Virginia’s newly sworn-in Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed 11 executive actions on his first day in office, including ending the use of Critical Race Theory in schools, investigating officials' alleged wrongdoing in Loudoun County, and allowing parents to decide if their children should wear masks in schools.
Youngkin announced the list of executive actions in a news release after being sworn in as the commonwealth’s 74th governor, the first Republican elected since 2009, on Saturday in Richmond.
The governor signed nine executive orders that address the following issues:
* To restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education.
* To empower Virginia parents in their children’s education and upbringing by allowing parents to make decisions on whether their child wears a mask in school.
(Andrew Mark Miller. “Virginia Gov. Youngkin's day-one executive orders include investigating Loudoun County officials, CRT ban.” Fox News. January 16, 2022.)
A broad brush paints critical race theory with gross exaggerations of its theoretical framework. CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.
Sociologists and other scholars have long noted that racism can exist without racists. However, many Americans are not able to separate their individual identity as an American from the social institutions that govern us – these people perceive themselves as the system.
Consequently, they interpret calling social institutions racist as calling them racist personally. It speaks to how normative racial ideology is to American identity that some people just cannot separate the two. There are also people who may recognize America’s racist past but have bought into the false narrative that the U.S. is now an equitable democracy. They are simply unwilling to remove the blind spot obscuring the fact that America is still not great for everyone.
(Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons. “Why are states banning critical race theory?” Brookings Institution Education. November 2021.)
Youngkin cultivated CRT as an issue and exploited it throughout the campaign. He falsely asserted that it was being taught in “all schools across Virginia.” He complained that it labeled white people as oppressors and Black people as victims, and he promised to ban it from public schools. He provoked a backlash against CRT, and the backlash helped him win. But it wasn’t a backlash of parents. It was a backlash of white people.
Before the election, critical race theory was not a standard part of the K-12 curriculum in Virginia or elsewhere. Nonetheless, conservative intellectual entrepreneurs have succeeded in redefining the term “critical race theory” to refer to a whole swath of progressive trends in sociocultural life, ranging from diversity trainings to history curricula emphasizing the role of racism in American history.
Some of these trends may owe an intellectual debt to CRT proper, but many of them do not. Regardless, the catch-all label has proven politically effective. Dark money conservative activist groups in Virginia and elsewhere have rallied angry parents to school board meetings. At least seven states have passed legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
(Zack Beauchamp. “Did critical race theory really swing the Virginia election?” Vox. November 04, 2021.)
Youngkin Uses CRT
First, in July, Youngkin began to raise CRT in speeches, and the American Principles Project, a conservative organization, commissioned a poll to test the issue. It found that when CRT was framed in Youngkin’s terms—teaching “white children that they are oppressors” and teaching “minority children that they are victims” – a two-to-one majority of likely Virginia voters, 58 percent to 26 percent, said it shouldn’t be taught in schools.
In August 2021, the APP poll was backed up by another survey, this time from the left. This survey of likely voters in Virginia, conducted by Change Research for Crooked Media, found that 68 percent of independents and 52 percent of undecided voters said the teaching of CRT in schools posed a threat to the state.
And, by October, CRT had become highly salient. In a CBS News survey, 62 percent of likely Virginia voters said “school curriculums on race and history” were a major factor in their choice for governor. That was higher than the percentage who said taxes or mask policies were a major factor, and it wasn’t far below the percentage who said the same about crime or the economy.
William Saletan, author and national correspondent at Slate, concludes …
“As a wedge issue, CRT was working. But it wasn’t working by appealing to parents, as Republicans pretended. It was working by appealing to white people. In the Fox News poll, white respondents opposed the teaching of CRT by 24 percentage points, but parents opposed it by only five points. That’s because many parents aren’t white, and the poll’s nonwhite respondents were twice as likely to favor CRT as to oppose it. When Republicans talk about a parental backlash against CRT, they’re not talking about all parents. They’re talking about white parents.
“Surveys taken by Monmouth University in August, September, and October show that during these months, Youngkin gained ground among white voters but not among voters of color. On one question that was tested repeatedly – 'Who do you trust more on race relations issues?' – white voters moved toward Youngkin, while Black voters moved toward McAuliffe.
“But the most telling question in the Monmouth series wasn’t explicitly about race. It was 'Who do you trust more on education and schools?' On that question, from August to October, Youngkin gained 12 percentage points among white voters, relative to McAuliffe. That was twice the size of his gain among all voters on the same question, and it was three times the size of his gain among independents.”
(William Saletan. “What the Polls Really Tell Us About How Critical Race Theory Affected the Virginia Election.” Slate. November 05, 2021.)
Saletan says that race, not party, was driving the polarization. So, yes, there was a backlash against “critical race theory” in Virginia. And, yes, it helped Republicans win. Their strategy of hyping, distorting, and attacking CRT worked. But it didn’t work by appealing to parents. It worked by appealing to race.
Echoes Of Lone Star White Fragility
In October 2021, State Representative Matt Krause, a Republican, emailed a list of 850 books to superintendents, a mix of half-century-old novels — The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron — and works by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Margaret Atwood, as well as edgy young adult books touching on sexual identity. Are these works, he asked, on your library shelves?
Krause believes the works might “make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish” because of race or sex. His list includes a book on gay teenagers and book banning, The Year They Burned the Books by Nancy Garden; Quinceañera, a study of the Latina coming-of-age ritual by the Mexican Jewish academic Ilan Stavans; and a particularly puzzling choice, Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, which is deeply critical of leftist academic theorizing, including critical race theory.
Michael Powell of The New York Times reports …
“Texas has been afire with fierce battles over education, race and gender. What began as a debate over social studies curriculum and critical race studies – an academic theory about how systemic racism enters the pores of society – has become something broader and more profound, not least an effort to curtail and even ban books, including classics of American literature.
“In June, and again in recent weeks, Texas legislators passed a law shaping how teachers approach instruction touching on race and gender. And Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican with presidential ambitions, took aim at school library shelves, directing education officials to investigate 'criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography.'”
(Mike Powell. “In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read.” The New York Times. December 10, 2021.)
An analysis of Krause’s list by The Dallas Morning News found that of the first 100 titles listed, 97 were written by women, people of color or LGBTQ authors. They delve into perspectives on the Black Lives Matter movement and included stories told from the perspective of queer characters. Several on the list have won awards.
However, absent any state law, some Texas school librarians have been told to pre-emptively pull down books. For example, a San Antonio district ordered 400 books taken off its shelves for a review.
State Rep. Victoria Neave, D-Dallas, who is vice chair of the committee, said she had no idea Krause was launching the investigation but believes it’s a campaign tactic. She found out about the letter after a school in her district notified her.
“His letter is reflective of the Republican Party's attempt to dilute the voice of people of color,” she said.
“It’s stunning how nakedly discriminatory these gestures are,” said Ashley Hope Pérez, who wrote Out of Darkness, a book on the list. “It’s so clearly an expression of attack against people with non-white, non-dominant identities. That attack is against the authors but also the people whose experiences are reflected in those books.”
(Talia Richman and Corbett Smith. “Books probed by a Texas lawmaker by women, people of color, LGBTQ writers. They’re asking: ‘Really?’” The Dallas Morning News. October 28, 2021.)
Conclusion
Madeline Will of Education Week says, “For years, educators have pushed for more diverse books in classrooms and school libraries, emphasizing the importance of children of color seeing themselves reflected in the pages. And while progress has been made, some experts worry that the current debates over how race is addressed in schools may discourage certain stories from being taught.”
(Madeline Will. “Calls to Ban Books by Black Authors Are Increasing Amid Critical Race Theory Debates.” Education Week. September 30, 2021.)
“We’re seeing a real effort to stigmatize any works dealing with race in America or the experience of Black, Indigenous, or people of color under this rubric … of critical race theory, even though these works have nothing to do with critical race theory,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, which monitors challenges to books in K-12 schools, colleges, and libraries.
And now, Republican state lawmakers have continued their crusade against “critical race theory” into the 2022 legislative session, introducing more bills that attempt to regulate how teachers can discuss racism, sexism, and issues of systemic inequality in the classroom.
In some states, this new slate of proposed legislation also expands the boundaries of prohibited speech for educators and gives parents more oversight when it comes to what their children are learning in school.
The trend promises an ongoing minefield for teachers and school leaders, some of whom have already faced challenges to lessons and professional development courses in states where these laws have passed.
Since January 2021, 33 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Fourteen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.
Throughout the 2021 legislative session, most of these bills were centered on a list of prohibited “divisive concepts.” This list has its origins in a September 2020 executive order signed by then-President Donald Trump, which banned certain types of diversity training in federal agencies.
Under the order, which has since been revoked by President Joe Biden, these trainings couldn’t promote certain ideas—for example, that one race or sex is inherently better than another, that all people of a certain race have unconscious bias, or that the United States is a fundamentally racist or sexist country.
Ohio Attack
Ohio – HB 322 and HB 327
In May and June of 2021, Republican legislators introduced two bills: One would prohibit discussion of certain topics related to race and sex and forbid schools from awarding credit for student service learning with advocacy groups. If teachers promote any banned ideas, their classes cannot count toward graduation requirements for the students present. The other would prevent classroom conversations regarding "divisive concepts."
(“Map: Where Critical Race Theory Is Under Attack.” Education Week. Updated: January 17, 2022.)
Truth? History? What we censor and what we teach? We understand that every lesson must be age-appropriate; however, public education must provide materials of free expression and varied content for the deliberation of students who seek knowledge.
Censorship in schools can lead to a narrow worldview with holes in the cultural and international education of our children. While parents, legislators, and school boards may be tempted to shelter their children from issues that they find unfavorable or offensive, they may be restricting their child's ability to grow and learn at the same time.
To close, allow me to share a significant piece of literature that might ruffle the feathers of those critical of CRT who wish to ban any “divisive concept.” It hits hard today – some 175 years after its publication. The issues of slavery and servitude are evident in the poem, and, as part of American history, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's work is both renowned and accurately revealing. Please read the work and decide for yourself if you believe maintaining one whitewashed version of America's past benefits the continuing struggle for freedom and equality.
Many depictions of the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ in nineteenth-century British literature offer a positive, idealized, even elegiac portrayal of the settlement of New Plymouth. After all, according to the myth popularized by Felicia Hemans, these were the brave men and women who laid the foundation of a great nation.
However, the mythology of the Mayflower was also put to less celebratory uses. Perhaps the most well-known example is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’ (1848); a controversial mid-century poem that grapples with issues of race, slavery, and injustice from an explicitly abolitionist perspective. Originally intended for publication in the 1848 edition of The Liberty Bell, an antislavery annual based in Boston, Browning – born in County Durham – feared the work was “too ferocious, perhaps, for the Americans to publish.”
Despite Browning’s anxiety “The Runaway Slave” was carried by The Liberty Bell and became one of her best known poems on both sides of the Atlantic. The manuscript of the poem was originally titled ‘The Black and Mad at Pilgrim’s Point’, indicating how foregrounded issues of race are to the work, but also the centrality of Plymouth Rock to the narrative.
(Elizabeth Barret Browning, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Barret Browning, 3. 1900.)
The speaker of the poem, an unnamed fugitive slave woman, stands at Pilgrim’s Point in an ironic inversion of the history of liberty that had become an integral part of the Mayflower narrative and American national identity. The poem opens with the speaker addressing the Pilgrims directly:
Please, click here to listen to a reading of Browning's poem. You can read along with the transcript below, and I hope you enjoy this experience:
The Runaway Slave at
Pilgrim's Point (1846; 1848, 1850)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
I stand on
the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended
knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for
liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I
bend my knee down on this mark...
I look on the sky and the
sea.
II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out
proud and slow
From the land of the spirits pale as dew. . .
And
round me and round me ye go!
O pilgrims, I have gasped and run
All
night long from the whips of one
Who in your names works sin and
woe.
III.
And thus I thought that I would come
And kneel
here where I knelt before,
And feel your souls around me hum
In
undertone to the ocean's roar;
And lift my black face, my black
hand,
Here, in your names, to curse this land
Ye blessed in
freedom's evermore.
IV.
I am black, I am black;
And yet God
made me, they say.
But if He did so, smiling back
He must have
cast His work away
Under the feet of His white creatures,
With
a look of scorn,--that the dusky features
Might be trodden again
to clay.
V.
And yet He has made dark things
To be glad and
merry as light.
There's a little dark bird sits and sings;
There's
a dark stream ripples out of sight;
And the dark frogs chant in
the safe morass,
And the sweetest stars are made to pass
O'er
the face of the darkest night.
VI.
But we who are
dark, we are dark!
Ah, God, we have no stars!
About our souls
in care and cark
Our blackness shuts like prison bars:
The poor
souls crouch so far behind,
That never a comfort can they find
By
reaching through the prison-bars.
VII.
Indeed, we live beneath
the sky,...
That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out
On all
His children fatherly,
To bless them from the fear and
doubt,
Which would be, if, from this low place,
All opened
straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.
VIII.
And
still God's sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us
cold,
As if we were not black and lost:
And the beasts and
birds, in wood and fold,
Do fear and take us for very men!
Could
the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be
bold?
IX.
I am black, I am black!--
But, once, I laughed in
girlish glee;
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the
drivers drove, and looked at me--
And tender and full was the look
he gave:
Could a slave look so at another slave?--
I look at
the sky and the sea.
X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As
free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were
two
To conquer the world, we thought!
The drivers drove us day
by day;
We did not mind, we went one way,
And no better a
liberty sought.
XI.
In the sunny
ground between the canes,
He said "I love you" as he
passed:
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I
heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook, he smiled in the
hut
As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut,
Through the roar
of the hurricanes.
XII.
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over
and over I sang his name--
Upward and downward I drew it along
My
various notes; the same, the same!
I sang it low, that the
slave-girls near
Might never guess from aught they could hear,
It
was only a name.
XIII.
I look on the sky and the sea--
We
were two to love, and two to pray,--
Yes, two, O God, who cried to
Thee,
Though nothing didst Thou say.
Coldly Thou sat'st behind
the sun!
And now I cry who am but one,
How wilt Thou speak
to-day?--
XIV.
We were black, we were black!
We had no claim
to love and bliss:
What marvel, if each turned to lack?
They
wrung my cold hands out of his,--
They dragged him... where ?... I
crawled to touch
His blood's mark in the dust!... not much,
Ye
pilgrim-souls,... though plain as this!
XV.
Wrong, followed by
a deeper wrong!
Mere grief's too good for such as I.
So the
white men brought the shame ere long
To strangle the sob of my
agony.
They would not leave me for my dull
Wet eyes!--it was
too merciful
To let me weep pure tears and die.
XVI.
I am black, I
am black!--
I wore a child upon my breast
An amulet that hung
too slack,
And, in my unrest, could not rest:
Thus we went
moaning, child and mother,
One to another, one to another,
Until
all ended for the best:
XVII.
For hark ! I will tell you low...
Iow...
I am black, you see,--
And the babe who lay on my bosom
so,
Was far too white... too white for me;
As white as the
ladies who scorned to pray
Beside me at church but
yesterday;
Though my tears had washed a place for my
knee.
XVIII.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in
his face, it was so white.
I covered him up with a kerchief
there;
I covered his face in close and tight:
And he moaned and
struggled, as well might be,
For the white child wanted his
liberty--
Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.
XIX.
He moaned
and beat with his head and feet,
His little feet that never
grew--
He struck them out, as it was meet,
Against my heart to
break it through.
I might have sung and made him mild--
But I
dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I
knew.
XX.
I pulled the kerchief very close:
He could not see
the sun, I swear,
More, then, alive, than now he does
From
between the roots of the mango... where
... I know where. Close! a
child and mother
Do wrong to look at one another,
When one is
black and one is fair.
XXI.
Why, in that
single glance I had
Of my child's face,... I tell you all,
I
saw a look that made me mad...
The master's look, that used to
fall
On my soul like his lash... or worse!
And so, to save it
from my curse,
I twisted it round in my shawl.
XXII.
And he
moaned and trembled from foot to head,
He shivered from head to
foot;
Till, after a time, he lay instead
Too suddenly still and
mute.
I felt, beside, a stiffening cold,...
I dared to lift up
just a fold...
As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.
XXIII.
But
my fruit... ha, ha!--there, had been
(I laugh to think on't at
this hour!...)
Your fine white angels, who have seen
Nearest
the secret of God's power,...
And plucked my fruit to make them
wine,
And sucked the soul of that child of mine,
As the
humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.
XXIV.
Ha, ha, for
the trick of the angels white!
They freed the white child's spirit
so.
I said not a word, but, day and night,
I carried the body
to and fro;
And it lay on my heart like a stone... as chill.
--The
sun may shine out as much as he will:
I am cold, though it
happened a month ago.
XXV.
From the white man's house, and the
black man's hut,
I carried the little body on,
The forest's
arms did round us shut,
And silence through the trees did
run:
They asked no question as I went,--
They stood too high
for astonishment,--
They could see God sit on His throne.
XXVI.
My little
body, kerchiefed fast,
I bore it on through the forest... on:
And
when I felt it was tired at last,
I scooped a hole beneath the
moon.
Through the forest-tops the angels far,
With a white
sharp finger from every star,
Did point and mock at what was
done.
XXVII.
Yet when it was all done aright,...
Earth,
'twixt me and my baby, strewed,
All, changed to black earth,...
nothing white,...
A dark child in the dark,--ensued
Some
comfort, and my heart grew young:
I sate down smiling there and
sung
The song I learnt in my maidenhood.
XXVIII.
And thus we
two were reconciled,
The white child and black mother, thus:
For,
as I sang it, soft and wild
The same song, more melodious,
Rose
from the grave whereon I sate!
It was the dead child singing
that,
To join the souls of both of us.
XXIX.
I look on the
sea and the sky!
Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay,
The
free sun rideth gloriously;
But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid
away
Through the earliest streaks of the morn.
My face is
black, but it glares with a scorn
Which they dare not meet by
day.
XXX.
Ah!--in their 'stead, their hunter sons!
Ah, ah!
they are on me--they hunt in a ring--
Keep off! I brave you all at
once--
I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!
You have
killed the black eagle at nest, I think:
Did you never stand still
in your triumph, and shrink
From the stroke of her wounded wing?
XXXI.
(Man, drop
that stone you dared to lift!--)
I wish you, who stand there five
a-breast,
Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,
A little
corpse as safely at rest
As mine in the mangos!--Yes, but she
May
keep live babies on her knee,
And sing the song she liketh
best.
XXXll.
I am not mad: I am black.
I see you staring in
my face--
I know you, staring, shrinking back--
Ye are born of
the Washington-race:
And this land is the free America:
And
this mark on my wrist... (I prove what I say)
Ropes tied me up
here to the flogging-place.
XXXIII.
You think I shrieked then?
Not a sound!
I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun.
I only cursed
them all around,
As softly as I might have done
My very own
child!--From these sands
Up to the mountains, lift your hands,
O
slaves, and end what I begun!
XXXIV.
Whips, curses; these must
answer those!
For in this UNION, you have set
Two kinds of men
in adverse rows,
Each loathing each: and all forget
The seven
wounds in Christ's body fair;
While HE sees gaping everywhere
Our
countless wounds that pay no debt.
XXXV.
Our wounds are
different. Your white men
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor
able to make Christs again
Do good with bleeding. We who
bleed...
(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!
We are too heavy
for our cross,
And fall and crush you and your seed.
XXXVI.
I fall, I
swoon! I look at the sky:
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I
am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty's exquisite
pain--
In the name of the white child, waiting for me
In the
death-dark where we may kiss and agree,
White men, I leave you all
curse-free
In my broken heart's disdain!
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