result in race-consciousness in the hiring and firing of federal employees.[51] It “establishes an ambitious, whole-of-government initiative that will take a systematic approach to embedding DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility] in Federal hiring and employment practices.” If this order is allowed to stand, it would result in having the entire government filled only with advocates of Critical Race Theory. It also would mean official sanction of “anti-racist” discrimination.

Even school board officials take an oath of office. In Illinois this oath includes a promise to obey the U.S. Constitution, the Illinois Constitution, and state laws.[52] When they plot to implement Critical Race Theory they violate these oaths. Where is the punishment for violating their oaths?

Getting to the bottom of things, laws and government policies that implement Critical Race Theory are unconstitutional. The 14^th Amendment guarantees equal treatment of individuals regardless of race. But policies incorporating Critical Race Theory – whether “equitable experience,” or “embedding diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in Federal hiring and employment practices” – amount to discrimination on basis of race. In Montana, its Attorney General was asked to weigh in on the legality of Critical Race Theory. This was his response:

Knudsen’s “list of widely reported ‘antiracist’ and CRT-related activities that … violate federal and state law” includes:

• • “segregating students or administrators in a professional development training into groups on the basis of race”;

  • “ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or to an individual because of his or her race”;

  • forcing individuals “to admit privilege” or punishing them for failing to do so;

  • forcing members of certain races “to ‘reflect,’ ‘deconstruct,’ or ‘confront’ their racial identities or be instructed to be ‘less white’ (or less of any other race, ethnicity, or national origin)”;

  • “instructing students that all white people perpetuate systemic racism or that all white people are born racist”;

  • “asserting that an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or that individuals need to be ‘accountable’ due solely to their race, or that they are ‘culpable’ solely due to their race.”[53]

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans use of racial preferences or discrimination.[54] But even if this Act gets changed, the Constitution still requires equal treatment regardless of race. However, Critical Race Theory demands continuing discrimination, calling it “anti-racism.” The activist Ibram Kendi[55] comments on this reverse racism:

The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.[56]

If you fill the government with Critical Race Theory advocates you will get discrimination in every policy and decision. Although Critical Race Theory advocates scream about systemic racism, if you let them have their way we’ll get actual systemic racism. And that part about being unconstitutional? Kendi’s answer is to change the U.S. Constitution.

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.[57]

Kendi’s desire for an Amendment shows that even he knows that Critical Race Theory is unconstitutional. He also shows that the advocates’ end game even includes controlling your every thought (“change their racist policy and ideas”).

Worldviews have consequences

Your worldview helps you understand the things around you, interpret the events you get involved with, and influences how you should treat the people you meet. In practice, your worldview is based on your religious beliefs. Let’s compare a Christian worldview with one based on Critical Race Theory.

In a Christian worldview everything revolves around God. The universe is created by Him for His pleasure and purpose. We use the Bible to understand God’s nature, to find patterns for organizing our lives and society, and to give us perspective. From the Bible we learn that God is concerned for each of us individually (Matthew 10:29-31; Ephesians 1:4-5, 11-12), and that we will individually stand before His judgment seat (Romans 14:10-12).

Regarding science, the Bible shows us that the universe runs by God’s laws (Jeremiah 33:25-26). Because God is both its designer and creator, and that nothing exists except that which He created, this implies that the universe is orderly, having predicable behavior.

The Bible has relatively little to say about the natural world, but at least the book of Genesis makes it clear where the universe came from. It is not eternal but created by God at the beginning of time. In the fourth century, St. Augustine clarified the doctrine that the world was created ex nihilo, out of nothing. God did not use preexisting material whose properties He had to work with. Thus, as Genesis affirms, creation was “good” and as God wished it to be.

From the twelfth century, Christian theologians began to explore what this meant in practice. One consequence was that nature was separate from God and followed the laws He had ordained for it.[58]

Observing the world, and discovering its predictable behaviors, pretty much describes science. Why was the scientific approach peculiar to Christianity? Because if your non-Christian worldview believes there is still caprice in how the world behaves, then why bother looking for patterns? This is why science first flourished in Christian societies.

Critical Race Theory is also a worldview, representing the religion of Marxist humanism. Marxism asserts that there is no God, and that we all must live to maximize mankind’s physical potentials. Marxism has regard for different “classes” of people, but not for the individuals themselves. Each of us are merely servants for the collective: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”[59]

(Of course Marxism is a religion. For proof, see my article Socialism is also a religion.[60] Another great resource on this is The Anti-Marxist Marxist: A Response to Christianity Today.[61])

As a stand-in for Marxism, what does Critical Race Theory say about science? Science is what you want it to be. DiAngelo says:

By socially constructed, we mean that all knowledge understood by humans is framed by the ideologies, language, beliefs, and customs of human societies. Even the field of science is subjective”[62]

And what about truth? Again, truth is what you need it to be. DiAngelo also says:

“Critical theory challenges the claim that any knowledge is neutral or objective, and outside of humanly constructed meanings and interests.”[63]

The premier example of “science becomes what you want it to be” is the reign of Trofim Lysenko[64] over agriculture in the Soviet Union. Seeking to prove that socialism had superior science, the claimed to be able to turn wheat plants into rye, described as “equivalent to saying that dogs living in the wild give birth to foxes.”[65] This sort of science was justly criticized:

“Science cannot long remain unfettered in a social system which seeks to exercise control over the whole spiritual and intellectual life of a nation. The correctness of a scientific theory can never by adjudged by its readiness to give the answers desired by political leadership.”[66]

I suppose that this is how you get men thinking that, because they claim to be women, that they really are women. Then they demand that the world accommodate them.[67] When science and facts themselves depend on who wants them to be true we enter the world of the novel 1984,[68] where the past was being continually rewritten to suit current politics.[69]

Preserving our Christian America is where YOU come in

The arguments over Critical Race Theory boil down to Marxist evangelists trying to woo America out of its Christian beliefs. Will they succeed in impressing the public with their worldview? That depends on what American Christians do.

We can succumb to Marxism because we’re weary of being picked on. Or we can renew our evangelistic commission, and again preach Jesus’ lordship (Matthew 28:18-20). We preach His lordship not only by traditional evangelism, but also by insisting on Christian righteousness in our workplace, where we shop, our schools – everywhere we go. We are the yeast that is to transform society (Matthew 13:33).[70] Don’t be shy about your beliefs. This sort of evangelism is what we can do, and should do, every day.

Some of us will be attacked and have to defend ourselves. For example, that mandatory “diversity training.” But in defending Christianity, and our Christian worldview, we remind the others that their new values are merely a replacement religion. As a bonus, we get to use the civil rights laws in our defense, much like Paul did (Acts 16:35-40; 22:22-29), and prevail in unexpected ways.

If we pray, and not hide our Christian beliefs and activities, God will work through us, that we might prevail. Remember that the battle is the Lord’s (I Samuel 17:45-47; II Chronicles 20:14-17; II Corinthians 10:3-5).

This article is also available at FixThisCulture.com. 

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Footnotes

[1]     Racist, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racist

[2]     Dismantling Whiteness: Critical White Theology, University of Oxford, April 17, 2021, https://www.ox.ac.uk/event/dismantling-whiteness-critical-white-theology

[3]     Cole, Dr. Nicki, Definition of Systemic Racism in Sociology, ThoughtCo, July 21, 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/systemic-racism-3026565

[4]     Robin DiAngelo, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_DiAngelo

[5]     Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021, https://shenviapologetics.com/quotes-from-sensoy-and-diangelos-is-everyone-really-equal/ (Shenvi is quoting DiAngelo, Robin, and Sensoy, Özlem.)

[6]     The Westminster Shorter Catechism, WSC, https://matt2819.com/wsc/

[7]     Justice, Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/justice

[8]     Ibid.

[9]     Perry, Oliver, Social Justice: what does it really mean?, Fix This Culture blog, July 27, 2019, https://fixthisculture.com/buzzwords/social-justice-what-does-it-really-mean/

[10]   What is the critical race theory?, Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/critical-race-theory.html

[11]   Peculiar Institution, Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/peculiar-institution

[12]   Lloyd, Gordon and Martinez, Jenny, The Slave Trade Clause, Interactive Constitution of the National Constitution Center, https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/761

[13]   Schmidt, Ann, The US Constitution has 27 amendments that protect the rights of Americans. Do you know them all?, Insider, January 7, 2021, https://www.insider.com/what-are-all-the-amendments-us-constitution-meaning-history-2018-11

[14]   Plessy v. Ferguson, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

[15]   Brown v. Board of Education, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

[16]   Prager, Dennis, If America Is So Racist, Why Are There So Many Race Hoaxes?, Townhall, July 7, 2020, https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/07/07/if-america-is-so-racist-why-are-there-so-many-race-hoaxes-n2571987

[17]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[18]   Burton, Kelly, 100 Statistics that Prove Systemic Racism is a Thing, LinkedIn, July 13, 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/100-statistics-prove-systemic-racism-thing-kelly-burton-phd

[19]   Lemoine, Philippe, On the racial disparity in incarceration rates, NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR, March 2, 2017, https://necpluribusimpar.net/racial-disparity-incarceration-rates/

[20]   Rector, Robert, How Welfare Undermines Marriage and What to Do About It, The Heritage Foundation, November 17, 2014, https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/how-welfare-undermines-marriage-and-what-do-about-it

[21]   Ryan, Jason, Gangs Blamed for 80 Percent of U.S. Crimes, ABC News, January 30, 2009, https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=6773423&page=1

[22]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[23]   Castelli, Mateo and Castelli, Luna, Introduction to Critical Race Theory and Counter-storytelling, Noise Project, https://noiseproject.org/learn/introduction-to-critical-race-theory-and-counter-storytelling/

[24]   George, Janel, A Lesson on Critical Race Theory, American Bar Association, January 11, 2021, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

[25]   Lesperance, Diana, CRITICAL RACE THEORY: An Introduction from a Biblical and Historical Perspective, The Faithful Church, August 18, 2020, https://thefaithfulchurch.com/2020/08/18/critical-race-theory-an-introduction-from-a-biblical-and-historical-perspective/

[26]   Ibid.

[27]   Martin Luther King, Jr., Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.

[28]   King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr: I have a dream speech (1963), U.S. Embassy and Consulate in the Republic of Korea, https://kr.usembassy.gov/education-culture/infopedia-usa/living-documents-american-history-democracy/martin-luther-king-jr-dream-speech-1963/

[29]   Rufo, Christopher, Critical Race Theory Would Not Solve Racial Inequality: It Would Deepen It, The Heritage Foundation, March 23, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/critical-race-theory-would-not-solve-racial-inequality-it-would-deepen-it

[30]   Ibid. 

[31]   Declaration of Independence: A Transcription, National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

[32]   Rufo, Christopher, Critical Race Theory Would Not Solve Racial Inequality: It Would Deepen It, The Heritage Foundation, March 23, 2021

[33]   Higgins, Laurie, Despite Nationwide Condemnation, Illinois Passes Leftist Teacher-Training Mandate, Illinois Family Institute, February 18, 2021, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/education/despite-nationwide-condemnation-illinois-passes-controversial-leftist-teacher-training-mandate/

[34]   Neese, Alissa Widman, What is critical race theory? The controversy has arrived at Columbus Academy and here’s what we know, The Columbus Dispatch, July 9, 2021, https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2021/07/09/ohio-columbus-academys-critical-race-theory-issue-what-know/7913212002/

[35]   New Business Item A (adopted), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210704150901/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-00a/

[36]   New Business Item 39 (adopted as modified), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210704151536/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/

[37]   New Business Item 2 (adopted as amended), archived from National Education Association 2021 Virtual Representative Assembly, https://web.archive.org/web/20210701134801/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-002/

[38]   Ibid.

[39]   Stepman, Jarrett, Critical Race Theory in Classrooms Isn’t Just About Teaching ‘Honest History’, The Daily Signal, July 23, 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/07/23/critical-race-theory-in-classrooms-isnt-just-about-teaching-honest-history/

[40]   Knighton, Tom, Schools Trying To Get Critical Race Theory Into Classrooms Under Parents’ Noses, Tilting at Windmills, July 28, 2021, https://tomknighton.substack.com/p/schools-trying-to-get-critical-race

[41]   Solas, Nicole, I’m A Mom Seeking Records Of Critical Race and Gender Curriculum, Now The School Committee May Sue To Stop Me (Update), Legal Insurrection, June 1, 2021, https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/im-a-mom-seeking-records-of-critical-race-and-gender-curriculum-now-the-school-committee-may-sue-to-stop-me/

[42]   Barrett, Julie, How To See If Critical Race Theory Is In Your Kids’ School—And Fight It, The Federalist, August 18, 2021, https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/18/how-to-see-if-critical-race-theory-is-in-your-kids-school-and-fight-it/

[43]   How to Identify Critical Race Theory, The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/heritage-explains/how-identify-critical-race-theory

[44]   Roberts, Kevin, Ph.D, How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?, The Cannon Online, July 1, 2021, https://thecannononline.com/how-will-you-know-if-critical-race-theory-is-taught-in-your-childs-school/

[45]   TOOLKIT: COMBATTING CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN YOUR COMMUNITY, Citizens for Renewing America, June 8, 2021, https://citizensrenewingamerica.com/issues/combatting-critical-race-theory-in-your-community/

[46]   LIST: CRITICAL RACE THEORY TERMS, Center for Renewing America, May 25, 2021, https://americarenewing.com/issues/list-critical-race-theory-buzzwords/

[47]   Critical Race Training in Higher Education, https://criticalrace.org/

[48]   Roberts, Kevin, Ph.D, How will you know if critical race theory is taught in your child’s school?, The Cannon Online, July 1, 2021

[49]   Dorman, Sam, Illinois teacher sues school district, claims ‘equity’ push violates US Constitution, Fox News, June 29, 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/us/evanston-illinois-teacher-lawsuit-equity-trainings

[50]   Nester, Alex, Thousands of Teachers Vow To Defy State Bans on Critical Race Theory, Washington Free Beacon, July 9, 2021, https://freebeacon.com/campus/thousands-of-teachers-vow-to-defy-state-bans-on-critical-race-theory/

[51]   Ginsberg, Michael, Biden Executive Order Mandates Divisive, Unscientific Race ‘Training’ At Every Level Of The Federal Government, Daily Caller, June 26, 2021, https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/26/biden-executive-order-crt-diversity-equity-government/

[52]   Oath of Office: School board members, before taking their seats on the board, are required to take an official oath, Illinois Association of School Boards, https://www.iasb.com/conference-training-and-events/training/training-resources/oath-of-office/

[53]   Critical Race Theory pedagogy already illegal, Montana attorney general holds, American Enterprise Institute, June 4, 2021, https://www.aei.org/education/critical-race-theory-pedagogy-already-illegal-montana-attorney-general-holds/

[54]   Canaparo, GianCarlo and Stimson, Charles, Judge Defends Equal Justice Against Tide of Critical Race Theory, Disparate Impact, The Heritage Society, August 9, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/judge-defends-equal-justice-against-tide-critical-race-theory-disparate

[55]   Ibram X. Kendi, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibram_X._Kendi

[56]   Kendi, Ibram, How to Be an Antiracist, What I’ve Been Reading, https://highlights.sawyerh.com/highlights/Wc3cIP436n60JRoYYTVe

[57]   Kendi, Ibram, Pass an Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment, Politico, September 2019, https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/

[58]   Hannam, John, How Christianity Led to the Rise of Modern Science, Christian Research Institute, January 17, 2017, https://www.equip.org/article/christianity-led-rise-modern-science/

[59]   From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs

[60]   Perry, Oliver, Socialism is also a religion, Fix This Culture blog, May 31, 2019, https://fixthisculture.com/socialism/socialism-is-also-a-religion/

[61]   Bair, Phil, The Anti-Marxist Marxist: A Response to Christianity Today, Free Thinking Ministries, July 25, 2020, https://freethinkingministries.com/the-anti-marxist-marxist-a-response-to-christianity-today/

[62]   Shenvi, Neil, Quotes from Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everyone Really Equal?, Neil Shenvi – Apologetics, 2021

[63]   Ibid.

[64]   Trofim Lysenko, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

[65]   Trofim Lysenko, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trofim-Lysenko

[66]   Zielinski, Sarah, When the Soviet Union Chose the Wrong Side on Genetics and Evolution, Smithsonian Magazine, February 1, 2010, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-the-soviet-union-chose-the-wrong-side-on-genetics-and-evolution-23179035/

[67]   Koreatown’s Wi Spa At Center Of Controversy After Complaint About Transgender Customer, CBS Los Angeles, June 30, 2021, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/koreatowns-wi-spa-at-center-of-controversy-after-complaint-about-transgender-customer/ar-AALDIeM

[68]   Nineteen Eighty-Four, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

[69]   1984 (George Orwell), Manipulation of History, Spark Notes, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/quotes/theme/manipulation-of-history/

[70]   Perry, Oliver, Yeast Wars: Rebuilding an American Christian Consensus, Fix This Culture blog, January 8, 2020, https://fixthisculture.com/religion/yeast-wars-rebuilding-an-american-christian-consensus/

Here’s a statistic that may surprise many: It is estimated that less than 17% of U.S. doctors belong to the powerful leftist lobbying group, the American Medical Association (AMA). Remember that figure as you read on about the AMA’s role in promoting critical race theory and sexual anarchy.

In May 2021, the AMA issued a press release announcing its 86-page critical race theory-infused “ambitious strategic plan to dismantle structural racism” which acknowledges “that equity work requires recognition of past harms and critical examination of institutional roles upholding these structures.”

In the press release, the AMA makes clear its leftist leanings:

[T]he plan … is driven by the immense need for equity-centered solutions to confront harms produced by systemic racism and other forms of oppression for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and other people of color, as well as people who identify as LGBTQ+. 

The AMA’s ambitious plan seeks to eradicate “malignant narratives” like “a narrow focus on individuals,” the “myth of meritocracy,” and the “myth of American exceptionalism.” The AMA is committed to “rooting out racism and white supremacy in our workplace. … We must ‘get our house in order’ and direct significant focus on embedding equity within the management team.”

The 86-page plan makes even clearer that the AMA has abandoned commitments to equality in favor of collectivist notions of equity based on group membership. The plan is littered with quotes from far-left poets and activists like Ta-Nehesi Coates as well far-left jargon like this:

• “We must … ensure that we use the theories (intersectionality, critical race theory*, etc.).”

• “Equity solutions include … [e]liminating all forms of discrimination, exclusion and oppression in medical and physician education, training, hiring, [and] matriculation … by [m]andatory anti-racism … equity-explicit training … for all … staff [and] Publicly reported equity assessments for medical schools and hospitals … ensuring just representation of Black, Indigenous and Latinx people in medical school admissions as well as medical school and hospital leadership ranks.”

• “We operate in a carefully designed and maintained system that normalizes and legitimizes an array of dynamics … that routinely advantage white (also wealthy, hetero-, able-bodied, male, Christian, U.S.- born) people at the expense of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and people of color (also low wealth, women, people with disabilities, non-Christians, and those foreign-born).”

• “Where equality is a blunt instrument of ‘sameness,’ equity is a precise scalpel that requires a deep understanding of complex dynamics and systems with skill and practice in application. … Equity can be understood as both a process and an outcome. It involves sharing power with people … and redistributing resources to the greatest need.”

The AMA’s document includes this quote from “Sylvia” Rivera,” a deeply troubled drag queen who was homeless and working as a prostitute by age 11:

We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are. We have to show the world that we’re numerous.

The idea that no one should be ashamed of cross-dressing behaviors is a moral claim that falls far outside the purview of the American Medical Association, but grandiose moral and social engineering schemes is now apparently the business of the AMA.

At the end of June 2021, the AMA released a “resolution” created by a committee of homosexual activists and their collaborators calling for “Removing Sex Designation from the Public Portion of the Birth Certificate.” In a tortured effort to rationalize the AMA’s involvement in redesigning birth certificates to serve the desires of cross-sex impersonators, the activists wrote,

Gender is a social construct that describes the way persons self-identify or express themselves. A person’s gender identity may not always be exclusively male or female and may not always correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

To be clear, these medical doctors are just pretending that sex is “assigned” at birth. They know full well that obstetricians do not assign sexes—of which there are two—to newborns. Physicians identify the sex of newborns—an objective, immutable trait that never changes. There are a small percentage of babies born with disorders of sexual development whose genitalia at birth may be ambiguous, but those babies are not “transgender.”

While some persons may choose not to “identify” with their sex, they do have one and it never changes. The spanking new term “gender identity” was invented to disguise disordered feelings as something more substantive—something with a bit more ontological heft. While a “trans” identity—and every fanciful idea associated with it—is a social construct, biological sex is a material reality that cannot be erased by redesigning birth certificates, grammar, or bodies.

And while “trans”-cultists and their collaborators may believe that subjective feelings about maleness or femaleness (i.e., “gender identity”) are more important than objective biological sex, neither compassion, respect, nor justice obligates others to act as if such feelings are.

The committee cites a prior politically driven AMA policy that says,

“the AMA supports every individual’s right to determine their … sex designation on government documents and other forms of government identification.” The AMA supports policies that allow for a sex designation or change of designation on all government IDs to reflect an individual’s gender identity.

In other words, the AMA supports the bizarre notion that government documents should be falsified in order to conform to the socially constructed, science-denying belief that humans can be what they’re not.

Moreover, after the “trans”-cult has spent years establishing sex and “gender identity” as wholly severable and separate phenomena, they are now attempting to empty “sex designation” filling it with the socially constructed amorphous “gender identity.” George Orwell predicted this:

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. … This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever. … [T]he special function of certain Newspeak words … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.

The committee, a political interest group composed of self-identifying health providers, offers this pseudo-medical justification for their political effort:

For these individuals, having a gender identity that does not match the sex designation on their birth certificate can result in confusion, possible discrimination, harassment and violence whenever their birth certificate is requested.

Who may be confused? It seems unlikely that cross-sex impersonators would be confused, so how would the confusion of someone else be a health concern for cross-sex impersonators? What form of “possible discrimination”? Is harassment an issue that the AMA should address or the police?

And what about “trans”-agists, that is, people who identify as younger than their assigned birth date would suggest? If a 47-year-old man identifies as a 17-year-old, should he be able to change his birth date designation to reflect his age identity in order to avoid confusion, possible discrimination, harassment, or violence?

Come to think of it, if insurance companies are forced to pay for chemical and surgical procedures to make men look like women, shouldn’t they be forced to pay for chemical and surgical procedures to make old men look like the young men they identify as?

For some perspective on whose interest this resolution represents, a cursory look at the resolution process is in order. Resolutions are created by AMA Medical Student Sections (MSS), in this case the AMA MSS “Committee on LGBTQ+ Affairs,” which, to be clear, is an interest group.

The current Advisory Committee on LGBTQ+ Affairs has seven members, five of whom are homosexual. The remaining two are “LGBTQ+” collaborators. A committee’s resolution is voted on by the House of Delegates, which is the legislative and policy-making body of the AMA. The House of Delegates is composed of about 600 of the 240,000 AMA members. A two-thirds vote of the delegates present is required for adoption. So, the birth certificate redesign policy was conceivably created and passed by 400 of the 240,000 members of the AMA, and the AMA constitutes only 17% of all physicians in the U.S.

No further evidence is needed to prove that “progressivism” is an ideology of deceit than the spread of “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices throughout a society that purports to revere science and rationality. No sane person really believes men can be or become women. No sane person believes men can “chestfeed” or menstruate, become pregnant, or give birth. No sane person really believes that some women have penises and impregnate women—or men. Those who pretend they do are liars or cowards or both.

No further evidence is needed to prove that the ultimate goal of “progressives” is totalitarian political and social control than their tyrannical efforts to coerce Orwellian Newspeak. And no further evidence is needed to prove that America has become the land of cowards than the silence of many physicians on the chemical and surgical abuse of children by the medical community.

There are things that Americans can do to resist Big Brother and his apparatchiks and cowardly minions. Ask your pediatrician, obstetrician, gynecologist, and primary care physician if they support pseudo-scientific “trans”-cultic practices for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors. If they do, find new doctors. And if you’re a doctor who belongs to the AMA, cancel your membership and tell the AMA why.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/amaIsWoke_Audio.mp3

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Written by Michael Cook

Last September President Trump issued an executive order which banned instruction in critical race theory in government agencies and institutions which had federal contracts. He wanted to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping.

On his first day in office, President Biden revoked that order. Not only that, he turbocharged critical race theory by requiring all federal agencies to prioritize and create opportunities for communities which have been historically underserved.

But what is critical race theory? As American journalist Christopher Rufo – who has become one of its leading critics — wrote in the New York Post:

Critical race theory is fast becoming America’s new institutional orthodoxy. Yet most Americans have never heard of it — and of those who have, many don’t understand it. This must change. We need to know what it is so we can know how to fight it.

In this 16-minute video Rufo runs through the origins, principles, and policies of critical race theory. Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, knows what he is talking about – he has created a database of more than a thousand stories of twisted, counter-cultural thinking.

Most people have a kneejerk reaction to Critical Race Theory – it’s either angelically good or demonically bad. After this rapid-fire, well-organized sketch of the dangers it poses you’ll know why it’s more the latter.

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This article was originally published at Mercatornet.com.

Three recent articles, one on NBC on June 15, one in Vanity Fair on June 16, and one on CNN on June 18, futilely attempt to recast conservative objections to the use of public schools to promote Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a “freakout,” “national panic,” “moral panic,” and “hysteria.” When leftists lack sound arguments, they resort to demagoguery. Any means to the ends of preventing conservatives from being as vocal as leftists in shaping culture are, in the narrow minds of leftists, justified.

This introductory sentence in the Vanity Fair article illuminates much of the problem with leftists when it comes to their use of public schools and funds to promote Critical Race Theory:

The right-wing freakout over critical race theory—or, at least what some Republican politicians and pundits think it is—has been playing out simultaneously in statehouses and TV studios, with lawmakers crafting bills to ban schools from teaching about systemic racism and conservative media figures fanning the flames.

Reading left-wing analyses of anything pertaining to race or sex requires a close look at every term to determine whether and how it’s been redefined. By “freakout” leftist writer Charlotte Klein, who writes for the appropriately named Vanity Fair Hive (lol), means the objections of “Republican politicians, pundits,” and “disgruntled parents” to the use of public schools to promote uncritically CRT and its many manifestations.

CNN’s Nicole Hemmer views opposition (what she calls “hysteria”)  to public school advocacy of assumptions derived from CRT as a red herring used by conservatives to divert attention away from the institutional racism poisoning America:

[A]rguing about critical race theory shifts the conversation away from the continued consequences of structural racism.

That conversation opens up challenging issues about equity, affirmative action, reparations, and government intervention to dismantle racist systems.

Both Klein and Hemmer assume that systemic/structural racism exists. And they assume the objections of conservatives to the promulgation of CRT in government schools are impelled by their desire to stop teaching about racism. In the view of leftists, the only way to think about race and racism is through a CRT-beclouded lens.

Moreover, neither Klein nor Hemmer acknowledges that CRT (and its many incarnations manufactured by racist “antiracism” profiteers) is a theory—a collection of arguable ideas—about race; race relations; oppression; “identity,” American history; equity; and equality (not to mention biological sex, homoerotic attraction, and cross-sex identification).

Leftists don’t want students to study assumptions derived from CRT along with critiques of CRT and resources that offer dissenting views on those topics. Leftists want CRT promoted uncritically and dissenting resources banned.

NBC slyly suggests that schools don’t even teach CRT, so what’s all the brouhaha about:

Virtually all school districts insist they are not teaching critical race theory, but many activists and parents have begun using it as a catch-all term to refer to what schools often call equity programs, teaching about racism or LGBTQ-inclusive policies.

Weeelll, that may be technically true. School administrators are gifted at the art of speaking technical truths with forked tongues. But take a look at the “equity” programs, racism teaching, and “LGBTQ-inclusive” programs. Then go read a primer on CRT. If I were a betting woman, I would bet you’d find some, shall we say, overlap.

NBC writes,

There’s no shortage of free publicity for the cause. The conservative focus on critical race theory is pervading right-wing news publications, like Fox News and Breitbart.

And CNN’s Nicole Hemmer writes that according to Media Matters,

Fox News … has mentioned critical race theory … nearly 1,300 times in the past three-and-a-half months.

What NBC failed to mention is the ample free publicity from the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, CNN, Daily Beast, Slate Magazine et al. for the arguable assumptions derived from Critical Race Theory and embedded in government schools, colleges and universities, corporate diversity re-education, and military diversity re-education.

And Hemmer failed to mention the countless times arguable assumptions derived from Critical Race Theory have been uncritically “mentioned” in resources used in classrooms and professional development training throughout the country over the past 30 years. Her failure to acknowledge what can only be described as decades-long CRT advocacy in government schools reveals that she is either profoundly ignorant or indefensibly deceitful.

NBC’s lengthy hit-job describes the epic plague that conservative opposition to CRT has–in the view of leftists–become:

The groups swarm school board meetings, inundate districts with time-consuming public records requests and file lawsuits and federal complaints alleging discrimination against white students.

Awww, poor wittle school districts having to endure swarms of locust-like conservatives attending board meetings and forcing districts to use valuable indoctrination time to reveal what goes on behind the scenes. Leftists are looking back wistfully at the good old days when conservatives had no idea what resources were used in classrooms and professional development—you know, the days before our re-educated youth looted and burned down our cities in racist, maskless, spittle-fueled insurrections.

NBC’s piece tries to recast long-overdue organized efforts by conservatives as some sort of secret nefarious plot to take over schools. But every strategy and tactic NBC attempts to besmirch has been used by leftists for decades. Leftists want to stop conservatives from doing exactly what leftists have been doing for decades and which enabled them to gain control of government schools. They desperately want to stop conservatives from organizing. They want to smear conservatives for using think tanks, political action groups, non-profits, and legal foundations to aid in the effort to restore pedagogical soundness to government schools.

But here’s what’s remarkable about the high dudgeon of leftists: This is their playbook.

The article mentions school board meetings attended by conservative “local residents, many without children in the district,” implying without asserting that it is illegitimate for local taxpayers without children currently attending schools to object to funding the promulgation of leftist ideas about race and sex.

What the NBC article didn’t mention is that for years leftists without children in district schools have both spoken at and served on school boards. And leftists have spoken at school board meetings who don’t even live in the district whose policies or curricula those leftists were addressing.

In a richly ironic statement cited by NBC, Sonja McKenzie, “a member of the board of directors of the National School Boards Action Center” claims to be “disturbed” by efforts of conservatives to oust leftist school board members:

The thing that disturbs me the most about politicizing school boards is there is no mention of kids. It’s not community centered, it’s centered on political thought and theory and things that don’t connect to education. 

Surely, she jests. Leftists have been colonizing and politicizing school boards, state boards of education, university teacher-training programs, teachers’ unions, the American Library Association, the Modern Language Association, and educational conferences for decades to ensure leftist political thought and theory on race and sexuality shape curricula, policy, practices, and professional development—all of which are intended to “connect” to the “education” of “kids.”

Just curious, how are the efforts of community members to oust leftists on school boards “not community centered”?

Here’s NBC’s objective reporting on two school board meetings in Nevada:

In Nevada, Washoe County’s school board halted in-person meetings in April, after residents filled a large auditorium and lobbed insults and threats of violence during the public comment portion. …

During the most recent meeting, which lasted 11 hours, speakers railed at school board members, calling them Marxists, racists, Nazis and child abusers, among other epithets.

Kristen De Haan, the mother of a senior in a district high school, said she attends the meetings in support of an expanded social justice curriculum and LGBTQ-inclusive sex education.

“I don’t always agree with the board by any stretch of the imagination,” De Haan, who is white, said. “But listening to the anger, and what truly feels like hatred … it’s really hard. I definitely get glares when I go up and speak.

What is notable about this “reporting,” is how different it is from reporting about school board meetings when conservatives who oppose, for example, co-ed locker rooms, obscene novels, or CRT, are routinely called racists and ignorant hateful bigots who support the bullying of children. No anger or hatred in those epithets, no siree. Just love, sweet love.

Notable too is missing context. Why might some community members call school board members Marxists, racists, or child abusers? Could it be that the accused school board members support the use of government funds to teach positively about controversial racist, Marxist CRT-infused ideas? Could it be that some parents view teaching children that their white skin makes them oppressors constitutes child abuse? Could it be that some parents view the sexual integration of children’s private spaces—also supported by CRT-infused organizations like BLM™—as child abuse?

Perhaps nothing better demonstrates both the arrogance and panic of leftists than the title of Charlotte Klein’s article: “The Right-Wing Meltdown Over Critical Race Theory is Spiraling Out of Control.”

To leftists, conservative efforts to stop the heretofore unobstructed ideological rampage of leftists through taxpayer-funded schools must be controlled. The Hive will leave no child’s mind unmolested by leftist dogma.

Leftists have thrown down the gauntlet. Take it up and slap ‘em—hard—figuratively speaking, of course.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/leftistsFreakOut_audio.mp3

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Written by Patience Griswold

In a recent video from TakeCharge Minnesota, Rashad Turner, a former leader of Black Lives Matter explained why he left the organization. “I believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies,” Turner said,

Black lives do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis.

A year and a half after he founded the Saint Paul chapter of Black Lives Matter, Turner left and is now engaged in a movement that is seeking to rebuild families and expand access to quality education.

Until recently, Black Lives Matter stated on their website that one of their goals is to “disrupt the nuclear family.” This goal is incredibly harmful. The data shows that marriage reduces poverty in every racial demographic, and family breakdown consistently harms children and communities. Last year, World magazine’s Tim Lamer drew attention to the international data on fatherlessness, pointing out that throughout the world, fatherlessness hurts kids. Even if the economic disparities are removed, kids who grow up without a dad still face hurdles that their peers do not. No program can ever replace fathers.

Family breakdown has affected all demographics in the U.S. — currently, nearly a quarter of children in the U.S. do not have a father figure in the home and 50% of births occur outside of marriage for women under 30. The black community has been hit especially hard by this trend, with the rate of fatherlessness recently hitting 75%.  Take Charge MN has pointed out,

skin color is not the consistent variable for low performance… Fatherless homes is the consistent variable. The disparity is spreading in the Hispanic and White communities as well. It is prominent in the Black community because of a 50-year head start.

And as Take Charge MN has also noted, government policies that have disincentivized marriage have played a significant role in this trend.

In addition to Black Lives Matter’s ambivalence toward, and even promotion of family breakdown, Turner has pointed out the organization’s failure to pursue policies that expand access to quality education. Turner was raised by his grandparents after his father was shot and killed when he was two years old and his mother was no longer able to take care of him. They instilled in him a love of learning and emphasized the value of education. “I am living proof that no matter your start in life, quality education is a pathway to success,” he said. “I want the same success for our children and our communities.”

 In 2016, Turner left Black Lives Matter when the organization called for a moratorium on charter schools and an end to the “privatization of education.” Turner is an outspoken champion of school choice and has rightly pointed out that for students to succeed, families need to have the ability to put their children in educational settings that best fit their needs.

A student’s access to quality education should not be limited by their zip code, but without school choice, this is the reality for many students. Minneapolis-area schools have been failing black families for years, but when black children from those same Minneapolis neighborhoods attend private, faith-based schools, they score above the national average on exams. BLM’s 2016 decision to call for an end to the “privatization of education” put them at odds with student success.

Turner left Black Lives Matter because he saw how the organization’s goals were hurting, not helping the black community. In his words, “I was an insider in Black Lives Matter, and I learned the ugly truth.” It is impossible to help families and communities while encouraging family breakdown and shutting down educational opportunities.

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This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

Written by Ryan Scott Bomberger

I’m half white and half black. My melanin doesn’t change my worth or my propensity to sin. Yet we live in a culture where we are told that our skin color confers upon us a status that is fixed, assigned by an elite class of humans who call themselves “scholars.” They want us to see everything through the broken lens of “race”—a human construct that has only served to dehumanize us throughout history. As a person with brown skin, I reject my assigned “status” and refuse to see everything through that distorted prism.

It leads to blindness.

Instead, I choose to see through the breakthrough filter of Scripture that opens our eyes to the truth of our identity, the perfect bond of love, our oneness through Christ, and the freedom of forgiveness. Our human condition, and the frailty that marks us, can never be illuminated by the darkness of tattered theories.

And that’s exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is.

How can a theory derived from anti-Semites who were virulent racists hell-bent on abolishing the family and religion bring healing to the sin of racism? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw Christianity as an impediment to their socialist ideology. How can a godless theory be used as an “analytical tool” to address issues needing a Godly solution?

I’m particularly irked by Christians who don’t want the struggle of wrestling with solutions but simply hop aboard the latest bandwagon sponsored by an insanely profitable victimhood industry. Racism is evil as is every other sin known to humankind. Sin diminishes and destroys us. It is a brokenness that cannot be remedied by more brokenness. But for many, the goal is not to offer a solution but a continual subscription.

Famed educator and leader Booker T. Washington, a former slave, explained this industry well on page 144 of his book “My Larger Education”:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Today, that class of people is of varying hues and NY Times bestsellers capitalize on a form of activism that seeks to divide us, erase equality, and offer forced redistribution in the form of “equity”. Dr. Carol Swain, the brilliant former (black) professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, offers a helpful definition of Critical Race Theory:

“Critical race theory is an analytical framework to analyze institutions and culture. Its purpose is to divide the world into white oppressors and non-white victims. Instead of traditional forms of knowledge, it holds up personal narratives of marginalized minority “victim” groups (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) as evidence (considered irrefutably by its nature) of the dishonesty of their mostly white heterosexual oppressors.”

As someone who is “biracial,” I’m both the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” Through no fault of my own, since no one controls the circumstances of his or her conception, I’m foisted into perpetual perplexity simply based on the sins or the sufferings of my lineage. Just to further illustrate the absurdity of this deeply prejudiced CRT approach to classification, I can simply highlight my own origin story. I was conceived in rape. So, am I responsible for my (black) biological father’s heinous act? Of course not. Interestingly, my white father—who chose to adopt and love ten children (of varying beautiful hues) that other men abandoned—is branded as part of the “white supremacist patriarchy” that is guilty of every negative outcome of black Americans. My dad, Henry Bomberger, recently passed away. The only legacy he left behind was one of unconditional love and self-sacrifice. His devotion to us proved that it’s not color that binds us; it’s love.

Despite Scripture’s insistence on the unity of believers and how Christ makes us one (Galatians 3:28), CRT diabolically separates us using the deeply flawed human construct of race. Ironically, in a culture that rejects the science of binary gender the progressive priests of CRT demand we can only be the “oppressed” or the “oppressors”. How nihilistic. It also preaches perpetual “guilt” and undeserved “privilege” based solely on one’s skin color.

Fake guilt will never erase real problems.

As Christians, we are all privileged to know and worship a God who could’ve merely condemned us but chose to redeem and rescue us (John 3:16-17). We are privileged to no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). We are privileged, through Christ’s strength, to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

The Bible tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of this world in Romans 12:2, yet this is exactly what we do when we embrace the warped worldliness of CRT. Blame, Deceive, Repeat. This destructive pattern is recognizable throughout Scripture. Satan is the accuser, and he constantly coaxes us to embrace the lie instead of the Light.

CRT is a debilitating disease. Its malignancy in the body of Christ is spread by pastors who don’t believe the Word is enough. Some of these leaders apparently think the World has the answers to the temporal and eternal devastation of sin.

Mainstream media gave voice to a handful of black pastors who support using CRT and several who left a major denomination over it. Pastor Charlie Dates, of the Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, exited the Southern Baptist Convention over SBC Seminary presidents’ rejection of Critical Race Theory, despite their clear denouncements of the sin of racism. I thoroughly agree with their statement. I’m not a Southern Baptist, so I have no interest in defending a denomination but merely want to uphold the Truth. Pastor Dates, who embraces unbiblical Black Liberation Theology and the Black Lives Matter movement, issued a defiant (and historically challenged) OpEd sharply condemning those who oppose CRT. He claims the rejection of CRT is due to “fear of liberalism.” I don’t fear liberalism. I wholeheartedly disagree with it because of its dependence on deception and division. Dates strangely then attributed certain social movements to “liberalism” (aka the Democrat Party) such as abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. On all three, Republicans led the fight. But CRT and its advocates value feelings far more than facts.

I don’t think there’s any more eloquent a pastor speaking about cultural issues and Biblical authority than Pastor Voddie Baucham. As a black adoptive father, he embodies what many Christians should aspire toward—Godly character and critical thinking. He exposes and denounces CRT—not with emotionalism (like Pastor Charlie Dates) but with factualism.

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, credited as a co-founder of “Critical Race Theory” (of course, derived from Marxist Critical Theory) is a leading proponent of this poison. Never mind this accomplished black woman was the recipient of Ivy League education at Cornell and Harvard Law School. But, you know, systemic racism. She sees it in everything…well except the abortion industry which massively and disproportionately kills black lives. Crenshaw, who is radically pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, anti-nuclear family and denies the clearly evident consequences of fatherlessness, blames racism for everything that victimizes black people and other “marginalized” groups. Her organization, the African American Policy Council, is holding an event on April 29th featuring Crenshaw, Brad Sears (Executive Director of UCLA’s dubious and radically pro-LGBT The Williams Institute) and Planned Parenthood’s President, Alexis McGill Johnson, as keynote speakers.

But sure, let’s use Critical Race Theory—an ideology that is hostile to Christianity in countless ways—as a means by which Christians should see the world. CRT activists claim to fight for justice but regularly reject truth and morality. Psalm 89:14 says: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne. Mercy and truth go before Your face.” You cannot have justice without mercy (the compassion or forgiveness toward an offender) and truth. To ignore this is to welcome a cancer instead of the cure.

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This article was originally published at TheRadianceFoundation.org.

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Join us in Collinsville on Saturday, May 22nd for an IFI Worldview Conference about CRT!

It’s a curious phenomenon that racists rarely see their own racism—the plank in their own eyes. That was true during the long, torturous days of slavery. It was true during the long torturous days of Jim Crow laws. It was true during the Civil Rights Movement. And it’s true now. No, it’s not conservatives who are spreading racism while remaining blithely blind to it. It’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and BLM who are spreading racism like manure throughout our cultural system. And it’s racist Ibram X. Kendi who sees himself as “anti-racist” and wrote,

The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.

And like racists of yore, they profit handsomely from their efforts to encourage Americans to judge people by the color of their skin.

Leftist change-agents posing as “diversity educators” have captured the wills of corporate executives. Now Big Business is in the business of not only selling goods and services but also in repackaging racism as “antiracism” and browbeating employees into pretending they believe it.

Prior to capturing the wills of corporate execs—not known for their familiarity with or investment in arcane academic theories or for steely-spined moral integrity—leftist change-agents in sullied ivory towers captured the wills of teachers and administrators—not known for independent or “critical” thinking, or for commitments to diversity, inclusivity, or tolerance. In my experience, will-capturing of yellow-bellied teachers and administrators is an almost effortless task. All it takes is a bit of name-calling topped by a dollop of mockery, and the spineless among us bend like paper straws dipped in a Big Gulp.

Now states are requiring ongoing critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination for staff and faculty. Schools are forcing white students to engage in exercises designed to make them feel shame for their skin color (goodbye self-esteem movement).  And schools are racially segregating students in what are euphemistically called “affinity” groups. “Separate but equal” has returned with a vengeance thanks to vengefully regressive “progressives.”

That probably explains why administrators and faculty said next to nothing when the increasingly woke, decreasingly conservative evangelical Wheaton College held a racially segregated pre-graduation ceremony for colorful people on May 8, 2021, which was advertised as “RACIALIZED MINORITY RECOGNITION CEREMONY” (all caps in original) and held in the campus chapel. While it was created “Especially for undergraduate students, staff, and faculty of color,” the school provided “limited seating” for colorless people. I wonder if those seats were way in the back.

One Wheaton faculty member who likely loves Wheaton’s embrace of re-segregation is associate professor of philosophy and critical race theorist Nathan Cartagena who was recently interviewed for leftist Christian Jim Wallis’ Sojourners’ magazine. In this interview, Cartagena explained how he sussed out Wheaton’s friendliness to CRT by delivering a visiting lecture on controversial critical race theorist Tommy Curry during the interview process:

I wanted to see: Is this a place that would welcome such reflection? I received a warm welcome from the students, my department, etc., so I thought “OK, this is a place where I can do this.”

And by “do this,” Cartagena meant, not expose students to the debate on CRT, but to promote CRT:

I taught a reading group my first year at Wheaton that involved one of the important texts in the critical race theory movement, Faces at the Bottom of the Well by Derrick Bell. The following year I asked if I could teach a half-semester class on critical race theory—I got a full thumbs up.

Derrick Bell is another controversial figure in the critical race theory movement “whose writings on ‘critical race theory,’” conservative African American economist Thomas Sowell explains “promoted an extremist hostility to white people.”

Sowell described the academic transformation of Bell, attributing it largely to his scholarly inadequacy at Harvard:

As a full professor at Harvard Law, Derrick Bell was … surrounded by colleagues who were out of his league as academic scholars. What were his options at this point?

If he played it straight, he could not expect to command the respect of either the faculty or the students — or, more important, his own self-respect. …

Derrick Bell’s options were to be a nobody, living in the shadow of more accomplished legal scholars — or to go off on some wild tangent of his own, and appeal to a radical racial constituency on campus and beyond.

His writings showed clearly that the latter was the path he chose. His previous writings had been those of a sensible man saying sensible things about civil-rights issues that he understood from his years of experience as an attorney. But now he wrote all sorts of incoherent speculations and pronouncements, the main drift of which was that white people were the cause of black people’s problems.

Cartagena openly admits the cunning way he gets his students to accept CRT:

When I was first teaching on CRT, I was very explicit about when something was a CRT essay or quote. Now, one of the things I do is I present CRT literature without telling students that it’s CRT literature. Then I ask them what they think about it. The overwhelming response from the students is: “Wow, this essay is so rigorously researched, so clear, and so well-argued. Even if I don’t agree with every claim, I learned so much,” etc. Then, after they’ve sung a little praise song, [laughs] I tell them they’ve read a piece by a critical race theorist. You can see a look of disillusionment set in — this part gets really hard, if I’m honest. On the one hand, it’s a healthy destabilization. You’ve gotta remember that a lot of my students are racialized white folks. If they’re not now going to say that everything they just said was false, how do they reckon with believing there are things to learn from critical race theorists while knowing that the stakes, in some of these communities they’ve been a part of, are so high that to say such is to find themselves ostracized?

While this tactic appears to be a means to enable students to approach ideas objectively, with a mind decluttered and “decolonized” by the detritus of white privilege and systemic racism, educators know it’s a tactic that can be used to propagandize. Presenting students with an interpretive lens beclouded by jargon, ambiguous language, assumptions, and subtexts with which students have no familiarity doesn’t educate; it indoctrinates.

At least as offensive is Cartagena’s evident pleasure in “destabilizing” his students and emotionally manipulating them by manufacturing cognitive dissonance.

Enquiring donors and parents considering sending their children to Wheaton may want to know if Cartagena spends equal time having students study any of the many works of criticism of CRT like Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everyone or Voddie Baucham’s book Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe.

Anthony Esolen, professor and writer-in-residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts, senior editor at Touchstone Magazine, and contributing editor at Crisis Magazine, opposes the teaching of CRT in schools:

The problem is that the schools shouldn’t be teaching any “theory” of human behavior at all, for two principal reasons. First, the students do not have anything close to the learning or the broad human experiences that would serve as evidence for checking the theory. For the same reason why it is pointless, and perhaps destructive, to teach literary theory to young people who have hardly begun to read literature at all, because they have no evidence or experience from which to judge the theory, and they will instead be prone to force what literature they do encounter to fit the predeterminations of the theory, so it is pointless, and probably destructive, to teach some theory of human behavior to children who need first to have the experiences, personal or vicarious, that the theory purports to explain.

But the second reason … is more grave. It is that human behavior does not admit of that kind of theory at all. I am not talking here about moral philosophy, or about anthropological observations, or about history and its more or less reliable guidelines. All “theories” of human behavior are necessarily ideological and reductive: whether it’s from Skinner or Marx, it doesn’t matter. The simplest things we do in a given day are steeped in so many motives, passions, thoughts, physical exigencies, and moral commitments, we dare not simply paste a label on them to explain them away and have done with them.

There are glimmers of hope that Americans on both the right and left may be approaching their limits with the racist “antiracism” movement. Virtually everyone on the right and increasing numbers of people on the left are fed up with the ubiquitous manifestations of critical race theory. Americans see CRT is corrosive and divisive. They see CRT is being used to control discourse. And they see that “progressives” are passing CRT off as inarguable, objective truth. “Progressives,” in control of most of the levers of power and influence, feel no obligation to debate CRT’s arguable assumptions. Nor will they acknowledge that CRT is arguable as they use hard-earned tax dollars to promulgate it in government schools. And hoo boy, are they promulgating.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CRT-at-Wheaton-College.mp3

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Join us in Collinsville on Saturday, May 22nd for an IFI Worldview Conference about CRT!