On Thursday, black Florida mother Keisha King testified against critical race theory (CRT) as Florida’s Department of Education considered a new rule that would ban CRT from public schools. The rule ultimately passed. King’s testimony went viral on social media, and even Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who proposed the ban (which originally did not explicitly condemn CRT), shared a video of her testimony.
“My name is Keisha King, I’m a mom of two, one of whom is in the Duval County Public School system and one in private school thanks to school choice,” the mother, who lives in the Jacksonville area, began.
“Just coming off of May 31, marking the 100 years [after] the Tulsa riots, it is sad that we are even contemplating something like critical race theory, where children will be separated by their skin color and deemed permanently oppressors or oppressed in 2021,” King lamented. “That is not teaching the truth, unless you believe that whites are better than blacks.”
Recommended: Critical Race Theory Has Sparked a Civil War in American Education
“I have personally heard teachers teaching CRT and we have had an assembly shut down because a Duval County Public School system consultant thought it would be a great idea to separate students by race,” she recalled.
“This is unacceptable,” the black mother declared, emphatically.
She went on to counter much of the leftist rhetoric that CRT advocates use to foist this nefarious ideology on children.
“CRT is not ‘racial sensitivity’ or simply teaching unfavorable American history or teaching Jim Crow history. CRT is deeper and more dangerous than that,” she explained. “CRT, in its outworking today, is a teaching that there is a hierarchy in society where white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied people are deemed the oppressor and anyone else outside of that status is oppressed. That’s why we see corporations like Coca-Cola asking their employees to be ‘less white,’ which is ridiculous.”
“Telling my child or any child that they are in a permanent oppressed status in America because they are black is racist and saying that white people are automatically above me, my children, or any child, is racist, as well,” King added. “This is not something that we can stand for in our country.”
She ended her remarks by celebrating America’s history of overcoming its sullied past on the issue.
“Our ancestors — white, black, and others — hung, bled, and died right alongside each other to push America towards that more perfect union,” King declared. “If this continues, we will look back and be responsible for the dismantling of the greatest country in the world by reverting to teaching hate and that race is a determining factor on where your destiny lies.”
Recommended: School District: ‘Our Superintendent Is Doing His Job’ By Saying Critical Race Theory ‘Isn’t Optional Anymore’
King is correct. CRT justifies blatant racism in the name of promoting “equity.” One of its architects has even supported racial discrimination to counter historic discrimination and has called for a totalitarian bureaucracy to enforce his vision of “equity.” This new racism masquerades as “anti-racist,” but it judges people according to the color of their skin, not the content of their character.
Marxist thinkers invented critical race theory (CRT) in order to upend society by claiming that hidden racism pervades American institutions. CRT teaches people to seize on any racial disparity as ipso facto proof of racial discrimination, despite the clear prohibitions on racial discrimination in federal law. Advocates claim that the American status quo is racist — if not “white supremacist” — so extreme measures to reverse historic injustices are the only “anti-racist” option.
Since American society must be secretly racist, CRT advocates attribute various aspects of society to the nefarious impact of “whiteness.” The Smithsonian briefly published a “teaching tool” infographic on “whiteness.” That infographic claimed that the nuclear family, science, capitalism, the Judeo-Christian tradition, individualism, “objective, rational linear thinking,” and even values such as “be polite” are aspects of oppressive whiteness. The Smithsonian rightly removed the graphic after facing criticism, but this incident illustrates just how mainstream CRT has become.
CRT has led many to demonize white people based on the color of their skin, assuming these people must be oppressors. Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, an associate professor of practical theology at Mercer University, published a devotional that included a prayer asking God to “please help me to hate white people. Or at least to want to hate them.” Dr. Aruna Khilanani, a psychiatrist, openly discussed her “fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a f***ing favor.”
Yet King also highlighted another nefarious aspect of CRT. By teaching that all white people are oppressors and all black people are oppressed, CRT implies that white people have been able to master black people despite the end of slavery and the implementation of civil rights laws. This perversely suggests that whites are stronger and more cunning than their supposed victims. In other words, CRT subtly preaches the very form of racism that Americans have struggled for centuries to reject.
This perverse ideology does not belong in America’s schools.
Recommended: The Woke Want ‘to Teach Kids to Hate Each Other, Rather Than How to Read.’ DeSantis Won’t Stand for It
“It is sad that we are even contemplating something like Critical Race Theory, where children will be separated by their skin color and deemed permanently oppressors or oppressed in 2021.” — Keisha King, mother of two, and member of @Moms4Liberty #StopCriticalRaceTheory pic.twitter.com/OFrfVJ13d7
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) June 11, 2021
Join the conversation as a VIP Member