Critical Race Theory
What is Critical Race Theory?
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the ideology that places race at the forefront of all human interaction, opportunity and achievement. It discounts talent, work ethic, determination, kindness, openness, and other virtues, as having meaningful influence on a person’s success in the world. Rather, CRT believes that the outcome of an individual’s life is determined by racism, and that racism is an ordinary state of affairs in society. It believes that western civilization is irredeemably racist. These assertions are based on belief in an unproven -- theoretical -- power dynamic, which is said to exist between groups. Therefore, critical race theorists work to uncover hidden racism, by essentially seeing racism in every interaction.
CRT rejects liberal democracies that are founded on the rights of the individual. For example, colourblind policies, which provide equal protection for all people under the law, are perceived as racist, because they do not address the inequality of life-outcomes, which are often identified between different cultural groups. CRT favours equity over equality. That is, it seeks to create and uphold laws and policies that would elevate a racialized group irrespective of merit or justice. In doing so, it undermines the fundamental basis of our freedoms in western society.
At its core, critical race theory seeks to dismantle free western society as we know it. It is a new version of Marxism (neo-Marxism), cloaked in identity politics. In Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, two of CRT’s founders, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, write this:
Unlike traditional approaches to civil rights, which favor incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory calls into question the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral principles of constitutional law.
In plain language, they are saying that critical race theory does not wish to preserve the free society where we live; all people should not be treated equally under the law. It questions and seeks to disrupt the legal process whereby all people are innocent until proven guilty; it wants to dismantle independence and individuality; and finally, it does not believe that constitutional law should be neutral and impartial to race, religion, or political affiliation.
On the ground level, and in day-to-day interpersonal interactions and professional relationships, CRT activists advocate for separating people into groups based on factors of privilege and oppression. White males being the most privileged (i.e. oppressors), and BIPOC being the oppressed (i.e. victims).
In CRT, if you are BIPOC, then you are a member of a “racialized minority group”, and consequently you are oppressed by a system that is rigged against you. Every aspect of this system is a social construct – an intricate power structure – that was created and sustained by non-racialized people.
Critical race theory believes that all people with “white” skin (typically people with European ancestry), are inherently and unequivocally privileged, regardless of place of birth, country of origin, socio-economic status, generational trauma, or disabilities. According to CRT this groups has a leg-up, and their “privilege” oppresses any person of colour (irrespective of the socio-economic status of the “oppressed”). Ultimately, believers in CRT consider all white people to be exploiters, and all people of colour to the exploited.
People who believe in critical race theory also believe that white people don’t have to work as hard to get ahead as BIPOCs. Equally, they believe that BIPOCs work “twice as hard” to achieve the same level of success.
In situations where work effort is not a factor, critical race theory alleges that all professional or social interactions are potentially racist, and therefore an effort to keep people of colour oppressed, even if unintended.
What’s Wrong With It
Like all cultures around the globe, Europeans, Caucasians, and Middle Easterners with light skin, are an eclectic mix, coming from a variety of backgrounds, histories, and in many circumstances extreme poverty, starvation, and generational traumas. CRT’s framing of “white people” is ahistorical and inaccurate. Given the vast ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity of human beings who come from the European continent and surrounding areas, the concept of white privilege is clearly a myth.
Poverty, misfortune, trauma, abuse, addiction, mental illness, disease – all things that plague humanity – know no race. The very premise of CRT is false.
Most tragically, CRT pedagogy poisons the minds of children, teaching them to see through the lens of race. It teaches children that they are either victims or evil-perpetrators. It teaches them racism. Consequently, rather than growing up in a world where we strive to bridge our common humanity, children who are taught CRT are taught to obsess about race, and may feel that they are surrounded by enemies.
Critical race theory fosters an atmosphere of blame, alienation, misunderstandings, hatred, and division. Finally, it encourages tribalism by crafting an us-against-them cultural climate, which consequently leads to increased social unrest, injustice and tyranny. By reducing everyone to their race, CRT dehumanizes people of all races. It, therefore, cultivates systemic racism in its purest form, which has been a historical precursor to human rights violations globally.
