"Politics of Distraction: Considering Responses to the Anti-CRT Movement," by Lauren Shook, UT Doctoral Student

Lauren Shook wrote this cogent, critical essay for a course I taught this semester at UT-Austin titled, "Race, Ethnicity and the Schools." She nails it that the current anti-CRT movement is an exercise in the politics of distraction. What are we not doing in Texas that we should be doing because our attention is elsewhere?

Great job, Lauren!

-Angela Valenzuela

Politics of Distraction: Considering Responses to the Anti-CRT Movement

by 

Lauren Shook, Doctoral Student

Educational Leadership and Policy

University of Texas at Austin

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. – Toni Morrison

Last month I took my daughters down to the Texas State Capitol for a celebration of Indigenous People’s Day. I wanted them to know what I had not been taught about our history, our place in it, and our responsibilities going forward. Due to mixing up the dates, I found myself standing on Texas Confederate Memorial Lawn with sightseers and heavily armed Capitol police. Instead of introducing my daughters to both our Indigenous heritage and the legacy of our assimilationist settler ancestors, I walked them between the dozen statues reifying Texas Confederate troops while looking for the Tejano monument.

      One moment has stuck in my mind. Luna stopped in front of the monument for Terry’s Texas Rangers, Texas volunteers for the Confederacy. “Wow,” she said.

      I quickly tried to explain that these were not good people - they weren’t heroes to be admired and celebrated. As I tried to explain the Confederacy in words simple enough for a three-year-old, I felt the eyes of other Capitol visitors. I was frustrated – frustrated that instead of participating in a celebration of Indigenous past and future, I was spending my time centering the deeds of white men who betrayed their country in order to preserve the institution of slavery.

      We walked the halls of the Capitol building later – my first time in the building in seven years. It felt surreal to be in the space considering how much of my spring had been spent watching testimonies and hearings on my laptop concerning HB 1504 and HB 3979. HB 1504, which I submitted personal testimony and a policy brief for, might have provided more students with the opportunity to learn the history I had missed, and HB 3979 fought to preserve the particular version of history memorialized in the statues surrounding the building.

Spectacle as Strategy: Critical Race Theory as Distraction

      During the Texas legislative session, despite the acutely needed action on critical infrastructure, the Republican party introduced bills directly attacking Critical Race Theory in K12 education (“Texas Lawmakers Take Aim At Critical Race Theory,” 2021). Elsewhere, in other Republican controlled state legislatures, similar bills with similar language popped up (A. Harris, 2021), and local districts were engulfed in the panic to address a topic that many had not even heard before (Lah & Hannah, 2021).

      Why is Critical Race Theory the touchstone issue that is causing so much alarm on a local level and receiving so much coverage on a national level? Two possible explanations, one of which derives from Critical Race Theory, seem particularly salient to me. The first lies in the political utility of manufacturing a distraction to prevent action or resistance on the numerous crises facing our nation. The second explanation, the need to preserve Whiteness as an asset, does not negate the first explanation but rather explains why CRT was the manufactured distraction of choice.

      Edelman’s (1988) theory of political spectacle is helpful for understanding the utility of the battle against Critical Race Theory being waged in state legislatures. One particularly useful tenet of the theory is that problems are constructed and then used in order to advance political agendas, and this tenet has been used to examine other race-based challenges in education (Barnes & Moses, 2021). This tenet maintains that the problems addressed by policy are fashioned in order to justify the party’s actions and consolidate power.  Even the instigator of the movement against CRT, Christopher Rufo, publicly acknowledged that the controversy was contrived and generated in order to manipulate people into associating equity measures with their fears (Wallace-Wells, 2021).  

      My field notes from strategy sessions with TLEEC and NACCS Tejas Foco for HB 1504 show the cost of the manufactured distraction. I noted that I was struck by the amount of time and resources that were diverted away from progressive legislative goals in order to counter bills oppressing communities of color and the LGBTQ community.  For example, efforts to support HB 1504 were diverted to address HB 3979. During the May 8th NAACS Tejas Foco meeting, Dr. Emilio Zamora and Dr. Christopher Carmona lamented that attention had been diverted form the Equity Bill, and Dr. Carmona commented that although it had been his priority, he was not sure what had happened to it (field notes, May 8, 2021). The manufacturing of CRT as a false crisis in the K12 education system prevented advocates from putting their full time and energy into progressive issues.

      Likewise, Critical Race Theory’s tenet on the centrality of race and racism also provides support for why CRT itself has become such a touchstone. One of the central tenets of Critical Race Theory is the permanence and salience of race and racism in American society. Although there were voter suppression and anti-trans bills introduced in Republican dominated legislatures, the controversy surrounding CRT demonstrates the ongoing salience of race to the American public. The Republican elected in the recent Virginia governor race claims to have been won due to the stance on Critical Race Theory, and 25% of voters identified CRT as “the single most important factor influencing their vote (Beauchamp, 2021). Although the claim that CRT was the primary driver of the election results is relatively weak (Beauchamp, 2021), it certainly motivated a portion of the voters. The most notable demographic shifts in the electorate were among white women without a degree, two thirds of which said they valued more parental control over what was taught in schools (De Pinto, 2021). An NBC analysis of districts caught up in controversy over diversity initiatives showed that most of the school districts had rapidly diversifying demographics (Kingkade & Chiwaya, 2021). These results suggest that CRT in particular has become a touchstone with white voters precisely because of race’s ongoing relevance in American life, and the need to preserve White advantage.

      This directly ties to another one of Critical Race Theory’s central propositions, which is formulated by Harris (1993) as Whiteness as Property. Acknowledging America's white supremacist and colonial roots is threatening in part due to its ability to tarnish Whiteness and its value. Likewise, a critical exploration of American history and society threatens entitlement to White comfort. One of the primary arguments by anti-CRT activists is that white children should not be made to feel shame or are too young to discuss race (Changa, 2021), but even that framing centers white children and defines white comfort as part of the goods that they are entitled to. The emphasis on the emotional wellbeing of white children stands in stark contrast to real, harmful, documented effects of racism on children of color (Priest et al., 2013). Research has demonstrated that white students exposed to ethnic studies and multicultural coursework do not suffer in any meaningful way and benefit academically (Sleeter, 2011).

Addressing Distraction Without Succumbing to It

      I have been thinking in particular about the challenge of responding to the advocates and operatives working against diversity and equity in schools. On one hand, I feel it is important to respond to the challenge. Many of the opponents of CRT and DEI efforts demonstrate an obvious lack of knowledge concerning what Critical Race Theory actually is, how it is used, and who it can benefit from a more equitable society. Others make extreme claims that CRT can possibly lead to ethnic genocide (Thiessen, 2021), a dangerous precedent seen in historical “preemptive” crackdowns. Despite the seriousness of anti-CRT rhetoric, I find myself wrestling with how to work towards equity while thwarting the plan for distraction. The conversation can easily distract from a progressive agenda and center white interests. Perhaps this response on my part is related to my own frustration with wanting to work towards justice while feeling I must constantly prove the existence of injustice to my white community members.

      As admitted by figures like Christopher Rufo, the issue at hand is not actually Critical Race Theory itself. Addressing the disinformation about Critical Race Theory, the academic construct, is only useful in diminishing the utility of the concept for inflaming tension. While broad swaths of the public are likely misled and can become sucked into the school board meetings, the key players behind the push against Critical Race Theory know will not be persuaded. As Toni Morrison (Morrison et al., 1975) noted, distraction is an intended function of racism, and the expense of our labor on their agenda rather than our own is precisely the point.

      For the past several years, I continue to come back to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (King, 1992). Although King addresses his detractors, the letter is not written for them. It was written for the public, to deconstruct the arguments of his detractors while also reconstructing a vision for the Beloved Community. As critical legal scholar and early Critical Race theorist, Anthony E. Cook noted, although we must engage in theoretical and experiential deconstruction, critical work requires us to work in community towards a reconstructive vision (Cook, 1990). In order to address the hysteria around CRT, we both need to protect our rights within the current dominant systems while simultaneously creating alternative institutions for the Beloved Community.

Final Thoughts

      This year’s legislative session in Texas and in Republican state houses across the nation have been marked by culture war issues driven by national agendas, most notably the polemic against any diversity issue labeled Critical Race Theory by detractors. The underlying logics of the attack, understood through political spectacle theory and Critical Race Theory, offer insights about how to address those attacks. 

      One, we must recognize that the attacks are not good faith arguments, but rather serve as political theater to segment the electorate, manufacture threats, and consolidate power. To ignore the function of distraction is to resign our time and energy to the racists’ agenda rather than building our own. Secondly, we must recognize that CRT has become a lightning rod issue precisely because of the power of race and value of Whiteness in American society. Fighting for equal rights, opportunities, and outcomes for people of color within systems shaped by and for White Supremacy will necessarily elicit a backlash. Adopting a degree of racial realism (Bell, 1991) allows us to address the errors of our existing institutions while preserving our emotional and mental work for reconstructive acts of justice.

References

Barnes, M. B., & Moses, M. S. (2021). Racial Misdirection: How Anti-affirmative Action Crusaders use Distraction and Spectacle to Promote Incomplete Conceptions of Merit and Perpetuate Racial Inequality. Educational Policy, 35(2), 323–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904820984465

Beauchamp, Z. (2021, November 4). Did critical race theory really swing the Virginia election? Vox, Policy and Politics.

Bell, D. (1991). Racial Realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24(2), 363–380.

Changa, A. (2021, November 5). CBS News Dragged For Article Questioning When Young Children Should Learn About Race. NewsOne. https://newsone.com/4244383/cbs-news-dragged-article-questioning-when-young-children-should-learn-about-race/

Cook, A. E. (1990). Beyond Critical Legal Studies: The Reconstructive Theology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Harvard Law Review, 103(5), 985–1044. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.2307/1341453

De Pinto, J. (2021, November 4). Virginia: What was behind the shift of White women toward the GOP? CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/virginia-governor-election-white-women-republicans/

Edelman, M. (1988). Constructing the political spectacle (pp. vi, 137). University of Chicago Press.

Harris, A. (2021, May 7). The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/gops-critical-race-theory-fixation-explained/618828/

Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. https://doi.org/10.2307/1341787

King, M. L. Jr. (1992). Letter from Birmingham Jail. U.C. Davis Law Review, 26(4), 835–852.

Kingkade, T., & Chiwaya, N. (2021, September 13). There is a common trend in school districts debating critical race theory, analysis shows. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/schools-facing-critical-race-theory-battles-are-diversifying-rapidly-analysis-n1278834

Lah, K., & Hannah, J. (2021, October 31). Race and rage whip up school board meetings to the dismay of students. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/nevada-douglas-county-school-crt-row/index.html

Morrison, T., John, P. S., Callahan, J., Callahan, J., & Baker, L. (1975, May 30). Public Dialogue on the American Dream Theme, Part 2. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/orspeakers/90

Priest, N., Paradies, Y., Trenerry, B., Truong, M., Karlsen, S., & Kelly, Y. (2013). A systematic review of studies examining the relationship between reported racism and health and wellbeing for children and young people. Social Science & Medicine, 95, 115–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.11.031

Sleeter, C. E. (2011). The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies: A Research Review. In National Education Association Research Department. National Education Association Research Department. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521869

Texas Lawmakers Take Aim At Critical Race Theory. (2021, July 11). In NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/11/1015120437/texas-lawmakers-take-aim-at-critical-race-theory

Thiessen, M. A. (2021, November 11). The danger of critical race theory. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/11/danger-critical-race-theory/

Wallace-Wells, B. (2021, June 18). How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory

Some admixture of hyper-individualism, systemic white privilege, and real stigma that exists for high-diversity low-income schools helps explain persistent divisions and polarization in our society.  

According to recent research by Weissbourd and Torres out of Harvard, "white, affluent parents  value school quality more than integration and view integrated schools as 'educationally inferior.'"  These researchers further found that school quality itself was evidenced by these same parents in the extent to which children of white, affluent parents send their children to a particular school.

"The survey findings – namely, the hesitancy or refusal of white, middle- and upper-class parents to actively choose integrated schools even when they say they value them – speak to why so few school districts have successfully tackled integration and expose the biggest sticking point in the dozens of schools districts currently trying to tackle the issue: the intransigence among many white families."

The short of it is that school integration is a great idea in the abstract, but not an attractive proposition where the rubber meets the road of actually enrolling one's child in a racially and ethnically diverse school.

A deeper analysis of the underlying governing dynamics would take a look at Cheryl Harris' notion of "whiteness as property (Harris, 1993, 2003)."

-Angela Valenzuela

Harris, C. I. (2003). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8).

Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard law review, 1707-1791.

White, Affluent Parents Like the Idea of Integrated Schools – But Not for Their Kids

Lauren Camera • Feb. 7, 2020, at 2:54 p.m.

The vast majority of parents – regardless of political affiliation, race, class and where they live – strongly favor schools that are racially and economically integrated. But when it comes time to enroll their children, white, affluent parents who actually have a choice often choose schools based on the number of white, affluent students enrolled.

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[ READ: Report: School Borders Remain Divisive ]

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"Despite parents' espoused support for integration, in districts where parents are actually given greater opportunities to choose schools, schools appear to become more segregated," Harvard University researchers concluded in a searing new report that strikes at the heart of the contentious integration and school boundary debates roiling school districts across the country.

Researchers at Making Caring Common, a center housed at Harvard that focuses on the moral and social development of children, conducted a survey of more than 2,600 parents, individual interviews and focus groups to explore whether and how much parents value school integration and other factors that shape their thinking about sending their children to integrated schools.

The majority of the people who participated, 73%, identified as white and most of them were also middle- and upper-class. The majority, 60%, also had a child enrolled in a traditional public school in their district, while 21% had a child enrolled in a secular private school, 7% in a religious private school and 6% in a public charter school.

The researchers' findings confirmed well-established research: Most parents agree that, all things being equal, racial and economic integration is important, and they say that they would prefer that their children attend schools that are "substantially integrated both racially and economically."

That preference holds, they discovered, for both men and women, Democrats and Republicans, and people of all races and levels of education and income levels.

"I did not expect the level of in-principle support for integration," says Richard Weissbourd, director of Making Caring Common and co-author of the report. "I knew from other research that we cite that parents tended to support integration. But, you know, they tend to support it across the political spectrum and they tend to support it at high levels. I was not expecting that."

According to survey results, 81% agreed that it was important for students of different races to go to school together and 63% said that low-income and high-income kids going to school together was important.

When asked specifically about sending their children to schools with differing levels of socioeconomic diversity – a school where 10% of students are poor, for example, or a school where 90% of students are poor – most parents said they'd be most comfortable with a school that is comprised of 50% low-income and 50% more affluent students and for schools that served an equal numbers of white students and students of color.

Yet, when it came time for parents to enroll their children in school, competing priorities – things like a school's academic profile, it's safety record and location – tended to outrank integration as a priority.

"Very few people rank it high," Weissbourd says. "In a way, the support is broader than I thought and also less deep than I thought."

When asked to select the top three features of a school that were most important to their decision about where to send their children, parents overwhelmingly chose academic quality and school safety as the top two most important features, with 81% picking academic quality and 70% picking safety. Meanwhile, just under 10% picked racial and economic diversity in their top three."In some ideal sense, the great majority of parents do want to send their kids to integrated schools," says Eric Torres, a doctoral student at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and co-author of the report. "But when parents are faced with choices that they feel pit these priorities, they tend to choose the things that they believe are most important for the success of their own children."

Some of the resistance to integrated schools relayed to the researchers from white, affluent parents focused on whether students in schools that serve large numbers of poor students might come to school hungry or from a traumatic home life – introducing into their classrooms problems that could overwhelm teachers. Other times, white, affluent parents said they were simply constrained by their district's complicated school assignment and choice policies, which, for example, may not allow them to send their children to a school that they both think is a good fit for their child and that is substantially integrated.

However, the most common reason researchers heard from white, affluent parents about why they tend to pick whiter and more affluent schools is because they value school quality more than integration and view integrated schools as "educationally inferior." In fact, many white, advantaged parents, the researchers found, appeared to determine school quality by how many other white, advantaged parents send their child to a school.

"Simply the presence of substantial numbers of black children in a residential area appears to affect white parents' assessment of school quality," Weissbourd and Torres wrote in the report.

"Making matters worse, because white, advantaged parents may use the number of white, advantaged parents at a school as a measure of its quality and avoid schools with large numbers of children of color, their choices become self-fulfilling," they wrote. "These parents add to the number of white, advantaged parents at these schools, which simply attracts more white, advantaged parents (and on and on)."

White, affluent parents also expressed concern that their children might be a minority in a school, the survey showed.

"Many white parents favoring integration don't seem to think twice about expecting black and Latinx parents to send their children to schools where they are the minority, but they don't have that expectation of themselves," they wrote.

The survey findings – namely, the hesitancy or refusal of white, middle- and upper-class parents to actively choose integrated schools even when they say they value them – speak to why so few school districts have successfully tackled integration and expose the biggest sticking point in the dozens of schools districts currently trying to tackle the issue: the intransigence among many white families.

Those debates are playing out in real-time in communities big and small all across the U.S.: in places like New York City, where students are walking out of classrooms to protest the segregated nature of their schools; in places like Howard County and Montgomery County in Maryland, where parents erupt in heated town hall meetings about proposed changes to school boundaries; in places like Fairfax County in Virginia, where even the suggestion by school board members to study its boundaries caused panic.

So what can be done?

For starters, Weissbourd and Torres urge parents to stop relying so heavily on academic ratings, school report cards and levels of proficiency posted to school websites. Metrics like average test scores aren't helpful when attempting to gauge quality, they underscore. White, affluent parents especially need to step outside their social circles, which keep them insulated in information bubbles rampant with bias and rumors.

"Those perceptions aren't really based on much," Weissbourd says. "They're often developed in a bubble, among a small circle of friends. And if you're a white advantaged parent, you're probably only talking to white advantaged parents. Rumors spread and we live in a country where we have our biases." 

Instead, they say, parents need to physically go to their available schools to evaluate for themselves if they are a good fit – talk to teachers, principals and other parents whose children are enrolled there. School districts and schools themselves must play their part, too, by marketing themselves better, showcasing to parents the things they do best.

"It's unlikely in any wide scale way we would get parents to shift this hierarchy of priorities," Torres says. "But what we can do is remove perceptual and real barriers. In part it's just a matter of encouraging people to go and check out these schools and see that they are of adequate quality for their children."