Letter: Arlene Violet is wrong on Critical Race Theory

Posted 6/17/21

I often read Arlene Violet’s columns in the East Bay newspapers. I usually find them interesting and informative. She is an accomplished woman – a former nun, former Rhode Island attorney …

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Letter: Arlene Violet is wrong on Critical Race Theory

Posted

I often read Arlene Violet’s columns in the East Bay newspapers. I usually find them interesting and informative. She is an accomplished woman – a former nun, former Rhode Island attorney general, and successful attorney – who is deserving of my respect and admiration.

With the noteworthy exception of last week’s column on the subject of critical race theory (CRT), her columns are well written, thoughtful and thought provoking, decently researched, with opinions founded on some factual support.

I agree with her sometimes and other times not. Until last week’s column, I never felt compelled to critique her opinions publicly.

She concludes her column by declaring that CRT poses no threat. She is wrong. It is her view that ”CRT seeks to understand the origin of inequality and its systematic application.” She opines that “citizens cannot possibly be threatened by a balanced assessment which eschews a simplistic view of history and chauvinistic account of one race or sex.”

I would agree with her if her description of CRT were even close to being accurate. It is not. 

I agree that few people really know what CRT is. But that sad reality is changing and changing rapidly. Responsible media, other than mainstream, is giving CRT news coverage the public deserves and needs to become better informed. Parents of children in public schools are being alerted to the insidious infiltration of CRT into curricula.

More teachers are displaying great courage by speaking out against the indoctrination (vice teaching) of this divisive, destructive and dangerous CRT ideology, despite their real fear of administrative retribution and possibly being suspended or even terminated for breaking their silence.

Anyone reading this letter who is interested in learning more about what CRT really is, please check out the Critical Race Theory Briefing Book, by Christopher Ruffo. You might also read Mike Byrnes’ letter to the Phoenix: https://www.eastbayri.com/stories/letter-critical-race-theory-a-dystopian-pathology,89848?.

Also, readers will be well served  by checking out the views of such credible luminaries on the subject of  CRT and race relations as Brown University Professor Glen Loury, John McWhorter, the late Walter William, Thomas Sowell, Robert Woodson and his 1775 Unites Project and his Woodson Center, Shelby Steele and others.

Contrast their views with the antiracist and CRT promoter, Ibram X. Kendi.

At the risk of being unfair, I suspect there can only be three explanations for her being so wrong. She is either shockingly naïve, or uncharacteristically lazy in her research, or, most sadly, she has joined the ranks of so many other cowardly cavers in governments, education, corporate leadership, professional sports – owners, coaches and players, mainstream media, etc. who fear more being labeled a racist or white supremacist by CRT zealots than being honest, truthful and forthright.

The truth is that CRT is a cancer that has been insidiously infiltrating every segment of our society and poses a clear and present danger to our exceptional nation’s constant striving to be a more perfect union and to ensure that our republican form of government survives.

Peter Hewett
Bristol

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