Thread by @AnnaCaudill4

In this sliver of air time, Rufo confirms this is a battle of pedagogy. The meaning of CRT is whatever negative responses he can cause it to trigger. The dude railing against German Crit Theory finds language identity not in nations or religions, but in audience response.

https://twitter.com/thereidout/status/1407844407538294785

Another thing about Reid’s clip here is Ibram’s statement he doesn’t “identify as a critical race theorist”. Last month when Carl Trueman brought his traveling hate-show to our presbytery, a pastor told my husband Kendi would call us racist for adopting internationally. 2/

Kendi may well do just that, but first-why would a pastor ever need to deflect our valid concerns over White nationalism wing amplified in our faith community by shifting our anger to a Black man? It’s not the 1st time I’ve seen this management technique in the PCA. It’s 🐓💩. 3/

The expectation that Kendi might respond that way towards us is likely b/c of his response to Amy Coney Barrett being considered for SCOTUS. Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, saw Barrett’s transracial adoptions as slam-dunk proof against racism. 4/

What’s funny-not funny at all is that Martin actually used a photo of *the wrong family* as a receipt.
She used the wrong transracial family to prove Barrett’s transracial adoptions weren’t racist. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Kendi reacted to Martin before realizing her error. 5/

The question of international adoption as White colonization is a valid one, & I don’t dare be afraid of it. My sons & their birth family deserve nothing less than my honesty & ongoing commitment to decolonization. And int’l adoption is rife w/ colonization. 6/

We’ve attended events where pastors lauded int’l adoption as the means by which the American church would be revitalized.

We’ve heard folks describe their adoption efforts as rescues of children from awful countries or depraved cultures.

That is out loud colonization. 7/

I don’t dare say, no matter what work I’ve done to become aware of & change my own racism, that I didn’t adopt two boys absent *any* colonizer thoughts. Both are disabled. Both would likely have died by now b/c disability displaced them from their rightful birth families. 8/

Even tho disability would’ve been a death sentence, given lack of access my sons’ birth families had to appropriate health care & their greater vulnerability after being displaced from birth parents, that doesn’t mean my husband & I are devoid of thinking our way is superior. 9/

My hubs & I were conditioned our whole lives, seeing Black & Brown faces & names criminalized, shushing our grandparents’ public outbursts of racism but still hearing its drip-drip-drip, to see ourselves as superior. It is a long-ass work to undo that learned neural apostacy. 10/

So yes, Kendi is wise to ask that, & I’m not mad at him. My own past is part mystery. My father’s grandmother was Indigenous & she was displaced from her birth family & raised by a white family. She identified as white on the census. The traditions she kept are lost to us. 11/

Of note is Angela Tucker’s response to Kendi. If you want to better understand & unlearn, center the voices of Black & Brown adoptees. Her documentary is powerful. She is powerful. 12/

Also of note is Nicole Chung, whose story of adoption & loss I aim to re-read every year for the sake of better hearing my sons’ voices. Her work is mighty.

nicolechung.net

Bringing that back around to Rufo, there’s a gang of polished White boys attacking CRT as some Marxist outgrowth of 30s era Critical Theory & an abandonment of rooting identity & meaning in nat’l, religious, & family traditions.
They are hijacking meaning, erasing literacy. 14/

Rufo, Trueman, James Lindsay, et al know they cannot say in truth that CRT threatens anyone. They know America is racist—their grifts depend on it. In the face of 1619 Project & the faithful witness of prophets like Shannon Harper & Jemar Tisby, they erase meaning to steer us.15/

PS-Signing off for a few to have popsicles with friends. So if you have a question or a reply, please don’t read my silence as exclusive.