Media top headlines July 27
In media news today, PolitiFact declares that claim Biden, Harris distrusted COVID vaccine under Trump is 'false,' an ESPN writer says he was troubled by the American flag at the Tokyo Olympics, and Biden calls a reporter a 'pain in the neck' following her question about the vaccine mandate for VA front line workers.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., blasted the mainstream media and Big Tech for being in "cahoots" with Democrats in pushing critical race theory in schools in an interview with Fox News.
Blackburn said she and Tennessee parents are concerned that children are being "indoctrinated" by critical race theory, the controversial curriculum that in part teaches students that U.S. institutions are inherently racist.
"I have to tell you that their concern is that there is an angle of indoctrination to this and they want their children to be color blind," Blackburn said. "They want their children to look at people with the content of the person’s character, with who said individual is. And they are … very concerned that there is a line of approach in CRT curriculums that will say someone is the oppressor, and someone is a victim, because they want children to look at people as friends, as colleagues, and individuals that they can have productive relationships with."
And the media, she said, is in on it. MSNBC and CNN have relentlessly pilloried CRT critics in recent weeks.
MSNBC's Joy Reid has been especially vocal in her shaming of CRT opponents. She invited Manhattan Institute senior fellow and CRT foe Christopher Rufo on her show in June only to repeatedly interrupt and even insult him, while on Twitter she's defended CRT by claiming that U.S. schools are already teaching "a kind of Confederate Race Theory." CNN aired a report this month accusing CRT critics of simply not understanding the concept.
Media outlets like The Intercept have highlighted CRT critics' skin color, writing it was "mostly white" parents who were fighting back against the curriculum and "storming" school board meetings. But education leaders who spoke with Fox News pushed back on the notion that people of color aren't also concerned about the reductive philosophy.
"I have seen a number of Black parents at school board meetings saying they don’t want any part of this," Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock, who has written extensively on CRT, said.
"What we know is that CRT is based on Marxist principles and what we also know is that the Democratic socialists of America of which you have AOC, the Squad, Bernie, they all kind of fall into that Democratic socialist of America group, wing," Blackburn said. "However you want to refer to it."
"They are giddy with the hope that they can use this period of time to push Marxist ideology and Marxist socialistic approaches to issues and problems that we may have in the country," she continued. "We’ve also learned that Big Media, Big Tech and the Democrats are all kind of in cahoots when it comes to having their daily talking points and pushing a message."
Blackburn recently joined Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in sending a letter to the National Education Association teachers union demanding more information on the group's pledge to research CRT opponents.
"We are deeply concerned that the NEA, the nation's largest labor union representing over 3 million school faculty, is proposing to ‘fight back against anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) rhetoric by collecting and publicizing information about opponents of CRT," the letter read.
JOY REID RIPPED FOR CLAIMING STUDENTS ‘LEARN A KIND OF CONFEDERATE RACE THEORY’: ‘THIS IS NONSENSE’
"We do not want our children to be tracked, we don’t want them to be surveilled, we don’t want their information to be used," Blackburn told Fox News. "We don’t want children to be disadvantaged because they or their family may have one opinion and the teacher another opinion."
Blackburn said she and her colleagues are "quite concerned" and they "absolutely" expect to receive a response.
Her concerns on the subject extend to the federal government.
The Department of Education linked to the radical Abolitionist Teaching Network’s "Guide for Racial Justice & Abolitionist Social and Emotional Learning" in a new school handbook, blaming the link on an "error" following swift backlash.
"I think that retractions are received with skepticism," Blackburn said. "Because repeatedly we have seen this administration, whether it is dealing with education and CRT, whether it is dealing with having a truth czar and the media, whether it is dealing with outside budgets and out of control spending, they throw out these trial balloons, and then they come back and retract what we know is that the mainstream media and the NEA … they have thrown their full support behind Biden."
Blackburn added that teachers unions now appear to have "a hotline right to the White House."
"And there seems to be coordination of their messaging and we have to be sure that parents are going to know that their children are receiving and education based in facts, based on our nation’s history, and not an education that is based on the wishes of a teacher’s union or power in control."
But while she may be in the unique political position to lean on education leaders, Blackburn said parents can also make a difference by volunteering in their kids' schools, helping with homework, and staying engaged in what they're learning in class.
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"My hope is that parents will realize that there is no one more important to educating their child than the parents and that the parents are going to be more involved each and every day," she said.
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