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‘You Repeat These Same Things’: Joy Reid And Christopher Rufo Clash Over Critical Race Theory

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MSNBC host Joy Reid had Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and one of the most prominent critics of Critical Race Theory (CRT), on her show Wednesday night to discuss the topic.

Reid frequently interrupted Rufo when he was trying to repeat quotes about CRT and said that she doesn’t “allow people to just make up and say lies on the show.” Reid also claimed that author Robin DiAngelo is not a Critical Race Theorist, as Rufo had argued earlier in the segment.

The MSNBC host asked Rufo to explain the origins of the term “whiteness.”

“Whiteness is the idea that there is some kind of metaphysical category in the world that all white people are reducible to this essence of whiteness,” Rufo argued. “Then what happens is they load all of these negative connotations. They say whiteness is by definition that includes white fragility, includes white privilege, includes internalized white superiority. Then what they do is they try to impose these reductive racial categories onto individuals.”

Rufo tried to give examples of CRT being taught in schools, but Reid, again, cut him off. (RELATED: The Three Most Common Lies Pro-CRT Media Is Telling Concerned Parents And The Public)

“You repeat these same things,” Reid said. “They’re in this manifesto, people can read it online.” The MSNBC host then accused Rufo of “making a campaign,” including everything that “annoys” him which gets put under the umbrella of CRT.

“What I don’t think is right is forcing 8-year-olds in Cupertino California to deconstruct their racial identities and then rank themselves according to power and privilege,” Rufo said. He added that he is fighting against the “manipulation of language” and “euphemistic terms with subversive content.”

“Because otherwise you just say whatever you want and then you back away from it and you dance around it and it’s not going to happen,” he continued.Parents all over this country, they know what’s happening in schools. They know what’s happening in public institutions and you’re seeing people revolt against this divisive identity politics. You can dance all you want but you’re not going to stop people from understanding what’s happening in the classrooms.”

“I actually appreciate that you said that because, Christopher, what you basically — and you admit it yourself. That you’ve taken all of these sort of wokeness moments, corporate wokeness, corporate sort of woke money, woke capital, the things that annoy conservatives, and you’ve stuffed it all into the name critical race theory. It’s really like Christopher Rufo theory.”

“The strategy is … to take these techniques and use them against their own ideology,” Rufo responded.My strategy has been enormously successful.”

Rufo cited statistics claiming that 64% of Americans know what CRT is, however, Reid said that it was actually “Chris Rufo Theory” because he “made it up.”

“My friend, you made up your own thing,” Reid said. “You admitted you were going to do it. I’ll give you credit for one thing. You did create your own thing. Not a lot of guys in their 30s have created their own thing, labeled it something that already existed as a name, slapped that brand name on it and turned it into a successful political strategy you’ve done that. It’s creating a lot of hell at school board meetings.”