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The critical race theory of U.S. history has been a hit topic in the past year, but it has been bubbling up for decades, Carol Swain said during a discussion sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
“I can tell you that critical race theory and some of the things that we see now in K through 12 schools, it's been in the universities for decades," she said. "It started in the philosophy departments, the law department, political science, but it permeated every area of the university.
“And what I saw, particularly after the election of President Barack Obama, was that it became dominant in the university," she added. "We saw the political correctness, the trigger warnings, the safe spaces and all of these things. It was as if it was on steroids. “And I can remember some of us joking about the student demands for safe spaces. And so we thought, well, wait until they graduate, wait until they get into the real world. They're going to find out that there are no safe spaces. But the joke was on us because what they did was to take their Marxist ideas, they went into the workplaces and they have created an environment very much like the environment that they created at the universities.”
Swain was in her third day as TPPF’s distinguished senior fellow for constitutional studies. She spoke with TPPF CEO Kevin Roberts on Oct. 10.
Roberts said there is an ongoing “indoctrination of America's kids” and critical race theory is an insidious belief that people should be defined solely, exclusively on the color of their skin.
Most proponents of critical race theory say the main purpose is to examine the role of race and prejudice in the nation, not define people by the color of their skin.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation says its mission is "to build and promote conservative public policies."
Swain has served on the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 1776 Commission. She received a bachelor's degree from Roanoke College, a master’s from Virginia Tech, a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina and a master's of science in law from Yale.
Swain, who has written numerous articles and several books, worked in academia for 28 years and said she saw CRT and other modern theories of education being implemented.
“And during that time, many of us wondered, 'Where were the adults? Why didn't the administrators stand up?' But then it became very clear that Saul Alinsky-style rules for radicals that many of the administrators at colleges and universities were people who were radical leftist in the 1960s, 1970s,” she said. “They infiltrated institutions and organizations. They worked their way to the top. And so they were able to implement their vision of utopia for the rest of us. It is an Orwellian nightmare.”
Swain said although she was a Democrat for years, she was never on the far left. She said most of the people who helped and encouraged her were conservatives, which helped lead to her political evolution.
“Throughout academia the problems I've had always came from the white progressives,” Swain said. “They have never been my friend. They're not the friend of any black person who knows how to think.”
She agreed with Roberts that children are being indoctrinated.
“As young as six months, the radical left argues that your child can be racist, and the focus is only on white children and ‘Sesame Street’ and Nickelodeon," Swain said. "All of them are trying to make children see color. And they're trying to make the children see color in ways that are harmful because the narrative is that all white people benefit from their whiteness, that racism is in their DNA and so that they have to be aware of their unearned privileges, and it also teaches that minorities are inferior. They don't call it. They don't say that. But that's what they're teaching, and they believe that only white people can be racist. Only white people have a responsibility to tackle this issue.”
She said students are told racism is permanent and white people are dangerous.
“We're teaching them to see color,” Swain said. “We're not teaching them to judge people by the content of their character. And when you think about it, what can go wrong? Everything could go wrong. Because if you've been taught to see your friends in terms of their race and not as individuals, if you have a bad experience with someone that belongs to a particular group, you're going to attribute that to all members of that group.”
She was born in 1954, the year the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that ruled segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
Things can change. Racism can be defeated and the country can improve, Swain said. There is more than adequate proof in our history, despite what critical race theory advocates claim, she said.
“[CRT] has Marxist roots," she noted. "It's un-American. It's using the grievances and sufferings of people to advance and to advance an agenda that has very little to do about them. ”And so it is advancing a political agenda. I believe that the ultimate goal is to destroy America and the people that are involved in it. Some of them that are pushing it are not aware of this. Some of them are well-meaning people, but they just don't know what they're doing.”
She said CRT also is deeply racist, not holding blacks and other minorities to the same expectations as white students. Her own life story shows that is absurd, Swain said.
“I was a high school dropout," she said. "One of 12 children, married at 16, got a high school equivalency, went to a community college, got the first of five degrees. Was also an honor student. Won national awards have been cited by the Supreme Court. I have lived the American dream and it was because of a nation that offered me equal opportunity.”
Not demanding people learn and achieve is dangerous and a betrayal of the American way of life, Swain argued.
“In kindergarten our children will not be able to compete with other children across the world because they will not have critical thinking skills,” Swain said. “And when the political left argues that mathematics is racist and that it's that minority students should not be pressed for right answers because math may differ based on your culture. This is ridiculous. It ensures the destruction of our society, not just for black kids, but also for white kids.”
“It's an outcome that you deserve the same outcome, regardless of the degree of effort,” she added. “And during my day we won in a colorblind society. We wanted assimilation. The political left they've given up on colorblindness that's considered a bad word and assimilation that was rejected a long time ago. No melting pot. We want a salad bowl."
She urged people to visit her website and to read her latest book, “Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory is Burning Down the House,” which details the history of CRT and the danger it poses.
Swain also encouraged people to speak up, to protest and fight against the use of CRT in classrooms and their community.
“When you stand up at that school board meeting or you contact your public officials, that's a way to push back," she said. It is when you pull your children out of that private school or that public school and you decide to homeschool and you have every right to do that."