Critical Race Theory according to AG Todd Rokita

In one of my emails from Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita titled the “Rokita Review,” Todd provides a link to his newly crafted “Parents Bill of Rights.” In it, Todd tells parents that they are entitled to participate in their child’s education, attend parent-teacher conferences, attend school board meetings, and most of all, ask questions. Todd’s “bill of rights” responds to the reactionary rights handling of Critical Race Theory taught in Hoosier schools. I don’t think parents needed our Attorney General to point out their rights.

Unfortunately, faux outrage and Trumpism go hand in hand in the Red States like Indiana, where they all jockey for who can lower the bar on idiocy.

Todd launched an email several months ago promising swift action as parents were showing up to local school board meetings to protest. They were opposing the outrageous claims made by the right-wing media outlets, which keep their fingers on the pump-priming their listener’s internal rage.

Racists Take Issue With Correcting Whitewashed History

According to Todd:

CRT, the 1619 project, and similar concepts and lesson plans, however, are deeply flawed and controversial teachings. CRT is an ideological construct that analyzes and interprets American history and government primarily through the narrow prism of race. Like CRT, many related ideologies purport to teach diversity and inclusion but in reality, promote exclusionary tenets under the guise of euphemisms commonly referred to as “culturally responsive teaching,” “intersectionality theory,” “radical genderism,” “microinequities,” and “diversity and equity” initiatives.

The 1619 Project aims to reframe the country’s history by placing slavery at the center of the United States narrative. CRT’s teachings are widespread, and their principles are not rooted in American history or known historical facts.

https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/files/Parents-Bill-of-Rights.pdf

To be clear, Todd is not a historian, nor does he have any facts to back up his case. If there is one thing we’ve come to grips with over the past two years, our history has been highly whitewashed by publishers in this country. When the famed historian Howard Zinn corrected this whitewashing, the racists like former Governor Mitch Daniels went ballistic.

The bottom line is our country was built off the backs of slaves dating back to the 1600s. When we won our independence in 1776, our founding documents referred to African-Americans as 3/5 of a citizen because they were owned by white men. They didn’t have equal rights until 220 years later when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act under pressure by MLK.

Do you think we might have glossed over our treatment of slavery descendants? Is it possible that racism found its way into our white patriarchal economic system? Do you think racism crept into all our public systems and programs created since our founding?

Of course, and it will take decades to flush it out of the same systems, especially with racist morons like Todd Rokita and Donald Trump. But first, we have to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism. Racists object to even this first step.

Rokita’s Critical Race Theory Ideas

Todd’s first response was emotional outrage that Hoosier classrooms were setting the historical records straight. – “We should not teach white kids about our racist history!”

White parents were not happy either. But where was Todd going to get support for his racist rants? It wasn’t like the Indiana Chamber of Commerce was going to support this lunacy. Then I received Todd’s email containing his “Parents Bill of Rights” containing his critique of the Critical Race Theory stating:

CT is the foundation from which all these destructive theories flow and can be traced back formally to 1937 at the
Frankfurt School, an institute known for its Marxist philosophies.³ CT’s goal, like Critical Legal Theory (“CLT”) and CRT, is “to attack Western institutions and norms in order to tear them down.” CT and CLT have spawned a wide variety of offshoots beyond CRT, including Critical Gender Theory, Latino Critical Theory, and many others.

CRT is an outgrowth of Critical Theory (“CT”), which spawned CLT, from which CRT formed. The common theme of these CT offshoots is that they view all aspects of life through the lens of race or gender (containing two classes of people, the oppressed and the oppressor), therefore promoting the need to replace systems of western civilization with a Marxist worldview.

https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/files/Parents-Bill-of-Rights.pdf

Wait, Todd doesn’t think the men and women forced into slavery by their owners weren’t an “oppressor/oppressed relationship?”

Our whitewashed history also neglects to point out how the white male patriarchs oppressed women and the working class for centuries. I refer to them as Oligarchs, while history called them Robber Barons up until the 1930s. Through the years, the whitewashing turned to propaganda. In 1949, Albert Einstein told us why – the Oligarchs owned the media and the political class, along with all major institutions. Those underwriting systemic racism also controlled the media narrative.

So, where did our Attorney General get his ridiculous ideas about Critical Race Theory?

I left the footnotes in the quote above so we would know who provided him with his reference. It wasn’t any prestigious university or think tank. No, it wasn’t any of those.

Charles Koch-Funded Think Tank

No, Todd Rokita was not going to find help from the academic world. Instead, his support came from the Charles Koch-funded Heritage Foundation. You can search your internet browser and find dozens of sources outing this right-wing outfit funded by the Koch’s. They always provide the research for the right-wing media. Independent isn’t their strength. So when the right-wing oligarchs need propaganda, they can rely on the Heritage Foundation to produce it for them.

Since the red scare or leftist agenda must always include Marxist verbiage to ignite the base, the Heritage Foundation delivers the emotional scare words:

Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic discipline founded by law professors who used Marxist analysis to conclude that racial dominance by whites created “systemic racism.” Critical race theorists have been dominant in colleges and universities for years, but their impact on public policy was limited until recently. The precepts of CRT have now burst outside the universities, affecting K-12 schools, workplaces, state and federal governments, and even the military. This has sparked resistance from Americans who refuse to have their children indoctrinated or to submit to race-based workplace harassment.

https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/heritage-explains/how-identify-critical-race-theory

Instead of reacting with rage whenever the right-wing media presses the pump, maybe the white-wing should check out why the Oligarchs find Karl Marx’s philosophy so scary. I would advise anyone who feels the current state of free-market capitalism is oppressive to review Marxism for themselves. It’s not a scary concept.

His theories and philosophies should be taught in schools to give our youth an understanding of oppression so they can spot it when they see it. I can see why oppressors and oligarchs would find this intimidating when they prefer obedient and silent workers who don’t question wrong actions against the staff.

Maybe the oligarchs fear this concept:

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!”

Karl Marx

Based on all the independent strikes going on around the world, I’d say the world is full of Marxists but probably have no clue who Marx is. They just know what unfair working conditions look like and how low wages make them feel when trying to make a living. When workers have to spend over eight hours a day under oppressive conditions, they don’t need a dead philosopher to tell them what it feels like or why it feels that way. They know.