With the birth of every child, civilization must start anew. Parents and other adults are the major actors in rebuilding civilization and their first duties are to teach the child how care and fend for themselves in an often hostile world. Wariness is critical to surviving potential threats out in the open or those that lurk in the shadows. Adults must encourage wariness but not to the point of freezing solid in fear. Nuance is required in order to balance the threat/benefit relationship with the main goal of living as long as possible. In more precise terms, children must be educated and given examples of how to use that gained knowledge to not only live longer, but better as well. Seems obvious.
Today we see a movement in US civilization towards the disassembly of K-12 public education in favor of throwing those resources to conservative private and parochial education. Here in Colorado there is a silent group with out-of-state funding methodically getting far right, like-minded school board members elected. And it’s working. These groups wrap themselves in the flag playing Yankee Doodle, while often carrying a cross, and blow popular rightwing dog whistles as loud and often as they can. Currently, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the most popular generator of dread fear among a great many in the population.
The fear that the CRT “threat” seems to be aimed at is the American liberal arts education taught in the public schools and in universities. First, some clarity. A liberal arts education is not about indoctrinating kids to be a democrat. The word “liberal” has come to be an epithet in common usage by many. A liberal education is actually meant to learn about a variety of topics and ways of thinking- to be less dogmatic and narrow. It encourages open minds. It tries to be neutral on the religiosity scale as well. And it has been quite successful for generations. Look around and you’ll see an endless assortment of objects and systems whose invention was by people educated under the liberal arts education.
Definition from Wikipedia: “Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area.”
It seems that encouraging open mindedness or broad knowledge is exactly what they don’t want. What they want is actually indoctrination into “their” knowledge and thinking using their narrow definitions. It is about a narrow form of mind control, not objective facts and analysis. There is a fear that an accurate study of actual US and world history or science leads kids astray, away from God and country, to a world of anti-Americanism and to eventual eternal damnation. But, an accurate accounting of US history must eventually come to grips with the moral issues of slavery and the origins of the Civil War or the long, unfinished story of racism. To paint it over with heroic tales of settlers on the Oregon Trail while ignoring details of the slaughter and confinement of Native American to the reservation is an affront to reality and in all likelihood will eventually be made known to students anyway. Hiding the truth is a fools errand.
In my estimation, the American liberal arts education in the public schools, while flawed, has been a success. It has helped to provide a vast store of knowledge and skill that has lead to inventions and systems that have extended and improved our lives. Yes, the story is not perfect, but it is not over yet. To place the education of our young in the hands of politically partisan actors peddling extreme conservative views and possibly into corporate control is to steer our civilization into a less democratic, darker future.
See the comments section for more elaboration on this topic.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
I don’t have issue with the teaching of a more complete version of history, especially the uglier parts. That said, teaching my children to feel bad about themselves and that their success in life is primarily determined by their skin color because they share the same skin color as slaveowners of the 19th century. I don’t care what teachers and school district call it, that’s going to be a hard pass for me.
I get what you’re saying. Children should not be made to made to feel bad about who they are. Having been married to a public school teacher since 1984, I have to say that I have never heard of any curriculum or teaching style including CRT, especially one that was aimed at or inadvertently causing white students to feel such distress. That is over elementary and middle schools in three school districts. My experience, of course, is a limited sample.
I don’t think that ethnically/racially sensitive content should be part of the elementary school through about the 7th grade curriculum. Students should have a bit more abstract reasoning ability.
If people are going to throw around white hot accusations that school districts are making white students feel bad about their race, then evidence of that should be brought forward and dealt with on the spot. It’s not ok.
Broadcasting this accusation loudly and repeatedly absent any supporting evidence of the breadth and depth of the alleged practice of CRT is a political activity meant to rile up a certain fraction of the public. Politicians of a certain brand understand this reliable method and make liberal use of it. I’m sure that, like everyone else, a few teachers will have strong racial views. Just understand that it includes teachers of all political stripes.
Conservatives have long made the accusation that public education is biased toward liberalism. I think there is some truth in that. But in fairness, I think that much of what conservatives, especially the evangelicals among them, consider education is more like religious and political indoctrination rather than open analysis and broad study. This makes educators an easy mark for assault in the “culture wars”.
There is devotional study and there is analytical study. It has been my observation that strongly conservative/evangelical folks tend to prefer devotional study in religion, social studies and American history. I would argue that secondary public schools should apply an analytical approach to most everything. Religion should be left to the churches and home study. Public schools should be as secular as possible, but without editorializing or promoting notions of religious doctrine. It should be like mathematics- strictly secular.
Whether or not schools draw attention to the commonality of skin color with plantation owners, white students will realize this on their own and will have to come to grips with it regardless. The schools are in a good place to put it in historical context and explain that it was part of a long held but morally bankrupt agricultural and social model and that it was forcibly eliminated at great cost in blood and treasure.
I see the battle of CRT at present as part of an overall attempt to privatize the public schools through the cunning application of histrionics. It would mean the channeling of public funds into private hands, eventually leading to corporate schools. Corporations are fundamentally undemocratic in nature and are entirely focused on profit margins. Corporations inevitably merge to produce fewer and larger corporations with reduced flexibility. The trend of business to monopoly is ordinary. I think this is a bad way to run the education part of our civilization.