By David Iwinski

A stew that has been simmering for over 45 years and has, so it seems, all of a sudden boiled over is the liberal cause célèbre of critical race theory, or CRT. As a man in his late 50s, this acronym confuses me immediately since I always think of CRT as Cathode Ray Tube, the field name for a basic computer monitor on our desk before flatscreen and plasma became ubiquitous. Truth be told, however, I have some familiarity with the concept since critical theory was all the rage when I was in law school back at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984. 

Fast-forward to present day and we not only have the acronyms and buzzwords flying across social media, but now high school and even middle school curricula are being pressured to include teachings on critical race theory to youngsters. For most of the uninitiated, the biggest question and, it seems, the hardest one to get an answer for is: What is critical race theory? 

Even a basic Internet search trying to get a fundamental understanding is somewhat akin to trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. The definitions are long, complex, loaded with jargon and virtually never, ever have any sense of clarity or finality. The basic essence seems to be that race infuses everything without fail and that no human action is done not only without considerations of race but not without active suppression of one race and promotion of another. 

In an attempt to get a baseline grasp of the current understanding of CRT, last weekend I watched eight hours of recent on-line debates between supporters of CRT and those trying to stop the infiltration of this dogma into our schools. It was interesting and reminded me a lot of college debates arguing the application of communism and socialism. Whenever a person supporting democratic and capitalistic ideals would point out the failure of virtually every society organized around communist and socialist principles, which often resulted in mass deaths by government action or starvation of the populace (not to mention a suppression of freedom and terrible economic activity), the classic rejoinder was, “Oh, that wasn’t real communism, it was communism corrupted by someone who didn’t really understand it or practice it properly.” 

Uh huh, sure.

Whenever someone who is against CRT in these debates would bring up the damage that could be done to society by positing that everything is based on race, racism and discrimination and would cite examples about this would not build a more cohesive and fair society, the opposing side would immediately say, “Oh, that really isn’t critical race theory, what you are talking about is someone’s distorted application.” And there would then follow a long dissertation filled with jargon trying to essentially say that anything negative associated with CRT couldn’t be true.

I consider myself a fairly bright individual, but I couldn’t find anyone making a single case for how it would somehow improve the quality of our society and, more importantly, how something this complex and convoluted could possibly be taught to grade school and middle school students. Where are the genius communicators who will be able to distill the essence of this into young and malleable minds? Where are the textbooks age-appropriate that can explain it, because I would honestly love to read one so I can understand it.  

Unfortunately, we often see this kind of hyper-complicated deflection occurring on the left whenever digging into the details would reveal some uncomfortable truths. We all remember when Nancy Pelosi said of the Affordable Care Act, in 2010: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." That didn’t turn out so well since many of the touted “truths” of Obamacare turned out to be complete falsehoods. 

Maybe the folks on the left think we will be fine to subject our children and schools to the doctrines of critical race theory so we can only later find out what it’s all about. 

What I think they are going to find is that while middle-America and conservatives will tolerate a lot of baloney, experimenting on our children with radical, undocumented and nearly impossible-to-understand racial theories that may essentially teach them that they are flawed aggressors from the very beginning without redemption will not be warmly embraced or tolerated.

Teaching our youth the truth about slavery and the effect it had on people and our society -- absolutely an essential to a clear understanding of American and global history. Teaching our youth that if they are white that they are born racist and are destined to make all their decisions based on racism and that is infused into every aspect of their life -- not a good idea.