As the saying goes, you know you’re over the target when you start getting flak. And that’s exactly what’s been happening with the liberal media franticly trying to protect critical race theory. On Thursday, it was CNN Prime Time host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo’s turn to flat-out lie, gaslight, and try to rehabilitate the image of the racist and socialist propaganda. Fredo even teamed up with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten to claim CRT wasn’t being taught but yet it was.
After claiming earlier in the show that concerns about CRT were another iteration of “white fright,” Fredo began the segment by calling it “a bogeyman.” “It's not even taught in most K through 12 schools,” he proclaimed. “But suddenly it's like the biggest thing that's going on in the country when it comes to our kids and schooling. Now, what does that tell you? It tells you that there's BS here.”
But see, here’s the game that Cuomo was playing: full-blown critical race theory might not be tough as its own course but it influences lesson plans and approved reading material. As CRT critic Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute has documented, “At least 25 public school districts in 12 states are now teaching ‘Not My Idea,’ a book that claims ‘whiteness’ is the devil, luring children with the promise of ‘stolen land [and] stolen riches.’”
And the left was trying to proliferate it. But the media knew full well that’s what was happening.
Fredo then tried to gaslight his viewers by telling them CRT was the complete opposite of what it was and they shouldn’t trust their lying eyes (Click “Expand”):
They claim CRT doesn't enlighten, it spreads racism, it spreads socialism, it's just telling white kids that everything you do is somehow given to you and you're worthless and that you have to be to blame for all the bad things. It's none of those things.
Don't fall for what you're being told. Do the homework. Okay? It isn't about an intellectual theory. That's not their fight. Their fight is about a power theory. Okay? And what critical race theory is really about is just choosing which stories matter in the teaching of the history of America.
Following a shot at former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for calling out CRT, Fredo sneered at the “fake outrage” and warned opposition would “have a chilling effect on what our kids get to learn about” and “punished” teachers.
Fredo then brought on Weingarten to back him up. But even though he teed her up with a half-hearted parody of the opposition’s argument, it was enough to cause the union boss to fumble around for roughly 15 seconds before weakly claiming “the answer is it's completely not true” and moving on.
“I mean, I'm a high school social studies teacher. It's hard to actually fight against something that's completely not true. Because then you're assuming something in evidence that's not true,” she lamented.
Weingarten then tried to claim the conservative understanding of America’s founding (overcoming slavery and shaking off racism) as the liberal position, even though everyone knows they think America is the most racist country in the world ever. “What I don't get is that that's a great story for Fox TV. That's a great story for all Americans,” she huffed.
Further into the interview, Fredo warned “the dangerous part” was that states were also looking to ban “related topics as well.” Weingarten used that as a springboard to claim, without evidence, that teaching CRT (which they both claimed wasn’t being taught) was “like a modern-day Scopes Trial. It's like the modern-day version of stopping us from teaching biology and evolution.”
And according to her, Republicans and parents were trying to eliminate the teaching of the emancipation of slaves and the evils of racism:
What it’s – What the fear is, is that teachers will be so bullied and so disparaged, we've seen that already, and threatened, that they'll stop teaching about the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment, anything to do with the – you know – the issues around race, discrimination, bigotry, and things like that.
And when pressed by Cuomo on what the “remedy” for it all was, Weingarten said her organization was ready to protect teachers in court, and sue states to get them on the record with questions about if they wanted to ban teaching the emancipation of slaves.
This is CNN.
Chris “Fredo” Cuomo’s lies and gaslighting about critical race theory were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Liberty Mutual and Credit Karma. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
July 8, 2021
9:15:41 p.m. EasternCHRIS CUOMO: So, here's the thing that bothers or should bother about critical race theory. It's a bogeyman. It's not even taught in most K through 12 schools. But suddenly it's like the biggest thing that's going on in the country when it comes to our kids and schooling. Now, what does that tell you? It tells you that there's BS here.
The critical race theory, this bogeyman, is just the new front on the culture war. That's all. The brown menace is gone. “They're not coming over the wall to come and take your women.” Now, it's, “they're coming to take your kids.”
They claim CRT doesn't enlighten, it spreads racism, it spreads socialism, it's just telling white kids that everything you do is somehow given to you and you're worthless and that you have to be to blame for all the bad things. It's none of those things.
Don't fall for what you're being told. Do the homework. Okay? It isn't about an intellectual theory. That's not their fight. Their fight is about a power theory. Okay? And what critical race theory is really about is just choosing which stories matter in the teaching of the history of America.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave up the goods on what this is really about for the Trumpers. He tweeted, "If we teach that the founding of the United States of America was somehow flawed, it was corrupt, it was racist, that's really dangerous. It strikes at the very foundations of our country."
This guy is supposed to be a genius. He was at the top of his class at West Point. You can teach that America, her birth, her Independence, her fight, her foundation was part of the most notable and exceptional experiment in democracy on the face of this planet. Comma. And there have been problems all along. And racism is a primary one.
Both of those things can be said. Both are true. And he knows it. This is fake outrage. But it's having real impact on school districts across the country and it may have a chilling effect on what our kids get to learn about who we are, and how we got here, and why things are not perfect here, and why we are trying to promote a more perfect union.
Parents against parents, student against student, teachers in danger of getting punished for what they teach in their classrooms. States all across the country are taking up bills to ban critical race theory. What does this mean?
Let's discuss with the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. Good to see you, Randi.
RANDI WEINGARTEN: Good to be with you, Chris.
CUOMO: Let's deal with the argument and then we'll go to the remedy. The argument, you are teaching about the oppression of black people in this country but you're using it as a cudgel. Mike Pompeo saying you want to say this country basically stinks and blame white people and this is the left's effort to make a minority into a majority because you want them all to vote for you guys so you can stay in power.
WEINGARTEN: You know, I mean --
CUOMO: That's what you're hearing. I mean, and you're going to hear it more and more. So what's the answer?
WEINGARTEN: Right. So, the answer is it's completely not true. I mean, I'm a high school social studies teacher. It's hard to actually fight against something that's completely not true. Because then you're assuming something in evidence that's not true.
So, let me go through what is true, which is that for the last – I don't know, as long as I've been teaching, we teach history in way where you take salient pieces of American history and you look at them and you examine them to have your kids be able to know the facts and to think through what that means.
So, when it comes to issues of American history, we teach about the founding and how great it was to actually break from Great Britain and have a democracy and how important the Constitution was, one of the first constitutional democracies. But it wasn't a multiethnic democracy. The founders basically were very focused on making sure that white men of certain ways had a vote.
But this is what's great about America and what we teach in history. That the arc of the moral universe has actually bent toward justice. And that whereas the founders actually were slaveholders we went through a civil war, we went through the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. We’ve just got to celebrating Juneteenth. And so, you see that through the struggle of America we create more opportunity and more freedom.
What I don't get is that that's a great story for Fox TV. That's a great story for all Americans.
And what's happening now is that, in this push to try to erase what has happened in our history it is chilling teachers from teaching the fact that we did have slavery. It was uncomfortable. We need to get through it. We need kids to be able to critically think about it and to engage and understand it and get better as a result of it.
It is the American experiment that we are trying to teach as schoolteachers, both the good and the ugly. But the change that we've seen including having our first African-American president and our first African-American vice president.
CUOMO: So, you see these bills. Five states, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, bans on critical race theory. Related topics as well. Now, that's the dangerous part. Because critical race theory as-is is not really taught at the primary and secondary level.
WEINGARTEN: It isn’t. Yeah.
CUOMO: But if you have a dozen other states pushing for similar legislation, what is your fear these laws, what they will do, and what is your remedy?
WEINGARTEN: Okay. So number one, the fear is take what's happening – so number one, it's like a modern-day Scopes Trial. It's like the modern-day version of stopping us from teaching biology and evolution. What it’s – What the fear is, is that teachers will be so bullied and so disparaged, we've seen that already, and threatened, that they'll stop teaching about the Civil War, the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment, anything to do with the – you know – the issues around race, discrimination, bigotry, and things like that.
And that will be terrible for kids to not understand history and how we actually moved to be a more perfect union.
(…)
