The Black Lives Matter protest movement not only turned a spotlight on horrific incidents of police violence, but forced Americans to confront systemic racism and explore tragic moments in the country’s history. Thoroughly addressing the Tulsa Race Massacre, establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday commemorating the end of slavery, and shedding light on the racist origins of local and federal policing have helped spur a long-overdue reckoning. But conservative lawmakers and the right-wing media industry are now hell-bent on stifling educators from teaching about America’s history of racism and how it still impacts people of color today. 

In making “critical race theory” their new culture war scapegoat, conservative networks have relied heavily on reactionary commentary coming from concerned parents and school employees. Over the past few weeks, Fox News featured numerous guests who fit that bill, but in the cases of 11 of them, the network failed to fully disclose their professional conservative ties, according to a report from the progressive nonprofit Media Matters for America. The news watchdog found that Fox introduced the guests as everyday Americans––teachers, members of school boards, and parents of students––who just want to voice their concerns. But the network either downplayed or omitted their conservative career ties, such as GOP strategist, think tank staffer, Republican lobbyist, and professional pundit.

Ian Prior, one guest that Fox has frequently called on to rail against critical race theory, per Media Matters, was innocuously described as a “Loudoun County parent.” Prior was also described as someone who went “from concerned parent, like many of you, to legal activist.” But what was conveniently left out is Prior’s history as a political operative who previously served as a Justice Department spokesperson and went on to work in top communications roles for Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund. 

Lilit Vanetsyan, another Fox News guest serving in the network’s rotating anti-CRT cast, is more than just the “Fairfax County teacher” she is billed as. Vanetsyan is affiliated with the pro-Trump youth organization Turning Point USA and was a reporter for the pro-Trump Right Side Broadcasting Network, according to Media Matters. The buzz phrase critical race theory has been mentioned on Fox News almost 1,300 times in the past three and a half months, as noted in another Media Matters report. 

A Fox News spokesperson pushed back on the Media Matters piece by asserting that the network did include some professional titles from its guests who criticized CRT. As noted by a network representative, when Fox’s John Roberts invited Prior onto the June 9 edition of his program, the anchor said, “Let’s bring in Ian Prior, Loudon County parent and founder of FightForSchools.com.”  

Meanwhile, NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd called out the Astroturf nature of the CRT opposition over the weekend after his guest, GOP strategist Brad Todd, described the movement as a grassroots backlash that stems from concerned parents. “It’s manufactured,” Todd replied after noting that the Republican base being so “worried about critical race theory” gives the GOP more breathing room in Washington. The NBC host previously criticized the GOP’s “so-called controversy over critical race theory,” saying that the push is a result of a “[perverted] news cycle” from media outlets. “It’s a creation,” he added. “It’s a faux controversy that’s being ginned up. And I guess it just gets attention. It keeps people watching or it keeps people clicking.” (Todd’s network reported last week how “conservative think tanks, law firms and activist parents” have reinforced local and national groups targeting lessons on race and gender.)

Elsewhere in the conservative media world, a recent Newsmax segment warned of how critical race theory in schools is resulting in white students being beaten and treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. Former far-right talk radio host Michael Savage made the deranged claim during a Monday night interview, saying, “And now they’re beating up white children in schoolrooms…. I can’t take this anymore. And there’s only one solution to it—sue the goddamn schools if they do it to your child for child abuse, and you will win.” After claiming that white “children are being humiliated and hurt and damaged for life” in American classrooms, Savage described critical race theory as “nothing but racism towards white people…. The same kind of thing started in Germany. ‘The Jews were no good. The Jews did this. The Jews did that.’ The next thing you know they were being excluded from swimming pools. They didn’t put them in concentration camps overnight.” He continued: “Attacks on white people is exactly what was done to the Jews in Germany in the ’30s. Don’t fall for this garbage. This is the road to the death camps. Stand up to these bastards and sue them!”

The segment’s host, former Trump adviser Steve Cortes, chimed in, “I worry sometimes that if we continue to always use the phrase critical race theory that we might allow the left to hide, in effect. What I mean is they’ll say, ‘Oh, no, we’re not teaching CRT.’ But they are, in fact, teaching some other version of anti-white racism.” The host called for the term critical race theory to only be referred to as “anti-white racism…because, let’s face it, no matter what flavor this takes or what shape this takes, the goal, always, is to shame white people.” In another Newsmax segment on critical race theory last week, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker used a similar characterization, implying that its teaching qualifies as “state-sponsored racism” against white people. He continued: “You want to teach American history, you want to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly, you can absolutely do that…. We need to learn from the past, but we can’t do it if we just automatically assume that one group of individuals is superior to others purely based on their race.”

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