Yeah, at this point, this is just a word game. No, I suspect nobody is teaching Derrick Bell or Kimberlie Crenshaw in k-12. There’s no class called “CRT 101”. But teachers are being explicitly taught CRT in their teacher trainings, and they’re using that to inform the way they teach race to children.

Concepts like “whiteness” and intersectionality are direct offshoots of CRT. And these are being taught in k-12. Children being segregated by race during classes, children being forced to stand in front of their class and admit their white privilege, black children being demoralised and white children being demonised by race education, none of this happens without the influence of CRT. I’m not claiming that this is happening in all schools or even most schools, but it’s unquestionably happening.

To be clear, I’m not even saying that teaching concepts from CRT is bad. “Whiteness” as a concept unavoidably leads to ideas of race essentialism, but intersectionality is a valuable idea. But how these concepts are taught matters, especially for kids. And there’s no doubt that some teachers and institutions are doing a horrible job with that.