In another grotesque display of hostility to people of color, republican legislators in Idaho have passed a bill preventing all public schools, including state colleges and universities, from discussing critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory is the academic discipline of examining how the law and government systems adversely affect people of color and challenges the the systematic biases and structures that perpetuate racism. The arguments put forward by advocates of the bill are embarrassingly ignorant, basically amounting to “everyone is equal now and we only do harm by bringing up the past,” a convenient position to take if you want to avoid all accountability for the oppression people of color experienced, have no interest in making it right, and want to continue denying America’s race problem in the face of surging racial violence.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of bill that plays to the red hat constituency perfectly. It appeals to the endless emotional need of the republican base to denigrate academics and infuriate progressives. It supports the narrative of white victimhood. It attacks educators who would teach the truth about our past as liberal cyphers “indoctrinating” young people, rather than people simply explaining our best understanding of history and the experiences from all points of view. It effectively silences the voices of people of color in history in favor of a narrative of white supremacy.
While it was heartening to see the large contingent of students protesting this ignorance at the statehouse, there appears to be little hope that they will be able to turn the tide. Idaho is slipping alarmingly easily into fascism. How do you turn things around? I don’t know. I have some guilt about the direction Idaho is heading since I am one of the people who left Idaho when I was young for places with more liberal values, where a gay man could feel safe. Watching this law pass is hard to take, as a third generation Idaho native, as a former academic, and as a person who cares about racial justice. I had always hoped my home state’s trajectory would be to become more modern and enlightened over time. If this must be lived through, I hope it is because it is the last ugly gasp of a dying system and it means real change is afoot. But it’s hard to see the future I hoped for in light of the present.