by Kendall Tietz
Teacher training at a Texas public school district teaches the tenets of Critical Race Theory, according to a document obtained by Fox News and videos provided by an education activist.
Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) is reportedly infusing Critical Race Theory (CRT) into its teacher training, which states that “America is oppressive” and “White supremacy is everywhere,” Carlos Turcios, an activist who spent four years on FWISD’s Racial Equity Committee and now organizes parent protests, told Fox News.
CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.
The school district has asserted that it does not teach CRT, but it advertised a class for teachers and staff that introduced CRT into the curriculum, according to the “Overview of Service Provided by the Division of Equity & Excellence,” from September 2020. The overview outlines “Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Fort Worth ISD: An Introduction.”
The overview explains CRT’s central tenets as “Counter- storytelling, the permanence of racism, whiteness as property, interest convergence, critique of liberalism,” to discuss the “endemic nature of racism and white supremacy” in the U.S. from its founding “into the present.”
The course is self-paced, where participants learn that racism “is prevalent in all aspects of our society,” including the educational system. The “culminating activity” of the course involves participants developing “their own Racial Equity Strategic Plan to move more deeply into critical self-reflection and work towards implementing their plan into the participants current roles.”
“The superintendent and the bureaucracy are doing a disservice to the students by teaching them that color is everything, that America is oppressive, and that White supremacy is everywhere,” Turcios told Fox News. “Last time I checked, critical race theory doesn’t help kids learn how to pay the bills, pay their taxes, or pass that job interview.”
The school district’s overview also discusses “Students Organized for Anti-Racism (SOAR),” implemented to encourage students to do “anti-racism” work. The SOAR description says students in “predominantly White settings” should be “particularly open to alliances with students of color” and “not further isolate students of color, who are already historically marginalized and hypervisible within the system.”
SOAR advisers, the faculty members guiding the groups, should be “prepared to host racial affinity spaces as needed,” which involves segregating participants by skin color, according to the district’s overview. Advisers should also “be able to practice culturally responsive teaching” and “have an internalized understanding of critical race theory,” the document says.
At an optional district “Racial Equity Summit,” in March 2019, attendees had to divide themselves by race into “African, Biracial, African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian, Asian and White” groups, according to a videoshared by Turcios.
At the district’s school board meeting in November, FWISD Superintendent Kent Paredes Scribner discussed the “Introduction to Critical Race Theory” and “how to create an anti-racist classroom” by addressing implicit bias and microaggressions.
At the 2020 FWISD “Racial Equity Summit,” an instructor discussed a quote, “a little white man deep inside all of us,” attributed to James Baldwin, on a slide titled “Internalized white supremacy.”
During the session, the black speaker said many black people are “guilty of” hosting “internalized white supremacy” by thinking “our own traditions are not as good, somehow,” which is “internalized racism, because we internally believe that white is supreme.” She also said, “it requires a constant process of ridding ourselves of this colonized mentality.”
Turcios told Fox News that Scribner should resign, along with several other school district leaders who allegedly created a “toxic environment.”
On Nov. 9, at a FWISD school board meeting, a pro-CRT parent, Malikk Austin, told attendees that he has 1,000 soldiers “locked and loaded” for those who “dare” question the need for race-based curricula.
“Look at the word racism, this is something deliberately done to people of African descent to shackle us down, this hate, fear mongering ain’t gonna work no more,” Austin said. “It’s over with, we are not our ancestors. I got over 1,000 soldiers ready to go.”
When reached for comment, FWISD told the Daily Caller News Foundation that its offices would be closed until Nov. 29.
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Kendall Tietz is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Fort Worth Schools Banquet” by Fort Worth ISD.
