The "Critical Race Theory" Debate is a Lie
The "Critical Race Theory" Debate is a Lie
The truth is more insidious.
If you’ve been following the news recently, you’re probably aware of the ongoing debate about “critical race theory.” But that’s likely all you know about it: there’s a debate going on, people feel quite strongly about their respective positions, and it has something to do with students, maybe?
You can be forgiven for not understanding what the fuss is about. In fact, that’s precisely what one side of the debate is hoping for. (Guess which side.)
Where you stand on the issue — and, by extension, how you feel about it — depends almost entirely upon where you get your information. If you read hyper-conservative publications like The Blaze, Breitbart, or something called Real Clear Public Affairs, you will come away convinced that critical race theory is being taught to elementary schoolers. You will likely also conclude that this is bad news — very bad news, folks, very bad n-- this is a terrible thing that’s happening, can you believe it? When they told me I said, ‘they’re teaching what?’ I just couldn’t belie-- children! They’re the future, right, isn’t that the song? Can’t listen to teachers anymore, whi-- and I’ve always said, y’know, ‘teachers…ehhh, not so smart!’ Anyway — and that somebody ought to do something about this.
On the other hand, if your publications of choice are those helplessly tethered to outmoded concepts like “reality” and “objective truth,” you probably didn’t hear much of anything about the debate until last week or so, when parents in Loudoun County, Virginia crashed a school board meeting, hollering about critical race theory so forcefully that the school board had to adjourn and two parents were arrested. You’re probably also still trying to figure out what the debate is about, because it’s hard to find legitimate information when right-wing outlets have been carpet-bombing the internet with bullshit since last summer and everyone else is playing catch-up.
The lesson here isn’t that you shouldn’t trust right-wing outlets; rather, it’s that if a story or debate is being advanced exclusively by outlets on one side of the political spectrum, you should probably view it with a healthy dose of skepticism. (But you also shouldn’t trust right-wing outlets. They make up stories on a regular basis and I could link to more examples but all these are enough to make my point. Okay, one more. Sorry, last one. Just kidding.)
Normally I’d outline how we got to this point, but that feels like a waste of time. We got here the same way we always get here. Some right-wing strategist or talking head invents a grievance; right-wing outlets start dedicating all their coverage to this made-up grievance; their audiences get so worked up that they “take action” (i.e., target random people who they’ve decided are responsible for an injustice that does not, in fact, exist); everyone else jumps in; we argue about it either until the next made-up grievance comes oozing down the pike or (fingers crossed) we die.
The same series of events is unfolding right now with critical race theory. First, the bad news: the right has so far gotten away with this because critical race theory is a complex academic framework that has only formally existed for about 30 years, and the finer points tend to vary depending on who you ask. Now, the good news: proponents of critical race theory agree on the foundational arguments undergirding the theory, and those are really all you need to know in order to see through the manufactured outrage about it.
Here is a (very brief) primer on critical race theory. If you can’t sit through the following four paragraphs, scroll down to the big bold letters for a vastly oversimplified definition.
Critical race theory had its genesis in the mid-1970s, when American legal scholars began to wonder why, after making great strides towards a more equal society in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, progress in American civil rights slowed to a crawl — and in some cases was being undone — after the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
To answer this question, scholars borrowed some principles from critical legal studies, a legal framework which argues that laws are used to maintain a society’s status quo. Critical legal studies also contends that laws cannot be truly neutral: those who write the laws will inevitably do so in a way that serves (or at least does not run counter to) their own politics and self-interest. And, even if someone could write a law devoid of any bias or favor, the people tasked with the application of the law can (and will) apply it in an unequal or discriminatory fashion according to their own politics and self-interest. Critical race theory expands on that idea, arguing that inequality and discrimination are woven into the fabric of American society — not just the legal system, but every system, structure, and institution.
The list of racial disparities in America is practically endless: in income, in incarceration rates, in educational attainment, in healthcare, in food insecurity, in access to addiction treatment. Critical race theory isn’t about finding someone (or some group) to blame for these conditions; rather, the theory holds that systemic inequality exists not because of individual prejudices, but because racial inequality is part of this country’s social and institutional DNA. It can’t not exist.
To liberals, these disparities are outliers. To conservatives, they’re evidence that the system doesn’t work. Critical race theory argues that these disparities are neither outliers nor indicative of a flawed system, but proof that the system is working exactly as designed.
OVERSIMPLIFIED DEFINITION:
Critical race theory argues that the harm caused by a racist practice or a discriminatory law continues even after the practice ends or the law is repealed. The Civil Rights Act did not end racism. Brown v. Board of Education did not end racial inequality in education. The Fair Housing Act did not end housing discrimination.
These are not the fringe ramblings of cloistered academics. This is common knowledge and has been for, by the most charitable estimate, quite some time. Seemingly the only people who don’t know this are the ones hollering about critical race theory right now, and I’d be willing to bet that even most of them know it.
So that’s critical race theory in a (very tightly-packed) nutshell. As I said, it’s a complex academic framework — and I do mean “framework,” because it’s not a finished product — that is constantly evolving and adjusting in response to social and institutional changes. This understandably begs the question: Why is critical race theory being taught in K–12 classrooms?
Short answer: It isn’t. Longer answer: It is not.
Critical race theory is taught in colleges and universities. Not elementary schools, not middle schools, not high schools: colleges and universities. You’re likely either in your senior year of undergrad (as a Sociology major) or in a Master’s or Ph.D. program before you get anywhere near critical race theory, and when you do, it’s because you signed up for the goddamn course.
It’s such a nuanced and complex critical theory that professors dedicate entire semesters to discussing it, but the right would have you believe that underpaid public school teachers are making time between recess and what color is this duck to fire off a quick lecture on structural determinism.
Honestly, though, they should! Part of the reason critical race theory is even necessary is because students learn a whitewashed and sanitized version of this country’s history. The Southern Poverty Law Center surveyed 1,000 high-school seniors about how their curriculum addressed slavery, and 92% of students didn’t know that the Civil War was fought over slavery.
I was taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America, and that when he landed he thought he was in the West Indies. He encountered friendly natives (which is where the name “Indians” came from), a lovely time was had by all, the end. I had to learn on my own that he never actually made it to North America, nor did he discover the New World; even if you don’t count the people who were, you know…living there, Leif Ericson had already discovered it 500 years earlier. I also learned (on my own) that Columbus was an absolute psychopath who raped, tortured, and murdered his way through the Caribbean, and in his spare time invented the transatlantic slave trade.
Indigenous groups and activists have finally started to make progress in correcting the historical record about Christopher Columbus, but most students are still being fed the same bullshit that I was 25 years ago. Attempts to change it are often met with outrage from the right and accusations that the left is “politicizing” education and “indoctrinating” impressionable young students. They’ve done it before, and they’re doing it again right now.
In December, conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation released a report called Critical Race Theory, the New Intolerance, and Its Grip on America. (The report can be found in the “Civil Rights” section of their website, which… WHOOFH. Buddy. Come on.) The right has since taken these arguments and spun them off in a million different and progressively more idiotic directions — and given the utter gormlessness of the source material, that’s quite a feat.
The report begins with a wildly inaccurate definition of critical race theory, describing it as “the grandchild of Critical Theory” and possessing the following qualities (emphasis mine):
The Marxist analysis of society made up of categories of oppressors and oppressed;
An unhealthy dollop of Nietzschean relativism, which means that language does not accord to an objective reality, but is the mere instrument of power dynamics;
The idea that the oppressed impede revolution when they adhere to the cultural beliefs of their oppressors—and must be put through re-education sessions.
I’m not going to analyze the whole thing (I believe in self-care), but:
Critical race theory is no more the “grandchild of Critical Theory” than QAnon is. The goal of critical theory is to end oppression within a society by identifying and critiquing the underlying ideology that justifies the oppression. So when QAnon says we’re secretly ruled by pedophile global elites who drink infant blood for power-ups, they’re doing a Critical Theory.
Karl Marx didn’t create the “oppressors”/“oppressed” framework. Friedrich Hegel did; Marx simply applied Hegel’s framework to capitalism. But “Hegelianism” doesn’t make conservatives reflexively scream “NO! BAD!” the way “Marxism” does, so here we are.
Nietzschean relativism doesn’t say language “does not accord to an objective reality,” it says that there is no objective reality. Everything is relative.
I don’t know where they got that “re-education sessions” part from, but I’d bet nearly all of my teeth that someone found a reference to “education” in some Ph.D. candidate’s doctoral thesis and just ran with it.
The report mentions “school” or “schools” 203 times, implying that The Heritage Foundation has unearthed hard evidence that critical race theory has seeped into every facet of the education system. Yet the proof offered by this crack squad of gumshoes mostly pertains to workforce diversity training sessions. The best evidence the report can muster of any connection between critical race theory and public schools is: “Fairfax County Public Schools paid one of the leading voices in the social justice movement, Ibram X. Kendi, $20,000 to speak before district employees.”
That’s literally it. They don’t even say what he talked about, just that he talked. Oh, and that his fee “is equal to $300 per minute at a time when people are scrambling for funds to address how to navigate distance learning and in-person learning for students.” (“Your tax dollars are being wasted on frivolities like ‘helping minority students feel included’! What’s next, VENEZUELA?!?!?!”)
The report is peppered with ominous warnings of the impending (yet ill-defined) threat of critical race theory and education becoming politicized. It — and the broader uproar about critical race theory — feels like a deliberate attempt to distract from the fact that education is already politicized, just in a way that serves the interests of the status quo. If intentionally teaching students a distorted version of American history and attacking anyone who says otherwise isn’t indoctrination, then what the hell is?
The debate about critical race theory isn’t really about that at all; these things never are. At their core, they are only ever about power. The Republican Party has managed to stay afloat over the past few decades thanks to the unwavering support of a comparatively small but fiercely loyal base, but those voters are dying out. The GOP simply doesn’t have enough support from younger generations to replace those votes.
That’s not to say they haven’t tried to build a base of young conservatives. Right-wing megadonors like the Koch brothers have used the considerable and resources at their disposal to support quote-unquote “grassroots” groups of young conservatives like Turning Point USA, but those efforts have failed to move the needle. I, for one, am astounded that youths aren’t responding to the natural charisma and rugged appeal of a born leader like this guy:
If I were building the perfect human specimen to engage the youth, I know I’d want them to have the facial features of a toddler on a head that looks like Ichabod Crane going into anaphylactic shock. It’s usually a can’t-miss combo, surprised it didn’t pan out.
By itself, Operation “What If Braces Were A Person” isn’t enough to help the right maintain its political power, but it doesn’t have to be. Keeping people distracted with meaningless nonsense allows the GOP to quietly rig the system in their favor without anybody noticing.
The right has an endless supply of ginned-up controversies that can be deployed for this exact purpose, and critical race theory is just the latest one. It’s too complex to be easily understood, and “race” is right there in the name: they can pull all sorts of shit under one big, convenient umbrella and continue stoking fear and suspicion in their base. Voting rights? Critical race theory rearing its ugly head again. Economic inequality under capitalism? Seems awfully Marxist to me, did you know he invented critical race theory? Teachers criticizing laws forbidding them from teaching evolution? You get that idea from IBRAM X. KENDI, ONE OF THE LEADING VOICES IN THE SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT? I bet you’re attending his secret critical race theory seminars on the taxpayer’s dime! A parent of one of your students said on Facebook that you’re Antifa and I know she wouldn’t lie because I see her at CPAC every year! Educator? More like re-educator! You’re fired, report to the camps for your re-education.
It’s entirely possible that I’m giving them too much credit and they couldn’t care less about saving the GOP or upholding conservative ideals, they just don’t want the gravy train to stop rolling while they’re still on it, but it doesn’t really matter either way. To repudiate critical race theory, to object to the very existence of the theory, is itself an endorsement, tacit or otherwise, of the continued subjugation of marginalized communities and the preservation of an inherently racist social structure.
Eventually this argument will die down. But most people won’t really have understood what the argument was about while it was happening, and they certainly won’t bother learning about it after the fact, so the people who came up with the argument will claim victory. They exposed critical race theory; they protected America’s children from poisonous SJW propaganda like “Racial inequality exists.”
They’ll do it for long enough that eventually, everyone will kind of shrug their shoulders and go “I-…yeah, I kinda remember something about that.” But they won’t remember that this was all a lie from the beginning, and they’ll assume there must have been some truth to it — if there wasn’t, why would conservatives keep bringing it up? And when the cycle inevitably begins anew, the people who perpetrated this lie will bring up critical race theory as if to say See, they’re doing it again, this is why we gotta pass that bill preventing anyone with subversive politics from voting! It’s like the Mandela Effect, only with less whimsy and more lasting damage.
If you don’t think that’s exactly what’s going to happen, that’s fine. Real quick, though, what was all that hubbub about Barack Obama and Bill Ayers again? Ayers was Obama’s…I wanna say mentor? I know they were both in the Weather Underground, I remember that much. Oh, and Benghazi: did Hillary Clinton actually order the attack on the diplomatic compound, or did she just cancel the rescue mission and then brag about it in the Oval Office while Obama prayed to Mecca? That was before she fashioned Vince Foster’s femur into a crude spear and stabbed Seth Rich to death with it, right? Or was it after? I can never keep the timeline straight.
Exactly.