Critical race theory resembles Marxist curriculum, Soviet immigrant warns
Constructive Ethnic Studies Group co-founder and registered Democrat Elina Kaplan compares how CRT is similar to Soviet teachings.
As critical race theory wriggles its way into American education, Constructive Ethnic Studies Group co-founder and Soviet immigrant Elina Kaplan blew the whistle on how similar Marxist curriculum is.
Kaplan, a registered Democrat, joined "America’s Newsroom" to share her concern after reading the California Ethnic Studies model curriculum and feeling a sense of familiarity from what she learned as a child before she emigrated from the former Soviet Union to California at 11 years old.
"All of a sudden, I was reading the same concepts and language, in English this time, in the guiding principles of the California Ethnic Studies model curriculum," she said.
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Kaplan said she confirmed the striking similarities with other Soviet immigrants. A group of immigrants followed up with a petition to the California Department of Education, drawing attention to the dangerous similarities.
"Never could we have imagined that decades later the same ideology and concepts that we escaped would show up in all places," the petition read.
The roadmap for California's curriculum explicitly lays out its aim to "connect ourselves to past and contemporary resistance movements that struggle for social justice on the global and local levels to ensure a truer democracy." Kaplan explained that the term "true democracy" is inherently Marxist.
"True democracy is a Marxist term that refers to the abolition of private property," she said. "What is this doing in an ethnic studies curriculum?"
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"In that [CRT] model, what we have is a paradigm where kids, human beings, are either an oppressor or a victim," she explained. "And anytime you put human beings into two boxes and then pit them against each other, especially by the color of their skin, nothing good is going to come out of that."
Kaplan, who also spoke to Politico about Democrats losing political points on the issue, said she does not believe the opposition is partisan or rooted in racism.
"I firmly believe that if the vast majority of Californians and Americans knew about this, and about the content of this type of curriculum, this would not be happening. We would not be having this conversation," Kaplan said.
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