In 2021, the graduate-level academic framework Critical Race Theory became a hot button political issue. Regardless of it not being widely taught to K-12 students, it became the target of right wing protests, and the short hand CRT began to represent the teaching of racism and racial diversity more broadly. A majority of states have since introduced legislation that bans teaching CRT or restricts how racism and sexism is discussed in the classroom. 18 states now have such laws enacted.

Today’s guests have a new book out that is both an illumination of CRT and a response to the weaponization of the term by its opponents in an attempt to erase, censor, and silence all discussion of American racism and its legacy. It does this through the lens of hip hop. 

Editors of the new anthology Illmatic Consequences: The Clapback to Opponents of “Critical Race Theory,” Walter Greason and Danian Darrell Jerry join Ali Muldrow on the show. 

The report “Political Ad Has Ties To National Conservative Interest Groups” from WORT’s Faye Parks was featured in this program.

Walter Greason is a prominent historian, educator, and urbanist He has spent the past 30 years speaking to audiences in dozens of states, on over 100 college and high school campuses, at dozens of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the country.

Danian Darrell Jerry is a writer, teacher, and emcee. He teaches literature and English composition at University of Memphis. where he teaches literature and English composition. His writing appears or is forthcoming in Marvel’s Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among others. 

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