Most teachers in our K-12 public schools are caring individuals who want to help our children learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, their main teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA), has other ideas for our children: it has always been in the forefront of pushing for the indoctrination of our children with radical left-wing propaganda, including advocating for the teaching of the radical LGBT, climate change, and critical race theory agendas. The goal of the NRA is to turn our children not into educated citizens but rather into left-wing social justice warriors.
While the entire left-wing agenda of the NEA is objectionable, of late parents across the county have been giving strong pushback to the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms. Parents from Virginia to California and everywhere in between have been attending school board meetings en masse to protest the teaching of this divisive theory to our children. What is critical race theory (CRT)? CRT holds that America is and always has been a racist country, that systemic racism plagues the land, that all white people are oppressors, and that all minorities are the helpless oppressed. It is a theory built on lies and distortions of history that aims to destroy our country so a new, “better” society can be created in its place.
So when it got massive opposition to its support of CRT, did the NEA debate CRT on its merits and address the concerns of parents? Of course not. Like all left-wing organizations and people, the NEA tried to silence its opponents. Why? Like the communist oppressors in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe last century, leftists know that their agenda is a house of cards built on a foundation of lies. They know that if people are able to successfully push back against one lie, soon people will be pushing back against all lies and the liberal revolution will be defeated. Thus, anyone who dares to speak the truth must be silenced and cancelled at all costs.
Thus, in October 2021 the NEA wrote a letter to Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok asking the social media giants to silence and cancel parents opposed to CRT. In the letter, Becky Pringle, the president of the NEA, stated:
[L]ike all innovation, social media platforms are double-edged swords. Your companies sought to create algorithms that would increase people’s fervent use of your platforms – a pursuit of profit with no regard for its effects.
And what are some of the negative effects produced by Big Tech? Pringle writes:
Take for example, the alarming growth of a small but violent group of radicalized adults who falsely believe that graduate level courses about racism are being taught in K-12 public schools because of misinformation spread on social media. And there are [sic] another small yet vocal group of extremists who are putting the safety of our children, educators, and families at risk over the notion that wearing a mask is an infringement on personal liberty. The speed and reach of these lies that are manipulating so many of our citizens would not be possible without the use of social media platforms.
Pringle then demanded that Big Tech shut down people opposing the NEA agenda:
We’re calling on your companies to take this threat seriously and prioritize the safety of people over profits – you can help put an end to the stream of propaganda fueling violence against educators in our communities. Your companies have both the power and responsibility to stamp out disinformation and violent trends – for the sake of Public Education and the future of democracy. To that end, we’re demanding that your companies make a public pledge to students, educators, and their families to regulate lies and fix your algorithms to put public safety over profits.
The NEA president concluded her letter by saying that exhausted teachers need this type of censorship to keep on working:
Our nation’s educators are still working through a pandemic after two years. We’re all exhausted, stressed, and stretched so thin it feels like we’ll crumble – and now we’re facing growing violence fueled by corporations with no oversight and no accountability to the communities they harm. Social media platforms were created to bring people together – with your help we can build a better tomorrow and stronger school communities where everyone can thrive.
It is particularly ironic that Pringle denied that critical race theory is being taught in our nation’s K-12 schools since the theory exists only in “graduate level courses.” As CRT opponent watchdog Christopher Rufo disclosed, in July 2021 the NEA “approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts. The argument that ‘critical race theory isn’t in K-12 schools’ is officially dead.” Indeed, according to the plan adopted by the NEA, the union would:
Share and publicize through existing channels, information already available on critical race theory (CRT)—what it is and what it is not; have a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric….
The NEA would also produce an in-depth study that:
critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society, and that we oppose [sic] attempts to ban critical race theory and/or the 1619 project.
The union would also “join with Black Lives Matter at School and the [leftist] Zinn Education Project to call for a rally this year on October 14—George Floyd’s birthday—as a national day of action to teach lessons about structural racism and oppression.”
In addition, the NEA committed itself to “conduct a virtual listening tour that will educate members on the tools and resources needed to defend honesty in education including but not limited to tools like CRT.”
And most damning for all for Pringle, the plan would “commit President Becky Pringle to make public statements across all lines of media that support racial honesty in education including but not limited to critical race theory.”
Thus, like the left always does, NEA President Becky blatantly lied to Big Tech. Indeed, throughout the whole CRT debate over the past year, the NEA has been acting right out of the woke playbook. First, try to silence and cancel your opponents. Second, base your case for silencing them on lies. Third, never discuss the merits of an issue as the Left will always lose.
Let’s hope that Big Tech does not try to silence parent opposition to the teaching of critical race theory in our schools. And let’s also hope that so many people rise up to oppose CRT that the NEA will have no choice but to change its position. I am not holding my breath for either.