Culture & Society

Watch: Black Mississippi senators walk out to protest anti-CRT vote as bill passes overwhelmingly

January 23, 2022 | | Print Article

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All 14 black members of the Mississippi State Senate walked out in protest during a vote Friday on a bill, SB 2113, that their Republican colleagues say would simply “prohibit a child or a student from being told they are inferior or superior to another.”

The bill ultimately passed 32-2, with two white Democrats voting in favor, and the 14 black Democrats simply not voting.

The bill is designed to “prohibit” critical race theory, a term that technically refers to curriculum on so-called “systemic racism.”

Democrats and their media allies have seized on this technical description to argue that Republicans are attempting to prevent children from being taught about racism.

“Black members said it was not supposition that systemic racism existed in America and still does in health care, the criminal justice system and in many other areas,” Mississippi Today reported, describing the protesting senators’ position.

However, the teaching of so-called “CRT” invariably manifests itself in schools as the teaching of racial essentialism, i.e., racial superiority/inferiority.

The examples are numerous:

This, according to SB 2113’s author, state Sen. Michael McLendon, is what the bill is truly trying to prevent.

He said to local media that all the bill does is simply “prohibit a child or a student from being told they are inferior or superior to another.” And indeed, the text of the actual bill bolsters his argument.

The bill states quite plainly that no “institution of higher learning … shall direct or compel students to affirm that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior, or that individuals should be adversely treated based on such characteristics.”

(Source: LegiScan)

But this apparently is an issue …

Indeed, in speaking with local media, some of Mississippi’s black senators described the bill as a waste of time, claiming that racial essentialism isn’t being taught in the state’s schools in the first place. It didn’t help that McLendon hadn’t done his homework.

“We felt like it was a bill that was not deserving of our vote. We have so many issues in the state that need to be addressed. We did not need to spend time on this. Even the author of the bill said this was not occurring in Mississippi,” black state Sen. Derrick T. Simmons reportedly said.

McLendon conceded his colleague’s point, according to Mississippi Today, but argued that racial essentialism is being taught elsewhere in the country.

To be clear, racial essentialism IS being taught in Mississippi, according to the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP).

A report from the conservative think tank notes, for example, that the website for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Division of Student Affairs contains the words “white silence is violence.”

The University of Mississippi’s Department of Writing and Rhetoric meanwhile “teaches courses that explore ‘how whiteness is constructed.'”

“Students analyze ‘whiteness as it has evolved over time’ and consider the relationship between white identity and ‘white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege and whiteness,'” according to the MCPP.

The very notion of “white privilege” is peak racial essentialism, as it categorizes all white people as “oppressors” and all non-white people (particularly blacks) as “victims.”

How does this sort of teaching usually play out? Consider the case of William Clark, a biracial Nevada boy who was forced at school to acknowledge that he’s a so-called privileged white male oppressor.

“Defendants compelled Plaintiff William Clark to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded, written homework assignments which were subject to the scrutiny, interrogation and derogatory labeling of students, teachers and school administrators,” a lawsuit filed by his family in late 2020 reads.

“By directing Plaintiff William Clark to reveal his identities in a controlled, yet non-private setting, to scrutiny and official labeling, Defendants were and still are coercing him to accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principles and statements that he cannot in conscience affirm.”

The irony is that the real-world application of CRT always leads to the so-called “oppressed” being oppressed by the so-called “victims.”

This, in fact, is at the core of the philosophy promoted by notorious CRT advocate Ibram X. Kendi, who has argued that the discrimination of the distant past can only be rectified through present discrimination.

Incidentally, according to the MCPP, Kendi’s “work” is also being taught in Mississippi schools …

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Vivek Saxena
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