The Fight Over Critical Race Theory

The critical race theory battle has quickly invaded school boards all across the country – ...

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The critical race theory battle has quickly invaded school boards all across the country – but is everyone arguing in bad faith? The gang considers the politics of CRT and the role of legislators in regulating public school curriculum. Plus, Sarah points out the flaws in issue polling and why we should be skeptical of the results. Finally, foreign policy galore. What should Biden say to Putin? Is this summit practice for an eventual showdown with China? Should Ukraine join NATO?

Show Notes:

–Poll: 29% of Republicans think Trump will be reinstated

–For the People (Data for Progress) poll

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  1. Avatar photo
    Eric "Otter" Stratton

    Taiwan is a country.

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  2. Ben P

    I think this is the second time I've heard the claim on The Dispatch Podcast that CRT types are pushing "math is racist" ideas in our schools.

    I googled "math is racist" and found a bunch of outrage-porn type opinion articles, some of which cite nothing and some of which cite this:

    https://equitablemath.org/

    I skimmed through the documents on this website for any claims like "there's no such thing as objectively correct answers to math questions" or "making students show their work is racist" or, as Steve puts it, "2+2=5". I couldn't find them. A lot of it is just advocating good teaching practices, like getting students to understand *why* mathematical methods work rather than just rewarding them for getting the answer right, or developing number sense, or using the fact that there are multiple ways to solve most math problems as a teaching tool. And yes, there is plenty in there about race and plenty that I'm sure many readers here would object to. But I'm not finding anything close to "math is racist". I'm sure there are some people out there saying "math is racist", especially in the darker corners of the internet. But the point Steve made is that "math is racist" is seeping into school curricula, and most of the opinion pieces I see making that claim cite a document that belies it.

    I hope that if Steve or anyone else on The Dispatch makes this claim again, they'll drop a primary source (as opposed to an opinion piece) into the show notes so that we can take a look and see exactly what is being claimed.

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  3. Icarus213

    I think our normally very culturally in-touch panelists are really missing the mark on CRT / Racial stuff in America.

    Something changed in America about 5-10 years ago, I would say sometime between 2012 and 2015, and the change was intellectual and cultural. It wasn't a top-down change, and it wasn't the result of any political event or law.

    I saw it happen on the internet, debating people I disagreed with, and they were mostly on the center-left. I am on the center-right. Sometime around 2013, I was talking with someone about race, and I said in passing that of course our goal on race in America was blind equality, a colorblind world where everyone is treated the same, and skin color eventually becomes as unimportant as being left-handed or having brown eyes. Race is something to be transcended in favor of our greater common humanity. My debating partner disagreed with this point, and said "no, no, color-blindness is a myth, we will never get to a colorblind America, nor should we. Race has a huge impact on your experience of the world, and it always will." I was stunned at this reply; not only how different it was from what I assumed most liberals accepted as a goal, but the confidence with which he said the point, as if this was quite obvious, and perhaps I was trying to weasel out of facing the Important Issue with my position.

    I started reflecting on this idea: if race is a very important and inescapable reality of Who You Are, the lens through which you see the entire world, and escaping that reality is futile, and indeed even a kind of red herring that only oppressors might want you to try, then.... then the only solution going forward is to construct a kind of grand algorithm by which we can all interact with every person we meet, and that algorithm must be based on race. We must take into account race in every situation, every conversation.

    From then on, once I saw this worldview, I couldn't unsee it, and it seemed that every NPR episode, every thoughtful question asked by a podcaster of a guest, every ad campaign, was increasingly infused with this conviction of racial essentialism. And yes, while the root ideas these are based on are not academically new, the widespread cultural adoption of them IS new. I'm a little disturbed that our wonderful hosts seem to be missing this. Yes, the backlash about this might be a moral panic, but it's a reaction to something that really is very different from the Bush era, and even the early Obama era. Something has changed.

    David might be right about his proscription on what to do about this, but I'm a bit disturbed that he thinks this is really no different than the early-90s PC wave, and that it is the anti-CRT folks who are overreacting. I can't stress how toxic and divisive these kinds of ideas are, and if you want to wake up a kind of White identity politics in America, I can't imagine a better way to do it.

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  4. Avatar photo
    David Burke

    Well, Steve. You over-spoke and had too much “Sunday“ morning QB-ing going on vis a vis Biden/Putin.

    Uncle Joe did a great job and explained himself perfectly.

    Put a dollar in the kitty, Hayes.

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    1. CRS

      He won't acknowledge that. On the pod, he made a lot of "great" power and nodding. The kind of stuff Jesse Watters says. Is Steve a journalist or a foreign policy expert?

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      1. CRS

        Sometimes he sounds like neither.

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  5. Sam King

    Breaking news... Gallatin county Kentucky, who's only attraction is the Kentucky Motor Speedway, has outlawed the teaching of CRT. I bet those two democrats in Sparta are pissed.

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  6. CRS

    Steve is nitpicking on Biden and Russia. He called out Biden for calling Russia a great power. Well, I think the Europeans certainly recognize and fear Russia's power, and Russia has more nukes than any country other than the US (I believe). They are doing military maneuvers around the world. I don't think that stating the obvious elevates their status in the eyes of the world. It's hypersensitive.

    And nodding when someone is asking a question? I think that's a reflexive thing as likely as anything. Steve just nitpicks on Obama/Biden foreign policy all the time. OK to have substantial disagreements, but this is a little tiresome. How is Steve's record on foreign policy?

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    1. CRS

      Biden certainly does not trust Putin. He has stood apart from many Ds and Rs who have trusted Putin, for a long time. To say this, based on nodding during during a question, is just not worthy of serious discussion. Waste of time listening to this type of stuff.

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  7. John Townson

    I really appreciate Steve and to a lesser extent Jonah pushing back on David's somewhat dismissive approach to CRT in classrooms. I have listened to David on several occasions including his debate with Chris Rufo on Bari Weiss' podcast. I think he is making this more complicated than it needs to be.

    To borrow from the Clinton campaign " It's the K-12 schools , stupid."

    Most Americans are pretty tolerant of radical ideas on college campuses and I do think given the free speech protections on campuses David's prescription here of litigating is appropriate. But it is a completely different matter when it comes to injecting those same radical ideas into curricula of K-12 schools, where the college campus free speech protections do not apply. David seems to acknowledge the difference at times but when pushed on the K-12 issue he goes back to the college campus example, jumping from Bailey to Motte ( I learned something from that Bari Weiss podcast).

    David's prescription for parents of K-12 children is to 1) run for school board and/or 2) sue under title 6 etc. This seems pretty darn out of touch with the overwhelming majority of American families who A; the last thing they want to do is get involved in a school board given all the pressures of time and money in their lives already, and B; do not have time and money to undertake a lawsuit that would take years to resolve. Little Johnny is going to enter school next fall and be exposed to this CRT anti white racist agenda in August. And David's answer is, "run for school board, get a lawyer." By the time this effort bears fruit, little Johnny will be running around with a bunch of racist garbage in his head.

    These are our children. Free speech protections don't apply K-12 schools they way they do in college. States have broad authority to set K-12 curricula and are using this authority to push back on CRT. Frankly I am heartened to see that somebody is pushing back on this mess. Ok, so it's an imperfect effort; let's help them improve it.

    Question for David: if you are against the states taking these actions, why do you seem to support local boards taking these actions?

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  8. Richard Fulmer

    Sarah and David’s partial defense of CRT is a bit reminiscent of the left’s “that’s not real socialism” defense of socialism. Both CRT and socialism are inherently flawed because both are rooted in collectives – people can be divided into oppressor and oppressed based on their skin color (CRT) or based on their class (socialism). Government policies must be based on race (CRT) or class (socialism). Wealth must be transferred collectively from oppressors to oppressed (both).

    There will never be a “real socialism” that produces peace and prosperity because socialism assumes warfare between classes – classes that socialism cannot, in practice, eliminate. CRT – whatever its useful bits – will never produce racial harmony because it assumes that, as long as people are different, people will oppress each other based on those differences. Given CRT's worldview, the only relevant question is: Who gets to be the oppressor and who the oppressed?

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      Tracie

      When you say "socialism" do you mean "Marxism?"

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      1. Richard Fulmer

        Gee, it's hard to choose, they both work so well.

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  9. Richard Fulmer

    Derrick Bell might roll his eyes at some of the things that are being called CRT, but CRT isn't all that well-defined even among its advocates. Moreover, how CRT and anti-racism are being implemented in K-12 schools and by corporate HR departments matters more than how they are defined by the Harvard faculty. The implementations may be based on misinterpretations by the vulgar, but it's the implementations that we're being forced to deal with.

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      Tracie

      Maybe CRT is more like a brand than a coherent system of ideas, at least in the way it's manifesting in the culture.

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  10. Richard Fulmer

    Jonah’s estimate of Russian power may be accurate, but he leaves unanswered the question of what to do about Putin’s string of cyber attacks and military probes and invasions. Common muggers may be far weaker than the local police force, but that isn’t an argument for letting them run rampant.

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    1. CRS

      Our responses are limited by our fear of their military power. If they didn't have nukes and everything else, we would treat them far differently. They are one of the very biggest military powers in the world. And more frustrating is the Catch 22 here. If Biden were to say they aren't a great military power, the same voices would be calling out Biden for underestimating the Russian military threat. It's not worthy of the Dispatch brand.

      And let's see what happens if (when?) China moves on Taiwan. Wouldn't that be an opportune time for Putin to make moves of his own in Eastern Europe, when we are distracted by and perhaps involved in Taiwan? Yes it would. We should worry about that. So they are a big military power and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

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      1. DJ

        Putin supposedly got very angry at Obama for calling Russia a regional power, so I suspect Biden figured it was better just to stroke Putin's ego rather than create new headaches.

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