A black 11th-grade student at Cheyenne’s South High School discovered someone wrote the N-word and drew swastika symbols in the dirt on her car. Her mother spoke with around 50 community members at The Louise in downtown Cheyenne to discuss what happened.
Patricia McCoy, chair of the Laramie County chapter of Moms for Liberty, was at the meeting and said she was there to listen and learn how her organization could help. Sara Burlingame, former (defeated) legislator and long-time liberal activist for LGBTQ causes chimed in.
The room shifted when Burlingame asked McCoy about her thoughts on critical race theory, which Moms for Liberty has criticized in the public school curriculum.
The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported, “While some said Burlingame’s question was irrelevant to the conversation, one attendee said that it was a necessary tangent.”
Burlingame popped off in a game of fringe political ego, hoping to showcase the Moms for Liberty as somehow being racist because they don’t support critical race theory.
Teaching our kids that because they are white, they are the “oppressor” and should feel “white guilt” is deceptive Marxist distortion. The exploitation of children in this way only creates more categorization and differentiation. The premise is contrary to the result. It promotes what it claims to eliminate.
For those of us loyal to the foil (conspiracy theorists), there is a belief that this illogical process is by design, with intent to separate us and create more conflict, giving them more power and electorate.
This premise is akin to what is going on in Wyoming legislative politics. The RINO (Republican In Name Only) establishment was so deep, controlling all aspects of government, eliminating any opposition from a more conservative camp swiftly and effectively. Now what do we have?
Expensive races, a governor donating tens of thousands to individual races, more extreme policy. We have the Freedom Caucus. We have the Wyoming Caucus. The pendulum swings and swings. For every extreme action, there is an extreme reaction.
Teaching kids about race could be similar. With every extreme action, like CRT in schools, there can be extreme reactions. We should not want extreme.
According to the Tribune Eagle, the mother of the South student stated that the district had told her this incident was not technically a hate crime because no property damage occurred. Instead, they said it is hate speech, which is generally protected by the First Amendment.
Schools generally have policies prohibiting this type of speech as a sanctionable offense.
So, did the district mishandle what occurred?
The students should have been suspended immediately. Camera footage should have determined, undisputedly, who the perpetrators were.
Kids being subject to harassment is not acceptable. But let’s talk about culture. For every extreme action, there is an extreme reaction. We are witnessing a culture war and our kids are struggling.
Burlingame's question doesn’t see this for what it is.
Critical race theory indoctrinates racial-minority kids into believing they will always be victims, and their victimhood makes them more moral; while seeing their peers through the lens of race and oppression politics. We are all Americans. We are not victims or oppressors.
I couldn’t disagree with the goals of critical race theory more. In America, we are free and prosperous individuals who can achieve the American dream. That dream makes their power slip away, because then we don’t need them.
But where disingenuous political newspeak reigns, the pendulum swings.
Cassie Craven can be reached at: ccraven.law@gmail.com
