Reid vs. Rufo on CRT

BUCK: I have some CRT thoughts to share with all of you. It’s an acronym now that I feel like everyone pretty much knows, critical race theory, because it’s big in the headlines. There’s a fellow named Christopher Rufo, who in recent months has been pushing CRT out in the public view. That’s really what this is.

He just finds places, institutions, schools — particularly schools these days, but it has also been government training seminars. I’ve interviewed Chris a number of times. He’s a very astute guy and now increasingly a very brave guy because the left is angry about what’s going on when it comes to CRT. They’re upset that the right is finally pushing back.

The conservatives have said, “Enough of this racial Marxist madness,” and so there was a little bit of a dispute that broke out on Twitter where — as Clay and I know, these things tend to happen on Twitter. You had Joy Reid, who is a female African-American host at MSNBC, who had a back-and-forth. Well, initially just was calling out Rufo, and Rufo said, “Have me on your show…”

Now, I’m not reading the transcript here or anything. But, you know, he basically called her out and said it’s cowardly to mock me or to undermine me and not invite me on to explain myself. She initially claimed that this was, quote, “making white man demands,” end quote —

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: — which was quite a thing to say, and it turned out she decided she would have him on. Here’s how some of this went. This is Rufo making his case about the lies she’s told about him when it comes to CRT.

RUFO: The problem that I have is you’ve really spread four, I think, key false pieces of information about critical race theory. You’ve claimed in recent weeks that critical race theory isn’t being taught in schools. You claim that most American public school students were taught what you call “Confederate race theory,” and were taught that slavery was, quote, “not so bad.” You claim that state legislation will prevent schools from teaching about the history of racism, and finally you’ve claimed that critical race theory isn’t rooted in the philosophical tradition of Marxism, and I think that all four of those claims are wrong.

BUCK: Clay, squared away here, Mr. Rufo, “What do you think of it?”

CLAY: I think it’s great. And there are still a lot of people out there I think who are a little bit confused as to what critical race theory is, and I think he did a good job of explaining it there. All of American history, Buck, as everyone knows, is imperfect. We are not a perfect nation.

We are, I believe, as close to perfection as any nation that has ever existed in the history of the world, but we have flaws. And American kids should be taught about both the successes and failures of American history. But what we should not be teaching kids — and this is what critical race theory does — is that they are responsible for things that happened hundreds of years ago.

I’m not responsible, Buck, for slavery. You are not responsible for slavery. Certainly a 10-year-old kid in elementary school in Iowa is not responsible for some of the ills that have existed in our country. And what is particularly galling to me is the story of America is a story of progress. It is a story of a democracy becoming more perfect over time.

The history of America is a proud one with dark periods that we have overcome collectively. And it feels like very much to me that what critical race theory is repudiating is Martin Luther King and also the civil rights movement. Because the civil rights movement was a uniquely American movement that predicated its moral authority on our Declaration of Independence.

If you study it — and I’d encourage people out there to do that. I am a huge history buff. Taylor Branch wrote a great history of the civil rights movement, three volumes, America in the King Years. If you study it, what you learn is the civil rights protesters were asking America to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

That triumph is one that we should all study because it led to a more perfect union. They didn’t tell everyone living in 1960 that they were responsible for racism — and now, 60 years after the civil rights movement we’re suddenly trying to teach Americans — many of whom, by the way, Buck, weren’t here when all these ills were going on.

There’s a huge percentage of the American population that has absolutely nothing to do with many of the ills of American life, and yet here we are dividing us, canceling out our common American humanity, and I think this debate is an important one that we need to have as a country.

BUCK: One of the ways you know the left is really uncomfortable with this debate or feels like they’re put on defense — which they’re not used to doing. They want not only cultural Marxism, but they want cultural hegemony. They want control of the American conversation, well, everything, but certainly around issues of race and that’s where critical race theory, all of a sudden becomes such a flashpoint.

You can tell that they’ve got problems, Clay, because they keep changing what the defense of this is. “It doesn’t exist! That’s not CRT. You’re not a CRT expert. You’re exaggerating.” They do this to try to weary all of those parents who are showing up at school board meetings, all of the people like you and me who are in the media who are trying to raise…

Dare I say, “raise awareness,” something very commonly said among the left about issues? But to do that. And here’s just an example of an exchange that goes right to this between, again, Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute — he’s a think tank scholar — and Joy Reid, MSNBC host on this issue. Listen closely to how they’re now trying to claim that we’re not even really talking about CRT or you don’t know what it is. Play it.

RUFO: What you’re doing is you’re playing a series of word games.

REID: No! No!

RUFO: Do you know that “critical whiteness studies” —

REID: That’s ironic.

RUFO: — is a subfield of critical race theory?

REID: No, it’s not.

RUFO: And these things are deeply interrelated —

REID: No, they’re not.

RUFO: — and I’m not —

REID: They’re not!

RUFO: — and — and —

REID: They’re just not.

RUFO: — and I’m not gonna let you play word games —

REID: (sputtering)

RUFO: — and this is really, I think —

REID: I… Well, it’s funny —

RUFO: — the most essential thing.

REID: H-hold on.

RUFO: Hold on.

REID: N’n’n’n’no! No, not “hold on”!

RUFO: Let me respond at least once.

REID: No.

RUFO: I haven’t gotten a —

REID: No.

RUFO: — full sentence —

REID: No.

RUFO: — out.

REID: Because I’m not gonna let you… See, one of the things that… (sputters) And I don’t know. You probably never watch me on TV. We didn’t know who each other were, you know, not too long ago. But I don’t allow people to just make up (sputters) and say lies on the show. It is just not really right to do that and let people hear.

RUFO: Yeah, sure.

REID: But hold on!

RUFO: Well, at least —

REID: Robert D’Angelo, right —

RUFO: — let me get a full sentence in.

REID: Wait, wait, wait, wait.

BUCK: Just wouldn’t let him talk.

CLAY: (chuckling)

BUCK: Just wouldn’t let him talk. And they’re arguing over what is critical race theory, what he says, you know, trying to just find the smallest thing and say, “Well, no, that’s not…” Clay, their argument is garbage. That’s what this comes down to. They’ve got a client who is guilty, so to speak, and they’re just trying to argue everything but the facts on the left. That’s what they’re doing.

CLAY: Buck, Joy Reid said she didn’t let people come on the show and say things that weren’t true, and she said herself that kids were being taught in school that slavery was, quote, “not so bad.” Where might I ask is that occurring?

BUCK: Show me one news story!

CLAY: That’s what I’m saying.

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: At any point in the twenty-first century, tell me where a textbook arguing slavery wasn’t so bad? I can tell you I went to public schools in Nashville, Tennessee, where we’re doing the show right now K through 12, there was no point in time people were like, “Hey, you know, that slavery? Kind of overrated. Hey, you know, the Holocaust? Oh, it wasn’t so bad.”

No! (laughs) People recognize there are bad portions of world history. But the lesson certainly of American history is that we overcome the dark places of our history and that we end up in a better place. I know sometimes people out there feel very pessimistic. I’m an optimist.

I really do believe that America is going to be better than it is today, tomorrow, and in the decades head. I understand there are a lot of people who don’t believe that, and I think it’s easy — certainly in a social media era — to get lost in all of the negativity. This is making everything about American history, at its root, toxic — and it’s dividing us, and it has to be fought.

So I applaud Chris Rufo for going on and going after Joy Reid — who, by the way, her method of selling in America is failing. Bobby Burack at Outkick. You can go read it; go to Outkick.com and read his article. Her television show is dying because even people at MSNBC don’t want to be set and lectured to for an hour about how awful America is. Ultimately, optimism wins. I really do believe that.

BUCK: I also think it’s essential as we continue to talk about this to know that the reason the left is so upset is because they’re not used to seeing this kind of a groundswell, especially when it comes to conservatives caring curriculum in schools. This, all of a sudden, feels like a surprise to them.

They had felt very comfortable with their dominance of these areas of American life for a long time, and now all of a sudden — whether it’s Loudoun County, Virginia, or countless other places across the country — you have parents are saying, “What kind of trash are you teaching our kids?”

Oh, by the way, and the additional thought that comes along with this is conservatives now realize kids are gonna be taught something. So this is where you get the Ron DeSantis anti-totalitarianism bill where you’re learning the evils of communism —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — the evils of Marxism because there is no completely open space here. If you’re going to have instruction by the state, which is what public schools are, we should have been an active role and understand what’s going on there. So I think that, you know, Rufo has been very effective in really pushing for a movement. A lot of parents are involved in this too, and I think that this is a story that’s gonna continue on because they don’t have a good argument, Clay, to your point.

You know, there are people who take some kind of pride in just being American — and I think those tend to be conservatives — and then there are people who take pride in thinking they’re better than America, and those tend to be people on the left. That’s the way it goes.

CLAY: And I think what we’re gonna see, Buck, this show, I can already feel, there’s a groundswell out there for people to be proud to be American again, especially coming out of this covid monstrosity. I don’t know about you, but around Memorial Day where I live in red state America, I don’t remember seeing more flags.

As everybody gets ready for July 4th next weekend, I think that there is a unique spirit of patriotism that is rising in this country, and people are tired of being told that they should have to apologize for America.

BUCK: I think we are gonna see an ultra-patriotic Independence Day weekend, for sure.

CLAY: I think it is exploding —

BUCK: I feel that surge.

CLAY: — and I think it’s gonna blow up in people like Joy Reid’s faces who are trying to tell us that America’s an awful place. I think, you know, they want to talk about right and wrong side of history? Let me tell you: She’s on the wrong side of history beyond a shadow of a doubt.