History of CRT

Derrick Bell is widely credited with establishing CRT. Bell was a Harvard professor that taught a course titled Race, Racism, and American Law. He also published a book that held the same name as his Harvard course.

In 1993, several legal scholars published a book titled ‘Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment’ (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, and Crenshaw).

The most cited and known book is ‘Critical Race Theory - an Introduction’ by Delgado and Sefancic, published in 2001.

However to be truly accurate, CRT has much earlier roots. ‘Critical Theory’ was developed in the Frankfurt School in Germany in the 1930’s. It’s a Western-Marxist philosophy that draws on the ideas of Marx and Freud. The wikipedia entry for Critical Theory explains it well:

“Though a ‘critical theory’ or a ‘critical social theory’ may have similar elements in thought, capitalizing Critical Theory as if it were a proper noun stresses the intellectual lineage specific to the Frankfurt School.”

It goes on the explain how modern critical theory was influenced by Gyorgy Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci (Marxist, leader of Communist Party of Italy).

So in short: Critical Theory is a Marxist philosophy. CRT is that Marxist philosophy adapted to the concept of race.

On to CRT itself and each individual tenet. Keep in mind, as was revealed in a viral video of a Black father denouncing CRT to a school board, that CRT was never intended for general education. It was intended to be discussed in law school as a means of looking at law through a racial lens. This is apparent when you read the wording of the 5 tenets of CRT.

First, each tenet in italics. My response after.

"First, the group was skeptical of legal theories that supported colorblindness, objectivity, and neutrality, which created an “abstracted story of racial inequality as a series of randomly occurring, intentional, and individualized acts.” In other words, the scholars wanted the legal field to think of racism on a scale much larger than one-to-one interactions; racism could never be a random act because race was socially constructed for the purpose of oppression. To be objective is to support the status quo, and thus the country isn’t working to actively redress racial inequities."

This is a self-refuting point. The problem is that they're trying to take a legal field constructed by 'systemically racist white people' and empower it to take away the systemic oppression. They start off by saying that colorblindness is a bad thing but by even acknowledging the racial hierarchy that's been created, the authors participate in that same racial hierarchy that was created for oppressive purposes. It's amazing that this is even taken seriously as the very first premise collapses in on itself.

“Second, the scholars stated that every analysis of the law should be grounded in historical context, arguing that 'racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage along racial lines, including differences in income, imprisonment, health, housing, education, political representation, and military service.' For example, the black-white wealth gap - which exists because black people have historically been excluded from wealth-building measures like home ownership - hasn't changed since researchers started collecting related data more than 50 years ago; the typical white family is almost 10 times wealthier than the average black one.”

This argument doesn't take into account lifestyle choices or individual circumstances. In addition, it doesn't scrutinize by area of residency. You have more concentrated populations of poverty in urban areas which tend to be more non-white per capita. There is a racial component but it's not solely a result of the economy. It's also a result of culture and lifestyle choices. It's also a result of liberal policies which by and large have been lording over these urban areas for decades. This point is easily refuted through simple socioeconomics. Most of these "points" are simply due to individual lifestyle choices. It's odd that they cite the military since blacks are over represented in the military. Over 70% of black children are born to single parent households versus under 25% for whites. Meaning, that by and large in most of the cases you're comparing a household with two parent incomes to a household with only one. Take into account the Irish who came to this country, were treated worse than blacks and yet managed to work themselves out of it. Italians as well. What about Asians and Indians? Indians are the single wealthiest ethnicity in the USA and they are not white. Non-white Jews have more wealth than whites despite bigotry aimed at them in every possible way for hundreds of years. If the USA is such a systemically racist country, how have all these non-white ethnic groups managed to succeed and in many respects acquire more wealth than whites? Ask yourself if there are any differences in the cultures of these groups? Be honest - do some of them place value on criminality, materialism, violence, promiscuity, drug abuse while the other groups place value on education, fiscal responsibility, the nuclear family, and obeying the law?

“Third, the theorists wrote that critical race theory acknowledges, values, and centers the knowledge of people of color who experience racism daily.”

Again, only if you redefine racism in the broadest sense possible to fit the argument. The syrup bottle is racist, the box of butter is racist, the grocery store is racist, a white car with black tires is racist because it represents white people riding on the backs of blacks. A billiards table is racist becuase the goal of the game is for the white ball to knock every colored ball off the green Earth with the last color to knock off being black. It's stupid and you have to be stupid to play the game. If I wanted to, I could see racism everywhere as well:

"Oh...paper is white and ink is black because the black ink puts it's mark on the white paper. White paper is blank because whites have no culture and the black ink has to give the blank white paper some identity. White paper and black ink is racist and oppressive to whites. Cancel writing."

"The sun is racist since it burns caucasians and the lighter the skin shade, the harsher the burn. Blacks have black privilege because they don't burn in the sun. The sun is oppressive to whites. Cancel the sun."

"Many olympic events are racist against whites because they can't jump. So the high jump, hurdles, etc. are systemically racist by disadvantaging whites due to their inability to jump as high as blacks. Cancel the olympics."

Flipping this around, if you always look for racism, you will always find it. Anything can be misconstrued to be racist. This is how the Aunt Jemima label became racist, the Land O' Lakes logo, Mr. Potato Head, Uncle Ben, and more recently fireworks. It's pathological. It's the sociological equivalent of being a hypochondriac.

CRT is a no win game because it begins from the assumption that racism occurs in all interactions. If a white man and a black man come into your store and you serve the black man first, you're a racist because you don't trust him and just want to get him out of your store ASAP. If you help the white man first you're racist because you think the white man should be served before a black man. But think about it, can't the same be said if the person serving is black? You can take any situation and find racism in it, and then switch the races of the "perpetrator" and find the same racism flipped. It's juvenile and it's intellectually dishonest.

I highly doubt that anyone experiences objective racism on a daily basis. If someone experiences it legitimately, we can all agree to fight it. But if you're constantly finding offense from a syrup bottle, from a box of rice, from everything every where you look, I think the problem is you. You're neurotic, you're manic, and you're addicted to attention that constantly being a victim affords you. You’re the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken Little.

“Next, the scholars noted that critical race theory is “interdisciplinary and eclectic,” meaning it borrowed from a number of traditions like feminism, Marxism, and critical legal theory. The thinkers argued that a combination of these ideas only strengthened their framework.”

First off, at least they're honest as to the Marxist origins of CRT so we can stop pretending like it didn't have some predisposed ideological purpose. Marxism, by it's own self description, seeks to divide for the purpose of supplanting existing ideologies with Marxist ideology. So to suggest that CRT was initially about racial justice is bullshit.

Lastly, they identified critical race theory’s goal: eliminating racial oppression as a step toward eliminating all oppression. “The interests of all people of color necessarily require not just adjustments within the established hierarchies, but a challenge to hierarchy itself."

Again. Self-defeating. They're attempting to use a system that they have identified as racist, built by racists, run by racists as a means to defeat the same racist system. It doesn't make sense. It's casting out demons in the name of satan.

Racist bullshit aside, this is my problem with movements like this. BLM is the perfect example. It was never honestly about racial justice for blacks. They already have that. It was about planting a seed of discontentment in the most free and equitable country on the planet; planting the seed of Marxism. It was about money, given the fact that most of the donations went to Democratic candidates through ActBlue. The rest of the money went to people like cofounder Patrice Cullors (self avowed trained Marxist) who bought 4 houses for millions of dollars and then resigned from BLM.

CRT is the same thing. I don't think the authors are as interested in supposedly solving racial injustice in a country that has made more black millionaires than the entire continent of Africa. It's about selling more books.

In the manufacturing industry there is a running joke in regards to Quality Assurance personnel. The theory goes that if they were actually any good at what they did, they would essentially work themselves out of a job. If their job is to assure perfect quality and they achieve that, then there is no longer any need for them. BLM, CRT, and all these divisive movements that prey on the ideas of intersectionality (which is another self-defeating ethos) and the weak minded have no interest in solving any problems. Their interest is in making money from the suckers that eagerly lap this garbage up. It's a slap in the face to Martin Luther King Jr. who had the solution to fight racial injustice. CRT directly contradicts everything MLK stood for. You know, the whole “Judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”

On a personal level, I am white and my wife is black. We have two wonderful biracial children. CRT would essentially teach my children that Daddy is a racist and Mommy is a victim of Daddy’s racism. When elementary schools (6-13 year old children) are reading children books with titles like, "Decentering Whiteness at Home" which teaches children how much "color matters" and encourages them to confront "the painful truth" about their "own family" - that they are being raised by racists, can anyone not see how this would affect the very multiracial families like mine that are praised by the very people pushing CRT?