I serve in the Texas House of Representatives, which is essentially under siege by Democrats who have fled Texas to avoid our conservative legislative agenda. Critical race theory (CRT) is high among the items we are poised to take up.
Racism and prejudice are evils that we must always oppose—and oppose with vigilance. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Jesus put it another way: Simply treat others the way you want to be treated. There would be no prejudice, no racism, no injustice if we followed Jesus’s command.
That’s why I so strongly oppose CRT in our schools, government, and institutions. You see, CRT actually causes the very evils it’s alleged to reduce. It will, in fact, foster injustice and bias, not end it.
So, what’s wrong with CRT? To begin with, most people believe that CRT is all about race. It’s not. CRT defines people, actually judges people, by their group affiliation—most often skin color but also sex and economic status—rather than viewing them as individuals created in the image of God. Such division is the very heart of prejudice, discrimination, and racism.
CRT also falsely accuses (and teaches our children) that the United States is a fundamentally racist nation. In fact, the New York Times’ “1619 Project” specifically states that the purpose of the American Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is that America has long made racial discrimination illegal at every level of government, including its elections and institutions of education. What remains today of prejudice and bias is of the heart, not of the law.
(Tragically, no nation had outlawed slavery by the time America declared its independence in 1776 or later when it enacted its Constitution in 1789. In 1807, America became one of only two nations in the world to have passed a law banning the slave trade. And the United States was the fourth nation to outlaw slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.)
CRT is rooted in Marxism, not in our Constitution’s protection of each individual’s inalienable rights.
By Phil King
