Critical Race Theory Wants to Marry Your Sister
Conservatives bark at CRT like junkyard dogs. But what are they protecting?
Back in the 1950s, a popular scare tactic in fighting the Civil Rights Movement was the threat that if integration was successful, sex-starved Negro men would be swarming through the streets marrying the white man’s sisters. Renowned African American writer James Baldwin commented on this idea with puzzlement: “Why, for example—especially knowing the family as I do—I should want to marry your sister is a great mystery to me.”
Unfortunately, scare tactics work. Mostly against children and those who think like children.
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But who wants to scare Americans? Anyone who wants to manipulate people in order to get their money and/or their vote. Televangelists shriek about the devil and hell to frighten the dollars out of their terrified viewers. Politicians cry out about immigrants, trans people, vaccinations, and Critical Race Theory (CRT). And it brings in millions in donations and panicked votes.
Critical Race Theory is the new Red Threat, echoing back to when politicians promised that Communists were everywhere trying to hand the country over to Russia. Any protest was considered communist-inspired, which is why J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI branded Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement as communist and worked tirelessly to discredit them. Today, that same tactic is employed, except using “socialist” in place of communist. Every time a conservative pundit says “socialism,” their audience nods in fear and loathing—and reaches for their credit card.
Back during Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s congressional hearings, in which people were encouraged to turn in their friends and family members under threat of imprisonment, there were only 50,000 Communists out of 150 million people. Yet, politicians ranting against them frightened people into giving them votes. Compare that to today when over 12 million people believe that lizard people run the U.S. Yet, there are no hearings, no investigations, no legislation banning these creepy lizard people. However, the number of states banning critical race theory is increasing daily, with Republicans using it as a major fund-raising talking point.
And it worked a few weeks ago in Virginia where Republican Glenn Youngkin was losing the race for governor until he zeroed in on CRT and scared the white women of the state, who at first supported former governor Democrat Terrance McAuliffe. The fear of CRT shifted white women’s support from 53 percent to 43 percent, though Black women voted for McAuliffe at 86 percent and Latino women at 75 percent. That disparity tells us who is frightened, but not exactly why.