The State of Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory has been the subject of much widespread debate recently, but does anybody actually know what it is? Few seem to have a real understanding of it, especially those who are most outraged at its supposed inclusion in our school curriculums. When one examines the issue closely, it becomes clear that the recent attack on critical race theory is the newest Republican onslaught against historical truth.

The State of Introductions

Critical race theory (CRT) is a hot issue at the moment. The media is covering it, PTA meetings and protests are being held against it, but what about it is generating so much outrage? There are many ways to interpret the recent Republican attack on the idea of CRT. Historically speaking, the signs point to the current demonization of CRT as simply the newest expression of the Southern Strategy. By stoking racial tensions, Republicans have realized that they can garner votes, energize their base, and stay in power.

But, in recent history, attitudes have changed. Republicans can no longer just say, “Hey, we really hate black people and think that segregation is the best thing this country ever did.” Instead, they have to veil their intentions behind many layers of misinterpretable half-truths that obfuscate their true goal of weaponizing implicit (and sometimes explicit) biases against POC, but especially African-Americans.

The State of Definitions

Before we can begin, we have to establish what critical race theory is. The American Bar Association defines it thusly.

[CRT] critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who coined the term “CRT,” says that CRT is a verb rather than a noun, and further elaborates that CRT is not a static definition, but a changing and malleable practice. Besides that definition, there are many tenets to CRT that we just don’t have time to cover in this piece, but in essence, it’s a lens of social and legal analysis that views race as a social construct and views racism as embedded in many American systems. Both of these ideas are widely accepted among academics, even if some people disagree.

But this article isn’t about if structural racism exists, or if race is a social construct, or how the “snowflake libs” have infiltrated academia. What this piece will focus on are misconceptions around CRT. One of the main ones is the idea that CRT can only lead to liberal or leftist conclusions. CRT is only a lens of analysis, not a framework that prescribes certain solutions. Even if you view society in a certain way, you can take that interpretation and do different things with it. You could view race as a social construct, and racism as embedded in America’s systems, but believe the best course of action to take is to expand policing and think that Black Lives Matter is only making things worse.

And indeed, academics have been arguing about solutions to these issues for decades. While academia tends to skew left, conservative academics exist and will sometimes view solutions through the practice of CRT.

The State of Controversy

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, however, that critical race theory and everything it says is wrong. Wrongness alone does not breed the significant pushback that CRT has been receiving recently.

So, where did the controversy come from? Plenty of academic frameworks have been historically false, and have generated a fraction of the controversy, or such controversy was relegated to the academic and collegiate halls where they’re normally spoken of. Unlike then, this new outrage around CRT is widespread, garnering massive and growing attention on mainstream outlets like Fox News. Why is cable news covering CRT, and given that it’s been around for decades, why are they only covering it now?

Most of the new outrage around CRT can be traced back to one man: Christopher Rufo. Back in the summer of last year, he noted that CRT was cited in diversity training seminars, and then concluded that many anti-racism meetings were products not just of progressivism, but of the formerly obscure and radical ideology called critical race theory. Rufo saw much of the fighting that the right has been doing against progressive racial ideology in need of new branding. And he thought the Right needed a specific new enemy to fight against. So, he ascribed a wide array of ideas to CRT, many of which are mentioned frivolously and broadly to discredit all of progressive racial ideology. After this framing, he went on Tucker Carlson’s show and described CRT as an attack on American values and an “existential threat to the United States.” It snowballed from there, reaching President Trump’s ear the very next day. Under Rufo’s guidance, the President proceeded to pass an executive order forbidding a purposefully broad set of components of standard diversity training.

Other conservatives have since expanded on the idea of CRT being evil. They distort the definition to make it sound scarier. Conservative thinkers like James Lindsay say that critical race theory is “... against liberalism and the liberal order upon which Western societies are founded, and it rejects both equality and neutral principles of constitutional law (these were the backbone of both the abolitionist movement that ended slavery and the Civil Rights Movement). It also rejects legal reasoning and Enlightenment rationalism. This makes Critical Race Theory unreasonable, illiberal, against equality, and anti-American, by definition.” He says this is definitional... somehow. As we previously examined, though, there’s nothing within the definition of CRT that would be “unreasonable, illiberal, against equality, and anti-American,” and it’s impossible for any solutions that CRT proposes to be such because CRT proposes no solutions at all.

The State of Children

Even if we accept the premise that CRT is in diversity training, and that this is a bad thing for some reason, most of the current outrage and legislation comes from the idea that it’s being taught to children in elementary, middle, and/or high schools. So, where is the evidence of this?

No such evidence exists. As it turns out, children aren’t really being taught about advanced academic concepts and frameworks. Now, they may be taught about historic racism in this country, and how it affects us today, but this isn’t about teaching CRT to children so much as it is about accurately representing historical facts. Systemic racism is controversial. America’s history of racism is not, except to those who we may generously call “partial to those of lighter complexions.”

The State of Reasons

Now, is there a salient point that Rufo and Lindsay inadvertently make about racism being baked into the core of American values? Maybe. A pair of white men arguing against the studying of racism in this country could itself be evidence of CRT, or at least an endorsement of its application. After all, their inability, or maybe unwillingness, to acknowledge systemic racism contributes to the exact reasons why we need to apply CRT more. However, Republicans don’t notice or care about things like that. They care about the outrage and pushing back against racial progress in this country. With the BLM protests last year that were supported by the majority of Americans, Republicans know they’re losing the culture war. People just aren’t buying into the fearmongering anymore, and that means fewer people vote red.

So, what do they do when they begin to lose? They manufacture outrage to garner public support. Normally, nobody cares about an academic concept, but suddenly, it’s everywhere, rapidly becoming a buzzword. You can find CRT in your children’s schooling. Their teachers believe it, and they’re infecting your children with this post-modern neo-Marxist philosophy that’s now magically in everything they do. It’s in their textbooks, lectures, discussions, and morning cereal. If you can name something good about the world, critical race theory is ruining it, and you need to stop it if you want the American Way of Life to continue. Like Lindsay said, it’s, “against liberalism and the liberal order upon which Western societies are founded, and it rejects both equality and neutral principles of constitutional law.” Both those things are important, the very bedrocks of our current society. Getting rid of those sure sounds scary, doesn’t it? I mean, by God, the evil progressives want to destroy Western civilization! Surely, someone should do something about it. And that person should be you. You are the only one who can help push back against these evil people. And, it’s easy, too. All you have to do is vote Republican, and tell your friends and family to do the same.

This is a deliberate fearmongering tactic, whereby they have just taken a mundane academic framework and turned it into something sinister to garner votes and support.

When something sinister and “un-American” is being taught to children, originally moderate or apolitical people start to care, and because of that, will increase their support of politicians who push against it. Republicans have then tapped into a base that may have originally skewed more Democratic, or not voted at all. They may have alienated some black voters, but most black people don’t vote Republican anyway.

And when something is as sinister as Republicans have made CRT, they become morally obligated to make it illegal, at least in theory. Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) is pushing to do just that, signing legislation that restricts how current events and America’s history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. Afterwards, he said how “more needs to be done” to “abolish critical race theory in Texas.” Other bills have also been moving through state legislatures with similar goals, from Oklahoma to Tennessee.

This entire process is strikingly similar to the Southern Strategy. By stoking racial tensions, they prey on biases in (mostly) white Americans, galvanizing them to vote Republican out of fear. The outlawing serves a double purpose. Not only does it allow Republicans to make good on promises to fight against this enemy, but it also molds the next generation to be susceptible to the same practices. As we’ve explored, the definition of CRT has been stretched and distorted to mean almost all of progressive racial theory. This means that it’s possible, and easy, for these bills to restrict the teaching of historical racist truths under the guise of fighting against CRT. When children do not understand history and historical tendencies, it is substantially easier for them to fall into the same traps as their predecessors.

The State of Conclusion

It would be a mistake to assume those looking to ban CRT have noble intentions for children. The recent push against CRT would be better viewed as the next step from the party of the Southern Strategy. Republicans have long realized that by playing on racism against African Americans, they can stay in power. But as the culture war slips away from them and people start to support more civil rights for people of color, they need to adjust their approach. This begins in education, and indoctrinating children into the false beliefs that America got rid of racism, and nobody needs to talk about it anymore. This then turns people against the left, who they view as trying to solve an issue that doesn’t exist, and in doing so, see them as radicals who want to destroy America.

The fight against CRT is just the newest way that Republicans have found to uphold our racist systems, and in doing so, ironically, justify viewing America with critical race theory. We need to fight this push against reality and secure a future where our children are taught the truth about American racism, or the next generation may too become partial to lighter complexions.