Systemic / Institutional / Societal Racism

[simple schoolboy]

Maybe systemic racism is almost entirely a thing of the past. Maybe there are other issues/forces at play holding groups of people down.

Charles Murray has entered the chat.

[B]

[Bi_3]

That's an example of the worst right wing take on the issue, which seems to be a growing intentionally driven misconception and detrimental to the cause, but it does help clarify the crucial distinction in weasel words used by the left between teaching CRT and teaching curricula that are structured by CRT tenets. It's like saying "I'm not teaching that slavery wasn't that bad, I'm teaching that State's Rights were the primary cause of the Civil War".

[wease]

That's an example of the worst right wing take on the issue, which seems to be a growing intentionally driven misconception and detrimental to the cause, but it does help clarify the crucial distinction in weasel words used by the left between teaching CRT and teaching curricula that are structured by CRT tenets. It's like saying "I'm not teaching that slavery wasn't that bad, I'm teaching that State's Rights were the primary cause of the Civil War".

Hey!

[Bi_3]

That's an example of the worst right wing take on the issue, which seems to be a growing intentionally driven misconception and detrimental to the cause, but it does help clarify the crucial distinction in weasel words used by the left between teaching CRT and teaching curricula that are structured by CRT tenets. It's like saying "I'm not teaching that slavery wasn't that bad, I'm teaching that State's Rights were the primary cause of the Civil War".

Hey!

Stop doing this and I wont call you out on it:

[Bi_3]

This is not happening, all the top people say so:

[McParadigm]

Ben Shapiro, writing about CRT way back in 2012

There is some internal conflict within CRT, though. For example, some CRT writers seem to take the Martin Luther King, Jr. line that race is arbitrary, a social construct; the majority, however, suggest that minorities have a special status in society, and something unique to bring to the table. As Delgado and Stefancic write, “Minority status, in other words, brings with a presumed competence to speak about race and racism.”

So here’s what we’re left with, in simple terms. Racism cannot be ended within the current system; the current system is actually both a byproduct of and a continuing excuse for racism. Minority opinions on the system are more relevant than white opinions, since whites have long enjoyed control of the system, and have an interest in maintaining it.

This is a deeply disturbing theory.

We can see the clear footprint of CRT all over the Obama Administration. President Obama obviously believes that the system is unjust, upholding racism and requiring “community organizing” to change it in earth-shaking ways. He appoints Supreme Court judges on the basis of race and gender; his Attorney General refuses to enforce the law equally, because to do so would be to enhance racism. When President Obama said he wanted fundamental change, he meant it at the deepest level.

Let’s start with President Obama’s own statements on race. Go back to his first memoir, Dreams From My Father. In that book, Obama describes his identity as the “tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds,” then states, “the tragedy is not mine, or at least not mine alone, it is yours, sons and daughters of Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island, it is yours, children of Africa, it is the tragedy of both my wife’s six-year-old cousin and his white first grade classmates, so that you need not guess at what troubles me, it’s on the nightly news for all to see, and that if we could acknowledge at least that much then the tragic cycle begins to break down …” America is irredeemably racist, wedded to an irredeemably racist past.

No wonder Obama found Malcolm X more inspiring than Martin Luther King as a young man. No wonder Obama writes of the “unspoken settlement we had made since the 1960s, a settlement that allowed half of our children to advance even as the other half fell further behind.” And no wonder that today, he writes off violence within the black community in South Side Chicago as a result of “humiliation and untrammeled fury” – a product of a racist system. This is all the language of CRT. No wonder that Obama compared Derrick Bell to Rosa Parks during his Harvard Law School days – he buys into Bell’s philosophy.

His administration has been an ode to CRT. He appointed Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court; she had no judicial background, and no record to speak of. But we do know one thing about her: she helped Derrick Bell usher a seminal CRT piece into the Harvard Law Review in 1985. As Bell stated, “Several editors worked with me on the piece but Elena Kagan was the articles editor … There was real dedication and support by Elena.” President Obama also appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court; this was the same woman who suggested that she had a special perspective on the Constitution because she was a “wise Latina.” And then there’s Eric Holder, the Attorney General, who said we were a “nation of cowards” on race, and who has used the Department of Justice to target racial groups unequally (see, for example, the famed New Black Panther case).

The CRT theme runs deep in the Obama psyche. And it continues to impact us each and every day. That’s why Derrick Bell is relevant. And that’s why we will continue to vet the president – and a media that covers for him by pretending that CRT is mainstream rather than extremist and destructive.

[Bi_3]

When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. I was wrong that there is no evidence of CRT in schools:

[Bi_3]

[simple schoolboy]

Won't this detract from their primary goal of never having to show up to work in person?

[Bi_3]

Accurate history is the real goal, yes...

[McParadigm]

That reminds me: I was going to post this bc I was curious what you thought of it.

[Bi_3]

That reminds me: I was going to post this bc I was curious what you thought of it.

I read @kmele regularly and often agree with his takes, but I tend to disagree with how they reach the conclusion here. Philosophically I agree that the marketplace of ideas must be protected, even at the cost of upsetting the majority. The success of western civilization, and why democratic capitalism is now the default everywhere, can be traced directly back to rejection of the impulse that certain thoughts are forbidden (vs certain actions). It's why we separate church and school, we don't want a single conceptual framework to close the aperture through which we see the world. And CRT is fine at the college level. Once students who choose to learn it have the necessary background to understand it's historical context and the social theories it's built on, it's important to acknowledge CRT's existence and objectively analyze both the theory and it's resultant conclusions.


Where things become problematic is the implementation of CRT in K-12. As Sullivan said it's not "teaching about CRT, it's teaching in CRT" that is the issue, because when teaching in CRT, that very same marketplace of ideas gets attacked and erased. I really like this piece on the topic:

Why Critical Race Theory Should Be Taught
Understanding the psychology of language is essential to understanding CRT.
Posted July 1, 2021

Key points

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is premised on the idea that racism is not an aberration, but rather, it is systemic and woven into the social fabric.
A CRT-informed lens has gained prominence in universities, K12 education, and many workplaces, but some think CRT should not be taught.
CRT is a complex, linguistically constructed lens for perceiving the world, but is often presented as truth.


Critical Race Theory (CRT), as some of its most knowledgeable proponents admit, is profoundly “unlike traditional civil rights.” So how has it successfully pushed liberal ideas about civil rights out of the national conversation about social justice and diversity — and until fairly recently, without setting off alarms?

The answer lies in a particularly canny understanding of the psychology of language.

We tend to assume that the proper function of words is descriptive. We tell the truth, make inaccurate assertions, lie, and give opinions — all of which others can debate. Philosopher John Searle calls this use of language a word-to-world direction of fit. Our words are used in an attempt to “fit” some existing fact about the world.

But we can also use language to make the world fit our words by using language to create a kind of lens.

For example, when prune growers wanted to increase sales, they discovered that although people associated other dried fruits (like apricots) with convenience and tastiness, prunes were associated with laxatives. The solution was to change the name to “dried plums.”

This world-to-word direction of fit created a kind of interpretive “lens” that altered the way people saw the dried fruit. Sales increased for the first time in years. Then, when gut health became a consumer focus many years later, dried plums were transformed back into prunes.

A linguistically constructed interpretive lens is like a pair of glasses with colored lenses. What is obvious about wearing colored lenses is that they change the colors we see: What once appeared blue will appear green if the lenses are yellow, and purple if the lenses are red. Somewhat less obvious is that the color of the lens can also make some things easier to see — and other things harder or even impossible.

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw recognized the power of world-to-word direction of fit when she coined the term “intersectionality.” The word created a lens through which a legally invisible, yet very real, form of discrimination could be perceived. Later, as the term took on additional associations, something as foundational as identity was fundamentally transformed.
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Critical Race Theory (CRT), also coined by Crenshaw, informs an even more complex, linguistically constructed lens. The uptake of specific terms from the ideology and its offshoots creates a particular way of seeing race, power, justice, and even knowledge and truth.

CRT ideology is premised on the assumption that racism is not an aberration — rather, it is “systemic” and inextricably woven into our social fabric. Consequently, what one sees using the CRT lens is a racial caste system that relegates people of color in the U.S. to second-class citizenship while affording others “white privilege.”

The way the term “antiracism” has been defined and popularized by author Ibram X. Kendi encapsulates the correlative view that white people can be deemed “antiracist” only while they are actively working to “dismantle” racism — defined a particular way. Using this lens, “antiracist” discrimination is required to remedy racist discrimination, and it is not possible to see anyone as “not racist.”

The Debate About Critical Race Theory

The way race and justice appear using the CRT-informed lens has gained prominence in universities, K12 education, and many workplaces. But there are other valid ways of interpreting racism, justice, identity, and other constructs on which CRT focuses. Not everyone consents to using the CRT lens, but in some circumstances, such as in schools, it is difficult, if not impossible, to openly refuse.

As a result, across the country, lawmakers on the right have drafted bills to keep CRT-informed pedagogy (“Critical Pedagogy”) out of public schools. Organizations have sprung up to help parents and teachers combat its implementation in K12 education. President Trump attempted to ban related programs and curricula with an executive order.

Viewed through a CRT lens, these efforts are simply additional evidence of the white supremacist culture CRT adherents intend to dismantle. Proponents accuse opponents of either not understanding what CRT is, or resisting Critical Pedagogy because of a combination of what they see as an anti-Black denial of the realities of racism, discomfort with the current push for more diversity in the workplace, and an unwillingness to allow children to learn about America’s racist past.

Far from being understood as a linguistically constructed lens, however, Critical Pedagogy is often described by advocates as an accurate view of current and historical oppression. Proponents, therefore, see it as disingenuous to claim, as President Trump’s now-defunct Executive Order did, that trainings grounded in CRT contain “divisive concepts,” “race or sex stereotyping,” and “scapegoating.”

Opponents, looking through a liberal-democratic lens, fear that Critical Pedagogy is rending the fabric of democracy. Concerned parents worry that children are being taught to experience themselves, their peers, and all those they encounter only in terms of oppressors or victims. They see their children being required to adopt a totalizing ideology that divides the world into identity groups, allies versus enemies, “us” versus “them.” They fear critical theory is being used as a replacement for critical thinking.

Neither side can see what their opponents see because each is using a different lens.

On the surface, the problem of whether a “critical pedagogy” should be permitted in schools or government-funded programs seems to be a matter of whether it can successfully address issues of race and inequality in the U.S. or is, instead, a malevolent ideology cloaked in the language of civil rights.

But there is a deeper problem.

When proponents argue that CRT is not being taught in K12, they are right. Instead, without allowing dissent or debate, and often with no mention of Critical Race Theory at all, many schools, programs, and workplaces are requiring students, faculty, and employees to interpret themselves, others, and the world through a CRT-informed lens. Rather than allowing for a variety of interpretations, that one lens is presented as the truth.

It is as if colored contact lenses have quietly been applied in the middle of the night, and in the morning, when everything looks different, no one is told about their new lenses. They are meant to think they are finally seeing clearly.

This is not education. This is indoctrination. And it is profoundly illiberal. Education, at least in a liberal, pluralist democracy, requires teaching a diversity of perspectives, positions, interpretations, and ideologies, providing the opportunity to see through many different lenses. Through a CRT lens, however, competing theories can only appear to be evidence of racism and oppression.


Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt likens Critical Race Theory and related ideologies to the cuckoo bird. Not because of the bird’s association with insanity, but because it is a brood parasite. The cuckoo successfully mimics the songs of other species in order to avoid detection while it lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. Then, when the cuckoo hatches, it pushes the other eggs out of the nest. Afterward, the deceived parent bird, whose actual offspring have all been killed, has only the cuckoo hatchling to feed and nurture.

School curricula and diversity programs ought to teach about Critical Race Theory, its history, underpinnings, precepts, and goals. And it should be taught alongside competing theories — together with the critical thinking skills with which to evaluate them all.

Regardless of whether Critical Race Theory is a positive or pernicious ideology, teaching it is not the problem. Not teaching it is. ♦

The underlined sentence is the key. Just like an Evangelical or Islamic Fundamentalist approach, the application of CRT to K-12 education closes the door behind it and I feel like the authors too easily dismissed that to make a point about free speech, when the truth is it's already here. Under the guide of 'Culturally Responsive Teaching' these ideas have already begun being implemented, and they are dangerous and toxic to a multicultural society. If you teach as Kendi does that "future discrimination is the remedy for past discrimination" and that white people are fundamentally to blame for the discrimination, you send the world hurtling towards a very dark future.

Now, I am by no means qualified to judge the laws that are currently being debated and enacted to see if they are overly broad 'speech codes' as they suggest, and given this in places like Florida and Texas they might be right, or if they are honest attempts at extracting this poison out of the classrooms, but I don't think the fear driving them is misplaced. One commentator put it this way:

The bills inspired by Rufo do not state that children should not be made to feel uncomfortable in any way by an even-keeled lesson in history. The bills instead emphasize that children should not be made to feel uncomfortable precisely on the basis of their immutable identity in the particular way that Critical Race Theory divides and categorizes people, singling out white children and forcing them to publicly “examine their privilege” in light of the liberal revisionist retelling of the past that would make them believe all their ancestors are in hell.

[McParadigm]

I had a more robust reply teed up last night, but I set my phone down and it refreshed the page.

Let me just say: I appreciate your response. For whatever reason, I am struggling with separating higher minded discussion of the theory with the sloppy hysteria happening on the ground….stuff like parents in Tennessee insisting that Ruby Bridges Goes to School is too divisive.

Posts like the one above honestly help to detangle the two.

[B]

[simple schoolboy]

Ah yes, the long history of telling white kids they have a unique original sin.

[BurtReynolds]

These activists are used to being able to proclaim themselves as the sole representatives of something that pretty much everyone already agrees with (like "we should study and acknowledge bad things in history"), then claiming that everyone who is critical of them specifically is against the widely accepted thing.

This is one of the first times that they are getting real pushback on that strategy, and are losing their minds. How dare people catch on to them!

[Rob]

These activists are used to being able to proclaim themselves as the sole representatives of something that pretty much everyone already agrees with (like "we should study and acknowledge bad things in history"), then claiming that everyone who is critical of them specifically is against the widely accepted thing.

This is one of the first times that they are getting real pushback on that strategy, and are losing their minds. How dare people catch on to them!

Is your argument that people already agree with the idea that our history is f’d up and we should acknowledge that? Because that isn’t my lived experience. Of course most everyone agrees that parts of our history are terrible, but many also believe we’ve gotten past it and there’s no need to carry on any attempts to deal with it.

[BurtReynolds]

Of course most everyone agrees that parts of our history are terrible, but many also believe we’ve gotten past it and there’s no need to carry on any attempts to deal with it.

Well that's two different things, isn't it?

[BurtReynolds]

See, you're doing it right there. You are saying that the only way that someone can acknowledge history without being a racist is to ALSO believe that we haven't gotten past it and that we have to continue to "deal with it". This is a very common conflation, whether you realize you are doing it or not.