On Thursday, POLITICO reported that House Republicans are circulating a memo from Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), chair of the Republican Study Committee, pushing members to lean hard into the attacks on "Critical Race Theory," saying that it is necessary to thwart its teaching in order to "rebuild our country."
"The Democrat Party [sic] has wholly embraced Critical Race Theory and all its conclusions… that America is a racist country and that our institutions are racist and need to be destroyed from the ground up. This is a revolutionary posture," said the memo. "We are in a culture war. On one side, Republicans are working to renew American patriotism and rebuild our country. On the other, Democrats have embraced and given platform to a radical element who want to tear America down."
Banks went on to argue that rejecting analysis of racism in the country is consistent with the "dream" of Dr. Martin Luther King — a common and destructive myth about the civil right's leader's beliefs.
Critical Race Theory is a school of academic thought that seeks to analyze the ways that racism and racial conflict have shaped America's government, laws, and institutions. Republicans have wrongly claimed that its adherents are promoting the idea that America and/or white people are inherently evil, and right-wing media outlets have whipped up a moral panic about it being taught in schools — even though it isn't actually taught in virtually any K-12 school in America, and is mainly limited to higher education.
