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Women shout at police officers during a protest against desegregation at William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Credit: Bettman / Getty Images
Conservative lawmakers across the country are passing laws banning books and courses that espouse the critical doctrine of racial theory that emerged in the 1970s and examines the role racism plays in our daily lives. For example, the Idaho House of Representatives passed a higher education bill based on the belief of some lawmakers that critical race theory and similar work exacerbates and inflames divisions based on gender. , race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the welfare of the state of the Idaho and its citizens.
One would think that after white supremacists tainted the halls of the Capitol on January 6, policymakers would be forced to uproot clear and present sources of racial division. After four years in which Trump falsely equated white supremacists with activists fighting for racial justice, one would also think that policymakers would see critical race theory as a way to make sense of systemic racism in the United States. But, alas, racists find a way to use what should be teachable moments as a twisted opportunity to perpetuate their worldview.
A culture built on a false racial hierarchy can only be maintained through lies, strength and duplicity which are all fully exposed in stupid attempts to ban critical race theory. Those threatened by any systemic analysis of racism and its foundations reveal exactly where they stand in relation to white supremacy.
The reasons this country is literally divided are clear to any reasonable person: slavery, Jim Crow segregation, housing and education discrimination, a biased criminal justice system, and reckless conservative lawmakers desperately seeking an equivalent to a white supremacist system.
Related: Black & Brown Boys Don’t Need To Learn Courage, They Need Schools To Stop Being Racist
Critical Race Theory is a theoretical framework that helps researchers identify and respond to institutionalized racism, particularly as it is codified in law and public policy. This approach originated in the 1970s with academics like Derrick Bell, the first tenured black law professor at Harvard Law. More recently, researchers such as Kimberl Crenshaw have developed concepts such as intersectionality, an analytical tool that helps us recognize how various marginalized social identities can overlap, leading to distinct forms of discrimination. Critics of critical race theory emphasize that race is socially constructed, that cultural assumptions and stereotypes condition how we understand and respond to others through these racialized constructs, and that these racialized cultural dynamics shape and are then reinforced. through the structures of law, business and policy. in a way that often disadvantages or harms marginalized groups and individuals.
The reasons why this country is literally divided are clear to any reasonable person.
Critical Race Theory did not make black people critical of white supremacy, racism did. Our ability to create theories and write books on critical theory or any other subject is a reflection of our growing power in this country. Critical race theorists mirror the analytical reasoning of slaves, of those discriminated against in housing and employment, and basically anyone who can see how inequitably privileges and burdens are distributed. in the country.
Health policy researcher Ahmed Ali recently tweeted: If black children are old enough to experience racism, then other children are old enough to learn about critical race theory. As long as there is racism, there will be black people who find ways to understand and dismantle it.
So if you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist.
Related: Rewrite History Textbooks, Or White Supremacist Violence Will Continue
What lawmakers and pundits are really saying when they call for a ban on critical race theory is that they don’t want black people to question second-class status. Critics of critical race theory do not want us to denounce our oppressors as a bunch of fraudulent, deceptive and dangerous psychopaths who are backed by equally degraded politics.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who wants to ban awakened philosophies in schools, said Texans reject critical race theory and other so-called awakened philosophies that hold that a race or gender is inherently superior to another race or sex or that any individual, because of their race or gender, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive.
Patrick willfully misleads his constituents on the purpose of Critical Race Theory to keep them confused and maintain the very systems of oppression he claims to be against. Remember, this is the same state in which the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education said he believed the earth was 6,000 years old and humans walked with dinosaurs. It is also the same state in which this council voted to replace the word slave trade in state standards with the Atlantic Triangular Trade. (The council eventually decided on the term transatlantic slave trade.) *
These critics of critical race theory ignore the ironic result of their efforts to ban critical race theory: they are making it more popular than ever. I learned critical race theory in high school as well as many other sociological concepts that have since vanished. While I certainly used it as a lens to analyze public policy, for the most part it was stuck in the proverbial ivory tower in a few departments here and there, away from mainstream conversations.
The conservative campaign against critical race theory ultimately liberated the concept from academia. The internet has made Bells Faces at the Bottom of the Well accessible to everyone. Meanwhile, four of the top 15 books on the New York Times bestseller non-fiction list deal with race and racism in America, not to mention the two memoirs by Michelle and Barack Obama.
The debate over critical race theory is another remarkable proof that intellectualism and racism cannot coexist: anti-racists and thinking people are one.
This story on critical race theory was produced by The Hechinger Report, an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Subscribe to the Hechingers newsletter.
* Correction and Clarification: This column has been updated to include the term the Texas State Board of Education sought to replace and the one it ultimately included in the standards.
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