As we all know, the American right has become obsessed with "critical race theory" and the danger it presents if it's taught to schoolchildren. It seems likely that most conservatives don't really understand what CRT is, but I think it's pointless to carp about that. What's more important is to understand what they object to, regardless of what it's called, and then respond to that. So here's a brief summary of the main things that I think conservatives mean when they denounce "critical race theory":
- Race is a key part of identity in the United States.
- Our nation was built on the back of slavery.
- Systemic racism always has been, and still is, embedded in American society.
- White people are oppressors who continue to play a role in perpetuating racism.
- Black people suffer unequal treatment in a wide variety of ways, including school discipline, criminal justice, employment, housing, and so forth.
- White people should be aware of the privilege and benefits they enjoy solely due to their skin color.
- There are "Black ways of knowing," based on lived experience, that are different from science, logic, reason, and other white constructs, but just as valid.
- Students should be taught about racism and oppression from an early age.
I don't have great hopes of getting high-quality responses to this, especially since what I really want are conservative responses, but I want to throw this out anyway. Is it a reasonable summary of what conservatives are talking about when they say "critical race theory"? Is anything important left out?
Critical race theory is just another expression of social conservatism, albeit more filled with academic jargon.
There is nothing in it that will distinguish it from the resentments rightist social conservative have about everyone else, that they're being rejected because of who they are. CRT just lucks into having an actual historical experience of that to latch on to to give it an appearance of credibility and an easily isolated and disenfranchised population to spread the grift among.
Most of this list seems pretty obvious to me, although I understand that whites are generally extremely reluctant to admit the depth and breadth of racism in history and especially present society. Nobody likes to be cast as the bad guy, and some whites feel that any admission of racism puts them in that light. That's part of the reason why these same whites prefer to define racism as an individual thing: either you are a klan member or you're fine. It's just not that simple.
The "black ways of knowing" item is the only one truly arguable, and that's because it sounds like a popular mishmash of a niche topic in academic circles, which never ends well for anyone.
" either you are a klan member or you're fine."
I think that is the opposite of the truth. There's degrees of racism. Pretty much everyone is a little racist in one way or another. There's a difference between burning crosses in a white robe chuckling at an off color joke.
That said, this CRT stuff is obviously ridiculous. Didn't know anything about it but if those bullet points KD listed are what it consists of, no wonder it's getting a bad name and being rejected by most people.
I signed up just to reply to this, because it's a wonderful example of someone who has a no reading comprehension but a TON of unearned self-confidence. Kevin was explictly providing that list as an example of how conservatives view CRT, not what CRT actually entails. And the user you were replying to was explicitly saying that there are degrees of racism but conservatives don't think there are.
It's a master class in misreading plain English.
What on Kevin's list isn't really critical race theory?
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Like anything human-built, there are different levels of complaint. But I'd summarize the intelligent end of the conservative complaints as essentially
"CRT (and grievance studies generally) are an attempt to grab more power for certain groups in society. That's politics as usual, OK, but
(a) that means it doesn't deserve any special treatment on ethical or moral grounds. It doesn't deserve a unique "criticizing our program is racist and anyone who does so will have their lives destroyed" protecton.
(b) the program justifies itself by a series of deliberate miscontruals through to outright lies regarding history, social science and much of the rest of knowledge"
Their point is that the rush to claim the CRT explains everything results in, for example, truly bad history. Against the claims of CRT regarding, eg, slavery, conservatives would say
- almost every society in history was built on slavery.
- western society was unique not in slavery, but in its rejection of slavery
- the connection between race and slavery in the US was essentially the result of the tension between the ideals of the Declaration of Independence ("All men are created equal") vs the desires of some (not ALL!) parts of US society to maintain the institution of slavery, a tension that could be resolved by categorizing africans in a separate "not part of the all men" category
- this was a contingent (and reprehensible) move, but it burned itself out after the civil war and was gone a generation or so later. Pretty much nothing about the US since then is well understood in terms of RACE; it should be understood in terms of CULTURE.
- universities are fostering deliberate stupidity (or, to be more blunt, are lying) in their constant inventions of ever more examples of "racism" in this post Civil War period. For example there's a deliberate unwillingness to understand that most of the language of that time meant CULTURE when it used the word race. Hence all this weird European literature about the differences between the French race and the German race, or the natural characteristics of the Italian race.
- much of what's interpreted as "racism" (meaning, I don't know, I guess some sort of "choose not to employ them" or "choose not to associate with them"), both then and now, was essentially a choice of wanting to associate with culture and people one understood. This was even more important in the past than it is today because cultures were even more heterogeneous than today. Dealing with a different culture in day-to-day interactions is just tough and stressful -- it's very easy to make mistakes, to insult people, to engage in courtship mistakes, etc etc.
Even things like hiring were frequently justified. Something like "Irish need not apply" sounds bad -- but it's primarily code for "Drunkards need not apply". Is that unjustified? Well, look at the actual numbers for Irish behavior/culture during the relevant period and you tell me:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compass-pleasure/201106/the-irish-ether-drinking-craze-0
Of course England had gone through its own version of this horror with gin in the 1700s, and had managed to at least bring it somewhat under control, but was well aware of just how fragile that control was.
- the claims about the uniquely awful nature of Western colonialism are likewise considered to be tendentious. I (true story) have had the unpleasant experience of arguing with someone making claims of this sort who had NO CLUE about the behavior of Japan in WW2 and, in particular, how zero knowledge of things like the invasion of China, the way in which Shanghai and Nanjing were treated, the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere, Unit 731, etc.
The CRT folks want to say that Europeans were willing to engage in and take from native Americans, Africans, or Australians, while totally ignoring that Europeans engaged in the exact same behavior against each other. Yes machine guns against Sudanese suck -- but those same machine guns were used in WW1 for 4 years. Yes poison gas against Iraqis sucked -- but that same poison gas was also used in WW1. And this wasn't a uniquely European pathology. The Bantu colonized their way through Africa beginning in the western bulge, getting all the way to South Africa, and culminating in the empire building of people like Dingaan and Shaaka. The Ottomans and all the steppe peoples built empires on violence. The only difference of the Europeans is that they were the last ones left standing once gun tech had been optimized (and not exactly last ones, the Japanese got in on the act following exactly the same script). To insist on "racism" for universal behavior is bad history and bad social science, and it's creating a generation of idiots who are so stupid they don't even realize their absolute and total ignorance of every aspect of human history. culture, and society outside the tiny sliver that is obsessed over (and incorrectly described) by the CRT crowd.
- even on ethical grounds, this is bad ethics and bad morality. The CRT stance is not "look for the most charitable explanation of behavior, and to negotiate a compromise between why the behavior upsets me even as you think it's fine"; rather it's to immediately assume bad faith, to leap at accusations, and to gleefully destroy lives based on those accusations.
One can see this in the mutual incompatibility of the demands made of others by the CRT.
A CRT individual sees nothing inconsistent in criticizing an author on even-numbered days for not including any PoC characters in their novel, then criticizing them on odd-numbered days for expropriating the PoC experience by writing inauthentically about PoC characters even though the author has not lived that life.
There's vastly more that can be said -- for example the gender equivalent of these same issues, or the way they play out in the legal arena (think about the literal meaning of the word privilege, the etymological definition and now ask what groups in the US have special laws that operate for them), or the way boundaries that used to be policed by hicks ("one drop of black blood") are now policed by PhDs ("one drop of white blood" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal )
"("All men are created equal") vs the desires of some (not ALL!) parts of US society to maintain the institution of slavery, a tension that could be resolved by categorizing africans in a separate "not part of the all men" category"
For example, the state of Oregon was definitely antislavery- so much so it passed a law forbidding ANY black person to live there.
I think what you're saying is more or less what they're reacting to, but the Tennessee legislation trying to ban it lays it out what conservatives say CRT is. It's waaaaay further from reality than you think. But, naturally, any attempt to talk about racism will be distorted to argue that it is saying one of the following.
"The rest of the amendment, filed as an amendment in the House earlier this week by Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, prohibits public or charter schools from teaching that:
- One race or sex is superior;
- Any individuals are "inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive" because of their race or sex;
- A person should receive adverse treatment due to their race or sex;
- Their moral character is determined by race or sex;
- A person bears responsibility for past actions by other members of their race or sex;
- A person should feel discomfort or other psychological distress because of their race or sex;
- A meritocracy is racist or sexist or designed to oppress members of another race or sex;
- The United States is fundamentally racist or sexist;
- Promoting the violent overthrow of the U.S. government;
- Promoting division or resentment between race, sex, religion, creed nonviolent political affiliation or class;
- Ascribing character traits, values, moral codes, privileges or beliefs to a race;
- The rule of law does not exist, but instead is a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups;
- Americans are not created equal and are not endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; or
- Governments should deny to any person within the government's jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/05/tennessee-bans-critical-race-theory-schools-withhold-funding/4948306001/?fbclid=IwAR0sqTKjJXc2ARNJuDtyvkETs7l_aaNokOLRqZYZJTHfIZO0kz-Zvg0Mev4
That all sounds entirely reasonable to me.
I think you’ve missed the heart of the truly problematic parts of the way CRT is being implemented across the country, so most of this list is really a red herring.
To me, the major issues are (1) forcing children (indeed most people) to publicly identify as “oppressor” or “oppressed” based solely on the basis of race, (2) segregating groups on the basis of race to allow for a “safe spaces” given the labels in (1) (this really happens), (3) erasing both the notion of the individual and the success of specific minority groups by pigeonholing people into an elaborate hierarchy of grievances, and finally (4) the general hostility towards religious practices.
See, e.g.-
https://www.fairforall.org/fundraiser-for-gabrielle-clark/
I think the biggest complaint conservatives have against CRT is that it starts with these two propositions:
1. America is uniquely racist to its core, and everything in American society is structurally racist
2. Western Civilization itself is defined at its essence by racism
If you accept that #1 and #2 are true, then the only thing to be done is in the name of 'anti-racism" is to completely destroy American society and Western Civilization because there is nothing worth saving in either one of them. Turns out, there's an awful lot of people on both the left and the right that think quite a bit of Western Civilization and American society are worth saving.