A Brentwood, Tennessee, father said Thursday that Critical Race Theory (CRT) “damages our children” and that teachers need to adhere to a state law that bans it in public schools and stop “using our children as weapons.”
CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet teaches students to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.
“It’s a wider agenda that erodes the very foundations that our nation was built on,” Dr. Omar Hamada told “Fox & Friends,” reference to CRT, which teaches that white people are intrinsically racist.
“It damages our children by making them think that they are guilty for being who they were created to be. That somehow their race makes them automatically a racist.” (RELATED: Entire Public School Board Freaks Out From Critical Race Theory Ban In Oklahoma, Member Blames ‘White Fragility’)
Hamada compared the teaching to insisting that all males are automatically misogynistic “just because they are male.” He said CRT just assumes that white people are racist.
“So I think by trying to infect our kids with these damaging ideologies, we’ll destroy our society. That’s how we start, right, in the process of education.”
Some teachers in the state have said they would not obey the law, including Liz Jarvis, an English as a second language teacher at Cornerstone Prep in Memphis. She said the legislation only benefits white children. (RELATED: Gov. DeSantis: ‘There Is No Room In Our Classrooms For Things Like Critical Race Theory’)
People hold placards as they protest outside of the Courthouse during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Apr. 19, 2021. – (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Hamada insisted that parents need to resist that mentality. “We do live in a country that’s free. But when it comes today educating our children, those of us who are parents are going to fight for our children’s rights,” he said, noting that educators “are using our children as weapons in a wider agenda to radically transform our society.” He described himself as “a little bit angry” that teachers would not obey the state law.
The Texas state legislature passed a bill Tuesday that would limit CRT in the public school system. In April, Idaho became the first state to pass a similar law. Republican Florida Gov Ron DeSantis has called CRT “a bunch of horse manure.”