In the run-up to the November elections a couple of weeks ago, right-wing operatives, news organizations, and politicians could not stop talking about the crisis of race and education and how American history is taught in our nation’s schools. The easily digestible catchphrase for it all was critical race theory, or CRT. Even though CRT was not, is not, and has never been taught in schools below the college or post-graduate level, the boogeyman of something with the term “critical” in it was a lot more catchy than the more descriptive articulation of what conservatives were whining about—race and stuff. The best part of it all is that none of the coverage actually discussed American history and race, which might actually be something worth teaching children. In a remarkably unsurprising turn of events, not unlike the week where “caravans” of migrants were threatening to invade our southern borders, the mentions and acute terror of CRT being taught in mythic elementary schools has...vanished. In the end, CRT was and will always be a conservative talking point that provides cover for a lack of policy initiatives, while generating enough of the perception of a divide between working folks, of all ethnicities and beliefs, to rile up the media landscape and their base. Read more