K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Meet the CRT burghers.
The burghers in places as far-flung as Loudoun County, Virginia, Fort Worth, Texas and Langley, Washington have turned out in recent days at local school board meetings to protest the CRT-inflected curricula that their districts have been inflicting on students. The protesters — mostly parents of enrolled students — regard the emphasis on critical race theory as state-sponsored propaganda aimed at indoctrinating children in racial grievance, allegiance to authoritarian leaders and hatred of their own country. As if to prove these accusations well-founded, supporters of CRT have been rounding up children to stage counter-protests. At the Washington State protest, for example, the parents, according to the Everett, Washington Herald, were ‘met by over 360 counter-protesters, nearly half of whom were South Whidbey School District students, who marched to the protest site from nearby South Whidbey Community Park in support of the school board’s progressive actions’. The youngins were well trained. They came bearing the obligatory signs, including ‘Don’t Censor Our Education’, ‘Respect Education’, Trans Rights,’ and, of course, ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Is the popular outrage against CRT truly a pro-censorship movement? Is it disrespectful of education?
The way to tell is to look at what vexes the anti-CRTers — and what they favor instead. Among the more widely watched videos is one of a citizen opposing his school board’s pro-CRT stance: the T-shirted, tattooed British expat Simon Campbell sticks it to the Pennsbury, Pennsylvania school board. The audience cheers as Mr Campbell charges the school board, ‘It seems to me that you think you can supersede the United States Constitution.’ As the cheers die down, he continues, ‘I’ve got news for you school board president Benito Mussolini, your power does not exceed that of the US Constitution and the First Amendment Rights of the citizens of this great nation.’ His five minute bravura performance needs to be savored in the original.
Since it’s not embedded in the above-linked article by Peter Wood of the Spectator World, here you go:
More from Wood:
When someone like Simon Campbell summons the US Constitution and the First Amendment to his side of the table, he has a point. CRT and its progeny are a doctrine aimed at delegitimizing America. These doctrines aim to unseat the US Constitution as a racist document. They see the First Amendment as protecting white supremacy by giving white people exclusive control over public speech. And they treat the whole dynamic of the county as a contest over ‘power’. In that contest, censorship by the proponents of CRT is fully warranted, since they are battling the unfair advantages of the white racist regime.
Exit quote: “This is a grassroots movement which has substantial political implications for the 2022 midterm elections. The Biden administration beginning on inauguration day has gone all-in in its support for CRT, the 1619 Project and related endeavors. The Anti-CRT Burghers have a lot to chew on.”
Read the whole thing.