(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Journal, I'm Steve Kendall.

From state capitals to the White House to local school boards, there seems to be no more polarizing words in the United States right now than critical race theory, or CRT.

On this Journal we're gonna try and clarify what CRT is and what it is not.

Here to help us do all that is a great panel of guests.

We have Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, a professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University, Dr. Jason Whitfield, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and four Bowling Green State University graduate students, Jon-Jama Scott, Charis Hoard, Alex Ogilvie Kostrzewa, Anastasia Paniagua, and also Alex Ogilvie Kostrzewa.

I'm sorry if I missed your names up, I'm doing the best I can (indistinct), we'll get them straight as we go along again.

Appreciate you all being here.

And first of all, Dr. Messer-Kruse kind of give us a background on the origin of what is being called critical race theory and kind of get us up to speed on where it started, what it is, and then we can kind of bring it up to date.

So how did critical race theory develop, what's its origin?

- Okay, thank you, Steve.

Thanks for inviting us about this very important issue that's a hit the headlines recently.

Critical race theory actually began in the 1980s with scholars who were beginning to realize that the promises of the civil rights movement were not being realized.

Of course, in the 1960s, there was tremendous hope and optimism that America finally putting in law that racial discrimination is illegal would have profound changes in society.

But by the 1980s, it was pretty clear that even though these laws were in place, and even though the racist language in many state laws had been scrubbed away, nonetheless, there was still plenty of discrimination, plenty of racism still operating in American society.

So scholars had that as a question, why does racism persist even if it's both illegal and if the legal codes don't actually discuss race?

That was the question that I think launched the ship of critical race theory.

And many scholars began theorizing that perhaps racism has deeper roots than merely existing in formal law.

Maybe it's embedded in social and political institutions in a deeper way.

And so the scholarship from that era began investigating, in what ways could racism actually be intertwined with some of the foundations and pillars of American society, both political and cultural and social.

That's really the beginning of critical race theory.

And I think it's also the first misperception that most people have about critical race theory.

First of all, it's not one theory.

Although we talk about critical race theory, there's not really one theory.

It's really a set of questions and it's a methodology about pursuing those questions and it's not really centered around one theory, not the way the last moral panic over college teaching, perhaps the panic about evolution was about one theory, after all, when the scopes trial in Tennessee tried to ban the teaching revolution, at least that was actually a theory.

That was one theory you could point to.

Critical race theory as a whole bundle of ideas that have actually become very central to a number of academic pursuits in education, in law, in cultural studies and history.

And it's become central because the questions of racism in American society are central.

- Now, when you talk about, this is obviously something that was developed at the post high school post graduate, the college level, can you, and I know that you have, you guys are doing this podcast called Real CRT to kind of expand on what's going on with this, in your opinion, why suddenly has it become implied that this is being taught at all levels of education, versus just for the most part at the college level, could you talk a little bit about that?

Because people seem to think it's being taught in elementary schools, it's being taught in junior highs and high schools.

And is it true that may be pieces of it might be, but the reality is, as you said, it's not just one thing.

So talk a little about the areas in education where it is being taught at the concepts that you talked about.

- Sure, well, I think we need to distinguish between two or three different elements that have all come to be called critical race theory.

One of course is what we do in our scholarship and our research and that's try to answer fundamental questions about American law in society and in government, but then there's also the anti-racist movement.

There's a popular movement that's been circulating and growing over the past decade or more of people of good will who are interested in the question of how do we sort of educate people so that they can become aware of maybe any biases hidden in their own thinking or in their own behavior.

And that anti-racist movement has been folded into what's been called critical race theory, but I think it needs to be distinguished.

I think in many ways it's different because it's not interested primarily in scholarship and then advancing the frontiers of knowledge.

It's interested in social activism and trying to make the world a better place, which is a fine thing to do, but it's a little bit different.

The examples that have been highlighted about supposedly CRT education in the schools, especially K-12 schools, have been primarily in that realm of anti-racist education, it's a consciousness raising exercise, it's meant to try and help people understand the hidden biases that may lurk in their own thinking and in their own behavior.

Whereas we, I mean, those of us who are professional scholars who are interested primarily in answering questions about the world, we look at in many ways in different directions.

So I see the anti-racist movement as an ally of what we do in higher education, but they need to be distinguished.

- Now, Dr. Whitfield, I know that your area is communication science and disorders, you're involved in this from the communication science side of it, is that your involvement or what is your part of this discussion?

- Sure.

Thanks Steve.

Yes, I am in communication disorders, but I also work in the College of Health and Human Services as a Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Facilitator.

So I facilitate interactions within the various programs in our departments in health and human services.

So that includes social work, food and nutrition, criminal justice, and a number of others.

So our aim here is really to Dr. Messer-Kruse's point taking some of these tenants of CRT and actually also other tenants of equity, inclusion, and diversity work, potentially some related to the anti-racism movement in general, and using those tools to question our current policies and practices within the college, analyze outcomes for different racial groups of our students to essentially change policy and practice so that we're seeing similar success rates across our different student groups and demographics in all of our programs.

- Okay, now when we come back, I wanna involve, obviously we've got four graduate students here who are a part of the seminar and get their feelings I'd like to find out too, why they're involved in the coursework and their view of what is being called critical race theory.

So back in just a moment with our panel from BGSU, Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, Dr. Jason Whitfield and our graduate students, Jon-Jama, Charis, Alex and Amanda here on The Journal in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us here on The Journal.

We're talking about critical race theory, which is we've learned in our first segment is not simply one theory, one idea, it's a large range of ideas and academic studies.

We're joined on this program by four graduate students who are part of the seminar program in this area, along with the departments that we've talked about, which are involved in a podcast, which is called Real CRT and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the program, but I'd like to talk to you graduate students.

And Amanda, talk about why your focus with regard to critical race theory and the area that you're specifically focused on in relation to that.

- Thanks Steve.

So I'm a PhD student working on my degree in higher education administration, and I'm deeply interested in the intersection of education and CRT as Dr. Messer-Kruse said before, CRT started in critical legal studies eventually it was adopted in different areas of scholarship, education being one of them.

So I also wanted to point out that while it might be a new hot debate for folks in 2022, this could be traced back at least a decade.

If you look at some of the fight in Arizona, when House Bill 2281 was introduced that specifically targeted the ethnic studies program in a K through 12 Tucson high school system.

There's a really great documentary called "Precious knowledge", it's like four dollars to rent on Vimeo.

I highly recommended it if you're interested in that particular journey and struggle, but what's really interesting, there's a lot of parallels and there's a ball makers that caught wind of this ethnic studies in the K-12 system and rather than investigate to see what students were talking about, they just started introducing legislation.

They were invited numerous times to classrooms to find out what actually was being discussed.

And rather than investigate it, they wanted to just legislate against it.

So very similar that we have people introducing bills that have never encountered this particular body of research yet, and want to censor it or pick apart and not have it talked about.

And so I just really encourage folks to think about that this isn't new, it's new to some, but there is historical precedence.

And I think a lot of the similar bills that we're seeing introduced come from that legacy of what happened in Arizona.

- Okay, and that's a good point because people are now getting information that is not accurate.

And the pieces that come out there sometimes are totally non-representative of what this actually is.

And you said, it seems to just become a simple thing to do well, we don't know what it is, but we're gonna ban it.

We don't want it in the curriculum, whether it's in K through 12 or, or college as well.

Jon-Jama, talk a little bit about your involvement in this and why you see this as such an important topic to be involved in.

- Okay.

Thank you for having us.

I think this is an important group of people that I'm working with and thinking through issues alongside.

I'm primarily interested in being in this course and thinking through these issues, because I care about young people and ultimately it will be the young people who all of us will work with in some capacity, whether it's raising children or working with young people in a educational environment who will help lead this country and this world to some places that we can't even imagine and in better ways.

And so that's why this course is important to me.

And that's why I'm involved in it.

As a writer, I'm someone who wants to listen and be a witness, and perhaps be able to reflect some of our collective human experiences in a productive way, and hopefully some way contributing today by being in this course and being alongside these other wonderful, fine people, thinking through some very difficult issues.

- Okay, great.

And the theme that runs through this is people just need to find out more about it, to go out and search out the material that's there, not just hear a little news bites and snippets and things like that.

And that's what you folks are doing, whether it's at the graduate school level or at the academic level at the doctoral level as well.

Alex, talk a little about your involvement.

Why is CRT such an important thing to you to discuss and illuminate for people so they better understand it.

- So there is a great deal of irony surrounding the role of critical race theory in the world right now.

It is a topic that has, as we've had more of these anti CRT bills being passed by state legislatures, they have brought critical race theory into the limelight.

10 years ago, the only time anyone was talking about critical race theory was when they were in law school, a non-issue for most of the world.

When my brother studied law, he saw as a kind of knee field that he didn't give a whole lot of second thought to.

But now of course, as we've talked about critical race, when we talk about critical race theory in these state bills, we're not actually talking about critical race theory.

If you're worried about your sixth grader studying critical race theory, stop worrying because it means your sixth grader is in law school.

They are very smart, they're very accomplished, you have made it, but of course, what CRT is referring to, is it sort of a undefined stand in for content, particularly in history classes, social studies classes in the middle school and high school level that run against a sort of state doctrine of a particular way of wanting to view America as being a sort of blameless entity of being the shining city on the hill.

That we're passing laws against any material that says America isn't the freest country in the world.

It feels very Soviet to me, We have to have an official history that is being taught, which reifies and reinforces the importance of our nation as something that is exceptional and pure and blameless.

And that's what's really kind of going on under the hood of all of this legislation.

The ironic thing about it, the CRT debate isn't about critical race theory.

Like people are not getting up in arms about Derrick Bell and Mari Matsuda being taught in their seventh grade history class, because that has never happened.

And the people passing the laws haven't read these people either.

So I do think it does again, ironically, that's I think the prevailing theme through this, reflect a lack of education amongst the people who are attempting to relegate education itself and how are we as a society to operate when the educators must answer to people who are themselves uneducated.

- Yeah, and I think you make a good point and Amanda we're gonna get to you at the start of the next segment 'cause we're a little short on time here.

Because one of the things you hear, and we can talk about this, we'll come back in a moment, is it some people believe this is an attempt to rewrite American history and that's not really what it is at all, if you look into it and expand the information gathering you do on this.

So when we come back, Amanda you'll be the first up.

We'll talk to you about your involvement with CRT, back in just a moment here on The Journal on WBGU-PBS.

Thank you for staying with us on The Journal.

We're discussing what is known in the public's eye as critical race theory.

And as you've heard during the program, it is not a single theory, it is a wide ranging group of ideas and teaching techniques and information.

In our last segment, we heard from three of the graduate students who are directly involved in the program at Bowling Green State University, and the one person we want to talk to too, Charis, give us your reason for being involved in, why you think the discussion that we're having today is important and the overall discussion of CRT for the public to understand it better.

- Thank you, Steve.

I am a Master of Public Administration student.

So what I primarily focus on is public policy and politics and public opinion.

So this whole discourse about CRT right now very much fits into politics and public opinion.

As a Black woman myself, I feel very deeply about the subject.

Having people learn about our history and mass and learn about it and an unfiltered way as it really happened and not in a sanitized or kind of whitewashed way to maybe sooth some people's feelings about the atrocities that have happened throughout history is very important in order to know how to move forward in the future and to do better for the future we need to learn what happened in the past, specifically what happened in the past as it happened in the past.

These legislatures who are wishing to sanitize that history, it deeply worries me to see that people will want to inhibit the knowledge of how we can be better in the future and how we can be better to our fellow Americans and our fellow citizens in the future.

- Yeah, very good.

And again, it points to that information that the more we know about this, the more that we really truly look at, honestly, what our history is.

'Cause over time stories have been rewritten and adjusted and things of that nature that give us a certain view, which may or may not, as we've seen with a lot of things, the actual accurate view.

So all of your involvement, your various focuses at the doctoral level that you're talking about are very important.

One of the other aspects of this, and again, thank you all of you, your graduate students for weighing in on this.

Dr. Messer-Kruse, one of the things that you've done to try and again, illuminate this, and make it more accessible to everyone is what you call your Real CRT podcast.

So talk about the evolution of that, the development and why you see that as a great tool to be able to help people understand these three words that we're talking about today.

- Well, it's really to the credit of this group of students that we're speaking with this morning because we were all together in a class and a seminar last semester, studying theories of racism.

And at one point, as we were talking about some of this legislative censorship that's progressing across the country, I don't remember who it was, but we got into a discussion.

Wouldn't it be great if the conversation we're having right now could be shared with the public, could be shared outside these four walls, because we're talking exactly about what these bills are trying to prohibit and we're talking very clearly about the reality of what critical race theory and racism is.

And my first suggestion was, well, let's just do a live stream the whole class, and there was obvious problems with doing that.

So instead we discussed and came up with the idea of sponsoring and producing a podcast, which would include a portion of our critical race theory seminar, not the whole thing.

And from that, I developed a syllabus that features a prominent, indeed one of the most prominent scholars in the field each week.

So we have 14 scholars coming each week during this semester.

And our discussion with that scholar, the questions that the students formulate and the scholars responses, those we feature on the podcast, along with our panel here today, discussing news of the week.

And in this way, we hope to kind of step down from the ivory tower, and try and popularize some of these ideas and really correct a lot of the misinformation out there.

- Yeah, and as you said too, this is a way to bring a wider range of information to the public.

It's accessible, it's a streamed podcast, you can find it very easily.

And as we look at what we've talked about today, what are the couple of things that people should really try to do if they really want to understand this topic?

Because I hesitate to keep calling it critical race theory because it's become kind of a, as you said, I think in one of your quotes, it's a misnomer, it's not one theory, it is a wide range of ideas and concepts and discussion points.

So if people really want to try and get below the surface, not just take a news view, a television news view or a certain podcast view, what should they do to try and get themselves better informed about this, obviously besides the Real CRT podcast, which will help them greatly, but what are some other places they could look, or what should they try to do to find other information on this?

- There's many good online sources.

PEN US the advocacy group for writers has a really great collection of resources.

The ACLU also has a page dedicated to what critical race theory is and isn't.

So I would direct your listeners and viewers to those resources initially.

But I think the most important thing is just not to be influenced by politicians who are trying to gin this up into a moral panic.

I think it's important for all of us to sort of step back, think critically, look at the evidence and not rush to judgment.

Unfortunately, whenever these moral panics begun, whether it was McCarthyism in the fifties, or whether it's CRT today, people rush to judgment and they turn off their critical faculties and they stop thinking.

And so I'd just like people just to keep an open mind and think about the issues and not simply rushed to judgment.

- Yeah.

Very good.

Because, yeah, this has become a, just such a quick, this is what it is because I heard this.

What's the easiest way for people to find the Real CRT podcast, what's the simplest way for them to get there?

- The simplest way, we're on all the major podcast services, if you just search Real CRT, I'm sure it'll come up on Apple or Google or Spotify we're on those.

- Great, well, Dr. Messer-Kruse, Dr. Whitfield, Jon-Jama, Charis, Alex, Amanda, thank you all for being with us here tonight on The Journal and helping us better understand those three words, critical race theory, and obviously giving us a much expanded view of what it is and what it is not.

So we appreciate you all taking the time to be with us here on The Journal's tonight, so thank you again.

- Thank you Steve.

- And you can check us out at wbgu.org.

And of course you can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on The Journal on WBGU-PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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