Polls can go astray, rather spectacularly. Just ask Hillary Clinton.
There are many points of vulnerability in the polling process. Perhaps those surveyed are not truly representative of the group pollsters seek — American voters, say, versus American voters with landlines who will answer a stranger’s questions for half an hour.
Maybe the questions are not value-neutral, or the respondents don’t answer honestly, or their responses are spun in subsequent coverage.
That last problem — misrepresentation — has become insidious in the era of click-bait. While most news providers seem to indulge occasionally in attention-getting exaggeration, this is especially regrettable when summoned for already-fraught issues.
Last Sunday’s New York Times email blast featured an opinion piece by Jamelle Bouie titled “What Americans Really Think About Critical Race Theory,” and subtitled, “A new CBS poll is revealing.”
It is a CBS/YouGov poll, actually, and while it is revealing, it doesn’t reveal quite what the Times advertised. It’s more thought-provoking than that.
The questions are mostly straightforward, seeking respondents’ views on racism through America’s history, on racial progress or the lack thereof, on whether enough Black history is taught in schools and whether it inculcates empathy or guilt, and so on. Then the poll asks about “ideas and historical events” in books or school curricula that respondents might disagree with or find uncomfortable. Ban these or not?
Only two questions mention critical race theory, asking whether respondents have heard of it and, if so, how they view it.
The leap from uncomfortable lesson topics to critical race theory is huge. Relevant truths are lost in that gap.
The Times’ Mr. Bouie assails a “Republican crusade against critical race theory still on full blast” and asserts “this is a culture war [Democrats] can win.”
The problem for left-wing partisans, however, is that those pushing back against CRT are not just Republicans, much less “white oppressors.” The CBS/YouGov pollsters sort respondents by age, race and ideology, but here’s the key demographic divide they missed: parent versus non-parent.
Twenty-four percent of those under 30 view CRT “very favorably”? How many of them have kids?
The past year’s viral anti-CRT videos are of black and mixed-race parents, from North Carolina to Colorado, outraged that their children have been forced to identify as “victims” at school. Watch online and try to disagree.
Also look up the compelling essay from Maud Maron — mother of four, criminal defense attorney, “lifelong liberal” and a former Manhattan school board member — available on Bari Weiss’ “Common Sense” newsletter on Substack. Ms. Maron numbers among the parents “who do not want our children indoctrinated with Critical Race Theory, masked during recess or told that their biological sex is not real.” These parents shouldn’t be labeled “domestic terrorists” because they protest at school board meetings.
Or watch the video from elementary school teacher Jennifer Tafuto, who resigned her Manchester, Conn., post to escape the political activism being forced upon her via curriculum mandates.
“During innocent ‘read-alouds,’ students are being asked to identify characters based on their skin color, to talk about injustices they may face because of their skin color,” she said. “Teachers are being given scripted questions like, ‘I wonder why many white people didn’t want Black people to have an education.’
“These conversations wouldn’t happen naturally among 7- and 8-year olds, and they’re harmful.”
She’s right.
CRT’s defenders insist it isn’t being taught in K-12 classrooms; rather, per an infamous National School Boards Association letter siccing the Biden administration on opponents, it “remains a complex law school and graduate school subject.” This is technically correct, but as both parents and teachers can attest, it is at heart a huge lie.
Kids aren’t being taught CRT; rather, everything they are taught must conform to CRT.
The biggest danger to our civic life is over-reaction. In response to CRT propaganda, some parents advocate against teaching even the basic, undisputed facts of American history. We are stronger than that, and we must be smarter than that, if we want, once again, to preserve our union.
ruthanndailey@hotmail.com
First Published: March 6, 2022, 5:00 a.m.
