Extremists target truth

To The Eagle:

Anti-C.R.T. mania and book banning are the latest tactics being employed by reactionary White supremacist conservatives in the Republican party, to derail the racial justice movement.

Recently, Critical Race Theory (C.R.T.), an academic concept examining the evidence and effects of institutional racism, and taught exclusively to post graduate and law school students, has been catapulted into the public dialogue. It has become the catch-all phrase of those seeking to censor or actually expunge educational discussions dealing with race or racial justice in American schools.

Fearmongering by politically motivated forces claiming C.R.T. to be ‘anti white’ indoctrination, the rapid passage of Republican dominated legislation barring the accurate teaching of America’s history in classrooms around the country, threat-laden attacks at school board meetings and against school administrators, and sweeping book bans, starkly illustrate the ever-shifting weapons being leveled at our multiracial democracy by autocratic, racist influencers in the G.O.P.

Today’s anti-C.R.T. hysteria epitomizes yet another dangerous and anti-democratic effort to suppress and deny the voices, power, and lived experiences of Black and Brown people in America. Right wing extremists are targeting the truth itself. The implications of this are being felt across the country.

I concur with Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund, that “today’s fight for truth is part of an ongoing battle for justice. Without truth, there’s no basis for our demands for justice.” We must fight in our public schools and libraries to preserve the inspiring and sometimes unpleasant truths of our history, “in order to teach our children who they are, who we are, and all of the possibilities of what we can become.”

The Eagle’s reporter, Diana Zimmerman, thought it germane to recently pose the ‘C.R.T. question’ to school board candidates, with good reason, I think. Parents who thought that being involved in their kid’s education merely meant helping them with their homework, now find themselves attending P.T.A. meetings that have been transformed into existential battlegrounds in a fight to preserve those truths needing to be taught in the courses of their children’s education.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island