Teachers, parents and students across the nation, including in Georgia, marched over the weekend to protest laws restricting school curriculum that includes mentions of racial and social justice. 

Lawmakers have railed and pandered to a vocal minority about the teaching of so-called critical race theory. The public should be reminded of the facts. 

Critical race theory is not a part of the curriculum in Georgia elementary, middle and high schools.

Critical race theory does not postulate all white people are racists, or bad.

Critical race theory is not an academic discipline designed to indoctrinate our children.

Critical race theory is not a political platform intended to drive a wedge or elevate one race over another.

Critical race theory is not new.

The theories about how discriminatory laws, policies and practices have shaped our government, our legal-justice systems, our institutions and our society have been around since the early 1970s and have generated very little, if any, controversy — until now.

Still, all the things mentioned here are things you have heard, things you have seen, things you have read on Facebook.

If critical race theory did not have a name, if it was not being used as a political football and if it were not the hot topic on social media, we would just otherwise call it legal science, history and sociology.

In Georgia, new laws target any school instruction on the subject of race that might make a student feel uncomfortable but history — and truth — can be uncomfortable. 

Simply mentioning the Trail of Tears could make a student uncomfortable. Talking about the atrocities of genocide by Hitler’s Third Reich could make a student uncomfortable. Reading about brutality in the name of Christianity during the Crusades could make a student uncomfortable. And, yes, the horrors of American slavery, the inequities of segregation and the heroism of the Freedom Riders in the face of brutality could make students feel uncomfortable, and those dark — but true — chapters in history should make us all uncomfortable. 

So why all of the uproar? Why are parents throughout the country protesting against it? Why is there so much consternation on social media around CRT?

Largely, it is because so many people choose to get their news from a Facebook feed or from entertainment-driven, ratings-driven talk show hosts who posture as legitimate news anchors when, in fact, none of their bogus claims are supported with credible sourcing and research.

Get your news from reliable, trustworthy news sources, not from conspiracy-laced social media posts.