Harvard University professor blasts 'fake journalist' Chris Rufo for objecting to Critical Race Theory
Ivy league professors trashed GOP critics of Critical Race Theory and specifically took aim at Christopher Rufo.
An Ivy League professor on MSNBC trashed critical race theory critic Christopher Rufo as a "fake journalist" while blasting the conservative pushback to the controversial theory in schools.
The MSNBC panel was discussing America's problem with "structural racism," after five Black Memphis police officers were accused of beating and killing 29-year-old Black man Tyre Nichols.
Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of race, history and public policy at Harvard Kennedy school, defended CRT in light of the push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., to ban "woke" curriculum in Florida's public schools.
"I’m not willing to accept… that critical race theory is a bad thing," he complained to host Mehdi Hasan on Sunday.
Mehdi Hasan and guests trash Christopher Rufo (MSNBC/Screenshot)
JEMELE HILL CLAIMS BLACK PEOPLE CAN ‘CARRY WATER’ FOR WHITE SUPREMACY: ‘YOU’RE STUCK ON FACES'
"It’s literally been defined as such by a fake journalist named Christopher Rufo, who decided that he was going to create a campaign to throw everything related to dealing with the history of structural racism as a problem," Muhammad added.
DeSantis and the state of Florida recently rejected an AP African American studies course in public high schools, saying it violated the governor's "Stop Woke Act."
The governor objected to the course calling it "historically inaccurate," and balked at a lesson on "queer theory" in the curriculum. The College Board announced afterward that it would revise the course.
But the professor said CRT "should" be taught in high schools, to which Columbia University and UCLA professor of law Kimberlé Crenshaw agreed.
Crenshaw criticized the knee-jerk response from the left to deny CRT was taught in schools.
"One of the consequences of the root liberal response to DeSantis, and let’s be honest, he’s been at this for more than two years. The attack on critical race theory, now the attack on intersectionality, ‘we don’t teach that.’ As if that’s a bad thing," she complained.
The law professor saw the fight against CRT as a fight to stop teaching about racism in America.
"Let’s be clear that what they are after is anything that tells a story of racism in America. Anything that tells the story of the structural inequality… is what they don't want people to learn about," she added.
The professors argued critical race theory should be taught in schools. (iStock)
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She argued that Black children should be taught they would face inequality because it is baked into American institutions.
"The entire point is to deny from Black children the ability to look at the history of this country and their role in it to understand the inequalities we face is a contemporary matter. When you can't name it and historicize it then you can't change it, and that's the point… that's what they're after," she argued.
The MSNBC host tied the discussion to the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. He claimed Black cops can "internalize White supremacist tropes" and "narratives" about other Black people.
"The idea that Black cops can't be racist to other Black people on the street, in schools, at traffic stops, that must come as a huge surprise for millions of live people in this country that have had to deal with Black cops. The idea that Black and Brown people cannot internalize White supremacist tropes, narratives, ways of seeing the world. It’s something that I, as a Brown man I'm telling you is just patently untrue," Hasan argued.
Hasan's argument was shared by other liberal media figures, including former ESPN host Jemele Hill, who argued that Blacks could "carry water" for White supremacy.
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