After embarrassing host Joy Reid on her show recently, independent journalist Christopher Rufo appeared on Morning Joe Tuesday to put Reid’s fellow MSNBC peers to shame over the left's push to force Critical Race Theory into public schools across the country. Rufo struck a nerve with MSNBC contributor and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude, who unsurprisingly, became very angry at having to defend CRT to even host Joe Scarborough.
For MSNBC, the discussion was as fair as you could hope for. Although Rufo had to refute straw man fallacies from Scarborough that conservatives were trying to stop schools from teaching about America’s history of slavery, both guests were allowed to define CRT as they saw it. But Glaude was clearly more interested in attacking Rufo for daring to criticize the toxic theory.
After dismissing it as something that’s only taught in “law school," Glaude suggested his opponent had no knowledge of what CRT was and this movement against it was just right-wing clickbait. That’s when Rufo schooled him, by bringing up one toxic book being taught to kindergarteners:
First of all, it's not accurate to say I'm not concerned about the substance. I've written policy papers, white papers, I’ve written investigative reports. I'm deeply concerned about the substance. What I'm concerned about and what millions of parents are really concerned about is things that are happening in hundreds of public schools in Illinois and Chicago where they're teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil and attempts to lure people into it with the promise of stolen land and stolen riches. That's a book being used in hundreds of schools, and people don't think that's right.
He also pushed back on Glaude's suggestion this theory wasn't pervasive, citing how CRT is now "being endorsed by the NEA in 14,000 public school districts across the country." While he was speaking, Glaude rolled his eyes.
Even Scarborough admitted he had heard from liberal journalists who didn’t like what their kids were being taught in schools concerning race:
Eddie, this is interesting and it's something people won't say when they're on the television set, they won't say at polite dinner parties. I'm not sure why they whisper it or text it or e-mail it to me, but liberal members of the mainstream media, Democrats that are huge contributors to the Democratic Party and even people that like work for Democrats, I've heard over the past three or four years, ‘I've got to get my kid out of this private school. They're teaching my 7-year-old boy that because he's white he's, you know, a racist, he's part of the problem,’ et cetera, et cetera..
Afterwards, Scarborough asked Glaude how they were going to preserve the teaching of slavery and racism over the past 400 years when there was a “war” against the “extremes” of critical race theory. But the Princeton professor didn’t like where this discussion was headed.
Getting more worked up, he admitted that he “was upset” at having to defend CRT to begin with because any scrutiny of it preserved the “lies” about America:
But part of what we have to do in this moment, Joe, and we talk about this, is to confront the ugliness of who we are. And part of what I hear in these sorts of arguments is this sense in which that confrontation must be won where we're comfortable. Where we feel good about who we are after we confront it. So in some ways I get, I'm scooting up in my chair, Joe, because I'm getting upset. Because we're seeing right now in realtime a reassertion of the lie. The very thing that keeps us from becoming a different America because we don't want to accept who we are, what we've done.
After getting more push-back from Scarborough, Glaude completely lost it, tying criticism of CRT to “January 6” and “attacks on voting rights":
I want to say this really quickly, this sort of argument is happening right now, and I want us to link it to January 6th. I want us to link it to the attack on voting rights. This is, in effect, in my view, Joe, an attempt to arrest substantive change in the country, and we give these folk the credit that they're making the arguments in good faith, and I don't think they are. I'll say it to Christopher right to his face. I don't think this is a good faith argument, period!
After this outburst, Scarborough suggested his leftist ally embrace a more moderate approach.
“My concern, just bluntly, Eddie, is that the overreach often drives natural allies away. I have seen overreach in some arguments in my opinion. A lot of people might not like me saying that. I've seen some overreach on both sides. That's not what-aboutism, it's the truth,” he said, as Mika Brzezinski defended Glaude with, “he just wants the truth!”
As each side briefly made their points again, the Morning Joe hosts invited them to come back again next week for a more in-depth discussion.
Noom and Trivago sponsor Morning Joe, contact them at the Conservatives Fight Back page.
Read a partial transcript below:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
7/6/2021
EDDIE GLAUDE:...Part of what I want to suggest, Joe, is not about whether or not we actually get critical race theory right, that's not actually the point that Christopher and his allies are engaged in. What we need to be asking is why are they doing that at this point? Why are they making these arguments at this moment?
...
RUFO: A couple things. First of all, it's not accurate to say I'm not concerned about the substance. I've written policy papers, white papers, I’ve written investigative reports. I'm deeply concerned about the substance. What I'm concerned about and what millions of parents are really concerned about is things that are happening in hundreds of public schools in Illinois and Chicago where they're teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil and attempts to lure people into it with the promise of stolen land and stolen riches. That's a book being used in hundreds of schools, and people don't think that's right. People want to know where it comes from, people want to know what ideologies inform it --
SCARBOROUGH: What's the name of that book, just for the record? What's the name of that book?
RUFO:The book is called "Not my idea." It's being taught in hundreds of schools in Illinois and Chicago. It's actually the subject of a federal lawsuit by a teacher named Stacey Demark who protested this and was forced to teach it.
You can retreat to the federal territory and saying it's looking to the history of racism and society, but if you look at the specifics, they are telling kids they are fundamentally racist because of the color of their skin. They're telling people they should feel shame, guilt and anguish because of their inborn characteristics and traits. These are the kinds of lessons I've uncovered in dozens of schools. It's now being endorsed by the NEA in 14,000 public school districts across the country. And you can't retreat because parents know what they’re seeing every day, parents know what they’re seeing when children come home everyday with workbooks like "Not my idea." They're right and they're rightly very strongly pushing back.
SCARBOROUGH: Eddie, this is interesting and it's something people won't say when they're on the television set, they won't say at polite dinner parties. I'm not sure why they whisper it or text it or e-mail it to me, but liberal members of the mainstream media, Democrats that are huge contributors to the democratic party and even people that like work for Democrats, I've heard over the past three or four years, ‘I've got to get my kid out of this private school. They're teaching my 7-year-old boy that because he's white he's, you know, a racist, he's part of the problem, et cetera, et cetera.’ I don't know if you've heard the same thing. I've heard the same thing. And, again, it's anecdotal but it sure does seem to match with more and more stories that are going out there. How do we, how do we sort through all of this and make sure that we don't throw out teaching about slavery and teaching about racism over the past 400 years, that we don't throw that out with a war against critical race theory and its extremes?
GLAUDE: Right, its going to be---We're going to make mistakes. There are going to be extremes, there are going to be moments of overreach, I grant that.
But part of what we have to do in this moment, Joe, and we talk about this, is to confront the ugliness of who we are. And part of what I hear in these sorts of arguments is this sense in which that confrontation must be won where we're comfortable. Where we feel good about who we are after we confront it. So in some ways I get, I'm scooting up in my chair, Joe, because I'm getting upset. Because we're seeing right now in realtime a reassertion of the lie. The very thing that keeps us from becoming a different America because we don't want to accept who we are, what we've done.
SCARBOROUGH: Wait wait wait, But reassertion, though, of what? ...I can believe in two Americas. I can believe that 1776 and 1619 can be merged together, that you can believe two things at once. I could disagree with critical race theory, but still believe what you and I have talked about, that we have a long way to go to being a just country the way that the founding documents said we were going to be. Do I have to choose one or the other?
GLAUDE: No, no, no, no. So part of what I'm thinking, once you concede the initial claim that America in some ways comes into being in light of this extraordinarily painful reality, the contradiction that is at the heart of our beginnings, once you concede that, the way in which you begin to think about American exceptionalism shifts, right?
Because it's not this idea that we are wholly innocent, that we are absolved of our sins, that somehow recognizing who we are condemns us to hell, that we are being bludgeoned by our sins and made to feel guilty. That's not what we're saying at all.
But you’re saying that you have to confront it to release us to a different future. I want to say this really quickly, this sort of argument is happening right now, and I want us to link it to January 6th. I want us to link it to the attack on voting rights. This is, in effect, in my view, Joe, an attempt to arrest substantive change in the country, and we give these folk the credit that they're making the arguments in good faith, and I don't think they are. I'll say it to Christopher right to his face. I don't think this is a good faith argument, period!
