John Oliver Goes OFF on Conservative’s ‘Manufactured Panic’ Over Critical Race Theory: ‘Very Loud and Very, Very Dumb’

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight returned Sunday for its season 9 premiere, in which the host took aim at the conservative panic surrounding critical race theory.

“A lot of people are getting very mad about critical race theory right now, and instinctively, you probably know it’s a manufactured panic, but the fact is the fear around it is having real effects,” Oliver said Sunday following the series three-month hiatus.

The host went on to point to Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), highlighting that he won Virginia’s governor’s race after promising that he would ban critical race theory from being taught in schools on his first day in office.

“Multiple states have passed laws outlawing the teaching of it, and Republicans are likely to make it a major focus of the midterms,” Oliver added.

He then pointed to another critical race theory detractor — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), playing a clip of him claiming, “Let me tell you right now: critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie, and it is every bit as racist as the Klansman in white sheets.”

“I do not like that Ted Cruz man. I do not like him shouting Klan,” Oliver rhymed in response, likely mocking Cruz for reciting Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor.

“I do not like him in a room. I do not like him in Cancun. I do not like him playing ball. I do not like his face at all. I wish he’d lose his cushy job. That man Ted Cruz is a fucking knob.”

According to Oliver, Fox News mentioned the theory 4,707 times in 2021 alone, largely thanks to Tucker Carlson who consistently disparages it despite once admitting, “I’ve never figured out what critical race theory is, to be totally honest, after a year of talking about it.”

“They’re teaching that some races are morally superior to others—that some are inherently sinful, and some are inherently saintly, and that’s immoral to teach that because it’s wrong,” Carlson continued.

Oliver noted that definition is incorrect, offering one of his own:

It’s the name given to a body of legal scholarship that began in the 1970s that attempted to understand why racism and inequality persisted after the civil rights movement. The core idea is that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something that is embedded in legal systems and policies. As for Tucker’s notion that it teaches some races are superior to others, or that parent’s claim that it teaches kids to hate America, none of that is remotely true.

He then aired a clip of Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of critical race theory’s leading scholars, who said, “Critical race theory just says, let’s pay attention to what has happened in this country, and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes, so we can become that country we say we are.”

“So, critical race theory is not anti-patriotic,” she added. “In fact, it is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it, because we believe in the 13th and the 14th and the 15th Amendment, we believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

Another reason Fox News has mentioned the theory so many times is Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who has appeared on the network several times to argue against it.

“What Rufo has been cleverly doing is cherry-picking the worst examples that he can find of lessons in classrooms or training materials for teachers and saying, that is CRT,” Oliver explained.

“And he’s openly admitted that he’s been engaged in a deliberate rebranding exercise, tweeting, ‘We have successfully frozen their brand—“critical race theory”—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions … The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’”

Oliver went on to lament that Rufo’s plan “fucking worked,” noting that whenever one hears “critical race theory,” they do not think of the academic discipline, but “about a category so broad it encompasses both ‘the craziest thing in the newspaper’ and also, crucially, any conversation about race that someone does not want to have.”

“Since January of last year, 37 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism, and the justification for these has often been more than a little flimsy,” Oliver noted, pointing to the impact of Rufo’s campaign against the theory.

The host also highlighted that despite the claim that the theory is being taught in schools, it’s actually a graduate-level discipline.

“Unless your five-year-old is currently pursuing a law degree, they’re not reading Kimberlé Crenshaw,” he cracked.

“The debate around critical race theory is both very loud and very, very dumb,” Oliver concluded. “But unfortunately it is important to engage with it because if we don’t, the endpoint that we are heading toward is that honest discussions of race will be shut out of public schools even as some parents fuck off to voucher academies where their kids can learn a version of history that is basically antebellum fan fiction.”

Watch above, via YouTube.