Teen Vogue tells young readers that CRT isn’t really being taught in K-12 schools
April 27, 2022
In a new piece, Teen Vogue writes that Critical Race Theory really isn’t taught in K-12 at all, that’s all a “strawman.” It is taught in college — and that’s where it’s vital, they also say.
A significant part of the argument against CRT is precisely that it is taught in colleges, the very places where teachers gain their training. So, all the teachers come back to the schools convinced that CRT is the very thing that describes America and so incorporate it into all of their teaching.
That is, it’s not the teaching of CRT in K-12 that is the problem, it’s the influence of it.
Teen Vogue goes on to make a further argument. Which is that the folks who really need CRT in college are the people of color. For CRT will explain to them why they don’t do as well as people not of color. Society is stacked against them because of that structure of institutional racism.
This will make them activists. No, really, that is the argument:
“By highlighting shared systemic disadvantages, it can also help the formation of intersectional alliances between groups representing underserved communities.
“The activism among students of color in recent years has been vital in pressuring college leaders to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.”
Note what is not being said – that CRT will actually aid in solving any of those problems. Only that it will create a new generation of activists to fight against The Man. Which we might take to be the point of the exercise taking this argument as presented. For the claim is that more resources must be devoted to teaching CRT at the college level.
Teen Vogue tells us that it’s “educating the influencers of the future” and thus we need to pay attention to what they think is the education of course. Traffic to the site is some 4 million visits a month, but it’s much more influential than that in the specific segment of teenage girls.
What also interests is who is putting this argument forward. The author, Cobretti Williams, is a Ph.D. who works at being an editor for diversity, equity and inclusion. Just the sort of person who would benefit if more resources were spent by colleges on CRT and equity, diversity and inclusion. But we’d have to be the most terrible cynics to make that point, wouldn’t we?