On rurality's lack of anonymity in relation to controversy over "critical race theory"

A few days ago, Terry Gross of NPR's "Fresh Air" interviewed an NBC reporter, Tyler Kingkade, who has been studying local resistance to teaching "Critical Race Theory" (CRT) in public schools.  I found this part, which presumes to say something about rural America, of particular interest.  

In a lot of these [places], [protests against teaching CRT] are getting to be pretty aggressive. And most of these disputes that we've seen and looked at are taking place in smaller towns or in suburbs. So this is not happening generally in the center of large cities. It's happening in places where everyone knows everyone. And so it gets very personal very quickly. We talked to folks in one town in Cumberland, Maine [population 7211], where one of the lead activists against critical race theory has put up photos of school board members on his front lawn, billboard-sized photos, and then allegedly booby trapped them so that no one would take it down and displayed Christmas lights over them. We've seen - in Loudoun County, Va. [population 413,000, suburban and exurban to Washington, DC], they just announced that they're going to be driving around a mobile billboard on one of those small trucks with a school board member's face on it as part of their efforts to get that school board member recalled.  (emphasis added) 

Kingkade suggests that rural lack of anonymity--what rural sociologists often call a "high density of acquaintanceship"--is driving the dynamic.  I've been thinking for a while that peer pressure influences our political views and pushes us further to the right or the left, depending on where we live.  I've gotten a lot of pushback on that notion, but this story supports my hunch:  peer pressure is at play in politics, and it may matter more in rural-ish places where folks cannot easily move into another social group. 

Another terrific aspect of this particular reporting on CRT is that it grapples with defining critical race theory and acknowledges ambiguity about meaning of CRT is contributing to the controversy.  I've been thinking lots about this myself.  Here are some salient quotes:     

GROSS:  Critical race theory is the study of systemic racism, but this movement has included the study of equity issues, about equality, under this umbrella. This movement has led to the ousting of school board members accused of supporting teaching critical race theory and the drafting of legislation to ban teaching it.

* * * 

[KINGKADE] And I think that's one of the things here that's going on is, like, there's a rush to define it, to associate critical race theory with a negative implication before anyone else can hear about it and say, well, I've heard about critical race theory and I don't really care about it, I don't mind it. But if you can introduce it, and this first time a parent hears about it, they hear about something bad happening, then maybe they'll remember that later when it's brought up as just sort of a key word that they listen to on the campaign trail in - later in 2021 for some states like Virginia, or in 2022, when we have midterm elections in Congress.

GROSS: It's such a confusing issue for some people because what's being taught in the schools isn't critical race theory, because critical race theory is something that pertains to the university level. It's, you know, it's an academic pursuit. It's not something you're going to learn in kindergarten or sixth grade or seventh grade. But the idea of racism and equity is something that is being introduced in schools. But that's not the language that the opposition is using. They're not saying we're against children learning that there's racism in American history. So do you think that the way this conservative movement is positioning and describing CRT is misleading?  

Another thoughtful perspective on the controversy over teaching CRT is here.