Pat Robertson’s Fear Of Critical Race Theory Is All About Getting What’s Coming To Him

On Friday, televangelist Pat Robertson used his platform on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s program The 700 Club to spout lies about what Critical Race Theory is that say a whole lot more about him than the discipline. The 91-year-old clearly fears that if BIPOC were given a chance at the power he’s had access to, they’d abuse it the same way he has!

Featured Video
Hide

“What is it(CRT)? That the people of color have been oppressed by the white people, and that white people begin to be racist by the time they’re 2 or 3 months old, and that therefore the people of color have to rise up and overtake their oppressors,” he said. “And then, having gotten the whip handle – if I can use the term – then to instruct their white neighbors how to behave. Now, that’s Critical Race Theory. “

Advertisement
Hide

He continued, “This is the way the communists take over; they try to destroy the children. It is a monstrous evil. And you hear, ‘Oh, critical race theory, that’s OK.’ No, it’s not. [You don’t] want to have your children in the third grade indoctrinated into a hate group so that he’ll wind up hating people or hating himself. And so the white people are supposed to feel guilty, and they’re supposed to have white guilt, and the people of color are supposed to cleanse them of that guilt by taking over.”

Right Wing Watch posted a clip of the diatribe that went viral on Twitter, as people couldn’t believe what he was admitting to:

Pat Robertson says critical race theory is “a monstrous evil” that is urging people of color to “rise up and overtake their oppressors” so that once they’ve “gotten the whip handle,” they’ll then “instruct their white neighbors how to behave.” https://t.co/Qum8HzeS96 pic.twitter.com/fgeOEVzrfj

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) June 25, 2021

What a straightforward way of expressing the fear racists have of true equality—they think they’ll get what’s coming to them. That’s pretty much what people said in response online:

Pat’s father, Sen. A. Willis Robertson (D-VA), signed the Southern Manifesto, which urged southern legislatures to ignore Brown and maintain segregated institutions.

It’s no shock Pat doesn’t want us to think too hard about how officials used state power to entrench racism. https://t.co/FyPYtqi5PD

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) June 25, 2021

Racists can’t imagine people of color behaving any differently than they do, and that lack of imagination is the whole basis their instance that our freedom is their dispossession https://t.co/5pRu6NzPQy

— Rebecca Pierce #SaveSilwan (@aptly_engineerd) June 25, 2021

Advertisement
Hide

White ppl’s fantasy of Black vengeance means that you can talk about the horrors of slavery and those only become fuel for fantasies of what might happen to THEM. Like this is all tied to the limits of empathy and how empathy is used politically https://t.co/5lWXyJn6k7

— Kaitlyn Greenidge (@surlybassey) June 27, 2021

*Actual* Critical Race Theory: Racism is so normal, the dominant society will interpret an attack on racism as an attack on society itself.

Society, itself: https://t.co/XGEgHAX4SY

— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) June 26, 2021

Pat Robertson inadvertently reveals he understands that on some level there is still a whip handle, and white people hold it. https://t.co/2Ai2cFRaBh

— A.R. Moxon (@JuliusGoat) June 26, 2021

Pat Robertson just said the quiet part very loudly. The right doesn’t want people learning history (not critical race theory) because they are afraid they’ll be held accountable for their violence and oppression. https://t.co/F7wSejKWKr

— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) June 26, 2021

Advertisement
Hide

Critical race theory has become the new bogeyman of the right, a group of people who are scared of both history and critical thinking. But as Robertson’s rant shows, they do understand exactly what they’re doing.

Share this article

*First Published: June 27, 2021, 9:14 am