Even with the Delta Variant, We Don't Need a COVID Vaccine Mandate

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has spread like wildfire. Unsurprisingly, so has the panic behind the Delta variant. The CDC reversed its previous lifting of mask mandate recommendation and have recommended that vaccinated people living in areas of high infection rates wear masks indoors because of this new variant. Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. have already reinstated mask mandates indoors, although they are not considered "high risk" by the CDC. It doesn't surprise me that the CDC panicked both because they are risk-averse and because they have had horrible public health messaging throughout the pandemic, but I digress. 

Because of the Delta variant, another policy idea is reemerging: vaccine mandates. It is not only the Left advocating for the idea. The Wall Street Journal, which tends to lean to the Right, even released a piece calling for vaccine mandates. I wrote a piece at the beginning of March entitled "We Don't Need a COVID Vaccine Mandate." I had a few reasons to say "No" to a vaccine mandate, from the "wait and see crowd" turning into people who will get vaccines, the possible backfiring in a polarized society, the constitutional arguments, the normative argument of "my body, my choice," and questioning whether COVID is severe enough to warrant such a response. Has so much changed, specifically with the nature of the Delta variant, that I would change my mind on the matter? 

One of the major concerns behind the Delta variant is that it is more contagious. By how much? It is likely to be 60 percent more contagious than the Alpha variant. The Alpha variant was about 50 percent more contagious than the original strain from Wuhan, which is to say that the Delta variant is about twice as contagious as the original strain.  

One response to the contagiousness of the Delta variant is wondering whether it will come as quickly as it came. The United Kingdom, which had the Delta variant sooner, is already seeing a drop in cases because the United Kingdom peaked sooner than anticipated. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said this past Monday that this could be indicative of what will happen in the United States.

The bigger concern should not be with cases, but with hospitalizations and deaths. I thought that was the case early on in the pandemic. After all, if an increase in cases do not result in a comparable increase in hospitalizations or deaths, then why are we using cases as a metric? Hospitalizations and deaths are better indicators of the severity of COVID. With the vaccines, that is even more so the case. The COVID vaccines have shown to be safe and effective. The jury is still out on whether the vaccine is effective against the Delta variant, although a preliminary study from the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the effectiveness of the Pfizer in the U.K. dropped slightly, from 93.7 percent to 88.0 percent (Bernal et al., 2021). The fact that 97 percent of COVID hospitalizations and 99 percent of COVID deaths in recent months in the United States are among the unvaccinated should tell you something about vaccine effectiveness. 

I would say that the vaccines are clearly effective, but that is not obvious for a number of Americans. According to Morning Consult polling from earlier this month (see below), you are dealing with people who do not trust the vaccines for one reason or another, ranging from concerns about side effects to the clinical trials going too fast or distrust of vaccine companies. It was because of that hesitancy that I wrote a piece addressing those concerns and detailing why those concerns do not mitigate the fact that the risk of taking the vaccine is smaller than going unvaccinated. 

The profile of a "typical unvaccinated" has a partisan divide (i.e., Republicans less likely to get vaccinated for political reasons), as well as an income divide (lower-income less likely to be vaccinated) and age divide (younger people are less likely to get vaccinated because they are less at risk, even though long-COVID is still a possibility for younger adults). While improving access would help, the Left-leaning Vox tacitly admits the bigger hurdle is getting past people's hesitancy. Even with access issues, people are not going to find ways to get past logistical issues of obtaining a vaccine if they do not want a vaccine or are unsure about getting one. If it is indeed about being unsure about the vaccines, as polling suggests, then a vaccine mandate is not going to help with that reluctance. It will only polarize what should be a scientific question further. 

If the main obstacle to reaching herd immunity is not access, but hesitancy, then people should be free to make their own choices. They should also be able to observe that those who are being affected at this stage in the pandemic are the unvaccinated. More to the point, hospitalizations and deaths have not increased to a level anywhere near the peaks that have been experienced throughout this pandemic, even though the Delta variant has been in the United States since March 2021. I include a chart below of the nationwide hospitalization trends to illustrate my point. Johns Hopkins also provides state-level trends (see here). 

I urge you to look at more localized data (e.g., county level, hospital level) of hospitalizations and deaths to get a better sense of the trends, but the overall trends are the following. The vaccines have been really good at preventing severe COVID and COVID-related deaths. The other takeaway is that herd immunity, which is the combination of natural immunity for those who already have COVID and those who have immunity from the vaccines, is at least high enough to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed in most areas. I say "most" because the areas struggling right now are those with lower vaccination rates. Plus, let's consider that the COVID death rate in the United States is at an extreme low, even in spite of the spike in cases. 

Even so, this brings me to my final point: the idea of eliminating COVID was a fool's errand. Forget that we have only eradicated two infectious diseases to date, smallpox and rinderpest. The "Zero COVID" approach, which is the notion that the government could eradicate coronavirus from a country, was not going to work. If the Delta variant has shown us anything, it has shown how the "Zero COVID" approach has failed spectacularly. These "Zero COVID" countries took on strict lockdowns, a policy that doesn't work in slowing the spread of COVID. Not only did these countries fail to ultimately contain the spread of COVID, but they destroyed their economies and the livelihoods of millions of global citizens doing so. 

Where I am going with this is that the pandemic eroded the ability for people to handle and assess risk. There is no such thing as a zero-risk option, whether that is with contracting COVID or getting vaccinated. There are only tradeoffs. To quote GAVI, which is the world's premier vaccine alliance, "Ultimately though, we will need to learn to live with this virus. Based on what we know about previous pandemics, COVID-19 should eventually become less dangerous, and coronavirus infections more predictable...the wider pandemic is unlikely to end with a single big bang...rather infections in different parts of the world may gradually fizzle to the point where we co-exist with COVID-19 in a perhaps tolerable, if imperfect, equilibrium." 

Let's summarize what we have here. Vaccines are safe and effective. At least in the developed world, they are doing a good job at mitigating severe COVID and COVID-related deaths. This is another reason why getting vaccines to the rest of the world: because it is vital for the endgame of this pandemic. Even though vaccines are a good idea, the mandate is still not a good idea. 

There is the political polarization, which would only be exacerbated with a mandate. The Delta variant has not been so prevalent that it has pushed hospitalizations or deaths to new highs, which is important for the goal of "flattening the curve." If anything, they have stayed significantly lower relative to the rise in cases. The fact that hospitals are not overwhelmed in most jurisdictions, in spite of cases rising, is a good sign. Plus, there are better ways to get people vaccinated, whether it is through subsidies or improved messaging to those who have yet to receive the vaccine. Those advocating a vaccine mandate are trying to force a fantasy in which there is a world without COVID. A vaccine mandate is not going to change that COVID will most probably be endemic and we as a society will have to learn to live with COVID.

Maine's New Recycling Tax and Asking Ourselves to What Extent Recycling Is Rubbish

In the past few decades, recycling has become so prevalent that 85 percent of people end up recycling. It has become a secular, environmentalist ritual of sorts if you think about it. The mainstream environmentalist thinking is that all recycling is good. It is the sort of mentality that led Maine's Governor Janet Mills signed a first-of-its-kind "extended producer responsibility" (EPR) into law earlier this month. 

The premise behind an EPR is to shift the costs to the producers of products that have significant environmental impact. In this case, the State of Maine is going to use the EPR to charge packaging producers for the environmental impact of cardboard boxes, plastic containers, and other inputs related to packaging. The money paid by these companies will go towards stewardship organizations that will fund local governments to deal with packaging management costs. Essentially, it shifts the costs of packaging producers to pay for the recycling of their products. 

We can get into questions of whether the brunt of the cost will be passed onto the consumer or to the producer. The real question we have to ask is whether recycling all of these products is worth it.  I asked this question about eight years ago when analyzing the economics of recycling. Back in 2013, my response was not a simple "yes or no." The reality is that not all recycling is created equal. Such materials as iron, steel, aluminum, and cardboard made more sense to recycle. These materials are suited for recycling and have high recovery rates. On the other hand, such packaging materials as polystyrene, PVC, and film (not to mention cullet) have high recycling costs, low recovery rates, and recovery costs that are economically or environmentally unsustainable. Recycling paper makes less sense than ever. This is not only because of the environmental costs (e.g., hazardous emissions), but also because there are more trees now than there were 35 years ago.

Recycling has become a less profitable action over time. A study from the Recycling Partnership found that the value for recycled materials has dropped by 41 percent since early 2017. Also, China closed its doors by 2018 with regards to accepting foreign-based recyclables that were contaminated. Since then, municipal recycling has become a financial drain (Husock, 2021). Tangentially, the increased prevalence of single-sort recycling has drastically increased contamination rates, which makes it more difficult to recycle products. A former Manhattan Institute scholar details in his cost-benefit analysis of recycling how the costs for the single-sort recycling for plastics, glass, and certain paper products is unjustifiable (Husock, 2020). As this New York Times article points out, the economic argument for recycling as a whole is all but nonexistent. 

In summation, there is a chance that the consumer could pay for the cost of recycling with an EPR. We are subsidizing a process in which the benefit has declined because the value of the material has declined. Additionally, we have dealt with increased costs of recycling (e.g., sorting, transporting) as well as increased rates of contamination, the latter of which makes it all the more environmentally impractical to recycle. Some goods make sense to recycle, but as we have seen, there are a fair number of materials that do not make sense. If I had to make an educated guess, Maine's experiment with EPR will be the first case study to show why an EPR for packaging goods is rubbish. 

How Worried Should We Be About This Higher-Than-Normal Inflation in the U.S.?

The cost of gasoline has jumped quite a bit. Lumber prices are spiking. Prices for meat, riding share services, semiconductors, and many other goods and services are seeing quite the increase. There is a bit of scare on the media about the rising inflation (see Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI data below), something that could perhaps be worse than what the United States experience in the 1970s. Before beginning, let us ask what exactly is inflation. 

As the Peter G. Peterson Foundation states in its primer on inflation, inflation is "the rate at which prices for goods and services increase across an economy." There are two main types of inflation: cost-pull inflation and demand-pull inflation. Cost-pull inflation occurs when prices in production costs increase. A good example of cost-pull inflation is the oil shocks of the 1970s both because they are major production inputs and because of its impact. Demand-pull inflation is when there is a wide consumer demand for goods and services across the economy results in increased prices. 

A moderate amount of inflation is considered by many economists to be healthy. Why? Because economic growth comes through an increase in demand of goods and services. With an increase in demand comes an increase in prices. Now, if inflation is too low (or even goes into deflation territory), it means that the economy is not doing well and that wages get depressed. If inflation increases too much too quickly, purchasing power gets eroded. It is a reason why such banks as the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of England have the goal of keeping inflation at a long-term average of 2 percent. 

On the other hand, I have to wonder if even if modest inflation is a good goal. When I analyzed the gold standard back in 2013, I found that long-term inflation was more stable under the gold standard. Plus, the understanding of the Federal Reserve's goal of inflation at 2 percent is based on the flawed Phillips Curve. As this publication from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank shows, there is a strong case to be made for price stability, i.e., inflation at or near zero. 

We can get into the pluses and minuses of various measurements of inflation, as whether it makes more sense to look on a market-by-market basis (e.g., macroeconomic) versus such a high-level. But let's assume that inflation is one form of adequate measure of economic health. What about the inflation now? What has been driving the inflation since the beginning of the pandemic? Here are a few possibilities being posited by analysts and pundits: 

• Energy Prices: With the lockdowns, demand for gasoline dropped considerably, which caused oil prices to decline. Generally speaking, energy prices tend to fluctuate and can easily be reversed. In spite of gasoline prices fluctuating over the past few decades, we have not had massive levels of inflation. Plus, as the Cato Institute points out, when you look at the Consumer Price Index less energy, the fluctuations are not nearly as scary. 
• Used Cars: During the pandemic, car-rental companies sold parts of their fleet due to the decline in demand. The demand picked up as the pandemic improved. There is a bottleneck due to the sudden fluctuation in a demand, a fluctuation that should be temporary. 
• Unemployment Benefits and Stimulus Payments: I have criticized unemployment benefits and stimulus payments before, but I think this is another potential issue with these policies vis-à-vis inflation. As the Heritage Foundation brings up in its analysis on the latest inflation, households have an unusually high amount of disposable income. That increase is, in no small part, due to the unemployment benefits. While it could be the case that we reach a point of "too many dollars chasing too few goods," the fact that savings rates are higher than normal mitigate that concern. It largely depends on how spending patterns unfold as the economy recovers. 
• As an additional note, the continued unemployment benefits give additional incentive to stay at home. This, in turn, creates labor shortages. The labor shortages help assure that supply cannot keep up with demand. 
• Quantitative Easing. I thought the quantitative easing during the Great Recession was a large amount. The Federal Reserve has printed money (see M2 money supply) at an unprecedented rate. There is concern that a huge, sudden influx of money injected into the economy. However, as the Heritage Foundation points out, the correlation between M2 and inflation is quite minimal. If anything, there have historically been moments of low inflation even after increases of M2. In the case of this pandemic, inflation was not as bad because the velocity (i.e., the rate at which money is spent) was much lower during the pandemic when people were in lockdowns and businesses were closed. At least in the short-run, we did not see inflation run rampant due to lower velocity. My concern, however, is that as the economy recovers and more money moves through the economy, it will most likely push up prices. 

Can We Predict What Happens Next?: As we have learned during past economic downturns, predicting what is going to happen next is a game fraught with uncertainty. It very well could be that these price fluctuations are temporary and are the economy adjusting after the worst of this pandemic. That is how Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sees it. However, we should be mindful and alert of real, plausible inflationary pressures. Expansionary fiscal policy and expansionary monetary policy have been at highs we have never seen. On the one hand, many Americans lost their jobs or had pay cuts, and a sudden increase in prices would only further harm their financial status. On the other hand, Americans have stashed $2 trillion in excess savings over the past year. There are a fair amount who have pent-up demand for travel, restaurants, concerts, and other forms of "non-essential spending." Others might be establishing savings to weather a possible future storm. I don't know if we will relive the relatively high levels like this country did in the 1970s, but there is enough reason to believe that the inflation will last more than a few months.   

Why Critical Race Theory Is Bad for Race Relations and K-12 Education

Critical race theory. It has been all over the news and social media. It has become the buzzword of the summer. The critics describe it as series of perturbing practices that take place in classrooms. Lawmakers in numerous states, including Texas, Idaho, and New Hampshire, have banned its teaching in public school curricula. What is it that has liberals and conservatives riled up? 

Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short, began as a legal framework and academic school of thought. It started off in the 1970s as a way to examine the intersection of law and race, particularly with regards to racial justice. NPR argued that CRT is synonymous with "teaching about the effects of racism," whereas the New York Times minimized it to a "classroom discussion of race [and] racism." 

CRT is more specific than simply "let's have a dialogue about racism." CRT is also much more simplistic and fatalistic in its worldview. While we could get into the particularities and nuances of CRT (much like with any other legal theory), what is common amongst critical race theorists is the belief that the institutions of the United States are prima facie racist, and that people are either the oppressor or the oppressed based on their race (CNN). Some CRT academics even believe that race is not a matter of biology, but a social construct. Per this worldview, racism is not simply about individuals, but systemic racism. 

CRT is more than saying "past institutions influence our present." Of course society's past influences the present! This concept is especially true with prevalent and influential institutions, laws, and regulations. The practice of redlining comes to mind. In the early-to-mid 20th century especially, African-Americans were either denied housing or were charged exorbitant prices for housing. Because of this policy, past redlining has contributed to the present black-white wealth gap because African-Americans were unable to acquire wealth through housing at the same rates.  

But with CRT, it is not enough that slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of racism codified in U.S. law are in the past. It does not matter that less than 10 percent of Americans think interracial marriage is morally wrong (Pew Research), which is a vast improvement from the 96 percent in 1958 that thought so (Gallup). And what about the 13th-15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act, or Brown v. Board of Education? It doesn't matter to the CRT crowd. The progress that has been made does not matter to the critical race theorist because ultimately, they view the institutions of the United States are inherently racist and rotten to their core. Not only that, one's race is such a determining factor that it predetermines one's lot in life, which has its own issues (see below). 

Given the nature of CRT, it is unsurprising that those on the Left are more in favor of CRT than the Right (Morning Consult).There are two common responses to CRT critics, especially in response to the nature and prevalence of CRT. One is that it is only taught in law schools and is not being taught in K-12 schools because such material is not easily accessible at that educational level. Another retort is that conservatives are using the phrase so broadly in attempts to silence any conversation about racial relations in the United States. Perhaps, according to CRT proponents, it is due to "white fragility." In short, if it is something the Right doesn't like, it's CRT. What we generally see is the Left is trying to define CRT in the narrowest of terms to distract and the Right is using it in such general terms that it de facto becomes a catch-all phrase that it uses to weaponize against the Left. 

Historically speaking, CRT did emerge from an academic setting and remained there for a number of years. However, to think that CRT was strictly meant to be an academic exercise is mistaken. Richard Delgado, who is one of the founding critical race theorists, wrote: 

Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law...Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It not only tries to understand our social situation but to change it.

Not only was it not meant to stay in academic settings, it has not stayed in academic settings. The Left has created a narrative to make it seem like a "Marxist takeover of public schools that is eroding the values and ideals of this country" was merely a figment of the conservative imagination. However, the National Education Association (NEA), which is the largest teachers' union, proved that CRT is more than an innocent academic debate isolated in the Ivory Tower. During its annual representative meeting this past weekend, the NEA passed a resolution that said, amongst other things, that it would support CRT which more or less was in accord with how most conservatives have perceived CRT. If you need to know how controversial of a move this was on NEA's part, consider that they removed the resolution from their website. 

More to the point, the NEA passed a business item during this meeting stated that it will conduct a study that critiques "empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigineity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society, and we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or the 1619 Project." I don't know about you, but that description sounds a lot more like a worldview akin to Far Left thought with neo-Marxist undertones than it does to promote racial sensitivity and understanding among all citizens, regardless of political philosophy. 

Saying that CRT is nothing more than shorthand for "let's talk about race" is pure bait-and-switch. Even if K-12 students are not learning graduate-level texts, what is being taught about race and racism more and more is unquestionably influenced by CRT. We are already seeing examples of CRT influencing not only how students view race, but K-12 education more generally. School district policy is localized in the U.S., so I cannot realistically cover all 13,000-plus school districts here, but I can provide some examples to give you an idea of what is happening in response to educators advocating for CRT:

• The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) eliminated the usage of quizzes, homework assignments, and tests as the basis for grading students because of racial disparities in grades. 
• Not only that, SDUSD had a training in which they taught that American schools are guilty of "spirit murdering of Black children." This training ended with telling the white parents they need to go to antiracist therapy.
• The Oregon Department of Education says that if students show their work, it is a form of white supremacy, as well as paternalism.
• A group of educators in California declared mathematics education propagates white supremacy.
• CRT has crossed our northern border into Canada. In Vancouver, the school district is doing away with honors classes for the sake of equity and inclusion. Apparently, wanting children to have challenging coursework and pushing their intellectual boundaries is racist. 
• San Francisco renamed its school's art department because its former name used an acronym. Per their justification, they renamed it because acronyms are racist. Why? Because acronyms put non-English speakers at a disadvantage. 
• In the Chicago area, a book called "Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness" is being used in primary schools, which teaches that whiteness is "a bad deal." A middle school teacher currently has a federal lawsuit going not only because of the use of this book, but School District 65 (Evanston) segregates its students, as well as its teachers for teacher training. 
• Fourth- and fifth-grade students in Philadelphia's Lower Merion School District have to read about how people relating to police officers or not watching the news makes them complicit in racism. 
• A school district in the Silicon Valley forced their third-graders to deconstruct their racial identity and then to rank themselves according to power and privilege. 
• New York's East Side Community School called for white parents to become "white traitors" and advocate for "white abolition."

I am going to save the extent of racism being systemic for another time because it deserves its own separate discussion. Much like with other topics, I suspect the truth lies between the talking points of the Left and those of the Right. What I will say today is that the implications of such a worldview in K-12 and indeed society at large is astounding. You don't need a crystal ball or an advanced degree in public policy, sociology, or some other form of social sciences to realize what would happen if people took these tenets or theories to heart:

1. Lower morale among colored people. One of the defining messages of CRT is that "if you are a person of color, the system is inevitably going to screw you over." As Stoicism teaches with its dichotomy of control, there are some things we can control and some things we cannot. Ultimately, the focus is on what we can control to give us peace of mind. CRT conversely teaches that nothing is in your control because your race is either the primary or sole determinant of your lot in life (or at the very least, insurmountable), which is patently untrue if you look throughout history and see the other things aside from race that make life difficult for people. Forget for a moment that Nigerian-Americans and various Asian-Americans (e.g., Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese) have median salaries that are higher than Caucasian-Americans. Also, black immigrants are more educated than their native Caucasian counterparts. Even if the aforementioned are exceptions, they should not be exceptions that exist if our society was truly that racist. But I digress. If you are a colored child in a classroom listening to and internalizing the message of how the "white man keeps you down," why would you bother studying or trying if life is against you? How does this encourage colored students to try hard in school? 
2. Resentment or lower self-esteem among white people. CRT posits that it does not matter if a white individual is racist or if a white individual's ancestors caused the inequity. As I brought up in my scathing critique on the social justice movement and how it behaves as a fundamentalist religion, whiteness is the woke Left's Original Sin. At least with the Christian version of Original Sin, there is the option of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior to save you. In the CRT mindset, nothing can atone for being white. If a white student internalizes that message, it will probably result in lower self-esteem and a whole host of mental health issues down the road. If a white student resists the messaging, they could end up resenting their teachers and even people of a different race, which is contrary to the intentions of CRT.
3. CRT's version of equity will erode K-12 education. It would be nice if equity simply meant providing disadvantaged students with the same level of access to education that everyone else has. However, when you do such things as get rid of honors courses and indeed the traditional concept of grading because it is incomprehensible that not all people have the same level of capacity to learn, you are creating a whole different set of circumstances. One of my criticisms of socialism is that everyone ends up equally miserable. In the case of this pursuit for "equity" in K-12 education, what will most probably end up happening if it succeeds is that students end up being equally stupid and only able to parrot back what their teachers tell them. 
4. Worsened racial relations. CRT inaccurately and simplistically categorizes white people as the oppressor and colored people as the oppressed. If you frame whiteness in strictly adversarial terms and stoke envy and/or resentment, how do you expect colored people to want to befriend white people? If anything, the "oppressor/oppressed" framing only seeks to separate people by race rather than bring people together. 
5. CRT will make society more racist. I indirectly covered this topic last summer when I pointed out how much the woke Left was mimicking bona fide racists. CRT posits that race is either the prime or sole predetermining factor in one's life. It reduces people to an overly simplified "oppressed/oppressor" framework, and does so on the basis of race. What do you call it when you label all white people as the "oppressor?" That is racism because you are overgeneralizing an entire group of people based on their skin. What do you expect people to see when you tell students the only thing (the most important thing or one of the most important things) that matters in determining your success is your skin color? People are going to see race. Tell me how obsessing over race in such a manner does not encourage more intolerance and make it more likely that people will identify with those who are of the same skin color. We already see that phenomenon with diversity training: the more that you obsess over race, the more likely you are to activate stereotypes and prejudices.  
6. A warped view on the world leads to warped policy. Wrongly thinking that everyone and everything is racist will undoubtedly taint your view on the matter. Comedian Bill Maher brought this up on a recent segment of his when he accused a number of those of the Left of having "progressophobia." Maher defines progressophobia as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress. It's like situational blindness, only what you can't see is that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War." So if you think America is more racist than ever, much like CRT proponents do, you have progressophobia. Maher went on to say that a warped view on reality leads to warped policy, such as black-only dorms and graduation ceremonies, a growing belief that Whiteness and White people as irredeemable, giving up on a color-blind society." As Maher concludes, only if you believe no progress has been made (which is patently false) would such a worldview [as CRT] make sense. I would add diversity training to Maher's list since studies show that diversity backfires spectacularly by making biases stronger. 

 

Conclusion: We can teach about slavery and racism without using CRT. People should learn their history, whether it is the good, bad, or the ugly. There has to be an acceptable middle ground between whitewashing the nastier parts of U.S. history and thinking every institution and white person in this country is inherently racist. Somewhere in that middle is called historical reality. The problem with CRT proponents is that they do not care about that reality. They care about shoving a fatalistic, simplistic, pessimistic, and decidedly inaccurate worldview down our throats. If CRT were simply about promoting racial understanding or greater historical awareness, I would be all for it. However, the truth of the matter is that CRT in K-12 schools is a radical form of indoctrination promoting greater intolerance and racism while eroding the quality of education.