In 1954 America was shocked when the Supreme Court handed down the unanimous decision that racial segregation of children in public education was unconstitutional. This Brown v. Board of Education decision overturned decades of Jim Crow Laws. “Separate but equal” was no longer the law of the land. The driving force behind this was the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) led by Thurgood Marshall. Their strategy within the Civil Rights Movement was not just to protest in the streets hoping to win in the court of public opinion. They targeted grade school and high school public education to win in the highest Court of the Land. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks fought in the trenches. Thurgood Marshall fought in the halls of justice.
Today, there is equally a need for this same strategy to fight racism, regardless of what name it hides behind or however well intentioned its ideology is disguised. But the battlefield has changed. During the Civil Rights Movement language was clear, even black and white. When a sign was posted “Whites Only” everyone knew the intention. But today a new breed of racism parades in sheep’s clothing and calls itself anti-racist. But its language and actions betray otherwise.
Many public and private schools today have jumped on the bandwagon of promoting “critical race theory” which looks at everything through the lens of racial color. Whether in English or Math class the agenda centers on racial differences. In US History, the “1619 Project” proclaims the founding principle of our nation is slavery, not the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this road is wide. This overcorrection increases racism. How?
From corporate workplaces like Coca Cola to school districts like San Diego Unified, critical race theory training parades as anti-racist while it actually creates a more racist environment where colleagues and classmates are divided into “oppressor” and “oppressed” destroying our common humanity and shared values. Coca Cola provided an anti-racist seminar hosted by “White Fragility” author Robin de Angelo instructing its employees to “be less white.” A New York City school circulated a flyer that there is a future killer cop in every class of white students.
In Silicon Valley an elementary school instructs students to apologize for being white and admit to their oppressor status and privilege. Parents have fought back saying Ethnic Studies are valuable when balanced, but to divide students into racial categories teaching them to hate each other is damaging and illegal. Education should be an inquiry into what unites and bonds us together. And free speech is the cornerstone of that quest. Not forced public confessions!
So parents have had enough. Like The NAACP in the 1950’s fought in the courts against segregation, a new organization has been formed by parents to also fight in the courts against the divisive segregationist rhetoric of critical race theory. In New York City, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) has assembled a team of lawyers and prominent voices to challenge the new racism infiltrating our schools. Some have called FAIR the new ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), a non-partisan organization dedicated to “advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding and humanity.”
FAIR’s primary goal is to serve as a legal network representing individuals whose constitutional civil rights have been violated and to “advance racial equality without judging others based on immutable characteristics.” It rejects critical race theory because “it pits us against one another and diminishes what it means to be human."
FAIR’s board members include prominent thought leaders, such as Bari Weiss, Glen Loury, Alana Hirsi Ali, Coleman Hughes, Megyn Kelly, John McWhorter, Steven Pinker, and Peter Boghassian. The first five I am familiar with and represent a wide diversity. The last three I don’t know. But what I do know is that Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Associate Justice on the Supreme Court, could easily be an honorary board member of FAIR. Prominent on FAIR’s homepage are the hopeful words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” King believed in a meritocracy! Not racial division!
In contrast, critical race theory creates segregation, psychologically if not physically. Students at Smith College in Massachusetts demand segregated housing because they have been taught to not trust others who are racially different and worse yet, students are offended if someone voices an opinion different than their own. They need to be protected. They want segregation, intellectually and domestically. Arguing that immutable characteristics, like race or gender, should be the foundation of our education reminds me of Karl Marx’s “class struggle,” pitting one group against the other. But since Capitalism has done more to alleviate poverty and provide social and class mobility than any other economic system, the battle cry of “class struggle” no longer has popular appeal. Instead, these same Marxist ideologues today have changed their language to a “racial struggle” and identify everyone by their immutable characteristics of skin color, not class.
Everything becomes racist. Last week the horrible shooting of nine people in Atlanta by a sex addict seeking retribution on sex workers, is labeled racist by the President and mainstream media. Also, anyone who suggests the need for more integrity in our voting system by having voter ID is a racist. In fact the reverse is true. The “soft bigotry of low expectations” that says people of color do not have the skillset or ability to procure ID is an insult to minorities. You need ID for everything today, from alcohol to airlines to bank accounts. Mexico, Canada, France, Germany, India, Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom all demand photo ID for voting if not a literal voter ID card itself. Are they all racist?
If everyone is racist, then no one is racist. Like the boy who cried wolf, at some point no one any longer believes his claim. And any real incident of racism will be the tragic victim and not taken seriously, because it has all become so trivialized. We must reject this hyperbole of outrage that defines everything by skin color. While critical race theory highlights our differences and deepens the divide between us, FAIR offers hope for a more just and balanced path forward.
And just as in the 1954 Supreme Court decision that rejected racial segregation in education, hopefully the day will soon come when FAIR stands before that same Court and puts a dagger through the heart of a new form of racism creeping into our schools and workplaces.
And hopefully, it will be a unanimous decision!
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