CRITICAL RACE THEORY - A RED HERRING

By Anne Zeiser,
Founder of  Azure Media 
Author of Transmedia Marketing: From Film and TV to Games and Digital Media

The current disinformation campaign that Critical Race Theory is being taught in K-12 schools is a manufactured wedge issue designed to obfuscate and hamstring open dialogue about race and equity.

Critical Race Theory is a specific, 40-year-old framework for legal analysis to examine how racism is embedded in America’s laws and institutions. An example from the ‘30s: banks set geographical boundaries to refuse mortgages to Black Americans. Today, single-family zoning laws prevent affordable housing in majority-white neighborhoods, furthering segregation. The legal framework of Critical Race Theory is seminal to the interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which is why it is taught in law schools – not elementary schools.

Mobilized groups of citizens are now haranguing school districts nationwide, claiming that Critical Race Theory is or will be part of our public school districts’ curricula. They know it will not. They’re advancing a specious, fear-based multi-media propaganda campaign to brand any expression or examination of race, bias, or equity as venomous and attach the dog-whistle moniker of Critical Race Theory to it. The campaign’s mouthpiece is Christopher Rufo, a documentary filmmaker turned conservative activist, who revealed the intent of this documentary, social media, and publicity campaign in a March 15th tweet:

“We have successfully frozen their brand — 'critical race theory’— into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.”

The Heritage Foundation has used this propagandized blueprint, placing Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ clubs in schools, diversity training, ethnic studies, and the free-speech debate on college campuses all under the Critical Race Theory brand umbrella. They are not. They’re a living expression of our representative democracy, protected by the Constitution.

The end-goal of this conflation of any race and equity topics with Critical Race Theory is to shut down the growing and powerful discussion about equity in America. Architects of this campaign see danger in open dialogue or deeper understanding about race because of its power to change how we think about systemic racist constructs and individual unconscious bias. They protect an archaic and unexamined version of our history that blindly exalts our forebears and conceals our authentic story — fearing a more current and broader perspective translates into a loss of power for them. They miss that equity is not a zero sum game.

Ironically, this campaign to curb free speech and introspection is forwarded in the name of patriotism. In fact, a genuine examination of our history and the effects of unequal laws and practices on individuals and groups vis a vis the Constitution is woven into the fabric of what makes us truly American. It’s not “toxic”; it’s the hallowed work of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These kind of branding efforts, disinformation media campaigns, and control of curricula in schools are not new in this country. Today’s Critical Race Theory media machine takes a page – if not a chapter – out of the 75+ year-old playbooks of Big Tobacco, anti-evolutionists, and Big Oil. All have challenged consensus science with bogus studies and marketing campaigns to sow doubt about proven scientific facts – the link between smoking and cancer; the effects of mutation on natural selection; and the heating of the planet from burning fossil fuels. Big Tobacco placed cigarettes in actors’ hands in ads and movies. Anti-evolutionists and Big Oil lobbied for state legislation to require the teaching of "creation science" or “alternative climate science” in public schools. Already, 25 states are debating legislation to limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in the classroom. Eight have enacted these bans.Critical Race Theory sleight-of-hand to impede justice and progress.

Teaching bans still won’t stop the cultural awakening that has begun in this country. In the wake of George Floyd’s trial, much of white America has finally learned about The Tulsa Massacre and Juneteenth. There are countless such events that have been neatly excised from our historical, economic, social, and cultural self-understanding and teachings. They will emerge. They’re part of who we are just as much as the traditional accounts of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, and the U.S.’s commanding role in the modern world.

We must fearlessly examine our race-, gender-, ethnicity-, sexual orientation-, and religious-based assumptions. Our top U.S. military leader, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley believes it’s our responsibility to learn from our past and contextualize people, politics, military operations, and our Constitution to inform our future. In his June 23, 2021 testimony to Congress at the U.S. Capitol, he said:

“On the issue of critical race theory, I do think it’s important for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read. The United States Military Academy is a university and it is important that we train and we understand. And I want to understand white rage – and I’m white. What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind. I do want to analyze it. It’s important that we understand it. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians – they come from the American people. It’s important that leaders, now and in the future, understand it. I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?”

This latest salvo to silence open discussions of race and equity with Boogeyman rebranding as Critical Race Theory is yet another sleight-of-hand to impede justice and progress.