Can You Say “Squirrel!”? Critical Race Theory as the New Shiny Object….

Why is my freedom, my citizenship, in question now? What one begs American people to do, for all sakes, is simply to accept our history.

- James Baldwin, “The American Dream and the American Negro” (1965)

It’s all Kimberle Crenshaw’s fault: if she – and others like Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Richard Delgado and Patricia J Williams, to name but a few – hadn’t had the temerity to suggest that the way we Americans (and, in truth, the dominant in all cultures) choose to remember our history is often, ahem, inaccurate in identifiably patterned ways, we wouldn’t be in this mess, right? I mean, if we’d just stick to the versions of history taught in our middle and high school textbooks, we’d be fine. There is no need to go messin’ around with this truth.

Except that there is: as James W Loewen has pointed out so powerfully in his classic Lies My Teacher Told Me, much of what we were taught of our history is either flat-out wrong or so heavily sanitized that it bears little resemblance to the reality of those times. Think of the irony – or is it hypocrisy? – of the millions upon millions of Americans who proclaim the importance of the rule of law in a country built on land stolen from Native Americans and with labor stolen from African-Americans.

Which brings us to that scandalous late 20^th century creation, Critical Race Theory (CRT): I mean, in a country as free of racism, classism and other -isms as ours, there’s no need to suggest that America isn’t the fairest and best of all societies ever.

Except that it isn’t: one doesn’t have to be a scholar to realize that the history of Native Americans in our country is distinctly less free and happy than that of the whites who're in an ever-dwindling majority at present. And, unless you’ve been living under a rock all of your life, it would be hard to suggest that African-Americans have gotten a full and fair shake in this country … unless, of course, you’re in that majority of whites who feel that discrimination against them exceeds that against Blacks (read = unless you’re totally delusional).

So, now, in their latest gambit in the seemingly never-ending game of political Shiny New Object, conservatives (read = GOP operatives and those sympathetic to their [racist] views) have latched onto the sad and ridiculous notion that we must be protected from the very idea of Critical Race Theory, even though few of them seem to understand what it really is. (Hint = It doesn’t encourage pro-Black/anti-white racism as some have alleged, etc.)

What they do know is that using this lens to examine American history means that the Privilege enjoyed by whites since before our country’s founding is exposed in even greater detail, which means that they – and those in power who represent them – become accountable for this dispossessing legacy. I mean, wouldn’t it just be easier for us to move forward while acknowledging things may not have been perfect but that this country is so much better than any other that what’s wrong with it is minor and fixable with a little effort?

Except that it’s not: perhaps for some – or even many – whites American Exceptionalism has a positive connotation, but for too many of The Other it registers as the exact opposite. One doesn’t have to be well-versed in our political history to understand that the GOP’s sustained assault on and effective repeal of the crowning achievement of our country’s Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in the past half-century has led to the unconscionably unprecedented and ubiquitous voter suppression efforts that’ve sprung up since the 2020 election. Not sure how you could characterize the almost 400 proposed bills in 48 states seeking to limit access to the franchise in ways that just coincidentally negatively impact groups (like African-Americans) who were critical to the direction-changing electoral outcomes of last November.

And voting rights are just one aspect of a holistic reality of structural disenfranchisement that CRT examines and exposes. Our historic and ever-widening economic inequality is another example of an area where this evaluative framework will unmask the purposeful inequities of our status quo (as well as explain the powerful backlash that’s underway). So, too, with respect to the history of policing in our society, to whose lethality we are ever more indelibly exposed each day. Etc.

If the current order of things is working well for you, you probably don’t want anyone shining a light on the inequities upon which your Privilege is built, hence the GOP demonization of Critical Race Theory. As Adam Harris points out earlier this month in The Atlantic:

The larger purpose, it seems, is to rally the Republican base—to push back against the recent reexaminations of the role that slavery and segregation have played in American history and the attempts to redress those historical offenses. The shorthand for the Republicans’ bogeyman is an idea that has until now mostly lived in academia: critical race theory.

So when millions of Americans of all races take to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd among other recent and avoidable tragedies in our society, rather than seek to understand why this movement for Social Justice has coalesced and is gaining momentum (or, God forbid, try to address what you find), it’s much more expedient politically to demonize it. In this effort to discredit both the movement and a tool to help us understand how to evolve our society in ever more just and equitable ways, the obfuscation and even claims of reverse racism have been fantastic and laughable in the most unfunny of ways.

So, avoiding the purposely distracting and false hype, let’s examine what CRT is and how it can help us to fashion a new, more equitable, inclusive and achievable American Dream.

In reality, you have to look no further than Wikipedia to learn that:

Critical race theory is loosely unified by two common themes: first, that white supremacy, with it societal or structural racism, exists and maintains power through the law; and second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, and also achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly, is possible.

Though we could debate the details, let’s accept this premise and explore it: Simply put, CRT could only be a bad thing if you don’t want to talk about the objective realities of White Supremacy and structural racism and/or you don’t want the Dispossessed to believe that by evolving our societal norms and laws a better life can result for all.

Why on earth would you be against acknowledging these dual realities, that America is flawed and yet that it is also, thankfully and in fact, fixable? Because you see such societal evolution as a zero-sum proposition, as Heather C McGhee explores so incisively in her new book The Sum of Us. Among other aspects this challenge that she elucidates compellingly are that many lower and middle class whites see any attempts to change the status quo as being zero-sum propositions – that is, that in order for others to be included more, they will be disadvantaged proportionately, so they resist changes that would actually be good for them, too – and that White Supremacy and its correlate structural racism cost everyone – including the vast majority of working and middle-class white who ostensibly benefit from them.

In other words, because of their zero-sum perspective, a large swath of American whites vote against their own economic (et. al.) interests consistently. So, if you’re in power, you want to avoid things like CRT that might provide a more accurate assessment of their life circumstances and reasons therefor among your (white) base. Because then they may come to understand that the meager Privilege that they enjoy is really just a pittance and tool to help the elite continue to win the class war by keeping them from uniting with People of Color who are similarly economically situated and disenfranchised. If you study modern American social history carefully, it’s not a stretch to note that the late, great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, was assassinated just as he began to mobilize a multi-racial coalition of the Dispossessed and therefore that these two realities may, in fact, be related.

Further, as CNN observed in a recent story entitled “Critical race theory is a lens. Here are 11 ways looking through it might refine your understanding of history”, using this tool to examine several aspects of our history like those it highlighted can change one’s perspective:

1. Land was taken
2. Slavery was the law
3. Interracial marriage was banned
4. Voting was restricted
5. Jim Crow was accepted
6. Lynching was tolerated
7. Immigration was biased
8. Education was curtailed
9. Good jobs were elusive
10. Housing was exclusionary
11. Health care was inferior

Not only are each of the above undeniably true, but we tend to ignore and/or gloss over them both in the history that we’re taught in school as well as that we deploy as a basis for the structural (et. al.) choices we make in fashioning our society.

To engage with a few:

We pretend that the land upon which our entire country was built wasn’t stolen from the millions of Native Americans who lived here before this continent was “discovered” (read = claimed and then stolen with murderous force by covetous Europeans). We pretend that the US Government didn’t engage in Affirmative Action that enriched white families and created the American middle class (via land grants to white western settlers in the 19^th century, mandating whites-only lending policies in the 20th century, etc.) while simultaneously disenfranchising Black and Brown ones. We pretend that in the wealthiest country on the planet, we can’t afford public health care system that works quite well for every other major developed nation. Etc.

To make it plain, Critical Race Theory is under attack precisely because it’ll help us better understand these realities and make different choices about how we structure our society, to which defenders of the status quo are objecting forcefully. So, is CRT really a clear and present danger? Only if you don’t want ours to become a more equitable, inclusive and just society.

But, hey, don’t take my word for it, check out one of the definitive canons of the genre, Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, and draw your own conclusions. But be forewarned: there are dangerous things therein that just might blow (read = open) your mind….

For example, in his powerful and piercing Foreword to the book, the Rev. Dr. Cornel West observes that:

This comprehensive movement in thought and life – created primarily, though not exclusively, by progressive intellectuals of color – compels us to confront critically the most explosive issue in American civilization: the historical centrality and complicity of law in upholding white supremacy (and concomitant hierarchies of gender, class, and sexual orientation).

In other words, CRT critically examines the myths that we’ve proffered to absolve ourselves of guilt for the purposeful inequity that we’ve perpetrated in the ostensible “land of the free,” especially against The Other (to follow Prof. West, defined as those who differ from the ruling white majority in race, gender, class and sexual orientation, among other ways). Puncturing falsehoods, no matter how ‘nobly intended’ in propagation, would seem to be a good thing … unless, of course, in doing so, it undercuts the legitimacy of the status quo.

Yet, despite its clear-eyed approach, CRT remains constructive, focused as it is, according to Prof. West, on disclosing “the flagrant shortcomings of the treacherous present in the light of unrealized – though not unrealizable – possibilities for human freedom and equality.” The goal, then, is to be fully inclusive in our understanding of ourselves, not only celebrating our better angels but grappling with the darker realities of our shared experience as well.

In so doing, we craft a story and concept of ourselves that’s both grounded in reality and respectful of the truth of that reality (which is often quite uncomfortable both for its greatest beneficiaries and for those who seek to perpetuate this current, inequitable construct in perpetuity). America has been and will continue to be an exceptional country, but it’s not perfect and any attempt to sweep its imperfections under the metaphorical rug are, in fact, betrayals of the freedom to which we purport to subscribe.

Our history is more difficult than we’d like it to be. Yet, if we choose not to embrace this reality, we make it more challenging still, and in ways that erode rather than reinforce our ability to create a more perfect union over time.

In this spirit, then, the Rev. Dr. West concludes, “Critical Race Theory is a gasp of emancipatory hope that law can serve the liberation rather than domination.” Despite what the defenders of the status quo would have us believe, utilizing the tool of CRT enables us to discover our fuller history, especially by examining it from the perspectives of those who’ve traditionally been marginalized and/or excluded.

In so doing, we are forced but able to grapple with the more difficult realities of our shared history, which has two benefits that’re critical to our continued and harmonious association: first, this practice establishes a more truthful baseline from which to interpret our past and understand our present; and, second, it highlights areas of opportunity on which to focus in our future efforts to make ours an ever more equitable and inclusive union.

Why wouldn’t we want to have a better understanding of who we have been and really are? And why wouldn’t we want to have greater clarity about ways in which we can make ours an even more mutually beneficial collaboration in this grand experiment in representative Democracy?

The only answer that I can conceive is if you benefit disproportionately from the way things are and therefore don’t seek for ours to become continuously a more perfect union. Yet the world is changing, as is our society, which is Blackening and Browning every day. So, we can choose to use tools like CRT to help us address the realities of our fundamental and irreversible societal evolution or we can embrace delusion at scale and rage in an ultimately pyrrhic way against a new dawn that we can’t prevent.

As for me, I choose the former, braver route, including because it seems so much more authentically American: I believe to my core that we’re far more likely to achieve success in pursuing happiness, individually and collectively, when grounded in reality, an opportunity enabled and ennobled by Critical Race Theory.

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

- James Baldwin, “As Much Truth As One Can Bear” (1962)