There’s been a lot of talk about critical race theory lately, and I’ve felt at a loss. I’ve heard so many conflicting things about critical race theory, I’ve gotten more and more confused.
So I did what middle-aged white men are prone to do — I asked another middle-aged white man. But not just any. I called an Alabama lawmaker, state Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, who wants to make it illegal to teach critical race theory in Alabama.
The 2020 Alabama legislative session ended last month, but Pringle is already primed for the next one. He recently pre-filed a bill — almost eight months before the next session is scheduled to start — and he’s been talking it up on the radio.
So what does his bill say?
“It’s pretty simple,” Pringle said. “All it says is you can’t teach critical race theory in K-12 or higher education in the state of Alabama.”
That is a short bill, if not a simple one. But it didn’t answer my question: What is this critical race theory educators would be forbidden to teach? Pringle has seen enough legislation to understand the law requires specificity. Many bills begin by laying out their legal definitions. How would his bill define critical race theory?
“It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin, period,” Pringle said.
That sounded very serious, indeed. Nazi-like, even. So I asked Pringle if there were any critical race theorists he could point to who have been spreading such toxic garbage?
“Yeah, uh, well — I can assure you — I’ll have to read a lot more,” he said.
I began to get the feeling that Pringle didn’t know as much about critical race theory as I had hoped. Were there other examples he could give me where critical race theory was being put into practice?
“These people, when they were doing the training programs — and the government — if you didn’t buy into what they taught you a hundred percent, they sent you away to a reeducation camp,” Pringle said.
Pringle was a little difficult to follow but this sounded serious. These people — whoever they were— sounded terrifying, and if there were reeducation camps operating in America, that would be big news someone like me should get to the bottom of. I asked Pringle, who were these people?
“These people, when they were doing the training programs — and the government — if you didn’t buy into what they taught you a hundred percent, they sent you away to a reeducation camp,” Pringle said.
In all seriousness, we should 'taboo' the phrase 'critical race theory' ('taboo' as in the game) and discuss component ideas only.
To the broader point, there are plenty of ideas in, say, Kendi's 'anti-racism' or DiAngelo's 'white fragility' that are both illiberal and damaging and will likely set back racial progress, despite the good intentions of the authors. I think we, especially on the left, need to understand them and be prepared to oppose them intelligently. That is very difficult to do within institutions in today's climate. Clowns like this representative make the job even harder.
-------------------------------- If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
Posts: 33811 | Location: On the Hudson | Registered: 20 April 2005
The left has its own brain dead bogeyman words, and they're not confined to the dumb-as-a-stick component of the population. You can't walk around a campus these days without hearing "scholars" casually drop "neo-liberal" as an epithet, as though any market is evil.
Proud neo-liberal here ...
Positivist, to boot!
Posts: 12759 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005
