Teach Our Children to be United

Originally Published on South Dakota State News

Imagine teaching your child that our country was founded on racism, or that hard work is not a virtue, or that a young boy or girl should be ashamed of themselves because of their skin color. As a mom and as a grandma, I can’t even begin to imagine poisoning my child with those lies. But believe it or not, lessons like those are being taught to children in America’s K-12 schools and universities. As governor, I want to keep that from happening in South Dakota. 

You might have heard about it on TV or read about it on the internet: Critical Race Theory, a neo-Marxist philosophy that says the United States is racist to the core, that equal opportunity is a myth, and that the American Dream is a lie. There are some folks who deny that it’s being taught to kids. They claim it’s a concept that’s just studied in universities or in law schools. Wrong. The truth is, the proponents of Critical Race Theory are hiding their anti-American philosophy in plain sight: in colorful children’s books, revisionist textbooks, and radical lesson plans designed to indoctrinate children into their way of thinking. 

Critical Race Theory is embedded in books like “Antiracist Baby,” which teaches children at the earliest of ages not to be colorblind, and even tells them to “confess” to being racist. It’s in the 1619 Project—a series of New York Times articles that invent lies about our country’s history, even teaching that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. Today, those articles are forming the basis of a new curriculum that is being used in 4,500 schools nationwide. And it’s in the curriculum that tells teachers to “challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, racist views.” 

If it’s not enough that some schools are teaching kids ideas that are entirely against everything that America stands for, they’re also turning children into political pawns. Through “Action Civics,” students are being forced to take part in political protests. Instead of teaching children our nation’s history, the founding principles, or even the structure of our government, Action Civics unleashes them on the streets as activists, turning them into foot soldiers for partisan fights they may not even understand…