Black Man Trashes Critical Race Theory in Viral Video Watched 2 Million Times

A video of a man strongly criticizing the idea of teaching critical race theory (CRT) at a school board meeting in Illinois has been viewed 2 million times on Twitter.

Ty Smith, a Black man, made the comments at a meeting of Illinois' District 87 School Board, according to a report from Cities 929, a radio station where Smith also hosts a talk show.

Smith's show is called "Cancel This" and he also has a YouTube channel where he previously posted mostly reaction videos, but recently began sharing his political commentary.

The video was shared by Benny Johnson, chief creative officer of conservative student organization Turning Point USA. It had been viewed 2 million times by Friday morning.

"When you talk about Critical Race Theory, which is pretty much going to be teaching kids how to hate each other, how to dislike each other," Smith told the school board.

"It's pretty much what its all gonna come down to. You're going to deliberately teach kids 'this white kid right here got it better than you because he's white' and you're gonna tell a white kid 'the Black people are all down and suppressed.'"

"How do I have two medical degrees if I'm sitting here oppressed?" Smith said.

Smith said that Black people are being told that White people will keep them down. He said that this hadn't been his experience despite facing difficulties in his life.

"Not one white person ever came to me and said, 'Well son, you're not going to get anywhere,'" Smith said.

"Black folks are getting told by other Black folks, 'you're never going to be able to get out there in the world because white folks are never going to let you get anywhere, the white man is going to keep you down,'" he went on.

"How did I get where I am right now if some white man kept me down?" Smith said, saying he was now in charge of some white people. Smith said that CRT could "reverse" Dr. Martin Luther King's aim that people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

According to the report from Cities 929 on June 10, a local teacher, Suzie Hutton, and student Yvin Chin responded to Smith's remarks at the school board meeting, with Hutton saying CRT wasn't being taught in schools.

Chin defended CRT, saying: "So for the people here who say they have never been called racist, Critical Race Theory is not calling you and your children racist."

"In fact it is doing the exact opposite. It is saying that we understand you do not have malicious intent. It means the people hundreds of years ago, who lived in a very different United States, set up systems that were intentionally designed so we did not know about them," she said.

Critical race theory examines the ways in which race and racism intersect with culture, law and politics. The suggestion that CRT could be taught in schools has been the subject of significant criticism in recent weeks, including from elected Republicans.

Newsweek asked Ty Smith for comment.