The critical battle of racial theory spills over into the markup of the defense bill:

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GOP lawmakers – including Republican Study Board Chairman Jim Banks of Indiana and Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee – have supported amendments to the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a bill of large-scale defense that authorizes spending levels and sets priorities for the US military.

Critical Race Theory recognizes that systemic racism is a part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to thrive. While the theory was launched decades ago to examine how laws and systems promote inequality, it has taken on new urgency since a spate of African-American murders by police officers last year, which led to a national race calculation. Conservatives, including Banks, have criticized the concept as un-American.

“All of us in this room know that this is the greatest country in the history of this world. Are we perfect? ​​No. Is our history perfect? ​​Of course not. But there is nothing that comes close to what we have in America. And it is not tenable to say anything else to our troops. In fact, it is dangerous. “

Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida called the critical race theory “poison.”

“It alters our fellow Americans,” Gaetz said. “It’s not what we need in our military, in our schools, in our lives, or anywhere in a great nation.”

Democratic Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia, a United States Naval Academy graduate and Navy veteran, delivered one of the most forceful scoldings of the night, lambasting her “completely unserious” colleagues for offering amendments that “are a waste of time and don’t do a damn thing to improve our national security.”

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“We sat here and debated critical breed theory for an hour and 18 minutes,” Luria said. “That’s two and a half times the 29 minutes we spent increasing the defense budget by $ 24 billion, an amendment that actually provides a real deterrent to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Luria was referring to more than a dozen Democrats on the committee who joined Republicans in easily approving a GOP measure raising the Pentagon’s budget by $ 24 billion earlier in the committee’s markup.

Other Democrats stressed the importance of teaching history as well as fighting racism, but questioned the relevance of the whole debate, noting that critical race theory was not a concept that the Ministry of Defense has officially adopted or promoted.

“It will have a chilling effect,” said committee chairman Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington state, of the amendments. “And for what? To prevent the military from indoctrinating people into something that they don’t indoctrinate people with. That is why raising these issues is both harmful, in a way harmful and unnecessary at the same time. . “

Smith added that passing the amendments “would discourage the military from trying to address issues of diversity and racism.”

“We have to teach the truth about American history. All of American history, including slavery, including Jim Crow,” Democratic Representative Steven Horsford of Nevada said. “And by being honest about our past, we can actually teach the hard truths about our country.”

CNN’s Faith Karimi contributed to this report.

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