Republicans Ramping Up Efforts To Restrict ‘Critical Race Theory’

GOP-led states are pushing back against how race is taught in schools. Jelani Cobb, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University joined American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss the new backlash against “critical race theory.” » Subscribe to MSNBC:

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Republicans Ramping Up Efforts To Restrict 'Critical Race Theory'

91 comments

  1. Fear is the only motivator for Republicans: fear of loss of power, fear of minorities having power

    1. @John Smith – It’s a thought. And we are not mind readers.

      Example: Your neighbor is the nicest guy to everyone, however, could be the most extreme racist in the USA. He could be a fireman, saving many lives of many races. He never acts on his racism. He doesn’t say racist things, treats everyone with respect, etc.
      And that is what matters.

      We have all kinds of bias, and thoughts we do NOT act on. At least, not consciously for the label of racist.

      Conversely, a person could not be racist in the least, but in a critical moment, commit a very racist act. Some are shocked by themselves, what they did or said.

      We don’t know the contents of persons thought, we can only hold them accountable after the fact, if we can pinpoint the source. With implicit bias, it’s near impossible.

    2. @V V – Not giving equal opportunity is against the law. Why are they not in jail, for violating civil rights anti-discrimination laws? (I know the answer, let’s see if you know it).

    3. @Sarah F. 4.1: Well YOU are the one posting comments on here so obviously I’m interested in YOUR take on that issue. If you want to avoid having a discussion about it by hiding behind the African burial ground NPS website page that’s fine. But just say that rather than assume that I’m uniformed about it. I can disagree with the website too.

    4. @Bat Boy Can’t argue with that, I would have to agree. We are supposed to be a civilized society and the GOP is making a mockery of it. I do not care for liars. Peace

    5. @Reason just because I don’t have time to tutor you in you tube comments and I suggest reading doesn’t mean I am uninformed. I get paid to instruct. Practice English. Read the website. Since you are so ‘reason’able you can understand that my time is worth money and I have a career. you have a web browser. Do some reading.

  2. Jill Lepore’s book “These Truths” should be required reading for every American History high school class. And required reading for every American. (And add “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein)

    1. @i dont have time 2 reply according to whom? The people who are responsible for racism? How does the enemy tell the people who they hate what is racist or not? How do the people who are responsible for racism get to change historical facts because they don’t want the people who they hate to speak about it?

    2. @i dont have time 2 reply critical theory is essential study so people don’t turn out racist, like you.

    1. @Sarah F. 4.1 In had gathered that much. 😁
      What I’m trying to say is, that it wasn’t the American principles or ideals that were bad, but the founders’ blindness to their own betrayal of those ideals.

    2. @Kennedy Suggs Do I detect the slightest hint of white fragility here?
      I bet the most uttered phrase your teachers heard from you was “But the others …”
      You know that all you said does not make American slavery and systemic racism any better, right?
      Gotta love those deflectors and finger pointers!

    3. @Sarah F. 4.1 lol literally every country in the world was built on genocide and human trafficking
      huge difference 250 years make tho thats for sure
      ur quite used to seeing elderly ppl so ur idea of generational scale grows in disparity as u get to the founding of the country

  3. The Doctrine of Discovery! Monarchs and Church brutally conquered this continent with land grants and slavery. That’s the real truth that can’t be denied.

    1. @John Clarke when you are diagnosed with a symptom, you do everything that will keep you healthy. They have the symptoms…so they should find ways to treat themselves

    2. @Chris Williams Okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think I should end this conversation before you start calling me names like JMM and Sarah F.4.1 have done. Nice talkin’ with ya

    3. @John Clarke I didn’t call you anything. I simply don’t agree with you on people of color bowing to the people who are responsible for racism on changing the narrative of American history. I’m like Riddick….I bow to no man.

    4. @Chris Williams Hells yeah! I’d rather live on my feet than die on my knees! I don’t think I said anything about having poc bowing down to anyone, though. But let me just say that going around seeing yourself as a powerless victim is no way to live. Nor is blaming people you don’t even know for your problems. POC need to feel proud of who they are, which is something that’s hard to do with Critical Race Theory

    1. @princez413, you’re simply proving my point. Racism isn’t a political party and isn’t always overt. Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism is a form of racism that is embedded through laws and regulations within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other issues. Again, racism isn’t necessarily overt, it can even come from a well intentioned place which is what I alluded to in my comment which you responded to. To your point there are racists then and even now, who happen to be Democrats, which is the same for Republicans. Now, your attempt to demonize Democrats suggests that you support who the Republican party is today.

      Your truth is your reality, and I’m not here to argue that truth, it’s what makes you who you are.

    2. @Willy Bones answered eight hours .ago. hadnt seen any further chat.. One point is that to me ‘truth’ means objective facts, not conjecture or opinion.

  4. The Republicans knew who they were getting when they adopted the “Southern Strategy” and today they accommodated it.

    1. @Viva La Raza! They never really did. We all knew what Nixon’s Southern strategy was when he enunciated it.

    2. @hac198582 Oh, you’re one of those MAGAZombies who believe the Dixiecrats never split off from the Democrats before the Southern Strategy convinced them to join the Republicans, and that Robert Byrd died an unrepetentant lifetime Klansman. 🍊🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️

    3. Yes. The southern strategy of pandering to whites, was mostly a failure of identity, as it excluded everyone else. Trump came along, and made it very clear, this was to be embraced, and won the electoral college.

      However, now Democrats are responding poorly, by pandering to blacks (almost to the exclusion of everyone else). We did not need to counter GOP racial identity of party, with one of our own.

      Bad mistake.

    1. @Dumptruck Woo you too. Sorry for my assumption I have retracted. I have encountered many people recently who dont care about slavery of other races if it did not happen in America

    2. @BlaQ Bay17 There is slavery in America right now, but they don’t care about that either

    3. Shouldn’t the sports teams being financed by, representing or playing in a particular city have the same percentage or racial make up as that city? For instance, San Francisco 49ers have a huge percentage of black players on that team. However, the black population of San Francisco is only about 6%. Shouldn’t a football team then be about 6% black?

    4. @Crab People Please identify the locations where there is Slavery. I am a political adviser to various democrat lawmakers as well as to our DNC. We have a very close relationship with the US Justice Department, now. If you have any inside knowledge of locations in the United States in which there is slavery please advise me immediately.

    1. @BlaQ Bay17 I do not support it. Where the he’ll did you get that idea? I support Americans and the fact that it was the Democrats that were the racist party is well documented. But as I put in my original post Repulicans are the racist. I believe every human should be treated with equity. So kma.

    2. @Bill Rodriguez now you seem a little bit trumpian confused because the Jim Crow are all Republican trumpian fools and that’s why they’re trying to remove the true black history out of schools in all red states

    3. @Bill Rodriguez you’re just picking fights with everyone, aren’t you. You bet I’m outraged & alarmed by attacks that threaten natl security, like the attacks on Jan 6 & the ones by Russia! I’m a patriot! Snide, condescending comments from online twerps like you don’t shake my love of country.

  5. “state of maturity as a society” waw, first time I finally hear someone else make this statement / reflection ; indeed, many human societies are still as immature as they were 2000 years ago, the tools have evolved, the mindset of many people wielding these tools are eras behind

  6. History has always been taught very slanted. It’s about time for the facts about the founding to be told accurately.

    1. Critical race theory does not teach accurately……it teaches hate and division. AN individuals actions are the only thing that determines his outcome. Teach personal responsibility. ANything else from any angle is a crime against our future

    2. @andrea Perry
      Andrea, I know all about Critical Race Theory. People who defend critical race theory in public forums speak in vagaries and play hide the ball with the true agenda of critical race theory.

      Critical Race Theory teaches white children that They ARE oppressors, it teaches black children that they ARE victims. It teaches that any disparity of outcome is due to racism. It’s untrue and it will tear this country apart.

      Their foundational texts are not cryptic. They EXPLICITLY teach the REJECTION of The Enlightenment, it teaches the REJECTION of rationalism.
      they ‘reject Legal reasoning’
      they reject ‘rule of law’.
      They reject ‘the neutral principle of constitutional law’.
      Critical race theory is RADICAL. It is a deliberate REJECTION of liberal values. It was “Designed to reject the tenets of the fundamental liberal order”;
      “We reject equality theory” (this is straight out of one of their books).

      Did you think equality was the point? No… It’s not.

      Republicans are on top of this. Now DEMOCRATS need to wake up and understand what they’re doing to our children. This is easily something fit for bipartisan cooperation.

    3. @James Braid My comment was actually about the content of the video, not the title. Apparently you didn’t watch it.

    4. Great idea, lets start with what group of African peoples who were selling those slaves to Europeans. If we want to push slavery as a subject in schools lets also teach about the people in America who are slaves RIGHT NOW.

  7. Yes, it is tiresome and frustrating that we are having to live through yet another attempt to whitewash history. Giving in to it is not an option.

    1. @Bat Boy how about your past reflects your future? Have you ever heard of the saying? Kmsl.

    2. @Reason because you can’t refute my remarks. You should not do things that will reflect your future. So that’s why you people are afraid and angry.

  8. The bills the Dems are trying to pass now are the ones that have been on Mitchell Mcconnels desk for years..
    He has been sitting on them and gloating calling himself “THE GRIMM REAPER” And proud of it.

    1. actually no. bills that do not get passed during the current term expire and are trashed. every new session of congress starts with zero bills, and they write their own. that’s why the new term bills always start with the number one, as in the HR1, this term’s first bill, the ‘for the people’ voting rights bill.

      didn’t any of you watch ‘schoolhouse rock’?

    2. @Ridiculously Ro Jackson you’re confused because you listening to “Becky-wit-da-good-hair” try to bring us down instead of people like Kwame Brown who is trying to lift our community up

    3. @i dont have time 2 reply wait who am I listening to and I’m for uplifting my people lol Mitch McConnell is the enemy my friend

    4. @Ridiculously Ro Jackson Mitch McConnell is the enemy and they should be auditing his state too he probably stole his election

  9. The truth is often uncomfortable to acknowledge but learning from our mistakes and horrible things we did as a society/nation is the only way we can grow as a society.

    1. @Sarah F. 4.1 missinformation how just look for the facts its all thier might be like 4 or 5 paragraghs in but they will eventually tell you the truth. DEMOCRATS ARE THE TRUE RACIST

    2. I told my kids to just sleep in this class and I will pay them to fail it and write clowning answers on test and make it the joke that it really is…

    3. @Heavy Metal Gaming =Kremlin Bot, who pretends to have kids, and be American, using Google translate from Russian to English, PLAINLY.

    4. @Kenneth C I don’t know bro…That’s a question for someone that’s not a bold,strong,independent man like myself

    5. @hac198582 Democrats opposed Civil Rights. Democrats introduced draconian sentencing laws disproportionately impacting minorities.

    1. Lol Um our founding fathers believed in a white republic.
      They would have been marching with the brave young white men carrying tiki torches four years ago when the entire establishment media and federal government came down on them. Just stop.

    2. great song, great album. I saw them in concert long ago (albeit that was long before the War on Errorism was released)

    3. @Carto Willis
      Sadly, I must agree. However, I would like to think the founding fathers would have evolved by 1810 with the emergence of the nascent Industrial Revolution. Still, it probably wouldn’t have stayed the Civil War; a slave being equal was-and some cases still is-an abomination to white southerners who elevated white superiority to an icon status.

    1. So you have an issue with creationism being taught in school but not crt? Hmm.

      As a Christian myself, I don’t think religion OR crt belongs in school. I want my children to learn how to read, write and math.

  10. I remember 50 years ago in college learning that the publishers of public school history books made three different texts for each grade. The North taught the Civil War, the South taught the War Between the States, and the West taught a Plague on Both Houses. There has always been more than one way to tell any story.

    1. Yeah but the point in those texts is the political choices.. There are things we are proud of and gladly talk about, and there’s things we know we should be ashamed of and thus ignores – to the detriment of the education.

    2. @Derguz BS to both of you. There is one history and it isn’t pretty. I vote for the honest truth to each child and adult, Wake the eff up.

    3. almost all usa public school textbooks are picked by texas, because they have the most students, and thus the most influence over publishers.

    1. except that math, spelling, and grammar are done by computers, and books are a dying artifact, with libraries closing all over the country. they even stopped bothering to teach handwriting.

      so loojs like you’re a bit behind the times there, gramps.

  11. Have you ever heard the saying “don’t do anything that you won’t be proud of in the future?” Or “your past will reflect your future?” Hmmmm

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