MSNBC’s Eddie Glaude Ruffled by Critical Race Theory Debate With Christopher Rufo: ‘I’m Getting Upset’

Christopher Rufo made a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe for a morning dialogue on critical race theory, where he prompted eye-rolling from the network’s Eddie Glaude — while Joe Scarborough pleaded for greater magnanimity.

Rufo, a contributing editor to City Journal, began the interview by noting critical race theory “holds the United States was founded on racism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.” He added that proponents “call into question the 14th Amendment, equal protection under the law … the First Amendment right to free speech, [and] oppose capitalism.”

Scarborough asked Glaude whether he agreed with portions of Rufo’s assessment, particularly with respect to capitalism. “If you’re a capitalist, does critical race theory suggest that you are racist and that capitalism is racist and we have to move beyond capitalism?” Scarborough inquired.

“It certainly holds the claim that capitalism has its beginnings within the context of the transatlantic slave trade,” Glaude replied. “There is something called racial capitalism that involves the idea that there are certain people who are disposable. And to the extent to which they are disposable because of the color of their skin, it allows for the accumulation of surplus value.”

Glaude — a professor of African American studies at Princeton University — said the issue was popular among law school faculties, and accused Rufo of focusing most of his attention on its application elsewhere.

“What I’m concerned about — and what millions of parents are really concerned about — is the things that are happening in hundreds of public schools in Illinois and Chicago where they’re teaching children as young as kindergarten that whiteness is the devil, and attempts to lure people into it with the promise of stolen land and stolen riches,” Rufo said, referencing a book called Not My Idea. “That’s a book being used in hundreds of schools.”

Glaude conspicuously rolled his eyes as Rufo spoke. But when he finished, Scarborough suggested that many of his liberal friends agreed with him.

“I’m not sure why they whisper it or text it or email it to me, but liberal members of the mainstream media, Democrats that are huge contributors to the Democratic Party and even people that work for Democrats, I’ve heard over the past three or four years, I’ve got to get my kid out of this private school,” Scarborough said. “They’re teaching my 7-year-old boy that because he’s white he’s, you know, a racist, he’s part of the problem.”

Scarborough concluded with another question for Glaude, asking, “How do we sort through all of this and make sure that we don’t throw out teaching about slavery and teaching about racism over the past 400 years, that we don’t throw that out with a war against critical race theory and its extremes?”

Glaude replied — and said he was becoming more agitated by the issue.

“Part of what we have to do in this moment, Joe, and we talk about this, is to confront the ugliness of who we are,” Glaude said. “And part of what I hear in these sorts of arguments is this sense in which that confrontation must be won where we’re comfortable. Where we feel good about who we are after we confront it. I’m scooting up in my chair, Joe, because I’m getting upset. Because we’re seeing right now in real-time a reassertion of the lie, the very thing that keeps us from becoming a different America because we don’t want to accept who we are, what we’ve done.”

Watch above via MSNBC.