By Mona Austin
The media is lacking the truth on Critical Race Theory. We need trusted sources who are associated with the work to explain what it means. So, "What is Critical Race Theory" and why is it controversial? If anyone knows the subject inside and out it is professor Kimberle W. Crenshaw. CNN's Don Lemon invited Crenshaw, a Columbia Law Professor who is one of the originators of the subject, to address what CRT is (and is not) on his show. She revealed that Conservatives who oppose it do not understand CRT is only offered at the college level and simply explores systematic racism at its core. Detractors are falsely claiming it is being offered to school aged children, is a weapon of identity politics and is intended to paint White people as inherently racist. Crenshaw said on MSNBC's The Reid Out that "Critical Race Theory is a way of looking at race and the point was to think and talk about how laws contributed to the subordinate status of African Americans and indigenous people. The point was to understand the problem in order to intervene in it."
[Updated on October 6. 2021]
Essentially, the heated national discourse on this issue is baseless as the definition of CRT was robbed from academic intellectuals by under-educated politicians and parents. The issue has gotten blown out of proportion and as long as people continue to talk about it out of context, the vast majority of Americans will never know the menaing or the value of CRT. Some supporters who are just becoming familiar with CRT think it should be taught in schools to help identify systemic racism and promote racial reconciliation. The loudest voices against it are people like Ben Shapiro and parents, mostly White conservative ones (but not allm there are Black parents who reject CRT too), who are not confortable accepting the blame for racism.
Republicans with little to no knowlege of the subject matter are banning together to debunk CRT and block it from being shared with school-aged children, a non-existent issue. Peope on both sides of the argument claims that other is trying to rewrite American history.
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott has added to the confusion on the subject. In July, Abbott prescribec the "CRT bill" that denounces teaching about American's racist past in the state. Placing this tyoe of study under the heading of CRT was inaccurate.
In Montana Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen banned the teaching of CRT in schools on the grounds that it violates federal and state constitutions and is racist in and ot itself. The decision came after Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen requested that Knudsen weigh in on the issue. Schools, workplaces and governments can lost funding in Montanna if CRT is taught or used in traning as a results of the ban.
According to the AP: ACLU of Montana executive director Caitlin Borgmann accused them of trying to “impose an alternate version of American history — one that erases the legacy of discrimination and lived experiences of Black and Brown people.”
Ben Shapiro and Malcom Nance Spar over CRT