Critical Race Theory: What It Is, and Isn't

[Music] so [Music] the columbus metropolitan club was founded in 1976 by 13 women leaders who wanted to be included in the community conversation i am sally bloomfield and i was one of those 13 women having been left out of men's clubs that focused on community issues it was a priority for us to make the club 100 inclusive today cmc presents public policy forums every wednesday at lunch with average attendance of more than 200 people i'm tony bell and i frequently attend forums which are open to everyone and present relevant current and newsworthy topics i'm grateful that cmc is nonpartisan and presents many perspectives on every topic i'm jane scott president and ceo of the columbus metropolitan club cmc's open to everyone we invite you to explore the personal and professional benefits awaiting you at the metropolitan club welcome to cmc welcome to cmc welcome to cmc welcome to cnc good afternoon and welcome to the columbus metropolitan club i'm niel juris the director of communications and engagement at the mid-ohio regional planning commission also known as morpsy and i'm also a member of the columbus metropolitan club's board of trustees it's my pleasure to welcome our in-person audience today and to say hello to all of you watching via our live stream thank you to today's forum sponsors cardinal health and with the support of the columbus dispatch today's cmc live streaming is presented by the emergency response fund of the columbus foundation in partnership with the columbus dispatch and pnc thank you to you all [Applause] so what began as an interpretive framework for scholars has exploded on the national education scene as the newest front in america's ongoing culture war critical race theory which sought to better understand the role of race in the creation of legal economic and social systems is to some a way to spotlight the inequities in our society while to others it's an application its application threatens to further divide americans from each other but what is critical race theory who is using it how and to what end should critical race theory play a role in the classroom curricula today our expert panel will discuss the past present and future of critical race theory in america i'll introduce the panelists by name and position and you can find out more about who they are from your form flyer and online so please join me in welcoming jennifer adair president of the columbus board of education aaron baer president for center for christian virtue kevin magruder associate professor of history at antioch college and our hosts alyssa woodman niece columbus dispatches k through 12 education reporter oh go ahead but before we turn the program over to alyssa kevin magruder will provide us with a brief overview of the history of critical race theory and why it has become the center of controversy in recent months kevin the podium is all yours i appreciate this invitation to participate in this discussion of critical race theory critical race theory is a framework developed in the 1970s and 1980s by legal scholars such as derrick bell kimberly crenshaw richard delgado and others in response to what they saw as a loss of momentum of the civil rights victories of the 1960s in considering the reasons for this retrenchment they concluded that while many view the law as a neutral institution in u.s history the law has been a primary vehicle for maintaining the racial hierarchy of our society with people of color at the bottom and white people at the top a hierarchy that the civil rights movement sought to overcome critical race theorists concluded that eradication of racism in our society required a recognition of this institutional history and the influence of this legacy on contemporary laws and policies with this recognition a plan to dismantle the barriers to equity that such practices represent could be developed an example of critical race theory perspective comes from my own primary area of research the history of race and real estate to understand the intractability of residential segregation in the united states we have to acknowledge the role of the law that enforced racially restrictive deed covenants until the supreme court's 1947 shelley versus kramer ruling outlawed such enforcement but this decision did not undo the residential segregation that the covenants inspired segregated neighborhoods continue to exist in many parts of the country today more intentional contemporary action is required critical race theory is not a diversity or anti-racism training although some of its perspectives may be incorporated into these trainings its purpose is not to make white people feel guilty or ashamed its purpose is to provide an analysis that can inspire the dismantling of laws and other practices that promote racism critical race theory is not taught in k-12 schools and is not often mentioned in undergraduate college classes it is a framework that is more commonly encountered at the graduate school level the reason there is a need today to explain what critical race theory is not is because for over a year it has been used as a tool in an extremely successful disinformation campaign launched in 2020 by conservative activist christopher ruffo to silence advocates of anti-racism a june 18 2021 new yorker magazine article noted that in 2020 rupaul received information about what seemed to have been poorly designed anti-racism trainings that targeted white participants roofo concluded in articles that he wrote in city journal and online magazine of the manhattan institute that framing these trainings and almost every other action associated with anti-racism as critical race theory and action would be an excellent way to end the trainings and to mobilize support to challenge anti-racism advocacy which was gaining momentum donald trump's september 2020 executive order outlawing critical race theories used in federally funded trainings soon follow in december of 2020 the american legal exchange council alec held a training which can be viewed on youtube for state legislators to learn how to draft anti-critical race theory legislation with a particular focus on public education at the k-12 and college level in ohio two bills hb 322 and hb 327 are the result of this campaign the 2014 homicide of black teenager michael brown in ferguson missouri led to the resurgence of the black lives matter movement and to the growth of discussions of the concept of anti-racism anti-racism is a framework that intersects with critical race theory but is broader it concludes that in an environment in which racism is perpetuated by laws policies and institutional practices individually not being racism is not enough to end racism instead action is required to identify and dismantle policies and institutional practices that maintain a racial hierarchy the disinformation campaign fueled by christopher ruffo is part of a historical tradition in the united states of backlashes to the possibility of achieving racial equity as a nation on paper we are a multi-racial democracy but in practice we are a nation in which some white citizens expect to always have a dominant voice and where the possibility of sharing power with citizens of color is seen as a threat or a loss of their power and privilege a brief historical review in the 1820s when most states rewrote their constitutions to eliminate property qualifications for voting all white men gained the vote but many of those same states introduced for the first time voting restrictions for black men in the 1870s during the reconstruction period that followed the civil war black men gained the vote and the result was the election of two black men to the u.s senate 16 to the house of representatives and hundreds to state and local offices this fueled a backlash of racial violence that ended black voting in the south and un ushered in 80 years of racial segregation and violence the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 60s were followed by the migration of many white southern democrats to the republican party which in the 1968 presidential campaign richard nixon branded as the party of law and order barack obama's 2008 election was followed by a rise in white nationalism and the environment that leads us to today's topic when we view the current debate over critical race theory in this context we can better understand that the debate isn't about critical race theory but instead about a much larger issue an age-old fear of sharing power and privilege i look forward to our discussion thank you [Applause] thank you so much kevin for that introduction it was really informative and helpful and i think really that's the goal for the panel today i understand that critical race theory was a topic that many club members expressed interest in discussing and while it might be a hotly debated topic right now i think we can all model how to have a really informative helpful and respectful conversation and hopefully learn a little bit more about each other's opinions and perspectives so i'd like to start with a question for our other two panelists jennifer and aaron when did critical race theory surface is a topic that was being discussed among your organizations and your stakeholders and what were you hearing from them thank you for that question alyssa as the school board we um you know obviously we are watching what's happening closely in the legislature and so um you know we were watching on a national stage what was going on in just the conversation and what was happening in other states where these bills that the professor was talking about were introduced especially around that k-12 space and so you know we saw after our legislature introduced those two bills is when as an organization we started to to really watch it and and speak on it and our board actually uh you know issued as a resolution um against those two uh those two bills so that's when it became a part of our kind of monitoring now what's been going on across the county across the state in other districts is you've all seen it in the media some of you may have experienced it yourselves where you know people are coming to school boards and saying you know don't teach critical race theory to our kids and it's becoming a topic that is now in the forefront of what's going on at the local level in board school board governance in our district we are we don't have that right now but we have taken a very strong stance against those two bills as well as issued basically an anti-racism resolution at the beginning of the pandemic after the george floyd issue so we take these issues very seriously equity is one of our driving principles really rooting out the inequities that are going on in our district to provide fair opportunity so critical race theory in that context has come up more at a govern governance level watching it as the leaders of the organization monitoring how it's going to impact our students and classrooms yeah i'd say for us we saw you know crt to kevin's uh introduction was something i had heard about in college years ago very briefly didn't remember much about it but then the issue itself started rising up in a number of probably two really three different areas uh right after the the george floyd murder um and it was something that was popping up i think the first place we saw it come up was uh in churches so as churches were trying to talk about uh racism uh and the issues of race in in our country today uh you know they i one pastor told me he found himself sort of caught between these two uh ideologies there was the one side that was saying you know any talk of race uh is you know is wokeness and you can't you know if you're mentioning issues of racism or or these types of things today uh then then you're you've gone so far left and you're you're you've gone woke and then the other side which is saying if you're not teaching you know uh if you're teaching uh crt you've gone marxist uh and uh and so pastor's sort of feeling caught between these hey look we want to talk about race we don't affirm the the principles of crt uh but they sort of felt trapped in that spot so that was something that we started seeing uh come up more and more after after george floyd uh the other place we saw this was in education where parents saw their children really being pressured to affirm tenants especially of the organization black lives matter and and affirm that the the movement there that they disagreed with uh and doing things like walkouts uh and and sort of going through uh the you know some some you know shaming things around around your race or around how you identify uh and so we started seeing parents more and more parents starting to say hey this is happening in our schools across the state and what do we do about that and then the third is which is very similar to what we saw happening uh in the schools is sort of that same ideology uh that again we've called crt and i think there's a you know kevin raises an interesting point of is it crt and i i would i would argue generally yes or it's influenced by crt um we started seeing that same thing happening in corporate america where uh employees were being forced to kind of go through uh what they would say is a shame what i would say is a shaming exercise uh around sort of things they had nothing to do with um and uh and so we that's where all and again it really was from our perspective the whole debate really popped up and started raging within the last 18 months to a year thank you for that and um kevin i i wanted to turn it back to you now um we've had several professors and school leaders go on the record in the dispatch and um you as well in your introduction saying that critical race theory as an academic concept isn't something that's typically taught at the k-12 level so i'm curious what your thoughts are like were you surprised to hear about these conversations bubbling up as it relates to k-12 education and is what's happening critical race theory no what's happening is not critical race theory what's happening is people who are skilled in communication issues are using a technique known as the straw man when you don't have a good argument for your opponent you frame your opponent's argument as something ridiculous and then you develop an argument around that ridiculous opposition that you've created um i've been teaching at the college level for about 20 years i have not taught critical race theory what i teach is in understanding history if you don't understand the role that slavery and racism has played in our country and you graduate from college you're going to be uninformed and i'm not going to teach people who 10 years after they leave my class are uninformed and that's what this is about and part of the reasons why is being structured that way is because they don't want to say they're against anti-racism because if they're against anti-racism what does that make them and so what they've done is manipulated what critical race theory is to serve their purposes and i think if we kind of spend a lot of time drilling down on what critical race it's a it's a process a system of evaluating the law is relatively narrow and so nobody is teaching third graders that you're not even teaching college freshmen that and it's almost kind of like a charade that we're all kind of trapped in i believe yeah erin or jennifer do you have anything you'd like to say in response to that yeah i i would just disagree with i'm sorry jennifer yeah i would just disagree with that on a few different uh uh different levels one on first and foremost on the on the claim of straw man i feel like a lot of times there's a straw man shruman built up against those who oppose uh crt uh and and that's that you know this idea that uh those that oppose crt don't want our nation's history taught don't want the history of uh racism the you know the trail of tears uh you know and you know i'm i'm i'm jewish uh ethnically and you know the the history of uh of anti-semitism and all that we want to just get all that uh history out we want to blot it over and just say america was the greatest nation and no nothing ever bad happened here that that couldn't be farther from the truth and a lot of times when i ended up talking about this that's the claim i'm i'm having to to respond to no we want that history taught we want uh that that perspective taught and i i want to go back to something that you know kevin mentioned in his introduction where he said you know this is you know it talks about uh how crt leads to the inspiring of the dismantling of laws and policies and i think when you read some of the the folks that are are writing the most are on c uh crt today even max kennedy uh robin d'angelo they'll talk about how crt is a is a perspective on how knowledge language and power uh are all you know sort of corrupted uh by this history of racism and so it has this sort of conspiratorial mindset of everything that we interact with in society today is racist and there's no getting around it and it becomes almost this unfalsifiable argument and everything gets sort of funneled through this lens of race and when you start there that's where you see absolutely i agree that you're not seeing people you know hey boys and girls today let's talk about critical race theory that's not happening i don't think anybody's arguing that's happening but what you are seeing is you're seeing the world interpreted uh everything from history to language to mathematics uh interpreted through a critical race theory lens saying this is the true and accurate accurate framework to understand the world and if that's the true and accurate framework to understand the world everything that we study needs to be perceived through this lens so we have some people saying that critical race theory isn't being taught in schools we have some people saying that it is in to a sense being used to frame some of the discussions happening in schools um regardless of what we're calling it there are some changes happening in schools right now and jennifer i was hoping you could talk a little bit about what's happening at columbus city schools as it relates to diversity equity and inclusion and things that maybe might be mislabeled as critical race theory yeah thank you for that alyssa i think that in the k-12 space we are totally misusing this label critical race theory critical race theory has been explained to us is a very narrow construct and something that is used to really evaluate legal and systems what's happening in the k-12 space is a intentional shift to really focus on teaching culturally responsive methods and techniques really valuing and appreciating every student and their background as they come through the door and our staff's backgrounds as they come through the door and ensuring that as we're teaching the standards that have been set out for us that our curriculum really supports individual learning growth and development of each child it's really important that children can connect to the lessons that they are learning that they can see themselves in the stories that are told to them that they can appreciate the differences that come with their neighbors and their friends and their families because that's really what makes us stronger it's important that our students can understand that feelings are okay and empathy is the key to how we are going to move forward as a society this is what is being done in the k-12 space we are ensuring that this is being done with professionals who are trained in a psychologically safe manner for all that are involved what we're doing is talking about things at the appropriate level for each child in each grade band that touch on the standards that we are required to teach in the state of ohio by infusing content and stories that help our children learn better that's what we are doing now are some classes maybe higher up in high school with some electives maybe touching on themes of racism or how how race comes into play yeah because this is part of our history right aaron part of our history we cannot shy away from this um this is how we are who we are how we were created and it's important each student is able to articulate these things as they leave our doors in the public education space we are not at all teaching a crt and i just have to keep saying that because that is not the case what we are doing is teaching and shifting our methods to really focus on each child and giving them the things they need in order to succeed i'm really focusing on this idea of cultural responsiveness thanks alyssa yeah thanks for that um so this is a question for whoever wants to take a stab at it first but should we be having these conversations about racism and its role in history with students and if so what is the right way to do that how do you guide that kind of conversation and make sure it is age-appropriate and make sure that students aren't leaving that space with negative feelings for example the approach would good teaching is a cooperative exercise that i think some of the people who are behind these laws don't understand that and so when they're talking about teachers creating divisive situations if you have shamed your students you're not you've lost them and so a good teacher is not doing that and so when we're talking about race the purpose is for a black or white child or latino asian child growing up today seeing racial disparities that exist today often the explanation is because some people work harder than others and if they don't understand the history behind that they believe that and some people do work harder than others but it's not by race but we have racial disparities and the reason for that is the history of our country and so that's what we're trying to describe and no student should feel shamed by that and that's not the intent of good teachers i'm not saying it never happens but like i said if you shame the student you've lost them and um and so that's the approach these aren't obscure facts they're readily available about the history of race in the country and there are schools where children do not learn that and they enter the world uninformed i do have students in my classes say why didn't i hear about this before and i'm not teaching them any diabolical conspiracy or anything like that i'm teaching them what well-informed students should know and that's my goal as a teacher [Applause] you know the only thing i would add add to that he used the phrase cooperative exercise and i think a lot of what you're seeing today uh in that cooperative exercise that uh especially when you're seeing in the education space and what you're saying a lot of school boards is parents feeling left out of this equation parents feeling like uh they're not being fully uh brought into the conversation of what's happening and they're they're being again and this is the the the downstream effect of of uh you know the framework of crt being implemented in the classroom um of of children feeling like her parents feel like their children are being taught something through a lens that is harmful that you know is racist in some aspects um i i think about again this conversation's happening both in the church along with the uh in education uh there's a theologian a guy named uh king's college professor named anthony bradley someone i respect greatly he actually is someone that's not opposed to critical race theory um and he wrote a a an essay that uh he said you know with with crt the church should be able to eat the meat and spit out the bones uh that was his argument that like hey there's some things in crt that are helpful to the church to understanding uh the the context of race uh in america and there's some things that aren't and we should just toss those things aside and i appreciated that framework of it however i what i disagreed with him on that is that the meat of crt the benefits of crt talking about the history of racism talking about how that history again you don't have a you know in one generation ago you had you know a lot of the grandparents here or our grandparents here were individuals that uh lived segregation you don't abolish the effects of that in in over only a few decades um but the the meat of crt that we're able to get we can get other places without everything else that comes along with it with these power dynamics and and seeing it in all things and and sort of uh group uh and and so and and broad uh guilt and shame that come along with crt jump in here i think that there's some kind of misunderstanding or misconception about k-12 curriculum in general that somehow it's been labeled perfect already and the truth is it's not the truth is it is far from perfect the truth is k-12 curriculum is taught differently in every state you can pick up a textbook that is made by the same company that has different facts different stories told depending on where you are the texas book is different than the ohio book you know i i think there's a misconception the winners write the history the winners write the story and and i think this is a move to center it um to really highlight in in those stories and context other stories other people's stories in that shared history um it isn't just the pilgrims came over and you know you know the indians were bad and they took over the i mean that's not that can't be the shared story um it can't be the shared story that we only learn about black history during february and we go from slavery to the civil rights movement that cannot be the shared story because that is not our history that is a story it isn't a statement of fact history are facts and and that's what we're trying to pull into when we talk about cultural responsiveness and you know i wonder why why is it that we can't why is it that it is so bad to talk about and another thing about feelings i mentioned that earlier feelings are okay we need to have feelings because all humans do and the beautiful part of the k-12 space is that we help our children understand how to interpret their own feelings have it come out in a safe way that is productive right we're so into that right now hello social emotional learning if anyone has heard about that that's what that all is about so why not be able to have these kind of conversations you know have these spaces that are safe in a manner that is appropriate for the child at each grade level and you know works in that setting and when i talk about appropriateness for the child i i need you to understand kindergartners are not learning about racism kindergarteners are learning about themselves and their role in community they're learning about their identities they're learning about the people in their lives and their neighborhoods they're learning how to read a map and like draw their neighborhood right think about what you are but in that context in your neighborhood in your society you're already getting filters in and then it builds as this as the child gets older and older those are the standards that the ohio department of education has set forth that every school public school district in ohio is doing and so these things are incremental and these things are done in a way that builds children and should build them in a way to produce graduates that can go on to college and sit in a profession professor's class and understand history and also be mentally and socially ready to have those conversations well thank you so much everyone i i just really appreciate the honest passionate open discussion this has been really wonderful we're going to move to questions from our in-person and live stream audience in just a few minutes but i wanted to ask you one final question before we do that i think we've had a really good discussion about the past and the present but i want to look to the future and might seem like a pretty broad question but where do we go from here what are the goals that you have for the education of students of all ages as it relates to this topic and what what are you thinking we're going to see in the upcoming school year when students return this month i mean i'll start uh in my in our school we are going to see no change uh our our st our teachers are going to do the thing they are paid to do the thing that they're doing very well following all of the principles and standards creating all that i said those psychologically safe spaces working on building culturally competent curriculum i think though in the education space in ohio we're in for a fight and uh you have a school board here in in your uh you know capital city that is willing to fight and so that's what your elected officials will do we're going to leave the politics out of the classroom let our teachers do their job and the politicians are going to handle it from here antioch college is a private college so we aren't directly affected by the laws that are dealing with public education i'm going to continue teaching the way i've been teaching um personally i am very concerned and the analogy that comes to mind for me is salem massachusetts in 1692 to 1693 when for nine months over a dozen people were put to death as witches and when you look at what allowed that to happen it was a combination of manipulation of the law justified by religious belief that allowed that to happen it ended when the governor who had been out of the state came back and everybody was like the scales fell off and what have we done and i feel like we're in that moment not just because of a critical race theory but who would have thought that we have a nation where facts don't matter and we've been in that for half a decade and how do we how do we get out of it so the fact is that critical race theory is something but it's not what these people are saying it is but we cannot get out of this loop we're in and it's almost like we need the governor some governor to come back and set things right so we can see reality and i'm i'm 63 years old so i'm not so optimistic that that's going to happen in the direction that we're going and so i'm concerned yeah you know i think um i think a few things are where we go from here um i think one and i can't thank uh cmc enough for this this kind of discussion doesn't happen a lot where people with very different views come together and very different perspectives i will say i think um you know the the people that uh disagree with crt you know people that i work with folks that support us the people we work with um i i you know we talk about this all the time how do we how do we humanize the people we disagree with and i think for anything uh anything real anything progressive to happen on this issue where we're actually coming to some resolution it's it's not going to happen in the current uh political climate we are in where we all just kind of go to our tribes and and sit there and live in it um i the people that oppose crt are are not racist they they don't want it's not that they don't want uh you know the history of race and the serious ugly history of our country taught that's not true they have concerns about how it's being implemented and i and i think the more we can understand each other the better it'll be you know i think one of the things that we're going to see from this in the future and this is something that my organization is is uh advocating for and it's something that jennifer and i would disagree on again very seriously is more school choice um we we're big advocates of what's called the backpack bill um to give every child the option to access uh a scholarship to attend uh the the public school of their their choice uh and i think you're seeing a lot of this debate uh and a lot of other things in our world right now driving uh that move towards more educational opportunities for children and families um and i think you're going to see more of these uh crt laws anti-crt laws being considered that's going to be debated this fall here in ohio um and and so you know there's going to be a lot of things that this this debate is far from over this we can have this discussion two or three you know 10 years from now and hopefully we'll make some progress in the discussion thank you everyone so it is cmc's tradition to take audience questions and jane scott of cmc is curating questions from the live stream audience and from our in-house audience please keep your questions brief and to the point jane what's our first question well i have some questions that were asked from people who registered as well as i'm getting questions from people online i'll do one and then we'll every other one so we'll have an opportunity for both and we probably won't get to all the questions so appreciate that this is from carmen casillas columbus metropolitan library for those who are immediately opposed to a critical viewing of the past how do you propose we bridge the gap how can we invite those who see criticism as a thoughtful engagement with a difficult subject but as in not as thoughtful engagement with the difficult subject but is inherently anti-american as a process i don't know i don't and that's what i mean about when a starting point is usually facts but when i covet there are facts but we're living in the delta variant voting election results are facts but they're being manipulated and so when you're in that environment this is something we have not experienced as a nation before so i don't know i i'd say the starting point is charity uh is looking at somebody who disagrees with you uh and not ascribing uh terrible motives to them uh and and recognizing that uh you know they too want the best for society uh they they're not looking to oppress any individual or any class um and they just come to their their conclusions their their endeavors to do this uh a different way you know this is something we do a lot in the interfaith dialogue with uh muslims or jews or atheists or anybody else of of starting off of you know we both want to see people flourish um and the way we you know your perspective on how we do this is this religious belief we are is through jesus christ and him crucified and so uh you know i think starting off in that that charitable mindset when having a discussion with someone is the way if this conversation is able to move forward is the way it gets done my name is becky white i'm i have read several articles on the wall street journal over the last year year and a half that indicate that there's reason to be concerned about crt being included in the curriculum the nea provo promoted it the department of education the federal department of education promoted it the school california passed legislation to include it in the school systems there k through 12. so in light of that and given the concerns that sometimes there might be overreach in training in crt where there's shaming going on or fingers being pointed at people who can't really do anything about it why wouldn't the the ohio board of education support the ohio bills to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the classroom that kind of thing is not happening in the classroom crt is not part of the curriculum it is not being taught it is not a standard that is not what is going on here in ohio now are there conversations uh it does race come up in the context of history yes it does because it is part of our history i can't speak to what the state board of education does you know i i would strongly suggest they oppose these bills and fight for the education a factual education that all of our students should have but it is not happening it's not happening in ohio to chime in real quick in ohio there is no standardized state curriculum districts are left to decide how they teach specific state standards so the idea of crt being mandated at the state level would not happen question is from michael deakins from capitol high school what does the term white supremacy culture mean and how does it relate to critical race theory okay if if if we were in ohio in 1921 we might hear white supremacy being used pretty regularly because they were not ashamed of it the clan rose to power after birth of a nation in 1915 indiana became their base that's what's white so that that's the most extreme example of white supremacy but what white supremacy is is a belief that if white people aren't on the top in every situation something is wrong and efforts need to be made to make it right and if we look at what's happened in the last few years there are people who believe that and we know it and they've done things but we're pretending like it doesn't exist and it's something new and it's not that really really briefly is um white supremacy does exist there's absolutely people that still are advocating and pushing for that i you know i think we might have a disagreement on the proportionality of it uh and i think one of the things that again from a charitable mindset the idea that you know sometimes what's purported uh by some folks is that you know every person that voted for donald trump uh is a white supremacist and in a white supremacist as defined uh by kevin um and no no i'm not saying you're saying that by all means kevin i'm i'm i'm not ascribing that to you when you bring that into a conversation following off with me that's what you're implying no and i did not do that no and and by all means kevin i am not ascribing that to you in the least why's talk about it at all because a lot of the folks that are advocating you know the robin d'angelos of the world the ebermex kennedys of the world a lot of the major voices in culture today advocating for crt the very discussion that we're having today would suppose something like that and when you turn on msnbc you turn on cnn you hear that push when you turn on fox you hear the other narrative push that everybody uh that is pushing crt hates america and wants to destroy it it's all made to divide us and to go have us go at each other's throats i i 100 agree with what you just described there kevin i'm not ascribing this to you in the least but what i'm saying you know in the cultural narrative we're having the cultural conversation that's going on even outside of this room all too often those are the things it's the same thing i see oftentimes in the church where people will think anybody that voted for joe biden wants to kill all babies because he's not pro-life and that's not true um and and we need to be able to to not let ourselves get divided by over-the-top rhetoric and that that's the point i'm trying to make there um my name is dara pizzuti and i just want to say thank you to all of you this is a tough subject um my question is for aaron uh there's been quite a bit in the news lately with some of the schools particularly some of the private schools here who are wrestling with this um challenge and it's interesting because i'll be honest i have friends dear friends that i love and adore and respect on both sides of this issue and i thought you made a very good point when you said we have to start by listening to one another and i try very hard to listen to both sides i i find it interesting though that when i talk to my friends and peers who support your point of view more and want to keep crt out of the schools and i find myself saying to them what is it about crt that you find so offensive and and you know what is the real problem here in your school because to me it's i mean i'm in those schools and they're not teaching it they don't often have the answer they fall back on the rhetoric and so i guess i'm asking you point blank what is it that people find that your constituents find so offensive about crt that they're so afraid of yeah you know at its core and again this is where we have to have the the conversation and a lot of times crt is used as a broad term as kevin alluded to earlier that you know wraps in anti-racism wraps in intersectionality a lot of these other concepts and it's all a lot of times it in a very inarticulate way gets all bunched under crt and folks will say well we're talking about crt the theory not crt the application of it and so what most folks are having a problem with is what's being applied in schools uh through the mindset of you know inspired by the mindset of crt again the the way i would describe crt uh is it's you know the theory of how language power and knowledge have all been corrupted and geared towards a sort of a racist end and so what what they have a problem with most people what they have a problem with is that the teaching that gets taught about race the teaching that gets taught about american history and the way racism is taught is that i can know something about someone i can know something about an individual and their character based on their race alone and so if what if if that's the mindset that people are that is being taught that i can know something about who you are i can know something about your character based on your race uh and that's where you get this this whole thing of like hey introduce yourself and and say you know you saw this happening in some corporations you saw this happening with walkouts in school that you you need to apologize for your race and by apologizing it's you are inferring uh that some that you have done something racist you have done something of ill intent to people uh and that would be again the the the major concern that that most parents and folks have about the way that the implementation of this framework uh is being used in schools today there's no direct link between what you're describing and critical race theory you're describing our ham-handed trainings the same cooperation required is required in a training as in any kind of classroom so if you're doing a training and you've made the people you're training feel uncomfortable you have not been successful and most diversity equity and inclusion trainings do not do that but what christopher ruffo did is cherry pick probably the worst of best practices and suggests that that represents a whole field and it's not a crt field it's a field probably of diversity in anti-racism training but that's something separate but crt is getting blamed for that okay my name is daphne and um my question is for aaron i've 58 years of raised as a christian continue to to learn to be a better christian every day and the thing that keeps troubling me with this christian organization um creating the divisiveness is i was first taught love my neighbor love my neighbor as myself it didn't matter the color of their skin when jesus died he died to redeem all of our our souls right not a particular color skin so will you reconcile how the whole christian fundamentals uh meets what you're advocating and i you know i i appreciate that in so many ways because it's what i love talking uh the most about which is uh god's word and his redemptive effect on us uh and uh god's word you know when we see uh when we read god's word in its entirety in the bible um we see this lord jesus christ who came down and told us you know greatest command is to love the lord god with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself um and the question is what does that mean and we thankfully we have you know 66 books of the bible and the letters from the epistles to understand that and i think one thing in particular that i really come back to on this is the idea of uh in christianity we teach this idea of crucifying yourself i i dyed myself and i've been risen again in jesus christ and that means all of our all of our intuitions everything that we are about ourselves we lay down and we take on this life of jesus we take on this holy spirit and it changes the way we look at the world and that will mean sometimes loving our neighbor means disagreeing with them if we see them doing something or supporting something that according to god's word is harmful to their eternal soul uh and that also means the same jesus who told us to love our neighbor as ourselves tells us uh that you know when we do you know he lived perfect we believe he lived the perfect life and was perfect love and they crucified him for it um so you know oftentimes having people disagree with you we're told that will come in the book of james tells us that and so uh it is a it's a tough road and we always we talk about a lot of ccv we want to do so we won't do this advocacy when we take on difficult issues uh with the utmost grace and love and charity towards those who disagree with us but we also want to do so um firmly uh and and that's that's what we attempt to do understanding that people even people again kevin attends a church uh and uh and he would disagree strongly with a lot of the positions that we believe the bible has led us to i'm i'm i lead the trustee board at central chapel afro african-american episcopal church the reason why there is an african methodist episcopal church is in the 1700s as black people began going to white churches christians overlaid their racism on top of that richard allen was pulled off his knees at a church in philadelphia and he left and said we will bother you no more columbus is the headquarters of the third district of the african methodist episcopal church that district covers pennsylvania ohio parts of west virginia it was formed in 1833. the demonic denomination was formed in 1816. we have a black church because the white church did not treat us as equals and as neighbors and so we need to understand that history my name is kwesi kambong and i think it's really great that we're having this discussion but the danger for me is we have to be careful we don't deal in generalities and aaron my question is for you because you talked about the concern about how critical race theory has been has been implemented but i want to know from you specifics that is talk to us about a district a school or somebody just give specifics about how it has been implemented what have you seen what do you know because i think the danger is without specifics we we don't add any light to this conversation absolutely i appreciate that question i think there's a few different ones i can give stories and a lot of these things you can find online uh as well uh you know you have the sort of the extreme examples in places like san francisco where they have stopped teaching algebra because they have said algebra mathematics perpetuates a systematic of racism you have things here in columbus at one prominent non-public school actually where uh teachers uh and a handful of students led a walkout of students to protest as a part of a black lives matter movement and supporting you know opposing systematic racism and again for students who um might agree uh that racism is a problem but don't agree with the mantras and everything else that goes along with that movement they're feeling pressured and shamed to go along with that uh and that again that you can go we can see examples of examples like that uh happening all over the country especially over the last few over the last year bishop hartley well i wish we had more time but we're going to turn it back over to niel now for concluding remarks okay well i hope you found today's form insightful and helpful as you continue to have these important conversations in your community please make plans to join us next wednesday as cmc presents unpacking ohio's new biennial budget our thanks to forum sponsors cardinal health the columbus dispatch and to the emergency response fund of the columbus foundation for presenting our live stream in partnership with the columbus dispatch and pnc and thank you to our online virtual seat patrons and our special appreciation and guests excuse me appreciation and thanks to our speakers jennifer dare aaron bear kevin magruder and our host alyssa windman nice thank you all for joining us we could not do this without you we look forward to seeing you next wednesday at the columbus metropolitan club as the columbus metropolitan club presents another community conversation thank you [Music] foreign

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Length: 56min 31sec (3391 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021