Media top headlines June 7
CNN’s Brian Stelter getting panned for interview with Jen Psaki, the New York Times being criticized for ‘biased’ tweet against Joe Manchin, and Peter Daszak getting cited by media fact-checkers and Facebook round out today’s top media headlines.
While left-leaning media continue to aggressively promote critical race theory, parents are pushing back on it as divisive and damaging to students.
Critical race theory is broadly defined as the study of the alleged embedment of racism in U.S. institutions and its effect on society writ large, and parents, educators, and lawmakers are locked in a fierce debate over whether it should be in the nation's classrooms.
"Equity policy is the same as critical race theory and the reason why it’s so damaging is it divides students into groups. It is not the same as equality or equal opportunity, which is what every parent is for and what the civil rights movement was for," Colorado mother Deborah Flora told "America’s Newsroom." Flora brought her concerns to the Colorado Douglas County School District board, calling CRT training a "nightmare."
The New York Times, NPR, and The Intercept have recently published pieces that appeared to promote aspects of critical race theory, criticizing Republican efforts against it, and taking occasional swipes at parents in the process.
The Intercept published a report on Monday that highlighted the skin color of parents who have voiced complaints to their school districts.
"Parents — mostly white — have been storming school board meetings across the state over the last few weeks, heeding a call by conservative demagogues to fight against ‘critical race theory’ being taught in schools," George Chidi wrote.
He continues: "In practice, these white parents haven’t been railing against the arcane legal theory but against the idea that students should be taught that racism is a real, current problem created by longstanding structural inequality," later adding that many opponents have described "anti-racist education initiatives as inherently political."
"Stupid parents and their attempts at raising their children," Grabien editor Tom Elliott quipped in response to the piece.
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"Of course The Intercept paints anyone who opposes Critical Race Theory indoctrination as a white supremacist. Trash," Ian Miles Cheong responded.
Dana Loesch similarly sounded off on The Intercept's "whitewashing" of CRT critics.
Ian Prior, Executive Director of Fight for Schools, a non-partisan political action committee, said his coalition has pushed back against CRT training in Loudoun County, Virginia, because they "believe in diversity, but do not believe in division."
Prior noted his coalition consists of Hispanic parents, Black parents, Asian parents and more. Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock, who has written extensively on CRT, agreed.
"I have seen a number of Black parents at school board meetings saying they don’t want any part of this," he noted in an interview with Fox News. Murdock said that shouldn’t be surprising because Black people, he argued, "do not want to be told ‘we’re victims, we can’t make it work, we’re oppressed, we’re losers.’"
Shawntel Cooper, a Black parent in Loudoun County, got widespread attention for recently sounding off on CRT at a school board meeting.
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"Critical race theory is not an honest dialogue, it is a tactic that was used by Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan on slavery very many years ago to dumb down my ancestors so we could not think for ourselves," Cooper said. "Critical race theory is racist, it is abusive, it discriminates against one's color … You cannot tell me what is or is not racist."
Kory Yeshua, a Black father whose TikTok video telling his daughter why he didn't believe in CRT went viral, further explained his opposition to it on Fox News.
"I just decided I wanted to get out there and show the world what I teach my daughter and the values that I instill in her about the content of her character and not the color of her skin," Yeshua said on "Fox & Friends."
In a New York Times piece on CRT headlined, "Disputing Racism's Reach, Republicans Rattle American Schools," the editors questioned the agenda of CRT opponents and accused them of stoking a culture war.
"Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have passed bills to block curriculums that emphasize systemic racism," is how the Times framed the story in a tweet.
But Prior says this narrative is also misleading and proves CRT is based on the notion that one "picks one thing about somebody and basically that’s all you need to know about them." In reality, he explained, his coalition has gained support from not only Republicans, but Democrats and Independents as well.
"It's not a Republican thing," he said. "It's a mom thing."
Murdock was equally blunt in his assessment of the leftist push for CRT. It's "stupid," he told Fox News.
"I think a lot folks wouldn't like but would at least tolerate, or at least live with, being told, ‘OK, you need to go sit in a conference room, and listen to a lecture on why White people are the … source of all evil in the world’ … What the Left did was very stupid, which was they decided we're going to come after your children. 'We're going to tell you your 5-year-old daughter, and your 7-year-old son, you're racist because you're white, and you're white and you're evil and go focus on why you're white and an oppressor and why the Black kids are victims and why they're suffering.'"
"And I think Black parents are thinking, 'Why are you telling my little girl, my little boy in school that they're victims and they can't make it?'" he added. "I don’t think we can pull it out of the ground, and salt the ground and pave it over with asphalt quickly enough. It’s one of the most destructive things in recent memory."
CRT opponents say the negative media attention has not kicked them off course.
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"Many of us in the political/policy world feared cancel culture would prevent parents from being able to speak out against CRT," tweeted Kelsey Bolar, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women's Forum. "It's understandable, given what's at-risk. The fact that so many are is so encouraging and hopeful. I pray the domino effect continues."
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