Michele Tafoya on critical race theory: ‘Breaks my heart’ kids taught ‘that skin color matters’

Former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya weighed in on critical race theory during a Fox News appearance, saying she’s disheartened her children are being taught “that skin color matters.”

Tafoya, appearing on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to discuss her shift from sports to politics, criticized the idea that critical race theory, a decades-old area of academia that examines the influence of race on U.S. law, could be included in school curricula. Several GOP-led states have moved in recent years to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools, though there is disagreement over whether it is present in secondary education.

“It breaks my heart that my kids are being taught that skin color matters. And to me if you want white people to step up, I was stepping up when I address the school and said, ‘So why are we having these picnics for families of color?’” Tafoya told host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night. 

“Why are we separating our kids? If the world is integrated, let’s continue that and and have everyone find out what we all have in common, not just what we have in common with people who look like us.”

Tafoya, a longtime sideline reporter for NBC Sports’ “Sunday Night Football,” announced on Monday her retirement from sports reporting to serve as co-chair of Kendall Qualls’s Republican gubernatorial bid in Minnesota.

She is slated to participate in the Conservative Political Action Conference later this month.

Tafoya also weighed in this week on former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick during an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” maintaining “if he really, really wanted” to be a starting NFL quarterback, “he’d be one right now, given that he had the talent.”

“But he made some business decisions … I think he knew what he was risking and I think that there are legitimate complaints about race in the NFL and everywhere else in America — but that’s not why Colin Kaepernick’s not in the NFL.”

Kaepernick, who played for the San Francisco 49ers, sparked controversy in 2016 for kneeling during the national anthem at multiple games to raise awareness over police brutality and racial inequality.