U.S. Conference of Mayors Adopts Resolution in Support of K-12 Critical Race Theory

Students walk to their classrooms at a public middle school in Los Angeles, California, Se
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Dr. Susan Berry

The United States Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution during its annual convention in which its members pledged to support the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public K-12 education.

During its conference held August 31-September 4, the mayors adopted Resolution Number 68, “In Support of Critical Race Theory in Public K-12 Education.”

CRT is a Marxist ideology that embraces the concept that all American institutions are systemically racist, with whites as oppressors and blacks as victims.

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the nation’s mayors support the implementation of CRT in the public education curriculum to help engage our youth in programming that reflects an accurate, complete account of BIPOC history,” the document states.

Author and mathematician Dr. James Lindsay drew attention to the mayors’ resolution on Twitter, and writer Andrew Sullivan reminded his followers of the denials by teachers’ unions and local school board officials that CRT is being taught in K-12 schools as they claimed it is a subject only for law schools:

In June, Dr. Paul Freeman, superintendent of public schools in Guilford, Connecticut, denied to angry parents he is teaching CRT, while using its language of “equity,” rather than “equality,” and “diversity.”

In a statement, he said in part:

We are working in Guilford Schools to be more equitable in our practice, to embrace diverse texts in our classrooms, to diversify our teaching ranks, to address difficult historical events honestly and openly, and to ensure that all children feel heard in their schools.”

A similar statement was made by Jeff Porter, superintendent of the Cumberland-North Yarmouth, Maine, school district.

Breitbart News reported:

Porter denied his district uses Critical Race Theory (CRT). However, following the death of George Floyd, the district sent a letter to the community, expressing its “solidarity with Black Movement leaders” and detailing its decision to work with Community Change Inc. (CCI), a Boston-based company that self-describes on Twitter as “a non-profit that challenges systemic racism with a special focus on white people.”

“Can’t dismantle white supremacy without dismantling capitalism,” CCI states.

Matt Perdie / Breitbart News

The mayors’ resolution defines CRT as “the practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society, in which racism can be seen across systemic, institutional and interpersonal levels operating over the course of time and across generations.”

“Historical racism and racist systems have caused de jure and de facto discrimination against people of color and have created racial inequities in all facets of life in the United States, and these racial inequities continue to the present day,” the resolution claims.

The document goes on to state the “basic tenets of CRT” include the “recognition that race is not biologically real, but it is socially constructed and socially significant as a product of social thought not connected to biological reality.”

CRT also acknowledges, according to the document, that there are no isolated incidents of racism, but, instead, only “manifestations of structural and systemic racism.”

The resolution asserts CRT teaches racism is absolutely everywhere and rejects “popular understandings about racism, including claims of meritocracy, colorblindness, and arguments that confine racism to a few bad apples.”

Instead, CRT recognizes “that the systemic nature of racism, which is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy, bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.”

CRT, the resolution continues, “recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past, but instead acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.”

The document asserts as well that “learning and scholarship that ignores race is not demonstrating ‘neutrality’ but adherence to the existing racial hierarchy” and that “Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC) have experienced a gap in achievement compared to their White counterparts, and these students need an equitable allocation of resources to fill in the gaps.”

More black leaders, however, are speaking out against the teaching of CRT ideology.

Kendall Qualls, a former candidate for Congress in 2020, is leading a black school choice and anti-woke culture movement, starting in Minnesota and spreading nationally, that aims to challenge the narrative that America is a systemically racist nation.

TakeCharge says its objective is “inspire and educate black and other minority communities of their full rights and privileges as Americans granted to them by the Constitution.”

The organization seeks to move black individuals “to take charge of their own lives, the lives of their children and not to rely on government and politicians for redemption and prosperity.”

“We do not apologize for embracing America or its history,” TakeCharge asserts. “We believe that a well-grounded knowledge of American and world history strengthens our diverse country.”

The group denounces “the idea that the country is guilty of systemic racism and white privilege” and “abhor[s] the concept of identity politics and the promotion of victimhood in minority communities.”

“There are many prominent black Americans, including myself, voicing strong opposition to Critical Race Theory,” Qualls recently told Breitbart News. “If judging a person by their skin color was wrong during Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech in the 1960s, it is wrong today.”

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