Yesterday, my colleague Jeff Charles wrote an article that caused a bit of a stir. He titled it “Critical Race Theory Is Going to Win,” in which he noted that critical race theory (CRT) is an idea that has caught on with the left and that the right hasn’t done, or won’t do, the necessary things to stop it. He wrote that while making it illegal in some states to force on others, conservatives haven’t brought forth the necessary ideas that solve problems CRT claims it will.

“It is easy to think that simply banning the idea will keep America safe,” he wrote. “However, what happens when the hard left continues its campaign to convince enough Americans to accept critical race theory? As the problems continue to persist, people will want answers, and if at the end of the day, the left is the only party with something to offer, people will become more open to their ideas since they do not have an alternative.”

Jeff makes good points, but I have to respectfully disagree with him on one issue. In my honest opinion, conservatives have the ideas necessary to fix many of the racial issues that plague America today. We have the necessary tools just the inability to implement them, and that’s because we’ve failed to show up to the necessary battlefields in order to make them effective.

If you take a look at black people who are successful in life, you’ll notice that their story isn’t too dissimilar from any other person’s success story from a different race. They had a solid family life growing up and they were educated.

It should be a simple formula, but the left has made it its mission to muddy these waters or completely eliminate the waters altogether. For instance, one of the things the extreme left wants to do is abolish the nuclear family. In fact, it was part of the Black Lives Matter mission statement until it became too dicey to have that agenda item in the open.

To be sure, the left has done its level best to keep black communities rife with single-parent homes by providing incentives to be one and then making it difficult to get out from under that dependence once you’re in. Over 60 percent of black children in America are born to single-parent homes as a result. Sadly, these children don’t do as well as their nuclear family peers, putting them into positions where they’re less likely to succeed and make a good living for themselves and their families.

The left does this by design. As Sonny Johnson once said, “if they want to be the party of the poor, they have to keep you poor.”

So let’s say there’s a black youth by the name of James. James was born to a single-parent home where he and his mother survive on welfare. He lives in section-eight housing in a neighborhood where going out at night isn’t a good idea. James sees on television images and videos of white people living a far better life than him, and as he does he hears celebrities, news personalities, and politicians all tell him that he’s a victim of a society that favors white people over black people.

James is up against a handful of forces that are keeping him down, and the villains are not what he’s being told. Firstly, his family life was disadvantaged from the word go since his mother can’t or won’t get out of the welfare pit she’s found herself in. Then on top of that, he’s being loaded up with lies from the mainstream stages that all tell him he’s a victim. To be clear, he is one, just of a different system than the one he’s being told.

Sadly, James isn’t being told the truth because there is no opposition sounding off in the media he consumes. Those who would tell him the truth are often blacklisted by entertainment institutions so their ideas don’t see the light of day. On social media, those who deliver inconvenient truths against the narrative he’s being taught are suppressed. He’s being force-fed a singular narrative designed to keep him in place.

I’d say this is the fault of the left, but in truth, I think the right has a large deal of blame for this. Personally, I can’t write about the goings-on of Hollywood or comment on it without receiving multiple complaints about the fact that I care about it, or see dismissiveness over why we should even be paying any attention to it in the first place. Breitbart’s famous alarm bell phrase “politics is downstream from culture” never seemed to get through and so they sneer at any mention of Hollywood, or cultural stage of any sort, and go back to their favorite sandpit wherein they firmly stick their head.

With no pro-American, conservative, or traditional influence, extremism flourishes in the mainstream culture bubble. Conservatives hardly find allies in the industry and with almost no real support behind them, they’re swallowed up in the mire, and as they’re overcome, James continues to hear only one voice; their voice.

James would still have hope as the other saving grace would be education, however, the left has made certain that it’s claimed our education system as its territory as well. Every week, reports about the extreme left having taken over our education system are released from this very website containing horror stories of everyone from county officials to school administrators attempting to push extremist politics on your children.

One story, in particular, is of the William D. Kelly school in Philidelphia, which has shrugged off teaching students actual academic studies in favor of actually teaching them how to communist radicals. The school is 99 percent black children, and these children are being indoctrinated while learning almost nothing of math or reading. Their proficiency levels are woefully low resulting in mass ignorance with plenty of political indoctrination.

While perhaps not all schools are this extreme, the chances that James goes to a less-than-par school is high, and Democrats work very hard to keep him there. They don’t allow for school vouchers or charter schools to play a part in his life and the teacher’s unions who claim to represent his best interests are far more concerned with the money in their pockets than his education.

James hardly learns anything about basic economics. He doesn’t understand how our government works, and never truly gets to know the rights afforded to him by undeniably brilliant men that he’s told were just racist, white slave owners. He doesn’t understand or know his own history beyond the fact that his ancestors were (probably) slaves. His mind is never opened and he’s influenced to keep his dreams small and his prejudices wide.

And then one day someone comes along and tells him that if he wants a better life, he needs to help collapse the system and install a new one. Something more “fair” and “equal”…and Marxist.

For James, critical race theory makes a lot of sense at this point and he agrees wholeheartedly. Buried in ignorance and hate, James becomes a radical bent on the elimination of capitalism. He becomes a massive bigot, a racist, and a political extremist and it all started because Democrats went unopposed in two very important parts of his life, education, and entertainment.

Jeff is right. Conservatives need to step up in various parts of our society and recognize where we’re not doing what’s necessary to win. But I do believe we have the correct ideas and methods to make it better for all races. We just have to have the bravery to stand up and implement them, fight for them, and act on them. I don’t mean just complaining, I mean getting involved in the arts, joining school boards, becoming teachers, and more. If we just rely on slacktivism, then Jeff is right, and CRT will win.