E. Scott Cracraft: Laconia School Board should not tolerate disruption

To The Daily Sun,

All I can say about the opponents of critical race theory who showed up to pressure, harass, and intimidate the Laconia School Board is, in the immortal words of Pvt. Gomer Pyle, "fer shame, fer shame, fer shame!" Actually, the fact that privileged whites from the lily-white Lakes Region are so angry and violently opposed to CRT is a good argument for teaching it!

While citizens certainly have the right to attend school board meetings and make comments, no school board, superintendent or educator should have to put up with intimidation from people who do not know what they are talking about. While some opposition to CRT may come from innocent ignorance because they do not know the facts, it is more likely that the majority oppose it out of "willful" ignorance. Such people do not change their minds when confronted with the truth.  

My advice to the School Board is that they do not have to tolerate  this behavior. While anyone can attend a board meeting, the board has the right to ban disruptive, angry people from the meeting. I suggest they do so if this happens again, even if it involves calling the police.

Critical race theory is really more than a theory. As long as the truth is taught, even the most cursory study of American history reveals again and again that systemic racism has been a dark part of our history since Colonial times.

To teach otherwise would be to lie to students or cover up the truth. The opposition to CRT is led by people on the right who want to deny that systemic racism has long been a problem. Probably because they support racism.  Those who oppose it, while they may not be bigots and perhaps do not personally hate people of color, are certainly complicit in racism.

Racism is not just confined to  history. It is real and it is here now. A perfect example is how Republican legislatures are passing laws to discourage voting by those people likely to vote against the GOP, and a lot of those people are people of color.  

This is similar to what happened after Reconstruction.  African Americans got the right to vote in 1870 but state governments in many states set up roadblocks to them exercising the franchise.   

Detractors falsely accuse CRT as teaching kids that everything in their country is bad, that whites are bad, and that it will cause more racial division. CRT is actually the opposite. Its aim is to create racial unity and reconciliation.  But, you cannot have that reconciliation by denying what has happened – and continues to happen – to get us to this point.

E. Scott Cracraft

Gilford