Jackson Jambalaya

While answering roll call the first day of class, my students state why they are famous. It really doesn’t matter what they say. They are introducing themselves to me and their classmates so we can remember their names and something about them. Those first few minutes of class set the tone for the whole semester, plus students give their first speeches without even knowing it.

Some educators teach a class of students, and some teach each student in their class. Some teach courses, while others teach students. We’re all individuals. Or, we used to be until Critical Race Theory (CRT) conquered our public education curricula and system. 

Nowadays K-College students learn they are no more than one little cog in a certain classification of cogs. Each little cog will be classified by such characteristics as gender, race, and intellectual abilities. That’s their group identity. 

CRT teaches gender identity is 100% determined by students’ feelings rather than biology. Race is immutable and each race in America is foreordained to certain statuses. Intellectual abilities must conform to the lowest common denominator of the class. We must insure equity for all.

Why have so many educators today chosen to incorporate CRT into their lesson plans? Because CRT has been openly taught and adopted as the defacto American model for teaching K-College students. Some educators use textbooks but most just teach what they’ve been taught to believe. And, they continue the educational cycle of life by teaching their students what to believe. 

Remember the radical socialist professors of the 1960s? Well, they won. They changed America’s education system from teaching individual excellence to teaching how identity groups must realign in equitable ways. They want to make all students equal at whatever level works.

These days the ‘radical’ educators challenge students to question what they have been taught to believe. Question whether race predisposes people to certain ends simply because of their race. Question the role sexual promiscuity has played in the rise and fall of so many nations and empires. Learn about economic classes in socialist or communist nations, and compare or contrast those class lifestyles with lifestyles in America. 

Last week while being recognized by President Biden in the White House, Justice Breyer said America is an ongoing experiment “conceived in liberty.” Breyer quoted the Gettysburg Address as an encouraging word for coming generations of Americans who continually face challenges to our republic. He cited the opening of the speech: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Then, he cited Lincoln’s closing words: “[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

CRT is a Marxist-based philosophy that has substituted racial division in America for Marx’s class warfare. Marx’s goal was to divide his country along class lines, and then build a socialist totalitarian state. CRT advocates are dividing Americans along racial lines to build a socialist state governed by powerful elites.

Who is telling American students what they are instead of whom they can become.

 Daniel L. Gardner is a syndicated columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com.