CRT forever

Against taking an X-ACTO knife to history books. [READER]( "Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.” — Fanny Lou Hamer The night before the atrocious "not guilty" verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial, I saw the Goodman Theatre’s production of [Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer]( by [Cheryl L. West](. It is an incredible show, made more glorious by the incomparable [E. Faye Butler]( as Fannie. Hamer’s impact is under-appreciated (by the mainstream and history books). But she was a critical part of the 1960s civil-rights movement, fighting for voting rights in the South, and especially in her native Mississippi—one of the most difficult and violent places to register to vote (and to actually try to vote). As one [women’s history website notes]( "In June 1963, after successfully completing a voter registration program in Charleston, South Carolina, Hamer and several other Black women were arrested for sitting in a 'whites-only' bus station restaurant in Winona, Mississippi. At the Winona jailhouse, she and several of the women were brutally beaten, leaving Hamer with lifelong injuries from a blood clot in her eye, kidney damage, and leg damage.” She fought locally and nationally with all her might and time, and died at just 59. I left the theater full of so many thoughts, but especially about the recent backlash against “critical race theory.” I was also dreading pending decisions in Kenosha, and in the trial of the cold-blooded killing of jogger Ahmaud Arbery, 1,000 miles south, in Glynn County, Georgia. Because Hamer’s story is exactly one that those opposed to “critical race theory” (CRT) want to X-ACTO-knife out of the history books. This whole CRT battle is an intentional distraction, a set of lies meant to motivate the right-wing base against their newest manufactured bogeyman. As the [NAACP Legal Defense Fund notes]( "The term 'critical race theory' has been co-opted by opponents as a catch-all and rallying cry to silence any discussions about systemic racism, ban the truthful teaching of American history, and reverse progress toward racial justice. The term has been unjustifiably used to include all diversity and inclusion efforts, race-conscious policies, and education about racism, whether or not they draw from CRT. Attempts to ban CRT are really attacks on free speech, on discussions about the truthful history of race and racism in the U.S., and the lived experiences of Black people and other people of color.” The white right simply does not want anyone to know the whole truth. They want them to know no real truth. Why? Well, that answer has been discussed in books, documentaries, workshops, and classrooms for decades. This newest incarnation of racism is just the continuation of the denial of this country’s original sin of slavery, its failed attempt at true and fair reconstruction, and [Jim Crow]( laws. Pulitzer Prize-Winning journalist [Nikole Hannah-Jones]( another of my heroes, has taken so much heat for her 1619 Project for The New York Times. Yes she has persisted, and, like Hamer, risks her own job and life for simply telling the truth. Looking at the placards at right-wing anti-CRT protests, you can see this insanity on full display. A youth with a sign saying “I Am Not An Oppressor,” “We Can’t End Racism with Racism,” or, with no sense of irony, “Education Not Indoctrination.” In the Hamer play, she directly confronts white women as often part of the problem in the long fight for equality, including in the women’s suffrage movement. White people are the problem here, those who would suppress history because their feelings are hurt. I am a white woman. I understand the legacy my people have been part of, even if my ancestors got here after the Civil War, didn’t live in the South, and even if my parents were avid supporters of civil rights (my mom was also a journalist and covered Martin Luther King, Jr. in the south and on Chicago’s south side; plus she fought against [redlining]( alongside [Dempsey Travis](. Being white in itself is not the issue or problem—it is simply why we have as a people had an easier path. We as a people have benefited from centuries of institutional racism from the lowest level to the White House. As [the NAACP points out]( racism in this country has been an incredible weight to bear: "Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society—from education and housing to employment and healthcare. Critical Race Theory recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities. According to CRT, societal issues like Black Americans’ higher mortality rate, outsized exposure to police violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, denial of affordable housing, and the rates of the death of Black women in childbirth are not unrelated anomalies.” On repeat: "Racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice.” Your white kids, and all children, need to know this deep history. Not to feel some guilt, but instead to feel some responsibility. To learn, to fight for change, to make America reach its fullest potential. I am not personally insulted when “my people,” the white community, are called privileged, or when this important history is taught. Rather, I welcome the accountability that comes with this information. I welcome the challenge to always do better, to fight the narrative, to help work toward that more perfect union. I wanted to end with more [quotes from Fanny Lou Hamer](. Because we need to see and read more first-hand witness accounts. "When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you." "Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over." "Hate won't only destroy us. It will destroy these people that's hating as well." Thank you for sacrificing your body and your life for this movement, Ms. Hamer. Thank you to all of the souls who fought so hard in the past, and those who are fighting to keep that history alive in the present. CRT forever. Tracy Baim Co-Publisher [Black Harvest Film Festival, reggaetón, and roller skating]( Events and activities for the next seven days by [Kerry Reid]( [Micco Caporale]( and [Salem Collo-Julin]( [Wild about Harry]( A longtime Chicago sports radio announcer gets his first play—with star power onstage; plus new leadership at Collaboraction and 16th Street Theater by [Kerry Reid]( [Zeros and Ones]( Rome has never looked so despairing. by [Max Maller]( [What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?]( A film so soothing to look at that you can almost forgive it for being essentially two hours and 30 minutes of watching grass grow by [Max Maller]( [Be the nonbinary lesbian you want to be]( On self-identifying, ghosting, and straight men lusting after gay men by [Dan Savage]( [Issue of Nov 11 - Nov 24, 2021 Vol. 51, No. 3]( [Download Issue]( (PDF) Since 1971, Chicagoans have relied on the Reader for trusted alternative coverage of our city. 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