OPINION: Virginia woman thought it would be a good idea to go on Fox News to explain how she is making it harder for her son to grow up as a Black man and understand who he is.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Melissa Riley is a white single mom and the mother of a Black eighth-grader. She’s also this week’s Fox News’ Useful Idiot of the Week. This white woman from Virginia went on Fox and thoroughly embarrassed herself by complaining that critical race theory was ruining her son’s life because, after learning about anti-racism at school, he’s now becoming aware of himself as a Black person. She Amber Hearded the bed.
The host did not ask her what was wrong with her son being aware of his Black identity or identifying as a Black male. (That would not have fit with their agenda.) Riley claimed that because her son now sees himself as a Black man, he has begun refusing to clean up around the house because of racism. If this is true, it could be that he’s refusing to perform free labor at the direction of a white person because, to him, it’s giving slavery. I’m not mad at the young brother. Establishing a connection with his ancestors is more important than doing the dishes. What I don’t understand is why his mother is publicly getting in the way of him growing up.
Riley is typical of so many right-wing white parents who have recently decided that critical race theory could be the ruination of their children specifically and the country in general. To them, CRT is some sort of bogeyman that’s out to destroy their children’s minds and must be stopped. All they need to do is utter the phrase or the letters and their white blood gets a-boiling. But don’t ask them to define what CRT is because then their tongue will get all tied. Her son’s school’s curriculum taught middle schoolers that “ today!
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