The mayors of Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville declined to say Monday whether they support public schools teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT).
This, even though those four mayors — Jim Cooper, Jim Strickland, Tim Kelly, and Indya Kincannon — belong to the United States Conference of Mayors, which recently adopted a resolution supporting CRT in K-12 public schools.
The Tennessee Star contacted the communications staff for all four mayors. A staff member for only one of them — Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly — replied to our request when we asked whether he supports CRT in public schools.
“The City of Chattanooga is not involved in any way in K-12 school curriculum choices so we must defer to Hamilton County Schools,” said Kelly spokeswoman Mary Beth Ikard.
The resolution, passed this month, says historical racism and racist systems have discriminated against people of color and “have created racial inequities in all facets of life in the United States.” The resolution said these racial inequities continue to the present day.
The resolution describes the basic tenets of CRT by the following criteria:
• “Recognition that race is not biologically real, but it is socially constructed and socially significant as a product of social thought not connected to biological reality.”
• “Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality, meaning that racist incidents are not aberrations but instead manifestations of structural and systemic racism.”
• “Rejection of popular understandings about racism, including claims of meritocracy, colorblindness, and arguments that confine racism to a few bad apples, in recognition that the systemic nature of racism, which is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy, bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.”
• “Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship, embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.”
“CRT transcends a Black/white racial binary and recognizes that racism has impacted the experiences of various people of color, including Latinx, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other racial groups,” according to the resolution.
Breitbart.com described CRT as “a Marxist ideology that embraces the concept that all American institutions are systemically racist, with whites as oppressors and blacks as victims.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Students” by Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Wow . . . to ‘Some Dude’ your comments are dead bang on – I couldn’t agree with you more. I grew up inside Knoxville city limits (lived there until age 29). Now I no longer recognize the place (I live outside the city in Knox County). I recently went downtown to Gay Street and I felt as if I was in San Francisco – it was wall to wall weirdos (one guy was walking around with a huge snake wrapped around his neck) and tattooed women with blue or pink hair. Rainbow flags were hanging from every street lamp (paid for by the city).
I no longer set foot inside the city – it only makes me sad when I remember how it use to be family friendly – they even had an annual ‘Celebrate Jesus’ parade through the city. I now only weep for Knoxville.
WAKE UP Tennessee conservatives!!! Get involved in local politics, especially in blue cities…don’t leave it to others to protect our culture and our freedoms.
Make these mayors confirm if they support this crap. If they do, vote them out.
A real howler is “. . . a recognition that race is not biologically real . . .: Facts and critical are lost in all this Marxist propaganda.
Ask the students what they are being taught.
I don’t expect that these mayors will publicly take a stand one way or the other. They know that although black folk make up a large part of their constituency, white folk still are the majority. And publicly saying that all whites are racists, probably ain’t gonna fly too well.
We already saw in the 2020 elections that blacks are starting to wake up and see the truth about the Democrat Party, you know, the party that keeps promoting infanticide. No, like the spineless people that they are, you can bet these mayors will increase the calluses between their legs and continue to straddle the fence!
That would be a yes.
democrats all, we know the answer.
These all Democrat mayors represent, and lead the charge towards, what IS happening within Tennessee.
Realize, Joe Biden only needed to win 17% of The USA’s 3,141 counties, to “win”, and gain all his 80 million votes. ONLY winning the staunch Democrat Party controlled states, and then the most populous counties within contested large Democrat cities within mostly Republican states, like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, & Arizona, etc.
The Democrat Party only needs to control THE most populous counties in any given state (ONLY the ones with the biggest cities, most Democrat controlled. by now), to control the state’s legislature, and therefore… the COMPLETE state’s direction, Including Electoral Votes, and rezoning.
Especially vulnerable, are states like Tennessee, where these FOUR big cities are ALREADY under Democrat Party control. Where the DEMs are pushing non-educational thoughts into children’s minds, to control their future choices, THROUGH the socialist Dem Party controlled Department of Education and the very schools OUR TAXES PAY FOR!
Exactly like we see here with THIS story, all from Democrat controlled mayors.
The Democratization of the states is happening, even more quickly, in states like Tennessee. The counties of, and surrounding, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and, now, Knoxville are CURRENTLY under Democrat Party control; therefore control of their votes, schools, local governmental directions and sentiments, and, soon, our future voting procedures; the SAME “procedures” that “elected” traitor Joe Biden and Hyena Harris.
Soon, perhaps while advancing in these already Democrat owned areas or by simply adding the Johnson City/Tri-Cities area, they will have all the filthy crime-ridden Democrat Party controlled cities they need, to reach their needed 17%.
And FLIP Tennessee from R, to D. ~ Poof ~ Gone will be our Castle Laws. Gone will be 2A sanctuary laws, gone will be self-defense laws, and gone will be the recent concealed carry law.
All in a day.
That’s all part of Democrat Party’s plan.
Tennessee could turn Democrat Controlled, as early as within 5-10 years, and go the fugly, family-destructive, godless, CRT teaching, parent hating, violent-crime infested, self-destructive way of New York City, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Portland, Washington DC, Chicago, etc. As Knoxville and Nashville’s record-setting violent crime-rates already prove.
Realize, again, that Democrats only needed to control 17% of America, to elect, Joe Biden.
— You have been warned.
Take action, Speak out. More fathers and mothers need to get involved in their children’s educations, with regard to school meetings, reading their child’s curriculum, looking at their homework assignments, etc. DO NOT accept things like CRT, and watch OUR state!
Tennessee is under attack, by the Democrat Party, to control the Presidential Elections and control all our paths. — And it is, absolutely, the wrong path.
PS: Listen to, Tom MacDonald’s song, “Brainwashed”. If only for the lyrics.
PPS: Legalize Freedom.