In recent years, awareness of the disastrous and harmful doctrine of Critical Race Theory (CRT) has grown across the U.S., and many concerned citizens, parents, and state and local government officials have endeavored to rein it in. Countless news items have shed light on the extensive scope of CRT in American education, government, business, and culture. Now, at least one survivor of the Chinese cultural revolution is warning that CRT is taking America down the same path as Chairman Mao took her native country of China.

Xi Van Fleet is a Chinese American citizen residing in Virginia’s infamous Loudoun County. She is also a mom and a survivor of the Maoist purge in China during the 1960s and 1970s. She was just six years old when the purge began, but she escaped to the U.S. in 1986 at the age of 26.

Van Fleet was a player during the parent uprising in Loudoun County in 2021 and 2022, testifying against the teaching of CRT and warning of its similarity to the tactics employed by the Chinese Communists, which she experienced first-hand during her early life. (See more on the Loudoun County controversies in Education Reporter, October and November 2021.)

“I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools,” Van Fleet told members of the school board in 2021. “You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history. This is indeed the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution,” she added, in reference to the Mao Zedong-led purge that left between 500,000 and 20 million people dead during the period 1966 to 1976.

Member of 1776 Action

Van Fleet is currently a fellow at 1776 Action, an organization spawned by President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was created to “restore honest, patriotic education,” and which President Biden promptly abolished when he took office. The 1776 Action group provides support for the “grassroots patriotic moms and dads” who reject the racial, sexual, and socio-emotional indoctrination in the schools, and who want school choice to be the rule throughout the land.

Recently, Van Fleet took public issue with Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is famous for her role in the controversial 1619 Project. In conjunction with New York Times’ authors and with the news giant’s assistance and blessing, Jones rewrote American history to reflect the claims of CRT proponents. She claimed on Twitter that the mere presence of black people in the U.S. is the "greatest rebuke to the narrative of American exceptionalism."

But Van Fleet corrected Jones on Twitter, and in an interview with the Washington Examiner, she debunked Jones’ “assertion about the presence of black people rebuking the narrative of American exceptionalism, asserting that the presence of immigrants is ‘proof of American Exceptionalism’ rather than a refutation. She pointed out that, as immigrants, both she and Jones “are the proof of American Exceptionalism.”

Van Fleet believes it’s important to defend this country and that our “guarantee of natural rights” is in stark contrast to Maoist China, “where you can only think the way you’re allowed to think. The lives of all citizens are controlled. “There’s no individual freedom ... no individual success.”

She continues:

• The problem today is that the people haven't been taught real history. People haven't been taught what communism is all about. That's why when communism showed up at our front door in a different kind of a disguise, people have no clue what it is. We have so many examples right in front of our eyes that people [of all races] have succeeded.

The harms of CRT

Many states have attempted to restrict the teaching of CRT, but school districts and even individual teachers have found ways to circumvent the laws. In Arizona, a law banning “teachings that judge or blame people on the basis of race” was signed in 2021 by then-Governor Doug Ducey but was later struck down by the state’s Supreme Court. More recently, GOP legislators in Arizona passed a bill that “would have limited school discussions on race and ethnicity,” but Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed it, and the legislature did not have enough votes for an override.

Nonetheless, Conservative Journal.org reports that the Arizona Department of Education has established an “Empower Hotline,” which parents and citizens can use “to report K-12 class curriculum and lessons they consider ‘inappropriate.’ The hotline is said to have been initiated by Republican State Superintendent for Public Instruction, Tom Horne, whom conservatives applauded as one of the few bright spots in Arizona’s controversial November election. Horne campaigned “on a platform to fight critical race theory and prevent liberal indoctrination in schools. He believes classroom materials that focus on race or ethnicity, promote gender ideology, and social emotional learning detract from teaching standards.” The purpose of the new hotline is to allow residents “to voice their concerns about such lessons.”

Doubtless Xi Van Fleet would applaud Horne’s initiative. She told the Independent Women's Forum a year ago that CRT “is indeed the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The only difference is that [they] used class instead of race... [C]ritical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our schools.”

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