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LETTER: CRT and the American right

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CRT and the American right

I returned home from a family visit last week to find one letter writer denouncing CRT as “equating white people with the devil himself,” and “CRT is simply a false religion,” “pushing anti-white racism,” and “nothing short of state sanctioned racism and a radical reversal of the separation of church and state.”

Let’s be clear – slavery, “red-lining,” segregated public facilities, separate but unequal public schools were state- sanctioned racism. CRT is just about teaching our nation’s history.

Many countries have parts of their history that they’re not especially proud of. How they react to this past is defining. After WWII, Germany renounced Nazism, Japan renounced their militarism.

Our neighbor to the north, Canada, had their own episode with their “residential schools.” “Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools that were established to (convert) assimilate indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture.” In effect, their goal was to disrupt and destroy indigenous culture and language. It caused great harm to the children and their communities. This wrong has been recognized in many ways, including through formal apologies by various Canadian governments and churches. In fact, while visiting our family in Canada, I came upon a large poster board presentation on the residential school system that was a class project of our grandson’s. Neither he, nor his parents, nor the community, seemed to regard this as an attack on white Canadians. It was, in their opinion, their country simply doing the right thing. It’s what a mature people, a mature culture, a mature individual is expected to do. Namely, to take responsibility for their actions and try to make amends.

This is obviously expecting too much from a part of America that believes only in its outsized sense of grievance and cultural superiority and the politicians that value their political careers over honesty, integrity or their oath of office.

We have a long way to go and we can’t even seem to start. We all deserve better.

Kenneth P. Yonek

McMurray{&end}

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