JWW ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY PART II: TAKING ON THE MYTHS

Our last post laid out the definition of critical race theory (CRT) as developed by the legal scholars who’ve led and participated in the CRT movement since its inception in the mid-1980s.  We explained the differences among us about interpreting the definitions offered bythose scholars and we set out CRT’s six most fundamental principles for considering racial issues in legal contexts. Now we take on perhaps a bigger task – sorting through the misinformation about CRT perpetrated not only by right wing zealotseager for an attack on any effort at understanding the true history of race in America and its impact on our laws and norms, but also by ordinary people who’ve bought into the disinformation campaign now swirling around CRT.

CRT has become shorthand for every program, every effort aimed at uncovering America’s true racial history. Those

squawking loudest about CRT don’t want to uncover that history in hopes of maintaining the status quo. We think it important that Americans know CRT isn’t the enemy and that laws aimed at keeping the truth about our history hidden do liberty, justice, and equality no favors.  

The Myths

As we explained last time, right wingcommentators like Tucker Carlson and Mark Levine have blasted out dire warnings about what CRT could do to our society. Those warnings rest on falsehoods and myths the right has pushed about CRT:
·    Schools are using CRT to teach childrento hate America – as we pointed out, hardly any elementary or secondary schools incorporate CRT into their curriculum. More importantly, CRT does not advocate hating America. Only law schools (and maybe a few graduate schools) would dare trying to teach the complicated concepts that go with real CRT. We’ve watched the eyes of college graduates glaze over when we’ve delved into detailed CRT analysis. This may represent the most dangerous and outrageous falsehood ginned up in the current craziness.  

·    CRT “disregards” the idea all people are created equal -- buying into this mythdemonstrates the distinction between CRT’s real focus and what the right claims it does. Our study of original works describing or applying CRT makes clear this notion hasno basis in fact. We suggest anyone adhering to this idea read Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. The book endorses no such idea. Bell helped popularize the concept of CRT in the American lexicon during his distinguished academic career. 

·    CRT is inherently divisive – parents objecting to CRT have advanced this noble sounding idea in opposition to teaching CRT in schools.As we’ve pointed out, nobody is teaching CRT in schools, except perhaps colleges, law schools, and professional schools.  We suspect this kind of criticism actually aims at preventing a more honest picture of America’s racial history. Those who object to such honesty should at least get their facts straight. If they don’t want more honesty about America’s racial history, they should say so, not blame a theory they understand marginally or not at all.

CRT has come to encompass all efforts at greater honesty about America’s history withrace. Conservatives have tried equating CRT with the 1619 Project, an award-winning journalism program developed by the New York Times that promotes a more realistic look at how slavery,in particular, actually unfolded and affected race relations in America. The right hopes Americans can’t tell the difference between CRT and other anti-racism efforts.

What the Fight Really Means

We see it as unfortunate that CRThas become a  bogeyman/whipping boy in the culture wars. CRT has a meaningful place in legal scholarship. It represents the work of some of America’s best legal minds on a topic that has troubled this nation since its inception. If our grandchildren attend law school, we know they’ll still learn about the law and the impact of racial considerations on the law. They may find CRT useful in grasping that subject.

By grabbing on to CRT, an obscure, decades-old legal theory that only the most elite academics fully understand and making it the whipping boy for simmering racial grievance, the right has found a way to take attention from its failings of leadership and its lack of ideas for governing.   Republicans apparently have given up on being a party of ideas. They offer nothing at the federal level

and only voter suppression at the state level. Republicans now care about little more than acquiring and keeping power. If they have ideas about moving America forward on tough issues that affect people’s lives – health care, finishing the job on the, pandemic, infrastructure, climate change – they aren’t telling us about them. Instead, they’ve ginned up this CRT dust storm.  Such side shows demonstrate their immaturity and unfitness to lead.

 

·  CRT involves making white students hate themselves and their ancestors – CRT tools and principles offer methods of analysis of how law operates in our society and how racism often influences law. That’s a far cry from indoctrinating someone to hate themselves.

 

What they won’t find helpful is the debate that erupted over CRT in 2021. That debate concerns politics, not legal analysis. Republicans, looking at a shrinking portion of the electorate (remember, they’ve lost the popular vote in every presidential election since 1988 except one) apparently feel they must do two things : (1) keep their base agitated and (2) troll for more angry white voters potentially attracted to their grievance politics. Misrepresentations about the meaning and purpose of CRT offer the best possibilities.

People say America needs two vibrant political parties. At some level, that’s true. It doesn’t need this Republican Party.