B. CRT's unpopularity. You can take a radical stand on the side of goodness knowing full well you aren't at risk of having to follow through on the radical promises. And indeed, we we wealthy Whites jumping ship and moving in cases where they actually win victories on these fronts. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's telling that a lot of leftists who indeed are leftists do oppose the theory, unlike who seems to think that it's just a red scare issue while the theory itself is just fine. Yet It's basically a flawed theory which basically starts explains everything with slavery. The major idea I guess is that racism is a systemic feature of social structure, hence you have a lot of explaining how racist the society is. Sure, the US does have it's past and the present is an continuation from the past, but this viewpoint doesn't seem to notice that a) things and views change and b) there can be other explanatory factors too.

And what a better way for things to stay the same than by putting on a pedestal a flawed theory. But let's take an example of what this theory is like by reviewing one critical race theorist, Cheryl I. Harris just as an example.

Perhaps it's telling that Cheryl I. Harris in her article "Whiteness as Property" written in 1993 starts with the experiences of her grandmother in Chicago in the 30's. Not with the experiences of herself, not of her mother, but grandmother (and written quarter of a Century ago). She writes:

”Slavery as a system of property facilitated the merger of white identity and property. Because the system of slavery was contingent on and conflated with racial identity, it became crucial to be ”white”, to be identified as white, to have the property of being white. Whiteness was the charasteristic, the attribute, the property of free human being…”

And thus, she makes the deduction:

”Whiteness fits the broad historical concept of property by classical theorists”.

So property rights are whiteness. And then she concludes:

”Whiteness as property has carried and produced a heavy legacy. It is a ghost that has haunted the political and legal domains for in which claims for justice have been inadequately addressed for far too long. Only rarely declaring it’s presence, it has warped efforts to remediate racial exploitation. It has blinded society to the systems of domination that work against so many by retaining an unvarying focus on the vestiges of systemic racialized privilege which subordinates those perceived as a particularized few – the Others.”

Perhaps it's similar to a feminist giving as proof of the dominance of the patriarchy that people referred to things like "The rights of man". Yet for an outsider the obvious question would be if the rights of a man or a woman are really different. They have been earlier, but not so much now. And a major question is if these findings are taken out of the US context and other countries which are racially homogenous, does one find similar issues between poor people and rich people? Are there example of the system being biased for the more affluent and the owning class? Surely there is, even if slavery doesn't exist.

But if whipping a horse has worked before and brought success, why stop whipping it if suddenly has become "quite passive and inert", yet you still win?

I did some more thinking, considered your comments and, apart from some racially conscious policies, I don't believe that CRS and liberalism clash. In fact, I don't even think it is that much of a threat to anybody except insofar as it is detrimental to the cause of social justice by framing the issue almost purely in terms of race and by being a little too aggressive. I still maintain that white fragility is a concept fraught with issues (not all whites take defensive moves to avoid racial considerations; whiteness cannot be as homogeneous as it is claimed to be). I also still maintain that hypostatizing whiteness and attributing it to all whites will just reinforce the attitude I originally expressed in the OP; no one wants to think that their very identity is an artifact of someone else's oppression, even if white privilege exists.

”Whiteness fits the broad historical concept of property by classical theorists”.

So property rights are whiteness. And then she concludes: — ssu

It is more so that she is saying that whiteness is a property possessed by whites much like property rights are possessed by anybody I think, which is even worse.

While class is important, as Timothy points out, poor whites do tend to fair better than poor people of color. — ToothyMaw

Children for more affluent families tend to fair better than children from poor one's.

For instance, this article points out a disparity between treatment of people of color and whites with regards to hunger relief — ToothyMaw

27 million went to an area that is has more whites than US average? Hmm.

I'd think far better examples would be to compare Indian reservations to other communities, as there historical reasons for the disparities are even more obvious. What is true in the US is that povetry & minorities go hand in hand in the US. Yet it's a complex issue that straight forward conclusion can hide real factors.

It's telling that a lot of leftists who indeed are leftists do oppose the theory, unlike ↪StreetlightX
who seems to think that it's just a red scare issue while the theory itself is just fine. — ssu

Huh? I don't believe I said that. The state of the current discourse around CRT is definitely a red (brown and black?) scare issue, but that CRT is itself somehow unimpeachable or something is not at all what I said. And of course 'leftists oppose the theory' - not even those counted among CRT scholars all agree with each other. But of course, the portrayal of CRT as 'a' theory - and not a whole set of discussions with various positions staked out by various participants motivated by similar themes - is just the kind of silly thing that attests to the utterly garbage state of discourse around it.

And it should be noted that your reading of the quotes you provide is quite wrong. Harris's point - which is literally in the title of the article you're quoting from - is that whiteness counts as a form of property, not that 'property rights are whiteness' - which doesn't mean anything at all and doesn't even make grammatical sense. This may or may not be a good way to think about it, but gosh, at least get the minimal content of the claim grammatically correct, let alone substantially so.

Moreoever, the fact that you had to quote an article from 1993 - nearly 30 years ago at this point - is exactly testament to the fact that the panic around CRT is precisely a fantasy in search for a target of relevance. Digging in whatever obscure archive to justify it's own need for validation.

If race (or class, or gender, etc.) is the only unit of analysis you concern yourself with, then of course variances there will explain all of world history.

The problem for these types of theories is that slavery, extremely high rates of violence, human sacrifice, and cannibalism show up in every human habitat if you look back far enough.

Arguments tend to hinge on Europeans becoming the heirs to wealthy countries with high levels of technological development and low levels of violence due to their oppressing other peoples and extracting wealth from abroad. However, the development of thought that would lead to the scientific revolution pre-dates European colonization. The Spanish and Ottoman Empires continued to colonize more lands and take more slaves as they declined, while northern Europe, without a legacy of colonies, became the most developed region. It's essentially an ahistorical history whose purpose is moralizing, not looking to explain the causes of phenomenon, and so its policy prescriptions seemed doomed to faliure from lack of understanding.

The whole concept of Whiteness itself has to start around the 1930s, as the prior peak in US immigration levels two decades earlier, overwhelmingly from Europe, produced a massive backlash against immigration, and by far and away the harshest restrictions on immigration the US ever had. The immigrant share of the population of the US plunged after the 1910s. A strong White national identity didn't develop until a full generation later. The consolidation of identity certainly was helped by the shared challenges of the Depression and WWII, along with the equality promoted by the New Deal, but also followed intentional actions to develop a shared national identity and to get citizens to shed their old ethnic identities.

However, probably the largest factor was the dramatic cut off of immigration under US law. There is ample evidence that immigrants impose externalities, congestion effects essentially, on the rates at which other immigrants assimilate to their new host countries and gain parity in economic status. The implication being that one of the best things the US could do right now to solve racial divisions is to dramatically curtail immigration, since it has reached and will soon exceed prior peaks (1:8 residents being foreign born and 1:4 either being foreign born or having foreign born parents). Since immigration necissarily increases inequality due to the fact that most immigrants are coming from developing countries, and since demand for unskilled labor is plummeting, this would also help to assuage class divisions, and yet CRT generally posits that restrictions on immigration are definitionally racist.

The quote you cite is emblematic of another problem, which is the trend towards labeling everything that correlates with racial disparities as racist. The problem is that some of the beaurocratic systems, designed to treat people equally in all cases, which are essential to high functioning states, can also help produce feedback loops of racial inequality. This does not mean those essential systems need to be dismantled however. At its worst, CRT advocates for the neopatromonial politics common to African nations, where elected leaders main role is to represent their own ethnic group above all else, and bring resources back to them, which is a relationship that is the hallmark of failing states, not high functioning ones.

For example, now standardized tests are racist, where once they were a method for excluding bias in university or job selection. How do we know they are racist? Because there is a test score gap.

And yet, if questions on a test are loaded with racial bias, as with the famous "regatta" SAT question, we can identify those with statistical analysis. Indeed, test do employ these methods, and remove from scoring those questions whose answer rate has too strong a correlation with race, and subjects those to further examination for identifying potential sources of bias. You'd do a lot better looking at how schools are funded than trying to get rid of standardized tests, but I suppose they are low hanging fruit. Indeed, it's ironic since standardized tests are a great way to identify talented individuals who might be preforming well because they are in poor school enviornments, it's exactly the sort of thing you don't want to get rid of.

I always find it funny when @ssu inserts his opinion on subjects related to Black Americans when he lives in Finland, which has a population of 54,450 with a "close African background" or about 1% of the population.

I always find it funny when ssu inserts his opinion on subjects related to Black Americans when he lives in Finland, which has a population of 54,450 with a "close African background" or about 1% of the population. — Maw

Oh yes, the state of Maine is far more multicultural than Finland. And indeed, few countries are so homogenous as my country. Yet I do see the same problems even here and that's what I find so interesting. I have lived a small but crucial time in the US, so where the country is going does interest me. Yet even here, in a Nordic welfare state, coming from a more affluent family or even more affluent region does have an effect. It just seems that once race is involved, there's not much else to be seen.

And of course: there are the proponents of critical race theory here, of course.

You'd do a lot better looking at how schools are funded than trying to get rid of standardized tests, but I suppose they are low hanging fruit. Indeed, it's ironic since standardized tests are a great way to identify talented individuals who might be preforming well because they are in poor school enviornments, it's exactly the sort of thing you don't want to get rid of. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's a good example of how complex policy issues in education are. Yet simple answers with a simple focus on any issue are easy to grasp, the reality behind it is more difficult.

it's a complex issue that straight forward conclusion can hide real factors. — ssu

I wasn't making a straightforward conclusion but rather noting that it is indeed more complex than just divide and conquer on the part of the rich; obviously class and race both matter.

My daemon, Marcus Tullius Cicero, or at least a version of the original, induced me to do a bit of checking on CRT and do a little blog post about it not long ago. I won't quote from it or provide a link to it here, for fear of incurring the wrath of a monitor or moderator as they like to be known.

Know ye, then, that it appears CRT initially developed in law schools, of all places, where its focus was, unsurprisingly, on the legal system. It was claimed that racism was a feature of the system and perpetuated racial inequality. And it came to pass that the same was soon said to be the case in political and social systems and institutions. Soon sexism and other isms were joined with racism and it was claimed that what was the case with racism was also the case with them as well. The dread word "systemic" was used in describing the scope of each objectionable ism.

As I'm a lawyer of vast experience and unsurpassed ability, it comes as no surprise to me to learn there are people who believe that racism is a feature of our legal system. I think it clear that it's a feature of that system, notwithstanding the laws prohibiting it. That's because I think people may be racist even where the law is not (just as they may be sexist), and am aware that the legal system includes law enforcement and application in practice, not merely in theory, and in fact includes most of our nation/society--especially politics.

CRT has become one of the issues involved in the dreary and tedious culture wars that beset our Great Republic. Recently, the State of Idaho prohibited the teaching of CRT (and Socialism and Marxism for good measure) in its public schools, thereby continuing the American tradition of regulating what is taught and learned by our youth. It isn't clear to me that there are many Americans who know what CRT, Socialism or Marxism consist of, but all of us probably live in fear that our children will learn things we don't know or at least don't approve of; a haunting fear indeed.

I think the practical problem with CRT and other such theories purporting to define or describe immensely complicated societies and their history (the theoretical problem with them is their absolutism) are the zealots who preach them and interpret them, and the zealots who oppose them. Those who think racism an aberration are foolish; those who think (for example) that racism has been a peculiarly American trait or phenomenon because a privateer intercepted a Portuguese ship and brought about 20 enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619 are guilty of poor thinking, if nothing else.

I think the practical problem with CRT and other such theories purporting to define or describe immensely complicated societies and their history (the theoretical problem with them is their absolutism) are the zealots who preach them and interpret them, and the zealots who oppose them. Those who think racism an aberration are foolish; those who think (for example) that racism has been a peculiarly American trait or phenomenon because a privateer intercepted a Portuguese ship and brought about 20 enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619 are guilty of poor thinking, if nothing else. — Ciceronianus the White

The preaching zealots make a more lively debate than the dreary timid professional, who confuses the audience with multiple viewpoints of the issue at hand.

And in our times, the preaching zealots get more hits, be they likes or thumbs down doesn't matter.

I think the practical problem with CRT and other such theories purporting to define or describe immensely complicated societies and their history (the theoretical problem with them is their absolutism) are the zealots who preach them and interpret them, and the zealots who oppose them. — Ciceronianus the White

I agree, absolutism with respect to anything other than maybe a few axioms will always result in an imperfect picture of reality - and perhaps some ambiguity is okay. I think it is also worth noting that the interpretations and preachings of zealots so often give way to megalomania once they achieve any measure of success in propagating their views.

I'm neither dreary nor timid, but am professional, in that I'm confident, skillful and assured. But I have my flaws. For example, when I think I've been slighted, I cannot forget it. It's a weakness of mine.

As I'm a lawyer of vast experience and unsurpassed ability, — Ciceronianus the White

I wondered why we got along so famously! Now we have it.

Recently, the State of Idaho prohibited the teaching of CRT (and Socialism and Marxism for good measure) in its public schools, thereby continuing the American tradition of regulating what is taught and learned by our youth. — Ciceronianus the White

The north county is indeed deep in the heart of barbarian white supremacy. So it may be a good thing, then, that the U of I lies so far north of the center of power, and it's bitch, BSU. An isolated outpost has some benefit to freedom of thought. Though, presenting a danger of the insurgency of truth, these "Vandals" can face the prospect of a withering on the vine should no troops with their gold be sent out as reinforcement, or for pillaging. Better the loot go to BSU, where the elite can keep an eye on them, and gather in the stadiums to watch their well fed gladiators with a thumb on the scale.

all of us probably live in fear that our children will learn things we don't know or at least don't approve of; a haunting fear indeed.
I think the practical problem with CRT and other such theories purporting to define or describe immensely complicated societies and their history (the theoretical problem with them is their absolutism) are the zealots who preach them and interpret them, and the zealots who oppose them. — Ciceronianus the White

:100: A fear there might be something short of zeal for our way of thinking.

A fear there might be something short of zeal for our way of thinking. — James Riley

I think it's more a fear that children will be taught something inconsistent with what must be taught for them to believe that their parents, their parents' lives, their parents' beliefs and their parents' country are admirable--are, in fact, right. Anything which could be construed as questioning that righteousness is viewed with resentment if not outright alarm. It's in some respects a fear that parental authority will be undermined earlier than it should be (if it should be at all).

Most of all, though, we're defensive about racism. We know (or should know) our sad history on matters of race, and like to think that we've taken care of the problem. It's comforting also to believe that it never was as bad as all that, except perhaps during the time when slavery was accepted and tolerated. It's claimed that there was and is nothing special about racism here, and so we see recourse to references to slavery existing throughout history and from place to place. When those accused of racism are singled out, the claim is made that a kind of racism supports the accusation of racism. It shouldn't be surprising that there are such reactions when accusations made are broad, extreme and absolute, I suppose, but neither the accusations nor the reaction to them achieves any resolution of the problem, which persists though perhaps in a less obvious form.

Oh I didn't mean to refer to you, but in general.

Very interesting! I had not heard of (or had totally forgotten) the British historical link to the SLP - USA. Also hadn't heard about the Fabian - Labour Party link.

The SLP in the United States may have been an effective organization at one time, but it degenerated into bureaucratic in-fighting and ossification (so I have been told). "Effective organization" is a good thing if the cause is good. The New Union Party, the organization I was involved in, may or may not have been effective. At one time I thought it was, but now that just about everyone involved in the organization is dead or has drifted away, I think it was not. It was too staid with a rigid stale style that fell flat with the public.

The Fabians' infiltration and takeover of socialist groups from political parties to union organizations and other institutions and movements on both sides of the Atlantic has enabled corporate interests to maintain their control over economy, politics and other aspects of public life. — Apollodorus

I would need to study up on this before accepting the alleged "infiltration and takeover of socialist groups from political parties to union organizations and other institutions and movements". It doesn't seem like corporate interests have needed help to maintain their control over everything. As somebody said, "the labor movement didn't die of natural causes; it was murdered" -- the assassins being the corporations, congress, and state legislatures. The law in the US is heavily stacked against unions.

I'm pretty sure the BLM movement has been infiltrated by the government--just based on past Federal behavior.

Thanks for the clarification. Jumping the gun is one of my flaws, too.

I'm pretty sure the BLM movement has been infiltrated by the government--just based on past Federal behavior. — Bitter Crank

Though I find for the vague support for Eugenics à la Julian Huxley on the part of the Fabians to be highly suspect, I think that a comparison between they and BLM would be more than unfair.

The Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, is well known, well documented, and widely discussed. I think that most activists assume for such activities to continue today. That any radical organization, however, is likely to have been, to some degree, infiltrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation can not be cited as evidence of that any organization is somehow complicit in some form of police collaboration. Within the Anarchist movement, for instance, it is all too common for any initiative whatsoever to become wholly dysfunctional because of a generalized paranoia concerning law enforcement. We know that police informants and agent provocateur do exist. That is no reason, however, to let the entire social ecology of the movement as a whole to become completely untenable because of the nihilating fears of that this or that person is a "cop". I, thankfully, didn't grow up in the Bronx and am glad to have more common sense than what some people there all too often mistake for wisdom.

I should hope that you don't take the above paragraph as a dig, as I am really just using this opportunity to address a qualm that I have with Anarchism in general.

I am sure that the police monitor some BLM activists. The decentralized organization, however, has not gone under in any way, shape, or form.

An aside:

There's an Anarchist that I know whom I actually hold in fairly high regard who uses a certain idiom to tip people off about that any given situation is somehow precarious, being, "Have you seen Sketch around?" Upon reflecting upon this phrase, though it did have the effect of convincing me to leave the party that I was at, I felt that its use bore both a certain irony and certain humor. Asking someone this has the effect of, first, convincing them that they are accusing you of being an undercover cop, second, convincing you that they are an undercover cop, and ultimately leaving you wondering as to just who the undercover cop is. It's an odd kind of language game that has the effect of generating a certain cult pathology concerning undercover cops.

There's another phrase that is like this that people say before smoking a bowl of weed, which is, "Would you like to pipe down a bit?" Asking a person this before toking up has the effect of convincing them that they have laced the bowl with some sort of other narcotic or another so as to conscript them within an act of provocation. To my estimation, environmentalist Anarchists only use such idioms so as to force themselves to liberate themselves from any number of paranoid fears created because of the rare cases of infiltration by law enforcement and a kind of autopoietic fanaticism which relates to either the prison abolition movement or Anarchist Black Cross. They basically only say them to figure out as to why it is that they shouldn't. In a way, though I doubt that anyone else here has spent enough time in a dancehall to relate to this, it's kind of like a certain joke that the band, Twin Peaks, was making by describing themselves as having created "chi-chi rock and roll" on their bandcamp. Get it? There's just not a reason for you to listen to it. It's all very absurd and kind of funny to me.

An epilogue:

Within any given form of either political or lifestyle Illegalism, someone is willing to invoke Wilhelm Reich so as to suggest that whoever it is that has generated this or that cult pathology is probably the person responsible for it. People within such circles only really say such things so that whatever form of Illegalism it is that they have consigned to remains both to their benefit and liking. As wittingly saying them for this purpose has the effect of creating a social environment that even they believe could be better, especially considering that what now goes on at the back of everyone's mind is that they have been orchestrating the general cause of more or less everyone's plights, which they may even, to some degree, be willing to admit, though there is a world outside of any given social scene, they often find themselves within the certain predicament of that coming clean is what can ameliorate their social situation, but will ultimately have the effect of isolating them from the social scene that they helped to create, aside from the loss of social capital that they have taken such great care to cultivate. Thus, the endless cycle of death and rebirth of the often mythic police spies. I have tried to explain this well, but you may just have have to have had put kind of a lot of thought into the pointed claims that hipsters make about certain bands by now to come to a full understanding of it.

Being said, law enforcement agencies do do whatever it is that people assume that they do. It's not like we live in a world without police. I only bring this up because I think that a person should go to Art School is a better life choice than attempting to land themselves within the next New York City Underground is just simply good advice that not enough people are willing to take. All that any of this should take is just a little bit of common sense. Anyways, I will stop rambling now and even thank you for reading this if you do. There's wisdom, if you will, to it, despite that a person should've probably abandoned every social scene of which it was required to put this much thought into figuring out how to circumnavigate. It's wisdom nonetheless, though.

Coda:

All of which is to say nothing of that diffuse paranoia is nothing but all to likely to get people to be willing to give others information as they figure, when this is supposed to be an omnipresent occurrence, why shouldn't they just clear their name? What Thomas Pynchon said of paranoiacs just rings true. Hopefully someone on the internet will find this and explain it to the rest of the world better than I ever possibly could. Maybe they already have? Who knows?

:100:

The problem for these types of theories is that slavery, extremely high rates of violence, human sacrifice, and cannibalism show up in every human habitat if you look back far enough. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Do they? That seems to be the kind of vaguely plausible claim people like to use when they have no actual knowledge on the matter.

Arguments tend to hinge on Europeans becoming the heirs to wealthy countries with high levels of technological development and low levels of violence due to their oppressing other peoples and extracting wealth from abroad. However, the development of thought that would lead to the scientific revolution pre-dates European colonization. The Spanish and Ottoman Empires continued to colonize more lands and take more slaves as they declined, while northern Europe, without a legacy of colonies, became the most developed region. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's just a list of claims connected by a theme, but not an actual argument. The exact causes for Europe's leap ahead of the global average are a topic of some debate. What's pretty clear is that once that lead was established, much of Europe's wealth in subsequent centuries was the result of intentionally exploitative policies.

The whole concept of Whiteness itself has to start around the 1930s, as the prior peak in US immigration levels two decades earlier, overwhelmingly from Europe, produced a massive backlash against immigration, and by far and away the harshest restrictions on immigration the US ever had. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Because Whiteness could not have existed outside the US?

However, probably the largest factor was the dramatic cut off of immigration under US law. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Probably" as in "I assume it is".

The implication being that one of the best things the US could do right now to solve racial divisions is to dramatically curtail immigration, — Count Timothy von Icarus

How would that contribute to solving racial divisions between people whose grandparents were already born in the US, but with different skin colours?

Since immigration necissarily increases inequality due to the fact that most immigrants are coming from developing countries, and since demand for unskilled labor is plummeting, this would also help to assuage class divisions, and yet CRT generally posits that restrictions on immigration are definitionally racist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps CRT isn't interested in merely "assuaging" divisions in some way? After all racism isn't primarily wrong because it's not a solution to some given problem, but because it is morally wrong.

The quote you cite is emblematic of another problem, which is the trend towards labeling everything that correlates with racial disparities as racist. The problem is that some of the beaurocratic systems, designed to treat people equally in all cases, which are essential to high functioning states, can also help produce feedback loops of racial inequality. This does not mean those essential systems need to be dismantled however. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Labeling something as racist is not the same as calling for it to be dismantled.

At its worst, CRT advocates for the neopatromonial politics common to African nations, where elected leaders main role is to represent their own ethnic group above all else, and bring resources back to them, which is a relationship that is the hallmark of failing states, not high functioning ones. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wonder what made you chose Africa, of all places, for this example.

For example, now standardized tests are racist, where once they were a method for excluding bias in university or job selection. How do we know they are racist? Because there is a test score gap. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well how else would we know? The only way equality can be measured is by comparing outcomes. Everything else is a value judgement. There has to be some reason there is a test score gap. Prima facie, racism is a possible one.

And yet, if questions on a test are loaded with racial bias, as with the famous "regatta" SAT question, we can identify those with statistical analysis. Indeed, test do employ these methods, and remove from scoring those questions whose answer rate has too strong a correlation with race, and subjects those to further examination for identifying potential sources of bias. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's precisely the same kind of analysis that leads to the argument that the entire standardized test is racist - the test results (supposedly) have too strong a correlation with race. What should then follow is an examination for identifying potential sources for that bias.

You'd do a lot better looking at how schools are funded than trying to get rid of standardized tests, but I suppose they are low hanging fruit. Indeed, it's ironic since standardized tests are a great way to identify talented individuals who might be preforming well because they are in poor school enviornments, it's exactly the sort of thing you don't want to get rid of. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So someone came to a wrong conclusion regarding the source of the problem. What's the relation with CRT here? No doubt many wrong things are said by proponents of CRT, but that doesn't necessarily tell me anything about the theoretical framework itself.

Recently, the State of Idaho prohibited the teaching of CRT (and Socialism and Marxism for good measure) in its public schools, thereby continuing the American tradition of regulating what is taught and learned by our youth. — Ciceronianus the White

How come no one has been fulminating about free speech an' all and the whatever amendment that guarantees it, or is it the well armed militia that does that, I get so confused?

I think that public school teachers should not be free to teach whatever they want (I'm thinking mostly intelligent design), but yes, teachers should be allowed to teach some basic things about communication, open-mindedness, and cultural awareness imo. That seems reasonable. And yeah, hardly anyone is going to fight for that on the grounds of free speech. Also I realize now that my OP is a little cringeworthy - CRS doesn't really conflict with liberalism or free speech all that much.

You'd do a lot better looking at how schools are funded than trying to get rid of standardized tests, but I suppose they are low hanging fruit. Indeed, it's ironic since standardized tests are a great way to identify talented individuals who might be preforming well because they are in poor school enviornments, it's exactly the sort of thing you don't want to get rid of.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

So someone came to a wrong conclusion regarding the source of the problem. What's the relation with CRT here? No doubt many wrong things are said by proponents of CRT, but that doesn't necessarily tell me anything about the theoretical framework itself. — Echarmion

Actually, one proponent of CRT, Gloria Ladson-Billings, outlines a number of components related to race that add up together to create the inequality we see between people of color and whites. It's pretty solid stuff, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Ladson-Billings She calls it an educational debt. Furthermore, she doesn't merely look at test scores. So it is kind of a straw man to say that proponents of CRT simply explain the issues with the educational system as a disparity in test scores. She does look at funding - and much more.

I think that public school teachers should not be free to teach whatever they want (I'm thinking mostly intelligent design), but yes, teachers should be allowed to teach some basic things about communication, open-mindedness, and cultural awareness imo. That seems reasonable. And yeah, hardly anyone is going to fight for that on the grounds of free speech. Also I realize now that my OP is a little cringeworthy - CRS doesn't really conflict with liberalism or free speech all that much. — ToothyMaw

Indeed. One man's freedom of speech is another man's indoctrination of radicalism and fundamentalism. Always good to look at who espouses which virtues on what occasion, and particularly at whose expense. But you don't really need to try very hard to teach that the playing field isn't level, it's just that when you have the slope advantage, you like to feel its your talent rather than the slope. Boo, therefore, to CRT and talk of privilege.

I'm liberal to a degree... — Bob Dylan

One man's freedom of speech is another man's indoctrination of radicalism and fundamentalism. — unenlightened

This becomes less important the more you educate yourself I think; while, like I said, maybe we shouldn't allow public school teachers free reign to teach their ideologies, at the university level in the US it is largely just assumed that students can deal with potentially radical or unpleasant ideas and viewpoints, and sift through them, finding personal, and perhaps even objective, truths where they might. At that level free speech is paramount. Which is why I think Cornell West should have been tenured at Harvard. The guy is a hero.

Very interesting! I had not heard of (or had totally forgotten) the British historical link to the SLP - USA. Also hadn't heard about the Fabian - Labour Party link. — Bitter Crank

Well, I'm equally surprised that you haven't heard of it as you seem to belong to the more enlightened type of socialist (the type I normally have long and interesting conversations with, by the way).

But if you want I can give you a few links to sources that explain everything in detail. I would highly recommend Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U S A by R. Martin

Obviously, Martin's analysis is a critical one but still extremely instructive IMO, with loads of references and sources. But if you prefer a more sympathetic but equally revealing study written by a (Fabian) socialist you can try H. W. Laidler, History of Socialism. Unfortunately, I can't find a link for Laidler right now but I've got a long list of sources, mostly authored by Fabian and other socialist historians, archivists, etc. and a few by non-socialist critics.

Critical Race Theory proceeds from the Civil Rights Movement and posits that racism is enshrined within American law. The disproportionate number of black Americans in prisons in the United States is often provided as of evidence of this, and rightfully so.


What I take issue with, which absolutely no person here has mentioned, is the rather naive interpretation of abolition that activists of such inclinations have. While I can imagine a society in the indefinite and indeterminate future that has no need of police, the facts in the world today that there are occasions where people do. In cases of Mafia coercion, Neo-Fascist terrorism, and certain kinds of political or economic crimes, for instance, there is nothing that a person can do about them aside from go to law enforcement. Being said, the oft cited disproportionate number of black American citizens in prisons ought to be convincing enough of that there does exist some form of systemic racism, which Critical Race Theorists, to my estimation, debate the details of. I don't understand why this is controversial.

I did some more thinking, considered your comments and, apart from some racially conscious policies, I don't believe that CRS and liberalism clash. In fact, I don't even think it is that much of a threat to anybody except insofar as it is detrimental to the cause of social justice by framing the issue almost purely in terms of race and by being a little too aggressive. I still maintain that white fragility is a concept fraught with issues (not all whites take defensive moves to avoid racial considerations; whiteness cannot be as homogeneous as it is claimed to be). I also still maintain that hypostatizing whiteness and attributing it to all whites will just reinforce the attitude I originally expressed in the OP; no one wants to think that their very identity is an artifact of someone else's oppression, even if white privilege exists. — ToothyMaw

Di Angelo does not claim that every white person is affected by white fragility and that would be an absurd claim. I also think that a lot of what she calls white fragility, is actually just basic resistance to being called racist or oppressor, words that carry such weight in this day and age, it's too heavy for anyone to bear. Accepting racism in many cases isn't easier for non-white people because they're exposed to more racial tension, it's easier because they're not being accused of being supporters of a racist, oppressive system - benefactors of a racist history and guilty of doing nothing to challenge the injustices. On top of that, Di Angelo speaks in a way that is accusatory, judgemental and offensive, there's no empathy, the stakes just keep rising higher and higher until merely not having an opinion makes you a horrible person. She thinks white people have an obligation to help and if they fail to do so, that this is an indictment on their character, inaction amounts to collaboration with the racist system.

CRT can have valid points but overall has serious issues.

My two major issues are that CRT tunnel visions on race to the extent that it promotes racialised worldviews and hyper focuses on race, which has served to actually deepen racial tensions rather than resolve them. Secondly, it proposes race-based solutions to these race-based problems, most importantly, the issue of racial inequity, this is the wrong way to go from my perspective. Racism is not just happening but has happened and the consequences have been extreme, this accounts for many of the issues faced by minorities in the US and other countries too. The aftermath of racism is not racism, a lack of effort to reverse the effects of racism is not racism and trying to undo the consequences will be difficult and painful. What we're really talking about is poverty but I don't think the reasons why someone is born into a poor family should matter, was it due to racism or because their father had a mental illness or whatever the reason is, doesn't matter. Thus, place the aftermath of racism into race-neutral categories of larger social issues such as poverty, poor infrastructure, poor healthcare system etc.

Racism is such a broad category of stuff, from what an individual says or does and even what they don't say or do, implicit bias, internalised racism, often irrespective of their opinion. Then there's all of the components of the government, the private businesses, the social structures which can be racist and for so many different reasons with no agreed-upon way of determining guilt or innocence. Forget accounting for geography, demographics, history, economics, culture and all the variables which all play important roles. Navigating this issue responsibly is very difficult and while most people can see racism when it presents itself to them, people who look for racism can and will find it in almost everything. Problems in society can be reduced to racism and most CRT comes off that way to me, it is a reductionist, narrow-minded way of viewing the world. When we combine CRT with intersectionality, we get the identity-orientated reductionism where every societal problem, any imbalance, it's racist, sexist, classist, ageist, transphobic, body-shaming - whatever.

Is CRT is just doomed to be reductionist based on its structure? Researchers are looking for racism, they've got control over what information they present, over how things should be interpreted, over what elements of their research should be emphasised and so on. There are always going to be race-based conclusions, the number of uses of the words "white" and "black" in some CRT books, can be staggering. I wrote a thread about this problem, of "arranging truth", where we really construct the truth by reducing a subject to a manageable or convenient level. We need to decide what information is relevant, how to interpret it, what narrative to construct and characterisations to make and so on. CRT isn't even written by impartial analysts, they're often themselves activists such as Di Angelo. There's surely some good work out there that shines a light on real problems but I think people are right to be concerned about it and the effect it might - or does - have on people who study it.

That being said, I don't like socialism either but the average American right-wing voter seems to have no idea socialism is - even though they hate it and they hate all these people and parties for being socialist. So, I don't necessarily look for camaraderie with people who dislike CRT.

Besides liberalism, you're worried about white people being unfairly treated or town down, which does make it seem like you're proving Di Angelo right. Matters such as white privilege should be treated as pieces of an overall argument or sentiment. When we say "white privilege" how extensive is that, what exactly is being referred to and what does that say about white people or society overall and how is the term being used - this can vary greatly from person to person. If someone is merely trying to respectfully describe social reality, white privilege is not an unreasonable term to use, although I think "racial privilege" would be better because it's race-neutral, not a big deal. We need to give some lee-way to describe problems intuitively but we don't need to give lee-way to racist, aggressive uses of the term white privilege, I don't think the line has been crossed merely by using these kinds of terms.