Perhaps the Salvation Army can be salvaged after all.
On Monday, the charity, a fixture in America’s quest to help its poor for 141 years, announced that it was pulling a politically divisive guide that advised its members on matters of race through Critical Race Theory and other woke ideologies.
The controversy around the guide, entitled “Let’s Talk About Racism,” had interfered with the Army’s efforts to assist poor people, the group’s leader told The Washington Times.
“If that document is getting in the way of the fulfillment of our mission, The Salvation Army is going to remove it,” Commissioner Kenneth Hodder, the Army’s national commander in America, said.
“Because nothing can be allowed to affect the fulfillment of that critical mission.”
The Free Press on Sunday reported that the document insisted that systemic racism was a real phenomenon that had to be overcome.
Its members could help that individually, the document said, once they “lament, repent and apologize for biases or racist ideologies held and actions committed.”
The sources for the Army’s thinking about addressing this problem included a who’s who of notorious race-baiters, such as Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Eric Dyson, and Robin DiAngelo.
“Let’s Talk About Racism” advised readers on what they could do to overcome their “whiteness.”
They included steps such as stop denying the existence of individual and systemic racism, as well as white privilege, and quit being defensive about being called a racist.
The guide also recommended that readers check whether they surround themselves with enough minorities, stop asking minorities what constitutes racism, and understand that being “colorblind” is not enough, as “being colorblind ignores the discrimination our Black and Brown brothers and sisters face and does not allow us to address racism properly.”
The Times reported that more than 14,000 people endorsed an online petition urging the Army to go the other way, and denounce CRT.
The organization revealed that it understood where inaction on its part may lead – even if, as Hodder told the Times, the claims of the Army’s anti-white stance were “unfounded.”
“When The Salvation Army is subjected to sensationalist claims, such as have appeared recently, it causes confusion in the minds of many who would otherwise give,” he said. “And that will have a direct effect upon our ability to meet all the needs that we anticipate meeting this year.”
The controversy over the document erupted as the Army and its platoons of volunteer bell-ringers are launching its annual Red Kettle fundraising drive. The Times noted the Army’s goal this year to raise $175 million for its programs.
Kenny Xu, president of an anti-CRT group called Color Us United, organized the petition drive. He said he wanted 25,000 signatures to help drive home the point about the toxic effect of CRT.
“The Salvation Army may have thought that CRT or their ‘Let’s Talk About Racism’ curriculum is innocuous, or consequenceless,” Xu told the Times.
“It is not. CRT is a parasitic ideology that will suck dry good-hearted efforts to solve the problems we have in America and put them into racial division instead.”
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Smart move because I normally give when I walk by a red kettle, but didn’t yesterday after I read about their CRT training.