'Hillbilly Elegy' Author: Opponents of Critical Race Theory Are Winning

"Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance on Thursday blasted a Virginia school district that has come under fire for embracing critical race theory, saying parents who are refusing "to be controlled" and are "proud" of the country their ancestors helped build are winning the argument.

In the "Fox & Friends" interview, Vance said "one of the ways you know you're winning a debate is if they try to shut down discussion."

"We know that so many parents, Black, White, Democrats even, especially Republicans of course, they don’t like to teach their kids that this is fundamentally a terrible racist country," he said. "They don’t want this crap in their schools." 

On Tuesday night, a school board hearing in wealthy Loudoun, Virginia, was shut down after hundreds of angry parents pushed back on CRT as teaching their kids that racism in America is structural and systemic, reported Reuters, which posted video of the contentious meeting.

"I’ve never seen anything like this," a spokesman for the Loudoun County Public Schools said after deputies took two attendees out of the room in handcuffs.

"They should be allowed to express that viewpoint and I think the fact that people are trying to shut them up suggests we're actually winning," he added.  "Our side is actually winning in this, which means that in Loudoun County but also across the country we've got to keep on pressing this case, and keep on making this argument."

According to Vance, the movement against CRT was "one of the silver lines of the lockdowns maybe. Parents actually figured out what was going on in their schools."

"You don't have a country unless you can feel some sense of respect and some sense of appreciation for where you came from, for where you're going," he said.

"This idea that America is inherently racist and evil, what it takes from us is a pride of place in our own country, the place that we call home."

Being "proud of the place our parents and grandparents built should mean that we have to pushback against this stuff," he added.

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