Afghanistan exit fiasco shows 'poisonous, racist' CRT is military distraction, congressman says

The Biden administration's obsession with the "poisonous, racist ideology" of critical race theory (CRT) has distracted the U.S. military from its core mission, as evidenced by the disastrous exit from Afghanistan, according to a Republican congressman.

"Every institution that is being infused with critical race theory" is facing a "rotting effect," with the most dire consequences for the military, which "requires an esprit de corps" at odds with race essentialism, North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop told a Just the News/Real America's Voice special on CRT.

Gen. Mark Milley "should be fired" for telling lawmakers that criticized West Point's teaching of CRT that the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wants to understand "white rage," Bishop said.

While his legislation to ban CRT in the military and federally funded programs has an uphill battle in a Democratic Congress, the lawmaker said he was encouraged by North Carolina and other state legislation to narrowly exclude CRT from education curricula without glossing over the ugly parts of American history.

"What most thrills me ... is to see moms and dads in school board meetings across this country hammering officials" for promoting CRT, Bishop said. "In the same way General Milley's gotten the military off track, it's going to take a persistent effort in which we press on all fronts."

Parents have driven the legislation and gubernatorial executive orders against CRT by showing up at school board meetings and leading recall efforts, Heritage Action for America Executive Director Jessica Anderson said.

"We just had this huge event in Delaware last week" with more than 500 "incredibly frustrated parents that are standing up and saying enough is enough," she said. 

Anderson praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his "flat-out ban" on CRT via executive order but said the grassroots need to push for legislative fixes to "root out" CRT from American institutions. Heritage Action has model legislation, polling and focus group results that state lawmakers can use, and its anti-CRT clearinghouse SaveOurSchools.com helps parents to file public records requests.

Rhode Island mother Nicole Solas has been on the front lines of public records requests to uncover CRT influence, for which she has been sued by state and local teachers unions.

"They're claiming that if this information comes out, their teachers will be vulnerable to harassment, which is ridiculous," Solas said. "No one wants anybody to be harassed," but rather to "participate in robust public debate about the value of this in public school."

Teachers seem surprised to learn they are accountable to the public as government employees, she said, and if parents hammer this home, "we can maybe ease into a new paradigm where it's not scary when people ask what you're doing."

In Asian culture, "the destiny of your bloodline is one generation," said parent Alvin Lui. "So we teach our children to look one generation ahead of why you can be successful. Critical race theory teaches you to look three generations behind as to why you can't."

He moved his family from California to Carmel, Indiana to escape CRT, only to find it rapidly developing in their new home.

"When I first started seeing some of the seeds being planted" in the Hamilton County school system, "it was things that we would recognize that a lot of people here wouldn't just because we kind of lived through the end of it" in California. There's a "window" to fight back, but it "closes really, really quick," he said.

Lui founded Unify Carmel to organize parents and grandparents to return Carmel to its reputation as a haven for "high rigor academics" and away from social justice, a subject that should be left to parents but not foisted on a "captive audience" by "activist teachers."

Solas jumped in to echo Liu on moving CRT away from a value judgment, where "public school become[s] more like a church," and toward a matter of parental discretion. "Maybe we can all agree that it just shouldn't be in public school, maybe it can go somewhere else, like the home."

It's a mistake to see the 1619 Project as CRT's introduction into the American educational system, when the Marxism spinoff had already filtered into K-12 through graduate schools of education, according to Jonathan Butcher, senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute, which is helping Solas obtain public documents.

The theory's full-blown implementation is reflected in K-12 "mandatory affinity groups" separated by skin color and "white privilege lessons" where white students learn the color of their skin gives them an "irrefutable benefit in life," Butcher said.

Famed neurosurgeon, Republican presidential candidate and Trump administration housing secretary Ben Carson said that once he "started reading about philosophers and explorers and entrepreneurs and surgeons" he realized that his success depended more on himself than "some environment."

But white children instilled with CRT learn that they and their ancestors are "evil" and "created all the problems that exist in our society today" at a time when children are "trying to develop [their] self image," he said. "This is child abuse, quite frankly."

Carson called on "logical people" of all political beliefs to "be a little more forceful in presenting the truth," which is that America overcame the institution of slavery inherent to world history because "we were willing to fight a civil war and lose a substantial portion of our population to stop it." 

Carson's new nonprofit, the American Cornerstone Institute, is coming with a new book for its "Little Patriots" program that teaches "the real history of America, warts and all," but will make children proud to be Americans. 

"We have black admirals and generals and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and presidents of Ivy League universities," and of course a U.S. president and vice president, Carson said. "I mean, to say that we're not making progress is absolutely ostrich-like, sticking your head in the hole."