What is Critical Race Theory?

Episode Art by Eliza Kingsley! You can find her at Instagram @epikot.and her website portfolio elizakingsley.com. 

Critical Race Theory has been a hot topic in education and politically all of 2020 up until present day (March 2022). In this episode I talk about the context of the term " Critical Race Theory" which I refer to as CRT during the episode for short. I speak about different points of views parents might be  concerned about  and the impact it has on our students.  Who are the people that have time for this and why are they upset? My overall take is that there is some degree of empathy and self awareness that we need in order to talk about the root problems!

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Hello, welcome to inclusive education IRL. Today's episode is going to be about critical race theory, and what the heck this is all about, because it's really complicated in the news, but I'm going to try to break it down for you. So quick update, I have not been able to record for a while, but I've been doing a ton of research on critical race theory since December. And the main reason why I wanted to talk about this was because every time I looked into it more, the less sense it made. And I've sunk a lot of hours into this. And I watched a ton of YouTube videos and a bunch of like Fox News Channel stuff, their reports and like CNN, and basically any, like articles I can find online that were trending, and tried, I just read everything I possibly could and watched on this subject. And it's still kind of unfolding in February 2022. And it's kind of changed more into banning books, which is gonna be the next episode. So no one had really talked about critical race theory, almost at all, if you look at Google Trends before 2020. And what really set it off was the murder of George Floyd. And there was conversations that happened to people in the country, we're all kind of looking for answers to how something like that can happen to an American citizen in this country. A lot of people were like, Oh, we are beyond racism. This is scary that this happened. And because this isn't supposed to happen if there's no racism. So in response to that a lot of people started talking about race and kind of noticing that there's inequalities regarding race. And so what was done to kind of address that was when it that term critical race theory, it had already existed in the 70s. It was a, it's a law term, that the reason the law term was created was because so the authors of this law, they wanted to examine why there was still inequality after the civil rights movement. So they were looking at loss and how they affect different groups of people and how they affected African Americans and other minority groups negatively. So like, they started to look at law in that way. So that's where that term critical race theory comes from. And those people are still alive and well, still doing interviews on YouTube, if you look it up, and they ask them questions about like, is CRT teaching white people to hate themselves? And they're like, No, it's not like, we're just happy that people are talking about it as a term, when the term really started. So the first time that the term is mentioned, by president at that time, President Trump, it was already out of context of what was, which is kind of funny, because he warned he warned federal agencies against critical race theory, labeling as it as divisive. And he actually tried to follow up with an executive order, making sure that the United States could not train people in critical race theory, that has never really happened in the textbook definition of it. That is a law theory examining laws. And a lot of people say, you know, it's a college level course, it's a, it's a course in law school that a lot of lawyers haven't taken. So that's what the actual term means. But it's come to mean a lot more, especially within the United States. We're using it kind of as a culture, cultural, like war kind of thing. And I want to go more into what that means to me, since 2021, has started, which is basically a year ago from now. So since 2021, the term critical race theory, although a lot of schools have been shut down during 2021 Digital, a lot of parents have been really involved and picked up this term, because there's been so much

Unknown Speaker  4:38  
media kind of demonizing critical race theory and that it's being taught in schools and that we have to be very careful about what that is. And to not allow teachers and staff and I would say like, left wing media to kind of downplay what's really happening in school. pools. So what I'm really talking about is, like Fox News, definitely was one of the promoters of this idea. There's a guy called Christopher Ruffo, which that's kind of like critical race theory is like his child like he helped promote it on Fox News. What people have kind of picked up on it on picked up on critical race theory is that it is harmful, it's they made it into something super scary. I've watched a bunch of videos about like parents at PTA meetings like parent teacher meetings, parents are like super concerned about if critical race theory is being taught to their children. If it's not, I basically all the parents are concerned, if it's being taught, they're not concerned about it not being taught. So the concerns, from what I've seen are like in two separate camps, some parents are saying that look, racism. So this is where it already goes off track, it does not track to how it doesn't, it already stops making sense to me right here. So some parents are saying critical race theory should not be taught because I am a person of color. And just because I'm a person of color, does not mean that I can be successful. That's one type of narrative that has been pushed to parents. And then there's a separate narrative that is the most dominant that I've seen in the news, I can't say all of them are, but a lot of them are white. And a lot of them are concerned about their children, feeling shame, or hating themselves based on the actions of white people in the past. So like these parents are really concerned, they feel like their children are being wronged a lot of them are withdrawing their students organizing, which is great, and like petitioning to the schools to make changes. And this has really picked up steam. They put pressure on different teachers that have kind of tried to be more inclusive in their teaching practice by like asking pronouns for their students and teaching about the history of our country and how it's persecuted. So many, it's basically every ethnic group that's ever lived here, or has come here, which is, it's just the facts. Oh, so these parents, they have companies, teachers jobs, they've come for the ministers jobs that have stood by their teachers that are trying to teach facts about our country and make others feel welcomed in the space. They've gone after them. Try to get them fired as a collective. My experience personally with the CRT has been one of like, what's going on? Like, I'm not sure like I haven't, I don't really watch the news very often, or try to keep up with them, like reading wise. So 2021, I did not realize how big of a topic it was. Most of my teaching in 2021 was done digitally. I did summer in Los Angeles. Then I moved to Phoenix and I came back in person. So California and Arizona are different places. And Los Angeles, I throw snow CRT in Arizona, or debate. There's no CRT that they that I knew of in Arizona, there is some at a state level depending on what district you're in. But the school district that I work in is lower income. So no one really is concerned about CRT being taught, or there's differences like in terms of like the state and like local level, like we really have to fight to get masks on our students.

Unknown Speaker  9:25  
Those are the differences that I see. But CRT hasn't really affected me personally, like I've seen in like media sources and people have other teachers that I've interacted with online, have met through that, you know, a lot of people have lost their jobs because of it because parents are saying like accusing teachers of teaching CRT, which is really it just kind of feels like it's just like a political boogeyman of teaching. Basically, anything they disagree with could be labeled as CRT, which makes it really hard to define. Because whatever definition we're using, it's constantly moving. People have lost their jobs. So others have quit because they don't like where it's going. Like I haven't looked into it too much, but I feel like there was a big controversy with certain states wanted teachers to turn in their lesson plans for the whole year, before they met their students in order to ensure that there was no CRT curriculum in their lessons. And more and more, we're seeing more books being fanned, which was like books that are pretty much considered canon. They're Zora Neale Hurston like their eyes, Were Watching God To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm not sure which other ones for like, pretty well accepted and acknowledged books have been banned. I feel like it's. And it's all like the backlash from like parents, which parents have, they have a lot of power in the school districts and over the education of their I mean over the educational system, because it is there to serve them. But what I'm seeing is that a lot of the parents that are using this power are misusing it. And a lot of them come from the same background, which is like wealthy, white, and very conservative. And they want to maintain their points of views. But the other side of this whole thing is that, you know, everyone else, all the other parents and teachers, you know, they have their own opinions too, just because they don't have the time or like power, like financial power to be able to push their agenda forward in our current system doesn't mean that their opinions are less than a lot of people that I talked to my friends, I want to shout out Erica specifically like she really got me thinking, I was like, What do you think about, you know, critical race theory. She's a parent, what she said was that, you know, she wishes that that would be taught more in school. So like people can understand about other cultures and as Americans that we will be able to have more empathy towards each other, which I was like, wow, that's it. That's what I want. I want people to have more empathy towards each other. That's basically what I want to do as a teacher. That's, that's it. I mean, like, that's, that's the goal. At least for me personally, like the I that's what I really value. Critical Race Theory is basically just is a term that's being used as a boogeyman to like, it's scary. It's teaching people to hate themselves. It's teaching division, like it's sowing division amongst classmates and people of different races. But what I think it is really critical race theory is being used as a tool to kind of stop the conversation of racism and and how it affects people. That's the function that I see it surfing currently, especially in the media, and it just kind of moves the conversation away from like, how

Unknown Speaker  13:40  
can we collaborate with each other? within schools? Like I think there's definitely a lot to be learned from our history, and talking about race directly. A lot of teachers shy away from it. No matter what race they are, or what age group they are, I've seen it happen. And with my own eyes, people are like, I haven't done enough research. I need to read more about this. Like, I'm not sure if it's my place to talk about race or racism. But it definitely is like, you know, a lot more about it than the students most likely. Or you might learn a lot from the students themselves. And the way that we teach our history as well. There's a lot to be learned about how certain groups of people have been treated, basically, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, cycles of violence cycles of genocide cycles of exploiting patient like it just happens over and over. And it's not like a new thing. Mass incarceration, like how are those laws set up as well? There's so much that can be talked about in that space that really isn't talked about, like for example, Black History Month right now, the school just kind of gives out like a random facts about a random black person in the US. And it's really disheartening to see or to hear in the morning because like, no one thinks about it twice. Not even the kid that reading it, like she just fumbles every single word because he's never read any of them before. I think that's hilarious. But we have a long way to go to kind of celebrate our students heritage, and like their contributions to this country. You know, that's, I think that's the biggest challenge. Like there's no huge conspiracy of teachers teaching like critical race theory, because a lot of them, you know, aren't willing or they don't feel capable of doing it. And honestly, we don't have enough time in the day to plan anything extra. And race is always seen as something extra that they is not seen as like the most important or the most vital thing to our students education. Yeah, like my kids are like, I'm so focused on them learning third letter sounds and like their letters and like how to write in between the lions, that, like race seems like such a distant topic, they get it and they get it like they get it, they understand like power structures, and not everyone is treated the same. Even if they don't know each individual letter in the alphabet. That's something that affects them whether they like it or not. So that's going to be our episode on critical race theory. It's still an unfolding book. The next episode, I'm going to talk about that banned book list that's going around. A lot of different states are pushing for this legislation. Bunch of states try to go after critical race theory like or even at the local level. But since there's no definition, they can't really do that. So now they're just spanning particular books. And exciting news for the podcast is that on my podcast website, there are now transcripts for all the episodes, the transcript for this episode will also be up around the same time that I released that episode. So that's awesome. And please rate this podcast five stars on your Apple. Look at the podcast description. There's my Twitter, I am now on Twitter. So if you're listening to this web, if you've gotten this far, thank you. And you can tweet me your reactions from now on because I'm going to have the Twitter associated with this podcast. So yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, let me know. Tweet at me screenshot that five star review. And I'll see you on the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai