Representative Summer Lee had plenty to say to James Comer after he announced an anti-DEI bill that would end DEI programs. Republicans vilified DEI just like they did with CRT. They fought against CRT (Critical Race Theory) by claiming it was hurting White children in elementary schools by “making them feel guilty.”
They successfully convinced parents all over the country that teachers were teaching CRT in the classroom and indoctrinating their kids.
In reality, CRT is a framework and way of analyzing law through a perception that systemic racism exists in our country (it does).
It’s taught in law school, not elementary schools. If people had the ability to think critically for one minute they would realize that a complex, nuanced concept like CRT is way too complex for a child to understand.
Republicans were able to co-opt the term and change its meaning to include anything involving race.
So teaching history that mentioned slavery was CRT. They’ve successfully done the same thing with the term “woke.”
Woke, Republicans claim, refers to anything having to do with race, sexuality, or gender. DEI would be considered a “woke” policy according to their definition.
It’s frustrating to people who can see what they’re doing, but also depressing that so many people in this country have lost their ability to think for themselves.
Rather than looking into what these concepts are, they just believe what Republican politicians tell them without questioning them.
An extreme example of this is the litter boxes in school bathrooms conspiracy theory. I hear that and it’s so ridiculous that I wouldn’t even bother to look into whether or not it’s true.
Again, a minute of critical thinking would bring up questions like: so girls are squatting over a litter box to pee and boys are standing there urinating into litter?
Kids walk into the bathroom and see fellow students squatting and pooping into a litter box? Are they covering up the poop afterwards the way cats do?
One students litter box visit would fill up the entire thing! Who cleans it? Does the janitor go in with a giant scooper and clean the litter box 50 times a day?
Asking those questions reveals the obvious — it’s not true.
I don’t know this for certain, but I am willing to bet that I know how the litter box rumor started. When I was in elementary school, if a student vomited on the floor, the janitor would come in and pour kitty litter or a substance that looked like litter to soak it up.
I bet a student threw up in a bathroom, the janitor covered it with litter, and a kid went home to tell their mom that there was “kitty litter in the bathroom.” The mom pictured the kitty litter in her mind and added the box.
BAM! Birth of a conspiracy theory.
I wish we would have had Democrats like Representative Summer Lee in Congress when I first started to pay close attention to politics.
Democrats (minus the progressives) have always been too elitist, “proper,” and weak to fight for the American people.
Imagine if Summer Lee were around when Dems were trying to pass $15 minimum wage. Both Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema ruined every opportunity they had to get it passed.
If Summer Lee had been around in 2021, she would have gone on TV, called them out by name, shamed them in front of the country, and we might have $15 minimum wage right now.
Manchin and Sinema knew that most people don’t pay close enough attention to politics to know that it was them that had tanked a bill to lift Americans out of poverty.
Being named on mainstream media might have caused their constituents to “blow up their phones.”
