- The piece discusses the controversy surrounding the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools.
- It highlights that CRT is being portrayed as a lie and racist by some individuals, but it is actually a body of legal scholarship that examines racism embedded in legal systems and policies.
- The fear and panic around CRT has had real effects, with some states passing laws to outlaw its teaching and it becoming a major focus for Republicans in the upcoming midterms.
- The piece emphasizes that CRT is a graduate-level legal theory and not being taught in schools in the way critics claim.
- Conservative activist Christopher Rufo played a key role in popularizing the distorted version of CRT and Fox News heavily featured it on their platform.
- The rebranding of CRT as a broad category that encompasses any conversation about race someone does not want to have has been successful.
- The piece acknowledges that discussing race in the classroom can be challenging and mistakes can be made, but it also highlights the dedication and effort of teachers.

- The video discusses examples of inappropriate lessons about race and racism in schools, such as privilege bingo and dividing students by eye color.
- Educators are working to find age-appropriate ways to discuss race and racism in the classroom.
- The panic over critical race theory (CRT) threatens to shut down these conversations and advance the agenda of school choice proponents.
- Conservative organizations and individuals have pushed for school choice as a solution to the perceived problems with teaching about race.
- The video highlights instances of racial indoctrination in schools that support school choice.
- Angry parents at school board meetings have led to consequences for educators, such as being forced out of their jobs or being fired.
- Many states have introduced bills to restrict teaching critical race theory or discussing racism in the classroom.
- Lawmakers are attempting to outlaw something they cannot define, leading to broad laws that prohibit teaching that may cause discomfort or distress.
- There are concerns about teaching a sanitized version of U.S. history and the distortion of historical facts by anti-CRT activists.
- Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. about judging others by the content of their character are often misused in the context of the CRT debate.

- The left's focus on skin color goes against Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of judging others by their character rather than their race.
- King himself later acknowledged that his dream of racial harmony had turned into a nightmare and that American society was not hospitable to fair play and racial harmony.
- Laws are being passed to prevent the teaching of critical race theory (CRT), which is having a chilling effect on school curriculums and leading to book bans.
- Discussions about race are essential, especially in places where people are panicked about CRT.
- The claim that there is not a lot of racism in Loudoun County, Virginia is refuted by evidence of racial slurs being used in public schools.
- Children of color learn about race from a young age and believe it would be equitable for all students to learn about race in the same context.
- The debate around critical race theory is both loud and dumb, but it is important to engage with it to prevent honest discussions of race from being shut out of public schools.
- Instead of running from discussions on race or passing laws to ban them, we should learn how to have them better.
- Fairy tales about race in America have led to adults denying racism and misunderstanding Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream speech.
- It is time to stop telling these fairy tales and address the uncomfortable truths about race in America.

The text discusses the controversy surrounding the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools. It highlights that CRT is a body of legal scholarship that examines racism in legal systems and policies. The fear and panic around CRT has led to laws being passed to outlaw its teaching and it becoming a major focus for Republicans in the upcoming midterms. The piece emphasizes that CRT is a graduate-level legal theory and is not being taught in schools as critics claim. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo played a key role in popularizing a distorted version of CRT. The piece acknowledges the challenges of discussing race in the classroom but also highlights the dedication of teachers. It discusses examples of inappropriate lessons about race and racism in schools and the efforts of educators to find age-appropriate ways to discuss these topics. The panic over CRT threatens to shut down conversations about race and advance the agenda of school choice proponents. Many states have introduced bills to restrict teaching CRT or discussing racism in the classroom. There are concerns about teaching a sanitized version of U.S. history and the distortion of historical facts by anti-CRT activists. The text also discusses the misrepresentation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s message in the context of the CRT debate. Laws are being passed to prevent the teaching of CRT, which is having a chilling effect on school curriculums and leading to book bans. The text argues that discussions about race are essential, especially in places where people are panicked about CRT. It concludes by stating that instead of avoiding discussions on race or passing laws to ban them, we should learn how to have them better and address the uncomfortable truths about race in America.

John Oliver explains what critical race theory is, what it isn’t, and why we can expect to hear more about it in the coming months.

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It's the only setting in which a child dissecting a frog is not an immediate red flag.

We teach kids a lot in school, from reading to long division to how to play the fucking recorder for some reason.

But recently, there has been a lot of concern over 1 particular thing that people worry that kids are learning.

Critical race theory is being taught in our schools.

From the first word to the last, from start to finish.

Critical Race Theory in the schools and the wokeness.

Let me tell you right now, Critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie, and it is every bit as racist as the Klansmen in white sheets.

I do not like him shouting, "'Klan.'" I do not like him in a room.

You have probably heard people yelling about critical race theory on TV for more than a year now, and people have been listening to that noise, especially judging by what's been happening at school board meetings across the country.

The Western culture and values that brought forth Christianity in the founding documents are being called evil and racist.

I am not co-parenting with the government.

It is not your job to force these ideas onto my child.

The narrative in this country is that we're all inherently racist, and I'm about sick of it.

It's a Marxist ideology, and we all know it.

All of these lessons have the intent to make our children feel disgust towards our nation.

This country isn't even a racist country.

America can't be racist because of Obama?

I don't know if you remember the 2008 election, but things got pretty racist back then.

People kept saying he was born in Kenya, people said he was a secret Muslim, and then a few years later, we elected that people president.

So, Let's just agree to disagree on that 1, shall we?

That first meeting was in Loudoun County, Virginia, and it got so out of hand that the meeting was shut down early, and 1 guy passionately railing against CRT was arrested for trespassing, only to pop up on Tucker Carlson the very next day.

So clearly, a lot of people are getting very mad about critical race theory right now.

And instinctively, you probably know it's a manufactured panic.

But the fact is, the fear around it is having real effects.

Last year, Glenn Youngkin won the governor's race in Virginia after repeatedly promising that on his first day in office, he'd ban CRT from being taught in schools.

Multiple states have passed laws outlawing the teaching of it, and Republicans are likely to make it a major focus of the midterms.

When it comes to critical race theory, think of it like Rihanna's pregnancy.

Even if you think it has nothing to do with you, believe me, you're gonna be hearing a lot about it this year.

So given that, we thought tonight we'd take a step back and look at what critical race theory is and isn't.

Why the panic around it has spread, and what the consequences might be for everyone involved.

And I realize, some of you may already know what CRT is.

After all, explainers on it have become 1 of the most common sites on the Internet, along with mediocre Wuerdel scores, and ugly monkey JPEGs sold by and for dipshits.

A recent survey found that an overwhelming majority of U.S.

Residents have a hard time articulating exactly what CRT is.

And that even goes for some of those who've been yelling about it the loudest.

I've never figured out what a critical race theory is, to be totally honest, after a year of talking about it.

They're teaching that some races are morally superior to others, that some are inherently sinful and some are inherently saintly, and that's immoral to teach that, because it's wrong.

I don't know if I've ever seen a person confidently complain about something just seconds after admitting they don't know shit about it.

Look, I've never figured out how a car engine works, to be honest, but there's a chimpanzee under the hood turning a crank.

And when you press the accelerator, it pokes it with a sharp stick and makes him crank faster.

And it's immoral to do that, because it's wrong.

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ But obviously, that is not what Critical Race Theory is.

It's the name given to a body of legal scholarship that began in the 1970s that attempted to understand why racism and inequality persisted after the Civil Rights Movement.

The core idea is that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something that is embedded in legal systems and policies.

As for Tucker's notion that it teaches that some races are superior to others, or that parent's claim that it teaches kids to hate America, none of that is remotely true.

As Kimberly Crenshaw, 1 of CRT's leading scholars, points out.

Criticorious Theory just says, let's pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes so we can become that country that we say we are.

So Criticories theory is not anti-patriotic.

In fact, it is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it, because we believe in the 13th and the 14th and the 15th Amendment.

We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can't get there if we can't confront and talk honestly about inequality.

And incidentally, if you just found yourself there wondering what the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are,

might be a good sign that we don't talk about this stuff in schools enough.

And to be clear, CRT is graduate-level legal theory.

So unless your five-year-old is currently pursuing a law degree, they're not reading Kimberley Crenshaw.

But critics of it argue that the ideas behind CRT are being taught in schools and often present a hyperbolically distorted version of what those ideas are.

And a key person here is this man, a conservative activist named Christopher Rufo.

He claims CRT is actually a revolutionary program that would overturn the principles of the Declaration and destroy the remaining structure of the Constitution.

But in the wake of the George Floyd protests, just as America was beginning to grapple with systemic racism, Fox News began featuring Rufo on air a lot as part of their efforts to swing that pendulum back hard.

And in 1 appearance, he pointed to diversity trainings in government as evidence of CRT's influence.

And he spoke directly to President Trump through the camera about what he wanted to see happen.

The president of the White House, it's within their authority and power to immediately issue an executive order abolishing critical race theory trainings from the federal government.

And I call on the president to immediately issue this executive order and stamp out this destructive, divisive, pseudoscientific ideology at its root.

Is the reason Big died the fact that Carrie didn't call 911 fast enough?

The answer to all those questions is yes, and also, she was right not to do it.

Because Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, has since revealed President Trump saw that interview, and when Rufo said, I call on the president to immediately issue this executive order, quote, that's what we did.

It shouldn't just go, 1, yell your wish at the president, then, 2, it happens.

Ideally, you want an executive branch that's a little more complicated than fucking Siri.

And with that, CRT, or crucially, Rufo's definition of it, was suddenly absolutely everywhere.

Fox News kept pushing it, mentioning the term critical race theory nearly 5,000 times last year alone.

And the network zeroed in on its supposed use in schools, with Rufo telling Fox's audience that CRT has really become the default ideology of the public education system.

And what Rufo has been cleverly doing is cherry-picking the worst examples that he can find of lessons in classrooms or training materials for teachers and saying, that is CRT.

And he's openly admitted that he's been engaged in a deliberate rebranding exercise, tweeting, we have successfully frozen their brand, Critical Race Theory, into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions.

The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think, Critical Race Theory.

Because whenever you hear CRT Now, you are not hearing about the academic discipline.

You're hearing about a category so broad, it encompasses both the craziest thing in the newspaper, and also, crucially, any conversation about race that someone does not want to have.

And look, I am not saying discussing race in a classroom is easy or even always done well.

Experts in this field will readily admit that.

Now, have you seen bad implementations of this?

That's like asking, have I seen a bad math lesson?

Especially as we're trying to figure out how to teach about race and racism.

Teachers are human and can make mistakes.

Frankly, I'm surprised they don't make more.

They wake up insanely early and spend all day getting low-key roasted by teenagers for an amount of money best described as completely harrowing.

The very fact any student in America knows what a covalent bond is, is a fucking miracle.

And every adult involved deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor.

And the fact is, you can find examples of clumsy, shitty lessons.

1 school used a privilege bingo card, which sure seems like a glib way to handle a very serious subject.

Another classic lesson over the years has been to teach about prejudice metaphorically by dividing a classroom up by eye color, with brown-eyed people, for instance, being the lowest tier and then being treated terribly.

And if you do that in a diverse classroom, and think for even a second about who is more likely to have brown eyes, you can probably immediately see just how badly that lesson could go.

That actually happened in at least 1 school in the Chicago area, and the reason I know that is that this kid was in the class that day, and she's 1 of our writers now.

Many educators are working very hard to find age-appropriate ways to talk about race and racism in the classroom.

And if you do it right, you don't stop at the civil rights movement.

You tell the story all the way to the present day, which kids want and need.

They have questions about what they can see with their own eyes, and they deserve good answers.

And it is, frankly, far better for them to have these discussions in a supportive, educational environment, rather than the potential alternative during a screaming match at Thanksgiving.

But the panic over CRT threatens to shut those conversations down.

Because some pushing this panic the hardest are actually using it to advance a much bigger agenda that they've wanted for a very long time, and that is school choice.

Basically, letting parents take tax dollars afforded to the public schooling of their kid and use them at any school they like.

Here is Chris Ruffo again, laying out that exact strategy.

First, we have to just get it out of schools.

But in the long term, what we need to do is give every parent in this country a right to exit failing institutions.

No child should be trapped in a failing public school that violates his sense of conscience, that violates the values of the parents.

Every parent should take those education dollars anywhere that they wish.

School choice will liberate people, it will empower people, and it will actually depolarize some of these national fights that we've seen.

Oh, so you're doing all of this to tone down partisan fights, are you, Chris?

You've probably noticed that general wave of calm, chill vibes sweeping the nation lately.

If there is 1 word I would use to describe every image coming out of a school board meeting these days, it is depolarized.

Conservative organizations that have long pushed for school choice, like the Heritage Foundation and Freedom Works, have poured money into this fight.

And of course, no school choice push would be complete without lifelong rich person and occasional education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who wrote an op-ed titled, let's liberate kids from race indoctrination with school choice.

And you should know, this is just nothing new.

There is a long history of responding to racial panic with a push for school choice.

In fact, the roots of the school choice movement trace back to the Brown versus Board of Education decision when Southern states adopted voucher programs to facilitate the creation of private schools called segregation academies.

And some of those taking advantage of school choice today sure seem to be doing some heavy indoctrination of their own.

It is 1 of the states that allows public money to go to voucher schools.

And a few years back, an investigation into some of them found commonly used textbooks that downplayed the horrors of slavery.

Which has all the kind of bullshit that you would expect that the Civil War was fought for states' rights.

But it also states that during the Antebellum period, the slave who knew Christ had more freedom than a free person who did not know the savior.

Which is not just offensive, it is profoundly stupid.

Any kid reading that absolute trombone slide of a sentence...

It sounds less like something you'd find in a textbook and more like something you'd find crocheted on a throw pillow in Paula Deen's living room.

So, if you want to talk about racial indoctrination of school kids, this might be a better place to start.

But the thing is, even a manufactured panic is a panic.

Those parents at school board meetings are genuinely angry, and as any little league coach knows, once you reach a critical mass of angry white parents, There will be consequences.

In Texas, this high school principal was forced out of his job after being accused at a school board meeting of promoting CRT by someone who wasn't even a parent at his school.

And in Tennessee, this current affairs teacher was fired for not giving varying points of view after he gave students a Ta-Nehisi Coates article and showed them Kyla Jene-Lacy's poem, White Privilege.

And he actually had a pretty decent response to that criticism.

I think, to me, the varying viewpoint is Kyla Jene-Lacy and is Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Those are perspectives that my students aren't exposed to on a daily basis because, you know, we live in that white, dominant, evangelical environment.

When you live in a mostly white environment, the voices of black people can be the varying point of view.

And not just on current events, either on lots of things that white people might otherwise assume, even trivial ones like, it's okay to go out in a blizzard in shorts, and if I argue with this cop, I can probably get out of a ticket, and time travel would be a fun and stress-free activity.

Ooh, the 1930s, I can't wait to look around.

Unfortunately, though, those situations are now only likely to become more common.

Since January of last year, 37 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism.

And the justification for these has often been more than a little flimsy.

Here is 1 Tennessee lawmaker explaining why he was pushing for his state's bill.

Listen to the following quotes from an email forwarded to me concerning a seven-year-old girl in Williamson County.

The little girl told her mother, I'm ashamed that I'm white.

The daughter then asked her mother, is there something wrong with me?

But The thing to do in that situation isn't to pass a law limiting the discussion of race in the classroom, it's to ask literally 1 follow-up question, like, what was happening to make you think the other kids hate you?

Or, did any adult step in when you felt this way?

Because you should know, when reporters looked into this, they found no parent had come forward to that school's principal, teachers, or district officials with that complaint.

And administrators there weren't able to pinpoint any students who might be upset, or lessons that could have been upsetting.

And if that is how we are arguing things now, I should probably mention that I, too, just so happen to have an email forward from a different little white girl, way cuter than the first 1, by the way, who said that that first girl's story is complete bullshit.

And the thing is, by Tennessee law, it seems I simply have to believe her.

But that lawmaker actually illustrates the problem facing legislators, currently trying to outlaw something that they cannot define.

Because that is exactly what Tennessee did.

They passed a law prohibiting any teaching that would cause discomfort, guilt, anguish, or distress solely because of the individual's race or sex, which is Very broad.

You're not gonna believe this, but I just received another email this second from a third Tennessee white girl who says, what fucking idiots are writing these laws?

And how many fictitious children are they gonna make up to justify them?

And wow, what a nice thing to say from a definitely real child.

And look, the thing is, we have talked before on this show about the multiple problems with teaching kids a sanitized version of U.S.

History, and how, as far back as a century ago, groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy were reshaping textbooks to downplay its horrors.

Because lawmakers are trying to micromanage school curriculums, sometimes pretty ineptly.

A bill proposed in Virginia contains a section listing some of the founding documents that is okay to teach.

A list that includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

Which, I hope you know, is not a thing that happened.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates were, of course, between Senator Stephen Douglas and his opponent, a 2020 Lincoln Navigator.

But maybe the most insulting distortion of history is in the quotes that every single anti-CRT activist seems to love to invoke.

He said He didn't want people judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.

You know, I-I believe it was Martin Luther King that said, you know, when he was talking about his children, that

he didn't want his children to be judged...

Content of their character, not by the color of their skin.

Content of our character, not the color of our skin.

Martin Luther King ring in our ears that we must judge others not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The left wants us to constantly focus on skin color.

In fact, I'm pretty sure every time someone uses his words that way, Dr.

King's illustrious remains spin fast enough to power the Eastern fucking seaboard.

Here is the thing, though, that dream speech was clearly an aspirational goal, not a description of things as they stood.

And in fact, King himself later put a pretty major asterisk on it.

I must confess that, that dream that I had that day has at many points turned into a nightmare.

And I've come to see that, we have, many more difficult days ahead, and some of the old optimism was a little superficial, and now it must be tempered with a solid realism.

And in a book published that same year, he wrote that while the majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro, and they believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class utopia embodying racial harmony.

Unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.

So, while it is clearly very appealing to create a version of history where MLK was a kind figure who existed solely to help white people win arguments.

The truth is, he later reflected on his own message and challenged white people to look more deeply at themselves, and that is something the kids should absolutely be learning about in school.

But the problem is, they won't if these laws continue.

A white parent could plausibly claim that reading MLK's writing made their child feel discomfort on the basis of their race.

And Some of these laws seem designed to bend schools' curriculums to the sensibilities of the most conservative, alarmed parents.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis is pushing a Stop WOKE Act.

That was him unveiling it just a minute ago with Chris Rufo, by the way, right behind him.

And that would give parents private right of action to sue if they think their kids are being taught CRT.

And all of these laws are already having chilling effects.

Book bans are on the rise around the country.

And 1 Oklahoma school district has even told teachers simply to avoid using terms like diversity and white privilege.

And look, here's the thing, you can ban all the books you want.

You can try and legislate it away, but as any black woman on The Bachelor can tell you, Talking about race is unavoidable.

And it is not just unavoidable, it's essential, especially in the places where people are most panicked about CRT.

And this actually brings us all the way back to where this story began in Loudoun County, Virginia, where that school board meeting got so very far out of hand.

Here is 1 of the leaders of the anti-CRT push there, explaining just why she is so fiercely opposed to it being taught.

In Loudoun County, this is the wealthiest county in the country.

There are silly people that say stupid things, but if you talk about it less, you're going to notice that division less.

I don't look at the person based on their skin colour, I look at them based on their character.

Okay, so there's a lot of obvious red flags there, from confidently asserting, there's not a lot of racism here, to the, I don't see skin color, to the, you won't notice division so much if you just don't talk about it.

And hey, If the problem with racism in America was only, it's bumming Patty Menders out, then yeah, shutting up about it would probably solve the whole issue.

But guess how long it takes for that conversation to take a real turn.

I think there are a lot of, there are probably plenty of people that would agree with exactly that.

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Critical Race Theory: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)