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CJ Pearson: There’s no place for Critical Race Theory on our campuses

Recently, North Carolina became the seventh state in the country to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, following in the footsteps of states such as Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Arkansas. Opponents have described Critical Race Theory as racist, divisive and left-wing ideology masqueraded as so-called education. And truth be told, those opponents couldn’t be more right.

Critical Race Theory, also known as CRT, perpetuates the left-wing falsehood that America is a racist nation, poisoned and made irredeemable by a history of white supremacy, institutional racism and supposed white privilege. And it places the blame for this alleged reality squarely at the feet of white people.

It is tax-payer funded anti-white racism — guised under the moniker of “anti-racism” — being taught to college students all throughout the country, and it’s time for it to stop.

This isn’t education. It’s indoctrination, and I mean so quite literally. Indoctrination is defined by Oxford Languages as the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. And that is exactly what is happening in college lecture halls throughout the country, where this radical left-wing propaganda is allowed to go unchecked, unchallenged and almost entirely unquestioned.

Being a young conservative on a college campus is hard enough; I know so firsthand. In my first semester of college, a liberal student plastered a note on my dorm room, after attempting to enter it, with the message “f*** you” and “f*** Donald Trump.”

I was disappointed, but I wasn’t surprised. Many professors today are unapologetically “teaching” their students to hate America, and with that hate comes a hate for everything America stands for. Diversity of thought and freedom of expression included.

But as a college student myself, I’m not shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for an indoctrination. I’m interested in an education. And as a black college student, I’m certainly not paying to sit in a classroom and be told that I’m a helpless victim — that regardless of how hard I try, or how hard I work, it’ll never be enough because racism will always win.

I reject that notion. I wasn’t raised to be a victim; I was raised to be a victor. And I refuse to believe in 2021, that the very nation that elected Barack Hussein Obama President of the United States and Kamala Harris Vice President of the United States, is a racist nation.

As a student at the University of Alabama, one of the more conservative public universities in the country, I’ve been largely shielded from the most jarring effects of CRT. But it is my belief that one ounce of prevention is worth even more than a pound of cure. And it is my hope that in the next legislative session, my new adopted state will follow in the footsteps of states like North Carolina and Florida, whose governor recently instituted his ban through executive order.

Because let’s level with one another: while it’s college campuses today, what will stop it from being K-12 tomorrow if we don’t act now?

CJ Pearson is a student at The University of Alabama and president of the Free Thinker Project

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