It doesn't matter that white conservatives have no idea what CRT is. All they need to do is band together, keep calling the academic study everything it's not, and watch white supremacy do its work. There's a picture-perfect example of this happening in Traverse City, Mich., where white high school students were caught in a private Snapchat group engaging in a mock slave auction where they discussed how much they would sell and buy their Black classmates for. This prompted the school to issue an anti-racism resolution, which many white parents took issue with, unsurprisingly.

"I know how much I was sold for: one hundred dollars," 16-year-old Nevaeh Wharton, who said she was alerted to the group by a fellow student, told the Washington Post. "And in the end, I was given away for free."

The Snapchat group, titled "slave trade," also saw a student share the messages "all blacks should die" and "let's start another holocaust," according to screenshots obtained by The Washington Post. It spurred the fast-tracking of a school equity resolution that condemned racism and vowed Traverse City Area Public Schools would better educate its overwhelmingly White student body and teaching staff on how to live in a diverse country.

Events in Traverse City would demonstrate how quickly efforts to address historic disparities or present-day racial harassment in schools can become fodder for a campaign against critical race theory, fueled by White parents' growing conviction that their children are being taught to feel ashamed of their Whiteness--and their country.

The resolution--which came about through discussions between members of the district's equity task force and top school officials--didn't call for much. It declared that the Traverse City school district denounces "racism, racial violence, hate speech, bigotry, discrimination and harassment." It also called for more "comprehensive" diversity training for teachers, for school libraries to carry more books by non-white authors and for school curricula to include lessons on social equity.

But because to white people, addressing racism is the real racism--as opposed to a bunch of white students forming a fantasy slave trade club--conservative parents stood in protest against the resolution while taking another page from the white fragility playbook and declaring that if they don't personally see the racism, then it just isn't happening.

"I've never seen any sort of discrimination," Lori White (and yes--yes, she is her last name) said during a June board meeting, the Post reports. "People in Traverse City are just kind."

Parent Hannah Black (who is not her last name) claimed the resolution was "laced with critical race theory," which, of course, it isn't.