They've got their narrative, and they're not going to back away from it. They scoff at parents' rights, putting the term in scare quotes in news articles. They insist that offended parents have been fooled by dastardly Republicans, who've invented – for racial purposes, of course – the things they're seeing with their own eyes. And as is so often the case, they gaslight; treating a culture war they're waging as a right-wing culture war invention, cooked up to sow "division," etc. Noticing something real and reacting to it is not an "injection":
Republicans plan to inject schools into next year’s midterm elections. They say a victory in Virginia shows the power of “parents’ rights” to draw voters. https://t.co/k7YkkTwulj
— WSJ Politics (@WSJPolitics) November 7, 2021
Leftists and Democrats are doubling and tripling down on the proposition that Virginia parents bought into a giant racial manipulation, based on nothing:
.@DanaBashCNN: Are Democrats too woke, Senator?
— The Recount (@therecount) November 7, 2021
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA): "There is not a school in Virginia that teaches critical race theory, but Governor-elect Youngkin stirred up the cultural pot there." pic.twitter.com/b2iOCybxIp
An apolitical friend asked me tonight: "But where did this Critical Race Theory thing in VA come from?"
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 3, 2021
Me: "Nowhere."
Them: "But it must be based on something?"
Me: "Nope. It's based on nothing."
Them: ??
They couldn't believe it. Normal people can't believe this stuff works.
Hasan is an MSNBC host. He asserts, over and over, that CRT and racial controversies originate from "nowhere," and are "based on nothing." We have repeatedly documented how and why this is very obviously and verifiably untrue, but the official progressive/media/Democratic/McAuliffe line was to deny, deny, deny, along with a large dash of race-baiting, of course. This thread is useful in demolishing their lie even further:
Fairfax County spent 5 figures inviting Ibram Kendi for a virtual speech...at a time when all of its schools were closed for in-person learning. I suppose people will argue this didn't actually happen too? https://t.co/fHbRnIO3ab
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 6, 2021
I obtained the email earlier this year sent by the principal of TJ, the main school in northern Virginia where they changed admissions requirements. They are explicit that this was done in the name of diversity politics you can't say it's not happening https://t.co/YBwhnKf1O9
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 6, 2021
There's a lot of "that's not *really* critical theory," which might as well be people looking at the Soviet Union and saying "that's not *really* communism." Call it whatever you want, you know it when you see it.
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 6, 2021
It's happening all over the country, too, not just in Virginia:
If you say anything about CRT, you get a gazillion scolds claiming there’s no CRT in schools, nothing inspired by this ideology. When you take literally 2 minutes to look into recent curriculum changes you find it everywhere.
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) November 6, 2021
I mean, @rickhess99 and I were writing on CRT-in-practice in schools way back in 2016 and 2017. This is not a new thing.
— Grant Addison (@jgrantaddison) November 6, 2021
Here’s it overrunning *kindergarten* education, ffshttps://t.co/3LY7tk5z61
If you missed it in my post last week, this public school administrator ripped the cover off of the duplicitous denials:
As an admin for the largest school district in Indiana, here's what we mean when we tell you that we aren't "teaching" Critical Race Theory: pic.twitter.com/f6RLghcw2R
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) November 4, 2021
"Parents, when we tell you Critical Race Theory isn't taught in our schools, we're lying." Yet here's CNN, dutifully clinging to the spin that was so misplaced and misleading that it failed Democrats in Virginia just last week, "just to be clear":
FACTS LAST: CNN's Brianna Keilar refuses to acknowledge the evidence Critical Race Theory is an influence in Virginia schools. "Just to be clear, it's not in the curriculum in Virginia. Just to be clear," she repeated like a broken record when presented with the facts pic.twitter.com/7dfR156Zv7
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 8, 2021
For an illuminating commentary on these matters, watch this clip of John McWhorter, whose book "Woke Racism" is a bestseller:
Okay, here’s a bonus clip
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) November 6, 2021
So satisfying pic.twitter.com/ArybJlQzm6
Meanwhile, here's Mary Katharine Ham reminding people of another component of the broader schools issue, which has been vexing for parents:
No, I do not, & the private school a mile from my kids’ shuttered public school showed it was possible to run a school with very safe results, thereby preventing learning loss & many mental health issues for kids. This argument is juvenile bullying meant to shut people up. https://t.co/CQHOFVZzfl
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 6, 2021
A lot of ppl also just don’t know NoVa was among the worst in offering in-person instruction in whole nation (and world, therefore, as the US was worse than every other wealthy nation). Students didn’t see the inside of a classroom for more than a yr, no hybrid option.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 6, 2021
Ultimately, Ross Douthat is correct. The aggressive denialism is rooted in an assumption of stupidity on behalf of the propagandists' targets:
The problem with this tweet is that it is stupid and believes that you are stupid too.https://t.co/AVa3vtQbqC
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 5, 2021
I'll leave you with a new leftist rhetorical demand, which seems to have bubbled up overnight: Stop saying "woke." The people who toss around loaded terms like "racism" and "fascism" with reckless abandon now want to police words like "woke" and "wokeism," because they're supposedly too manipulative not specific enough. Incredible. This is very reminiscent of claiming that unless you're referring to an exceptionally narrow definition, you can't talk about CRT, either. Same gaslighting energy. The fact that woke all-stars abruptly started shouting the same objection at the same time suggests that they recognize how wokery is harmful to their cause – and therefore want to restrict how it can be discussed, rather than changing or moderating their own behavior (they believe wokeness is morally correct). In short, anti-woke critiques are resonating, so they're 'working the refs' by pressuring journalists and others to back off:
Let me say, again, the use of the word wokeness and/or woke by journalists is lazy and biased and counts on the reader/viewer filling in with his or her own stereotypes. If you can’t state specifically what you mean, why are you writing it?
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 7, 2021
If you want to see how Democrats and media get manipulated by RW talking points, the appropriation of word "woke" from Black activists is a classic of this genre. Staying awake to injustice is twisted into a pejorative to hurl at efforts to achieve equality. Wash, rinse, repeat.
— Kirsten Powers (@KirstenPowers) November 8, 2021
“Woke” is a term pundits are now using as a derogatory euphemism for civil rights & justice.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 8, 2021
Making up a “woke” problem results in putting civil & voting rights on the backburner. In a year state legislatures are planning out GOP majorities & voter suppression, that’s dangerous
"People think Fox News is just about indoctrinating right-wingers, but it’s also about conditioning Dems on what to run away from," AOC writes. "We shouldn’t indulge it." I agree. Democrats should keep going with this stuff. This piece by a fed up lefty academic (content warning for language) captures the racket, and my frustration, pretty well:
You know personally I’ve been achingly specific about my critiques of social justice politics, but fine - no woke, it’s a “dogwhistle” for racism. (The term “dogwhistle” is a way for people to simply impute attitudes you don’t hold onto you, to make it easier to dismiss criticism, for the record.) But the same people say there’s no such thing as political correctness, and they also say identity politics is a bigoted term. So I’m kind of at a loss. Also, they propose sweeping changes to K-12 curricula, but you can’t call it CRT, even though the curricular documents specifically reference CRT, and if you do you’re an idiot and also you’re a racist cryptofascist. Also nobody (nobody!) ever advocated for defunding the police, and if they did it didn’t actually mean defunding the police. Seems to be a real resistance to simple, comprehensible terms around here...Nobody gives you what you want. That’s not how it works. Do politics. Think and speak strategically. Be disciplined. Work harder. And for f*ck’s sake, give me a simple term to use to address you. Please? Because right now it sure looks like you don’t want to be named because you don’t want to be criticized.
It looks that way because it is that way.
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