Critics of critical race theory planned an “Education, Not Indoctrination” event Saturday morning in a Virginia town that has become a hotspot for the contentious curriculum amid a nationwide debate over whether it belongs in public schools.
“CRT wants to minimize the truth that we are all unique and valuable in God’s sight,” Melody Clarke, conservative event organizer and regional coordinator for Heritage Action for America, told Fox News on Friday. “Our unique fate is determined by our God-given skill, passion, and desire, not by what others think of us.” Her organization’s goal, she says, is to inspire parents around the nation to speak out against CRT implementation in their schools.
Clarke said, “Children should be educated to be kind and to work hard.” “It truly is that easy.”
According to the event invitation, activists will gather at the Loudoun County Government Center in Leesburg on Saturday to denounce the local school district’s endorsement of CRT.
More than a dozen speakers, including parents, activists, and even a number of district teachers opposed to the curriculum, were scheduled to speak.
According to the rally’s detractors, the CRT encourages racism, hatred, and division.
According to Ian Prior, a parent of two kids in the area and a former top Justice Department official who is one of the scheduled speakers, there is substantial resistance to CRT in the neighborhood.
“Parents in Loudoun County are riled up,” he said on Fox News on Friday. “They’ve been out there all day, every day, attempting to put a stop to the mentality of fear and intimidation that has infiltrated Loudoun County Public Schools. Teachers are now joining them in shouting, “Enough!” We can no longer teach this religion of divides.”
CRT’s origins may be traced back to Marxism, a failing communist doctrine that detractors have long chastised for driving the middle class down rather than boosting the less fortunate in nations like Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Instead of attaining racial justice, as CRT supporters claim, “it implies we’d all suffer together,” Clarke says.
Loudoun County has made national news on several occasions for clashes between wokeness and social justice at school board sessions.
During a public meeting on Tuesday, local mom Xi Van Fleet, a survivor of China’s decade-long Cultural Revolution who immigrated to the United States in her twenties, excoriated the school board and directly compared CRT to Mao Zedong’s purge of anyone and anything deemed “counterrevolutionary” by the Communist Party.
“It’s terrible to me and a lot of Chinese because we fled communism and now we’re experiencing communism here,” she told Fox News on Wednesday.
“The Communist dictatorship divided individuals using the same critical thinking,” she said. “The only difference is that they utilized class rather than race.”
Also this week, a court ordered the district to restore suspended elementary school physical education teacher Byron “Tanner” Cross, who was disciplined for standing out during the public comment part of a hearing on the new transgender policy last month.
The event is set for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT on a grassy field outside the Government Center.
A representative for the district refused to comment on the demonstration.
