Black Man Trashes Critical Race Theory in Viral Video Watched 2 Million Times
By: Darragh Roche (MSN)
He gets it.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A video of a man strongly criticizing the idea of teaching critical race theory (CRT) at a school board meeting in Illinois has been viewed 2 million times on Twitter.
Ty Smith, a Black man, made the comments at a meeting of Illinois' District 87 School Board, according to a report from Cities 929, a radio station where Smith also hosts a talk show.
Smith's show is called "Cancel This" and he also has a YouTube channel where he previously posted mostly reaction videos, but recently began sharing his political commentary.
The video was shared by Benny Johnson, chief creative officer of conservative student organization Turning Point USA. It had been viewed 2 million times by Friday morning.
"When you talk about Critical Race Theory, which is pretty much going to be teaching kids how to hate each other, how to dislike each other," Smith told the school board.
"It's pretty much what its all gonna come down to. You're going to deliberately teach kids 'this white kid right here got it better than you because he's white' and you're gonna tell a white kid 'the Black people are all down and suppressed.'"
"How do I have two medical degrees if I'm sitting here oppressed?" Smith said.
Watch this parent absolutely obliterate Critical Race Theory at an Illinois school board meeting:
"How do I have two medical degrees if I'm sitting here oppressed?" pic.twitter.com/gmCRJaphXt
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 17, 2021
Smith said that Black people are being told that White people will keep them down. He said that this hadn't been his experience despite facing difficulties in his life.
"Not one white person ever came to me and said, 'Well son, you're not going to get anywhere,'" Smith said.
"Black folks are getting told by other Black folks, 'you're never going to be able to get out there in the world because white folks are never going to let you get anywhere, the white man is going to keep you down,'" he went on.
"How did I get where I am right now if some white man kept me down?" Smith said, saying he was now in charge of some white people. Smith said that CRT could "reverse" Dr. Martin Luther King's aim that people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
According to the report from Cities 929 on June 10, a local teacher, Suzie Hutton, and student Yvin Chin responded to Smith's remarks at the school board meeting, with Hutton saying CRT wasn't being taught in schools.
Chin defended CRT, saying: "So for the people here who say they have never been called racist, Critical Race Theory is not calling you and your children racist."
"In fact it is doing the exact opposite. It is saying that we understand you do not have malicious intent. It means the people hundreds of years ago, who lived in a very different United States, set up systems that were intentionally designed so we did not know about them," she said.
Critical race theory examines the ways in which race and racism intersect with culture, law and politics. The suggestion that CRT could be taught in schools has been the subject of significant criticism in recent weeks, including from elected Republicans.
Newsweek asked Ty Smith for comment.
Well put.............
True. They avoid the actual term. What they use in it's place are 'oppressors'' and 'oppressed' throwing in the ever popular 'white supremacist' for a little color (no pun intended.)
Well that would be terrible, if that were what CRT was teaching. But of course it's not. that is the straw man CRT that some dishonest conservatives and bigots have fabricated out of thin air. CRT does NOT teach children to hate each other, it does not teach that white kids are born racist or are inherently racist, these are bold faced lies by weak liars who are determined to whitewash American history and the only reason I can imagine for them to attempt to do so is that they feel CRT hits too close to home and would expose their silent support for the continued legacy of systemic racism in our society. Interestingly they are often the very same ones who are trying desperately to leave up the statues, memorials and monuments that glorify confederate bigots and present them as somehow American heroes instead of recognizing the true American heroes who were the Union soldiers who fought against confederate traitors, the civil rights leaders who pushed to make the first steps towards racial equality.
It's sad when the lame brained right wing media tries to use images or video of misinformed people attacking the straw man they created which does not in any way resemble reality and then proclaim that somehow proves their point.
Exactly, CRT is exactly the opposite of how it is being presented by dishonest conservatives who continue to lie, twist and deflect it because apparently they are too uncomfortable with actual US history and how it exposes their current prejudice. They'd rather claim everything is fine now, ignore the issues found within the system and claim they are supposedly "colorblind" when nothing could be further from the truth. If conservatives were so colorblind, why is their party the least diverse instead of the most diverse? You would think true colorblindness would create a party that had true equal representation and yet the exact opposite is found among conservative Republicans and their representatives. It's no doubt why they are fighting so hard to create a CRT straw man full of flaws they can attack and villainize which deflects attention from their deep seated prejudices and silent support for the systemic racism that continues to exist within our laws and society.
And you know they're misinformed how? Did you speak with them? Did you speak with their children?
You're making claims that you can't support. Much like the CRT being taught.
Because Ty Smith admits it by wrongly claiming CRT is "pretty much going to be teaching kids how to hate each other, how to dislike each other". This is a right wing lie, it does no such thing.
If they are spouting rhetorical lies that I have seen right wing commentators invent that do not resemble what actual CRT is teaching then I know they have been misinformed and are just regurgitating the lies they've been told like many on the right do daily.
The facts are self-evident. Conservatives don't have to listen to the truth about CRT if they don't want to and can continue to view it as the boogieman it's being made out to be by right wing activists and extremists. I'm sure sticking their heads in the sand is more comfortable for many who silently harbor many of the prejudices their conservative ancestors passed down to them and why they stand up to stop the removal of confederate memorials and monuments but then get angered that their kids might be taught the truth about the history of racism in America and how we are still dealing with its systemic vestiges.
CRT does NOT teach children to hate each other, it does not teach that white kids are born racist or are inherently racist.....
So what the fuck is it supposed to teach, since there is no organized or "systemic" racism in this country?
CRT is a collection of left wing lies and BS
I suggest you might want to read this also.
John Mcwhorter had a nice summary:
The issue here is not whether schoolkids should learn about racism. A certain kind of person loves to stand and breezily say that there are swarms of people out there who don’t want kids to know about racism – and they say this with admirable oppositional poise but not a shred of evidence.
Rather, what most of us (as opposed to the Establishment in schools of education) think, and are correct about, is this:
1. Young children should not be taught if white to be guilty and if black to feel a) oppressed and b) wary of white kids around them (and if South Asian to be very, very confused …).
2. Young children should not be taught that the American story is mainly (note I write mainly rather than only , but mainly is just as awful here) one of oppression and racism. Not because it’s unpleasant and because sinister characters want to “hide” it, but because it’s dumb.
CRT does NOT teach white kids "to be guilty" or black kids "to feel oppressed" or to be "wary" of whites. It explains the facts of our past while detailing the legacy of racism that still lingers. It teaches that neither white not black Americans today should be blamed for the vestiges of systemic racism because it isn't something they created or put in place but without acknowledging it exists we'll never be able to actually come together and change it.
CRT does not teach kids that the American story is "only" or even "mainly" one of oppression and racism, this is another right wing lie. It does teach that you can't tell the story of America without including the intertwined facts of slavery, racism, segregation along the fight for civil rights. We do not serve our children well by trying to whitewash the past and put a positive spin on things like the civil war saying things like it was mainly started over States rights and that plantation owners treated their "laborer's" almost like family when we know what the cornerstone was regardless of how that might make some of those confederate descendants might feel. We should not be protecting the monuments and memorials to confederate soldiers and generals and treating them like heroes. Our kids deserve the truth even if it was ugly at times. They deserve the truth, not to feel guilty but to stop the cycles of prejudice, to stop the misinformation that some conservatives have passed on to their descendants and to recognize the areas that we still need to work on and change to see true equality regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, faith or lack thereof.
When someone is racially profiled, we tend to focus only on the negative racial profiling, the minority that gets pulled over because their skin color fits some false pre-conceived profile some cops have of minorities being more prone to criminality. But the dozen white people that passed by that same cop and weren't pulled over because they didn't "fit the profile" were also racially profiled and given a "benefit of the doubt" and they didn't even know it happened which is why many white Americans are oblivious to what's been called "white privilege".
Some claim we can't just take the outcomes which indicate substantive systemic racism in our justice system and society because it's too hard to pin down or define the cause of those unequal outcomes. We don't have the testimony from the cops who would be willing to admit "Well I pulled him over because he's black". We only have the statistics of blacks being 9 times more likely to be pulled over and searched even though whites use and deal drugs at similar if not higher rates. So do we really just ignore the inequities found because it's hard to pin down the purveyors of prejudice? Do we just blindly assume that there isn't a problem anymore because the civil rights and voting rights acts were passed so everything is "all fixed"?
The silence coming from conservatives is deafening. They seem to believe as long as you don't talk about race then there is no racism, and now it's gone one step further which apparently in their minds now, if you talk about race then you're the racist. This is a wildly dishonest and disgusting phenomenon and is exactly what those who do continue to harbor prejudice in their hearts would be practicing, a policy of silence where no one is allowed to talk about race for fear that someone will stop them from living out their prejudice and individual segregation, or possibly even make them feel guilty for it.
Of course it does. Simplistically declaring otherwise doesn't make it true. It's like claiming that indoctrinating kids with Marxism won't make them wary of capitalism. I know many liberals struggle with the concept of unintended consequences, but how they miss the intended consequences is really something.
. It does teach that you can't tell the story of America without including the intertwined facts of slavery, racism, segregation along the fight for civil rights. We do not serve our children well by trying to whitewash the past
And here's the strawman.....
hey seem to believe as long as you don't talk about race then there is no racism
As the Professor McWhorter pointed out, "A certain kind of person loves to stand and breezily say that there are swarms of people out there who don’t want kids to know about racism – and they say this with admirable oppositional poise but not a shred of evidence."