Throughout recent years, the left has gotten more radical as ideas like gender theory, socialism, and Critical Race Theory have become accepted into the mainstream Democrat party.  This acceptance happened at a record pace, as not even President Obama would support redefining marriage in 2008.  That left many on the right to wonder: how did such radicalism invade the Democrat party, and how did it happen so fast?

The answer is widespread manipulation.  Something that becomes apparent in stories like this one.

The other day, an aunt of mine — let's call her Aunt X — passed down a book titled Stamped Racism, Antiracism, and You.  Now, obviously, this book was just about Critical Race Theory. However, exposure to different ideas is always good.  So I sat down and suffered through all 253 pages.  After finishing, I gave Aunt X a summary of the incredibly manipulative tactics this book uses to present its radical ideas in a plausible way.  Aunt X then rehashed how she acquired the book.  As a public school teacher, she was assigned to read it in a class the school district required her to take.  Yes, you heard that correctly: the school district required teachers to take Critical Race Theory classes!  These terrible ideas are taught not just to college kids, but to adults, too!

Stamped Racism, Antiracism, and You is written by Jason Reynolds and adapted from Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi.  It is one of many racial indoctrination books pushed in colleges and other institutions.  Although the book is mostly about history, it claims not to be a history book — presumably because a lot of this book's "history" is just straight-up fabricated.  For example, Reynolds tries to make the case that the American Revolution was fought to keep slavery — a claim so "out there" that even a notorious liberal publisher like the New York Times had to repudiate it.

Other than the fabricated history, there are two main issues to this book.  One is how opinions are based on cherry-picked facts.  For example, Reynolds claims that "[s]cience says the races are biologically equal.  So, if they're not equal in society, the only reason why can be racism."  Yes, obviously, the races are equal.  However, all cultures are not equal.  By drawing the conclusion that racism is the only cause of economic inequality, he completely ignores all other proof that says otherwise.  There are cultures out there that are predominantly white and not very economically successful.  Would it be racist for a black person to point that out?  No, clearly not.  It does not matter what skin color is prevalent in ineffective cultures.  They are ineffective, and it is not wrong to point that out.

The other prominent problem with this book is the constant straw man arguments.  Reynolds employs a straw man whenever directly referencing what the right has to say.  For example, in part of the book, Reynolds argues that the absence of fathers in black families is because of targeted mass incarceration.  He then "addresses" the argument from conservatives that the absence of fathers is caused by the welfare state by saying, "There [is] no evidence to support any of this."  No evidence?  He straight-up ignores all the arguments and proof the right has regarding that problem.  Like figures showing that the drop in fathers started when the government started excessively subsidizing single motherhood.  When the War on Poverty began in 1964, the single motherhood rate in the black community was 20%.  Now it's 70%.  The increase of single motherhood started in 1964 and has not stopped.

Needless to say, this book has such bad ideas that it needs to manipulate people into believing them.  After reading this book, it's not hard to see why such radical ideas are making their way into the mainstream Democrat party.  All it takes is some well-written manipulative ideas and some historically ignorant people for something to become a movement.  It's understandable that most people are too busy with work and family to keep up with politics.  However, it is important not to fall into the trap that this book sets for people.  Hopefully, by giving a few examples of manipulation, it will encourage readers to investigate everything radicals say in a more critical way.

Image: Johnny Silvercloud via Flickr (cropped), CC BY-SA 2.0.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.