By now you’ve probably heard about the Critical Race Theory pamphlet that President Joe Biden’s Department of Education recommended in their “ED COVID-19 Handbook.” Right-wing media pounced on the story, but much of the coverage focused on a few of the most egregious statements. The pamphlet, produced by the “Abolitionist Teaching Network,” encourages teachers and administrators to “disrupt Whiteness” and mandate “anti-racist therapy” for white teachers and staff. Unfortunately, this Critical Race Theory garbage is only the tip of the iceberg. I read the entire nonsensical pamphlet, and let me tell you—it’s even more insane than you thought. It begins by asking its readers, who it calls “coconspirators,” to “embody the spirit of Black Lives Mattering.” As everyone knows, verbing a noun makes you sound smart even if you have no idea what you’re talking about. That seems to be the goal here. The authors go on: “Abolitionist Teaching promotes justice, healing, joy, and liberation for all Black, Brown, and Indigenous folx, inclusive of all intersecting identities.” I may have missed something, but I don’t think “folks” is a gendered word. It’s not like “Latino” or “Latina.” The word “folks” just means “people.” Adding an “x” makes you look like someone who doesn’t understand English. Moving right along, the pamphlet recommends that schools ban “punitive or disciplinary practices,” remove “all police and policing” from schools, and replace them with models that “center vulnerability, healing, joy, and community.” SEE ALSO: Kamala Harris’s Belated Border Visit is This Administration’s Most Embarrassing Moment As the father of two (now grown) children, I can tell you that the kids are going to love this. No discipline means they’ll be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, which is exactly what kids have always wanted. But don’t worry—these “abolitionist” teachers have a good reason to refuse to discipline misbehaving children. As one of their demands, they seek to “remove all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children.” “Spirit murder”? I’m sorry, when did public schools become fonts of religious knowledge? Why does the Abolitionist Teaching Network get to decide when the spirits of our children have been “murdered”? The pamphlet also calls for ending “high-stakes standardized testing” (which California has already done) and encourages teachers to ask their students what their “love language” is (which is about the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard). Remember: the Biden administration recommended this ATN pamphlet for our nation’s taxpayer funded public-school teachers. They’ve tried to backtrack in recent days, but their handbook still hasn’t removed the link to this racist document. SEE ALSO: Do You Know What Your Kids are Learning? Here’s the True Condition of Public Schools. And let’s not kid ourselves: this is racism, plain and simple. The pamphlet calls for teachers to be segregated in their on-the-job training: “Staff of color” will attend “radical self/collective care and therapy” while “White educators” will attend “antiracist therapy.” The racism goes even deeper than that. Throughout the pamphlet, the authors lump together “Black, Brown, and Indigenous people” as if everyone with brown skin has something in common with one another. Culturally speaking, a child of Asian-Indian descent has almost nothing in common with a child of Mexican descent, and yet this pamphlet includes them in the same group. (Also, strangely, the pamphlet makes no mention of Asian-Americans who might not be considered “Brown.”) The authors also appear to be racist in favor of black people. In its list of questions for teachers to ask administrators, it includes the question: “How will we implement antiracist curriculum that centers the beauty, joy, and resiliency of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people? How will we also learn and teach about the African diaspora?” Why should teachers only ask about the African diaspora? Why not the Indian diaspora or the Cherokee diaspora or the Jewish diaspora? Why is does the ATN favor black Americans over other minority groups? Here’s the bottom line: Critical Race Theory can’t stand up under the slightest scrutiny. Its ideas are contradictory, its language is asinine, and its underlying philosophy is deeply racist. The Biden administration is pushing this racist propaganda, both explicitly and covertly, and Americans have a duty to fight back.
