Hey there, it's James West, deputy editor at Mother Jones. Now don't judge me too much.

This sounds a little bit masochistic, I know. But every night I sit down after dinner and I like

to check out just a few minutes here and there of Fox News, a little bit of Tucker Carlson,

a little bit of Laura Ingram. I like to keep tabs on what's animating the far right at

any one time, on any one day. I kind of think it's important. And I've heard one phrase more

and more and more and more over this last year, critical race theory. It's an obsession,

a total obsession. But what is it? What is critical race theory? It's this topic along with

anti-mask protests raging at school board meetings right across the country right now.

States are now racing to ban the teaching of CRT, even while many of its fiercest critics can

barely explain what it is. So for this week's episode, some history, thank goodness.

Journalist Anthony Conwright says that the current anti-CRT hysteria is part of a long-standing war

in America against black liberation, dating back hundreds of years. This is such a compelling

essay by Anthony that we originally published in the September October edition of Mother Jones

magazine. It's a short piece but it packs in so much information and I learnt a ton from it.

I bet you will too. Here it is, read aloud by our partners at Autumn.

Autumn presents

Today it's critical race theory. Two hundred years ago it was abolitionist literature

written by Anthony Conwright. There have been many contributions to help make sense of the

Republican obsession with critical race theory. A framework developed some 40 years ago to analyze

the ways racism is endemic to our laws and policies. Conservatives have decided it's a domestic

threat. And as of this writing, 11 states have already banned teaching it in public schools.

But perhaps the best explanation for the hysteria is in a journal entry written on April 7th,

...