Critical Race Theory

There has been a lot of debate about Critical Race Theory. To defend their use of the term, conservatives have pointed to schools using the term. For example, there are books dedicated to critical race theory in schools, and school districts have mentioned the term on their websites.

Conservatives have been using the term to broadly capture a wide range of controversial views on race, especially views that are racially divisive. This includes a push to convince black Americans to hate white Americans. One of the popular views is that critical race theory divides everybody into oppressors and the oppressed. Another issue is white privilege, which insists that white Americans consistently have advantages over black Americans, even though reality is more complex than a one-way system. Another view captured by this term is a desire to find racism in everything. A big viewpoint that has been attached to Critical Race Theory is that the United States is irredeemably racist. Explicit racism as a solution to implicit and systemic racism, frequently misidentified as anti-racism, is another view that could be captured by this term.

The term really took off after the creation of the 1619 Project. As soon as the 1619 Project was released, historians hammered the inaccuracies. This was followed with the project winning the Pulitzer. The 1619 Project openly frames the founding of the United States around the arrival of the first slaves. This is clearly an attempt to fuel the view that this country is inherently racist.

Even if everything in the 1619 Project turned out to be accurate, that's not the same thing as an honest portrayal of history. The framing of the history means that pieces of history that help make the point are emphasized. Anything that contradicts the narrative will be omitted. This means that history will be intentionally skewed as a means of manipulating what people will think. Agenda-driven history, by its very nature, can't be honest history.

Liberals initially defended Critical Race Theory on the grounds that it merely examines how racism can shape our legal system. They openly defended curriculum informed by Critical Race Theory.

Early in the debate over Critical Race Theory, conservatives pointed to websites relating to our K-12 system such as district websites and union websites. They also pointed to some of the books written about utilizing Critical Race Theory. The term has since been scrubbed from these websites as liberals decided to redefine the term. Critical Race Theory is now used exclusively to refer to a college-level legal course.

Conservatives might not have been using the term properly, but the liberal side of the perspective has been just as problematic. The debate has shifted from the promotion of a racially divisive approach to racism to a debate over the terminology. If you don't want to tell black Americans that they must hate white Americans, you're using the term wrong.

This is why the debate over Critical Race Theory has become so absurd. The terminology has been used as a convenient way to deflect from legitimate concerns. If you attack something that you refer to as Critical Race Theory, liberals will attack the terminology rather than the concern. This will not change minds.

Laws aimed at banning Critical Race Theory has resulted in even more absurdities. Most of these laws do not say anything about Critical Race Theory. Liberals are attacking these laws for getting the terminology wrong. You have to oppose these laws because they use terminology incorrectly that they don't actually use.

One of the common tactics on the liberal side of the spectrum is to redefine the term then compare it to conservative usage. In many cases, political operatives such as Randi Weingarten have pushed outright lies about this usage. They insist that the term is applied to any discussion about race. Although it is possible to exploit the widespread usage of the term to fight discussions about race, this is not how the people pushing the term are using it. Similarly, liberals have referred to any history that pushes their agenda as honest history, regardless of validity.

One of the most shocking things about this debate is conservatives seem to think this concept is something new. The reality is that we have seen a hard push for this approach to race relations for decades. This includes in our schools. They promote Black Lives Matter at School, which promotes a specific organization by involving a co-founder and including the organization's guiding principles. These principles had similarities with Marxism, so the organization had to remove them from their website (prior to one of the co-founders referring to the organization as Marxist).

Another source used by schools in Learning for Justice. This is an offshoot of the controversial liberal organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center. The unions actively promote this source, but it is not a respectable source. Seriously, check out their website. Their agenda is not subtle.

Personally, I try to avoid using the term. If I want to discuss how they push a skewed perspective on race, I don’t want them to dismiss it purely on the basis of the wording.

Before we further entrench us in this failed approach to race relations, why don't we take a step back and look at the implications of these actions. The colorblind approach has problems, but racial fixation has been completely catastrophic. Personally, I would much rather correct our mistakes than strengthen them.