Why Is It Important To Teach Critical Race Theory In Schools?

For a long time, there has been a legal and social effort to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) from being taught in U.S. schools. Many Americans, mainly Republicans, are opposed to the idea of CRT being part of the education curriculum. To better understand the critics, we should first understand what is CRT, how important it is and why Republicans are against it.

CRT is an academic movement that started to develop in the 1970s by legal scholars and civil-rights activists. It is an educational stance with the purpose of shedding light on the embedded racial injustice that American people of color, especially Black Americans had to endure for centuries.

However, there are many white Americans who are reluctant to welcome this topic. Some of them would argue that it isn’t necessary to teach kids about race and the country’s dark history as it will create a negative stigma of white people. While others just simply deny there are injustices or racial discrimination in modern-day America, and that oppression only existed during the years of slavery.

The truth is Black Americans and people of color face inequality from the American government, especially within the criminal justice system. These inequalities also can be found within the educational, banking, housing and health care systems.

America cannot continue to ignore its ugly history for the sake of convenience. The reality is, Americans should be taught about race and the injustices of its past, within the classrooms and institutions in all 50 states. CRT is important because someone else’s privilege should not cause injustice to others.