The leftist U.S. Conference of Mayors is at it again. At its recent 89th Annual Meeting, the Conference backed a resolution supporting the teaching of Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools across America. This action is especially ironic since the Conference is taking a radical partisan stance on one of the most divisive issues in America while claiming to be “the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more.”
The resolution reads like a page out of a left-wing Black Lives Matter playbook. It starts off by noting that the basic tenets of CRT include:
“[a]cknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions–like the legal system–that replicate racial inequality, meaning that racist incidents are not aberrations but instead manifestations of structural and systemic racism”, and
“rejection of popular understandings about racism, including claims of meritocracy, color-blindness, and arguments that confine racism to a few bad apples, in recognition that the systemic nature of racism–which is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy–bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.”
So forget about individual responsibility and merit. If any member of a minority group experiences any problems, it is because of structural racism; “a normal feature of society.”
The resolution then states that CRT “recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past, but instead acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.” So too, forget about the significant progress made in America over the past 60 years in regard to ending racism and segregation. Forget about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Forget about school and neighborhood integration. Forget about affirmative action and quotas favoring minorities. Forget about America having had a Black President. Racism is alive and well in America.
Furthermore, race must also be taken into account in our schools and by our academics; not doing so is “racist.” As the resolution notes, CRT both espouses that “learning and scholarship that ignores race is not demonstrating ‘neutrality’ but adherence to the existing racial hierarchy” and challenges “white privilege and exposing deficit-informed research that ignores, and often omits, the scholarship of people of color.” Indeed, the resolution claims that one of the main reasons for the academic achievement gap between white students and minorities is “the predominance of curriculum that excludes the history and lived experiences of Americans of color and imposes a dominant white narrative of history.” The fact that American students of Asian ancestry outperform white students is irrelevant. It is all about racism, contrary facts be damned.
And of course CRT embraces LGBT and intersectionality issues. The resolution states that CRT “recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality and gender identity.” Once again a person’s character and competence do not matter; it is all about group identity. You do not determine your future, your group memberships do.
Because of all the things critical race theory stands for, “NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the nation’s mayors support the implementation of CRT in the public education curriculum to help engage our youth in programming that reflects an accurate, complete account of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous & People of Color] history.” Forget about focusing on teaching students reading, writing, and arithmetic; our schools need to teach our children how racist (and homophobic, anti-transgender, etc.) America is, was, and always will be. The Conference believes this is the way to produce educated citizens who will love their country and be willing to embrace fellow Americans of different backgrounds. Right.
This left-wing drivel from the U.S. Mayors Conference should not surprise us as it is a virtual mouthpiece for the radical Left. For example, at this same annual meeting, the Conference adopted resolutions supporting “The Right of Transgender Youth to Participate on Sports Teams that Align with their Gender Identity” and supporting the misnamed federal Equality Act; two vital components of the extreme LGBT agenda. So support for critical race theory is just par for the course for the Conference.
If the Conference wishes to continue to take such radical stands in the future, it should at least be honest with both itself and the public and no longer claim to be “non-partisan.” And, importantly, the American people should hold their mayors accountable by demanding answers as to why they support such extreme and divisive policies.