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Don’t worry laws banning speech have already been passed in some states, but we are finally starting to see a media recognition about how "critical race theory" is a carefully constructed moral panic.
These laws serve multiple purposes: they are culture war fodder with a racial valence to distract from the GOP's threadbare economic policies. While obviously unconstitutional, they will still succeed in chilling speech by teachers/faculty who don't want to be pilloried on Fox.
Media, esp. local media & right wing media, have largely accepted the framing of CRT as a dangerous theory that must be stopped, rather than as an unconstitutional attack on free speech motivated by a desire to stop conversations about race and power.
Republican politicians started strategically calling all accurate historical information about racial inequality "critical race theory" and a lot of media outlets are just uncritically running with the phrase now.
"Critical race theory" is a real thing, of course, but the political strategy here is concept stretching and, well, it appears to be working.
It's really representative of what the GOP messaging typically does; take an obscure concept that is vague to the general public, build it up as a straw man, and then run against the giant straw man they built.
I don't agree with CRT, but what the GOP labels stuff is not CRT.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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