GUILFORD — If you have ever hiked on Mount Mansfield, you are probably aware of the Wampahoofus Trail, and maybe you've even heard stories of the elusive Wampahoofus creature.
When I was in college, spending my summers as a camp counselor, the unknown Wampahoofus was an indispensable ally in my efforts to keep groups of energetic 11-year old boys from scattering across Underhill State Park. Told from the campfire at night, scary tales of the creature guaranteed my campers would be sticking to the trail the next day.
Now, the best way to tell a good Wampahoofus story is not to tell too much of a story at all or to get too committed to facts and details. The intent is for each listener to create their own scary version of the creature, built on imagination with an effort fueled by a lack of real facts.
This is where I learned the power of using the rhetorical question and of popular tropes. You know how spiders have those giant fangs for sucking out bodily fluid? You know how bears have razor-sharp claws that are a foot long? To say no was admitting that you were learning something new about spiders, bears, and the Wampahoofus.
The Wampahoofus at its best was the composite of a personal palette of fears. No one had seen one so it could be anything. And the only consistency was in that fear that it was intended to generate: spider fangs one night and shark jaws the next.
The vagueness also allowed me to seize on chance events to further prove the creature's existence. The sounds echoing up from the Jericho firing range became an enraged roar. A cave in a distant cliff was surely a dark lair. Even a moment of silence around the campfire could be filled with ominous danger.
Do you know that feeling like something is watching you from out of the dark? Nothing that could be really proven or disproven, but those kids were going to stay on that trail.
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Nationally and in our own state, the Right's corruption of the label of “critical race theory” seems remarkably similar to my use of the Wampahoofus.
Actual details about the theory or solid facts are purposefully avoided. The imagination is encouraged to run free on rhetorical questions and tropes about Marxism, America haters, anti-whiteness, and child indoctrination.
Critical race theory becomes that scary monster lurking in our schools. Unconstrained by fact or common definition, evidence of its existence is said to be found everywhere. The youth campfire setting has been replaced by the adult information session, but the monster-creating dynamics are the same.
Of course, the differences are essential. Critical race theory actually exists as a legitimate field of inquiry. It is a graduate-level examination of the role that institutions play in perpetuating systemic racism.
In seizing on the name, the Right can both attack an academic field that is trying to resolve racism and undermine parents' confidence in public education.
Where my Wampahoofus was meant for 11-year-old boys, the Right's version of critical race theory targets all of us, trying to limit an American democratic work in progress even as it seeks to destroy trust in the public education system.
One of the scariest horror tropes of all is when we realize that the monster is not out in dark. It is sitting in the info session creating the stories.