Hasboro, Disney, PBS, and Dr. Seuss are all embracing Critical Race Theory
Toy giant Hasbro is the most recent household name to use their millions to push Critical Race Theory and the progressive agenda. Last month, Project Veritas reported a whistleblower from the company that outlined a disturbing game plan to bring the controversial and racest teaching to children as young as Kindergarten and preschool, with the help of their toys.
Package engineer David Johnson told Project Veritas President James O’Keefe during an interview “They want to introduce children into racial bias at an early age before they’re really able to understand what race and racism is.” In pursuit of their goal, Hasbro has contracted with Conscious Kids, an education, research, and policy organization that programs tiny tots on how to “disrupt racism.”
Conscious Kids Co-Founder Katie Ishizuk can be seen in a leaked video telling Hasbro employees: “at three to six months, babies are beginning to notice and already express preference by race,” and that “[Babies] as young as two are already using race to reason about people’s behaviors.” Ishizuk claimed that daycares and playgrounds are full of racist behaviors, evidenced by how tykes choose or exclude playmates.
While Hasbro isn’t the first company to impact the way our kids think, they might be the most persistent. A few months ago, the toy company was at the center of a controversy when it attempted to rebrand “Mr. Potato Head” by stripping him of his “Mr.” status. After a massive public outcry, the company decided not to reinvent the beloved toy.
Mr. Potato Head notwithstanding, the threat of woke culture surrounding children is still genuine, however. Parents who hope to bring their children the same experiences they enjoyed as a child are forced to either comply with the progressive “woke” programming coming at them from every side or to avoid many major children’s entertainment companies altogether.
A few short months after the death of George Floyd, PBS’s Sesame Street and The Cat in the Hat both released tools to help tiny tykes tackle white privilege. PBS’ Focusing on Young Learners included “Tools for Anti-Racist Teaching,” featuring Dr. Aisha White, who is also the founder of P.R.I.D.E. (which stands for Positive Racial Identity Development In Early Education). White teaches parents that kids are never too young to focus on the race of their playmates.
“Yeah, I think the first thing we need to do is to acknowledge and understand the inhumanity that has been netted out towards people of color in this country because that helps us to see why the inhumanities still exist,” White said.
Sesame Street also put out an anti-racist guide for White parents to guide them on parenting race-conscious kids. At the same time, PBS’ cartoon Arthur teaches “anti-racism” in an episode honoring the late Rep. John Lewis. Penguin Books has also created an anti-racist portal as a companion to their anti-racist baby book, written by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, which turned out to be a best-seller.
Not to be outdone, Disney came in strong when they gave a drag makeover to one of their Muppet Babies in a show targeting children as young as 3-years-old. Also strange was a Cinderella storyline that shows a beloved character who left a shoe behind at a ball and later transformed from Gonzo into “Gonzorella” saying he didn’t tell the other Muppets who he was because they “expected [him] to look a certain way.”
Anyone who thought they would be able to keep away from indoctrination by avoiding entertainment should think again. One of the countries largest online preschools, The Waterford Upstart program, has incorporated anti-racist training for parents that mirrors Hasbro’s CRT program. The program serves 90K students in 28 states like North Dakota, Utah, rural Montanna and Wyoming, Idiana, North Carolina and claims to get children ready for school by starting in Kindergarten.
“Kids are going to learn letters, sounds, rhyming. They learn how to trace letters because that’s so important, and then they learn how to put sounds together to make words and that builds into reading words and reading sentences,” said Rich Stowell, Vice President, Program participation Waterford.org.
However, the program now has a harsh racist undertone stating in their parent guide about race that “as young as 6 months can notice race-based differences, and they can internalize racial bias by the age of 2,” claiming to lean on the work of the American Academy of Pediatrics for the data. However, the quote in Waterford’s report appears to have come from a blog post on the AAP’s website written by activist doctors who have previously made it clear they want a plan that would make teaching children to see race a priority.
Waterford Institute also tackles gender bias, saying in their How to Encourage Gender Equity in the classroom guide: “did you know that children as young as four years old already express discriminatory beliefs based on gender?”
Parents’ unfortunate reality is that kids’ toys and entertainment follow the culture at a measured pace, reflecting what they believe are the concepts parents want their kids to learn. Today, we have transitioned from teaching numbers, letters, and shapes to exploring race, transgenderism, and perceived bias.
Hasbro and executives around the nation have sat in board rooms and considered making progressivism a staple in children’s lives a safe bet to take. It’s up to parents to let them know, just like they did with Mr. Potato Head, that pushing progressivism on pre-k and Kindergarten kids is neither safe nor responsible. This is just one battle in the war for the culture, but if we lose it, and by it our kids’ minds, we may well lose all the others.
