A proper education is one of the most important gifts that we can bestow upon children. It is not simply because a proper education is one of the main factors in high wellbeing. It is because it gives us critical thinking skills, helps us make correct decisions, makes us less susceptible to the influence of others, and improves our understanding of the world. A proper education in history is specifically important because it helps us learn from past mistakes, as well as successes. It becomes problematic when something as paramount as an education in history is politicized because it distorts truth.
Nonetheless, that is what is happening in the U.S. education system. I am sure that by now, many have heard the term "critical race theory", or CRT for short. You can read the analysis I wrote last year on CRT for more background, but let me summarize the debate as follows.
CRT is a theory "about how socially constructed racial identities are intertwined throughout all our legal and social structures to create and reinforce a system of white supremacy." Proponents of CRT claim that CRT is simply a way for us to better understand how racism shaped the United States. Opponents of CRT see it is a radical ideology that is dead-set on creating division based on race and is not interested in teaching an objective view of history.
If CRT were solely about teaching history accurately and making sure that the less-than-ideal parts of U.S. history are not whitewashed, I would be all for CRT. Children should not be learning a watered-down or bastardized version of U.S. history. By the time children have completed high school, they should know all about U.S. history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. As reading a recently released article from The Federalist entitled "No, Critical Race Theory Isn't About Teaching 'Slavery Is Real'" reminded me, CRT is actually a bait-and-switch that we should all find to be disturbing.
CRT attempts to do away with rational thought and objectivity. This is not something that CRT advocates exactly hide. Stephen Sawchuk, who is the Associate Editor of Education Week, pointed out in his article praising CRT that CRT is a subset of critical theory that emerged from postmodernist thought and is meant to question and criticize "universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and [classical] liberalism." This is not only problematic because these are values I hold dear. It is because it means rejecting such phenomena as critical thinking, the scientific method, or the sort of objectivity that reminds us that 2 + 2 = 4. I think CRT needs to be postmodern because it would not survive scrutiny under logic or critical thinking. CRT puts activism ahead of finding the truth, which makes it that much more difficult to find solutions to the problems that CRT advocates purport to care about. After all, how can you fix a problem if you cannot accurately diagnose it?
The idea of accurate diagnosis gets into another issue with CRT, which is that CRT lobs unfalsifiable accusations of racism. When I say unfalsifiable, what I mean here is that CRT advocates assume a conclusion about something (e.g., the pervasiveness of systemic nature of racism in society) or someone (e.g., whether all white people are racist) without having to provide any evidence for their claim. To apply that to CRT, it does not first prove whether racism took place. It simply assumes that racism is there and jumps straight to asking "How was this situation racist?" For CRT advocates, you do not have to prove something or someone was racist. It is a belief, an axiom to be held as sacrosanct. As this article from the Foundation of Economic Education points out:
The problem with this [assumption of racism] is that human interactions are inherently messy and subjective. We treat each other all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. In this type of environment, if you look for a phenomenon in an interaction you will find evidence for it; even if the phenomenon doesn't actually exist in that interaction...A scholar will look at complicated interactions and will weigh the evidence in search of the truth. An activist will dig for anything that supports their pre-existing dogma.
None of this is a surprise since CRT rejects critical thinking and is unkind towards teaching students how to think. Rejecting reason not only comes with the price of halting progress, but it comes with a warped sense of priorities and problem-solving. While I would argue that lockdowns played a major role in the increase in of riots and "mostly peaceful protests," I would also argue that CRT contributed to the tension quietly in the background. After all, if the problem is systemic racism and the system is so "rotten to its core" that it oppresses colored people and keeps them down, then the only solution is to fight fire with fire and use violence to tear it down.
Ibram X. Kendi, who is one of the most brazen advocates of CRT, openly admitted that "the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." I don't think Kendi even realizes the irony of such a solution, but what the CRT mentality does is continue a perpetual cycle of discrimination instead of finding a solution to put an end to the discrimination.
As much as I would like to have a world without racism, having the intent of making the world a more racially just and equal place does not give CRT advocates the moral high ground. As Milton Friedman famously said: One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
When taken to its logical conclusion, obsessively focusing on race like CRT does is destructive and divisive. In the event what I wrote today was not compelling enough, I will direct you once again to the analysis I wrote on CRT last year to supplement today's analysis. I discussed how it lowers morale for students of color and how it can create resentment and/or lower self-esteem for white students. I also described how it will worsen race relations and make society more racist, which is contrary to the supposed goals of CRT advocates.
I am not here to say that racism is gone or that race relations were or are perfect because none of that is true. I explained that concept when I argued last year why we should all celebrate Juneteenth. At the same time, CRT advocates react to racial relations in the U.S. as if Jim Crow were alive and well or if we were living in the antebellum South. Progress has been made since then and we should use that progress to bring us closer to giving all U.S. citizens the opportunity to live the American Dream. In case it has not been abundantly clear by now, there are a myriad of legitimate reasons to criticize CRT and to want it removed from the classroom. I would accuse CRT advocates as being intellectually lazy when they call anyone who is opposed to CRT a racist, but they don't care about objective truth, remember?
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