Critical Race Theory

My state, Virginia, just had a gubernatorial election. That's an election where someone is elected to be the governor of the state. (Although, Virginia is a Commonwealth, like Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.) 

The Republican candidate (I'll call him R) had a strategy for defeating the Democratic candidate (I'll call him D). He (R) ran a series of TV ads that implied that D, if elected, would have Critical Race Theory taught in public schools. Many people, especially senor citizens, were very opposed to teaching Critical Race Theory in schools and so they voted for R. The strategy worked.

But what, exactly, is Critical Race Theory and why are so many people opposed to teaching it? First, a few facts.

Critical Race Theory is not taught in Virginia public schools.

Critical Race Theory is not taught in American public schools.

Critical Race Theory is a collegiate level course. And even in universities, most students will never encounter Critical Race Theory, because:

Critical Race Theory is a subject taught in law schools.

What is Critical Race Theory? If I could explain it in this blog post, I doubt that it would be taught in law schools. But to put it into as few words as possible, Critical Race Theory explains how some laws that don't mention race can nevertheless be racist and produce racist outcomes in our society.

But the Republican strategy relied on the fact that most people are firmly opposed to teaching Critical Race Theory, even though they don't know what it is and cannot tell you why they are opposed to it. They just know they don't like it, and that's good enough for them.

Here we have the dumbing-down of America on display. Do you remember Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" segment called "Jay Walking"? Leno would stand on a busy sidewalk and stop occasional young people (high-school and college-age) who were passing by and ask them to answer a very simple question. Such as, which is closer, the sun or the moon? Can you point to America on this map of the world? Who is America's Vice President? Rarely could a young person answer Jay's question. 

But if you ask the right question, you can be assured no one will know the answer. "What is Critical Race Theory?" is one such question. People are strongly opposed to teaching it, while at the same time, they don't know what it is. They can't give you a hint of what the subject is about. All they know for sure is that it has the word "race" in it, and they're pretty sure it's not about NASCAR. 

And so R won the governor's race by scaring people about something that was never going to happen. I shouldn't say "never." After all, I can't see the future. Maybe one day our public high schools will be teaching law school courses and turning out lawyers on graduation day. (For the literalists among you, that's called sarcasm.)