Ep 459 | David Platt Drama & “Pro-KKK” Propaganda in Texas
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about the Texas bill that bans teachers from teaching about the KKK and Martin Luther King Jr. and David French's response to that. We also discuss the controversy surrounding David Platt and his church's response.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Today
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we're going to talk about two subjects, or we're going to try to get to two subjects.
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The first one might take a little bit longer time, so I'm not sure if we'll have time for
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the second one, but I'm going to try to talk about both this Texas bill that you've been
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hearing about. A ton of you have been asking me about this, about the Texas bill that supposedly
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bans teachers from teaching about the KKK and Martin Luther King Jr. We're going to debunk
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that because it is truly one of the most egregious examples of propaganda that I've ever seen. So
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we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about, if we have time, what's going on
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with David Platt's church, but in some of the pushback that he's getting, the allegations
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of David Platt and his leadership and his church apparently embracing CRT. But mostly we're
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going to talk about one of the responses to that by David French and a little bit of my
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rebuttal to that. Before we get into all of it, though, I just want to give you guys some
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encouragement. I was thinking about this as I was driving in today. So for the past couple
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of weeks, my family has been going through a lot. Now, not really big things. They've
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been just small things that have kind of piled up a couple of weeks ago. You guys might remember
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I was sick. I ended up having some kind of infection. I actually had to go to the ER a
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couple of weeks ago. I ended up being totally fine. But that kind of threw our family through
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a loop for one week. And then both of my kids last week came down with RSV. First, it was
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my two-year-old. And then it was our baby. And then if it sounds like I'm still under
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the weather, I'm actually recovered. But both my husband and I also got colds. They were
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very minor colds. So it was fine. But then there were some other things that went on in
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our family that just added a whole lot of stress to us and threw us out of our normal
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routine. And it can also be very scary when your kids get a cold. And RSV typically isn't
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that serious. But it can be serious. Our youngest is 12 weeks. And so you really have to watch
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that kind of thing, especially if they get into some kind of coughing fit. You just have
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to be super careful. And I am very careful in general. This is actually the first cold
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that my two-year-old has ever had. And so and it lasted. They last about a week, thankfully.
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Thank the Lord. Both of my kids fully recovered. Totally fine. But in the midst of all of those
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things, it can just be easy to get overwhelmed and to kind of wallow in the fear and anxiety
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that all of that brings on. And a lot of you might be dealing with some of the same things.
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Maybe you have a similar circumstance that you're in the middle of right now. Maybe you
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have a much bigger trial that you're dealing with. Or maybe you've just got a lot of small
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things that seem to be piling up. And you're feeling yourself get overwhelmed and wondering,
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why are things happening this way? Why can't things be better? And maybe you're
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starting to feel that kind of bitterness and that feeling that you are entitled to ease
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kind of start coming on and building up in your life and in your heart. And if you are
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in the midst of that, whether it's a big or small circumstance, I just want to encourage
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you to do something that may seem counterintuitive at first. And that is to think about how things
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could be worse. That's something that I do. That's an exercise that I do. Whenever I'm
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feeling overwhelmed and things seem like they're not going well, think about how things could
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be worse. Because in the midst of that, doing that, you actually start to see how the Lord
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has given you particular mercies that maybe you didn't notice before.
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So for us, for example, the way that I kind of found that grace in the midst of the last couple
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of weeks, I thank the Lord for good health care. I thank the Lord for good doctors and nurses and for
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medicine that was able to help me a couple of weeks ago, that was able to help my kids. I think the Lord
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that because of COVID restrictions at my husband's work, he was able to, he still works from home. And so he
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was able to have a flexible schedule that allowed us to really, really engage in a lot of teamwork
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and helping our kids. I think the Lord that it was my oldest who got sick first. And so the worst of it
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for her was before the worst of it for the baby. And so we were able to allocate our energy toward each
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kid how we were, how we needed to. I think the Lord that my husband and I really didn't get a cold
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until after our kids were already recovering. And so that allowed us to give the energy to them
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that we needed to that so that we weren't completely down in the dumps. And I thank the Lord that both
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of them recovered, that we recovered and that it was minor, especially compared to a lot of kids,
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especially babies who get RSV. So thankful for all of that. Thankful for friends who sent us
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lunch, who checked in on us. Thankful for parents who prayed for us and helped us however
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they could. Thankful for me for a job that I am able to, I'm kind of able to dictate my schedule
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for the most part. Last week we had already pre-recorded Monday's episode. Tuesday we didn't have a new
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episode. Wednesday I was able to record from home. Then Thursday, because I really needed to, I came in and
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recorded a quick interview. But wow, thank the Lord that I had the flexibility to be able to do that
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kind of thing. And so I'm so incredibly grateful for all of the mercies that I saw in our lives over
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the past two weeks. And it would have been really easy to just sit in my fear and sit in my anxiety
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and allow kind of self-pity to overwhelm me. But the Lord calls us to something better. And it's not
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because He's just chastising us for having bad feelings, because bad feelings are a part of life.
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And I'm not saying we should just shut those down and pretend that they don't exist and to tell
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ourselves to buck up and just be positive all the time. We do have to feel sadness and negative
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feelings. That's part of being a human being. But we cannot allow those things to dictate us. We can't
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allow those things to rule us and to overcome us. God calls us to rejoice. He calls us to gratitude.
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And that is not some form of so-called toxic positivity. That's because He cares about us.
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He knows that joy and gratitude and recognizing His goodness, His faithfulness, His mercy is actually
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better than being overwhelmed by our own feelings of misery, which may even be justified feelings.
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He still says in the worst fiery trial or in the smallest inconvenience that we are supposed to give
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Him glory and to give Him praise because He cares about us. And now listen, you might not be able to
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think right now of anything worse that could go on in your life. You might be listening to what we went
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through as a family over the past couple of weeks, and you might be thinking, I would pay to have
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problems that small. And maybe the problems that you are dealing with are so much bigger and so much
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profound and so much more grave than the ones that I described. Maybe you are going through the darkest
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season of your life, and I will not even try to invalidate that or belittle that in any way. If you
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cannot think of how things could be worse, I absolutely believe you. What I am going to call you to and
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encourage you to is what the Lord encourages all Christians to, which is hope. So maybe you don't feel
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like you have any hope in this life right now, and you don't see any light at the end of the tunnel,
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at least in the physical world. What God gives us, what the gospel gives us, is if you, by grace
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through faith, believe in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, if you have trusted Him as the Lord of
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your life, again, because of His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit in you, then you have the hope
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of one day everything that is wrong today being made right. You have the hope that one day He is
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going to wipe away all of your tears. You will never have any more sorrow. You will never have any other,
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any more feelings of despair. You will never be discouraged. You will never be disappointed again.
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You will never have to worry about injustice. You will never have to experience unfairness.
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There will never be anything bad or sadness-inducing ever happen to you ever again, and you will be
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living in perfect peace and perfect joy forevermore in the presence of your Savior, Jesus Christ,
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when you die and or when Jesus comes back to rule in perfect peace and righteousness forever and ever.
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So even if nothing good seems to happen to you ever again in this life, the fact that Jesus died on the
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cross for your sins, the perfect righteous one died on the cross for your sins so that you, a sinner,
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could be reconciled to a holy God forever and spend forever in fellowship and in peace and in joy
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with Him in worship of Him forever, that is enough to give us joy. That is enough to bring us to
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gratitude. So even if you can't find anything else in this life right now to rejoice over, rejoice over
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that. There is no better news than the gospel. There's no better news than the gospel, even if
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the only thing you've been hearing for the past month, the past year, the past decade is bad news,
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you have good news in the gospel. And I don't say that because I know what you're going through,
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because I don't. I say that as someone who reads the word of the one who does know who you are
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and what you're going through. He is the God who sees. He is the God who cares. He is the good shepherd
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that longs to give you rest, that longs to restore you, that longs to forgive you if you do not know
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Jesus. I promise you that what you are trying and failing to find inside yourself, what you're trying
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and failing to find inside your boyfriend or your job or whatever endeavor it is, is found in Christ
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alone. That, I guarantee you, there are a lot of things that I get wrong. There are a lot of
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mistakes that I make. There are a lot of things that I do not know. That is the one thing that I
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know for sure. So that was just on my heart. That was on my heart this morning as I was driving in.
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And I just wanted to give you that Monday encouragement before we get into the rest of this
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news stuff, which I know in itself can be stressful. I wanted to make sure that we started
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this week off on the right foot. So whoever that was for, I hope that encourages you in the Lord.
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All right. We're going to get into some of this new stuff that you've been asking me about, though.
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All right. Let's get into this first story. Like I said, we're going to talk about this Texas
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bill that you have been hearing. Bans teachers teaching about the KKK and Martin Luther King and
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slavery and apparently is emblematic of just how racist Republican states are. And then also,
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as I mentioned at the beginning, we're going to try to talk about what's going on with David Platt's
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church. But first, this Texas bill. A ton of you have been sending me posts on Instagram about this
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bill, SB3, Senate Bill 3, that claim the bill prevents teachers from teaching certain parts
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of American history, particularly history pertaining to oppression, to race, racism, and civil rights.
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The post that I saw had hundreds of thousands of likes. I saw tweets that went viral. I saw articles
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circulating all saying the same thing. So if you were under that impression, I don't blame you.
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That is that's that colors most of the information that you have been seeing about this. But because
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I know how the media work, unfortunately, my first thought was when I saw all of this was no,
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no, there's no way that that's really what it is. I've seen this happen too many, too many times where
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the media and social media influencers run with an angle that is insufficient, incomplete at best,
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and completely false at worst. And then by the time anyone can issue a fact check, it's too late.
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The story is already cemented into people's heads. And no matter what I or anyone else says,
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that's not going to change. And that's really disappointing. Like, it's really discouraging
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that unfortunately, it's so hard to to for the fact check to be as popular and pervasive as the false
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information. And that goes for anything on both sides. But even if I can just get one person
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or help you get one person to peel back the headlines and the captions and the social media
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graphics and see what's actually true, I think that it's worth it. So let's first read what this bill
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actually says, which is always publicly available. By the way, I'll link it in the description of today's
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episode. But you can always search Texas Bill SB3 text. I use DuckDuckGo. I've really tried to make
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a concentrated effort to no longer say to Google something because I don't use Google and I don't
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really like Google. Sorry, YouTube. I didn't say that. I love I love Google YouTube. It's great.
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But I just personally use DuckDuckGo. Or you can go to trackbill.com. It's a good tool to always be
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able to read the text of the bill so you can see for yourself what these things actually say because
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they're so often misconstrued. So this is a state bill passed by the state legislature in Texas.
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And the version of the bill that we're talking about has passed through the state Senate. It passed
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on Friday, July 13th. And so here's the stated intent of the bill that you will see in the text
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of the bill itself. It says this. SB3 prohibits teachers from being compelled to discuss current
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events or controversial issues in public policy or social affairs. Prohibits districts, charters,
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or teachers from requiring or granting a grade or extra credit for a student's work or service with
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any organization that lobbies for legislation or is involved in social or public policy advocacy
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or any political activism. The bill prohibits teachers, administrators, or any other public
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school employee from being required to engage in training, orientation, or therapy that presents any
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form of race or sex stereotyping. They're trying to imply like anti-racist workshops, etc. in that last
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line. It also says SB3 prohibits the teaching or course requirement that includes the concept of
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one race or sex being inherently superior to another, or that one race or sex should be held
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to blame for actions committed in the past by other members of that race or sex, or that traits such as
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hard work ethic are inherently racist or sexist. This again is an implication of CRT. Also says SB3 adds
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clarifying language that the prohibition on students receiving a grade or credit for political
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activism does not include service in nonpartisan community-based projects or activities such as
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community gardens, food banks, or other philanthropic projects. So you might be thinking none of that sounds
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particularly problematic, but I will say know that the summary at the top of bills hardly ever includes
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like the most controversial stuff. It typically generalizes the legislation in a way that makes
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it sound simple and straightforward, but usually the bills are much more complex than the summary
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says. And so we're going to read what it actually says, what the bill says, and what people
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have contentions with. All right, so what this bill actually says, the summary that we read
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is still helpful in getting a general understanding of what this bill is trying to accomplish. And we
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should, before we get into what the bill says, like we should note that there are some words right off
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the top, right off the bat, that are important. So in particular, quote, prohibits from being
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compelled or required. So that means teachers cannot be required to discuss current events or
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controversial issues. A district or a school administration, a school's administration, for
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example, cannot compel a teacher to talk about the latest case of, for example, like alleged police
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brutality. The teacher can talk about it, but she can't be required to talk about it. Teachers cannot
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be required to attend some sort of race or sex stereotype, stereotyping training or therapy. So
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for example, a white teacher can't be compelled to go through training that then teaches her how to
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divest of her white privilege. A teacher cannot be compelled to undergo therapy to learn about how his
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masculinity is contributing to patriarchal oppression, etc. So if you want to do those things, you can,
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but you can't be required to do those things. That's a good stipulation. That's a good part of
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this legislation, in my opinion, a very good thing. The bill also prohibits the teaching and course
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requirement of racial or sex superiority or that traits such as hard work are inherently racist or sexist.
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This is unfortunately something that we have seen, for example, from the Museum of African American
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History, who released a public infographic, I think it was last year, saying that hard work, efficiency,
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timeliness, meritocracy, these are all traits of whiteness. Math programs in places like Seattle
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link getting the right answer in math to Western whiteness. And so it's trying to emphasize not
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getting the right answer in math in order to make math more, quote, equitable. So Texas is saying,
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no, that cannot be a requirement in our public schools. And I'm pretty sure it also says that you
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can't, you can't teach those things. Like you can't teach that white kids or black kids or brown kids
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are inferior or superior, or that men or women, boys or girls are inferior or superior. That can't be a
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part of your curriculum. Again, I think that's a good thing. Now, that alone is controversial for people
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who are sold out to critical race theory, which again, in the interest of clarity, is an academic theory,
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the principles of which have become very mainstream in the past few years, namely the ideas that America is
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and always has been systemically racist and must be revolutionized, not reformed, including the
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Constitution, are definitions of rights, of liberty, of property, etc. That white people are oppressors,
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whether they are actively racist or not, because they are not trying to actively tear down the racist
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systems in America. And black and brown people are oppressed in all manners, in all ways in the
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United States, even if a few happen to succeed, because the institutions are all permeated with
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the racism on which our country was founded, CRT says. And therefore, any disparity in outcome that we see
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between the white race and other races is because of racism. So those are all assertions of CRT.
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You might say, oh, that's not CRT. That's actually true. I promise you that I am not misrepresenting
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what CRT is. When people try to say that I or someone else that I don't know what CRT is, I wish
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that I didn't. I really do. I wish that I hadn't spent so many hours reading what critical race theorists
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themselves say the critical race theory is. But I have, okay? So I promise you that I am not
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misrepresenting. When I say the critical race theorists don't actually believe in our version,
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the constitutional version of rights, of inherent rights. For example, the right to due process.
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They say that the right to due process really hasn't amounted to anything good or anything
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beneficial for people of color. I promise you that is not a misrepresentation. That is almost a direct
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quote. So now if you can point to me exactly to where I am misrepresenting and tell me how my
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description is not factual, I would love to learn and correct the record publicly. But if you just
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disagree with my interpretation because you don't like that representation of CRT, I can't really help
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you. People who believe in that theory that I just described, originally posited by Derek Bell and
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carried on today by people like Kimberly Crenshaw and in more concrete ways by Ibram X. Kendi and
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Nicole Hannah-Jones, even though they say they're not critical race theorists, their work is
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representative of it. They do believe in the necessity of using public school to teach children
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about the harms of whiteness, the inherent evils of every American system, the idea that America never
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really ended slavery, and that essentially we haven't made any real racial progress in 1619,
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the injustice of capitalism, the unfairness of meritocracy. They believe in teaching students
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all of these things. They think it's true, or I don't even know if they think it's true history,
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but they think it's an important, necessary rendering of history that young people need to learn.
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These are all opinions, though, about our history. This is a way, theirs is a way to look at history
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through the lens of race, which is what CRT is. That's not anything close to an objective view
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of history. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, as well as the 1619 Project,
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as well as the works of Derek Bell, are all narrative-based, and they own up to that, by the way.
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They're not fact-based. They might have some facts sprinkled in, but it's a narrative-based view of
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history, trying to add in some events and facts to fit into that narrative and omitting other things
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that don't fit into the narrative. Now, you could argue that all renderings of history are subjective,
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but the ones I just listed, like I said, rely on secondary sources, omissions of facts that
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inconvenience their narrative, and a coloring of certain parts of our history to drive home
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this idea that America has always been a bad force for its entire history, both here and abroad.
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Now, my opinion is, if you want to teach about that perspective, then you can teach about that
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perspective, but call it a perspective. Teach it in a way that's appropriate for the students you're
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teaching, but say, look, here's what we know happened in our history based on these primary sources.
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Like, these are the facts that we have based on these primary sources. Here's how some people
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interpret those events. Here's how other people interpret those events. Teach about the importance
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of primary sources, of asking questions, of thinking critically. Like, if you want to teach
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that the 1619 Project exists, or any other journalistic project, what they say about history,
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teach students to pick it apart, to critique it, to rebut it, or to weigh it against other artistic
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renderings of history. That's what the 1619 Project is, by the way. It's an artistic rendering of some
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things that actually happened. It is admittedly not an accurate historic account, but rather a
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narrative about what Nicole Hannah-Jones imagined the history of the U.S. to be, if we start from
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the CRT premise that America was founded on white supremacy, and our legacy has only been
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white supremacy. So if you want to teach that that exists, that that perspective exists, that's one
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thing. To teach that perspective is absolute truth, that people must reiterate as absolute truth,
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that students must reiterate as absolute truth in order to get a good grade, that's wrong.
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That's wrong. And it's just, it's bad education, because it's not true. And it's harmful, because
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it's not teaching kids to critically think. It is teaching them to accept things that, A,
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aren't objectively true, and rely on really bad scholarship. And so it's just bad all around. So
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back to this bill. The parts of the bill that I've already read are controversial to progressives for
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those reasons. They want to teach that stuff as fact. But there's a bigger controversy that has
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probably angered a lot of people who maybe don't consider themselves diehard progressives or critical
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race theorists. And that controversy lies not so much in what the bill says, but actually in what the
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bill does not say. So in the House version of this bill, the Democrats had added requirements to public
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school curriculum that included things like the following. And I'm reading from the House version
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of this bill, quote, historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations,
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including documents related to A, the Chicano movement, B, women's suffrage and equal rights,
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C, the civil rights movement, D, the Snyder Act of 1924, and E, the American labor movement,
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the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics
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movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong. The history and importance
00:26:32.580
of the civil rights movement, including the following documents. A, Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a
00:26:39.000
Birmingham jail and I have a dream speech, among other. So that's what the House Democrats all wanted
00:26:47.580
to require with specificity and their House version of this bill, among some other things. So the Senate,
00:26:54.920
when they got this bill, they ended up scrapping a bunch of these requirements and instead included more
00:27:01.100
general requirements in the bill. Why? Because it is the State Board of Education's job,
00:27:09.840
not the legislature's job, to make specific curriculum requirements, for the most part.
00:27:16.320
Guy Benson reported a fact check for townhall.com, which we'll link in the description to this episode.
00:27:22.000
He quotes Rich Lowry in the article, who is an editor for National Review, who said this, quote,
00:27:26.680
What happened is that Democrats added a bunch of concepts and documents that school kids should
00:27:32.440
know in the anti-CRT bill that passed the House a few weeks ago. So a different bill. The list was
00:27:38.700
incredibly detailed and extensive when it's the role of the State Board of Education, not the
00:27:44.340
legislature, to get into the weeds of the specifics of the curriculum. Besides, many of the items are
00:27:51.440
already covered in the curriculum. It was widely expected that the Senate would pare down the House
00:27:59.220
bill, and that's what it did, including cutting a provision citing the KKK. Ben Singh goes on to
00:28:05.520
explain in his article, quote, The law is eliminating duplicative requirements from a bill leftist opposed in
00:28:12.680
the first place. Lowry cites example after example of the Texas state curriculum already requiring
00:28:19.360
teaching about the supposedly eliminated subjects from the KKK to MLK to women's suffrage to Cesar Chavez to
00:28:27.800
Native American contributions, all of which were wrongly mentioned as getting axed in the HuffPo
00:28:33.860
piece quoted above. It's entirely fair to debate anti-CRT bills as they arise in legislatures across the
00:28:40.580
country and overreach should be called out. But lying about what is actually being proposed discredits
00:28:46.900
anti-anti-CRT progressives who also gaslight parents and citizens about CRT in general.
00:28:57.420
It's not being taught in schools, they claim, clinging to a very narrow definition,
00:29:02.400
helpfully undermined by America's top teachers union, of the broader term, which describes a
00:29:08.320
widespread and undeniable phenomenon of radically racialized indoctrination. So that part about the
00:29:16.180
teachers union that Guy Benson mentions, he is referring to the largest teachers union in the
00:29:21.760
country, the National Education Association, explicitly stating recently that the concepts of CRT
00:29:27.860
will be taught in public schools. Not CRT as a theory, but the concepts of CRT as truth. Here's what
00:29:35.120
Reason.com reports. At its yearly annual meeting, conducted virtually over the past few days, the NEA
00:29:42.060
adopted new business item 39, which essentially calls for the organization to defend the teaching
00:29:47.740
of critical race theory. It is reasonable, this is what the item says, it is reasonable and appropriate
00:29:53.240
for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact
00:29:59.200
of the past on current society, including critical race theory, says the item. Consistent with its
00:30:06.380
defense of CRT, the Reason.com article says the NEA will also provide a study, quote, that critiques
00:30:13.380
empire, white supremacy, anti-blackness, anti-indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cis-heteropatriarchy,
00:30:21.540
capitalism, capitalism, wow, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and
00:30:29.640
oppression at the intersections of our society. The implication is that these critiques are aspects
00:30:34.500
of critical race theory, which in a weird way makes this an example of the activist left basically
00:30:39.640
accepting the activist right's new working definition of CRT as, quote, all of the various
00:30:46.180
cultural insanities. So that's the end of the Reason.com article that I just quoted. When people
00:30:55.500
say CRT is not being taught in public schools, you're right in that no one is standing up and
00:31:03.160
saying, here's what critical race theory is. Today we're going to learn about it, second graders.
00:31:09.300
That would actually be preferred, kind of like what I said earlier. Instead, the concepts of critical
00:31:15.380
race theory, which include but are not limited to what we already defined a few minutes ago,
00:31:21.300
are being taught covertly. So that includes the concepts of white privilege and systemic racism
00:31:26.920
and intersectionality, which whether you agree with them or not, they are critical race theory
00:31:33.160
ideas. They were invented by Derrick Bell and other critical race theorists. So you might agree with
00:31:39.060
those tenets of critical race theory, but to say they're not critical race theory because you like
00:31:42.900
them or believe in them, it's just wrong. Unfortunately, how these concepts end up being
00:31:49.200
crudely taught is that white people in America are bad and that black and brown people don't have a
00:31:56.100
fair shot. And these things just are not objectively true. They're just not. So back to this bill again
00:32:03.760
and the reporting about this bill. Democrats tried to put a bunch of stuff in the bill that would,
00:32:10.700
that teachers would be required to teach. Some things that they're already required by the state
00:32:15.980
board to teach. Some things that simply don't need to be required by the state legislature to teach.
00:32:21.760
Republicans took them out, not because Republicans in the state Senate took them out, not because they
00:32:29.300
shouldn't necessarily be taught, but because it's not their job to dictate every detail of curriculum.
00:32:36.920
They instead gave more broad prohibitions and requirements, as well as some specific course
00:32:42.440
requirements like the Declaration of Independence, the Lincoln-Douglas debate, the Civil Rights Act.
00:32:48.460
The bill also gives guidance on teachings about things like slavery. It says that slavery, for
00:32:56.360
example, should be taught, quote, with respect to their relationship to American values. Slavery and
00:33:02.000
racism are anything other than deviations from betrayals of or failures to live up to the authentic
00:33:10.440
founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality. So I don't know
00:33:14.960
if I paired what I said with that quote in a way that makes sense. So let me explain it. This is
00:33:20.940
another blow to the tenets of CRT, saying that you can't purposely teach kids to hate their country.
00:33:28.080
You have to honestly say that here are the values upon which we were founded, and here are the ways
00:33:34.520
we didn't live up to those values through slavery and Jim Crow and things like that, rather than
00:33:40.340
saying, oh, the founders said that we were founded on liberty and equality, and really it was just a
00:33:45.060
veil for white supremacy. I'm sorry, but Frederick Douglass disagrees with you. I disagree with you
00:33:50.220
too. That would be your opinion based on an ideology, not a factual interpretation of history. So this bill
00:33:57.300
that was so purposely dishonestly reported basically says, look, you cannot require teachers to teach
00:34:06.220
in a way that aligns with a particular ideology or that ideology's view of American history, and
00:34:12.280
teachers cannot teach that one race or sex is superior or inferior to the other. And Democrats were
00:34:18.320
very clever, as I think they typically are, and this is a common tactic, filling the House bill with all of
00:34:24.580
these repetitive and unnecessary requirements for schools. Then when Republicans took them out,
00:34:29.640
they were able to say, oh my goodness, Republicans don't want kids to learn about the KKK. They're
00:34:35.520
banning talking about the history of racism. No, that's not true. And because we have such a generally
00:34:43.060
unthinking populace, because all of us, every single one of us suffer from confirmation bias that if we're
00:34:49.360
not careful, careful about, we can very easily give in to, because we have such a dishonest press,
00:34:55.940
the narrative runs rampant. And it's very difficult to correct it, because it takes time to do.
00:35:03.040
I saw some, one of you sent me a conversation between like you and an account who shared
00:35:08.560
misinformation about the bill that said that teachers can't talk about the KKK being wrong,
00:35:14.280
can't talk about, you know, the bad parts about our history and racism and things like that.
00:35:20.700
You messaged this person and said, look, you're spreading misinformation. Here's a text to the
00:35:25.120
bill. Here's what it actually does. The person replied to you and said, I really don't like reading.
00:35:30.400
Can you give me a summary? Wow. If that is not representative of what I think so many,
00:35:36.560
even celebrities and so-called influencers think, and how they process this kind of information,
00:35:43.760
whether it's about this or whether it's about Israel and Palestine, whether it's about Donald
00:35:47.860
Trump, I don't, I don't know what does. That is just, that's sad. And we have a responsibility
00:35:54.160
as parents, as educators, as mentors to try to equip young people to question and to think and to not
00:36:03.900
just go with the mainstream, but to be like, we talk about so much on this podcast, human salmon,
00:36:10.580
don't be afraid to swim upstream, even if it's unpopular. Okay. All right. That was me mixing
00:36:18.320
together. All right. And okay. I said, okay. And if you want to use it, you can, you don't even have
00:36:25.840
to give me credit. That's for free. Okay. We are going to talk briefly about this whole David Platt
00:36:32.120
thing. I'm just going to give like a very brief response to what David French said about the David
00:36:36.660
Platt thing. All right. So David Platt has actually been in the center of some drama over the past few
00:36:47.540
years. There have been some accusations from people within his church and just people within
00:36:51.880
evangelicalism who have called him woke, who have said that, you know, he is moving to the left when
00:36:58.160
it comes to racial issues. David Platt is an amazing pastor, an amazing preacher, an amazing
00:37:06.480
author. I mean, most people I know who were raised evangelical read radical, and it really changed
00:37:13.260
your perspective of just like comfort and convenience and what we're actually called to as
00:37:17.320
Christians. I have absolutely no doubt, at least from what I see, I've no doubt about the sincerity
00:37:24.180
of David Platt and how much he loves Jesus. Do I agree with everything that he has said about race
00:37:30.020
and racism? No, I don't. I really appreciated a couple years ago when he put his hand on Donald
00:37:35.400
Trump's shoulder and he prayed for Donald Trump. That got him in some hot water with some people,
00:37:40.320
apparently some people in his own congregation. And I said at the time, because David Platt released
00:37:44.400
a statement afterwards, not necessarily apologizing, but trying to kind of explain it to his congregants.
00:37:50.000
That was the mistake that I personally believe that he made, that you shouldn't even have
00:37:54.120
to explain that. You prayed for a president. I can't guarantee you that David Platt didn't vote
00:38:00.120
for President Trump, but he obviously hasn't been some outspoken supporter of President Trump.
00:38:04.440
So he prayed for him in a nonpartisan way, in a way that Republican or Democrat were supposed to be
00:38:09.620
praying for our leaders as Christians. And so I didn't think that he needed to explain that at all.
00:38:14.620
And he has kind of given credence to some of the assertions, some of the arguments of organizations
00:38:25.820
like Black Lives Matter. Like he has talked about things like structural racism, racism and systemic
00:38:32.400
racism. So he said this before. He said, a disparity exists. We can't deny this. These are not opinions.
00:38:40.520
They're facts. It matters in our country, whether one is white or black. Now we don't want it to
00:38:45.960
matter, which is why I think we try to convince ourselves it doesn't matter. We think to ourselves,
00:38:49.940
I don't hold prejudices towards black or white people. So racism is not my problem. But this is
00:38:54.600
where we need to see that racialization is our problem. It's all of our problem. We subtly,
00:38:59.280
almost unknowingly contribute to it. So that is, that is. And I don't, people get so mad like when
00:39:06.980
people say this because they think it's like this boogeyman and they think that you're just,
00:39:10.960
you're accusing anyone who talks about race or racism of being a Marxist, of being a critical
00:39:16.220
race theorist. And I think that's wrong. Like we should not do this, but this comment is critical
00:39:22.100
race theory. Now, whether David Platt has ever read Kimberly Crenshaw, uh, Kimberly Crenshaw or,
00:39:29.120
um, or Derek Bell, I highly doubt. I highly doubt he has. I do not think that David Platt subscribes
00:39:36.080
to all of critical race theory. I do not think that David Platt is a Marxist. I don't think that
00:39:40.720
he is a communist. I don't think that he agrees with probably most of the tenets of the Black Lives
00:39:45.540
Matter organization. I don't think that. I'm not calling him a false teacher. I'm not saying he's not
00:39:49.760
a real Christian. But this is an argument that is, that was founded by critical race theorists.
00:39:57.660
It just is this idea that whether you are racist or not, that we live in a racist, a racist system
00:40:03.380
that is the cause for the disparities that we see between white Americans and Black Americans. And
00:40:08.840
that today in 2021, that you are discriminated against or you are oppressed because of the color
00:40:16.120
of your skin because of these racist systems that exist, that is critical race theory. And that is
00:40:23.280
highly debatable. It's highly debatable. Now I've talked about so many times before, uh, the book
00:40:30.620
Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell. And the reason I talk about it is because just the title
00:40:37.220
or not really the title, but like the introduction alone, uh, it blows apart this fallacy that I see
00:40:44.440
so many well-meaning people give into, which is this idea that if you see a disparity between
00:40:49.920
white Americans and Black Americans, it is a given that that is because of systemic racism.
00:40:55.860
And that's because of discrimination when really typically, maybe sometimes it is because of some
00:41:01.880
like, uh, antiquated racist structure or the so-called legacy of racism or slavery. Maybe,
00:41:09.260
but so often it's so much more complex than that. And that's what Discrimination and Disparities by
00:41:15.900
Thomas Sowell lays out so perfectly that this, this assertion of the history of systemic racism
00:41:22.540
and structural racism and the legacy of the unbroken legacy and thread of, of slavery and Jim Crow and
00:41:29.000
mass incarceration is the cause for all the disparities between white and Black Americans.
00:41:34.200
He really busts that apart by actually looking at the facts and looking at the history and looking at the
00:41:38.580
data that contradicts that. And so yes, David Platt, whether he realizes it or not, and I'm
00:41:44.540
absolutely sure he is completely well-meaning in this and that he wants to seek biblical justice,
00:41:49.940
but yes, this comment absolutely speaks to a tenet of critical race theory that is debatable
00:41:56.860
at best when you actually look at the data. I am not denying that racism exists. I am not denying
00:42:03.040
that racism at one point in our history was systemic. I am not denying that there could be
00:42:09.280
impacts of previous slavery on today in a way that, uh, some people, that some people don't
00:42:15.700
experience and other people do experience. So I'm not denying that. I am not saying that talking about
00:42:20.700
race or racism is wrong. I'm not saying that talking about, um, injustice against a particular group
00:42:27.540
is wrong. I'm not saying that that's Marxist. I'm just saying what he says is not necessarily
00:42:33.740
supported by the data that we've talked about so many times on this podcast. It is rather a
00:42:39.020
narrative-based assertion that was created by people like Derrick Bell. So whether you agree
00:42:45.480
with it or not, that, that is where it comes from. That's where it comes from. And you can say all day
00:42:50.660
long, I don't agree with critical race theory. Well, you just asserted the main tenet of critical race
00:42:55.060
theory. Just accept that for what it is. Now, I don't necessarily agree with, although, again,
00:43:02.720
I don't know all of the details of this, so I'm not going to get too into it. But from what I'm
00:43:07.880
reading, I don't necessarily agree with how the people within David Platt's church are pushing back
00:43:14.620
against this. So this is what Religion News reports. On July 15th, five members of McLean Bible
00:43:20.660
Church, that's David Platt's church, filed a complaint alleging that Platt and other leaders
00:43:24.640
illegally barred them from voting at a recent congregational meeting to approve new church
00:43:30.020
leaders. The plaintiffs also claim a follow-up election at the church this weekend violated
00:43:34.940
the church's constitution. This is a breach of contract action seeking to remedy defendants
00:43:40.260
illegal actions to deny plaintiffs their rights to cast a free and fair vote, to have those votes
00:43:46.700
lawfully counted, and to enjoy their right to a secret ballot, according to the complaint. And
00:43:51.840
apparently, this vote has to do with these issues surrounding the political ideological direction
00:44:00.040
of Platt and McLean Bible Church. Now, Platt has accused his critics in a sermon of spreading
00:44:06.580
disinformation, stuffing the ballot box with votes from former members and inactive church members.
00:44:12.020
I don't know if that's true. If that is true, that is absolutely a sin. I also think it's weird
00:44:16.740
to involve civil authorities in this. Now, again, there could be details about this that just sounds
00:44:25.380
purposely contentious and maybe not the most Christlike way to handle this. I'm open to hearing
00:44:34.500
feedback on that. And I do think if Platt's accusations of his critics are true, then obviously
00:44:40.880
that is sinful to try to subvert a legitimate process in a way that is dishonest. So David Platt
00:44:49.220
said in the sermon, I want you to listen closely to the words I'm about to say. A small group of
00:44:53.820
people inside and outside this church coordinated a divisive effort to use this information in order
00:44:59.180
to persuade others to vote these men down as part of a broader effort to take control of this church.
00:45:06.340
Um, so three new elders were approved by their vote by 80% of the active member vote. There's still
00:45:13.720
dispute about who is an inactive member. A longtime member, Bill Frazier, believes church leaders
00:45:19.300
disqualified people who they thought would vote the wrong way. So that's where part of this
00:45:24.140
drama that that's that's part of how this is happening. So like one side thinks that the vote
00:45:30.480
was illegitimate because, um, of the definition of inactive members, I would say David Platt's side
00:45:36.100
thinks that the other side is saying that illegitimate members are illegitimate. Both sides,
00:45:41.100
I guess, think that they're trying to take over the church leadership and take it in a direction that
00:45:46.140
they don't agree with, uh, because of the nature of a lawsuit. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any
00:45:52.600
further comment at this time. The elder said in a statement, we praise God for our church family's
00:45:56.320
affirmation of new elders, and we would deeply appreciate your prayers for all of McLean Bible
00:46:00.960
Church as we move forward in our mission. So there is obviously, um, division going on within that
00:46:07.280
church. That should never be anything that we rejoice over. Like, we don't revel in this kind of,
00:46:12.200
uh, drama. We don't want this. Like, no matter what side of the argument that you're on, we want
00:46:17.300
unity in Christ and unity in the gospel. I'm sure that's what David Platt, uh, wants as much as I might
00:46:23.180
disagree with some comments that he has made. And I don't know, no one knows except for the people
00:46:28.620
there, all of the details of everything, um, that has gone on. Like, my prayer is for unity for them.
00:46:37.100
Um, but I want to explain a little bit more using David French's response to all of this,
00:46:43.440
why I disagree with that comment that I read from David Platt and some other things that he has said.
00:46:49.200
And again, this is not an endorsement of the people within his church doing what they're doing
00:46:54.440
to try to kind of oppose him. Cause I just don't know. I'm not picking a side. Um, I'm not picking
00:47:00.620
a side on that. But as far as the subject matter goes, let me read you a little bit about what David
00:47:05.320
French said and then why I disagree. So, um, he explains kind of what happened. Uh, then he says
00:47:12.260
the congregants, uh, this is David French's, um, like own blog. He says,
00:47:17.520
the congregants object to what they perceive as a pastoral embrace of critical race theory.
00:47:21.980
And they assert the Bible alone contains teaching sufficient to address America's race problems.
00:47:26.760
You can read the comprehensive complaint against Platt and his team here. And so I can, uh, link that
00:47:32.500
so you can read it and the allegations of teaching or advocating CRT here without restating all the
00:47:37.500
contents of these lengthy documents. David French says they include complaints that Platt and his NBC,
00:47:43.700
his, his NBC colleague, pastor Mike Kelsey marched in a Christian Black Lives Matter march,
00:47:48.620
and that Kelsey has endorsed the CRT concepts of systemic racism and white privilege. Uh, they also
00:47:54.900
condemn Platt, uh, for arguing that that absence of overt prejudice does not absolve one of the problems
00:48:03.460
of racism and racialization and includes that quote that I read earlier. Um, so then David French gives
00:48:11.680
his, um, his response or his interpretation of all of this according to scripture. And then I responded
00:48:18.940
on Twitter. He has not responded to me. I don't know if he will. So I feel comfortable talking about
00:48:23.340
it here since I've already tried to, uh, engage with him individually. So then David French responds
00:48:29.440
to this whole thing. He says, Platt is biblically and historically right. It's his detractors who are
00:48:34.080
biblically and historically wrong. Uh, he says that the conservatives, he puts in scare quotes,
00:48:39.580
have placed a secular political frame around an issue with profound religious significance. Um,
00:48:45.620
and then he says, uh, to understand the flaw in their argument, he's talking about Platt's dissenters.
00:48:51.980
Let's first turn to biblical, the biblical text. He cites second Samuel 21 during the king, uh,
00:48:57.520
the reign of King David, Israel was afflicted with three years of famine. When David sought the face of
00:49:01.920
the Lord regarding the crisis, God said there was blood guilt on Saul and on his house. Uh, Saul was king
00:49:08.680
before David and God was punishing Israel years after Saul's regime because of Saul's sin. It was the next
00:49:14.620
king, David's responsibility to make things right. Um, and then he gives some other examples of this, of
00:49:20.500
Israel committing sins in the past and then having to, um, the next generations having to seek God's
00:49:28.160
forgiveness about these sins. Um, and so David Platt or, uh, David French goes on to say, uh, let's go back
00:49:36.820
to scripture and recognize that the obligation to act justly is intergenerational. If there is
00:49:41.800
injustice that predates our personal power, it is still our obligation to do what we can to set it
00:49:47.820
right. When you see racist structures at work, you recognize that you need sociology, history,
00:49:53.120
and economics to help you understand, uh, not just their reality, but their remedy. He goes on to argue
00:49:58.820
that sola scriptura is not going to inform policy and that we have common grace to be able to draw from
00:50:06.380
different sources of wisdom to tell us, um, to tell us, you know, how to enact certain policy in a way
00:50:13.620
that is just. So even though the Bible informs our definitions of justice, when it comes to specific
00:50:18.260
policy, we do look to different sources of wisdom and advice. And of course, I believe that. I think
00:50:22.960
that is absolutely true. That's why I, uh, quote Thomas Sowell, even though he's not necessarily,
00:50:27.220
um, uh, a Christian author. I don't know his faith, but he's not writing from a Christian
00:50:31.380
perspective. Um, and then he goes on to talk about the different kinds of racist structures
00:50:37.460
that he believes have caused these disparities. He talks about the median income of, uh, black
00:50:43.760
Americans being a great deal lower than the median income of white Americans. And he talks about that
00:50:49.300
that is because of these racist structures that are in place. So here is my response to that. And
00:50:55.240
then we'll close this out. And this is what I said on Twitter. I'm just going to read what I said on
00:50:59.240
Twitter. So I say you make a lot of good points here, by the way, David French, I do believe that
00:51:05.380
you do. And I can't speak to the plot situation. This is what I said last night. I know a lot more
00:51:09.440
about the plot situation than I did then. Um, but a few ways I'd push back on what you write here.
00:51:15.040
One disparities don't equal discrimination. They don't automatically equal discrimination
00:51:19.700
because if they do, then we have to ask is discrimination also to blame for an Asian median
00:51:25.760
income. That is a lot higher than whites median income. And the article David French only compares
00:51:31.000
white versus black income and conclude that it's because of automatically exclusively past structural
00:51:37.440
racism. And maybe it is like, I'm not discounting that it could be, or partly is, but the reality is,
00:51:44.280
is that it's much more complex than that. The second point I would make America is not Israel. Now I see
00:51:52.080
a lot of right wingers, like, uh, super pro-Trump people compare, um, Israel to the United States
00:52:00.580
in trying to say that America is God's chosen nation today. And they use scripture from the past.
00:52:07.520
They decontextualize it. They apply it to America to try to say, you know, America is today's Israel.
00:52:12.720
And they're accused of Christian nationalism for doing that. And I happen to agree that that's
00:52:17.400
theologically flawed that America is not modern day Israel. It's not God's chosen country, but
00:52:23.840
I see the same moderates and leftists like Dave, like David French. I'm not saying that he is a
00:52:29.240
leftist, but like David French say, uh, that, uh, these people are Christian nationalists, that it's
00:52:37.980
wrong to, that it's wrong to assert that, that it's wrong to call America God's chosen nation, but then
00:52:44.680
they go on to do the same thing. They go on to compare America to Israel when they're talking
00:52:50.520
about it in a more negative sense when they're, or when they're trying to support their argument that,
00:52:55.800
um, that we have a call to modern repentance for past sins. And so either America is Israel or it's
00:53:04.740
not either that's Christian nationalism or it's not. I do believe that we can draw from the principles
00:53:09.940
of justice giving and the implementation of justice in the old Testament in the United States
00:53:15.640
and use that as inspiration for justice. And I mean, that's what our laws are. Um, I do believe
00:53:22.600
that, but we cannot say, okay, this happened in Israel. That means that's what has to happen in
00:53:28.420
America. And that's what David French does here. He uses examples of Israelites asking for mercy for
00:53:34.920
their ancestors sins. But the problem is besides the fact that we're not ancient Israel, number one,
00:53:41.500
they were David, for example, and there are other examples of this too, like Daniel, um, they're
00:53:47.100
talking about their actual ancestors, actual ancestors, not just people who lived in the same
00:53:52.340
place, uh, as them at one point. Like we all talk about like, oh, our ancestors had slaves. If you're
00:53:58.040
just a white person, actually probably not. Like it was a very, very small percentage of the South that
00:54:03.160
actually ever owned slaves. And so for every white person in America to say your ancestors owned
00:54:08.680
slave, just because you're a white person in America is probably not historically accurate.
00:54:12.020
That's not what was happening in the Bible. So when David is asking for, or like seeking mercy
00:54:16.880
from the consequences of old sin, um, he is not talking about just some people who shared his skin
00:54:24.080
color. He's not talking about, um, people who lived in the same geographical region that he did,
00:54:30.720
or even in the same nation that he did. He like, he is talking about his actual bloodline. Like he's
00:54:35.060
talking about his actual ancestors who committed the sins. And then the second thing I would say
00:54:39.600
is that the sins, I believe in these cases were still active. And the Bible was also very clear
00:54:46.560
that God, um, is not holding us responsible for the sins of our actual ancestors, but that doesn't
00:54:53.260
mean that we don't suffer consequences of the sins of our ancestors or even of our nation's history.
00:54:59.900
And that is what David is asking reprieve from. So while I agree with the obligation of a nation
00:55:07.760
to right past wrongs, I one don't see biblical support for melanin-based repentance. Um, and two,
00:55:14.700
I don't think that equal outcomes. So the elimination of all disparities equals justice. And I don't think
00:55:21.020
that David French does either, but that is what the disparities equals discrimination argument
00:55:27.200
implies. CRT's premise that America has always been systemically racist asserts that modern
00:55:33.400
disparities between white and black Americans, uh, exist because of the structures in place. And
00:55:38.660
while that may be true in some cases, it is not a given without some critical thinking as I'm looking
00:55:44.920
at data. Um, and then I encourage him to read soul discrimination and disparities if he has not. So
00:55:50.820
that's kind of my take on that whole situation. And we just have to, I do think we have to be so
00:55:56.880
careful not to call everyone a Marxist or a critical race theorist who talks about racism or disparities or
00:56:02.800
problems, or who poses solutions to the disparities that we see. Um, and we shouldn't do that because
00:56:09.420
that gets in the way of productive conversations, but so does critical race theory. So does assuming that
00:56:14.700
every disparity is because of racism, that, um, makes it really hard for us to look at real solutions
00:56:20.800
that might not have anything to do with race. It could be a class issue. It could be, uh, uh,
00:56:25.480
individual choice issue. It could be a welfare issue. Um, it could be a family unit issue.
00:56:32.140
There are all different types of problems that are pushed off to the side when we only see disparities
00:56:39.000
and issues that we have in this country as racial issues. That is the problem with CRT that I've heard.
00:56:44.180
I think James Lindsay say is that it's compassion is way too narrow and it doesn't allow us to see
00:56:50.140
other problems that exist. And it also doesn't prescribe actually biblical and biblically just
00:56:56.220
solutions. And I just think that we have to be careful in our exegesis and, uh, we have to be
00:57:02.360
careful in our interpretation of scripture, um, to make sure that we are applying the principles of
00:57:07.200
justice without, uh, without superimposing what was exclusive to Israel on today. And in so doing
00:57:16.140
get a wrong interpretation and a wrong application of what the Bible says. And we all, we all need help
00:57:22.060
in doing that. And so we approach scripture, uh, with humility and asking God for wisdom in trying
00:57:28.060
to approach all these issues. All right. That's all I've got time for today. I will see you back here