{"id":188717,"date":"2021-07-12T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=188717"},"modified":"2021-07-11T08:57:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T07:57:42","slug":"how-not-to-cover-critical-race-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/07\/how-not-to-cover-critical-race-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"How Not to Cover Critical Race Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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10 Jul 2021 – <\/em>After working the right up into a lather over Black Lives Matter (FAIR.org<\/b>, 5\/27\/21<\/a>), Fox News<\/b> and its conservative media allies have turned white rage onto a more actionable target: critical race theory. Though the theory is a longstanding and specific academic lens for understanding systemic racism, the right has transformed it into a catchall for anything that encourages talking about and addressing racism.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s textbook backlash politics: Racist police violence sparked a movement demanding a re-examination of racism in America and systemic reform that might challenge white privilege, so the right launched its own movement to shut down conversations about race and white privilege in any and all institutional arenas, most prominently schools, government offices (including the military) and corporations, that could possibly make that happen.<\/p>\n

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In USA Today\u2018s print edition (7\/6\/21), this op-ed was headlined, \u201cTeaching Critical Race Theory Is Patriotic, Not Anti-American.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s unsurprising that the right would turn the focus to white victimhood rather than anti-Black violence and discrimination. But mainstream corporate media have also given far too much space and legitimacy to the tactic. In June, 424 articles could be found in major US newspapers that mentioned \u201ccritical race theory,\u201d according to a Nexis search\u2013compared to four articles in August 2020, the month before the right-wing attack on critical race theory was rolled out on Tucker Carlson\u2019s Fox News<\/b> show (9\/2\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A July 6 USA Today<\/b> editorial page dedicated to the CRT \u201cdebate\u201d exemplified the wrong way to cover the issue. The editorial board\u2019s own opinion was accompanied by not one but two opposing views: For the left, it tapped Kevin Cokley (7\/5\/21<\/a>), a professor of African studies at the University of Texas, whose subhead argued, \u201cI Always Challenge My Students and Never Place Racial Guilt on Them.\u201c<\/i><\/p>\n

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\"USA<\/p>\n

USA Today<\/strong> (7\/5\/21<\/a>) provided space to the critic who said he wanted to \u201crecodify\u201d critical race theory to \u201cannex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For the right, the paper invited Christopher Rufo (7\/5\/21<\/a>), the right-wing provocateur (and Fox News<\/b> regular) from the Manhattan Institute who invented the CRT-as-anything-conservatives-hate rallying cry. Rufo has explicitly stated<\/a> that his<\/p>\n

goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think \u201ccritical race theory.\u201d We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rufo\u2019s op-ed, \u201cWhat I Discovered About Critical Race Theory in Public Schools and Why It Shouldn\u2019t Be Taught,\u201d carried the subhead: \u201cState Legislatures Are Wise to Ban Schools From Promoting Race Essentialism, Collective Guilt and Racial Superiority Theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note the emphasis on white guilt in both<\/i> subheads. The debate centers on whether CRT should be taught, but the question is hinged on whether white students might be made to feel any responsibility for historical and contemporary racism and white privilege\u2014the implicit assumption being that they should not. It\u2019s quite a victory for the right, which just a year earlier was uncomfortably forced to debate whether police are killing too many Black people.<\/p>\n

The paper\u2019s editorial board (7\/5\/21<\/a>), for its part, staked out a \u201cmiddle\u201d ground: \u201cCritical Race Theory Fear a Mix of the Predictable, the Outlandish and the Justified.\u201d While some criticism is explicitly \u201cjustified,\u201d at times critics have gone too far, it suggested: \u201cResponding to all these concerns by policing classroom discussions about race with a state law is like using a shotgun to drive mosquitoes out of a bedroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mosquito simile suggests that existing culturally responsive curricula in schools aren\u2019t exactly dangerous, but certainly annoying, and worth getting rid of\u2014presumably with a flyswatter rather than a shotgun. The board prefers that \u201cschool board members, principals and teachers themselves\u201d make curriculum decisions.<\/p>\n

Of course, the right is working that angle, too, trying to take over school boards with activists, which would render USA Today<\/b>\u2018s position even more untenable. This isn\u2019t an issue that can be both-sidesed or depoliticized. Media need to treat it as it is: an attempt to shut down speech across institutions when power is being challenged.<\/p>\n

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\"Kimberle<\/p>\n

Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw (MSNBC<\/b>, 7\/6\/21<\/a>): \u201cWhen we start dictating what can be taught, what can be said, and what is unsayable, we are well, well down the road towards an authoritarian regime.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, one of critical race theory\u2019s earliest exponents, told MSNBC<\/b> (7\/6\/21<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Understand what risk we all face if they are allowed to dictate what can be said, what can be taught, what can be learned, who can vote, and who can protest. This is a recurrence of redemption. All of these things are exactly what happened at the end of Reconstruction\u2026.<\/p>\n

When we start dictating what can be taught, what can be said, and what is unsayable, we are well, well down the road towards an authoritarian regime. People keep asking, \u201cCan it happen here?\u201d If you look at Black history, it has happened here.<\/p>\n

Racism will be the vehicle through which authoritarianism rises in this country. That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing happening right now. And the only question is whether people who believe in this country, if they recognize that they have a dog in this fight. Only if people wake up and see that this implicates all of us can we have hope that this is not going to be a replay of redemption in the 19th century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Crenshaw may have been talking about the public generally, but major media, with their key role in framing narratives and legitimizing political positions, are certainly implicated as well. Too many in the media came to realize too late the danger of covering Trump as just another politician (FAIR.org<\/b>, 12\/1\/16<\/a>); it is urgent they don\u2019t make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Julie Hollar is <\/em>FAIR\u2019s senior analyst and managing editor. Julie has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 Jul 2021 – Fox News and its conservative media allies have turned white rage onto a more actionable target: critical race theory. Though the theory is a longstanding and specific academic lens for understanding systemic racism, the right has transformed it into a catchall for anything that encourages talking about and addressing racism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":188719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[2375,867,2436,1341,2095,2579,1851,260,378,1855,103,249,498],"class_list":["post-188717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-alternative-media","tag-anglo-america","tag-black-america","tag-black-culture","tag-black-lives-matter","tag-critical-race-theory","tag-ethnocentrism","tag-history","tag-journalism","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-racism","tag-trump","tag-white-supremacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}