Woman who survived Mao's purge compares critical race theory in US schools to China's Cultural Revolution in scathing speech

NEWS

PAUL SACCA

JUNE 10, 2021

   

Woke leftists have been pushing critical race theory in public education, which has prompted many to compare CRT to cultural Marxism reminiscent of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. One woman who actually survived the decade-long Chinese sociopolitical movement sees frightening similarities between critical race theory and Mao's violent purge. The Chinese-American immigrant skewered a Virginia school board this week for pushing critical race theory on children. 

Xi Van Fleet was 6-years-old when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, and she distinctly remembers how toxic the environment of Mao's Communist China was at the time. She recalls that students and teachers were pitted against each other by hanging posters in "hallways and the cafeteria where students could write criticisms against anyone deemed ideological impure," according to Fox News.

During Tuesday's public meeting for the Loundon County School Board, Van Fleet voiced her concerns over the current "progressive" ideology and parallels to Chairman Mao's genocidal rule that left between 500,000 and 20 million people dead between 1966 and 1976. 

"I've been very alarmed by what's going on in our schools," Van Fleet told the school board members. "You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history."

"Growing up in Mao's China, all of this seems very familiar," Van Fleet, who fled from China at the age of 26, said. "The Communist regime used the same critical theory to divide people. The only difference is they used class instead of race."

"During the Cultural Revolution, I witnessed students and teachers turn against each other," Van Fleet, whose son graduated from Loudoun High School in 2015, added. "We changed school names to be politically correct." 

She recalls that one of the teachers was considered "bourgeoisie" because she "liked to wear pretty clothes." The class warfare caused students to spit on the teacher, "She was covered with spit… and pretty soon it became violence."

"We were taught to denounce our heritage. The Red Guards destroyed anything that is not communist…statues, books and anything else," she continued. "We were also encouraged to report on each other, just like the Student Equity Ambassador program and the bias reporting system."

"This is indeed the American version of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution," she said. "The critical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our school."

Following her scathing speech regarding critical race theory, Van Fleet walked off the stage to applause and cheers from fellow parents. 

"I just want Americans to know that their privilege is to be here living in America, that is just the biggest privilege," Van Fleet told Fox News on Wednesday. "I do not think a lot of people understand. They are thinking they are doing the right thing, 'be against racism' sounds really good. But they are basically breaking the system that is against racism."

"We were asked to report if we hear anything about someone saying anything showing that there's a lack of complete loyalty to Mao," she recalled. "There were people reporting their parents, and their parents ended up in jail."

The immigrant from China's Sichuan province said that critical race theory is an effort to transform classrooms into "indoctrination camps."

"To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here," Van Fleet said. 

The Loudon County has been attacked by other parents in recent months. 

Last month, parents launched an ad campaign to tackle the school system teaching the critical race theory and oust members who promoted the controversial ideology. 

Also in May, a woman slammed the Loudoun County School Board for pushing CRT, and she compared it to a "tactic used by Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan on slavery very many years ago to dumb down my ancestors so we could not think for ourselves."

In January, an irate parent lambasted school officials for not reopening schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Christian physical education teacher, Byron "Tanner" Cross, was placed on administrative leave last month after he delivered a speech that declared "a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it's against my religion. It's lying to a child, it's abuse to a child, and it's sinning against our God." Cross was speaking at the Loudoun County school board meeting regarding new transgender policies.