They're at it again although they never really stopped. As the 2024 national election campaigns gear up, Republican Party schemers and their right-wing friends are doubling down on their phony claims that Critical Race Theory -- a set of ideas studied by university academia but not taught in schools -- is creating widespread hate and racial division (as if we already didn't have so much of it). The latest scare-tactic vehicle was a TV commercial that ran during the Green Bay Packers / New Orleans Saints game Sunday, at least in Wisconsin media markets.
In the commercial, a young Black adult, appearing to be speaking into a cell phone camera, invites a young child to agree with him on camera, saying real racial equality is all about love and not teaching racial division. Okay, but CRT in the classroom is not a real thing. and in any event it's about finding ways to cure racial division, not expand it.
The commercial was not disclaimed as a formal political campaign ad, but it might as well have been one. The kid was cute and the handsome young man soft-spoken and earnest, but the ad still reeked of manipulation. Worse, the commercial breaks away to show a brief video clip -- apparently shot on a cell-phone -- in which a Black woman, labeled as a teacher in a Milwaukee elementary school classroom, leads her students in a pledge of allegiance to a Pan-African flag.
The implication is that the teacher is seeking to somehow turn her first-graders away from the U.S. flag -- as if the Confederate flag didn't already try to do that for real. But context is missing. Here is some:
Wikipedia says the Pan African flag was created in 1920 by the Universal Negro Improvement Association in response to a "coon song" that became a hit around 1900, titled, "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon."
In a 1921 speech, famed Black civil rights activist Marcus Garvey said: "Show me the race or the nation without a flag, and I will show you a race of people without any pride."
In the US, the flag is commonly seen at parades commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, civil rights rallies, and other special events.
I'll bet school teachers also sometimes fly it on those days as part of Black history lessons. Including, in all likelihood, the teacher impugned in this ad, who is a known and respected Black community leader outside the classroom. Show and tell, ya know?
But to the creators of this ad, it's evidently a danger for students including but not limited to Black kids to learn about anything but the general society they live in, mostly run of course by white folks. And god forbid they learn anything at all about Black history or develop any sense of self-pride.
If anyone happened to DVR the game, it would be nice to have a copy of this ad so it can be reviewed by civil-rights groups.
The ad was presented by some relatively anonymous third party and not as a political campaign commercial. It's way off base, but it and its ilk are going to sway some voters, already including the young Black man who was conscripted to speak in it.
