A Political Strawman

“It’s anti-American training that vilifies white people and demands they apologize.” 

“This is about textbooks, books filled with Marxist, Communist, racially-divisive ideologies.” 

“It’s basically teaching kids to hate our country and to hate each other based on race.”

Over the past few years, the subject of these quotes—critical race theory (CRT for short)—has become one of the most controversial and inciting topics in the social, political, and educational spheres. Passionate activists, both for and against, have turned school board meetings into a battleground—one they argue is for the future of education, their children, and the very soul of the nation itself. The debate has even reached North Allegheny.

CRT has become a buzzword—one that triggers almost immediate outrage and people closing themselves off to any differing opinion. Some reading this right now probably already have—as soon as they saw the title and processed those three letters, their mind was made up before reading further.

What is critical race theory?

It would seems that the answer to that question is a prerequisite for any discussion on the topic, but many engaging in the debate seem not to know.

With origins that can be traced back to the 1970s, CRT is far from a novel concept. Some of its most prominent founders include legal scholars Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. 

Critical race theory is an intellectual and social movement founded on several core tenets, including that race is a social construct, not a biological one, that racism in the United States is an institutional sin, not an individual one, and that people of color are uniquely qualified to speak on the effects of racism. What’s important to note is that beyond the core principles that Delgado and Jean Stefancic say are generally accepted among critical race theorists, CRT is actually a very broad field with varying beliefs among its scholars.

But when it comes to its modern implications, many (on both sides of the political aisle) use definitions that are either blatant misinterpretations (“It’s saying all white people are oppressors”) or massive oversimplifications (“It’s just teaching history”).

One common misconception is that CRT says all white people are consciously racist.  Ironically, this is directly contradictory to CRT, as the misconception posits that individuals choose to be racist.  In fact, CRT advances the notion that racism is systemic, that otherwise good people unconsciously benefit from privileges that have their roots in racist historical conditions.

Another misconception is that CRT is racist because it labels black people as victims who are unable to succeed on their own.

Let’s take, for instance, a track race in which one lane line is painted incorrectly, causing one runner to finish behind others. In this scenario, pointing out the disadvantage is not questioning the runner’s inherent ability or suggesting that they cannot win through their own merit—it’s a logical response to observing how a systematic bias negatively impacts a person’s ability to succeed.

Obviously, this analogy is a simplified scenario of the complexities of systemic racism and is not meant to be literally comparable. But it demonstrates that arguably the opposite is true. If systemic obstacles aren’t acknowledged, people turn to inherency to justify the differences in outcome, i.e. that a certain individual or group is intrinsically superior or inferior, which is the prime breeding ground for concepts like white supremacy, eugenics, and genocide. 

A third misconception is that CRT is Marxist.

CRT is derived from critical legal studies, which is an offshoot of critical theory, which draws from Marxist ideology. But just because something is indirectly related to Marx doesn’t necessarily make it a Marxist theory any more than “sharing is caring” is a Marxist theory. Critics of CRT should be able to identify which specific principles of CRT they disagree with, not that they disagree with a person tangentially related to it. By that line of logic, would they say that American capitalism should be defined by the exploitation of slavery because some of its components can be traced back to slavery?

Here’s the thing: it would be one thing for people to disagree with the principles presupposed in CRT and posit legitimate criticisms of it just like with any other philosophy or ideology. But the issue comes from the fact that the vast majority of those crusading against CRT aren’t against CRT at all, but rather the sensationalized and oversimplified version of it that is often portrayed to the public. This quasi-CRT is usually a combination of the aforementioned misconceptions, and the media coverage of it is designed to incite outrage, not education about or understanding of what CRT actually is.

Furthermore, even if one disagreed with CRT, the issue is peripheral—there is scant evidence that CRT is being taught in elementary, middle or high schools in the nation, seeing as it’s a college-level law course.

Some argue that even if actual CRT is not taught to K-12 schoolchildren, it can be seen influencing actions in the education world, like through the implementation of equity measures. As Education Week put it, “the term ‘critical race theory’ is now cited as the basis of all diversity and inclusion efforts regardless of how much it’s actually informed those programs.”

CRT has become a political boogeyman—people aren’t entirely sure what it is, but they know they should be afraid of it, even if the threat might not actually exist at all.