Tag: critical race theory

Historian: Republican culture war fight driven by need to hide a basic fact about American history

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Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a lightning rod for conservative ire at any discussion of racism, anti-racism, or the non-white history of America. Across the country, bills in Republican-controlled legislatures have attempted to prevent the teaching of CRT, even though most of those against CRT struggle to define the term. CRT actually began as a legal theory which held simply that systemic racism was consciously created, and therefore, must be consciously dismantled. History reveals that the foundation of America, and of systemic racism, happened at the same time and from the same set of consciously created laws.

Around the 20th of August, 1619, the White Lion, an English ship sailing under a Dutch flag, docked off Old Point Comfort (near present-day Hampton), in the British colony of Virginia, to barter approximately 20 Africans for much needed food and supplies. The facts of the White Lion’s arrival in Virginia, and her human cargo, are generally not in dispute. Whether those first Africans arriving in America were taken by colonists as slaves or as indentured servants is still debated. But by the end of the 17th century, a system of chattel slavery was in place in colonial America. How America got from uncertainly about the status of Africans, to certainty that they were slaves, is a transition that highlights the origins of systemic racism.

Three arguments have been put forth about whether the first Africans arriving in the colonies were treated as indentured servants or as slaves. One says that European racism predisposed American colonists to treat these Africans as slaves. Anthony and Isabella, for example, two Africans aboard the White Lion, were acquired by Captain William Tucker and listed at the bottom of his 1624/25 muster (census) entry, just above his real property, but below white indentured servants and native Americans. Continue reading.

GOP teeing up critical race theory for midterms in Minnesota, across the nation

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GOP seizes on critical race theory as partisan divider. 

ASHBY, MINN. – Jason Kirchenwitz wanted to know more about an issue arising often now in his conversations, and he suspected others did too, especially Republican activists he helps organize in rural Grant County.

He was right. Nearly 100 people filed into a gymnasium in this town of fewer than 500 people last week for a meeting he called. They all came to hear about critical race theory.

“I have kids in school,” said Kirchenwitz. “I don’t want them pressured or pushed into other views.” Continue reading.

Bans on critical race theory could have a chilling effect on how educators teach about racism

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Perhaps no topic has dominated education news in 2021 like the debate over whether or not critical race theory should be taught – or whether it is even being taught – in America’s schools.

Critical race theory is an academic framework that holds that racism is embedded in American society and its institutions. 

The debate about whether K-12 students should be exposed to this theory has prompted some Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws to make sure that never happens. As of early July 2021, six states have passed laws that seek to ban instruction on critical race theory in K-12 schools, although the laws rarely mention critical race theory by name. Continue reading.

Conservative explains why the Trumpified GOP now resembles the China’s ‘authoritarian’ Communist Party

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When then-President Donald Trump called for mandatory “patriotic education” for all U.S. students in September 2020, Susan Rice (former national security adviser under the Obama Administration) slammed his authoritarian idea as profoundly unamerican and told CNN’s Erin Burnett, “I thought I was listening to Mao Tse Tung running Communist China.” Rice, however, isn’t the only one who sees parallels between Trumpism and the regime in Beijing. Never Trump conservative Max Boot, in a scathing Washington Post column published on July 5, argues that the Republican push to abolish the teaching of “critical race theory” in public schools and replace it with “patriotic education” is exactly the type of thing the Chinese Communist Party would do.

“Woe to any person in China who challenges the official version of the past; that is a crime for which you can be sent to prison,” Boot explains. “The United States is different. We are a free country where nothing is off-limits. We can talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. Can’t we? Yes, we can — but Republicans are doing their level best to change that. How ironic that the GOP, which claims to be the ‘tough on China’ party, wants to make America more like China. As the party of white America, Republicans seek their own political legitimacy from history by trying to minimize the impact of racism.”

Critical race theory — which argues that in the United States, the racism of the past continues to have an impact on the institutions of today — has become a source of hysteria in the Republican Party and right-wing media. Far-right pundits at Fox News claim CRT is an attack on white Americans in general, which, of course, it isn’t. Continue reading.

‘Critical Race Theory’ Was Weaponized Against Obama In 2012 — And Flopped

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A few weeks before he died, Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart teased his masterplan to take down President Barack Obama ahead of the 2012 election. In part, the plan relied on associating Democrats with the little known academic study of systemic racism called “critical race theory” and rendering it radical and toxic enough to damage them in the upcoming election cycle.

“This election we’re going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008,” Breitbart declared during a speech at Conservative Political Action Conference. “The videos are going to come out.”

The most-hyped video among the ones Breitbart promised was ironically already publicly available and had been reported on during the 2008 election. It finally surfaced after Breitbart’s death in early March 2012. The footage showed a law-school era Obama who was then the president of the Harvard Law Review talking about and hugging an academic named Derrick Bell at a 1990 protest. The video was supposedly evidence of Obama embracing — literally in this case — extreme anti-white views. Continue reading.

I’m a scholar of critical race theory — here’s the reality about it behind the conservative moral panic

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Critical race theory (CRT) is the current conservative media boogeyman spreading moral panic about poor white people being confronted with the history of racism in the United States. Claims about critical race theory range from plausible but incorrect (it’s about white privilege and white people’s racism) to outlandish and bizarre (it supports a white genocide and confiscating all white people’s property). The truth of critical race theory is that it’s a socio-legal framework for analyzing the disparate impact of policies on marginalized communities, most often Black people.

OK, but what does that mean? Since CRT was an academic methodology taught in law schools and advanced college courses until recently, those who truly understand CRT often speak in academic language that can be difficult to understand. However, unlike a lot of academic methodologies, CRT has clear and practical real-world applications. Due to its name and origin, people often believe it’s an overly theoretical study without concrete evidence. In reality, the scholarship in CRT is often based on the study of statistics, laws and legal cases (about as concrete as you can get).

Berkeley Law Professor Khiara Bridges, a scholar of intersectionality and reproductive rights, provided a list of key tenets of critical race theory in her book Critical Race Theory: A Primer. Professor Bridges argues that critical race theory is concerned with Justice (with a capital J) and is not a thought experiment or academic exercise. Her tenets are that CRT acknowledges that race is a social construction, not a biological reality, that racism is a normal embedded feature of American society (not an aberration), a rejection of traditional liberalism’s understandings of racism, and a connection between scholarship and people’s real lives. While Professor Bridge’s list of core tenets restate a lot of earlier CRT scholarship, it is relevant that her book was published in 2018 and continues to agree with the originators of CRT, such as Derrick Bell and Kimberle Crenshaw. Often, critics of CRT claim the origins are reasonable but the current state is what is problematic. As a newly minted CRT PhD, my scholarship remains loyal to the origins and agrees with Professor Bridge’s core tenets. Continue reading.

GOP senator cites racist, anti-LGBTQ Fox News contributor in floor speech

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) finds a kindred spirit in Mark Steyn.

In a speech given on the floor of the Senate on Monday night, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) extensively quoted from a bigoted column written by conservative pundit Mark Steyn.

Tuberville made his statement in the course of attacking “critical race theory,” an approach to the academic study of systemic racism that many Republicans have recently called a divisive anti-American concept that they falsely claim is being taught in primary and secondary schools.

Claiming that “critical race theory is pushed on school districts across the country,” Tuberville said, “Simply put, critical race theory reinforces divisions on strict racial lines. It doesn’t teach kids moral values, like treating everyone with respect regardless of race. It’s just the opposite. Critical race theory teaches kids to hate one another.” Continue reading.

Joint Chiefs chairman clashes with GOP on race theory, ‘white rage’

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Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley on Wednesday said it was important for service members to understand critical race theory, shooting down assertions by Republican lawmakers that studying the topic was harmful to military cohesion.

In an impromptu and passionate statement, Milley at a House Armed Service Committee hearing rejected the assertion that critical race theory and other such teaching could be damaging, telling lawmakers that “a lot of us have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is.”

“I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read … and it is important that we train and we understand,” Milley said. “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white.” Continue reading.

On Fox News, ‘Concerned Parents’ Are Actually GOP Activists

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Nearly a dozen of the Fox News guests the network has presented as concerned parents or educators who oppose the teaching of so-called “critical race theory” in schools also have day jobs as Republican strategists, conservative think-tankers, or right-wing media personalities, according to a Media Matters review.

Critical race theory is an academic legal framework which examines the systemic impact of racism in the United States. But “critical race theory,” like “cancel culture” and “political correctness” before it, also functions as an umbrella term the right-wing movement uses to turn its mostly white adherents’ racial anxiety into political energy.

In this case, a sophisticated, nationwide network of conservative think tanks, advocacy groups, media outlets, and GOP officials have seized on the term and, in the words of Christopher Rufo — a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and a key player in the effort — sought to render it “toxic” and apply to it “the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” Republicans have proposed or passed a slew of legislation restricting “critical race theory” and hope to use it as a core part of their political strategy in upcoming local, state, and federal elections. Continue reading.