A defense of Critical Race Theory

Over at National Catholic Reporter, courtesy of  Brian Fraga. Read it here. 

My thoughts.  If CRT was just some legal splitting of hairs in law schools, or a college course designed to look at the history of racism around the world and through the ages, I can't imagine anyone in the world caring.  I'm fine with learning about racism in America then and now.  I'm happy to learn about race hate between immigrants who came here, between blacks and Hispanics, and everyone toward Jews.  In short, I'm fine learning about yet one more sad characteristic all too common throughout the history of mankind. 

Of course in America, Caucasians, being the majority, had the benefit of being the majority where their racism was concerned.  I would never suggest otherwise.  That also made racism against a white Jew a bit different than against a black former slave.  Likewise, racism ebbed and flowed over the generations and was and wasn't the same in different parts of the vast American continent over endless generations.  

Teach all of that, and I'm good to go.  But sadly, what CRT actually is happens to be up for grabs.  It boils racism down to a political punch line.  The vast and complex history of racism as it fits in the broader history of human interactions is reduced to a sound byte.  

It either is or isn't being taught in our schools, does or doesn't promote sizing people up based on their ethnic identities, or does or doesn't repeat decidedly leftwing anti-Western sentiments.  Just the fact that you can't get CRT's advocates to agree on just what it is and where it's being taught or if it's being taught at all is enough to send up warning signs.

From what I can tell, too much of CRT seems to endorse the Left's desire to balkanize Americans and find new ways to divide people up based on antagonistic demographic groups.  When I listen to people who advocate for CRT in our secondary and elementary schools, it sounds as if they are saying we should make assumptions about the children based on their appearance.  For me, that's a deal stopper right there. 

For instance, a young white girl is assumed to be privileged.  A young black boy is assumed to be oppressed.  Never mind that the white girl is raised in poverty and sexually abused at home, assume she has privilege based on skin color.  Or the young black boy who frequently bullies his overweigh classmate has two wealthy parents and has never seen a cop aside from television because his time is spent between exclusive clubs and fashionable pastimes.  But he's oppressed, his skin color says so.  Even the Catholic Church appears to approve this message. 

Based on everything put in practice so far, CRT pushes us to make those initial judgments based on skin color and identity, and nothing I've heard from CRT proponents suggests otherwise.  Hence why we knew George Floyd was killed because of racism.  We knew absolutely nothing except the skin color of the two individuals in question.  And yet almost every leader in every nation, the pope, and almost all representatives of every major institution in our country and the world said it had to eb racism.  Because skin color.  

To me, that is a step backwards a thousand miles and two hundred years.  Nothing I saw in this well written article, or in any other pitch for CRT - and pitch for CRT it was - has suggested otherwise.