McWhorter: 'Many School Districts' Are Sending Message That 'Essence of Being Black Is Being Oppressed'

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “11th Hour,” author and linguist John McWhorter said that many school districts are teaching a message that “to be white is to be culpable, that the whole American experiment can be argued to have been polluted from the very beginning by the stain of racism, and that the essence of being black is being oppressed.” And that you can’t assert such positions are “default human morality and intelligence and thought” and then “assume that everyone’s going to agree and call them moral perverts if they don’t.”

McWhorter said, “What’s going on is that in many school districts, in both private and public schools, there is a general message being taught that to be white is to be culpable, that the whole American experiment can be argued to have been polluted from the very beginning by the stain of racism, and that the essence of being black is being oppressed. A great many people are under the impression that that really is a suitable default education, that teaching kids that particular perspective on things is what an education is supposed to be. And the problem is, that’s not something that all reasonable people will agree with. And instead, what we have is this word game where somebody calls what I just said Critical Race Theory, and then somebody else says, well, that’s not what’s in papers that some legal scholars wrote 30 and 40 years ago. That isn’t being taught to eight-year-olds, as if that’s what anybody meant.”

He continued, “And so, the terms of all of this are extremely frustrating. Because there are certain people, brilliant, wise people who are insisting that anyone who doesn’t like the direction that so many schools are taking in terms of what they think of as instruction is some kind of bigot, that what this is is racism rearing its ugly head. When really, it’s just that people will differ on how slavery and racism are taught in schools. And when they’re told that they’re fools for questioning it, they have a right to be offended. And this sort of thing could start affecting elections and we’re going to see more of these oversimplified analyses that all it is is racism and backlash and ignorance, when really, it’s something much more complex. It’s that there’s left, and then there’s radical left, and the idea that radical left is default human morality and intelligence and thought, that’s a tough proposition you have to defend. You can’t just throw it out there and assume that everyone’s going to agree and call them moral perverts if they don’t.”

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