Another Attack On CRT

 Unless you're a religiously conservative Christian, disagreement or a lack of conformity is not considered an attack. But when the disagreement goes beyond a difference of opinion into attempts to silence someone or some group, then we have an attack. And that is what we have a review of CRT by a group called Independent Women's Voice. (click here for their page on CRT).

Their review of CRT follows in the same vein that religiously conservative Christians practice when reviewing secular theories and ideologies that they find offensive. That kind of review paints a picture of their target, in this case CRT, in black-white terms suggesting, if not implying that their target has either no redeemable qualities or qualities that are better learned from religiously conservative Christian sources. 

The Independent Women's Voice gives a completely negative review of CRT. We could compare that kind of review with the kind of review that Martin Luther King Jr. gave to Marxism/Soviet Union Communism in his book Stride Toward Freedom (click here for the chapter of the book on Pilgrimage to Nonviolence). There, on page 92-95, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Marxism/Soviet Union Communism, King, unfortunately he seemed to have conflated the two, described it as evil and listed a few key disagreements he had with it. At the same time, he followed William Temple's, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, assessment that Marxism/Soviet Union Communism was a Christian heresy. They called it that because Marxism/Soviet Union Communism both contained some essential Christian concerns for justice with views that were antithetical to Christianity. King concluded that what we need is a hybrid approach to our political and economic system that incorporates both Marxism/Soviet Union Communism with Capitalism. 

The point being here is that while King saw some good in what he considered to be evil, the Independent Women's Voice review saw CRT in almost complete negative terms and as having nothing to contribute to our nation's struggle with racism. And thus, CRT should not be a part of any school program. This black-white view of things which many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians are employing is also part and parcel to authoritarian approaches

The Independent Women's Voice group gave several reasons for why CRT is totally wrong enough to be excluded from schools. The initial reasons given include that CRT is divisive, unpatriotic because it teaches that America was founded on white supremacy, causes unnecessary despair, and runs counter to our nation's motto of 'out of one, many.' But what is missing in those objections is the most important issue about CRT. That most important issue is the degree of accuracy by which CRT describes how many Blacks experience racism in our nation. If that its degree of accuracy is high, then these objections fall to the wayside. And so what we are seeing here is a conservative implementation of Post Modernism's outcome-based truth system. That system dictates that if the outcome is undesirable, then the premise(s) associated, whether by accident or not, with that outcome are deemed to be false.

Here we should note that CRT is emerged from Critical Legal Studies (CLS). Though it has some carry over from CLS, it is significantly different from CLS. And CRT is decades old and comes from serious studies in both law and other areas of life such as police enforcement, the judicial system, voting, employment and economics, the environment, political system, and so on. The basic thrust of CRT's message is that how Blacks have experienced racism in this nation is so unique to them that the term racism has been redefined to include personal racial prejudice, racism practiced by our nation's institutions, and in society in general. Thus racism in the U.S. is personal prejudice + both institutional and social power.

The Independent Women's Voice webpage emphasizes how CRT ventures off the beaten path of the Civil Rights Movement from the past and especially from what Martin Luther King Jr taught. What does this webpage review of CRT say about what the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. stood for? The Independent Women's Voice webpage said the following:

1. The movement was based on equal opportunity and equal treatment regardless of race
2. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that America was born out of liberty, not racism, and that the time had come that our nation start to fulfill its promises. Also that America was not an inherently racist nation.
3. The Civil Rights Movement was Patriotic by following through with what the Declaration of Independence said that 'all men are created equal.' And so CRT is not the continuation of the Civil Rights Movement.

So at the heart of the issue here is our history and what role racism played and is still playing because of the past. What is also important is what the Civil Rights Movement stood for.

We should note here the distinction between theory and practice. Yes, we have the words of the Declaration of Independence and Amendments from The Constitution. But how close was our practice to those proclaimed principles? For the greater the difference between our practice and our  principles, then it seems to follow that we should judge ourselves by our practices more than our stated principles.

Here we should note that initially the American definition of citizen follows closer to what Aristotle wrote than any other model of thought (click here for the source).  According to Aristotle, participatory citizenship was meant only for men who were not resident aliens or slaves. Aristotle also believed that certain people were slaves by nature.

Compare that with naturalization laws of 1790 and 1795 where citizenship was reserved for only free white people who lived in the jurisdiction of the U.S. for a certain period of time, showed good character and swore allegiance to The Constitution. However, women could not not vote and were not independent citizens until the 1920s. Thus, neither Blacks nor Native Americans could become citizens when this nation was founded. It wasn't until the 14th Amendment when Blacks could become citizens and it wasn't until 1924 that Native Americans could become citizens.

And so when we consider whether this nation was founded on white supremacy or whether our nation was founded on liberty and equality, what does our past say? We should add to the laws regulating citizenship our history of slavery, and Jim Crow laws and culture to answer the question. And we should also ask if it is unpatriotic or simply historical to answer the question by saying that America was founded on white supremacy.

We should note that the patriotism of America's Civil Rights Movement should be qualified if not questioned. Why? For one thing, the American Civil Rights Movement was not a monolithic group defined by Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC. It included groups like the Black Panthers, groups that called for Black Nationalism, some who called for violence, as well as those groups that peacefully worked for civil rights.

In addition, we could also question whether the patriotism of Martin Luther King Jr. matches the patriotism expressed by this webpage. For  King said the following

1. The U.S. government was 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today' (click here for the source). We should note the other criticisms that King had of U.S. policies there.
2. Martin Luther King Jr. said that Blacks have had a tougher time struggling for equality than other immigrant groups because of how, from the very beginning, they were objectified, brought here under inhuman conditions,  used as slaves and stigmatized because of their color. That no other ethnic group was used as slaves in in the U.S. (click here for the source, advance to the answer to the question at around 13:48 of the interview). We should note the other things said by King in that interview including his supportive comments about those young black activists of his time who were rejecting the bourgeois values of White America.
3. We could also add King's criticisms of Capitalism and partial agreement with Marxism/Communism found in King's Stride Toward Freedom, which was previously cited.

Yes, progress has been made and this has been admitted to by CRT teachers and promoters, but we still have systemic racism  in the nation. At least that is what CRT teachers and promoters are saying. And they base than on the racism practiced in the areas of life already mentioned before.

In addition, we should add another point about the Independent Women's Voice webpage that challenges the connections between CRT and the work of King and the Civil Rights Movement. In his interview that was previously cited, King states that his earlier work, which consisted of working for desegregation and the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, were struggles for dignity. He was then, in May of 1967, turning his attention toward achieving 'genuine equality' in the U.S. And by that he was referring to outcomes including economic ones. The measuring the presence of racism by the lack in the equality of outcomes was referred to by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her article on race the valid use of anti-discrimination laws (click here for the article). Or we could go to the writings of Anthony Cook on Martin Luther King Jr. 

Will stop here rather than go through the whole webpage. Hopefully I fairly represented the gist of what the webpage was about. Also, I hopefully showed where the webpage seems to be out of touch with the history and character of the U.S., CRT, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. But that is for you to decide should you venture to read through or listen to the resources provided.