This commentary is by Rebecca Mattis, a former member of the Rutland Board of Aldermen.
Into the national conversation (i.e., the frustrating-exercise-in-talking-past-and-vilifying-one-another) on race, critical race theory has exploded.
Critical race theory is an offshoot of critical theory, which finds its roots in Marxism and postmodernism. Critical race theory began in legal studies in the 1970s and ’80s as a way of viewing the relationships among race, law, and power — a worthwhile exercise, especially as the victories of the civil rights era did not erase racial disparities in American life.
Critical race theorists refer to CRT not only as a framework but as a movement for social change. This movement has spread far beyond the academic sphere, into every cultural engine (education, media, religion, the arts, business, etc), and into social justice and anti-racism work.
Like any other movement, CRT does not have one simple definition. Even so, it has distinct principles that can be agreed upon by both its proponents and its antagonists.
First, CRT considers racism to be the axis of American life, the water in which we swim.
Second, CRT considers racism to be beneficial to all white people, and to be perpetuated by them either subconsciously or through their participation in society.
Third, although CRT acknowledges the fact that race is socially constructed, it also calls for a race-conscious society, wherein persons view themselves in terms of their racial group membership, rather than through the lens of individualism or universalism. Throughout all of this, and fundamental to it, is the assumption that power is the primary force within culture and human interaction.
Critical race theory as an academic standpoint is interesting because any criticism of the status quo must be interesting. However, thanks to its postmodernist roots, it is so radically skeptical of what we call knowledge that it denies empiricism itself. John Calmore, a prominent critical race theorist, wrote that CRT “rejects the traditional dictates that implore one to write and study as a detached observer whose work is purportedly objective, neutral, and balanced,” calling these dictates part of “the white world.”
He’s not the only one. The idea is well-established in CRT-informed activism that such values as rational thinking and a focus on data are specifically white qualities.
I was raised from an early age to believe in fairness and to call out racism and all forms of injustice where I saw it (and to see it for what it was). Throughout my life, I was influenced by people for whom justice was a simple matter of implementing the correct social policy. I know now that it is not so easy — and in that way, I have some agreement with CRT in that even policies based on the best of intentions can have bad outcomes when put into place (although CRT would attribute that failure to inherent racism, rather than good intentions gone wrong).
My sense of justice, however, compels me to oppose critical race theory in all its forms, because it is both objectively incorrect and morally wrong as a driver of public policy.
If we are to understand the ills of society, and to try to alleviate them, we must be able to use science, facts, data and evidence to set and evaluate goals. We must do this objectively, or at least as objectively as possible. CRT does the opposite. Set aside for the moment CRT’s egregious error that equates objective scholarship with whiteness. In making a virtue of bias, CRT turns itself into snake oil, a double evil. It fails to treat the illness, and it may cause its own disease.
CRT fails to correct bad policy because it refuses to investigate any possible causes for racial disparities other than “systemic racism,” which it defines only as “that which causes racial disparities.” In other words, in using race as a proxy for any number of specific social realities (family structure, cultural attitudes, health, poverty, violence, education, etc.), it fails to illuminate those realities so that we may understand them and work within our understanding to promote effective social policies and norms.
CRT teaches people (of all ages) that, outside of activism, people of color have no agency and people of pallor have no morality. In promoting this limiting, racialized, radicalized view of people and society, it is set to take us down some very dark paths.
As an ideology, I find CRT deeply cynical and inhumane. Power is something, but it is not everything. Social and communal life is based on human connection, service, mutuality and empathy, and is not just a struggle for status. I can never correctly assume what someone’s race means to them, and therefore for me to be race-conscious is nonsensical.
Further, CRT’s current push to promote a white racial identity for white people is quite frankly terrifying. No good can come of that. Racism is not a benefit to this nation or to anyone in it.
Finally, while racism is indeed a deep stain on America, it is not America. I believe the words of Langston Hughes: “America never was America to me/And yet, I swear this oath/America will be!” And America will — but not if CRT has its way.
