There have been few things more glorious to witness in recent weeks than the impressive array of courageous and relentless mothers around the country lambasting school boards for their support of vile critical race theory.
These moms of different socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds are confronting and boldly holding to account school board members, administrators, and teachers who are indoctrinating innocent children with a destructive ideology.
They understand perhaps better than anyone that Marxist-infused curricula intended to sow division and resentment have no place in a free and civilized society, and is endangering their children’s cognitive, psychological, and emotional well-being. It has been an exhilarating display of unity and common decency.
It turns out everyday women don’t want their children being brainwashed to view the world through the lens of “whiteness,” white racism, and white privilege. They don’t agree that America was founded on racist principles. They reject the claim that hard work, self-reliance, objectivity, deferred gratification, family, respect for authority, and respect for the written word are intrinsically racist values exploited by white Americans to relentlessly suppress people of color.
Mothers resent their children being defined as a collective based on race, gender and sexuality, and being told that their achievement in life is determined by these fixed categories as opposed to their endeavors. They don’t like the glorification of organizations like Black Lives Matter that undermine the nuclear family and promote violence against police.
Crucially, they intuit that when school curricula present as fact a pseudo-academic theory that is entirely unsupported by empirical data, and that ipso facto precludes criticism and dissent, students are being propagandized, not educated. Now, protective instincts are kicking in and moms are fighting back.
By asserting their role as the ultimate authority in their children’s education, these outraged mothers are demonstrating what Pope John Paul II once observed when he met the mayor of Boston and later ambassador to the Vatican, Ray Flynn. Addressing Flynn’s wife, John Paul said that “the future of the world is with the mothers.” He explained that “it is the mothers who raise the children” and “it is the mothers who will give us peace and make us free.”
Mothers taking on woke school boards understand that critical race theory and related “equity-based” training gives no one a free pass. Whether they’re being shamed as oppressors or demeaned as helpless victims, no child will emerge from this unscathed. It is mothers who have their children’s development and best interests at heart, and who will not see them shackled with racist labels and burdened with cruel and ignorant stereotypes.
The sort of psychological and emotional abuse, to say nothing of the academic vacuousness, that school children are being subjected to may appeal to the sliver of the population that consists of fringe white far-left neurotics and militant degenerates. But it does not curry favor with ordinary American families from all walks of life. A recent survey found that three-quarters of respondents were “somewhat or strongly opposed” to schools teaching that white people are inherently privileged, while people of color are inherently oppressed and victimized.
Some have started to take action. Last month, a father of an elite Manhattan prep school made headlines when he wrote a letter to the head of school, rejecting the charge of “systemic racism,” objecting to the school’s “advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter,” and accusing the administration and the Board of Trustees of appeasing an “anti-intellectual, illiberal mob.”
New York mother Yiatin Chu, an immigrant from Taiwan and co-president of education advocacy group Place NYC, describes being vilified and labeled a “Karen” for speaking out against critical race theory as an activist. In a recent interview, she lamented the obsession with race, and the abhorrence of judging people by the color of their skin, pointing to the ludicrous and offensive labeling of Asians as “white adjacent,” which suggests Asians achieve to the extent that they emulate “whiteness.”
Drawing on examples from concerned parents, Chu highlighted the damaging implications for students when a public-school AP calculus class on motion is devoted to the “racism” of NYC subways, and a physics class focuses on the gender and sexuality of Isaac Newton.
Now mothers in school districts nationwide are stepping up and fighting to banish critical race theory from the classroom. One Virginia mother, a Chinese immigrant, likened critical race theory to the sort of abuses inflicted on the Chinese population during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and insisted it should have “no place in our schools.”
A black mother, also from Virginia, called for the ban of critical race theory, which she slammed as a “racist and abusive” tactic designed to divide and oppress. One Arizona mother had to point out the bleeding obvious that we should be teaching children about “seeing and valuing humanity, not colors.”
A Colorado mother accused the Douglas County School District board of marginalizing parents, and pushing “equity” and “collectivism” over “equality of opportunity.” She reminded them that their real job was not to engage in “social engineering” but to address the county’s dismal proficiency in areas like reading and math. In a jaw-dropping ten-minute throw down, New York mother Tatiana Ibrahim blasted her school district for “demoralizing” children, “teaching them communist values,” undermining families’ religious beliefs, and encouraging hatred of and violence towards police officers.
Ibrahim promised to become the school board’s “worst nightmare”; indeed, this should be the approach for similarly appalled and enraged moms across all school districts. At last weekend’s North Carolina GOP convention, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson evocatively summed up the challenge by urging freedom-loving Americans who don’t want their country to be turned into “a socialist hell hole” not to capitulate to avoid “trouble,” insisting “when freedom is being threatened” it’s a call to be courageous and “run towards trouble.”
Granted, the battle against critical race theory in schools will be toughest in states like Washington, where Gov. Jay Inslee just approved preposterous legislation mandating critical race theory training for all public school teachers and even medical school students. But there is much ground to be gained in less radical areas of the country where state legislatures are sitting up and taking notice.
In April, Idaho became the first state to ban critical race theory instruction in public schools and universities. Last week, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation similarly prohibiting critical race theory indoctrination, while the Florida State Board of Education unanimously approved a critical race theory ban for public school classrooms. In Texas, a bill banning the teaching of critical race theory was recently signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The charlatans pushing critical race theory are not going to yield their racist agenda without a fight. For one thing, the obscenely well-compensated swindlers in the background, lining their pockets while masquerading as “race consultants” and “diversity experts,” have a vested interest in continuing the charade.
Yet as foolish and unacademic as critical race theory is, this poisonous ideology is imperiling children’s education and wellbeing and the preservation of free society. Moms flexing their muscles may be exactly what’s necessary to force ethically delinquent school boards back into the sphere of integrity, intellectualism, academic rigor, and basic morality.