Critical Race Theory

[Gob]

Who's making all the fuss about it?

Who created "critical race theory"?

[Sue U]

Who's making all the fuss about it?

Who created "critical race theory"?

Derek Bell, like 50 years ago. Had you even heard of it before last month? Do you know why it's suddenly all over social media now? (And again, you have failed to answer any questions I actually asked or to explain why you think critical race theory is objectionable.)

Is it just me, or is there anyone else who sometimes sees the abbreviation "CRT" and thinks, "Whaaa? Who the hell uses one of those anymore? Hey, even an old Luddite like me has been using an LCD monitor for over a decade!"

Yes, the first time I saw it used as an abbreviation was as "anti-CRT," and I concluded we must start a movement to save the cathode rays. (Do I need a smilie thing here?)

[Gob]

Derek Bell, like 50 years ago. Had you even heard of it before last month? Do you know why it's suddenly all over social media now? (And again, you have failed to answer any questions I actually asked or to explain why you think critical race theory is objectionable.)

It's all over social media as the woke brigade have adopted it as one of their "ways to put people off woke".

I don't find it objectionable, where have I given any indication I do?

That's the trouble see, if ANYONE DARES to question the religiously held mantras of the left they are now portrayed as "anti" and guilty of "ism" or "phobia".

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's all over social media as the woke brigade have adopted it as one of their "ways to put people off woke". I don't find it objectionable, where have I given any indication I do?

That's the trouble see, if ANYONE DARES to question the religiously held mantras of the left they are now portrayed as "anti" and guilty of "ism" or "phobia".

Join the club, Gob.

[Econoline]

It's all over social media as the woke right-wing brigade have adopted it* as one of their "ways to put people off woke".

FTFY

*("It" = "the scary, right-wing, strawman version of CRT")

[Crackpot]

If there is one thing the right knows how to is it’s how to gaslight the left.

[Sue U]

It's all over social media as the woke brigade have adopted it as one of their "ways to put people off woke".

I seem to have missed that, please cite some examples. All I have seen is right-wingers misrepresenting it in order to whine about how oppressed wypipo are.

I don't find it objectionable, where have I given any indication I do?

Your posts above.

That's the trouble see, if ANYONE DARES to question the religiously held mantras of the left they are now portrayed as "anti" and guilty of "ism" or "phobia".

I have accused you of nothing but evasiveness and have suggested only that you may not know what critical race theory actually is. And if you've been relying on the Daily Mail for your information, then you certainly don't. One might wish to know what "the religiously held mantras of the left" actually are before squawking about them.

[Econoline]

If there is one thing the right knows how to is it’s how to gaslight the left.

THIS.↑

[Gob]

I have accused you of nothing but evasiveness and have suggested only that you may not know what critical race theory actually is.

That's very rude of you.

And if you've been relying on the Daily Mail for your information, then you certainly don't.

That's also very rude of you.

One might wish to know what "the religiously held mantras of the left" actually are before squawking about them.

One might.

[Econoline]

Snopes.com has an excellent 'splainer about CRT, titled "What Is Critical Race Theory and Why Are Some People So Mad at It?"

I'll give you a few quotes, and urge you to read the whole thing, but if you read nothing else you *MUST* read these two tweets from (conservative activist and Common Tater) Christopher Rufo:

It’s probably safe to say that most members of the public had never heard of critical race theory before the fall of 2020, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump launched a rhetorical war on it — or at least on what he thought it was.

As we reported at that time, Trump’s executive order, “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” appeared to erroneously conflate workplace diversity training programs with critical race theory, a decades-old academic discipline that is primarily taught in law school. But his invectives against what is essentially a straw man have had political staying power amongst conservatives — and even prompted new legislation in some states.

Critical race theory is often vaguely, but falsely, raised as an ominous, threatening ideology being taught to schoolchildren that teaches hatred of white people or the nation. For example, Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida tweeted that critical race theory “teaches us to hate our fellow Americans based on their identity,” which is untrue:

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who is facing reelection in 2022, sent a letter on May 20, 2021, to the Georgia Board of Education pushing to end what he alleged to be the teaching of critical race theory in that state’s K-12 schools.

When asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to provide examples of critical race theory being taught to school children, Kemp’s office instead said a new policy would preempt the possibility that it could be taught in Georgia and also referenced an Encyclopedia Britannica entry when prompted to explain what they thought critical race theory was.

Dozens of other states have introduced bills to try to ban critical race theory in schools or have already banned it, but these legislative efforts fundamentally mischaracterize what it is. For example, Tennessee’s law bars teachers from instructing that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

Critical race theory is a discipline developed by legal scholars decades ago, and it is primarily taught in law school. It looks to the law for answers as to why racial inequality persists even as American founding documents and aspirational ideals vaunt equality, and after the civil rights movement brought about landmark legislation aimed at ending racism de jure.

In her 2018 book, “Critical Race Theory: A Primer,” [University of California, Berkeley law professor Khiara] Bridges noted that critical race theory emerged in the 1970s and ’80s as a counterbalance to the prevailing thought at that time that “the law was not at all involved in creating and sustaining racial hierarchies.”

Basically, Bridges explains, critical race theory scholarship considers race to be a social construct and racial inequality the norm in American society, not a deviation from the norm. Bridges wrote:

Prior to the advent of CRT [critical race theory], most in the legal academy had embraced the idea that norms of fairness, equality, and justice guided the law. Accordingly, they found it difficult to contemplate that the law could be involved in creating a society that, racially speaking, is unfair, unequal, and unjust. The intellectual forefather of CRT, Derrick Bell, was one of the first to challenge this view. Bell, the first black tenured professor at Harvard Law School, devoted his scholarship to exploring how it came to be that black people remained at the bottom of practically every measure of social well-being, even though the Civil Rights Movement had forced the passage of laws that ostensibly were designed to end black people’s subordination. Bell concluded that racial inequality endured in a post civil rights era because, among other things, the vision of racial justice that civil rights lawyers had championed was a weak and impoverished one. The result was that the civil rights laws that had been passed, which reflected this vision, were equally weak and impoverished. Thus, Bell argued that if racial inequality persisted in a post-civil rights era, then the law was central to explaining that persistence.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founders of critical race theory and a professor of law at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles, told Snopes in a phone interview that critical race theory “is a way of seeing and thinking about race that denaturalizes racial inequality.”

Meaning, Crenshaw said, that critical race theory “takes seriously the idea that race is not a biological difference. There are not inherent differences in how people across races are constituted. Race is not real, it’s socially constructed.”

And since there are no inherent differences in how human beings are constituted, Crenshaw said, then there must be another explanation for the material differences in the quality of life of people by race.

Critical race theory challenges the idea that racism exists only in silos like the Ku Klux Klan or individual acts of bigotry. Instead, the theory argues, racism is embedded in the system and enabled by the law. By interrogating how it lives on in the law, critical race theorists hope to help undo racism.

“In our society, the highest court in the land said Black people were so inferior they could never be citizens, and indigenous people could be removed from their own land,” Crenshaw said. “These were two conditions of possibilities; the theft of labor and the theft of land, that were foundational to the American republic and they were embedded in our laws.”

Crenshaw cited a recent example: Data revealed that Black, Latino, and Native American people were at a higher likelihood than white people of contracting, getting hospitalized with, and dying from COVID-19. (People of color were also largely shut out of the federal relief funds intended to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic.)

Crenshaw also pointed to the fact that Black veterans of World War II were unable to access housing assistance provided by the GI Bill due to systemic racism. Generations later, she said, because of home value appreciation, the descendants of veterans face completely different situations relating to family wealth, all because of race.

In other examples of systemic inequality, Black and indigenous women are more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy. Non-white people have higher rates of all deadly encounters with police and mass incarceration. On average, they have less wealth than white people and are also more likely to be homeless.

Ellen Berrey, professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, told us that critical race theory helps understand these disparities because it can be generalized, meaning it can be applied across different systems to see what links them. She used the metaphor of blue-blocker sunglasses used for fishing, that filter out blue light so their wearers can more easily see fish.

“Where you point that lens, you should be able to see a set of dynamics more clearly and understand them better,” Berrey told us by phone.

“Critical race theory is strongest at explaining how broader systems interact — how do racism and classism get embedded and institutionalized in the health care system, or the legal system, or the educational system, or whatever word you wart to put in front of ‘system,'” Berrey added.

Understanding this dynamic means that there is hope for change, the experts we consulted told us.

“We are making policy decisions that are producing these racial inequalities, which means we can make different decisions that would rectify them, that’s the work of critical race theory,” Bridges told Snopes in a phone interview. “What decisions should we be making to produce a more racially just country and world?”

Crenshaw told us that the recent prevalence of anti-critical-race-theory rhetoric among right-wing commentators, politicians, websites, and cable news shows is a backlash to the massive racial justice demonstrations that took place in the spring and summer of 2020, in response to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer.

Crenshaw pointed out that it’s otherwise bizarre that a body of legal scholarship that has been around for decades only recently became a target for some media and political figures, but those figures who have been vocal about it have presented it in a distorted way.

“It’s always a challenge when the table has been set by people who want to poison you,” Crenshaw said. “The right-wing media has introduced critical race theory to the public and introduced it in a distorted way. So the majority of people who have heard of it, have heard of it as the greatest threat to Western civilization.”

She pointed out that even though critical race theory is hardly new, it only became a prevalent talking point after millions of people of all races took to the streets calling for racial justice after Floyd’s murder. She called the backlash the weaponizing of lies.


“If this was the threat to Western civilization that they claim it is, why is it that people haven’t heard about it until the last couple months? Why can’t you point to a critical race theory course in a K-12 curriculum? I don’t know of a place that is teaching first graders case law.”

Indeed, bombastic rhetoric and legislation about critical race theory supposedly cropping up in grade school curricula come up empty of real-world examples.

[Sue U]

I have accused you of nothing but evasiveness and have suggested only that you may not know what critical race theory actually is.

That's very rude of you.

If it's rude to point our that you haven't provided any support for your claims, then I'm rude. And your claims are still unfounded.

And if you've been relying on the Daily Mail for your information, then you certainly don't.

That's also very rude of you.

Again, you have evinced no knowledge of what critical race theory actually is, what its origins are, or how it is applied, and you posted a video in this thread about critical race theory that has nothing to do with the subject. So if I'm rude for noting that, then I'm rude.

One might wish to know what "the religiously held mantras of the left" actually are before squawking about them.

One might.

Well then?

[Joe Guy]

Mae hynny'n anghwrtais.

[Scooter]

So of all the people who have created threads purportedly about Critical Race Theory, none actually want to talk about Critical Race Theory.

[Joe Guy]

Pretty much.

[Gob]

Well, if the ad hominems we get for daring to post a video are anything to go by, the usual cancel culture is working well here. I posted a video about BLM, (illustrating that not all black people agree with BLM,)and asked the question;

"How dare he have an opinion on BLM, what the fuck would he know about it?"

Apparently I was trying to say something about "critical race theory" by posting this, oh and apparently, I get all my ideas from the Daily Mail too, (despite nothing I had posted being from the Daily Mail.)

The trouble with the religious is that their faith makes them believe they can do no wrong.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Apparently I was trying to say something about "critical race theory" by posting this

That's a bit precious of you, ain't it? It's apparent that you did.

Above your video you wrote: "Discussing "critical race theory" is only valid when white people do it, if a black person speaks out about it they are an "Uncle Tom", and their thoughts are not valid, obvs..." The dots lead to your video.

It's not a clear and obvious error to associate your comment with a video showing "a black person" who spoke about "it" - "it" being critical race theory which is the subject of the sentence.

Whether or not the chap did speak of CRT (I didn't play it) is not relevant. Your own words associated it with CRT.

I agree with the remainder of your post

[Gob]

Fair enough. I'll apologise for not making the distinction more clear.

The video I posted was to illustrate that black people can have opinions contrary to the dictates of the woke about race.

[Sue U]

The video I posted was to illustrate that black people can have opinions contrary to the dictates of the woke about race.

It is shocking to absolutely no one that opinions about social issues within any ethnic community are not monolithic. But what exactly are "the dictates of the woke about race"?

The video you posted is one guy complaining that BLM doesn't support his particular view of funding privately operated "charter schools," because BLM instead chose to support the teachers' union efforts to improve funding of traditional public education institutions more broadly. How does the video illustrate your point?

[Scooter]

Jim Wright:

You know, if you're mad about things like Critical Race Theory because you feel like when America talks about systemic racism we're talking about YOU, well, maybe we are.

Maybe we are.

Probably we are.

And that's on you. You're the one feeling guilty. And NOT talking about it doesn't make you any less of a racist.

If that hurts your feelings, maybe think about changing.

[rubato]

Who's making all the fuss about it?

Who created "critical race theory"?

People who don't care about solving problems, healing wounds and making a better world and want only to keep the wounds open and festering ... forever or until it gets infected and kills the patient altogether.

Bullshit neoliberalism which is a lasting insult to real liberalism.

yrs,
rubato