Why Critical Race Theory Is Bad for Race Relations and K-12 Education

Critical race theory. It has been all over the news and social media. It has become the buzzword of the summer. The critics describe it as series of perturbing practices that take place in classrooms. Lawmakers in numerous states, including Texas, Idaho, and New Hampshire, have banned its teaching in public school curricula. What is it that has liberals and conservatives riled up? 

Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short, began as a legal framework and academic school of thought. It started off in the 1970s as a way to examine the intersection of law and race, particularly with regards to racial justice. NPR argued that CRT is synonymous with "teaching about the effects of racism," whereas the New York Times minimized it to a "classroom discussion of race [and] racism." 

CRT is more specific than simply "let's have a dialogue about racism." CRT is also much more simplistic and fatalistic in its worldview. While we could get into the particularities and nuances of CRT (much like with any other legal theory), what is common amongst critical race theorists is the belief that the institutions of the United States are prima facie racist, and that people are either the oppressor or the oppressed based on their race (CNN). Some CRT academics even believe that race is not a matter of biology, but a social construct. Per this worldview, racism is not simply about individuals, but systemic racism. 

CRT is more than saying "past institutions influence our present." Of course society's past influences the present! This concept is especially true with prevalent and influential institutions, laws, and regulations. The practice of redlining comes to mind. In the early-to-mid 20th century especially, African-Americans were either denied housing or were charged exorbitant prices for housing. Because of this policy, past redlining has contributed to the present black-white wealth gap because African-Americans were unable to acquire wealth through housing at the same rates.  

But with CRT, it is not enough that slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of racism codified in U.S. law are in the past. It does not matter that less than 10 percent of Americans think interracial marriage is morally wrong (Pew Research), which is a vast improvement from the 96 percent in 1958 that thought so (Gallup). And what about the 13th-15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act, or Brown v. Board of Education? It doesn't matter to the CRT crowd. The progress that has been made does not matter to the critical race theorist because ultimately, they view the institutions of the United States are inherently racist and rotten to their core. Not only that, one's race is such a determining factor that it predetermines one's lot in life, which has its own issues (see below). 

Given the nature of CRT, it is unsurprising that those on the Left are more in favor of CRT than the Right (Morning Consult).There are two common responses to CRT critics, especially in response to the nature and prevalence of CRT. One is that it is only taught in law schools and is not being taught in K-12 schools because such material is not easily accessible at that educational level. Another retort is that conservatives are using the phrase so broadly in attempts to silence any conversation about racial relations in the United States. Perhaps, according to CRT proponents, it is due to "white fragility." In short, if it is something the Right doesn't like, it's CRT. What we generally see is the Left is trying to define CRT in the narrowest of terms to distract and the Right is using it in such general terms that it de facto becomes a catch-all phrase that it uses to weaponize against the Left. 

Historically speaking, CRT did emerge from an academic setting and remained there for a number of years. However, to think that CRT was strictly meant to be an academic exercise is mistaken. Richard Delgado, who is one of the founding critical race theorists, wrote: 

Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law...Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It not only tries to understand our social situation but to change it.

Not only was it not meant to stay in academic settings, it has not stayed in academic settings. The Left has created a narrative to make it seem like a "Marxist takeover of public schools that is eroding the values and ideals of this country" was merely a figment of the conservative imagination. However, the National Education Association (NEA), which is the largest teachers' union, proved that CRT is more than an innocent academic debate isolated in the Ivory Tower. During its annual representative meeting this past weekend, the NEA passed a resolution that said, amongst other things, that it would support CRT which more or less was in accord with how most conservatives have perceived CRT. If you need to know how controversial of a move this was on NEA's part, consider that they removed the resolution from their website. 

More to the point, the NEA passed a business item during this meeting stated that it will conduct a study that critiques "empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigineity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society, and we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or the 1619 Project." I don't know about you, but that description sounds a lot more like a worldview akin to Far Left thought with neo-Marxist undertones than it does to promote racial sensitivity and understanding among all citizens, regardless of political philosophy. 

Saying that CRT is nothing more than shorthand for "let's talk about race" is pure bait-and-switch. Even if K-12 students are not learning graduate-level texts, what is being taught about race and racism more and more is unquestionably influenced by CRT. We are already seeing examples of CRT influencing not only how students view race, but K-12 education more generally. School district policy is localized in the U.S., so I cannot realistically cover all 13,000-plus school districts here, but I can provide some examples to give you an idea of what is happening in response to educators advocating for CRT:

• The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) eliminated the usage of quizzes, homework assignments, and tests as the basis for grading students because of racial disparities in grades. 
• Not only that, SDUSD had a training in which they taught that American schools are guilty of "spirit murdering of Black children." This training ended with telling the white parents they need to go to antiracist therapy.
• The Oregon Department of Education says that if students show their work, it is a form of white supremacy, as well as paternalism.
• A group of educators in California declared mathematics education propagates white supremacy.
• CRT has crossed our northern border into Canada. In Vancouver, the school district is doing away with honors classes for the sake of equity and inclusion. Apparently, wanting children to have challenging coursework and pushing their intellectual boundaries is racist. 
• San Francisco renamed its school's art department because its former name used an acronym. Per their justification, they renamed it because acronyms are racist. Why? Because acronyms put non-English speakers at a disadvantage. 
• In the Chicago area, a book called "Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness" is being used in primary schools, which teaches that whiteness is "a bad deal." A middle school teacher currently has a federal lawsuit going not only because of the use of this book, but School District 65 (Evanston) segregates its students, as well as its teachers for teacher training. 
• Fourth- and fifth-grade students in Philadelphia's Lower Merion School District have to read about how people relating to police officers or not watching the news makes them complicit in racism. 
• A school district in the Silicon Valley forced their third-graders to deconstruct their racial identity and then to rank themselves according to power and privilege. 
• New York's East Side Community School called for white parents to become "white traitors" and advocate for "white abolition."

I am going to save the extent of racism being systemic for another time because it deserves its own separate discussion. Much like with other topics, I suspect the truth lies between the talking points of the Left and those of the Right. What I will say today is that the implications of such a worldview in K-12 and indeed society at large is astounding. You don't need a crystal ball or an advanced degree in public policy, sociology, or some other form of social sciences to realize what would happen if people took these tenets or theories to heart:

1. Lower morale among colored people. One of the defining messages of CRT is that "if you are a person of color, the system is inevitably going to screw you over." As Stoicism teaches with its dichotomy of control, there are some things we can control and some things we cannot. Ultimately, the focus is on what we can control to give us peace of mind. CRT conversely teaches that nothing is in your control because your race is either the primary or sole determinant of your lot in life (or at the very least, insurmountable), which is patently untrue if you look throughout history and see the other things aside from race that make life difficult for people. Forget for a moment that Nigerian-Americans and various Asian-Americans (e.g., Chinese, Indian, Taiwanese) have median salaries that are higher than Caucasian-Americans. Also, black immigrants are more educated than their native Caucasian counterparts. Even if the aforementioned are exceptions, they should not be exceptions that exist if our society was truly that racist. But I digress. If you are a colored child in a classroom listening to and internalizing the message of how the "white man keeps you down," why would you bother studying or trying if life is against you? How does this encourage colored students to try hard in school? 
2. Resentment or lower self-esteem among white people. CRT posits that it does not matter if a white individual is racist or if a white individual's ancestors caused the inequity. As I brought up in my scathing critique on the social justice movement and how it behaves as a fundamentalist religion, whiteness is the woke Left's Original Sin. At least with the Christian version of Original Sin, there is the option of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior to save you. In the CRT mindset, nothing can atone for being white. If a white student internalizes that message, it will probably result in lower self-esteem and a whole host of mental health issues down the road. If a white student resists the messaging, they could end up resenting their teachers and even people of a different race, which is contrary to the intentions of CRT.
3. CRT's version of equity will erode K-12 education. It would be nice if equity simply meant providing disadvantaged students with the same level of access to education that everyone else has. However, when you do such things as get rid of honors courses and indeed the traditional concept of grading because it is incomprehensible that not all people have the same level of capacity to learn, you are creating a whole different set of circumstances. One of my criticisms of socialism is that everyone ends up equally miserable. In the case of this pursuit for "equity" in K-12 education, what will most probably end up happening if it succeeds is that students end up being equally stupid and only able to parrot back what their teachers tell them. 
4. Worsened racial relations. CRT inaccurately and simplistically categorizes white people as the oppressor and colored people as the oppressed. If you frame whiteness in strictly adversarial terms and stoke envy and/or resentment, how do you expect colored people to want to befriend white people? If anything, the "oppressor/oppressed" framing only seeks to separate people by race rather than bring people together. 
5. CRT will make society more racist. I indirectly covered this topic last summer when I pointed out how much the woke Left was mimicking bona fide racists. CRT posits that race is either the prime or sole predetermining factor in one's life. It reduces people to an overly simplified "oppressed/oppressor" framework, and does so on the basis of race. What do you call it when you label all white people as the "oppressor?" That is racism because you are overgeneralizing an entire group of people based on their skin. What do you expect people to see when you tell students the only thing (the most important thing or one of the most important things) that matters in determining your success is your skin color? People are going to see race. Tell me how obsessing over race in such a manner does not encourage more intolerance and make it more likely that people will identify with those who are of the same skin color. We already see that phenomenon with diversity training: the more that you obsess over race, the more likely you are to activate stereotypes and prejudices.  
6. A warped view on the world leads to warped policy. Wrongly thinking that everyone and everything is racist will undoubtedly taint your view on the matter. Comedian Bill Maher brought this up on a recent segment of his when he accused a number of those of the Left of having "progressophobia." Maher defines progressophobia as "a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress. It's like situational blindness, only what you can't see is that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War." So if you think America is more racist than ever, much like CRT proponents do, you have progressophobia. Maher went on to say that a warped view on reality leads to warped policy, such as black-only dorms and graduation ceremonies, a growing belief that Whiteness and White people as irredeemable, giving up on a color-blind society." As Maher concludes, only if you believe no progress has been made (which is patently false) would such a worldview [as CRT] make sense. I would add diversity training to Maher's list since studies show that diversity backfires spectacularly by making biases stronger. 

 

Conclusion: We can teach about slavery and racism without using CRT. People should learn their history, whether it is the good, bad, or the ugly. There has to be an acceptable middle ground between whitewashing the nastier parts of U.S. history and thinking every institution and white person in this country is inherently racist. Somewhere in that middle is called historical reality. The problem with CRT proponents is that they do not care about that reality. They care about shoving a fatalistic, simplistic, pessimistic, and decidedly inaccurate worldview down our throats. If CRT were simply about promoting racial understanding or greater historical awareness, I would be all for it. However, the truth of the matter is that CRT in K-12 schools is a radical form of indoctrination promoting greater intolerance and racism while eroding the quality of education.