(CNSNews.com) - Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears told Fox News’ “America Reports” on Monday that no one is saying not to teach about history, but “we can’t always keep looking back,” and she’s “proof that we’re progressing.”
The lieutenant governor said that the other side in the critical race theory debate is “using semantics” and that it is “taught in some form or fashion” in Virginia public schools.
“We know last year the Loudoun County School Board spent about $300,000 plus. That's real money. That’s going to jail money, to bring C.R.T. in a form or fashion, they used a consultant specifically for C.R.T.,” Sears said.||“Before all that, in 2015, the then school superintendent, the state school superintendent spoke directly about C.R.T., and encouraged the teaching of it, and then two years later you will note that the Virginia state board of education on its official website recommended books on C.R.T., but let's talk about what's really happening. Our children are not learning,” she said.
“We don't have time to teach about oppression that the child is a victim, that the white kids are the oppressors, we don't have time in the school day for that. Let's talk about all of the history. We know we don't want to repeat history, so let’s talk about it. Let's teach it. Nobody is saying not to teach it. We need to go forward. We can't always keep looking back. I am proof we are progressing,” Sears said.
“I am an immigrant and in the former capital of the confederacy, I'm second in command of the entire commonwealth of Virginia, of eight point some million people. When are we going to start saying to ourselves, we can make it, we are making it. Let's look at life as being overcomers. This, too, we will overcome,” she said.
“Say that to black and brown children and all other children. Say that to them instead of constantly being divisive. Martin Luther King, Jr., that's what he wanted. I want to read something to you very quickly what he said: ‘Always feel that you have worth and always feel that your life has ultimate significance,’” Sears said.
“Did he talk about the oppressed, the oppressors, the victims, all that, no. Light a candle, to light a candle is to find a solution, but to curse the darkness is to be a victim. I am not a victim, our children are not victims, we are going to not just survive, they are going to thrive,” Sears said.
On the subject of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order banning mask mandates for public schools, Sears was asked how he plans to withhold state funds from those school districts who are pledging to defy the order and require that students wear masks anyway.
“And really, at the very foundation of it, imagine that. Imagine that parents get to decide about their own children. By the way, parents are their children's first teachers and secondly, who do these children belong to? They don't belong to the state, They don't belong to the school board, they belong to their parents,” Sears said.
Asked to clarify what the governor might do in terms of using state resources to force the school districts to comply, the lieutenant governor said, “Well, you know, there are certain combinations of money that we send to the state, to the local school boards and he can withhold some of that, and he could possibly, if the law allows, even give the parents the ability to decide what schools their children should attend.
“So, we are going to look at all that and he's just wanting the best for all children. Listen, our former president, Barack Obama said elections have consequences. We told the parents. We told Virginians what we wanted to do, what we were going to do and they voted for us. These are the good consequences that they are seeing that imagine politicians are going to fulfill those promises. We are going to do that,” she said.