Teacher Brags On Video About Skirting State Prohibition Against Teaching CRT

P. Gardner Goldsmith | September 21, 2021

Sometimes, collectivists can be pretty darn crafty. And, in exhibiting that behavior – often to further their collectivist ideology – they expose not only the unworkability of leftism, but also the fact that many who might consider themselves members of “the right” also mistakenly embrace collectivism.

Such is the case with “Petra Lange (she/her)” who is 'a secondary educator at a predominantly white high school in a suburban district' , as she labels herself in the call, who collects her tax-funded paychecks by propagandizing kids at public high schools (it/it), in Des Moines (it/it). Ms. (Miss/Mrs/Whatever) Lange recently got caught bragging to “colleagues” about how she found a way to skirt Iowa’s House File 802 which essentially forbids CRT by prohibiting "race or sex scapegoating":

"Race or sex scapegoating" means assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex, or claiming that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of persons' race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others.

But, what is CRT – or “Critical Race Theory” – and has it really been outlawed in public schools?

CRT is Cultural Marxism’s new “white guilt” – a postmodernist tactic to gain political power by, as usual, inappropriately claiming that those who believe in free will, individual responsibility, private property, and peaceful market exchange are overtly, or inherently, racist and are the beneficiaries of a “racist system” that has infiltrated so many aspects of their lives – from culture, to religion, to free enterprise – that they can’t even see it, but they reinforce it merely by not embracing collectivism to “right the wrongs.”

As Clark Patterson notes for The Mises Institute (institute/institute):

Because CRT assumes a finite economic pie and posits all economic interactions as zero-sum, the continuing adoption of CRT in American society will necessarily lead the US away from free markets and further down the road to serfdom.

Critical race theory is a subset of critical theory. Critical theory is the world view which holds that oppression along race, class, and gender lines is the distinguishing attribute of Western civilization, both currently and historically.

And Critical Theory, in turn, stems from Marxism, which held at its core a mistaken notion that free enterprise – the very development that smashed feudalism and the royal peerage system – was a new form of the feudal peerage system. In fact, as I note in the free MRC educational series “College Unbound,” Marx’s use of the term “bourgeoisie” to describe property owners is derived from “burgher”, a German municipal overlord appointed by a monarch or royal peer.

Not only is free market capitalism responsible for destroying the peerage system and its class-tiered society, but also, by allowing for the ownership of private property and peaceful trade, it allows for the greatest, fastest method of want-discovery, resource utilization and testing, want satisfaction, division of labor, competition, efficiency, conservation of resources, and better living standards. It dismantles class systems because not only do the vast majority of people do better (according to their own assessments) when peaceful market exchange occurs, they can rise in wealth (as defined by each individual, based on his or her preferences) faster than in a collectivist, government-run system.

But left-collectivism often is based on class envy, and so Critical Theory Marxists in the US for decades used (and still use) the term “class” as a way to paint anyone who has “more” as having too much, and having gotten it unfairly. Of course, leftists don’t define “fair” as “peaceful and voluntary.”

In a nutshell, Critical Race Theory folds “race” into the omelet of economic class, while still retaining the economic echoes of envy and the “David versus Goliath” fiction of Marxism’s fabricated fight against the “exploiter.” If you’re not a collectivist – if you believe in leaving your neighbor in peace and offering respect -- then they will depict you as an exploiter.

Which brings us to Petra Lange.

Although she was prohibited by the state from “teaching” CRT, she skirted the collectivist state prohibition banning the teaching of THAT version of collectivism, and bragged about it to other collectivists. In a recorded chat with other “educators” she and her special pronouns offered:

I literally put the law in front of them, gave them access with a link, and I said I need to just let you know there are now concepts that it is illegal for me to teach you about, according to the state of Iowa(…) So I went through those ten defined concepts with them, um, so that they could see what the law was – and they immediately, by the time I think we were on the second or third one, they’re like ‘but is it legal for me to ask questions?’

Crafty. See, the collectivist Iowa rule about what can or can’t be taught with tax money in the collectivist government school prohibits teaching the collectivist CRT, but does not prohibit a teacher from answering QUESTIONS about CRT…

I was like ‘this is only for me, you can ask as many questions as you like;’ and then I took them to the part of the law that said, um, this law doesn’t prohibit me from answering questions. I said ‘so if there is any question that you have about these defined concepts, you can ask them and then I can answer them. So I said, ‘Let’s just take another minute – what questions to you have, that you want me to build this course around?’

In other words, Lange used her smarts to abide by the wording of the rule, but to skirt the spirit of the rule.

And that might upset some conservatives who rightly view CRT as collectivist poison that usually is injected into the minds of kids trapped in the government school system and can mislead them into adopting leftist concepts like wealth redistribution and central planning.

As I have noted for MRCTV, for most of US history, Americans were well educated through private, voluntary means. By embracing the immoral, late 19th Century, collectivist “education” concept conservatives have already ceded the battle over content, the battle over ideology, the battle over freedom the outset.

The fight against the arguments promoted by Critical Race Theory is a noble one because the theory is ahistorical and undercuts individual will. But so does any form of government schooling. 

The answer is to choose freedom, not collectivism, not government control. Because, in the end, the collectivist system will remain, ready to be usurped and bent in another Marxist direction.

 

Related: Baltimore Schools Will Now Advance Failing Students To 'Avoid Punitive Approach' | MRCTV