Vice says CRT isn’t being taught in schools, then details how it is changing teaching
June 20, 2022
We were told that Critical Race Theory had nothing to do with schools. Not at all, it’s something that law professors might mutter about in the recesses of the libraries, no more than that. Now that laws have been passed to make critical race theory something not to be talked about in schools apparently this is causing problems.
The conclusion we might draw from this is that CRT was indeed being used in schools — otherwise, how could there be problems?
This is not quite how Vice puts it but it is the underlying story here, headlined, “Critical Race Theory Panic Is Stopping Teachers from Teaching About Juneteenth.”
“We need to talk about race…” according to someone interviewed in the piece. “We have to have a practice of having these courageous conversations. And I can’t be the educator that I need to be for these kids under this [law].”
But if CRT wasn’t the way that schools talked about race then how can a ban on CRT prevent schools from talking about race?
“I became an educator to be the adult that I needed when I was a kid, the adult my daughter needed,” Vice quoted the chief equity officer for the Manchester School District. “And in order to do that work, I need to do this diversity, equity, and inclusion work.
“We need to talk about race. We need to talk about gender. We have to have a practice of having these courageous conversations. And I can’t be the educator that I need to be for these kids under this [law].”
Excellent. Talk about race. Talk about the failures to live up to the grand ideals, how we get closer and possibly still haven’t reached perfection. By all means, teach about race as we desire children to be taught about everything else.
It’s still true that the insistences of 6 months ago, that CRT never touched the K-12 classroom, seem to be proven untrue by these complaints now of how not being able to use CRT is upending the ability to teach K-12. Consistency is one of those cornerstones of logic after all.
Vice is a significant media outlet these days, the cable TV channel reaches 60 million American homes, the magazine has a 900,000 distribution. The website itself gains some 27 million visits a month.
We might call it one of life’s amusements, or perhaps a check sum on the logic deployed in political arguments. To compare what people complain will happen if with what they complain about when if has. CRT was nothing to do with schools, oh no. Now no CRT in schools is causing problems. So, which is it? CRT is in schools or not? Hello?