‘Critical Race Theory’ Has Become, Ironically, a Racist Dog Whistle Among Republicans
The GOP's response to Ketanji Brown Jackson's historic SCOTUS nomination is saying the quiet part out loud.
Politics

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first Black woman to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She’s incredibly qualified for the job and quite popular with the American public, and so Senate Republicans haven’t been able to find much to complain, so they’re simply making an issue out the fact that she’s Black.
Jackson’s confirmation hearings are underway, we’ve already witnessed several blatantly racist attacks by Senate Republicans and the GOP as a whole, who are trying to tie her to their political bogeyman of the moment—“critical race theory”—despite the fact that the academic theory is entirely irrelevant to her work as a judge and potential future justice.
On Tuesday, the official Twitter account of the Republican Party simply put a strike through Jackson’s initials and replaced them with “CRT,” a move clearly intended to cast doubt on the idea that a Black woman could possibly ever think on a high level about issues other than her own race and have the necessary mindset, judiciousness and neutrality to qualify for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz used his time to grill Jackson about a book by Ibram X. Kendi titled Antiracist Baby, which is taught at a Georgetown Day School in DC, where Jackson sits on the board. Cruz couldn’t wait to point out Jackson’s affiliation with an institution that teaches youngsters about societal ills that they will grow up to encounter. “Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that babies are racist?” Cruz demanded.