‘Let Them Die’: Top NAACP, PTA Official Attacks Anti-Critical Race Theory Protesters

Demonstrators gather in front of Los Alamitos Unified School District Headquarters in protest of critical race theory teachings in Los Alamitos, Calif., on May 11, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A top Virginia NAACP activist who is also a high-ranking state Parent Teacher Association (PTA) official was captured on video leading a counter-protest against parents who were demonstrating against the quasi-Marxist critical race theory being taught in schools in Fairfax County.

Michelle Leete, who is the vice president of training at the Virginia state PTA and vice president of communications for the Fairfax County PTA, was seen at a protest during a Fairfax County School Board meeting this week at the Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church, Virginia, according to Fox News.

“Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-healthcare, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let live people,” Leete told other protesters, referring to another nearby demonstration against critical race theory.

“Let them die. Don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward,” Leete added, according to video footage posted online by Asra Nomani, who helps lead an anti-CRT group Parents Defending Education. Nomani also identified the person speaking in the video as Leete, while a Twitter account that appears to be associated with Leete responded to the criticism and redirected at opponents of critical race theory.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Virginia state PTA and Fairfax County Public Schools for comment.

Fairfax County Public Schools issued a statement in response to the incident, saying it “prides itself on being an inclusive and positive organization. It is not our place to comment on the remarks made by an individual outside our organization.”

But Harry Jackson, the president-elect of Thomas Jefferson High School’s PTA, told the Daily Wire that Leete’s comments were disturbing.

“I was in shock looking at the crowd, watching Ms. Leete pander to white liberals with her hateful rhetoric,” he said.

Critical race theory, the latest flashpoint in America’s culture wars, has been the subject of scorn and protests around the United States. A growing number of parents have taken issue with teachers using critical race theory-inspired curriculum, saying it unfairly denigrates students based on their race or gender.

As such, a number of GOP-led states have passed legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory or similar ideologies about race and gender. Proponents say that it’s not Marxist and have described it as merely instructing about slavery, Jim Crow laws, or discrimination.

According to Legal Insurrection’s Criticalrace.org, the ideology is derived from the European Marxist school of critical theory and often uses Marxist jargon.

“An outgrowth of the European Marxist school of critical theory, critical race theory is an academic movement which seeks to link racism, race, and power,” the website says. “Unlike the Civil Rights movement, which sought to work within the structures of American democracy, critical race theorists challenge the very foundations of the liberal order, such as rationalism, constitutional law, and legal reasoning. Critical race theorists argue that American social life, political structures, and economic systems are founded upon race, which (in their view) is a social construct.”