Watch MSNBC’s The Beat explain Fox News’ obsession with turning “critical race theory” into “an indiscriminate catch-all”

A Media Matters study found more than 1,300 mentions of “critical race theory” on Fox News so far this year

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From the July 6, 2021, edition of MSNBC's The Beat with Ari Melber

JASON JOHNSON (GUEST HOST): That is a small portion of over 1300 mentions of critical race theory on Fox so far, this year alone. The topic has exploded on the network, and made its way to the halls of Congress, and beyond. 

Top military brass, recently on GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz, after Gaetz suggested the Pentagon's efforts to fight racism within the military was making our armed forces too woke. 

Florida's MAGA governor Ron DeSantis is pushing the state's school board to ban critical race theory in public schools, even though experts and common sense parents who actually know what their kids are doing will note there is scant evidence that critical race theory is being widely taught in K through 12 public schools, as it's usually introduced at the graduate school level. 

And here's the other thing, conservatives have stretched the term "critical race theory" to represent almost any discussion of race in schools. 1619 Project and the study of critical race theory are actually two separate things, but some on the right are willing the term as an indiscriminate catch-all.

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It is one thing to debate scholarly findings, but this is a wholesale political war designed to harass a black scholar and galvanize racists.