Ibram X. Kendi: Conservatives Trying to Stop CRT in Schools Are Grooming Children to Become Racist

In a stunning display of projection, Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi suggests that those who try to stop Critical Race Theory in schools are actually “grooming” children to become racist. Ironically, CRT teaches children that they must view every social interaction and person in terms of race or color in order to be “antiracist.”

In an op-ed written for the Atlantic, Kendi suggested that stopping CRT in schools means facilitating the “grooming” of children to become white supremacists, as he claims that so-called “anti-racist education” protects all children — including “white children” — against “the growing threat of white supremacists.”

“[If] Republicans really cared about white children, then they would be worried about white-supremacist grooming,” Kendi claims in his op-ed. “This is the grooming that parents of all children should be worried about.”

The CRT proponent added that “grooming white kids — usually males — in white supremacy can involve inciting them to commit acts of physical and verbal violence,” and that “defending kids against white-supremacist grooming keeps all kids safe.”

What “white children” are “being indoctrinated” with, Kendi says, is “white-supremacist ideology.”

The professor claims that “white-supremacist recruiters” are online, where millions of teenagers are being exposed to “white-supremacist ideology in chats for multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, Fortnite, Apex Legends, League of Legends, Madden, Overwatch, and Call of Duty,” and on TikTok.

Kendi adds that “white supremacists deploy all sorts of memes,” as well.

“While in the hole, youth may be ‘groomed’ through direct messages that are sent en masse by white supremacists,” he insists.

But Kendi believes that children are safer in classrooms, where CRT is taught.

“In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books,” Kendi says. “Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters.”

“White kids can learn about the violence of white settler colonialists and enslavers — and the white-supremacist ideology they embraced,” Kendi adds.

In his op-ed, Kendi goes on to claim that Republicans “are labeling all of this as critical race theory, simultaneously slandering the academic field of CRT when the nation’s lawmakers sorely need it and maligning anti-racist education when kids sorely need it.”

Kendi concludes by declaring that the Republican Party is “the party of white supremacy.”

The Republican Party is not the party of parents raising white kids. The Republican Party is not the party of parents raising girls, raising trans kids, raising kids of color, raising queer kids, raising poor kids, raising immigrant kids. The Republican Party is making it harder for all of these kids to learn about themselves and their histories. The Republican Party is stripping parents and educators of their collective ability to protect vulnerable children from being indoctrinated by — or victimized by — the scourge of white supremacy.

“This Republican Party is not the party of any group of parents, but the party of white supremacy,” he wrote.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.