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Jackson, Mississippi

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Isn’t it curious how before white conservatives discovered critical race theory in 2020, legislators were not commonly proposing and signing bills into law that limited discussions on race in the classroom? It’s almost as if this relatively obscure academic study that has existed in academia since 1989 suddenly became a mainstream conversation once Republicans figured out it was a galvanizing tool for white grievance propaganda and we’re all supposed to believe that, by some huge coincidence, there’s suddenly a massive influx of educators teaching white students that they’re inherently racist and directly responsible for America’s racist past.

Never mind the fact that none of these legislators have been able to prove these white student-hating lessons are actually being taught, right-wing politicians, pundits, school boards, and parents got their rallying cry, and that’s all that really matters.

On Thursday, we reported that the West Virginia Senate advanced what it erroneously titled “The Anti-Racism Act of 2022” on Wednesday. It’s not what it sounds like. It’s just another white fragility bill that prohibits K-12 schools, colleges, and universities from teaching that “any race, ethnicity, or biological sex is superior to another.” Of course, legislators never bothered to prove or even cite significant evidence that such lessons were being taught.

Well, one day after the West Virginia Senate voted 21-12 to pass the bill and send it to the House, Mississippi’s Republican-controlled House voted 75-43 to pass Senate Bill 2113, another anti-CRT bill that includes nearly the same language as that of West Virginia.

As the Associated Press reports, the bill to “prohibit critical race theory” proclaims that no K-12 school, community college, or university can teach that any “sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.”

It’s like Mississippi copied West Virginia’s homework damn near verbatim. The only difference is the latter was at least intentional in not including the words “critical race theory” in the language of the bill, likely because legislators knew they’d have to reconcile with the demonstrable fact that CRT absolutely doesn’t teach that any race is superior or inferior to others.

Mississippi, on the other hand, is taking a strawman anti-CRT argument and turning it into a law that all educators must follow.

“Censoring teachers, dismantling education bit by bit, attempting to erase the past, refusing to acknowledge the hurt and the horror and the heinous acts that have been done to my people and then hiding behind this ‘inferior versus superior’ argument—that’s what this bill will do,” Rep. Zakiya Summers (D-Jackson) said in denouncing the bill.

AP noted that no Republican legislators gave speeches defending the bill, but Rep. Joey Hood (R-Ackerman) declared, “History will continue to be taught—American history, Civil War history, Mississippi history.”

So basically, the same whitewashed history that has always been taught will continue to be taught. Because truthfully, if Republicans were concerned about an inaccurate depiction of American history being taught to impressionable minds, they’d have as much of an issue with a history curriculum that is sanitized for white consumption that they have with what they falsely perceive CRT to be.

And before the obtuse whites start smugly pointing out that the bill doesn’t mention the teaching of any specific races purported to be superior or inferior, we can tell by the racial breakdown of the legislators who participated in the vote who this bill was meant to appease.

AP noted: “All House votes for the bill on Thursday came from white Republicans. Of those voting against it, 39 are Black Democrats, two are white Democrats, one is a Black independent and one is a white independent.”

These anti-CRT laws are designed for an America of the white people, for the white people, and by the white people. Republicans are just too racist and cowardly to admit it.

SEE ALSO:

West Virginia Advances The ‘Anti-Racism Act,’ But It’s Not What You Think, It’s A Bill To Protect White Feelings

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