R&I – TxPAT ***
Opinion by Nicole Hemmer
Updated 4:21 PM ET, Fri June 18, 2021
(CNN)The moral panic around critical race theory, an academic legal framework for analyzing structural racism, reached a new level on Glenn Beck’s radio show on Monday. Beck, who specializes in dreaming up bogeymen intent on destroying the United States, warned his audience that critical race theory was coming for everything that defines American culture. “Baseball: unwatchable because of critical race,” he said, before teasing an upcoming segment on its attacks on another American institution: “Wait until you hear the critical race theory on apple pie that has just come out — it’s unbelievable.”
Much of the hysteria on the right about critical race theory is unbelievable, but quite a few people believe it all the same. “Critical Race Theory” has become the song of the summer for right-wing media and politicians, the one they’re playing on repeat, returning to it when they’ve got nothing else on tap. And while there’s nothing particularly novel about this particular moral panic, it is serving a useful political purpose: arguing about critical race theory shifts the conversation away from the continued consequences of structural racism.
That conversation opens up challenging issues about equity, affirmative action, reparations, and government intervention to dismantle racist systems — all of which face significant opposition from the right — and can only hurt a Republican Party that has grown dependent on the politics of White racial grievance.
Continued
Carl Sagan
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/opinions/critical-race-theory-right-wing-moral-panic-hemmer/index.html