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Representative Mike Kelly just sent his constituents an email titled “Critical Race Theory is Poison” in which he either lied or revealed his ignorance. Critical Race Theory (CRT) holds that citizens should think critically about the effect race relations have had on our country. Kelly misrepresented CRT as “a dogma that preaches American society is defined only by racism, and that we as individuals are either oppressors or oppressed based solely on the color of our skin.” Kelly either has NO critical reasoning ability or he is so venal he is willing to perpetuate lies about how our country was formed and how it hurt a lot of people.
“Critical thinking” has nothing to do with “criticizing” something. It is about looking at the facts clearly and in depth. What happened, how, why, and what effect did it have. I will use critical thinking to parse Kelly’s remarks. He wrote, “We know that the United States is a fundamentally good nation that was the first in human history to articulate that all human beings are equal, and then to strive to live up to that ideal.” The founders wrote that “all human beings are equal,” but the laws they wrote excluded natives, women, and slaves. Abolitionists and women’s suffragists did strive for equality, but it took hundreds of years of fighting the status quo to get to where we are, which is by no means ideal. Kelly wrote that “we ended slavery, we ended Jim Crow…” Thinking critically, we understand that Jim Crow laws were written to replace slavery and continue to exploit blacks and deny them the vote. So, yes, after “we” instituted Jim Crow, some Americans fought to end it while others fought to keep it. Kelly co-opted “Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Mr. Kelly, no one thinks that all white people are bent on whitewashing history and denying American’s racist and sexist past, but we can all see that you are; that reveals the content of your character. The email ends by stating that “[CRT] is a false and destructive narrative that is being used to divide us and undermine our institutions.” Kelly’s email is a false and destructive narrative that is being used to divide us and keep Kelly and his ilk in power. Chris Renz |