A Virginia mom who endured Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution before immigrating to the U.S. ripped a Virginia school board at a public meeting Tuesday over its stubborn support of the controversial critical race theory.
"I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools," Xi Van Fleet told the Loudoun County School Board members. "You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history."
She likened CRT, which critics deride as a form of "neo-racism," to China’s Cultural Revolution, a Mao-led purge that left between 500,000 and 20 million people dead from 1966 to 1976. The estimates vary greatly and many details have been shrouded in secrecy for decades.
Van Fleet, whose son graduated from Loudoun High School in 2015, shared some of her experience growing up in China’s Sichuan province with Fox News exclusively Wednesday evening.
The Cultural Revolution began when she was 6 years old, she said, and immediately pitted students and teachers and against one another by hanging "Big Posters" and hallways and the cafeteria where students could write criticisms against anyone deemed ideological impure.
"One of the teachers was considered bourgeoisie because she liked to wear pretty clothes," Van Fleet said. "So the students attacked her and spit on her. She was covered with spit… and pretty soon it became violence. To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here. Communist squads would raid homes and destroy any relics of China’s past culture, history, governments or religion. Everything that was considered ‘old,’ feudalist, a vase, Buddhas, everything was taken out and smashed," she said.
There were thought crimes, too.
"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 said. "There were people reporting their parents, and their parents ended up in jail."
At 26 years old, she said, she finally made it out, traveling to the U.S. – where she immediately found freedoms she had never been able to enjoy before.
"I felt like it’s such a free country, meaning I have free access to all sorts of information – books on both sides of the issues. In the current political and cultural climate in the U.S., however, I can feel some of that freedom eroding. I can’t really just say what I mean, even though the other side can say whatever," she said. "To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here."
"I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools," Xi Van Fleet told the Loudoun County School Board members. "You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history."
She likened CRT, which critics deride as a form of "neo-racism," to China’s Cultural Revolution, a Mao-led purge that left between 500,000 and 20 million people dead from 1966 to 1976. The estimates vary greatly and many details have been shrouded in secrecy for decades.
Van Fleet, whose son graduated from Loudoun High School in 2015, shared some of her experience growing up in China’s Sichuan province with Fox News exclusively Wednesday evening.
The Cultural Revolution began when she was 6 years old, she said, and immediately pitted students and teachers and against one another by hanging "Big Posters" and hallways and the cafeteria where students could write criticisms against anyone deemed ideological impure.
"One of the teachers was considered bourgeoisie because she liked to wear pretty clothes," Van Fleet said. "So the students attacked her and spit on her. She was covered with spit… and pretty soon it became violence. To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here. Communist squads would raid homes and destroy any relics of China’s past culture, history, governments or religion. Everything that was considered ‘old,’ feudalist, a vase, Buddhas, everything was taken out and smashed," she said.
There were thought crimes, too.
"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 said. "There were people reporting their parents, and their parents ended up in jail."
At 26 years old, she said, she finally made it out, traveling to the U.S. – where she immediately found freedoms she had never been able to enjoy before.
"I felt like it’s such a free country, meaning I have free access to all sorts of information – books on both sides of the issues. In the current political and cultural climate in the U.S., however, I can feel some of that freedom eroding. I can’t really just say what I mean, even though the other side can say whatever," she said. "To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here."
Comment