The usual liberal line is that critical race theory isn’t being taught in schools. It’s just an obscure academic discipline, the left says, one that has no place in the classroom. Instead, they claim, conservatives have used the term to fear-monger and get parents up in arms.
In this respect, you have to hand it to Rep. Rashida Tlaib of “The Squad.” Not only does the Michigan Democrat acknowledge critical race theory is in the classrooms, she’s going to fight like heck to keep it there — and “continue pushing back” on concerned parents who show up to school board meetings, who she says are peddling “white supremacy.”
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According to Breitbart, Tlaib made the remarks during an online meeting of the Oakland County Democrat Party African American Committee, where she told attendees they “can’t allow [parents] to whitewash history.”
“Their intention is to try to, you know, expand on white supremacy,” she said.
The remarks were in response to a question from a participant: “For those who may not know, critical race theory examines the systematic effects of white supremacy in America,” she said.
“My question for candidates here is, if elected, how will use your power to make sure K-12 schools, educators, are able to build curriculums that bring awareness to the history of white supremacy, layers of racism, bias, and how that currently exists today?”
Critical race theory, for the unaware, is a far-left field of academic thought that originated in legal studies but has since been extrapolated to other disciplines. The highly subjective theory holds that America is structurally racist, that the racist bias benefits whites and that all institutions must be critiqued through the lens of race.
Should critical race theory be rooted out of schools?
Yes: 96% (192 Votes)
No: 4% (7 Votes)
The injection of critical race theory into curricula in some Virginia schools — particularly in Fairfax and Loudoun counties — sparked bitter battles between parents and school board members at public meetings, with the results oft going viral.
The ensuing controversy was a catalyst for a rare Republican sweep of statewide offices, including the governorship, in 2021 off-year elections.
Since then, Democrats and liberals have tried to convince voters critical race theory is little more than a dog-whistle and a bogeyman by the GOP. Not Tlaib, though.
“We won’t be able to confront it if history is written upon falsehoods after falsehoods,” Tlaib said.
“On the local level, I’m going to show up and be vocal about these efforts. I’m going to continue to train, you know, neighbors and community groups on how to, you know, get folks like us running for office so that we have folks again with various lived experiences making those decisions.”
She also acknowledged that, yes, others in the party had warned her to steer clear of the issue — but she was paying them no heed.
“One of the things that continue to push back with urgency is my colleagues who say, ‘don’t talk about critical race theory, Rashida, this is not the time,’” Tlaib acknowledged.
“You got to continue pushing back on white supremacy in our country, because this is exactly how you enable them to pretend it’s not actually happening.”
And those white supremacists? Why, the parents who show up at school board meetings, of course.
“It is happening,” she said of the parents. “They’re showing up at our school board meetings right now. They are intentional about making sure that we’re not speaking truth to our children.”
Tlaib also claimed these parents didn’t want teachers telling their children that “slavery was bad.”
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Tlaib, like every other member of “The Squad” — the far-left group of Democrat House legislators who have a substantial Twitter following but not much real-world power — is in a district so safe she could say virtually anything and get re-elected. Getting behind critical race theory isn’t going to hurt her brand at all. In fact, she’d likely be in bigger trouble with her activist base if her answer were more nuanced.
The rest of the Democrats, however, definitely cringed over this one — particularly her insistence that parents showing up at school board meetings complaining about indoctrination were supporting “white supremacy.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland already got President Joe Biden’s administration in hot water when he sent out an October 2021 memo directed to the FBI which seemed to indicate he considered parents’ groups protesting at school board meetings to be “threats.”
In testimony given to Congress, Garland insisted the memo only addressed “concerns about violence, threats of violence, other criminal conduct.”
That sounded unconvincing, but who the heck knows what’s up at the Department of Justice? We do know what’s up with Rashida Tlaib, however: She considers parents against indoctrination to be defending “white supremacy” and made it clear she’ll “continue pushing back” in the name of critical race theory.
The rest of the Democratic House Caucus mightn’t be too pleased with these remarks, however.
Consider that — already facing a red wave in this November’s midterms — the Democrats are down by four points to the Republicans on education, according to a June poll commissioned by Education Reform Now Advocacy and conducted by Impact Research. While 47 percent of respondents in battleground districts trust the GOP on the issue, only 43 percent favor the Democrats.
Also keep in mind that, as Breitbart pointed out, Education Reform Now Advocacy is a left-wing group — and education is an issue the Democrats usually have a major advantage on.
“This poll shows that Democrats’ historic advantage on education has been erased,” said Matt Hogan of Impact Research.
“While Democrats typically enjoyed a double-digit advantage on which party was more trusted on education before the pandemic, voters in these battleground districts now narrowly trust Republicans more on the issue.”
Those numbers might not be so narrow, however, if voters hear Tlaib’s unhinged rant about parents engaging in “white supremacy” simply because they don’t want their kids to be indoctrinated in critical race theory and they let their school board know about it. Just saying.
