The Phantom Menace of Critical Race Theory

Conservatives are waging jihad against a brand new left-wing menace, which is something called Critical Race Theory. Here I’ve been sleeping peacefully in my bed, enjoying life, blissfully unaware that something even more insidious than the War on Christmas now stalks the land, brainwashing otherwise fine young patriots with the subversive notion that something called racism actually exists in America and has played an important role in its history. Oh, the humanity!

What, exactly, is Critical Race Theory? I don’t know, and you probably don’t know, and I’m positive that 99% of Fox’s audience who are up in arms against it don’t know either, which hasn’t stopped them from accosting clueless school board bureaucrats across the country with belligerent demands that Critical Race Theory be cancelled from American public schools — and here I thought conservatives were against cancel culture!

The term is conveniently never explained or defined. Like socialism, cultural Marxism, social justice warrior, BLM, Antifa, it's just an empty, rubber band word that the Right stretches and twists to fit anything they don't like. The talking heads just throw these buzzwords around like magic spells, the way a witch doctor might wave around a thighbone, a bull’s scrotum, or some other primitive totem, and Fox News Nation reacts with automatic, visceral, unthinking outrage. They’ve since descended on Washoe County, Nevada, and are insisting that teachers wear body cameras ‘to ensure they aren’t indoctrinating students in the classroom.” Imagine, the same people who think wearing a mask to Home Depot represents a terrifying descent into Stalinism are now demanding the right to bully, intimidate and censor teachers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but education means exposing yourself to a variety of ideas, especially those that challenge your assumptions about the world, and critically evaluating them on their merits. It’s called free inquiry, and it’s a hallmark of that Western Civilization conservatives claim to love.