The case against critical race fear-mongering
Beware of Obamacare!
Those “death panels” are brutal.
Remember them?
They were hatched out of thin air by Republicans, with hopes of thwarting President Obama’s proposed health-care reform bill in 2009.
It was the boogeyman the folks on the right used as shorthand for the predicted danger that would befall America’s elderly if they signed up for the expansive new plan.
When that bill became law, there became no “death panels.”
There have never been any “death panels.”
The Republicans who alerted us to them knew there wouldn’t be any of them.
They still couldn’t resist finding ways to remind us of them daily.
They were using that tired, old, fear-mongering technique they’d used when they warned us that the fellow who was running for president in 2008 was a secret Muslim, hellbent on jettisoning democracy from our nation.
And so, in the days leading up to the presidential election in 2020, President Trump discovered a new boogeyman – “critical race theory.”
According to Trump’s directive, “all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory.'”
Bingo!
A new boogeyman was born.
One that could be easily repeated all over right-wing media ad nauseam.
He’d indicated that “critical race theory” was antithetical to American life as we know it, or as it was meant to be.
Before long, Trump devotees were claiming that CRT had seeped into public schools, where it’s being force-fed to the nation’s vulnerable young’uns.
According to many Republicans, schoolchildren are being taught to hate themselves and the country because it’s “inherently racist and evil.”
By August of this year, 27 states had introduced legislation that would hinder “critical race theory,” or the discussions of race in public schools.
It doesn’t matter that no public school in the entire United States teaches CRT.
Those Republicans who brandish “critical race theory” know that its mention is a call to arms to suburban white voters, who may feel their role in society is being diminished.
To them, CRT is racist. To be frank, calling for CRT to end, when it doesn’t exist, is, for the lack of a better word – racist!
Republicans never let a good boogeyman get in the way of some votes.
That’s exactly what the newly elected Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, did.
While he was campaigning, Youngkin signaled that he’d prevent Virginia’s public schools from teaching CRT as if there were already plans to teach it.
There weren’t any plans.
It’s a funny thing, when people campaign against something that doesn’t, or wouldn’t exist – but they campaign anyway.
Perhaps Democrats should come up with their own boogeymen.
They could find stuff that doesn’t exist, but they could still campaign as if Republicans are planning to make it happen, anyway.
They could announce, “We’re gonna stop having loaded assault rifles and target practicing at birthday parties for toddlers.”
They could call it “Anti-bullets for Babies Theory.”
That couldn’t be any worse than trying to outlaw something that doesn’t exist.
It’s a familiar formula.
Coin a phrase, and ignite a controversy worthy of campaigning against.
“Defund the police,” was a boogeyman used by Republican candidates in 2020.
Listen closely. They’re still clinging to that fiction.
Down through the years, Republicans have race-baited using “crosstown busing” and “welfare queens.”
Dr. Seuss was good enough for a rallying cry, when the folks running that enterprise suggested they were pulling some of their books from store shelves, because of “offensive imagery.”
According to politicians on the right, that was caused by left-wing-based “cancel culture.”
Of course, that was a misrepresentation. The Dr. Seuss estate was responsible for the change.
No Democratic politician had anything to do with it.
You see how this works, don’t you?
Since Youngkin struck gold in Virginia, you can expect lots of Republican candidates to conjure up rogue grade school educators who’ll force “critical race theory” down the throats of the nation’s school kids.
Republicans can’t help themselves.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.