Members and guests of U.S. Parents Involved in Education, and The John Birch Society, held a rousing and spirited meeting last Thursday evening, July 22, 2021 at ZEN, in downtown Greenville. After we all enjoyed some great “finger foods”, the large crowd listened attentively, with much applause, to two fascinating speakers:
- Carol Swain, Ph.D.
- Duke Pesta, Ph.D.
Both speakers focused on the anti-American and virulently RACIST false ‘disinformation’ called ‘CRITICAL RACE THEORY’ that is being taught in many U.S. school districts. I quote from the literature given to us at the meeting by the sponsors.
DR. DUKE PESTA: Dr. Pesta received his M.A. in Renaissance literature from John Carroll University and his Ph.D in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature from Purdue University. He has taught at major research institutions and small liberal arts colleges at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including courses on Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, the Bible, Russian literature, Christian Apologetics, and C. S. Lewis.
Dr. Pesta is the Academic Director of FREEDOM PROJECT ACADEMY, the American Opinion Foundation’s Online Classical school. (The John Birch Society is the parent organization of American Opinion Foundation.) He is also a nationally recognized critic of the ant-learning, pseudo-educational philosophy called COMMON CORE, and has delivered over 400 talks in 40 states, having done more than 2500 radio and T.V. interviews on that subject. Common Core and CRT are interrelated, in that BOTH are false educational theories designed to both “DUMB DOWN” students, and also to encourage racial acrimony and hatred between students of different races, which was his main topic on Thursday evening. Dr. Pesta has long been featured on the JBS video series Constitution Corner, and often speaks about the NECESSITY for parents to WITHDRAW their children from the government indoctrination centers know as “public schools”, and either home school them or send them to a PROVEN constitutionally reliable private or Christian school. That was a focal point of his talk here in Greenville.
DR. CAROL SWAIN: Dr. Swain, a charming and accomplished lady, is an author, commentator, and an entrepreneur. She is the host of “Be The People Podcast”, and “Conversations with Dr. Carol Swain”, a T.V. talk show on YouTube, Rumble, and the Binge T.V. Network. She is the owner and President of Unity Training Solutions that offers an alternative to “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training”. (Other politically correct words for Critical Race Theory).
Dr. Swain has written or edited 10 books. Her most recent book is Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory Is Burning Down the House (to be released in August, 2021). She is a former professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities. (At Vanderbilt she was Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law.) Besides being interviewed frequently on FOX NEWS, her opinion pieces have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Epoch Times, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Three recent presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have appointed her to positions in their administrations (President Trump appointed her to serve as Vice-Chair of the 1776 Commission).
Dr. Swain grew up as one of 12 children in a poor family in Virginia, and with great difficulty and hard work, pulled herself up “by her bootstraps”. As she emphasized during her talk, “Critical race theory is the civil rights issue of our time. It eats away at our public, private, and Christian academies with its cancerous messages about white privilege, minority disadvantage, and perennial racism. Hardly a day goes by that I do not hear from parents and teachers about yet another school system where the cancerous roots of CRT have taken hold or begun to appear under the guise of ‘culturally competent teaching and learning’ or ‘educational equity’. No matter what they call it, they cannot hide its poisonous effects.
“CRT is a flowery form of racism that teaches children what to think, not how to think. It emphasizes conclusions without dialogue; children either cannot or are discouraged from critically thinking about complex issues…. CRT disincentivizes students. Minority students have it drummed into their heads that they are at a permanent disadvantage because of the color of their skin. When told that they are inherently and perpetually racist and oppressive, white students sometimes become crippled by guilt and shame about their race and ancestors.
“CRT is a nonsensical approach, and it’s RACIST. The only positive thing it does is benefit politicians wanting to stir the racial pot. Moreover, it provides teachers with a new excuse to justify their failure to attain decent proficiency rates in math and reading… CRT is a dangerous philosophy. Like cancer, CRT will grow until it consumes schools. Ultimately, it will destroy opportunities for students of all races in those schools….unless communities take the initiative to remove the cancer.”
Indeed—or UNLESS parents remove their children from the FAILED government indoctrination centers and begin home schooling them, or put them in real private or Christian schools. That is the message we all received from Dr. Pesta and Dr. Swain. I hope we were all paying attention!
