# Critical Race Theory Boogeyman **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2021, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critical-race-theory-boogeyman/944754 "2021-06-21T12:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 94
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2021, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critical-race-theory-boogeyman/944754/94 "2021-07-13T03:10:50Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > There’s a lot more heat than light in this debate, and it’s hard to find copies of the actual material. > > There’s an example at the bottom of this page, and I think others on the same site: Talk about less light. That article is a perfect example of illogical thinking. Besides acknowledging that a lot is happening because of the pandemic and other infective policies, there is not really a good logical reason to claim that critical race theory is causing the failure or that putting things already discussed here in “scare quotes” makes his argument. Having looked at that, then one looks at the bias, he is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute: > **[Fact Sheet: Manhattan Institute](https://centerjd.org/content/fact-sheet-manhattan-institute)** > > CJ&D is a tax-exempt nonprofit group that works to protect the civil justice system and fight tort reform. So, not only biased, but that guy already has a history of bullshit galore. > **[How to Manufacture a Moral Panic](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/christopher-rufo-and-the-critical-race-theory-moral-panic.html)** > > Conservative journalist Christopher Rufo has helped incite a right-wing uproar over racism education with a mix of dramatic, dodgy reporting. > That’s what happened to officials in Oregon’s Tigard-Tualatin School District. In [an article](https://www.city-journal.org/critical-race-theory-portland-public-schools) for _City Journal_ ’s spring issue, Rufo said he’d received “a blueprint” from a whistleblower. It purportedly showed that the district’s new director of equity and inclusion, Zinnia Un, planned to transform “the pedagogy and curriculum” by adopting the theories of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator whose best-known work, _Pedagogy of the Oppressed,_ encourages teachers to work with their students as partners and frames education as an act of liberation and mutual humanization. This is a problem, Rufo said, because Freire was a Marxist. “Following Freire’s categorizations, Un writes that the Tigard-Tualatin school district must move from a state of ‘reading the world’ to the phase of ‘denunciation’ against the revolution’s enemies and, finally, to the state of ‘annunciation’ of the liberated masses, who will begin ‘rewriting the world,’” Rufo wrote. > > The school-district document Rufo cites does not say this. It references Freire’s work but not, for example, revolution, its enemies, or the liberated masses. A spokesperson for the district said the presentation was used internally for an opt-in professional-development session and school-board discussions about implementing an anti-racist resolution; a revolutionary vanguard has yet to form. > > Of an additional staff [resource](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1PrAq4iBNb4nVIcTsLcNlW8zjaQXBLkWayL8EaPlh0bc/mobilebasic?usp=gmail), Rufo wrote that it “assumes” whites are born racist, which he called “textbook cult indoctrination.” The truth is a bit tamer: The guide urges white educators to move beyond the “belief that you aren’t racist if you don’t purposely or consciously act in racist ways,” and according to the spokesperson, it has not been used in any formal settings, such as for staff training. Still, this hysterical interpretation appealed to right-wing commentators like Andy Ngo, and Rufo later went [on Newsmax](https://twitter.com/CortesSteve/status/1395524645022052358) to promote the misleading story further. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critical-race-theory-boogeyman/944754)._