When Fred Rogers shared a wading pool with François Clemmons, public pools had been legally desegregated for only five years. The underlying stigma that had justified the segregation (the notion that black people were dirty or dangerous) hadn't gone away with the passing of the law. Fred made the conscious decision to demonstrate to his viewers, on his show, that the messages some of them would be receiving from parents and authority figures were simply untrue. He did this not by telling them "Don't trust your parents, they will lie to you," but by simply modeling an alternative to a message they would receive.

It's honestly a masterful but of anti-racist messaging: instead of directly contradicting authority, provide an alternative view and challenge entrenched authority to explain it.

You didn't ask about modern anti-racism; you asked "Which version of anti-racisim did Mr. Rogers embrace?"

The right-wing abomination known as "critical race theory", as described in that Newsweek article, is that it has absolutely no connection to what real anti-racism is. The anti-CRT people—let’s call them what they really are, pro-racists—have created something from whole cloth that allows them to raise lots of money and outrage.

The two privileged white authors of the opinion piece are disingenuous, at best, as what they present as "anti-CRT" does not match the videos and witch hunts that I have observed over the last couple of years led by the same sorts of screaming white crowds as throw rocks at Ruby Bridges.

Similarly, what they are presenting as "CRT" is 100% identical to the pro-racist straw construction. It does not even remotely resemble any program that any of the many anti-racist activists I know would support.

The same people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges in 1960 are now terrified that their grandchildren are going to learn that they were people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges.

It's an interesting article because you rarely see the counter-position spelled out so clearly.

"""The CRT-approved story, in a nutshell, is that white racism is pervasive and accounts for all racial deficits and disparities. What is not being taught—what students are not exposed to, and not even allowed to hear—is the contrary position that persistent racial inequalities are oftentimes rooted in cultural differences and behavioral tendencies that are not all traceable to slavery or Jim Crow, and cannot all be solved by purging the vague category of "structural racism." """

... In other words, "The problem with CRT is it banishes the alternative explanation that races are different." In other words, anti-racism's problem is it's... Anti-racist, and doesn't give racism a seat at the table. Well, yes. We already had this argument two generations ago.

(And that's if I accept the authors' premise that CRT and anti-racism are the same thing, which they are not. CRT is a specific legal interpretation framework; the term is mis-applied to race-conscious general education).

Well, nothing having to do with the fantasies expressed in that fact-free opinion piece in that garbage outlet luring Boomers by publishing under the name of what was, decades ago, a reasonably respected print weekly.