Mary Margaret Olohan
The Republican Study Committee is urging the GOP to “lean into the culture war” as a “winning” issue, according to an internal strategy memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
RSC Chairman Jim Banks sent the memo Thursday to approximately 154 Republicans urging his colleagues to fight back against the ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the “racial essentialism” that it teaches. Banks wrote that Republicans believe “individuals should be judged based on the contents of their character, not their skin,” and that America’s institution should be “colorblind, just as our Constitution is colorblind.”
“Here’s the good news,” the RSC chairman told his colleagues. “We are winning.”
“My encouragement to you is lean into it,” Banks said, citing polling showing only a small fraction of Americans want their children being taught CRT. “Lean into the culture war.”
The congressman emphasized that backlash against CRT is “real,” pointing to the parent-led rebellion rising against CRT across the country. At least 165 local and national groups have formed to combat CRT instruction in schools across the U.S., an NBC analysis found.
“We are beginning to see an organic movement from parents across the country in places like Loudon County, VA, Pelham, NY, South Lake, TX, and Bloomington, IL who are fed up with the lessons their kids are being taught,” Banks told RSC members. “As House conservatives, we should be sending a signal to these concerned parents: We have your back.”
CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.
Proponents of CRT defend the theory by saying that it offers needed critiques of “how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers.”
In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, elements of CRT have begun to appear in schools across the nation, identifiable through buzzwords such as “systemic racism,” “racial equity,” “anti-racism,” or “implicit bias.”
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