Federal Substance Abuse Recovery Services Go Woke, Embrace CRT

A federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), has displayed commitment to left-wing race politics with a DEI Resources page that features works from prominent critical race theorists.

The resources page supplements a document that instructs those who work with SOAR, a subdivision of SAMHSA, to incorporate DEI practices into their work practices.

The document is titled “Guidance for Improving Staff Engagement” and instructs staff to take an implicit bias test before arguing that “BIPOC staff” are traumatized on a daily basis when people refer to protests as riots or use the phrase “all lives matter.”

SAMHSA’s website states that “SAMHSA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities,” but only nine of the more than 80 diversity, equity, and inclusion resources concerned issues of substance abuse or mental health.

The term “mental health” appears six times, while “substance use” and “substance abuse” collectively appear three times. Meanwhile, “privilege” appears four times, “racism,” 12 times, and “white,” 19 times.

Works from several prominent critical race theorists such as Robin DiAngelo, Peggy McIntosh, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ibram X. Kendi (pictured) are included on the DEI Resources Page.

Among the resources, which have been archived here, were links to “Anti-racism Mediation,” “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics,” and “Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books.” The list also included definitions of terms like ”microaggression” and “hate speech.”

One portion of the list is titled “Children,” and includes 10 different links, which encourage parents to “raise anti-racist kids” by abandoning color-blindness and recognizing their privilege.

A diversity resource called “5 Ways White People Can Take Action in Response to White and State-Sanctioned Violence” instructed white people to “Join fights to defund the police,” while a book listed on the government site, called “The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness” discusses “conceptions of whiteness as a structural privilege, a harbinger of violence, or an institutionalization of European imperialism.”

The book “Women, Race, and Class,” by communist activist Angela Davis, is also included on SAMHSA’s DEI Resources page.

Several of the more than 80 different links on SAMHSA’s DEI Resources page link to separate resources pages, each with their own extensive selection of critical race theory materials.

One link, simply titled “Additional Anti-Racism Resources,” takes users to a website that boasts a “compilation of resources by Black and Indigenous leaders gathered to help us —white folks in particular— unlearn racism and colonialism, and take action for justice.”

The site links to various leftwing advocacy organizations, promotes various critical race theorists, and implores people to read articles like Ibram X. Kendi’s  “Who Gets To Be Afraid In America,” Tiffany Jana’s “Your White Education,” and the infamous 1619 Project.

The site even has a section titled “Protest + Uprising,” which tells readers to “Act as a white barrier between Black protesters and police,” and encourages them to donate to the National Bail Fund and the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which was promoted by Kamala Harris and assisted in bailing out rioters. 

Another page, called “Anti-racism resources for white people,” encouraged readers to listen to a “Black Power Mixtape” and watch both a movie on the Black Panthers and Netflix’s “Dear White People.” The resources list also advertises the Audre Lorde Project, which describes itself on its website as “a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color community organizing center, focusing on the New York City area.”

In addition to promoting implicit bias training for employees and providing critical race theory resources, SAMHSA also has an Office of Behavioral Health Equity (OBHE). Among OBHE’s stated goals are to “advance equity,” as well as to increase “the diversity of the behavioral health workforce.” OBHE seeks to create “a more strategic focus on racial, ethnic, and LGBT populations in SAMHSA investments,” according to its website.

Meanwhile, drug overdose deaths have increased by nearly 15 percent in the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Critical race theory has taken root in other medical contexts as well, with the extreme leftwing organization White Coats for Black Lives working to racialize the field of medicine while the New York State Department of Health discriminated against white people in the distribution of life-saving medicine.

Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com