Why is CRT a hot button issue and how did it become one?

[Bodi]

Nice try.
But it still doesn't work.
A few people made wisecracks about used car salesmen and Trump's relationship to the vaccines.
The Post Office, by the way, is screwed up.
Would you like to see the emails I've been getting the last couple of months?
Why does it take two and a half weeks to mail a DVD in a bubble envelope from Whittier CA to Ohio or Virginia?
The Bush did 9-1-1 came directly from Alex Jones, not Dems

Wisecracks? LOL What a load of crap.

 

[cpwill]

What CRT is:

The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

It is that, but, it is a bit more than just that. Critical Race Theory is grounded in Critical Theory, and rejects some of the premises of our Liberal system of government such as objective truth that all can equally arrive at through reason, individualism, and equal moral value for all human beings.

Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States that seeks to critically examine U.S. law as it intersects with issues of race in the U.S. and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the United States.

CRT originated in the mid 1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams. It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race. CRT is grounded in critical theory and draws from thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s.​

CRT comes with a problematic epistemology, a number of problematic assumptions, and, unfortunately, a number of destructive proposed structures to build "solutions" from.

You will get no argument from me that things like current urban property values are heavily influenced by discriminatory areas, but such instances themselves are not the whole of CRT, nor what people find most odious about it.

What CRT is NOT:
HATE WHITEY, KILL WHITEY, MAKE WHITE CHILDREN FEEL GUILTY.

I've not seen CRT advocates argue for killing people based on the color of their skin, however, they do argue in favor of people having guilt based on the color of their skin. Make White Children Feel Guilty is certainly part of the anti-racist pedagogy, and, it is the part that is creating the most backlash.

 

[cpwill]

And what's your response? To continue making veiled threats about GOP willingness to dump billions into further propaganda campaigns to rile up PTA parents.

As with the Tea Party, the GOP was slow coming to this party (so was FOX), and - just as with the Tea Party - they will likely find that many of the people who are angry at those PTA meetings are not necessarily all that Conservative. It doesn't take billions in propaganda for parents to get mad when they find out that schools are hiding racial curricula from them, sending their young children home with a sheet so they can score their "privilege" as Oppressors, etc. so on and so forth - they get mad about that on their own.


The GOP and conservative media will absolutely try to capitalize on that anger, sure. But those attempts don't make it unnatural. They are trying to capitalize on something organic.

Did you forget that Diebold came under fire for a letter that Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell wrote as a fundraising pitch to Republicans.
In the letter, O'Dell said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."

Oh but it's all in our imaginations, right.

Yeah.... Respectfully, I"m not sure that doubling down on conspiracy mongering about the 2004 election is the best way to make the argument that only the GOP does that sort of thing....

Look @cpwill, just adding more and more stuff to bury your weak to nonexistent attacks on critical race theory as some kind of fifth column marxist attempt to make white children hate themselves is your choice.

I'm fine discussing CRT, both where I think it can be helpful, and where I think it goes (deeply) awry in ways that can make application of it destructive both to the people it wants to help and others.

But I do acknowledge your warning about wealthy Republicans and their willingness to LIE and put money behind those lies in order to scare the crap out of their bigoted white constituents and reinforce their victimhood. I am just floored that you don't see that as wrong.

it's not a lie that the anti-racism movement (or some of CRT's broader truth claims), when turned into pedagogy for younger children, is going to piss off a lot of parents, because it's offensive. It's not a lie that it has done so. No one is faking those PTA videos, and no one has to fake the stories the outrage-machine picks up to run with and nationalize.

 

[Crunchtime]

Imagine learning that some parts of your society's history was so terrible that not only was it erased from YOUR history books, but you decide to make it illegal to teach it to future generations.
On second thought, don't do that. Instead, TEACH it in the hopes that future generations use better judgment.
Just be honest and tell the whole story.

This generation is not the generations that owned slaves. Few people in this present day would own slaves if given the option. Today’s society totally rejects the idea of slavery.

Critical of Critical Race Theory - Bill's Weekly Column - Bill O'Reilly

As an adult who still has the protection of freedom of thought, I can ignore the Critical Race Theory (CRT) concept if I want to. And I do because it is largely destructive blather. But millions of American children cannot ignore it and that is a catastrophe.

www.billoreilly.com

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

As with the Tea Party, the GOP was slow coming to this party (so was FOX), and - just as with the Tea Party - they will likely find that many of the people who are angry at those PTA meetings are not necessarily all that Conservative. It doesn't take billions in propaganda for parents to get mad when they find out that schools are hiding racial curricula from them, sending their young children home with a sheet so they can score their "privilege" as Oppressors, etc. so on and so forth - they get mad about that on their own.
The GOP and conservative media will absolutely try to capitalize on that anger, sure. But those attempts don't make it unnatural. They are trying to capitalize on something organic.

Yeah.... Respectfully, I"m not sure that doubling down on conspiracy mongering about the 2004 election is the best way to make the argument that only the GOP does that sort of thing....
I'm fine discussing CRT, both where I think it can be helpful, and where I think it goes (deeply) awry in ways that can make application of it destructive both to the people it wants to help and others.

it's not a lie that the anti-racism movement (or some of CRT's broader truth claims), when turned into pedagogy for younger children, is going to piss off a lot of parents, because it's offensive. It's not a lie that it has done so. No one is faking those PTA videos, and no one has to fake the stories the outrage-machine picks up to run with and nationalize.

So basically you're saying that nobody can be trusted to craft a CRT curriculum that WON'T "send their young children home with a sheet so they can score their "privilege" as Oppressors, etc. so on and so forth" and you can't allow yourself to trust these people at all on anything.
That dovetails nicely with this morning's latest revelation about the Right:

They don't think CHILDLESS LIBERALS should even be allowed to VOTE.

And Fox News agrees!

I guess it's only a few PTA meetings away from getting to where ALL liberals should be barred from voting, or participating in society in any way.

it's not a lie that the anti-racism movement (or some of CRT's broader truth claims), when turned into pedagogy for younger children, is going to piss off a lot of parents

Aww Hell, skip the formalities cp...everything ABOUT anti-racism pisses everyone off, if they're on the Right...just drop the tomfoolery and admit that's the position today.
You'll be labeled a commie if you don't.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

This generation is not the generations that owned slaves. Few people in this present day would own slaves if given the option. Today’s society totally rejects the idea of slavery.

Critical of Critical Race Theory - Bill's Weekly Column - Bill O'Reilly

As an adult who still has the protection of freedom of thought, I can ignore the Critical Race Theory (CRT) concept if I want to. And I do because it is largely destructive blather. But millions of American children cannot ignore it and that is a catastrophe.

www.billoreilly.com

Agreed.
Now contrast that with the popular Right Wing position that "slavery wasn't really so bad".
No really, slavery really wasn't as awful as those godless commie libtards claim it was.



No one thinks that today's generation wants slavery.
Well...ALMOST no one...I'd say it's about the same number as those who actually want communism.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I've not seen CRT advocates argue for killing people based on the color of their skin, however, they do argue in favor of people having guilt based on the color of their skin. Make White Children Feel Guilty is certainly part of the anti-racist pedagogy, and, it is the part that is creating the most backlash.

Well good, then argue from that instead of creating hysteria.
I think the hysteria is better aimed at Texas, which wants to eliminate any teachings that the Klan were morally wrong.

It stuns me that you don't notice the yawning chasm staring you in the face.
If you noticed it, you wouldn't be siding with hysterical parents at a PTA meeting being put on by the same people who don't think the Klan is morally wrong.

 

[jaypatriot]

Uncomfortable history is still history and should not be sanitized because white people are embarrassed by it.

And what would be the point of students being hit over the head constantly with facts from the past that condemn white people in the 19th and 20th centuries as racist?
Isn't that one of the objectives of CRT? Constantly pointing out how racist white people are and how victimized black people are for hundreds of years?
What is the objective here?

 

[wellwisher]

The Democrat party leadership, mostly from the American South, were the last people in the highest level of US government power, who wanted to maintain slavery, before it was outlawed. Lincoln who was a Republican, won his election based on the majority view that slavery much end. CRT does not go there even though this is key to understanding all the other issues. The 1860's was the turning point for slavery. The CRT tries to push the discussion back in time, away from the turning point; distraction tactic.

The turning point should have evolved the country to the future, much smoother, but it did not. There is a reason for this. Unlike the Nazi party which was purged from German politics after WWII, the Democrats party, after trying to perpetuate slavery and divide the country was not dissolved, as it should have been. The result was after the turning point of making slavery illegal, was an infection in Washington, based on ole boy glory days, that infiltrated future laws of the land.

To put this in perspective, imagine if after WWII the Nazi Party was allow to remain a part of a two party political system, just votes away from controlling the country. There would be people, who believed in the world view of Hitler, at the highest level government, making laws for the future of the country. They would take their time not to throw slat into wounds, until they felt it was time to create these glory days again. For example, Senator Bird, who was a Democrat, was also a high ranking member of the KKK. He was in charge of helping to make US laws in the image of his belief system.

If the Democrat party had been formally purged and its members forced to form a new party; People's Party, with this new party without any symbolic tie to the past, the country may have evolved as did modern Modern Germany; peaceful. Instead some of the cancer of the ole south remained in power after 1865. CRT tries to untangle the web of deceit, but it is also trying to spread the blame without looking at the main source of the problems. The KKK forms later, Segregation and Jim Crow laws appear from this cancer that could have been avoided.

If I wanted to excise this cancer and get all its roots, we need to start at the reunified USA after the Civil War, and look at the influence of the Democrat party of 1865, and see what types of laws and changes they politically enacted that slowly put the brakes on the turning point.

All the statues to Southern Democrat Generals, that are being destroyed, is a misdirection. In the military, there is the chain of command, with the Generals, not at the top of the food chain. The top of the food chain are the Politicians, who somehow are not losing many statues or paintings. These scape goat Generals followed orders, from people above them. This is also a part of a distraction strategy, since the truth will not set the leaders free.

 

[Crunchtime]

The Democrat party leadership, mostly from the American South, were the last people in the highest level of US government power, who wanted to maintain slavery, before it was outlawed. Lincoln who was a Republican, won his election based on the majority view that slavery much end. CRT does not go there even though this is key to understanding all the other issues. The 1860's was the turning point for slavery. The CRT tries to push the discussion back in time, away from the turning point; distraction tactic.

The turning point should have evolved the country to the future, much smoother, but it did not. There is a reason for this. Unlike the Nazi party which was purged from German politics after WWII, the Democrats party, after trying to perpetuate slavery and divide the country was not dissolved, as it should have been. The result was after the turning point of making slavery illegal, was an infection in Washington, based on ole boy glory days, that infiltrated future laws of the land.

To put this in perspective, imagine if after WWII the Nazi Party was allow to remain a part of a two party political system, just votes away from controlling the country. There would be people, who believed in the world view of Hitler, at the highest level government, making laws for the future of the country. They would take their time not to throw slat into wounds, until they felt it was time to create these glory days again. For example, Senator Bird, who was a Democrat, was also a high ranking member of the KKK. He was in charge of helping to make US laws in the image of his belief system.

If the Democrat party had been formally purged and its members forced to form a new party; People's Party, with this new party without any symbolic tie to the past, the country may have evolved as did modern Modern Germany; peaceful. Instead some of the cancer of the ole south remained in power after 1865. CRT tries to untangle the web of deceit, but it is also trying to spread the blame without looking at the main source of the problems. The KKK forms later, Segregation and Jim Crow laws appear from this cancer that could have been avoided.

If I wanted to excise this cancer and get all its roots, we need to start at the reunified USA after the Civil War, and look at the influence of the Democrat party of 1865, and see what types of laws and changes they politically enacted that slowly put the brakes on the turning point.

All the statues to Southern Democrat Generals, that are being destroyed, is a misdirection. In the military, there is the chain of command, with the Generals, not at the top of the food chain. The top of the food chain are the Politicians, who somehow are not losing many statues or paintings. These scape goat Generals followed orders, from people above them. This is also a part of a distraction strategy, since the truth will not set the leaders free.

Could it be that those who promote CRT are really promoting reparations or anything else they can glean from it? It’s not really about equality, is it? It’s about control. Could 2065 be the year that white slaves are liberated from their black owners? Would that be justice?

 

[cpwill]

So basically you're saying that nobody can be trusted to craft a CRT curriculum that WON'T "send their young children home with a sheet so they can score their "privilege" as Oppressors, etc. so on and so forth" and you can't allow yourself to trust these people at all on anything.

I'm saying that when you work CRT into the pedagogy, you are going to get that kind of problematic assignment, because that's what it is trying to describe. It's like asking whether or not we can trust someone to teach math without referencing numbers.

That dovetails nicely with this morning's latest revelation about the Right:

They don't think CHILDLESS LIBERALS should even be allowed to VOTE.

Firstly, this is a massive red herring - nothing in the debate over whether or not CRT should be informing K-12 pedagogy has to do with whether or not a single conservative argued (or didn't) that childless liberals shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Secondly:

A. This isn't "The Right", this is "A candidate in a GOP Primary for a Senate Seat", and
B. He didn't say childless liberals shouldn't be allowed to vote. Instead, he said:

The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds,” Vance noted. “Let’s do this instead. Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children.” ​

Given how, er, blatant, that error was, I gotta ask: who told you that A) J.D. Vance represented the entirety of the Right and B) that he said that childless liberals shouldn't be allowed to vote? You may want to take that source with a grain of salt in the future.

Because if it was this source:

And Fox News agrees!

Then they even repeated that quotation up above before claiming that JD Vance and FOX were talking about childless liberals not being allowed to vote, indicating A) they have embarrasingly low reading comprehension, and/or B) they assume their readers do.

Aww Hell, skip the formalities cp...everything ABOUT anti-racism pisses everyone off, if they're on the Right...just drop the tomfoolery and admit that's the position today.
You'll be labeled a commie if you don't.

I don't know if I'd say these parents are "on the Right". But I do think that, if the Democratic Party and associated/aligned entities don't curb this, just as they curbed the "Defund The Police" nonsense, it's going to be a real problem for them.

 

[cpwill]

Well good, then argue from that instead of creating hysteria.

I'm not creating any hysteria. CRT asks some good questions, but, because it is driven by deeply flawed presuppositions, generally provides terrible answers.

I think the hysteria is better aimed at Texas, which wants to eliminate any teachings that the Klan were morally wrong.

It stuns me that you don't notice the yawning chasm staring you in the face.
If you noticed it, you wouldn't be siding with hysterical parents at a PTA meeting being put on by the same people who don't think the Klan is morally wrong.

.....

1. You fell for a clickbait headline, old friend. No one involved in this process is saying they don't think the Klan was morally wrong.
2. If you bother to click on the Bloomberg link, you will see that the Senate pulled an entire set of reading lists from the House Bill - in which a section on how the Klan being wrong was included - because the Senate thought the Congress shouldn't be dictating curricula that closely, but that rather:

Instead, such requirements should be in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS,standards developed by the State Board of Education... “Not just politicians but teachers and parents and administrators have a say in that process,”​

Respectfully, in the pursuit to avoid "creating hysteria", reading through source material and not assuming the worst of the Other just because they are the Other is often a good start.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I'm not creating any hysteria. CRT asks some good questions, but, because it is driven by deeply flawed presuppositions, generally provides terrible answers.



.....

1. You fell for a clickbait headline, old friend. No one involved in this process is saying they don't think the Klan was morally wrong.
2. If you bother to click on the Bloomberg link, you will see that the Senate pulled an entire set of reading lists from the House Bill - in which a section on how the Klan being wrong was included - because the Senate thought the Congress shouldn't be dictating curricula that closely, but that rather:

Instead, such requirements should be in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS,standards developed by the State Board of Education... “Not just politicians but teachers and parents and administrators have a say in that process,”​

Respectfully, in the pursuit to avoid "creating hysteria", reading through source material and not assuming the worst of the Other just because they are the Other is often a good start.

I was still living IN Texas when they passed the GOP platform that said they were against critical thinking.
Sorry but regardless of what the text said, I KNOW from having two kids in school there HOW teachers interpreted it, and I know how school board members FELT.
One of the big reasons we finally MOVED back to Cali.

 

[dixon01767]

Oh Lordy, some rando in a YouTube video. Why does it always have to come down to that?

Thats from the South Bay Education Alliance. An online seminar for teachers.

 

[lwf]

And what would be the point of students being hit over the head constantly with facts from the past that condemn white people in the 19th and 20th centuries as racist?
Isn't that one of the objectives of CRT? Constantly pointing out how racist white people are and how victimized black people are for hundreds of years?
What is the objective here?

No that isn't the point at all. The objective is to teach history. Part of that is explaining the history behind why black communities are so much poorer and less successful in modern day America, even though we all have equal rights.

 

[Visbek]

I have a feeling you don't know jackshit about cities that are going to wake up and realize they need to hire a lot more cops and start finding those criminals with guns....

Riiiiiight

Back in the real world:
• Homicide rates are going up EVERYWHERE in the US -- not just big cities with Democratic mayors
• Police EVERYWHERE are retiring, not just big cities with Democratic mayors
• Rates of many other types of crime are falling
• Cities have not, in fact, slashed police spending
• Mass incarceration doesn't stop crime

And again: Explain how crime rates fell in those big Democratic-run cities after 1991.

You're going to learn that BLM terrorists, CRT zealots, and fools who believe the 1619 Project bullshit are going to be opposed by cities that are waking up to the crime waves in big cities.

Do you really expect anyone to take this type of nonsense seriously?

I don't know what color you are but I have a feeling the color of one's skin is all that matters to you.

No, it isn't. Nor do I fall for the "color blindness is a valid reason to ignore racism" BS.

 

[Visbek]

Visbek,
I'd love to see a video of you at one of the PTA meetings where you defend your bullshit CRT tenets to parents not wanting their kids to be indoctrinated to CRT racism.

Yes, because obviously yelling louder proves that you're right.

And in case you missed it, the real bullshit is the parents who have whipped themselves into a froth over something they can't even define.

BTW, I do like your avatar of the Emperor Hadrian.

It's not Hadrian. It's Aristotle.

But you have to know that he enslaved his enemies and did nothing to free slaves in the Roman Empire.

lol... So, an erroneous ad hominem attack on my avatar is the best you can do, huh?

 

[Visbek]

CRT comes with a problematic epistemology, a number of problematic assumptions, and, unfortunately, a number of destructive proposed structures to build "solutions" from.

What "problematic epistemology?" Is it problematic to rely on actual experimental evidence that people have unconscious biases (e.g. implicit association tests)?

Is it problematic to realize that individual perspectives can lead two people to examine the same evidence, and draw different conclusions -- even though we see that happening all the time?

What proposals do they offer that you find to be "destructive?"

I've not seen CRT advocates argue for killing people based on the color of their skin, however, they do argue in favor of people having guilt based on the color of their skin.

Really? Which CRT proponents make that claim? Be specific.

 

[Visbek]

The Democrat party leadership, mostly from the American South, were the last people in the highest level of US government power, who wanted to maintain slavery, before it was outlawed. Lincoln who was a Republican, won his election based on the majority view that slavery much end. CRT does not go there...

What nonsense. CRT definitely examines various parts of US history, including the Civil War, as part of its analysis.

What they don't do is play the dumb partisan game of ignoring the major party realignments, in a vain attempt to score points.

The turning point should have evolved the country to the future, much smoother, but it did not. There is a reason for this. Unlike the Nazi party which was purged from German politics after WWII, the Democrats party, after trying to perpetuate slavery and divide the country was not dissolved, as it should have been.

Yes, because if in the past you dissolved the party that you don't want to exist today, all of those people will disappear.

Back in the real world, many of the racist and pro-segregationist southern Democrats wound up gradually migrating to the Republican Party, which over time started using racist dog-whistles, opposing civil rights, and increasingly relying on white voters and white grievance. (Did you really not notice that Republicans have dominated the South for decades, and that it was a total shock for Biden to win the vote in Georgia?) During that time, the Democratic Party was also changing, and minorities are now a significant part of the Democratic coalition.

More importantly, today's Democratic Party isn't the one that's full of racists. Just FYI.

But hey, as long as you can score points by slagging Democrats from 50+ years ago, who cares about facts?

All the statues to Southern Democrat Generals, that are being destroyed, is a misdirection.

So... We should have destroyed the Democratic Party for supporting slavery and secession and segregation, but... we should leave the statues of Confederate heroes, who killed to maintain slavery and secession, exactly where they are?

Removing the statues is important. The time to honor traitors, racists and slavers has passed.

Unsurprisingly, the real "misdirection" is in your post. You want to deflect blame to yesterday's racists, so that you don't have to acknowledge who is still racist today. Hard pass.

 

[jaypatriot]

Yes, because obviously yelling louder proves that you're right.

And in case you missed it, the real bullshit is the parents who have whipped themselves into a froth over something they can't even define.


It's not Hadrian. It's Aristotle.


lol... So, an erroneous ad hominem attack on my avatar is the best you can do, huh?

It's easy to attack obscure avatars. They don't fight back. At least the ones that are dead. But I admire you for defending a dead philosopher.

 

[cpwill]

What "problematic epistemology?" Is it problematic to rely on actual experimental evidence that people have unconscious biases (e.g. implicit association tests)?

No - quite the opposite: it is problematic to downgrade data driven analysis, and application of reason in favor of "narrative truth". It's problematic to say that there is no independent body of objective truth that all can come to through reason, and that instead the ability to see truth is dependent on immutable characteristics and where you fit on a power spectrum (ie: that those who are "oppressed" - because everyone is either an oppressor or oppressed along a variety of scales - can have access to actual truth, whereas the "oppressors" - as determined by your immutable characteristics - cannot).

Is it problematic to realize that individual perspectives can lead two people to examine the same evidence, and draw different conclusions -- even though we see that happening all the time?

Not at all - that people can honestly come to different conclusions is a key point to one of my repeated arguments here: that "so-and-so disagrees with my conclusion" =/= "so-and-so opposes my motive".

But it is problematic to say that, because people can draw different conclusions from data, the viewpoint of the person with the most intersectionality points wins, regardless of the logical strength of any arguments, it's congruence with the data, or it's ability to posit successful predictions.

What proposals do they offer that you find to be "destructive?"

I think that teaching people to define themselves primarily as members of immutable groups in a zero-sum conflict for power with others isn't helpful for building a unified community or country, nor is it helpful to actual human progress. I think much of the anti-racism (which often doesn't need the prefix "anti", really) stuff doesn't help those it intends to, but does create conflict and backlash against them. I think that, because they assume a given driver (namely, power politics along the lines of the groups set notionally into conflict) for disparity, CRT and CT theorists in general misdiagnose that disparity, causing their proposed solutions to be poorly aimed - sometimes they are wastes of effort and money, but, sometimes, unfortunately, to the point of hurting those they wish to help.

Really? Which CRT proponents make that claim? Be specific.

Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, and Peggy McIntosh come to mind.

 

[cpwill]

I was still living IN Texas when they passed the GOP platform that said they were against critical thinking.
Sorry but regardless of what the text said, I KNOW from having two kids in school there HOW teachers interpreted it, and I know how school board members FELT.
One of the big reasons we finally MOVED back to Cali.

1. Doubling down on a red herring doesn't make your argument stronger.
2. Anecdotal evidence based on your interpretation of other people's feelings is.... shall we say.... not exactly the strongest case.

 

[What if...?]

Firstly, it's important to understand what it is before one can say at what age appropriate level it should be taught as part of a public school curriculum.

Ask yourself this question. Would you want your child being taught this in the Elementary grades or even middle school or high school?
Why or why not?

Critical race theory (CRT) | Definition, Principles, & Facts | Britannica

Critical race theory, intellectual and social movement and framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is a socially constructed category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color. Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of...

www.britannica.com

Well, we went with slavery because peasantry couldn't work here and was one of the reasons America looked so good to everybody.

Peasants were slaves in Europe, they came with the land.

And those rich white guys sure weren't gonna do the scut work themselves, right?

So...slavery.

 

[Visbek]

No - quite the opposite: it is problematic to downgrade data driven analysis, and application of reason in favor of "narrative truth".

Pointing out that "narratives are useful" doesn't mean they are rejecting data.

It's problematic to say that there is no independent body of objective truth that all can come to through reason...

CRT doesn't do that. Sounds like you're confusing CRT with post-modernism.

That said: Outside of quantifiable hard sciences, humans don't have access to "objective truth." Even apparently objective evidence like video can be distorted based on the perspective of the person making the film (as they can include or omit parts of the event), or the viewer, or tendentious edited by those trying to use the footage make a point.

There is no "danger" in recognizing that humans don't have 100% perfect, neutral and objective access to every facet of reality.

But it is problematic to say that, because people can draw different conclusions from data, the viewpoint of the person with the most intersectionality points wins....

Uhhh... Yeah, no. No one says anything even remotely along those lines. Their point is that a member of groups tend to ignore those who are part of overlapping oppressed groups.

I think that teaching people to define themselves primarily as members of immutable groups in a zero-sum conflict for power with others....

CRT teaches nothing of the sort. It's the racists who make those kinds of claims.

I think much of the anti-racism (which often doesn't need the prefix "anti", really) stuff doesn't help those it intends to, but does create conflict and backlash against them.

So it's better for people who are oppressed by racism to not recognize that they are oppressed by racism? Seriously?

I think that, because they assume a given driver (namely, power politics along the lines of the groups set notionally into conflict) for disparity, CRT and CT theorists in general misdiagnose that disparity...

I don't think CRT is perfect, but I'd say that diagnosing inequities based on race, class, gender, and so forth is pretty much spot-on, and based in a lot of facts. One of their points is that members of the dominant group often ignore those facts, or spin them to exculpate themselves, or deliberately distort them to maintain control.

Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, and Peggy McIntosh come to mind.

I see no indication that Delgado and Stefancic insist that "all whites are guilty." They certainly don't say anything like that in their introduction to CRT.

AFAIK, Peggy McIntosh isn't a CRT scholar. Sweeping everyone who discusses race into the "CRT BAD BAD BAD!!!" is just a manipulative attack by the right wing. Anyway, she is in fact opposed to the idea that whites should feel guilty simply because they are white:

I don't believe we can be guilty, or ashamed, or blamed for being born into systems both above and below the hypothetical line of social justice. They're arbitrary. They have to do with... these projections that are put on to us, and the rewards or punishments relate to our sex, to our gender, to our sexual orientation, to our race, to our ethnicity, to our parents' reputation, to stereotypes people may have about the kinds of group we were born into.

How to recognize your white privilege — and use it to fight inequality

Many of us believe that we're living in a meritocracy, deserving of what we have and compassionate toward those with less. But that's not true: white people have been given a headstart and ongoing advantages due to the color of their skin, while people of color suffer from equally arbitrary...

www.ted.com

 

[Crunchtime]

I would say that police are not representative of society in general, and any attempt to portray them that way will surely fail. Systemic racism may be real in certain environments such as police, education, and government, (in some instances) but not in society in general. CRT is like throwing XXXX against the wall to see if some of it sticks.