Herschel Walker Fumbles CRT Calling It ‘CTR’

Source: Megan Varner / Getty

Appearing at a Trump rally north of Metro Atlanta, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Herschel Walker tried to go in on CRT but couldn’t get the acronym right.

“People wanna ask me all the time why I’m running,” Walker began. “I’m sick and tired. I’m sick and tired of them wanting to teach CTR in school? Critical race theory. Can you tell me what that means? We’re Americans. We’re not Black. We’re not white. We’re Americans.”

Herschel Walker says he’s sick and tired of “CTR” being taught in schools pic.twitter.com/IThUQSbuRR

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 26, 2022

If Walker is going to try and dunk on something, he should at least get the name right. He then rhetorically asks the rally attendees if they can even tell him what it means? The answer is no. They can’t define what critical race theory means because they have been force-fed a fabricated definition comparing it to anything related to equity and inclusion.

As funny as it may be for some people that Walker can’t land his talking points right, republicans continue to distort the legal concept to get their voters worked up. But CRT has been treated as a constantly evolving attack that some are even equating with any Black person they deem unacceptable. Recently, conservative darling Charlie Kirk equated critical race theory with Black people like Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Even claiming a federal judge like Jackson has an “attitude” is a tired trope used to undermine Black women in positions of leadership who don’t get along with the okey-doke. As previously reported by NewsOne, equating Jackson to CRT is a racist scare tactic steeped in disinformation about critical race theory to manipulate republican voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Last week during Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the official GOP Twitter account shared a similar sentiment in a GIF crossing out her initials and replacing them with CRT.

Charlie Kirk: Ketanji Brown Jackson “is what your country looks like on critical race theory”

“Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her. And what’s amazing is that she kind of has an attitude too.”https://t.co/CFopv3kEN6

— Media Matters (@mmfa) March 23, 2022

CRT is not the problem. It is not something that should be run from, and it would be a mistake to cede ground on this issue to the right. While some may treat this as a legitimate political strategy, the continued lying and fearmongering to get predominately white conservative voters whipped into a frenzy about a nonexistent crisis of race poses more risk to efforts to increase equity in schools and other public services. It’s easy to steer people in the wrong direction by keeping them hyped up on fear.

A real question for Walker is if he’s so concerned about school policies, decided at the state and local level, why is he running for the U.S. Senate? Make it make sense, folks.

But why run-on facts and proposals to make things better when you can double down on disinformation and lies? Honestly, Walker’s base of supporters should be offended that they are being lied to repeatedly by those claiming they want to lead.

With less than two months to the Georgia primary, polling suggests he has a clear runway past his primary opponents. According to Ballotpedia, there are seven candidates in total, and at least three are Black men. It’s yet to be seen if being Trump-favored is enough to push him over the top in the May primary election.