Critical Race Theory: The Ugly Truth

I told myself a few months back, when I heard the term ‘Critical Race Theory’ (CRT), that I was going to leave the subject alone and focus on other subjects like the militarization of the police, or criminal justice reform. Against my better judgement, I elected to dive a bit deeper and try to understand why my fellow Republicans were up in arms about this notion of effectively teaching children in American schools’ history that is encompassing of a racialized perspective for the purpose of providing a more accurate historical context. I embarked on this journey to understand CRT by reading what some of the leading voices and “intellectuals” on the subject had to say. I settled on the definition/working understanding of CRT provided by Princeton University Professor Imani Perry. In an interview with Marc Lamont Hill, Dr. Perry defines CRT by saying “It’s not enough to be colorblind we actually have to be able to address injustice and subordination if we are going to have legal racial equality, that’s the heart of Critical Race Theory...how to think about law, legislation, and policies that will substantively respond to racial inequality…A way of understanding the mechanics of racial inequality and how the law might be imagined to address them.” [1] It is against this backdrop that I began to listen to the perspective offered by Republicans in opposition to teacher’s unions throughout the country teaching CRT in schools.

Leading conservative voices contend, in summation, that CRT teaches that white people are inherently racist just for being white and that America is an inherently racist country. Days ago, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell stated while in Murray, Kentucky “CRT is divisive, radical and utterly debunked. It uses lies about our founding to divide us; teaches kids the color of our skin defines us. The federal government should protect taxpayer dollars from being used to promote the 1619 Project and critical race theory, which is why I support the Saving of America’s History Act which was introduced by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.”[2] Search after search yielded similar results—articles by “conservatives” asserting that CRT was horrible and that taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used to teach racism or mistruths. So much of this rhetoric sounded familiar so I began to look back at articles and commentary written last summer when there were debates concerning the removal of statutes and monuments. One article in particular stood out. Hunter Derensis wrote in his article titled “Saving Christopher Columbus From Cultural Arsonists” that “Past generations of Americans understood greatness and why it’s commendable, unlike the thankless iconoclasts of today. Paying homage to the men and women of the past is about recognizing and appreciating extraordinary feats. The grandeur of Columbus is succinctly encapsulated by 1970s comedian and television host Flip Wilson. “As a kid, my idol—and he’s still my idol—of all the great American heroes, my idol is Christopher Columbus,” Wilson jovially told a comedy club audience. “What a great thing that was, discovering America. I wouldn’t have found it. I don’t know where you people would have been, I wouldn’t have found it.”[3] Derensis’ article properly encapsulates the rationale supporting the necessity of CRT.

In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s legal scholars created an academic approach to critique and analyze American institutions and laws through a lens of race and racism. Notions of CRT have been around for decades in post-graduate institutions. Recently however, conservatives and conservative media have co-opted this term and are using it as a catch-all way of describing anything that relates to race or racism. As a result, conversations pertaining to white supremacy, white privilege, conversations concerning anti-racism have been improperly tagged as “Critical Race Theory”. But why? Why have my fellow Republicans used CRT as a dog whistle to suggest some sort of reverence to education while raising zero objections to articles written like Hunter Derensis, where blatant factually untrue statements are made? There were whole civilizations of people living on what later became known as North America well before Christopher Columbus arrived and slaughtered most of them. This notion that white Americans can pick and choose narratives and pick and choose which narratives to perpetuate and how these narratives are perpetuated gets at the marrow of the CRT debate. It is because of the racialized perspective that creates this dichotomy of “saved” and “savior” which more times than not--within a Western conception of what it means to be both human and American--paints whites as the “savior” through their “discoveries” of uninhabited lands and thus makes the institutions that are used to conduct this “saving” vessels of liberation and equality rather than what they actually are—Trojan horses used to maintain white hegemony.

It would seem that the conservative response to CRT is grossly misplaced. If in fact, the overarching concern is what little Susie and little Ronnie will learn in school, then the concern should be less focused on what is “right” or what is “wrong” but instead focused on what is true. The forefathers of the United States of America understood when articulating the rights endowed to each citizen that the goal then (and now) was in fact to make America a “more perfect union”. The ability to make America more perfect rested on the belief that they understood that the union was not perfect at the time but through justice, domestic tranquility, promotion of the general welfare we as Americans could in fact form a union that was more perfect than the union that previously existed but the forefathers knew then that what was right and what was wrong paled in comparison to valuing and understanding what was true. The effort feverishly exerted by conservatives and my fellow republicans to prevent or obstruct the teaching of CRT in our schools speaks directly to their unwillingness to confront the very mechanisms that necessitate the need for CRT. Said differently, if conservatives and republicans fought this feverishly against white supremacy, institutional racism and a list of other -isms then this would obviate the need for Critical Race Theory.

I will end this with a quote from my favorite author, James Baldwin. Hopefully my fellow republicans will get an understanding of this and focus on what is true rather than what they believe is right or wrong.

“For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for what they become.”

[1] Princeton Professor Explains Critical Race Theory w/ Marc Lamont Hill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2KL8oHxW8A

[2] Saving Us From Critical Race Theory - https://www.murrayledger.com/opinion/saving-us-from-critical-race-theory/article_b376be1e-e03f-11eb-b40c-63f028bf0ef8.html

[3] Saving Christopher Columbus -

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/saving-christopher-columbus-from-the-cultural-arsonists/

Photo Credit: New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/us/politics/critical-race-theory.html