CRT OMG

Politics and Social Issues
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My theory about Critical Race Theory is that it is being used as a fancy sounding name for “reverse racism”. People are cherry picking quotes from supporters of it and saying that since they are talking about race, they are the racists. What I rarely see is any actual data from a CRT scholar, that would mean a legal scholar, since that’s where it comes from. I wrote this up in an argument I was having elsewhere, if you’re interested.

I think what is happening is, people who were once marginalized are speaking up; an 8th grade female teacher, BIPOC people with two jobs who were born in formerly red-lined neighborhoods. No surprise that they what they have to say is uncomfortable for “Karen” in the suburbs. I’m not actually defending what they say, sometimes I’m not comfortable with them either, they lack tact and nuance. But hey, remember that racist teacher you had that lacked tact and nuance and was not “cancelled”, not even questioned, that was just normal? When the script got flipped, and you couldn’t openly tell someone they can’t go to college because they are a “girl”, or the college they want is not taking “blacks”, they had to come up with a new way to marginalize people. Saying you are racist because you are examining the laws and culture that uphold racism is how they are doing it.

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Folds within folds of disharmonic complexity.

I never paid much attention to Critical Race Theory, so had to do a little trawling to get oriented, and it didn’t take long before my head was spinning. So much for orientation.

Seems to me one of the biggest problems with it is that so many people feel free grossly misrepresenting what others are thinking. On both sides, but the white side seems to be capable of getting much more malicious and unhinged from real facts, in a hurry. Guess it’s not hard to understand considering our vicious destructive history around the globe.

 

From first glances seems what most of the arguing is about is feeding one’s position, rather than gathering evidence and making informed conclusions.

I mean what’s wrong with realistically evaluating and appreciating what a god awful racist society America has been from the gitgo. Oh wait, we can’t be critical or we won’t get anywhere, no one’s going to change their mind. yada yada yada

What’s the point of recognizing such stuff, if you’re not going to learn from it, if you’re not willing to accept a degree of personal responsibility and be willing to change a little, or a lot. So what can uppity whities do but oppose it tooth and nail. Regardless of one’s degree of guilt, never, ever accept any culpability! - it’s rule one, among the GOP crowd - isn’t it.

Not to say that the underdogs don’t have a few rabid dogs of their own. Though, I dare say with a bit more justification than the whities hiding behind their victim mask.

 

After my excursion, I’ve returned feeling overwhelmed by the hopelessness, and grateful that it’s an issue I can duck.

3

The anti-CRT people probably do think of it as “reverse racism”. I am not familiar with CRT but after looking at this description it seems a lot different from reverse racism, which is a straightforward thing. CRT seems pretty flimsy and does have a kind of postmodernist feel in the sense that it focuses on “narratives” and “constructs”, ect that will turn away non-activists.

From the link:

CRT is not a diversity and inclusion “training” but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. Crenshaw—who coined the term “CRT”—notes that CRT is not a noun, but a verb. It cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice. It critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others.

While recognizing the evolving and malleable nature of CRT, scholar Khiara Bridges outlines a few key tenets of CRT, including:

Recognition that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It recognizes that science (as demonstrated in the Human Genome Project) refutes the idea of biological racial differences. According to scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, race is the product of social thought and is not connected to biological reality.

Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.

Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship. This includes embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.


Most of this is nonsense and can be proven wrong, but proving it wrong would deny the lived experiences of people of color, so where does that leave us?

I disagree with it being taught in schools because it’s too convoluted and a blatant attempt to shape young White kids opinions. If my kid’s school started up with it I would have no problem removing them from the school system.

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Seems that this thread would be incomplete without this thoughtful update.

“So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational awareness of the country which we are here to defend?” asked Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 
Military leaders push back on questions by Rep. Gaetz about critical race theory

By Dartunorro Clark and Mosheh Gains

Military leaders excoriated Rep. Matt Gaetz during a House hearing on Wednesday after the Florida Republican raised questions about critical race theory being taught to the nation’s soldiers.

“We do not teach critical race theory, we don’t embrace critical theory and I think that is a spurious conversation,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Gaetz during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. “And so we are focused on extremism behaviors and not ideology, not people’s thoughts, not people’s political orientations.”


We can’t understand where we are at, without understanding where we came from.

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Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pushed back on questions about critical race theory being taught to the nation’s soldiers during a Wednesday House hearing. The question was brought by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.

June 24, 2021

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Milley is obeying his Commander in Chief just like he did when Trump was in office. It’s not his personal choice. He even admits he doesn’t know anything about CRT.

As for West Point, it’s never been the kind of place that produces great minds. Teaching CRT won’t have much effect – other than White cadets might be a little more racist when they graduate.

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You saying trying to understand our history, other people, and how we got here is something we should not do?

Keep it in the bubble, is that your plan guy?

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McCaffrey Blasts ‘Terrible’ FOX News Attacks On Gen. Milley

MSNBC, 11th hour - Jun 24, 2021 -

Trump-allied Republicans are getting help from FOX News with their attacks on Gen. Mark Milley after the Joint Chiefs Chairman defended the study of critical race theory. Four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey joins to give his thoughts about the attacks on his former colleague.

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You saying trying to understand our history, other people, and how we got here is something we should not do?
CRT isn't going to help with that.
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Yeah, from reading his comments over time, I could easily imagine the concept of critical thinking being abhorrent to Guy.

So just like our changing climate situation, all of us are supposed to continue ignoring facts, damn thinking about anything critically, and let just let it all go to hell.

MAGA man.

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Yeah, from reading his comments over time, I could easily imagine the concept of critical thinking being abhorrent to Guy.

So just like our changing climate situation, all of us are supposed to continue ignoring facts, damn thinking about anything critically, and let just let it all go to heck.

MAGA man.

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Well, guess from reading his comments over time, I could easily imagine the concept of critical thinking being abhorrent to Guy.

So just like our changing climate situation, all of us are supposed to continue ignoring facts, dang thinking about anything critically, and let just let it all go to heck.

MAGA man.

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Hmmm. weird. Website that is. Let’s see if this reset it.

 

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CRT isn’t going to help with that. -- oneguy
Could you make a short list of the points that you think CRT covers? The people who are against CRT have one list, and the ones who are for it have a completely different list. It's one of the weirder things I've seen in recent decades.
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Could you make a short list of the points that you think CRT covers? The people who are against CRT have one list, and the ones who are for it have a completely different list. It’s one of the weirder things I’ve seen in recent decades.
The word "critical" in "critical race theory" can be taken in two opposite meanings .

It’s just another misnomer that allows both sides to claim justification for their actions in support or opposition to “race theory”, whatever that means!?.

It’s disgusting how the English language (the language of Shakespeare) has become a mangled mess by supposedly "woke "people, who cannot even spell words correctly and don’t care, because it is too much work erasing and correcting garbled words and sentences typed with the thumbs on a 2 x 2 inch keyboard.

“He/She is all thumbs” is curiously becoming a truism.

And “Ignorance is bliss” as if that is a desirable trait in thoughtful humans. Think of the implications inherent in that innocent sounding statement.

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Seen from France, I have no ide what is Critical racial theory and it is difficult to understand the tenants and the stakes of your exchanges.

I found a Wikipedia article which does not seem very clear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Definitions

This is more understandable for me:

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05

The ideas that racism is embedded in the legal and institutional system does not seems false to me. The idea that a " neutral" text can be applied in a racist way is not something strange for me.

But, i am more reluctant about some conclusions and i will take an exemple in France.

In France, we have a system of very selective " great schools " which teach future high level business men, high civil servants, magistrates, officiers of the army and high levels engineers.

Does the system gives an advantage to white young, coming from a rich family, yes. It is easier to prepare the contests when you are educated in an expensive or and selective high school with no worry about your surroundings.

In theses schools there are very few son of migrants or poor people. solutions are looked for. It is a perfect example of a neutral system privileging the rich, most of them being whites.

Solutions promoted are:

  • to create special contests and reserved quotas for these youngs
  • to lower the standards and suppress " discriminatory tests "
I am rather against these solutions

In the first case, you risk to integrate people under level who will not fit and you deprive you from the bests.

In the second case, for instance, a French high level servant or magistrates, has to write notes or judgments and correct them. If you suppress the tests which allow to judge the ability of the candidates to write a clear and argued paper, at term, you cripple the service.

Does it means that i am defending a white privilege ?

No, as i think that the system must be changed. but I think that the true solution is in a repairing and changing of our elementary and secondary school system to allow son of migrants and poors to better perform in school and get a chance to enter these schools.

In fact, every young should be able to get access to a good educational system . In fact it was partly the case in old times. Pompidou great father was a peasant and his father was a teacher. He became president of the Republic.

I really would like you to enlighten me.

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whatever that means!?. -- Write4U
Kind of surprised you made that comment without doing a simple search. "Critical Race Theory" comes from Law School, so I wouldn't expect anyone to just know it's tenets from casual conversation.
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Racism is most definitely built into our legal system- everything from voting rights, Jim Crow, Gerrymandering, and that’s just for starters. That’s just the beginning though. It’s not just racism built into our system, it’s sexism too, but sticking to the topic, biracial children/adults are forced to choose black or white, when they are human (even my sons have complained about this one). I could tell you some stories that really ticked me off as my sons were growing up and sometimes we still have to deal with crap now that they are adults.

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Thanks very much.

  1. Race is a social construct, without a biological basis: I agree.

  2. Racism has been the norm for most of USA history. I agree, but I would add not only USA. I would add that it is a particular case of hatred of the stranger, of the unknown. In many ancient languages, the word for stranger is the word for enemy. Who is not me is an enemy, and as such must be despised and hated.

  3. Racism exists out of individual hatred or intention. That point is not a mere observation, but is debatable.

One can say that if there are no more racists, there is no more racism. Racism is not an abstract thing but it is an ideology, a view of the world. If a “neutral” law has racial discriminatory effects, is it because le law itself, the people who apply it, or because the effects are embedded in the system.

For instance, Black people have more difficulty to access to prestigious universities. Is it because the entrance system is discriminatory by itself, because of the people who select the applicants, or because the whole educational system is discriminatory.

If I look from another point of view, will a young black man, coming from a rich black family, who has been in same high school as the young white men from rich white families, enter a prestigious university as easily as them?

It is true that the average black family is poorer than the average white family, but is it racism or social inequality?

Is it possible that CRT’s promoters make a mistake, fighting racism where, for instance, there is social exploitation?

Race does not defines by itself a whole human being.