RMS Statement on Critical Race Theory

Published on September 23, 2020 

The Executive Office of the President has directed federal agencies to cease all anti-racist “training” for government workers and to “identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory’ and ‘white privilege,’” which it deems “anti-American” and a “propaganda effort.” Even as President Trump routinely spouts racist and sexist beliefs that undercut our common struggle for equity and justice, the White House’s ideological and legal war against even the most basic recognition of our nation’s past and present crimes caused by colonial and systemic racism is a war against us all. For instance, the Trump administrative has weaponized the Justice Department against Princeton University for acknowledging that “racist assumptions from the past also remain embedded in structures of the university itself.” If systematic racism is a federal crime, the White House should lead by example and investigate itself. Instead, it is sanctioning assault on critical race theory which reveals rather than covers up those crimes.

RMS stands in support of all pedagogies and practices that are associated with critical race theory, from comparative Ethnic Studies, Black Studies, Indigenous Studies, Latinx Studies, Asian American Studies, to Women, Queer and Trans of Color Critiques. We support schools that use The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project in their teaching. We support black feminist and queer of color pedagogies in K-12 schools. We support a comparative ethnic studies curriculum across the board. While we are disheartened by the White House’s contempt for the life of the mind, our Consortium is not defined only in direct opposition to one man and his cabal of oligarchs and white supremacists. We have a bigger future and brighter plan than that narrowing darkness. We are committed to expanding institutional space to educate the next generation of leaders, writers, actors, thinkers, activists and professionals who understand the distinction between crime and contrition, and the historic links between United States and slavery, settler colonialism, racial capitalism and gender violence.

To persecute the searching, critical mind is to live a stiff, insecure and unenlightened life. Long live critical race theory!