Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 400 ｜ Is Critical Race Theory Creeping into Christian Schools？｜ Guest： Isabel Brown

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday, almost through the week. Thank you guys so

00:00:15.660 much for joining. So if you have joined us the previous days in the week, you know, this

00:00:20.140 is my last day recording up to date episodes. We have pre-recorded dozens and dozens of

00:00:29.980 episodes for you guys to be able to watch and listen to while I am on maternity leave. Today,

00:00:37.900 I am 38 weeks pregnant, which means that I could give birth anytime really within the next month.

00:00:43.820 I don't have a set date. I don't know when it's going to happen, but I thought that I would give

00:00:48.520 myself some time off and just kind of try to focus on spending that with my family before we have our

00:00:57.760 new edition, which I'm so excited about. But we will still be having the four episodes a week

00:01:04.360 starting next week. On Monday, we'll be doing lots of amazing interviews. On Monday, I believe we plan

00:01:11.140 to have an interview with James Coates, who is the pastor that was jailed in Canada. And now they have

00:01:16.840 their church surrounded by like a chain link fence that the government put up. I mean, it's crazy

00:01:22.680 dystopian madness. And so I think we're going to talk to him next week. I've got Victor Davis Hanson.

00:01:28.060 I've got Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I've got James Lindsay again. I've got Rachel Jankovic. I've got a whole

00:01:36.380 host of people that I will be talking to. I will also be doing Q&As. I'll also be doing a couple

00:01:41.400 topical episodes. For example, like on the death penalty, I'll be doing a KJV only-ism, which you guys 1.00

00:01:49.280 have talked to me about or asked me about. And a lot of you guys have also asked me to answer some

00:01:55.420 kind of controversial questions. I will answer those in my Q&As. We'll also be doing, I think,

00:02:01.680 a couple most misused, where we take a Bible verse that has been taken out of context in a very

00:02:08.340 pervasive way and applied to things that it doesn't actually apply to. And then breaking down what the

00:02:14.000 verse actually means. We've done a few of those in the past. I think I'm going to do a couple of those

00:02:18.560 that you guys will get to hear. So that's going to be like 12 weeks of content that we have been

00:02:23.520 working on pre-recording since January. And so we've been working really hard on this because we

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00:02:35.340 the smartest people I think in the country through these interviews, just giving us insight into what's

00:02:40.340 going on and giving us equipment on what to do and also encouragement. So I'm just super excited for

00:02:45.720 you. I'm super excited for you to listen to all those episodes that we've been working on.

00:02:50.600 Today, we're going to talk about education. This is a topic in our rotation of topics that we like

00:02:55.840 to talk about a lot, in particular, intersectionality and progressivism, infiltrating, and I would say

00:03:03.160 dominating our public school system, but also a lot of private schools and also Christian private

00:03:09.200 schools. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that today. And then I'm also going to

00:03:14.140 interview Isabel Brown. She is also an influencer, if you will, a conservative influencer, commentator,

00:03:22.560 and author of a new book. And she is going to talk about how she stood up for her values at a very

00:03:28.220 liberal university. And so I think it's a great episode or a great interview rather to listen to

00:03:34.020 if you are a parent or if you're a college student or if you're about to be in college and really just

00:03:39.580 any life stage. I think that she's got a lot of good encouragement and practical advice. And so

00:03:44.940 I'm excited for you to listen to that. But first, I got to tell you guys about something that's going

00:03:49.200 on in the Christian schools in the United States, really internationally, because this is an

00:03:54.920 international organization. Now, I'm not trying to throw this organization under the bus. I'm sure

00:04:00.000 that a lot of what they do is really wonderful. I don't know everything about this, but I saw this

00:04:05.540 piece of news and I wanted to dig into it a little bit more. And I wanted to see kind of what was

00:04:11.420 behind it and maybe if there are any concerns that parents should have if they send their kids to a

00:04:16.980 Christian private school that happens to be a part of this organization. The organization is called

00:04:21.560 Association of Christian Schools International, so ACSI, and it has announced their official partnership

00:04:27.500 with Unify Ed. So let's talk about what those two entities are first and why this actually

00:04:33.420 matters. According to ACSI's website, the Association of Christian Schools International

00:04:38.400 is the largest Protestant educational organization in the world. Since 1978, ACSI has advanced

00:04:45.100 excellence in Christian schools by enhancing the professional and personal development of

00:04:49.560 Christian educators and providing support functions for Christian schools. That includes

00:04:55.060 administrator certification, school accreditation, legal legislative help, textbook publishing.

00:05:01.880 There are more than 5.5 million students who are a part of these schools that are members of ACSI.

00:05:09.860 There are 3,300 US-based Protestant Christian schools that are a part of ACSI. And so this is a huge

00:05:18.620 organization. It's been around a long time. It's very influential apparently in helping develop the

00:05:25.180 training and even in some cases the curriculum for Christian schools and Christian students. And so

00:05:31.340 that's why this matters. Like if you send your kid to a Protestant Christian school, there's a good

00:05:37.000 chance that they are a part of ACSI. And like I said, they've probably benefited a lot from that

00:05:43.280 over the years. But now they've announced this partnership with Unify Ed. According to Unify Ed's

00:05:50.000 website, it's a collection of educators and scholars devoted to engaging culture from a Christ-centered

00:05:55.260 perspective. We support Christian educators and their efforts to engage cross-culturally. Our prayer

00:06:00.400 is to equip every student and Christian educator with the cultural intelligence to navigate a racially,

00:06:08.400 politically, and ideologically polarized world. Now that all sounds great. And if you go to Unify Ed's

00:06:15.260 website and you see some of the stuff that they're saying, it sounds good. It actually,

00:06:18.940 you know, it sounds like a true Orthodox Christian biblical approach to the kind of issues that we're

00:06:28.800 seeing today that are centered on race. My friend Monique Dusan of Center of Biblical Unity, though,

00:06:37.240 who I highly recommend you follow. Go back and listen to the interview that I did with her several months

00:06:43.640 ago. I've also done an interview on her YouTube channel, along with her partner Krista. And they

00:06:50.380 are, they're combating a lot of the critical race theory and intersectionality that they see

00:06:56.240 in the church. And they're trying to center conversations about race and about racism truly

00:07:01.900 on the Bible. And they do a wonderful job of doing that, of calling out lies without shutting down

00:07:07.580 conversations about race. She's actually the first one who brought this to my attention, Monique,

00:07:13.300 because she posted about it, that it's actually that this organization, Unify Ed, even though it

00:07:18.900 sounds really good, and it uses a lot of the terminology that Christians are comfortable with,

00:07:23.820 that actually, if you dig a little bit deeper, according to the Christian worldview, it's a bit

00:07:29.700 of a problematic organization. And some of the ideas that they're going to be pushing are probably

00:07:35.280 going to be more in line with critical race theory and intersectionality than biblical Christianity.

00:07:40.440 And actually, you don't have to dig that far beneath the surface to start having concerns

00:07:45.340 about those things. And if you're listening for the first time, and you're like, you need to define

00:07:49.060 your terms. I love that you care about defining terms. I really care about defining terms. But

00:07:55.100 critical race theory and intersectionality have been defined on this podcast many, many, many, many,

00:08:03.140 many times. And I think that if I define it one more time for my listeners, they are going to,

00:08:09.080 they're going to throw their phones out the window and just stop. So you can go back. We have several

00:08:14.800 episodes on critical race theory. I'll link to some of them in the description to this podcast. So you

00:08:19.180 can know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not just throwing out a boogeyman. I am not saying that

00:08:23.980 everyone who talks about race or racism or injustice is supporting critical race theory or is a Marxist.

00:08:30.940 And that's not the game I play. I only talk about it when it's actually relevant according to the

00:08:36.940 definitions that are assigned to them. And so you can go back, listen to some of those previous episodes

00:08:41.960 about critical race theory to know exactly what I'm talking about when I say that Unify Ed is probably

00:08:48.140 going to be promoting those kinds of ideas. And in fact, I think we have a very good reason to

00:08:54.860 trust that they will. So the head of Unify Ed is Walter Strickland. He is a professor of theology

00:09:02.720 at Southeastern Baptist University. Now, the New York Times included him in an article not too long

00:09:10.740 ago where they described what kind of ideas he is bringing into the seminary. So the New York Times

00:09:19.420 says this, radical thinkers have found their way into the citadels of white evangelicalism.

00:09:25.220 Reading the Black Liberation theologian James Cone, this is the third time we've talked about him

00:09:30.760 on the podcast this week. And we probably haven't talked about James Cone in a very long time,

00:09:37.360 maybe years, but three times this week, unfortunately, we've brought it up in relation

00:09:41.400 to white evangelicalism. Okay, so Black Liberation theologian James Cone helped Mr. Walter Strickland,

00:09:47.880 again, who is the head of Unify Ed, that is the organization that's partnering with the biggest

00:09:53.360 organization of Christian schools in the country, a theology professor at SEBTS, see how white

00:10:01.640 theologians often ignore the structural sources of earthly suffering. Courses in African American

00:10:07.640 theology have been on the books at moderate evangelical seminaries since the 1970s. But it is significant

00:10:12.840 that Mr. Strickland has brought a thinker like Dr. Cone into the heart of the conservative

00:10:17.420 Southern Baptist convention. Mr. Strickland spent years studying in majority white evangelical schools

00:10:22.820 where he mastered the idiom of the Christian right. When he speaks to conservative white

00:10:27.440 congregations, he is careful. While Cone's ideas are in play, I don't mention him by name because I

00:10:33.100 don't want to put unnecessary stumbling blocks in their way. Why would talking about James Cone and

00:10:39.200 bringing up James Cone's teaching provide some kind of stumbling block? That seems a little

00:10:45.800 manipulative. Scripture's authority comes first. If I'm able to demonstrate that this black man in 1.00

00:10:51.320 front of them has read the Bible, I gain credit with them. Well, that, again, sounds a little

00:10:56.540 manipulative. Now, I wouldn't put it past the New York Times to take a quote out of context, though.

00:11:01.000 And so I can't say that he is meaning to sound manipulative. I'm going to give him the benefit of

00:11:06.080 the doubt there. But the quotes that they just provided make it sound like he's talking the talk.

00:11:10.440 But he's almost tricking white evangelicals because he's learned the language to believe in the

00:11:16.300 teachings of Dr. James Cone. He walked me through the argument he used when he spoke at North

00:11:22.240 Greenville University, a Baptist school in Tigerville, South Carolina. He says, there was the fall and all

00:11:28.280 we do now. So the fall of man, he means. And all we do now is God's vice regents is influenced by that

00:11:34.960 fall. So we're sinners in need of redemption. So, too, are all the things we create like law, policy,

00:11:40.160 procedure, practice. That right there is systemic injustice. Before they know it,

00:11:45.420 they're nodding their heads. They're agreeing that systemic injustice and racism are a form of sin.

00:11:50.700 I get in the back door by walking around the linguistic landmines that are so charged in our 1.00

00:11:57.400 cultural climate. I actually think that's a form of manipulation. That's almost a little bit of a

00:12:02.320 bait and switch that, yes, of course, biblical Christians, I know that that sounds repetitive,

00:12:07.580 but nowadays we have to qualify that kind of thing, of course, believe in the fall.

00:12:12.160 And so they believe that every single person is sinful, and therefore they believe that systems

00:12:17.440 are going to be imperfect. But that doesn't make, just because a human being comes up with

00:12:22.020 a law, doesn't make that law inherently unjust. We can go back to the Bible and be inspired by God's

00:12:30.780 definition of justice. And we can write our law and our legislation based on those ideas. And that would

00:12:39.160 mean that those laws are just. So the idea that necessarily there is systemic racism and there is

00:12:48.100 systemic injustice today just because there are racist individuals and sinful individuals. Well,

00:12:55.480 if that's the case, then there is no argument for fighting against it either. Because if every

00:13:02.100 system, because it's made of sinful people, is inherently and systemically racist and discriminatory

00:13:09.060 and unjust, then all of our efforts as fallen, fallible people to try to dismantle those systems

00:13:15.720 is also going to be sinful by that logic. But we understand as Christians that even though the world

00:13:22.540 has fallen, that by God's grace, we can accomplish good things, that not all systems are inherently

00:13:28.720 unjust. Some systems are, but not all systems just because they're made up of sinful people or were 0.67

00:13:34.760 created by sinful people are inherently unjust. We have to have a definition of injustice in order

00:13:41.520 to say whether or not something is inherently unjust or inherently racist. Again, just because there are

00:13:48.060 individual racists in the United States, which of course there are, there's always going to be

00:13:52.440 people that hate other people for a variety of reasons, including the color of your skin,

00:13:56.440 whether you're white, black, brown, or whatever. That doesn't mean necessarily that we have systemic

00:14:02.980 racism in the United States. That's an empirical claim that you have to provide proof for. And

00:14:08.100 disparities between groups does not necessarily prove discrimination. That's what Thomas Sowell has

00:14:14.800 argued for a very long time. Disparities don't prove discrimination. They might be caused by

00:14:20.600 discrimination, but you actually have to have proof in order to be able to say that. And so this

00:14:26.780 particular professor who is preaching the tenet of critical race theory, the core tenet of critical

00:14:33.440 race theory is that America is systemically racist, that every single part of the United States

00:14:38.460 and everything in it is systemically racist, is the head of this organization that's partnering with

00:14:43.860 this Christian organization. He's also promoting James Cone. And I'm going to read you once again,

00:14:49.040 some quotes from James Cone, this teacher who he is, who Mr. Strickland is outright promoting

00:14:56.580 at SEBTS, what James Cone actually believes. And again, why I think it's so problematic that James Cone

00:15:04.100 is affecting the theology of the person who has been affecting the largest organization of Christian

00:15:09.080 schools in the country. So here are some quotes by James Cone. This is Black Theology and Black Power, 0.99

00:15:15.900 his book that he wrote in 1969. He says that Negro hatred of white people is not pathological,

00:15:24.280 but a healthy human reaction to oppression, insult, and error. He also says in the same book,

00:15:31.640 to be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen, God has chosen black people. He also wrote

00:15:38.720 in his 1970 book, A Black Theology of Liberation, that black theology, this is something I think we

00:15:45.880 read yesterday, but in case you didn't listen to yesterday's, here's this quote again,

00:15:50.080 black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black

00:15:55.260 community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer and we had better 0.99

00:16:01.020 kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community. 1.00

00:16:08.040 Black theology will accept only the love of God, which participates in the destruction of the white 1.00

00:16:12.760 enemy. What we need is the divine love is expressed in black power, which is the power of black people 1.00

00:16:18.620 to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in 0.98

00:16:24.340 this holy activity, we must reject his love. So this so-called theologian has served as an inspiration

00:16:31.880 for, has served as a resource for the guy who is the head of the diversity and cultural competence

00:16:40.600 training organization, Unify Ed, that is now partnering with the largest organization of Protestant

00:16:47.260 Christian schools in the country, perhaps in the world. So once again, just stating why 1.00

00:16:54.220 this matters. In 1997, James Cone wrote, and I think this is important because it shows actually

00:17:01.320 where his heart and where his beliefs are, this person that is regarded by a lot of progressives

00:17:06.040 to be a wonderful Christian theologian. He said, I still regard Jesus Christ today as the chief focus

00:17:12.260 of my perspective on God, but not to the exclusion of other religious perspectives. God's reality is not

00:17:19.280 bound by one manifestation of the divine in Jesus, okay, but can be found wherever people are empowered

00:17:26.240 to fight for freedom. So this is very similar to what Ibram X. Kendi said when he said Jesus is not a

00:17:32.300 savior from sin. He's a liberator from systems. I'm paraphrasing. And this is not Orthodox Christianity. 0.79

00:17:40.380 It's not. It's a belief system, but it's not Orthodox Christianity. Life-giving power for the poor and the

00:17:46.820 oppressed is the primary criterion that we use to judge the adequacy of our theology, not abstract

00:17:52.600 concepts. And so he sees, I would guess, Jesus Christ as the Messiah dying for our sin is an abstract

00:17:59.740 concept. As Malcolm X put it, I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Anytime I have to accept a

00:18:05.360 religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion. So it's really 1.00

00:18:12.500 about your political activism, your political position. Um, and if Jesus or any religion can

00:18:20.780 serve as a means to your political ends, then it's useful. But if it's not, then you throw it out in

00:18:27.660 James Cone's words, you better kill it. So again, this is the theological framework. Apparently this 0.98

00:18:33.420 professor is operating from when he is teaching, but he's not doing it in an overt way because he

00:18:42.120 understands that James Cone is a stumbling block if he uses his name when he is talking to white

00:18:48.240 evangelicals. And there's a reason why he's a stumbling block because he preaches heresy. Um, and so I think

00:18:55.540 that it's important for parents who are students in these Christian schools who are a part of this

00:19:01.440 organization and is being trained by Unify Ed to just understand the perspective of where it's coming

00:19:08.140 from. Now you can, you might look at the training and you might say, you know, this is actually

00:19:16.540 completely biblical. It's just preaching the gospel. I have a hard time believing that, but, uh, this is

00:19:22.520 actually very useful training. This is actually very good. Maybe that's true. Maybe there are enough

00:19:28.340 Christ followers in this organization that this training, that these, um, Christian schools are going

00:19:34.460 to be using is actually beneficial. But remember CRT is not something where you can take the meat and

00:19:41.840 spit out the bones. It's an entire worldview. As we just read, it's an entire theological framework.

00:19:47.900 And so it's not enough just to say, okay, we'll take parts of it. Like we'll take white fragility. 0.99

00:19:54.340 We'll take parts about white supremacy being pervasive in the United States. And we'll apply that,

00:19:59.700 but we'll push out, you know, the stuff that we don't like about the white devils and the white 1.00

00:20:04.780 people all being bad and us having to kill God. If he is not part of the black agenda, we'll just 1.00

00:20:09.900 throw that part out. That doesn't work. It comes part and parcel. It's all together. And if it is not 0.83

00:20:16.000 from a Christian perspective, the gospel and equality that we have as image bearers, equality that we have

00:20:22.480 as those who have been bought by the blood of Christ, if that is not the driving force, if that is not the

00:20:28.960 core of the curriculum and the training, if it's not just good theological, good biblical training,

00:20:37.880 then you do have to question if it is a productive thing to be instilled and implemented in a Christian 1.00

00:20:47.540 organization like ACSI. So I say all that to say, be on the lookout. Like be on the lookout as a parent

00:20:54.180 of a child at a Christian school for this kind of stuff. Because we talk a lot about the danger 1.00

00:20:58.940 of this coming into public school. And yes, it's going to come into public school a lot more

00:21:02.320 quickly. I don't care if you live in the most conservative suburb county in Alabama, this stuff

00:21:10.100 is coming for your school in a much more overt way. And not just this, but something that is called

00:21:14.820 comprehensive sex education, which maybe would sound good. But again, it's the responsibility of 0.73

00:21:22.360 the parents and of the family to teach sex and sexuality to your kids. And as Thomas Sowell has talked

00:21:27.560 about before, you don't need 12 years of a kid's life to teach them about sex and sexuality. It

00:21:33.380 really doesn't take that long to do that. But what they're doing through CSE is a form of perverse

00:21:40.120 left-wing indoctrination about gender and sexuality and morality that parents really need to be aware of.

00:21:46.960 That's going to be pushed a lot more strongly and a lot more quickly and soon at all public schools.

00:21:53.300 And you're going to be very powerless to do anything about it unless you speak up before

00:21:57.360 it gets there, or unless you speak up as soon as you see it, at least. Because the fact of the

00:22:03.120 matter is, parents don't have a whole lot of power over the public school system. The government dies,

00:22:08.160 the teachers unions do, they hold a whole lot of power. But at the end of the day, your taxes are

00:22:15.780 going to be funding these teachers' salaries and this curriculum, no matter what you do,

00:22:21.100 even if you take your kids out of the school. And so parents really have to come together with a

00:22:28.260 unified and loud voice speaking out against this kind of thing and going to their state

00:22:34.600 representative, their state legislators and saying, look, we don't need to be teaching this kind of

00:22:40.080 divisive rhetoric, this divisive ideology that punishes kids and categorizes kids by the color of

00:22:48.160 their skin in our schools. And as well as we're not going, we shouldn't be pushing this kind of

00:22:53.400 perverse sex education either. It is degenerating, degrading to a child's mind, should have no place

00:23:00.680 in our education system. But also if you're at a private school, you do have a lot more power,

00:23:07.280 you do have a lot more influence, because if a bunch of parents come together at a private school

00:23:11.760 that's teaching stuff that you don't agree with, and 100 of those parents say, we're going to leave

00:23:18.580 and we're going to make sure that everyone in this community knows that this is the kind of stuff that

00:23:23.800 you guys are teaching our kids, well, that school has a profit incentive to respond. And that's why

00:23:29.360 profit incentives, by the way, can be very good, because it gives the people who are contributing to

00:23:36.620 that profit, who are paying money power to be able to actually make change. So just because we send

00:23:43.700 our kids, if you send your kids to a private Christian school, doesn't mean that we can check

00:23:47.500 out as parents. It doesn't guarantee that they're not going to be indoctrinated with stuff. It doesn't

00:23:52.060 guarantee that they're going to be Christians. I think I do encourage, as I've said before, taking

00:23:57.680 your kids out of public school now. I do not think that it's the fight that they need to be fighting.

00:24:02.860 I think that it's very beneficial for them to get as Christian of a worldview throughout their

00:24:08.160 entire day as they possibly can. Remember, secularism and secular education is not neutral. It's got its

00:24:13.880 own set of rules and regulations and morals that contradict the Christian worldview. But that doesn't

00:24:20.540 mean that we can take a step back and look away and not worry about what our kids are learning at

00:24:25.860 private school as well. We've got a bunch of other education stories of just craziness,

00:24:32.840 and this intersectionality and critical race theory seeping through at what are public schools

00:24:37.920 too, especially in college. There's a video, according to the college fix, of a young woman

00:24:44.960 who says she does this video saying, man, I hate white people. And apparently this is not the first 0.94

00:24:50.380 time this has happened. And this is a law student at the University of Miami. And other students have

00:24:57.340 said like, look, this is making me uncomfortable. This is racist. This is not good. This really concerns

00:25:02.500 me if this is going to lead to violence or it just it doesn't make me feel safe. The university has done

00:25:07.480 nothing about it. Of course, if the races were reversed, if this was a different situation with a

00:25:13.800 different racial makeup, of course, the university would have already expelled this person. But we

00:25:18.440 tolerate certain forms of hate towards certain kinds of people, because as a culture, we've already

00:25:23.780 bought into this lie that the only people who can be mean or hateful or who have the power to actually

00:25:29.500 make their prejudice count is white people. That's a form of partiality that God hates. That's a form 0.99

00:25:34.680 of partiality that leads to injustice and resentment. And it's not going to make life better, whether

00:25:40.900 you're black, white or brown. And we should have no part of it. There have been people who have been 1.00

00:25:46.640 pushing back against this kind of thing in curriculum, both in public schools, private schools, college and

00:25:54.280 elementary and grade schools in Loudoun, Loudoun County in Virginia, where critical race theory is

00:26:03.500 being pushed very hard in the public school system. There there's an organization, Virginia Project and

00:26:09.620 Parents Against Critical Theory that has been pushing back against this. And then the teachers actually

00:26:17.220 compiled the list of these parents who are a part of this and who they deem a problem and pushing back

00:26:23.800 and opposing this kind of curriculum. They compiled a list, a list of them and they plot war on them.

00:26:31.700 They plotted war on them. According to the Daily Wire, it says a group of current and former teachers

00:26:36.020 and others in Loudoun County, Virginia compiled a lengthy list of parents suspected of disagreeing

00:26:42.420 with school system actions, including its teaching of controversial racial concepts with a stated purpose

00:26:48.140 in part to infiltrate, use hackers to silence parents' communications and expose them publicly.

00:26:56.580 So this is what is happening in the public school system in Loudoun County, Virginia.

00:27:00.300 So Jen Durham, who is a local mother, she began what turned into a massive thread writing,

00:27:05.260 this is a call for volunteers to combat the anti-CRT activities of this organization,

00:27:10.760 parents against critical theory. The StopLCPSCRT website and the like looking for folks who are

00:27:25.180 interested in volunteering to organize, lead, execute, and donate regarding to the following

00:27:30.040 points. Gather information about these people, infiltrate their groups, spread information about

00:27:36.340 these people publicly, find a way to gather donations to push back against them. And so

00:27:41.780 teachers and people in the local community in Loudoun County are making sure that parents who speak up

00:27:48.180 against the divisiveness and the destruction, the deleterious effects of critical race theory in

00:27:53.860 schools are exposed. This is the high cost of being dissent when it comes to communistic ideas. This is what

00:28:01.680 communists do. This is what they've always done. They shame you. They threaten you. They dox you.

00:28:08.040 They make your life as difficult as possible until you finally agree. Do you want to be on that side?

00:28:15.320 No. And the only way to keep pushing back against these communistic bullies is to keep saying something

00:28:20.860 and to double down and triple down and to get more voices on your side. This kind of bullying and

00:28:26.060 harassment is also happening to parents in Austin, Texas, who are concerned about the sexual content

00:28:34.500 of some of the books that their students as young as 13 are being forced to read. So this is from

00:28:40.380 the Daily Wire. Graphic sexual content assigned to Texas students dissenting parents harassed with

00:28:46.000 anti-Christian, I guess, well, it says a bad word and I can't say that, with anti-Christian

00:28:55.640 messages and being called these derogatory names. The article says students as young as 13 in Leander

00:29:01.980 Independent School District in Austin, Texas have been exposed to graphic sexual content as part of

00:29:07.940 their coursework. And just a warning, if you've got kids in the car, you probably don't want them to

00:29:12.620 hear what I'm about to say, including graphic verbal depictions of gang rape and other sexual acts.

00:29:19.940 And so they do actually link to in this article examples of what these kids are being forced to

00:29:26.540 read as young as 13. I do not recommend clicking on that. I got through one and a half sentences

00:29:33.360 and I had to stop. I mean, I was traumatized as a 29 year old. I can't imagine a 13 year old

00:29:42.160 whose mind is so fresh, just starting to learn about anything that has to do with the world of

00:29:47.880 of sexuality, being forced to read some of this stuff, the violent, violating, incestuous, 0.90

00:29:55.980 pedophilic stuff that these kids are being forced to read. The Daily Wire says much of the content is

00:30:04.000 too explicit to post on this site, but the Teach Parental Rights Coalition provides excerpts. And

00:30:10.020 that's true. Again, just take my word for it. Take the Daily Wire's word for it. This is stuff that

00:30:16.620 should never be allowed in schools. It shouldn't be forced in schools. Here's the deal. If a child

00:30:25.960 cannot, if a minor cannot consent to sex, which they cannot, they are not developmentally able to do

00:30:33.580 that. It doesn't matter what the perpetrator, what the victimizer says about their minor victim. A minor

00:30:40.160 cannot consent to sex. If a minor cannot consent to sex, they also cannot consent to being forced to

00:30:48.060 read graphic depictions of sex. And we're talking, uh, we're talking, uh, pedophile depictions. Gang

00:30:55.740 rape was depicted. Incest was depicted in some of these excerpts of this book. These are 13 year olds

00:31:01.680 being forced to read this. This is a form of psychological rape. Okay. If children cannot, 0.60

00:31:09.000 which they can't consent to sex, then children also cannot consent to being forced to read

00:31:15.620 this kind of pornography. And so anyone, any teacher, any administrator, any parent in the community

00:31:22.720 who tries to defend this kind of stuff, you're sick. I'm not going to be morally relative, 0.95

00:31:27.900 relativistic about it. I'm not going to be nuanced about it. I'm not going to pretend like

00:31:31.560 this is gray. Like maybe there's some benefit to your seventh grader learning about gang rape. 0.63

00:31:37.380 I'm not going to play that game. If you don't have a problem with this as a parent, as a teacher,

00:31:42.220 as an administrator, you're sick. There's something wrong. There's something wrong in here with you,

00:31:47.440 not just in your mind, but also probably in your heart. So the article goes on to say,

00:31:52.880 according to one parent who spoke to the daily wire on condition of anonymity,

00:31:56.700 their concerns were not received with tolerance by some involved in the process. Proponents of

00:32:01.100 the pornographic content, allegedly, including teachers and parents, it's always important,

00:32:05.620 allegedly, lashed out at the concerned parents, calling them religious zealots, bigots, and racists.

00:32:11.840 Of course, the go-to. The harassment did not end in name-calling. There were also different items 0.88

00:32:22.140 that were being sent to them. Some of the people speaking out have received anonymous cardboard.

00:32:29.360 I know that you guys listen with kids, and so I'm trying to be careful about the things that they

00:32:34.200 say. I will just say that there were depictions of genitalia that were sent to these Christians and 0.81

00:32:40.460 to these parents who were speaking out about this, allegedly. And on them, they had calling these 0.53

00:32:46.720 parents the C-word. Others have received, allegedly, dead animals on their porches for speaking out

00:32:53.800 about this. Photographs of the phallic cardboard cutouts were provided to the daily wire by a woman

00:33:01.000 who is speaking out about this. And other terrible depictions were also very blasphemous and sexually

00:33:09.780 explicit in nature that were being sent to these parents. And so you've got a whole bunch of freaking 0.97

00:33:15.840 perverts, powerful perverts that very much want to infiltrate children's curriculum in the United 0.99

00:33:24.260 States. And if parents don't push back against the bullies that are trying to silence you, I promise 0.96

00:33:30.840 you it does not end well. Doesn't end well for your family. Doesn't end well for society. The time is

00:33:37.280 gone. It's done. It's expired. It did a long time ago for you to sit back, for us to sit back as parents

00:33:44.060 and for us to just trust the institutions to do as they will with our kids. That is not the way to go.

00:33:51.420 It's not good stewardship. It's not good parenting. You're not being a good community member. You're

00:33:55.720 not being a good citizen. That's not representative of Christianity. As a steward of your child's mind and 1.00

00:34:02.720 your child's life, it is absolutely your responsibility to loudly speak up against the degrading, against

00:34:10.600 the demolishing, disastrous, destructive curriculum that your kids might be learning, whether it's

00:34:19.960 about sexuality, whether it's about wrong concepts about race. It's not wrong to learn about race and

00:34:26.300 racial injustice, but wrong concepts about race and intersectionality and things like that. It is 100%

00:34:33.980 your obligation to make sure that you're educated about this stuff. Know what your child is learning.

00:34:39.300 Know what your child is reading. And in the face of these perverted bullies that we are seeing in

00:34:44.500 this particular story to keep on talking, to keep on talking about it. I mean, this is just so 0.70

00:34:52.000 disturbing. This is grooming, by the way. It's grooming to make a child, a 13 year old child or middle

00:34:58.320 school, high school, whatever, read about pedophilia, read about incest, read about rape. That is grooming. 0.88

00:35:06.100 You are purposely trying to normalize that kind of degeneracy in a child's mind so that they're more

00:35:14.540 accepting of it by the time that they're an adult or so that they're more accepting of it when a

00:35:19.020 predator comes along and tries to tell them that whatever they're doing to them is okay.

00:35:23.240 It's grooming. And if you, as a parent, if any of these freaking bullies, any of these teachers, 0.97

00:35:30.340 any of these administrators don't have a problem with this kind of curriculum, 0.89

00:35:33.440 this kind of literature again, and the name of art and the name of critical thinking and the name

00:35:41.460 of nuance, which it doesn't add anything to any of those categories, then you got a problem.

00:35:46.920 You got a problem. It's time for some self-assessment. And you, as a parent who does

00:35:51.320 have a problem with this, it's your responsibility to speak out about it as kindly, respectfully,

00:35:55.400 and as logically as you possibly can, as we say on this podcast, it's your responsibility to raise a

00:36:03.000 ruckus or raise a respectful ruckus about this kind of stuff on behalf of your kids.

00:36:08.820 Now, thankfully, there are so many parents that raise their kids so wonderfully with the right

00:36:17.460 worldview, help them critically think, help them be able to rhetorically argue for their position

00:36:22.920 and shield them, not in a completely insulating way, but in a righteous and in a responsible

00:36:30.600 way from the craziness that is in these worldly perverted ideologies. And then that equips them

00:36:38.880 when they go off to college or when they go to the real world to be able to stand strong. Like

00:36:43.440 that's our responsibility is not to just make scared and insulated kids, but to make strong adults like

00:36:49.420 that is what we want. Our kids are going to be adults so much longer than they're going to be

00:36:52.800 kids. We want them to be able to confront this kind of madness. And so we don't just shield them

00:36:57.400 from it, but we also equip them to deal with it in the right way, at the right time, in the right

00:37:02.120 context. And Isabel Brown, who I'm about to talk to, is a great example of someone who was equipped

00:37:09.740 in that way before she went to college. And by the time she went to college and was at this

00:37:14.500 left wing university, she had the bravery and also the equipment to be able to stand up for

00:37:19.120 the things that she believed in. And I think you're going to get a lot out of the conversation

00:37:23.020 that I am about to have with her. Isabel, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone

00:37:33.800 who you are and what you do? I sure can, Allie. And thank you for having me. It is such a pleasure

00:37:39.020 to be on this program and just very surreal for me as I listened to your podcast almost

00:37:44.060 every single time it came out when I was a college student. And I just love now getting

00:37:48.040 the privilege to work with so many great people like you. For those that don't know who I am,

00:37:52.160 my name is Isabel Brown and I am a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, which essentially means

00:37:57.240 I get to represent what all of our TPUSA student activists across the country get to do every

00:38:02.900 day on national television, radio, print media, and speaking across the country as well.

00:38:08.200 And you just wrote a book, correct? I sure did. Yes. My debut book, Frontlines,

00:38:14.500 Finding My Voice on an American College Campus, came out about a month ago and told the story of

00:38:20.040 my college journey as a student campus activist with Turning Point USA and really expands beyond

00:38:25.620 that to the state of affairs of America's college campuses in 2021. And talk a little bit about being

00:38:31.340 a student activist on a college campus. When did you graduate from college? I graduated from

00:38:37.540 Colorado State University in 2019. And for those that are familiar at all with my story,

00:38:43.260 I never expected to be working in politics or communications or for a large organization like

00:38:48.840 Turning Point USA after graduation. My dream was actually to become a physician. And I was pursuing

00:38:54.300 my degree in biomedical sciences, but found even in my classes like anatomy and chemistry and organic

00:39:01.640 chemistry and physiology. We were talking a lot more about those leftist indoctrination talking points

00:39:07.740 you hear a lot about on the news and on this podcast than the objective truth of science. And as an

00:39:13.880 outspoken conservative, I received unbelievable and unprecedented hate in my community for sharing

00:39:19.980 my values, death threats, threats of violence and rape, my address being doxxed online to the apartment

00:39:25.820 that I lived in right off campus. And of course, all the labels conservatives get these days from

00:39:30.820 Nazi and white supremacist to homophobic and transphobic too. And tell us about some of the

00:39:35.880 pushback that you were giving. How did you go about that? What what were you saying? How'd you get the

00:39:40.720 courage to speak up all of it? You know, I was first exposed to the level the left is willing to go

00:39:47.780 to silence opposition of thought in my classes, in those courses that are supposed to be graded in

00:39:53.540 multiple choice format and true and false answers, things that we have proven in the hard sciences

00:39:59.020 versus what we know is living outside of reality or in fantasy. But even in my physiology classes,

00:40:05.260 for example, we learned that there are two sets of chromosomes, XX and XY, but gender is a social

00:40:11.360 construct. Or we would work through all of the tiny things that have to happen in the womb, every miracle

00:40:16.700 for a baby to make it to nine months of viability, only to be told later that a baby in the mother's womb

00:40:22.300 was a fetus and termination of a pregnancy had nothing to do with ending a unique biological

00:40:27.520 life. I realized that even my grades and my GPA were going to be penalized if I started speaking

00:40:33.660 out against what my professors were saying and advocating for truth. And that, of course,

00:40:38.120 grew exponentially outside of the class as well when it came to the backlash and the anger of the

00:40:43.620 left for doing so, especially in student government and in student employment positions I held on campus.

00:40:48.940 But looking around, I realized that if I wasn't going to advocate for conservative ideas, it was

00:40:54.100 very likely no one else in my community would. So I just told myself to embrace a few seconds of

00:41:00.280 courage at a time, especially through starting a Turning Point USA chapter and inviting conservative

00:41:05.220 speakers to campus for the first time in many, many years to my campus in Colorado at Colorado State

00:41:11.120 University. And of course, all that name calling was very painful. I lost many friendships and

00:41:16.300 relationships with professors and mentors. And it was difficult to get the death threats and threats

00:41:21.220 of violence and many things that conservative students today deal with on a daily basis.

00:41:25.500 But it was also so rewarding and courageous to experience being that first person willing to

00:41:31.960 accept that backlash to advocate for something that a lot of people around campus were feeling,

00:41:36.940 but people weren't willing to say.

00:41:38.220 Did you ever have one-on-one conversations with your professors about the disagreements that you

00:41:44.240 had about some of the things that they were teaching?

00:41:47.200 I sure did very frequently, especially when I got that backlash in class and got an F on a paper,

00:41:52.660 for example, for advocating for more privatization of healthcare, which you wouldn't think is a very

00:41:57.680 politically controversial topic. But especially being involved in student government,

00:42:02.280 I developed very deep relationships with many of the top, top people in my school's administration,

00:42:07.060 from the university president and chancellor to all of the vice presidents.

00:42:11.000 And it was incredibly disappointing for me having meetings with these people once or twice a week

00:42:16.420 and hearing that the goal of our university wasn't education or opening people's minds to new perspectives,

00:42:22.240 but rather it was to ensure that we would be a social justice institution.

00:42:26.860 They wanted my school, CSU, to be the next Mizzou, and they were much more focused on

00:42:31.640 diversity and leftism and the indoctrination side of things than they were education,

00:42:36.500 which was very frustrating.

00:42:37.780 I think one of the things that's so dangerous about these schools being so subjective in their

00:42:45.640 teaching and obviously so political in their teaching at the expense of objective truth

00:42:49.900 is that a lot of the people who graduate from these colleges, they assume that someone who

00:42:54.700 disagrees with them must just not be educated. Of course, that's a pushback that I get if I say,

00:43:01.180 you know, actually, gender and sex really are interchangeable and life begins in the womb

00:43:07.540 and there's really not a philosophical backing to try to separate value in the existence of human

00:43:14.180 life in order to justify the killing of a baby. Whatever kind of argument that you make that's based

00:43:18.980 on history, that's based on actual science, the people who graduate from these kinds of colleges,

00:43:23.240 they say, well, you're not educated. What they mean is you didn't take the same classes that they did.

00:43:29.820 You didn't get pushed the same indoctrination that they did. And I think a lot of students,

00:43:34.460 it seems like, go to the same classes you did. And it never occurs to them to push back on their

00:43:40.000 professors. It never occurs to them to even question what their professors are saying because,

00:43:44.800 hey, these people are in charge and you feel smart because you're in college. Like, why do you think

00:43:48.760 that is? Why do you think you felt, OK, this isn't right and I'm going to push back on this

00:43:54.240 and I'm going to think a little bit harder about this, but why the vast majority, it seems,

00:43:59.080 of college students have no desire or no courage to do so?

00:44:04.080 You know, I think I'm going to answer the first part of your question separately and then I'll

00:44:07.060 address sort of why I took a different approach. But I think historically in America, we've never had

00:44:12.320 a reason to question the motives of our professors and the academic experts in our society. They have

00:44:18.880 been the experts. They've been the people with the most knowledge available to give to the next

00:44:23.780 generation in any of these subjects, but particularly nonpolitical ones like anatomy and physiology and

00:44:30.520 physics and chemistry, things that have never had anything to do with the changing political

00:44:34.720 narrative of the day until very recently in our country. We've lost the ability as a society and

00:44:41.120 particularly with our generations, millennials and Gen Z to talk about two things, even if it's

00:44:46.740 around the dinner table with our family or with our friends over a cup of coffee. And if you ask any

00:44:51.460 under 30 something in America, what two subjects you should always avoid talking about, they will 0.99

00:44:56.620 almost robotically answer politics and religion. So we're having 18 year olds show up to their college

00:45:02.720 campus with no foundation of value based discussions, even in their own home whatsoever. And naturally,

00:45:08.640 they'll accept whatever the professor says as fact or as truth, because they have no reason to question

00:45:14.300 the motives of the expert in the room, the supposed expert being their professor. I really took a

00:45:19.880 different approach given my upbringing in faith. I was raised in the Catholic church, but I've always

00:45:25.340 been taught from a very young age to understand and filter out the difference between fact and fiction,

00:45:30.940 between what we know is truth and what we know is a lie. And I don't even think you need a religious 1.00

00:45:35.840 foundation or background to do that or an experience in faith. Truth, we like to say has a ring to it,

00:45:41.460 you can recognize it when you hear it. And as soon as you're willing to start questioning the narrative

00:45:46.480 in your classes, or even outside of a college campus on social media, in your workplace, in a corporate

00:45:51.820 boardroom, or the halls of Congress, that's when you start to say, hang on a second, that doesn't sound

00:45:57.240 right to me, something in my gut is wrong there. And that's what led me down the path to question what my

00:46:02.000 professors are saying. But all of this being said, why does all of this matter? Yes, college campuses

00:46:06.920 are insane leftist echo chambers. We've known this for a long time. But I think we've abandoned a call

00:46:12.320 to action for so long in this country to reach young people where they are in a language and a

00:46:17.980 method that they understand social media and campus activism being important hallmarks of that

00:46:23.740 pursuit. Instead, we've abandoned that call and we've let young people listen to everything on their

00:46:29.660 college campuses completely unchecked and take what the experts in the room had to say as fact.

00:46:34.440 We saw an entire generation take these ideas from their college campus with them after graduation and

00:46:40.600 impact the real world to look a lot like a college campus. And today, the insane calls of leftism are in

00:46:47.400 the halls of Congress, corporate boardrooms, and literally burning down the streets of our cities in

00:46:52.160 America to make way for the next great thing, socialism. Yes, for sure. I think that you make such a

00:46:57.680 good point about so many kids growing up in an environment where they were told that religion

00:47:03.540 and politics are controversial. It's not really something that we need to care about or think

00:47:07.640 about. And parents, I think of that generation, some of them were kind of convinced that the right

00:47:15.700 thing to do is to just let your child figure it out and think what they want to think. And, oh,

00:47:21.180 I'm not going to indoctrinate my child or tell my child what they should think about faith or truth or

00:47:25.680 politics or anything like that. I'll let them find their own way. Well, the problem is, is that

00:47:31.200 teachers and professors do not feel that way. They absolutely believe that it is their moral

00:47:37.220 imperative to indoctrinate your child with their worldview, with their point of view. So while

00:47:42.960 parents, some parents are so busy trying to be as neutral as possible while their child is growing up,

00:47:48.520 they get to college and you meet a lot of professors who are not neutral at all. And so, I mean,

00:47:53.920 that's just kind of how our brain works. We're looking to latch on to something that is substantive.

00:47:58.900 If parents don't give kids that foundation, something that is substantive, shape their

00:48:03.880 worldview with faith, shape their worldview with what is true, they're going to be searching for

00:48:09.340 that because that's what the human heart does. We search for truth. We search for something bigger

00:48:13.640 than us. And if you're told that that's social justice, you're going to latch on to that. So I would

00:48:19.320 just say to the parents who are listening to this, it's your obligation to prepare your child

00:48:24.620 for college so that they're, you know, they're willing to do something that Isabel did and stand

00:48:30.200 up for views that are really unpopular in the face of threats. Do you have any final encouragement

00:48:36.480 for people who may be in your position now in college, but they don't know where to begin? They

00:48:41.100 don't know how to stand up in there. Quite honestly, they're, they're scared about the risks that come

00:48:45.180 with it. I sure do. I wrote this book as really an opportunity to reach out to other young people,

00:48:52.020 especially on college campuses who are feeling incredibly isolated and alone in being a

00:48:57.380 conservative and deciding whether or not to take that first step. And unexpectedly, a lot of the

00:49:02.200 reviews that have come in afterwards have said that this should be required reading for parents getting

00:49:07.080 ready to send their children to college or high school seniors getting ready to move into their dorms

00:49:12.120 to understand the environment of college campuses today. I never thought about it in that lens,

00:49:17.040 but I think it's so empowering to look at the state of affairs today on America's college campuses and

00:49:22.340 not be afraid of what's awaiting you with this insane leftist indoctrination, but empowered to do

00:49:28.360 something about it from day one. If you show up on your college campus or you're already a student

00:49:33.200 there and you make a resolution decision to yourself that you are going to go out and do a very simple

00:49:38.820 thing every day in the classroom and student government and your sorority meeting, tell the

00:49:43.460 truth. You are going to impact and inspire so many people in your college community and beyond. And

00:49:49.440 ultimately, Allie, I think that's what you and I get to do every day. That's what our jobs essentially

00:49:53.380 boil down to. It's not all that complicated and we get to reach a lot of people all at once,

00:49:58.080 but young people on college campuses get to reach their peers, their friends, their family members,

00:50:02.860 the people that sit next to them in class and truly have the opportunity to change so many minds

00:50:07.880 by just being bold enough to tell the truth. So if you're deciding whether or not to do that right

00:50:12.640 now, we're with you. We're cheering you on. You are never alone in your Christian or conservative

00:50:17.300 beliefs and walking towards objective truth. And you are part of an incredibly exciting generation

00:50:22.740 in Gen Z who's ultimately going to save America, in my opinion. Wow. Well, thank you so much for that 0.51

00:50:29.560 encouragement. If you could just remind everyone where, where they can find you and where they can buy

00:50:35.520 your book. My book is called Frontlines, Finding My Voice on an American College Campus. You can buy

00:50:41.700 it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It's very easy to get your copy. And you can follow me on social

00:50:46.720 media at the Isabel Brown. Awesome. Thank you so much, Isabel. Awesome. Thanks, Allie.

00:50:57.680 Okay, guys, thank you so much for listening, for watching. Like I said, at the beginning of this

00:51:03.780 episode, last episode, last episode, until I get back from maternity leave, that I'll be actively

00:51:11.180 recording. But you will have lots and lots of episodes, four episodes a week to listen to for

00:51:16.280 the next 12 weeks. I'll still be on Instagram every now and then. Like I said, I don't know when I'm

00:51:20.660 going to have this baby. It could be tomorrow. It could be in four weeks from now. Who knows? But I'll

00:51:26.980 be around. I just want to take this time, though, to, you know, focus on my family and to get things

00:51:31.720 ready to nest. You who have been pregnant, you know, that feeling of just needing to nest and get

00:51:37.420 everything settled. So that's what I'll be doing. Thank you guys so much for your support, for being

00:51:41.680 such a wonderful, smart, engaging, thoughtful audience, for constantly sending me wonderful

00:51:46.840 stories or interesting stories that you want me to cover. You guys help guide the direction of this

00:51:52.480 podcast so much. If you love this podcast, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That means a

00:51:58.660 lot to me. That means a lot to us. And subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Thank you guys so

00:52:05.000 much. We will be back here with an interview on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 08, 2021

Ep 400 ｜ Is Critical Race Theory Creeping into Christian Schools？｜ Guest： Isabel Brown

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 08, 2021

Ep 400 ｜ Is Critical Race Theory Creeping into Christian Schools？ ｜ Guest： Isabel Brown

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Ep 400 ｜ Is Critical Race Theory Creeping into Christian Schools？｜ Guest： Isabel Brown