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?
When conservatives object to 'black ways of knowing' is this actually a thing black people think, or are they projecting their own inner nonsense of how social conservatives are mystically chosen to rule all others and if you don't go along with it you are offending against all of nature, god and the universe?
It's called "standpoint epistemology" and it's something that academic-influenced leftists absolutely think. They really (and I know mainstream leftists don't understand how far out people on the left get) genuinely reject reason and science. They will sell it by using softer or more subjective examples to seem reasonable, but they ultimately believe that science is just a made-up myth (myth of the enlightenment, from Adorno and Horkheimer) and that a knowledge someone else can come up with via "other ways of knowing" (which can't be assessed via empiricism and reason) would be even more valid, if that person is black, a woman, etc.
It sounds like an aesthetic of ignorance that might as well be taken up by Marjorie Taylor Greene, or a religious cult.
Considering she loves pumping illegals into the country, she should start with them
I was thinking of Governess Moonbeam Marianne Williamson & her crystals, or Alex Jones & the essential oils hocked on InfoWars.
Indeed so.
But when the entire machinery of a group is focussed against MTJ and not against the nonsense within their ranks, that's a pretty strong signal that tribalism, rather than the rejection of idiocy, is the motivating force behind this behavior...
And who are these "academic-influenced leftists" who are saying this? Sounds a lot like a strawman to me.
The folks with the weird philosophies are generally "advocating without advertising" (because they don't have a normal liberal's belief in "honesty"), but basically anyone who takes these classes and believes what they're taught will be working from standpoint theory and other "fashionable nonsense", a survey of which can be found at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology
You sure you understand these people correctly. One of the problem with academics (the left very much included) is the tendency to write in a jargon that is accessible to experts only (sfor subjects like quantum mechanics or particle physics or even thermodynamics this is unavoidable but for economy or sociology it is truly a nuisance).
At any rate the real point is this: Archimedes' point (from which the world can be leveraged out of its bearings) does not exist. Leftists generally accept this fact, conservatives bend themselves into pretzels trying to deny it. If you do accept this fact no knowledge is 100.00% certain. Philosophic humility. Doesn't mean that these people refuse to be vaccinated for idiotic reasons (to pick one example of worldly knowledge that we all know can be relied on as a practical matter).
You can try to understand these people honestly. But the simple fact is that every time you try to grant them a charitable interpretation, they turn around, bite you, and verify that the uncharitable interpretation was in fact correct.
You can see this in the way that they insist on incompatible demands, depending on the circumstances -- what matters is not the demand, but they way it can be used as a weapon.
I gave one example below, of white authors trying to include (or avoiding) the use of PoC characters. One sees a different example in medicine where, again depending on the circumstances, it will either be demanded that medicine be race-neutral or it will be complained that medicine makes no attempt to take race into account.
You are assuming mistake theory. These people operate on conflict theory.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/
That's fine, they can operate their politics however they want. But it means that ALL they are doing is acting politically, they're not engaged in some moral crusade. And those of us who prioritize truth over political expediency owe these people and their agenda NOTHING on moral grounds.
If I understand what you are saying, "these people" are the CRT people, I'm with you. I care and dislike the CRT people because they are taking things that we care very much about and are distorting them unrecognizably into hate and antagonism.
The other "these people", the Trump supporters, have their own issues, but we need an opposition party, so they don't bother me nearly as much.
Standpoint epistemology is actually fine in theory. For instance, it really is the case that a bunch of white people aren't necessarily going to understand the full extent of the problems of police abuse of Blacks. This is why diversity is important.
But yes, there's a version of it that goes beyond just saying "hey, we need to listen to the lived experience of oppressed people" and gets into science denial ("science is a white male capitalist exploitative enterprise!") and folk wisdom. And that FORM of standpoint epistemology isn't really a great idea.
I haven't really followed CRT, ways of knowing, or whatever conservatives are on about, but I have seen some Twitter beefs over the neutrality of science and empiricism, and it usually boils down to the fact that scientific evidence can be biased, racially and in other ways. There's a difference between science as a concept and science in how it is practiced, and a lot of defenders of racism like to blur those lines. Just because you have a number to back you up doesn't mean it's a good number, and science done by racists (or even just within racially unbalanced societies) will likely absorb some racial biases.
It doesn't mean it should be thrown out, or that ideas without evidence are necessarily valid (I agree, leftism and even academia can twist themselves into weird knots) or that all science should be discounted, but it's also a good idea to be a little skeptical where there are known biases lurking.
There is a great deal of projection. These are the same right-wingers who race to restrict voting rights because they “perceived” the 2020 election to be unfair. They couldn’t prove fraud in 60+ court cases, but that didn’t stop them from citing polls showing how Republicans “felt.”
The idea that right-wingers are dedicated to factual truth and objectivity is patently ludicrous. Colbert had it right: they are dedicated to “truthiness.”
For instance, your white male way of thinking that light is photons needs to be challenged. https://decolonizinglight.com/
Well, thanks for explaining what I don't mean.
This makes no sense. Kevin begins by saying that it’s pointless to demand or even expect conservatives to explain “critical race theory”. After which Kevin acknowledges that he doesn’t know exactly what conservatives are objecting to but the offers several ideas of what might be bothering them.
And he finishes by admitting that he really isn’t sure what conservatives mean when the talk about “critical race theory” which is the reason why it’s sensible, even necessary, to demand that conservatives express themselves clearly rather than ranting angrily while good moderate liberals like Keven make suggestions about what conservatives really mean. My own feeling is that if that can’t explain what they’re really trying to say, conservatives bad faith should be exposed rather than patronized and they should be told to shut up.
Thank you Mitch! Conservatives are in their own little bubble ranting and raving about some imagined thing yet they cannot explain why in coherent fact based sentences what their objection to Critical Race Theory is.
Excuse me -- exactly what made you such an expert on what conservatives can or can't explain or imagine? You insist on the importance of Standpoint Theory, but you fantasize that you are an expert on the other that is Conservatism while actually knowing FSCKALL about it. You snicker at Fox News, imaging that is all of conservatism -- exactly how does that make you better than someone snickering at a minstrel show, or a rap video, and imagining that represents the entirety of black culture?
Read John McWhorter. Read Thomas Sowell. Both smart American blacks who have opinions about this phenomenon. Or read Christopher Caldwell's book on the legal aspects.
I don't think the point of view of "conservatives" is so much rational as emotional. I don't think they hear -- or think about (or at all, but I digress) -- a list of specific propositions that might be tested factually. I think instead they react to a perception that "critical race theory" is intellectual elitism, and that those elitists think I'm a dumb racist, when I do just fine thank you, and There's Not A Racist Bone In My Body™.
Or to be more blunt, don't fall for the right-wing media fixation on those words. FFS Kevin, you're a marketing guy! How can you possibly suggest that the right way to approach a gauzy advertising campaign is by analyzing it rationally?
Sounds like the GQP lives thru a white way of knowing.
Essentially this.
How is this different from someone like Pat Robertson - someone whom Republicans took seriously in his Presidential run - declaring that natural events and disasters are zGods way of punishing the US for letting Gays go to Disneyland or some other equally ridiculous reason?
Well do you take seriously the claims of a War on Women or a War against Blacks? You think those claims and the hyperbolic language around them are justified?
There's your answer. Most people are morons. Most people are willing to excuse moronic behavior FROM THEIR TEAM on the grounds that, for one reason or another, it's justified.
The question is not whether you want to be on Team Red or Team Blue; it's whether you want to be on Team Moron or Team Bright.
I think your list of ideas is a pretty reasonable summary of current enlightened thinking about race in America, but sorry to say, it reads like just boring old liberalism, not CRT.
I wish I could say that all the objections to CRT are just wacko right-wing theorizing, but actually there is a lot of CRT or CRT-affiliated stuff that reads like wacko left-wing theorizing.
The most objectionable claim that CRT advances is that America is a white supremacist society, which takes an incredibly expansive definition of "white supremacist" to swallow. (Hard to imagine Jefferson Davis looking at Barack Obama and thinking, "Success at last!") Needless to say, this is at the top of conservative objections to CRT, although it doesn't thrill a lot of us liberals either.
And yes, some practitioners of CRT really do suggest splitting kids into "affinity groups" -- which seems a lot like segregating them by race -- and telling white kids that not only does their whiteness make them oppressors by nature, but that any objection to being called a racist because of their skin color shows their "white fragility."
Needless to say, there's a lot of bad stuff for Black kids too, including teaching them that promptness, the written word, individualism, logic, and perfectionism are "white" traits. It's also not great for Asian kids, who are told that they're "white adjacent" and therefore underserving of whatever success they get. (Jews, as usual, are screwed under this theory. We're white enough to be oppressors, but not oppressed enough to be victims, which shows an, ahem, unusual grasp of history for an academic theory.)
In other words, a lot of it seems to boil down to racial stereotyping, except in a way that's supposed to be ... noble. White people are oppressors, BIPOCs are eternal victims, it was ever thus and thus it shall ever remain. And it's being used to justify everything from getting rid of accelerated classes to eliminating standardized testing.
However, I have to stress -- this is the worst of the stuff. There are plenty of reasonable ideas about how to advance diversity and fight racism being circulated, some of them under the umbrella of CRT and some not.
But the very jargon-filled nature of CRT means that the worst of the thinking is going to be the most identifiable as CRT, and grist for the conservative mill. Don't want to raise taxes to pay for better schools? Blame the CRT crowd, who are calling you white supremacists anyway.
Of course, sooner or later, CRT will just be a conservative bugbear, and they'll no longer even have to tangentially relate it to anything they object to. Coal mines shutting down? It's all CRT! I mean, you can't beat back the crazy. But CRT does seem to be handing them ammunition needlessly.
+1 on this.
^^^This. Just like political correctness is mostly just figuring out how to be polite to people, CRT really does provide a view that is useful in examining race relations. It's just that it is just a tool, and it breaks when trying to use it as a whole system.
The biggest objection I have is the focus on filtering people by skin color. It's just old style racism with a new veneer being pushed by rich white people who think they can escape the consequences. As usual, the poors pay for the sins of the rich.
And the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose nature of the white supremacy/fragility attack means you can just f right off.
I believe that's called colorism.
CRT grew out of CLS, critical legal studies, that focused on how the laws were constructed to favor the status quo and unequal outcomes for marginalized groups. It started in the 1970s. Critical Race Theory is essentially this applied to society as a whole focused on race instead of just the laws.
It's an analytical framework so being mad at it is nonsensical.
That said it's undeniable that in general our society favors white males consistently over anyone else. Some of that is personal racial bias, but some of that is how our system was constructed. Does that make the society white supremacist? I think whatever your answer to that, it makes our society one that needs some changes.
Being mad at ideas is always silly, but there are ideas that promote human flourishing (like liberal democracy) and ideas that do not (like Marxism). CRT is in the latter category. A society based on CRT ideology would be oppressive and poor, like the former Soviet Union.
A process that explores the way our society is organized to favor some over others is detrimental to human flourishing?
I would have guessed it grew out of finding some way to rationalize the Nation of Islam.
In having laws constructed in favor of the status quo racism becomes a side effect, not the express purpose. CRT seems aimed at creating a framework of inherent division and ineradicable conflict.
This seems essentially reasonable. Almost all academic disciplines can seem kind of goof-ball when viewed from the outside.
Not being a conservative (but some of my not-best friends are conservative), I would add to Kevin's list that one fundamental objection to CRT by some conservatives (people I know, and at least one public conservative, Tucker Carlson) is that CRT denies that white people are inherently superior. That is a pretty fundamental non-liberal objection to CRT.
I think a helpful way to dispassionately critique CRT as an American is to simply grab a few other countries out of a hat and apply the theory to them.
Clearly the "majority culture" (what CRT identifies as race) in other countries almost always has a strong desire to perpetuate itself, and generally craps on it's minorities to some degree as a result.
Do we consider the Japanese to be "Japanese supremacists" when they jealously guard their culture? Should they be taught that they should feel bad about their privilege compared to white expats? Or is this pretty much the accepted nature of humanity everywhere but within the United States?
This is far too orderly, substantive and rational an explanation of what infuriates Trump Republicans. They reject any suggestion that white Americans are racists, they have a vague idea that critical race theory incorporates the notion that white Americans are racists, and therefore they object violently to it being taught to their children.
Well, since 'racism' is the summum malum of 21st century America, it is natural that white Americans reject being labelled as such with zero evidence of individual guilt.
And I don't know what that 'violently' is. Anti CRT candidates just won in a large suburban TX schoolboard...but they did so peacefully through a real election.
Ah, yes, I remember John Mc Cain's eight years as president as well.
Republicans believe that the only “real” elections are ones that they win. If they lose it’s a deep state conspiracy and must be overturned by “patriots”.
Russia Russia Russia! Diebold Diebold Diebold!
Way to miss the point. CRT does not assert white Americans are racists.
Some of CRT's most outspoken practitioners disagree with you, kenalovell.
"I need White people to understand that all White people are racist."
"If you're a white person in America, social justice educator Robin DiAngelo has a message for you: You're a racist, pure and simple, and without a lifetime of conscious effort you always will be."
> But CRT does seem to be handing them ammunition needlessly.
Who cares? I mean that seriously. They will literally just make shit up.
What you mean to say is that you personally object to it. And that's fine. I see it as just a variant of nutpicking. CRT is a handful of people talking mostly to each other.
Worrying what Republicans think about just about anything is a waste of time. I'd be willing to wager money (not much, but some) that Stephen Miller is the only national-stage Republican who could actually accurately describe the theory. (Not that he would.) Maybe a couple aids. But they're rejecting it because that's their chosen name for a list of things that looks, yes, something like Kevin's up there.
I'll take a stab at this. I don't consider myself a conservative, but I read widely on both the left and right, and although my politics is overall left, I agree with conservatives on some issues. I also live in an area where there are many people with conservative view points. So I have a sense of what conservatives think, not based on Twitter.
Race is a key part of identity in the United States.
##Undoubtedly this is descriptively true. But conservatives think this is a bad thing--and on this I agree with them. I was a civil rights activist in the late 1960's and I believed I was struggling to achieve a society in which race didn't matter, not one where it is central to people's identities. When race is a key part of identity, it serves to pull people apart and create conflict.
Our nation was built on the back of slavery.
##This is an overstatement. Yes, slavery played an important role in our national history, but many other forces and things contributed to the development of the United States. Conservatives perceive this as a slanted perspective that overlooks the other things.
Systemic racism always has been, and still is, embedded in American society.
##Some conservatives would disagree with this; others would not.
White people are oppressors who continue to play a role in perpetuating racism.
##Definitely objectionable to conservatives, and another one where I agree with them. Plenty of white people died fighting against the south in the Civil War. White people were killed in the deep south in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. White people do benefit from oppressive aspects of the current system, but, that doesn't mean that they seek to perpetuate that system. Complex systems have a lot of inertia, as well as groups with vested interests in keeping the status quo. Change requires struggle and doesn't come quickly or easily.
Black people suffer unequal treatment in a wide variety of ways, including school discipline, criminal justice, employment, housing, and so forth.
##You will find conservatives who object to this, but I think most serious people of any political persuasion acknowledge that this is true.
White people should be aware of the privilege and benefits they enjoy solely due to their skin color.
##Conservatives find this offensive, and this is another one where I agree. I have led a highly privileged life--but it isn't because I'm white. It's because my father was rich. Yes, it's true that I don't get hassled by the police when I walk down the street. And, yes, that's because I'm white. But that's not privilege. That's the right and due of every person. The fact that others are oppressed does not make me privileged. That's a serious distortion of the term privilege. When you refer to that as privilege, the implication is that the solution is to have the police hassle whites the same way they currently hassle blacks.
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.
##First of all, logic and reason are not "white" constructs. They can be traced back to ancient civilizations whose people were not white. And as far as I know, people from all cultures and civilization use reason and logic. Science is largely a product of western civilization in the last few centuries, and was mostly produced by white people, most of them men. Of course, more recently the science workforce has both diversified and globalized considerably. But science has given us a more than doubling of life expectancy and a standard of living that even the wealthiest of people from ancient times would envy. So I, for one, reject the notion that anybody's "way of knowing" is just as valid as science. That includes white people who are ignorant of science. Science stands out, in my view, as the human race's greatest achievement. Yes there are aspects of life that have not yielded to scientific inquiry--and in those areas, people of different backgrounds may have different and equally valid ways of knowing about those.
Students should be taught about racism and oppression from an early age.
##Again, you can find conservatives who object to this, but I think the mainstream conservative view is to say yes, but those things should not be over-emphasized. And, in particular, they should also be taught about the strides that have been made in reducing racism and oppression over the centuries, and especially in the last 50 years. We still have farther to go, and perhaps we will never reach the goal of fully eliminating racism and oppression, but to deny that much has already been accomplished is to promote a competition between the perfect and the merely improving that can only end in nihilism.
"Yes, it's true that I don't get hassled by the police when I walk down the street. And, yes, that's because I'm white. But that's not privilege. That's the right and due of every person. The fact that others are oppressed does not make me privileged. That's a serious distortion of the term privilege. When you refer to that as privilege, the implication is that the solution is to have the police hassle whites the same way they currently hassle blacks."
As far as specious reasoning goes, this fails because it's too silly to even momentarily pass for being reasonable.
Ironically, this "logic" illustrates why some people might regard logic as a white construct: too often it's sophistry used to prop up dubious assumptions.
I think this arguement is actually a large part of the difficulty.
What exactly does privilege mean?
Is it something that goes beyond what one deserves? A uniquely elevated status that no reasonable person could ever feel they achieved solely on merit? If that is the case, then talking about being able to walk down the street without harassment or not being raped as privilege is not going to sit well with people.
What a lot of people call privilege is what a lot of other people call basic human rights in a just society. In that context, statements about stamping out privilege or checking your privilege sound deeply unappealing.
Meanwhile, other common uses of privilege - it's a privilege to be elected president, it's a privilege to be born into a wealthy family, etc. - don't equate at all to basic human rights.
Making "privilege" do double linguistic duty was always going to cause confusion and invite resentment. But the left seems to love picking terminology that seems designed to confuse the masses, and then complain when it does so.
Access to basic rights of a just society in a nonjust society is the privilege.
It's Clyde & those who look like him receiving those rights while those duskier than Clyde don't (because they're duskier).
Thank you. It was an otherwise interesting summary marred by a ridiculous piece of counter-factual reasoning.
Sorry, this is ridiculous. If you are treated with courtesy and other people are not: This is the very definition of privilege.
That's ridiculous.
If you're going to say something is wrong you have to actually say why.
The idea of a [insert cultural paradigm] way if knowing has nothing to do with race & everything to do with Dunning-Kruger. It's just a more academically-centered Ewing Theory (which ***IS*** racist), Bechdel Test (which is a punchline to an observational humor joke that somehow became entertainment law), & the collective works of Malcolm Gladwell.
It's half-baked hypothesizing that skipped the testing stage, never got reviewed, & got passed all the way to law of nature. It's a Prager U. for the left.
You could make this list a LOT shorter:
We conquered racism in the 1960's. It no longer exists. To say it does is racist against white people.
Martin Luther King, Jr., died so we could be colorblind.
Good summary! It lacks detail, which seems to be the way the WhiteRight sees things, and paints them as the *real* victims.
Is it fair to say that 'the Right' is obsessed with CRT when the Left has been pushing it into schools, corporate board rooms and HR, unto NYT best sellers lists etc.
I mean, this is typical. The Left does something (e.g. Drag Queen Storytime) and a few on the right say...you know, maybe it isn't so good to have grotesques of womanhood reading to impressionable 4 year olds, and the Left says 'you guys are obsessed with drag queens'.
Do you also hate circus clowns?
Drag is just a theatrical entertainment, no different than Mr. Ringling's travelling show.
Clowns? Yes.
Actually yeah, not a big fan. But the analogy is dumb.
CRT is the theory that 'white supremacy', ill defined, is the prime factor shaping pretty much everything in 21st century America. This 'white supremacy', ill defined, governments how whites think even if their intentions are to be the best 'ally' in the country, and certainly drives (god forbid) any declarations of 'color blindness'. CRT race theory asserts, without evidence, that all the many disparities (usually to the bad) between white outcomes and black outcomes --crime, SAT scores-- is driven by this 'white supremacy', ill defined. To the extent that it grounds its arguments in the real world at all, CRT tends to turn to examples that are 50+ years old and fails to even attempt to trace processes to show how policies and practices that ended 50-60-70 years ago are responsible for disparities today. CRT seeks to center the black experience as *the* story of America (see 1619 project) without acknowledging that slavery was practiced in one section of the country which fell further and further behind the rest of the country in terms of population and economic development. Finally, not central to but critical for Critical Race Theory is the concept of 'white fragility' , which essentially says that any attempt to defend yourself of white folks in general against the charge of being a explicit or implicit 'white supremacist' , ill defined, is evidence that you are indeed a white supremacist. It is truly a brilliant rhetorical move.
A problem with CRT is that it has enough moving parts that it’s hard to have a simple debate about. But here goes. I think that KD’s list is glossing over what CRT is really about. It is making it sound more in-line with traditional thinking on race since the 1960s, and it’s not that. CRT is about making a distinct break with that. CRT was considered radical until recently. One reason is that CRT has a heavy dose of breaking with science – CRT is not a theory based in social science. Instead it is a set political narratives that require a leap of faith among adherents. And this leap in faith has been spreading. That is why leaders of other countries are worried about it spreading there.
First, of course, CRT declares the U.S. a white supremacist society – the same phrase used to describe the Old South in the days of slavery. Saying the U.S. is fundamentally about white supremacy minimizes the huge achievements since 1860. A Civil War was fought and hundreds of thousands died. Constitutional amendments were passed to give blacks new fundamental rights (Jim Crow delayed implementation of course), many civil rights laws were passed, and courts have struck down a great many laws that discriminate against non-whites. And societal attitudes on race have shifted dramatically in a positive direction.
But CRT downplays all of the above. Instead the focus is on stereotyping whites. These are the people who collectively have the defect of “white privilege”, and they should learn how to discard their defect of whiteness. If you don’t do this (meaning you don’t buy into the CRT belief system), then you are a white racist. For this reason CRT is the ultimate intolerance theory. Either agree or be a racist, there is no room for debate.
The scary thing about CRT is the anti-science built into it. This is the “Black ways of knowing … that are different from science, logic, reason, and other white constructs” that KD mentions. Sure, it’s fine to hear perspectives from real people rather than just looking at analyses and stats from the social sciences. But CRT is about elevating personal stories above the scientific stuff. A result is there are immediate attacks on people for pointing out any facts that go against CRT narratives. The anti-science bias in CRT gives adherents a weapon to dismiss arguments based on facts and data that they don’t want to hear. These arguments are inauthentic it’s said, because they aren’t tied to personal stories about systemic racism. In fact, even to bring up data counter to CRT narratives is racist.
Another major aspect of anti-science in CRT is that it declares that unequal outcomes prove racism. It’s that simple, so there is nothing much more to be debated. Look at school success, incomes, wealth, life expectancy, and crime rates of blacks compared to whites, and there are big differences in outcomes. Since outcomes are unequal, this proves the U.S. is deeply based on white supremacy. Could there be other significant factors causing unequal outcomes? That’s a racist question under CRT.
CRT is such a flakey theory. For example, it says the U.S. is white supremacist and all POC are therefore oppressed. But Asians do better in school, for incomes, and longevity than whites. And they have the lowest violent crime rate of any U.S. racial group. They will soon have higher median household wealth than whites. If you say unequal outcomes proves systemic racism, doesn’t this mean we are an “Asian Supremacist” society based around “Asian privilege”? Of course that is nonsense, but it shows the inconsistencies in CRT.
Once you say unequal outcomes alone proves racism, and personal stories rule over social science, then you can say just about anything. And CRT does. While the U.S. spent 160 years working to purge racial discrimination from laws – CRT says that is all BS. U.S. laws are all based on systemic racism – period. Schools are centers of racism since blacks do worse in school. Businesses are based on racism since blacks have lower incomes and wealth. And so on. Just pick any aspect of American society, and it’s racist. CRT breeds pessimism and anger about the future.
CRT is harmful to liberals and progressives. It is the perfect theory to create a major backlash from conservatives and many independents. It’s almost like it’s designed to cause a maximum backlash.
CRT is to the left what Trumpism is to the right. No need for debate – just succumb to the dogma and narratives you are handed. I say no thanks to both.
Amen. (or is that cultural appropriation.)
Oh, man!
I thought of myself as a liberal for most of my adult life. I've put on various events to bring immigrant groups together to get to know each other - and I am proud of it and think it was valuable.
CRT is doing just the opposite. Everyone gets labeled. Shouldn't the objective be to get rid of labels? And isn't CRT just another form of prejudice?
And the loyalty oaths! OMG! To get a job in some colleges you have to show how you have promoted "Diversity". How is this relevant?
I have been part of the international folk dancing and music community, and one of the goals has been to bring people together, but now that's called "cultural appropriation."
I love meeting people who are different from me & absorbing them into my world. But I am now the enemy.
I don't know if it's part of CRT, but it seems to go along with it, all of the gender politics! I'm from the Woodstock generation. We invented free love with whomever. But why does everyone have to know your sex life? Just do what you want and don't bother me.
I honestly hope that some good comes from CRT, but I don't see how.
"To get a job in some colleges you have to show how you have promoted 'Diversity'"
which colleges? how many?
https://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/guidelines-writing-diversity-statement
I had heard that this was a federal requirement for universities if they want funding. Wouldn't swear to it, but California universities are definitely requiring this.
Any rational or quasi-rational objections to Critical Race Theory or any other anti-racism proposal or action are basically irrelevant to what Republicans are doing. They just have to point to any criticism of actual racism and especially any implication that any white people are racists in order to arouse a fundamentally irrational racist reaction. Many white people resent any restriction of their own privilege and/or any special help given to non-whites on the basis of previous treatment. This is not based on reason. It does no good to refute the invalid parts of the criticism of CRT (some parts are valid) - their arguments are fundamentally irrational, appealing to group or tribal instincts.
What is socialism though?? Appealing to group, tribal attitudes. You simply don't get it.
Trumpism is what the Jewish oligarchs and Putie came up with to rally neoconservatives on "loose" racial identity, but notice it's understated non White comp. CRT is more racist than Trumpism in dialectical jargon. Amazing.
LOL, that's a smokin' take.
CRT is rehashed crap from the 70's that produced Ebonics and other junk. It died out in the 80's, stayed dead in the 90's/00's, but after the Democrats messed up in 2009-10 fiscal spending into areas that wwc Obama supporters came from, began giving them voice again. The party as a whole needs to reject them and if that means some bloodletting, so be it.
Ebonics!
There's that word again.
Looks like Shooter Frank himself back into the first term of Bill Climpton. Let's ask Shooty what he thinks about Lani Guenier!
*drank not frank
My biggest problem with Kevin's summary of CRT is that it elides the difference between "some" and "all", and between "a" and "the". For instance, it is true that SOME white people are racist oppressors; it is not true that ALL white people are racist oppressors. It is true that slavery was A prominent feature of pre-Civil War American history; it is not true that slavery was THE prominent feature of pre-Civil War American history. It is true that SOME white people enjoy advantages simply due to the color of their skin; it is not true that ALL white people enjoy advantages simply due to the color of their skin (check out that part of your city where the "bums" hang out; you will find plenty of examples of beaten down, oppressed, thoroughly disadvantaged white people).
I also agree with a number of other posters that "Black ways of knowing" are crap. The world is pretty much crammed with mystics, prophets, shamans, and all kinds of other people who claim a special way of knowing; it's all crap. Science RULES.
"First, learn what racism is, and what it’s not. I need White people to understand that all White people are racist. Admit it, and let’s move onto the business of repairing and healing the country. We can’t do it without you.
Yes my dears, all White people are racists. All. Of. Them.
Here is where you stop to cry, clutch your pearls, rant and rave aloud to tell me how wrong I am, and to tell me not all White people."
https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/yes-all-white-people-are-racist-eefa97cc5605
Justin, why are you reading a blog by a White dude? He's ipso facto a racist so why are you apologizing for him by reading -- and even COMMENTING -- on the blog?
That last point might be a bridge between Jake Angeli & the Insurrection Right & the Post-Racial #OurRevolution Fleft.
Which would be good news for the Josh Hawley-Tulsi Gabbard National Conservative/National Unity 2024 presidential ticket.
Your formulation, that "some" white people are racist oppressors, while others (presumably including you and other liberals) are good people, is exactly what CRT rejects.
One can be non-racist without being "a good person". There are lots of different ways of being evil.
In any event, if "all white people are racist oppressors" is central to CRT, then I reject CRT.
"... Is anything important left out?"
If anything bad happens it was somehow caused by racism.
I've heard and read something about how we're not supposed to even mention the fact that we had a two-term Black president who won with an actual majority of the vote both times; but,
I honestly don't know where, exactly, that fits in with Kevin's list, because I don't understand the point.
I think it might be something like this: if you refer to Obama as an example of progress, you're just trying to conceal the fact that you're actually a racist in a white supremacist country, or, something ....
The election of Barry Hussein Osama re-animated the unabashed racialism that had been dwindling, little by little, since Loving.
Back in the 70s when we white folks had just recently learned about racism from the urban riots of the late 60s, the smart thing to do was just admit it: yes, we're racist. It was agreeable on the one hand and had the virtue of being true. Then we started dancing the frug and digging jazz and inter-racial marrying and all. No theories, critical or otherwise required, and Sammy Davis Junior hugged Nixon and everyone voted for his re-election in 1972! Better days, no theories required. I do tend to agree with conservatives that say racism was all but resolved in the 60s because it was okay back then to be a white racist if you just admitted it. Blacks almost always admit they're racist about whites. We need to get back on the same page about this stuff.
'We need to get back on the same page about this stuff.'
Sounds great: start with the people who think that Trump won the election,and see how it goes....
That's 70% of the GQP!
Mr. Drum left out the most important thing about CRT... it is the excuse black folks use to explain their criminal underclass and the incidence of dysfunctional family life. They want to blame someone for these failures. That's what conservatives believe. The black intellectual class (Kendi etc.) are making excuses and deflecting blame.
Are they right about that? I don't know. The criminal class is pretty awful no matter their race. There are plenty of white and latino criminals so no one has much room to talk trash about anyone else. So why is the black intellectual class constructing this CRT excuse for their criminal class while others don't bother?
White folks know that white criminals are just useless worthless people. Latino folks flee central american gangs seeking a better life in the US. They don't make too many excuses... or perhaps they don't have the platform to express them. A credulous media enables the CRT excuse.
The real question is why it made a comeback after dying out in the late 20th century? By the late 90's, it was black improvement movement seemed to be gaining steam. Who politically gains. The paradox of dialectics. Part why the Left/right con needs thrown out as well, which by the financial crisis, seemed to be ending.
Indeed: Progressives vs. Fascists is far more accurate....
One, two, three, five, six and eight are pretty much true and certainly ought to be taught as one very important channel in American history. It's not the entire story, but it is an important thread.
Four and seven are not correct: SOME white people are oppressors, but not all or even most at this time. Seven, if some people in Black communities are actually teaching it is absurdist play -- "Waiting for To Know" -- writ large.
If Black folks want to "Cancel" science, logic and reason, then, just as should be true for the religious nutballs, "No vaccines for you!" No antibiotics except for sulfa and penicillin which were discovered in nature, not created. No X-rays for your broken bones or mammograms, no MRI's or CAT scans for soft-tissue exploration, and no "miracle drugs" for your cancer.
All those things came from science, logic and reason, not from "God!", unless of course God is a master puppeteer pulling myriad strings to create innovations which make Him look redundant. That would make Him a kind a self-hating puppet master, wouldn't you say?
You are ignoring the ways in which "science," logic and reason have been used against black people and to justify racist mistreatment of them for centuries. Science said that black people have smaller brains and better muscles and thus are best suited to manual labor, for example. The "ways of knowing" addresses the fact that black people frequently have their own reality disconfirmed by white authorities, as when a black mother is told by a teacher that her son cannot read but she knows for a fact that he can. Or a white science high school in NYC says that black students cannot succeed there due to "objective" test scores, but history has shown otherwise in terms of black contributions to science, math and invention.
The rejection of science is part of a rejection of the cloak of scientific authority used to exclude black people from participating fully in our society. Those who fail to understand that science is also political are missing the point.
It doesn't seem that disconfirmatory evidence is what they mean by the phrase 'ways of knowing', which is more like an appeal to irrationality and the metaphysical, and I think that's the sense in which most people will understand it, particularly those people looking for a rationale for negative behavior and antagonism.
SOME "scientists" taught and do/did those things you list. But REAL scientists have fought them with experimentation, investigation, facts and data all the while. Don't conflate science with politics. There are people who work in scientific investigation who are racists, and there are politicians who exploit "science" for their own corrupt ends, but that is NOT "science".
"Science" is a way of looking at the universe and human culture which simply asks, "What is happening or happened?" and if it's possible to frame the question properly, "How and why did/does it happen?" It's a framework that produces an inevitably flawed body of results, ALL of which are open to later amplification, correction, or complete refutation.
Those are the "laws", "customs" or "mores" by which true science is conducted.
Random thoughts on this.
Are we to blame for the conservatives thought process?
We LOVE labels just read the headlines in the news. Everything and everyone is labeled. Because of this we start thinking in terms of labels
Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta conjures up a different image than Keisha Lance Bottoms the black Mayor of Atlanta - yet just about every story mentions her "blackness"
Barack Hussein Obama conjures up a far different image than Barry Obama.
Look at our political cartoonists and the caricatures they draw of Trump - they typically show him ranting and raving. grossly obese and the tie is dragging on the floor.
After awhile all of this sets an image in our minds of people based upon what the press tells or shows us.
This same thought process applies to sexism. Yes, women were viewed as the weaker sex. They were thought to be man's play things and the vehicle in which babies would be born. Even our Holy Books put women in a different "world" then men are.
Our history is a blemished record of discrimination, sexism, and racism - among other faults our nation has shown it has had in the past.
But to blame INDIVIDUAL failures on any of the above is also faulty. Yes all forms of discrimination do exist in today's America and they exist in "pockets" but not throughout society.
We are the victim of our own sense of superiority. My black squad members in Vietnam bled the same red blood the white guys did. The female VC that we killed bled the same red blood that we did.
I am no better than anyone else here. I have my faults, I have my prejudices. So do blacks, women, asians etc. Why are we so hung up on identifiers?
If KD is looking to understand right-wing objections to CRT, I think that is relatively simple: they refuse to acknowledge that anything about themselves give them an advantage in a society dominated by those characteristics:
- white
- Christian
- conservative
- male
- (wealthy)
All of that is demonstrably true, of course. But it violates the right-wing delusions of the "self-made man", and that whatever success they have is due to the inherent superiority- or worse, because God loves them MORE.
Loxley-
Why do we still think America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles?
We are supposed to be a secular nation but we WANT to believe otherwise.
Our Founding Fathers stated we have freedom FROM religion as well as freedom OF religion
Shortly after our nation was formed pirates started attacking our trading ships. President Adams (one of the FF's) signed the Treaty of Tripoli along with Senators and Representatives - many of whom were also considered Founding Fathers.
Article 11 of that treaty states in very clear terms
"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Yet some folks just can't let go of that nice term Judeo-Christian
Fewer and fewer people identify as Christian, and females outnumber males in our population.
I do have to ask what you define as "conservative" and "wealthy". I consider myself to be both - AT TIMES, but not always
Odd for Calvinists to consider themselves selfmade.
It is, yet they do
I was reading about Liz Warren the other day - her book A Fighting Chance
She has a very liberal outlook on things. She is also brilliant. But at times I feel her brilliance gets in her way.
She alluded to misogyny as being the reason why she did NOT gain the nomination for Dem President in the 2020 election. My first thought was "Yeah she's right about that."
But then I started thinking.
Why did exit polls show her LOSING the white educated female vote in her own home state? Why did she finish 4th? My sisters, who live in MASS are decidedly democrats but when it comes to Warren, their lack of enthusiasm is "telling".
I came to the conclusion that she was the wrong person for the job - even though I would benefit greatly from M4A. My sisters were even less enthused than I was. (One of them is a retired PhD educator, the other is decidedly "blue collar" retiree).
When you present yourself as a progressive educated woman - who knows better than anyone else - and you LOSE, and lose badly - why can't you accept the fact that perhaps you weren't the right person for that job? Why would you imply misogyny was the reason? Does misogyny somehow make you believe that your policies weren't the problem?
Besides being very identity conscious, we also seem to bey very blame seeking. It's easy to point to misogyny, racism. etc when we lose something like an election. But when we build our candidacy on being a white, educated, female progressive and then white, educated, female progressives abandon us IN DROVES in multiple states including our own state why do we immediately think "misogyny" is to blame?
We are always looking outward for blame - never inward.
The further the span between the IQ of a candidate and the average IQ of the electorate, the worse the chances of election for that candidate, largely due to communication difficulties.
Your argument that she is not the right candidate because she was not supported by the electorate seems kind of circular to me. Further, if she were being attacked using misogynistic arguments and the electorate was deterred from voting for her for those reasons, does that really imply that she is not right for the job?
She lost those high IQ female voters in Mass
I don't get your argument
Mass ranks in the top 10 of educational achievement in the country
There is very little difference between Liz Warren and the IQ of her voters..
I would ask your sisters why their enthusiasm for Warren was lacking.
If it's simply that they don't think a woman, or a woman more like themselves than someone else, would not be able to make headway in a male dominated circumstance that brings it to a different conclusion.
cld-
They believed her policies were too far "out there" to get herself the nomination. Number 2 was her inexperience. U.S. Senator from MASS was her first election and she won.
I did spend quite a bit of time on her website reading her policies. I made it through 24 of the 66 policies "outlined" on her web site. I say that facetiously as they were very detailed. When I got through about 6 of them I realized something and grabbed a pen and paper. Out of her first 12 policies she had over 18 different tax increases included in those policies. She also added in "enforcement of current tax law" in 3 other policies to help pay for it all.
I "get" where she is coming from but even as a liberal siding (I) voter even I had to think twice about all these tax increases.
Mass is a "funny" state. They LOVE RomneyCare, even as it was used as the basis for the ACA. They also love the fact that cigarette taxes pay for a LOT of it. They have a decidedly DEM legislature but have no qualms about electing Mitt Romney, or Charlie Baker as governor - or Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy.
My sisters believed that her policies were a bridge (or two) too far. After seeing what she wanted to do policy wise I had to agree with them
They were being practical, then. That describes a lot of people last year, that they agreed with her essentially on everything, but were voting for the more electable candidate.
I supported her in the primary but I really wasn't bothered at all when it went to Biden because it was such an obviously correct rationale that I'd actually assumed it would happen.
It's striking now that Biden the practical choice is a lot more like the impractical Warren than most people guessed. I would say this is evidence that her positions weren't really that impractical but that it genuinely took someone with decades of gravitas to bring them around, leaving the impression that the real difficulty was the sense of her gender being able to be used against her.
One problem I have noticed with the term "systemic racism" is that a lot of people view it to mean the system is full of racists.
This my not be true of all systems, and is actually irrelevant. All you need for systemic racism is for the current system to continue to continue the disadvantage already created in the past. That means you can have a system packed with non-racist people, and still end up with continued racism.
When people believe that systemic racism requires racists in it, you get a lot of pushback from people who do not see themselves as racist, or even pointing to lots of non-white people in the system as proof there isnt systemic racism.
But the reality is that past racism has created all sorts of inequities that easily replicate, and it is often difficult to figure out ways to find and change those past wrongs. And some inequities arise from forces that were never consciously racist, but still have unequal outcomes.
For example, a Black doctor could be using the best evidence-based medical knowledge available to treat Black patients, but that data could be based on studies that failed to include enough Black trial participants. Only updated research studies can really solve the problem.
Or you can look at arsenic exposure and Latino Americans. Higher rates of exposure aren't on purpose. They are because arsenic is more commonly found in ground water in parts of the country with high Latino populations, and there is less water quality testing in rural areas. Racism may have played a role in where Latino immigrants settled, but no one said "let's hire Mexican immigrants to work in agriculture because I want to poison them with arsenic." Yet, the specific disparity is there.
Pingback: Conservatives and Critical Race Theory
I prefer cathode ray tube, myself. Pushing ideological agendas is not only what democrats do, it's how the other side sees us.
Pushing such agendas in public schools is a very efficient generator of hostility toward democrats on the part of a lot of republicans.
Are we really going to transform the society via reeducation?
I think not.
1. Do you believe everything you were exposed to in school? Shouldn't you be aware of ideas, whether you believe them or not?
2. Academia in particular and schooling in general is devoted to open inquiry, which means exploring many ideas, including competing ones that cannot all be true. It is about acquiring the methods and means to acquire knowledge, test ideas and go on to productive careers. It is NOT about indoctrination.
3. Children who come from families where parents hold different beliefs than the dominant American society, whether religious or secular (economic, political), become accustomed to learning about things that are not part of their personal belief system, discussing those divergent beliefs at home, and recognizing that there are a variety of viewpoints besides their own. Is that a bad thing?
Kevin, your summary of the conservative definition of critical race theory errs because it makes sense. If you want a coherent answer, you have no choice but to ask a liberal. But the state of Tennessee has forbidden the teaching of critical race theory, and the legislature summarized what that prohibition covers:
--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.
By these rules, a school could not teach that Hitler's Germany was wrong.
Read it again!
This line in particular,
--The rule of law does not exist, but instead is a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups;
is expressly fascistic ideology.
By some fabulous projection Republicans in Tennessee banned something in terms that could as easily apply to the way most people who vote for conservatives actually think.
The show "New Amsterdam" has been treating racism directly--and in a good way, i.e. points out the reality that liberal whites are not really seeing, and how grand gestures won't fix it.
https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2565138/new-amsterdam-maxs-approach-systemic-racism-probably-wont-work-ryan-eggold
The thing people refuse to understand about this: A society can be seriously unjust without anybody being individually to blame, just from the inertia of historic processes.
CRT does not say that every white person is a racist individual (that would be stupid or it would stretch the definition of individual racism beyond the breaking point). It says that society can be (and is in the case of the US--and many other nations) gravely unjust without any individual necessarily being guilty of anything.
I should add quickly that obviously there are quite a few bona fide racists around, especially on the conservative side and the angry reaction to CRT on the right is based on the idea that it is impolite to call them out.
Diagnosis is quite easy: Everyone who says "I am not a racist" is a racist.
"Our nation was built on the back of slavery."
What? There were a lot more white people then slaves during the founding and expansion of our country. Yes, slaves existed. Yes, slavery is bad. Everyone knows there were slaves. But to imply our country was built on their backs is stupid and insulting.
"White people are oppressors who continue to play a role in perpetuating racism."
This is a joke right? Do you mean slave owners were oppressors? If you mean any current white person is an "oppressor" I would hope every reasonable person would renounce this nonsense. Is this really what lefties are trying to assert?
"White people should be aware of the privilege and benefits they enjoy solely due to their skin color."
Again, this is a joke right? This is insulting and ridiculous.
"Students should be taught about racism and oppression from an early age."
Why? There's oppression taking place. Yes, some people are racist. What's that have to do with school lessons?
As a republican, I almost hope liberals adopt and try to push this nonsense. That will signal the next red wave. (I just hope it will consist of Romney-like republicans and not Trumpers.)
I am afraid your anger gives you away. In other words: as Hamlet says about degrees of protesting.
How is it driving me away? Away from what?