Critical Race theory has been in the news in the last year as President Trump first banned its teaching in the military, and President Asterisk has encouraged its use not only in the military, but in our businesses and schools as well. Critical Race Theory has actually been around for many years. It was created by some law professors who used Marxist analysis to conclude that racial dominance by whites has created “systemic racism.” Life, according to them, must be viewed through the prism of race.
It is true that race is a social construct, that is to say, a means by which one group of people — say the Chinese — view themselves as different from people of other areas of the world because of skin color, the slant of eyes, the flat, broad faces and so on. When I lived briefly on Guam, we saw Chinese, Japanese, Guamanians, Philippinos, and other Asians, and though at first I could not tell which was which, they were in fact very different, and I learned quickly to tell the nationality of each person I saw.
Race could as easily be defined by hair or eye color and in fact is in that some people with black or blackish brown hair who are Irish are known as the “black Irish” while many of the Irish population, more than in any other country, tend to have red hair. But in many enlightened countries, especially those who were former British colonies like the United States, people tend to ignore racial differences. The famous words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin has become largely true in the United States. In an international study, the U.S. was one of the least racist or prejudiced countries in the world. Prior to the 2008 presidential election in which the U.S. elected its first black president (and re-elected him in 2012), only 4% of Americans said they would not vote for a presidential candidate based upon the color of his skin.
But what exactly is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what does it teach? It is a theory that states that no one learns racism, but rather that all whites are born racist and thus subconsciously have created a society that favors whites and suppresses people of color. First, it rejects things which this country has long considered to be understood: universal values that everyone or most everyone agrees upon such as morality; objective knowledge which can be observed, and reproduced because it is factual; individual merit, the idea that everyone no matter the color of his/her skin is of equal value and has, guaranteed by law, the chance to achieve as much as his/her natural abilities allow; rationalism which insists that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge of facts rather than on emotional responses, and liberalism which promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy and free enterprise. All of these, according the CRT are the fruit of racism and must be rejected.
Furthermore, CRT argues that the legacy of slavery and segregation imposed upon blacks and other people of color permeates the entire social fabric of the United States. Thus, blacks populate prisons in greater percentages than their 13% of the population, not because young black men from fatherless homes in inner cities like Chicago and Detroit commit crimes at a far greater percentage than 13% (55.9% of all homicides in 2019 were committed by blacks), but rather because the laws are written to ensnare them while releasing white offenders for the same crimes.
Our educational system is also created to prevent people of color from succeeding, according to CRT. Both mathematics and the teaching of correct English grammar have been labeled as racist examples of white supremacy. Thus, it is, according to CRT, perfectly fine to send a young black man through high school and college and off to serve in the diplomatic corps in Great Britain without being able to write a coherent English sentence or to use words that are not “gangsta” language from the inner city. Schools and universities are forced to lower their grading standards and their expectations in order to allow black students to succeed in school. The fact that, as a result, most of our students, both black and white, cannot read or do math at grade level or even close to it when they are graduated is immaterial. Immaterial as well is the fact that CRT would send them out into the world wholly unprepared to earn a decent living, which would then simply prove, according to CRT, that “systemic racism” exists.
CRT maintains that segregated schooling is a “profound and timely demonstration of the persistence of systemic racism in education” ( edweek.com). What they ignore, however, is that the racially segregated schools are all in the inner neighborhoods of mostly Democrat-controlled cities which are rife with crime and drugs. The schools offer little in the way of a decent education, but because their teachers belong either to the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers, both of which donate heavily to local, state, and national Democrat politicians, little is done to improve the schools. When school vouchers, allowing parents to send their students to out of district, good schools, were heavily promoted under Republican President Trump, the teachers’ unions stepped in to force states and municipalities to refuse to allow the vouchers to be used. Why? Because teachers in the segregated schools might lose their jobs if too many students jumped ship. Segregated schools do not exist in the countryside. There, oddly enough, black and white students attend classes together, play on the same ball teams, and form friendships. I guess those white rubes haven’t been told they are supposed to hate blacks!
Republicans are always accused of being racist, and the very fact that you claim you are not racist is proof of your racism, according to the White Supremacy proponents. Yet, if you point out that the treatment of Black Americans as second-class citizens, incapable of obtaining an ID to vote, for example, is something that Democrats and NOT Republicans argue, and that blacks are relegated to poor and segregated schools in inner cities because of the policies of the Democrat officials who run those cities, they only say, “See, we said you were racists!”
Merit has no place in life, according to CRT, nor should it, because all people of color must be recompensed for the sins against their forefathers committed by the forefathers of the white citizens of America. Certainly, slavery was a horrid and inhumane system, but it was not then, nor is it now unusual in the world. Great Britain did not abolish slavery in its colonies until 1833, long after we had fought and won two wars against them. The United States as a country only controlled the slavery issue for 87 years, from its formal recognition as a nation in 1778 by France to the 13th amendment which officially abolished slavery in 1865. Before that, slavery was encouraged and kept in the Colonies by Great Britain, and when one colony voted to ban slavery, the British governor of the colony simply overruled them. Slavery in the Colonies was good business for Great Britain.
My ancestors never owned black slaves nor did they live in America when slavery was a way of life for large land owners in the South. But I was taught from a young age that while some of us are more talented than others and some of us are more intelligent than others, we are all equal in importance to God. But CRT proponents do not believe in God. They are Marxists. Thus, it is easy for them to wave aside the idea of merit. No one who is black needs to earn a spot on the team or earn the grade that the teacher records on his report card. Those he already deserves because of slavery. The fact that nearly 9% of the 13% of black Americans today are immigrants whose families never suffered under slavery here makes no difference. Anyway, merit, like grades, is rigged to favor whites so blacks could never win anyway. Ideas such as turning a paper in on time or getting to a class on time are part of “white supremacy” since the concept of time is cultural and no child of color should be required to meet the prevailing “white” culture of turning papers in on the due date and getting to class before the bell rings. That such ideas are patently unfair to the white children who are still expected to follow the rules is only their just punishment for being born white.
CRT claims that the entire system of life in the United States is based upon “white supremacy” and “white privilege” and rigged to prevent people of color from achieving any success. The fact that CRT must also dismiss rational thought and objective knowledge now makes sense, because if this assertion of an entire rigged system, “systemic racism,” were true, how is it that we have had over the years black mayors, black police chiefs, black doctors, black dentists, black governors, black legislators, black CEOs of companies, black-owned companies, black members of the House of Representatives, black senators, black secretaries of state, black generals, black millionaires, black justices of the Supreme Court, a black president and a black vice-president*? According to CRT, this is impossible, since the system is rigged so that people of color cannot achieve any worthwhile goal.
Another part of CRT is advocating equity over equality. Our Declaration of Independence declares that “all men are created equal.” But equality, according to CRT, is not enough. If I am white and you are black and we are treated equally, then you are missing out because of the rigged system and because your ancestors (may) have been slaves. Equity means not treating everyone the same before the law, but instead treating them unequally because of the color of their skin. In this game, the white skinned person comes out the loser, despite the fact that the Constitution clearly states that no one is to be discriminated against according to the color of his/her skin. But then, the Marxists behind CRT want to get rid of the Constitution anyway. It guards freedoms that they certainly do not want any of us to have, black or white!
Critical Race Theory is a dangerous concept and must be kept out of our institutions. We have no control over the military, but as university alumni we can withhold funds to universities who teach CRT, even if they simply couch it in terms of “diversity training.” As parents, grandparents, and community members, we can do what many groups and parents are already doing: attend school board meetings. Find out if Critical Race Theory is being taught and demand that it be stopped. Board members are elected by us and can be unelected by us. Likewise, administrators are hired by the boards. We can control what is taught in our schools, and if we are in an area where there are not enough of us willing to raise a ruckus about this horribly divisive curriculum, then we should withdraw our children from the schools and either home school them or band together with some retired teachers to educate them.
The National Education Association has promised that they would fight against anti-CRT and issue a study that “critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity[anti native American], racism, patriarchy [where men have all the power], cisheteropatriarchy [a newly minted word meaning men who were men from birth and are heterosexual have all the power], capitalism [the form of economy that has prospered this country and every country in which it has been used], ableism [discrimination in favor of able bodied people], anthropocentrism [the philosophy that humans are the only creatures with moral standing] and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” And if you didn’t know what all of those terms meant, don’t worry. I had to look a couple up myself. Perhaps if the NEA would stay out of education, teachers could teach reading, history, science, and math and children could actually learn something useful!
(Information about Critical Race Theory came from edweek.com, the American Bar Association, the Wall Street Journal, and the Heritage Foundation – two pro CRT and two anti-CRT sites.)