A Deeper Look at Critical Race Theory
wsj.com
wsj.com
As it stands, there seems to be no consensus on the definition of the theory, nor does there seem to be consensus on whether said theory is being taught in schools.
If you don't recognize that the conflict is already there, you're going to have a harder time getting rid of it.
The opressed have to learn about it to survive, so it's only the bystanders that don't learn about it if you leave it off the curriculum
On the contrary, kids should be taught that there were oppressors, but they are gone now. Then concentrate on the after effects.
As the poster said, you are just playing people against each other and the result is predictable and measurable.
Further, "there are better ways we can go about talking about race and culture, and having respect for one another, without making it about the oppressed and the oppressor." - How so? Why do we need to teach students to have respect for one another if not for a long history, and complex present, of one group of people oppressing another? If there was no historical and current oppression, the entire conversation wouldn't be necessary in the first place.
To cite Wikipedia: "the basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing and often subtle social and institutional dynamics rather than explicit and intentional prejudices on the part of individuals."
This syllogism is the controversial matter of CRT:
1. Anything which has racially disparate outcomes is racist.
2. Modern society has racially disparate outcomes.
3. Therefore, modern society is racist.
This is just to illustrate the necessity of defining terms to finding common ground.
Ironically, by the classical definition, the reverse is true.
Oh wait, race doesn’t really exist, except when we want to insult white people.
The scientific method never proves things are objectively true. Instead, you subjectively fail to show your hypothesis is false, so you gain more justification in believing it. I wish more people understood this and quit trying to make a religion out of science.
Proof is for mathematics.
The article cites "Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement," which is pro-critical race theory.
To cite Wikipedia:
> While critical race theorists do not all share the same beliefs, the basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing and often subtle social and institutional dynamics rather than explicit and intentional prejudices on the part of individuals.
> CRT scholars also view race and white supremacy as an intersectional social construction which serves to uphold the interests of white people at the expense of marginalized communities. In the field of legal studies, CRT emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways.
> A key CRT concept is intersectionality, which emphasizes that race can intersect with other identities (such as gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and disadvantage.
If you understood >90% of that, congrats; I'm still trying.
Some of the key bits:
* Ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways
Example: Prosecutors, police, and judges all act on their discretion. Both unconscious bias and explicit racism can cause some people to be charged, prosecuted, and sentenced differently, regardless of the law.
* race can intersect with other identities (such as gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and disadvantage
Example: White women campaigning for the right to vote had a choice: include black people to expand their base, or exclude them to avoid scaring off a large contingent of racist white men. The movement as a whole chose the latter, and arguably it was the most effective choice for them. Similar pressures today put divisions between groups who could in theory band together. The sheer number of groups, and the differences in strategies they choose, tends to reinforce the status quo.
* white supremacy as an intersectional social construction which serves to uphold the interests of white people
"White supremacy" here is a confusing term, in that people tend to associate it with white robes and hoods. The term is accurate: many white people implicitly believe that the average white person is superior to the average black person. That holds even for people willing to vote for an extraordinary black man, have black friends, etc.
It shows up clearly only in its aggregate effect, making it easy to dismiss any individual's contribution to it, but it's very clear when you're exposed to it every day. In some ways it's worse than the robes-and-hoods version of racism, because the latter is easy to reject and most people do, but that allows them to believe that they've done their part without having to closely consider their own beliefs and actions.
And it leads to a catch-22. The people most likely to outright reject it are the ones defending their own egos. It's easy to dismiss any individual behavior and treat the aggregate effect as the fault of black people themselves. You'd basically have to live the life of a black person to disprove it, and that creates a No True Scotsman situation.
What's clearer, though, is the way this is weaponized by the robes-and-hoods type racists to portray people honestly trying to get this across as a conspiracy. That this kind of out-and-out racism is still so prevalent should make it really easy to see why this entire question is still coming up.
Does any of that help?
I don't get it.
That allows the dominant group to retain power despite not being a majority. They can form alliances with one group or another, who would rather gain the advantage of being second-class citizens rather than being third or fourth class citizens.
The most visible example right now is "white women", who split 50-50 for Trump in both elections even though he has said quite terrible things about individual women and is certainly not doing anything to benefit them as women. But white men favor him by wide margins, and it's to the advantage of white women to be seen as good allies to white men.
None of this calculus is necessarily conscious, on anybody's part. But if you ask individual white women why they voted for Trump over another white woman in 2016, you will probably find that the answer doesn't really justify it. Nor are individual white men gathering to concoct a dastardly plan to marginalize gay black women worse than gay women and black men. It just happens that history works out that way, and people who benefit from it are reluctant to change things.
That makes it difficult to piece the full story together and figure out how to get around it. That's why "intersectionality" is an academic topic rather than a word that my browser recognizes (it's the only word I've written that's got a wavy red underline). The concept isn't fully understood and the picture is evolving.
But it's a key component to critical race theory, which constructs this picture in terms of race first and other identities second. I'm not entirely sure that's the best way to construct it, but the case for it is much, much stronger than I first realized. There's a lot of history that gets omitted that shows a deliberate, conscious effort to use race as a way of separating people, on top of the gender discrimination that was already baked into European culture.
So there's a ton more to learn about that, but that's a big unpacking of that sentence you quoted.
Because one of the problems with critical race theory is that it is not at all rigorous and won't ever have one definition or set of concepts that everyone agrees with. So if you try to drill down and critique it, it is incredibly easy to shape shift the arguments and accuse the critiquer of not truly understanding the theory.
Another piece of this is that CTR is packed to the brim with motte and bailey arguments where they'll make one claim and then defend another making any attempt at formal debate a total waste of time.
Not every topic is worth debating on merit. If you tell me the earth is flat I'm not going to spend my time exhaustively critiquing your position which you almost certainly didn't arrive at logically anyway. I'm just going to understand that that viewpoint is indicative of some other underlying pathologies, tells you I disagree and try to distance myself from you.
This is somewhat similar to how I treat CRT
Just for example, you might want to lock in some ideas like
- Don't teach that racism is only perpetuated by white-people.
- Don't teach that people born today are morally/emotionally responsible for the behavior of their ancestors.
- Don't teach that skin color is the most defining thing about you
- Don't teach that any single trait means you have to see yourself as a victim, you can see yourself however you want to
I'm sure if you come up with a reasonable set of these then reasonable people can agree.
I COULD do that. It's just a negative sume game and I don't want to. Id rather just interact with people who are thinking about more interesting things than debate non rigorous academic virtue signaling with people who have an axe to grind and don't care about what I have to say based on my race.
It's literally the exact same scenario as why I'm not going sit around and debate a klan member. They are racists and I'm not bothering with them.