Now, THIS is disgusting. A high school English class in a Fairfax, Virginia school recently instructed students to play “privilege bingo,” in which students were told to check boxes that showed how privileged they were.

For example, there were boxes for being white, Christian, male, and able-bodied to identify whether the student was considered privileged. There was also a box for being the child of a military family.

Say what?

You are a “privileged” child if one or both of your parents are members of America’s armed forces?

I would never have thought a child is considered privileged when one of his/her parents was posted overseas possibly engaged in combat.

I’m not sure how risking one’s life in the military makes a child “privileged.” Or, for that matter, I can’t see how being white, or employed, or “cisgender,” or mentally healthy, or Christian, makes you a privileged oppressor.

But that is the essence of Critical Race Theory that posits that if you are not a minority you are “privileged” and by extension, an “oppressor.” Given that many in the military are minorities and only about 2-4 percent of the U.S. population are active members of the military, I wonder how that makes them “privileged?”

Assistant Superintendent Douglas A. Tyson of Fairfax County Public Schools told concerned parents that the screenshot in question originated from “an approved English Curriculum lesson that is centered around students selecting a ‘choice’ test and examining in detail the author’s perspective on a wide-range [sic] of issues.”

The exercise, Tyson continued, was designed for students to determine whether authors have “privilege that may or may not be present in the work” and then reflect on their own biases based on their race as well as economic and educational status.

Parents and students in Virginia who have fought critical race theory and other radical ideologies in their schools over the last two years, however, aren’t pleased.

“This is yet another district in America that is teaching children to identify themselves and treat others by characteristics that, in this case for the military thing, is absolutely meaningless,” Nicole Neily, President of Parents Defending Education, said.

Neily noted that parents are growing increasingly frustrated with the district’s handling of COVID-era schooling and the divisive curriculum that puts students in boxes.

“These are students who, at the end of the day, want to get a good grade, are picking up on these cues from their teachers, right? And so they regurgitate these talking points and things like this. And I think it’s very difficult for students to say what they need to say to get a good grade while maintaining kind of their own perspective on issues. This feels very coercive, quite honestly,” Neily said. “…Fairfax parents, obviously, have been extremely outspoken about their unhappiness with a number of elements of the school system.”

On his first day in office, Gov. Glen Youngkin announced a series of executive orders designed to curb the radicalization of the state’s public school system. One of his orders banned curriculum that claims “some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims.”

The actions include an executive order ending the use of inherently divisive concepts – including Critical Race Theory – in public education, and an executive order affirming the rights of parents to make decisions on masks in schools.

“Teaching Critical Race Theory denies our students the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves. Our children deserve far better from their education than to be told what to think,” Youngkin explained.

Despite these orders, some Northern Virginia school districts are refusing to comply. Fairfax County Public Schools announced this week that it will continue “universal mask-wearing” in its schools.

I wonder how I survived school and actually received a good education when Critical Race Theory was not part of the curriculum when I was in school back in the Pleistocene era.

Of course that curricular oversight allowed me to live my life not as an oppressor, but as a simple, loyal, and proud American–something that appears in today’s divided and perverse America to be no longer possible.