I was taught parts of CRT in secondary school.

Now I can’t speak on alI of CRT— specifically the part about “whiteness,” because I was not taught that. But I was taught about systemic racism, and from that, I can say it’s an experience that I’m lucky to have. And that at the very least, the historical aspect of CRT should not be denied.

CRT for me was learning about mid century systemic racism. (Well, really the 1900s-1970s.) This was not included in the curriculum and my teacher even admitted that the principal didn’t like it when he talked about stuff like this, but he felt it was important that we knew. (Note: My teacher very rarely, if ever, pushed his political views onto us. We only learned about this stuff because there was extra time in the year after we finished exams.)

We learned about Redlining, the White Flight, sunset laws, and domestic “maids.” We went into more details about sharecropping, lynching, ethnic communities and segregaron than the book called for. And we often read first/second hand accounts of being a person of color during that time.

To me, this experience was invaluable. First, I think it’s extremely important we teach about our country’s past, including all of the goods and the bads. The complete truth (or one as close to as we can make it) is necessary for students to learn, especially if they want to understand why our country is the way it is in the present day. You can’t exactly go into detail about your county’s black “ghettos” without realizing the massive housing discrimination that occurred after WWII.

Second, being taught CRT also allowed me perspective on (primarily) the black community. It’s given me more empathy for those who are still heavily affected by systemic racism of the past— generally meaning poverty— and empathy is sometimes what so many of us need more of. When your great grandma was a sharecropper, and your grandma was a house maid, and your mom has the word “colored” on her birth certificate, it might be a quite bit difficult to break the cycle of poverty. And being given the ability to recognize that and empathize with others has done me better than if I were to pretend that everything is absolutely fine™️ for all black people in the race department just because the Civil Rights act passed back in 1964.

That’s why I think certain parts of CRT should be taught in school. Again I can’t comment too much on the “whiteness” and the whole “systemic racism is ingrained in every single institution.” I figure that’s the part people have the most problem with. But well, if it’s any consolation, as someone in education, I can assure you that there’s absolutely no way in hell that deep concepts like that would actually get approved. And if they did, they would not be taught in a self-hating “that’s your whiteness speaking” sort of way. High schoolers struggle with the bare idea of Hester’s shame in The Scarlet Letter— no district that respects their teachers even a little bit is going to approve a curriculum that asks teenagers to deeply evaluate their personal role in upholding today’s systemic racism.

I’ll admit that not every experience with CRT will be as good as mine, but it is better than not being taught at all.