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What is Critical Race Theory?

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Honest question. This is something I want to understand better and in my half-hearted attempts at googling it I didn't come away satisfied. So, here I am, asking my jazzfanz friends and enemies to explain it to me like I'm 5.
 
Anglo man is bad.
Anglo man is the decedent of white devil apes from the Caucus mountains.
All problems that are in this world are because of Anglo man.
All Anglo's in the past who were slaves can no longer be considered slaves such as those of non Anglo decent.
Jewish slave boats bringing slaves over from Africa are also because of Anglo man.
Anglo man didn't build ****, African slaves built this whole country from the ground up.

 
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Anglo man is bad.
Anglo man is the decedent of white devil apes from the Caucus mountains.
All problems that are in this world are because of Anglo man.
All Anglo's in the past who were slaves can no longer be considered slaves such as those of non Anglo decent.
Jewish slave boats bringing slaves over from Africa are also because of Anglo man.
Anglo man didn't build ****, African slaves built this whole country from the ground up.


Ahh yes, this is what I was asking for. A thoughtful informational post about what CRT actually is. Mods close the thread, it has been answered. I now get what PHD level people who have studied these issues in-depth for years and collaboratively gained an understanding of came up with and called Critical Race Theory.

Oh wait. That didn't happen. A piece of trash spewed more trash onto the internet with no intent whatsoever of providing valuable information or having a productive conversation. The content was not thought provoking or enlightening in any conceivable way. Yay freedom of speech, err, I mean freedom to make loud noises that are incoherent and lack any meaning.

Welcome back from you latest ban Hax0rs. May it be a short visit.
 
Mods, please dont delete this thread as I've brought valuable information to this subject that I dont want deleted.

BTW, I havent been banned, just got back from a month long vacation. IDGAF about living on this site like you son.
 
Mods, please dont delete this thread as I've brought valuable information to this subject that I dont want deleted.

BTW, I havent been banned, just got back from a month long vacation. IDGAF about living on this site like you son.
I just got back from a self-imposed 3 month break... WTF you talking about?
 
Honest question. This is something I want to understand better and in my half-hearted attempts at googling it I didn't come away satisfied. So, here I am, asking my jazzfanz friends and enemies to explain it to me like I'm 5.
That is a deep rabbit hole.

Critical Race Theory is race essentialism folded into Frankfurt School Critical Theory. That is where the name comes from. Critical Theory is regular class-based Marxism with the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, systems of power and class privilege. Although it has evolved since its creation, original Critical Race Theory mostly substituted race in the place of class in the old Critical Theory ideas.

In the literature, the owner class became white people. The workers class became Black people or PoC. Marxism isn’t really concerned about the individual and by extension neither is CRT. It is about the racism of systems and group power dynamics. What used to be owners using capitalism to exploit the working class was now white people using white supremacist systemic racism to exploit PoC. When the founders of Black Lives Matter said they were Marxists, this is exactly the Marxism they were talking about.

Modern CRT proponents seem to have a dislike of defining terms and so asking any 5 of them to define CRT will probably get you 7 different answers. Most have settled on there being five tenets of CRT so it isn’t completely without form but it is mostly Marxism with the same lures, same skewed understanding of human nature, and same pitfalls.

Are they teaching CRT in elementary, middle, and high schools? Yes or no depending on what you’re talking about. If you are talking about race essentialism being a core component of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, then yes. If you’re talking about Marxist class-social theory then no. Due to the ambiguity of CRT now, you can pretty much redefine the terms on demand to answer in any way you find convenient. It is also likely why you had a hard time getting a grasp on it with your google search.
 
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Critical Race Theory is the study of how the racism that was a part of our country's founding and history is still affecting millions of people even after a formally legal equality has been reached. It's about power structures and how many of the problems of racism stem from how power was and is used, as opposed to how individuals behave.



 
That is a deep rabbit hole.

Critical Race Theory is race essentialism
Critical Race Theory teaches that race is a social construct, which is inherently inimical to race essentialism. When you start with such a blatant, easily-disproven, judgmental statement, nothing that you say in the rest of your post can carry any weight. You have rendered your entire paragraph null and void with this one easily-demonstrated lie.

Think about this. since "Critical Race Theory" is basically a single noun, it took you all of four words to say something that was not only untrue, but perniciously and insultingly opposite of the truth. This is the type of propaganda your sources have been feeding you. These are the lies you are buying into. Do you ever stop to ask yourself why you so easily accept the very opposite of the truth from sources that have repeatedly been shown to be lying to you before?

Due to the ambiguity of CRT now, ...
Any ambiguity is the result of the disinformation campaign by conservatives that needed a new fear tactic to create support.
 
Critical Race Theory teaches that race is a social construct, which is inherently inimical to race essentialism.
Yes, but you misunderstand what is being said. When CRT says “race is a social construct”, they aren’t saying race is fake, they aren’t denying anyone’s existence in the way you seem to be claiming. What is being said is that race is a social group thing like class is a social group thing.

CRT is a group dynamics ideology, and it does not use race essentialism the way race essentialists do but instead uses the tenets of race essentialism on the level of social groups. CRT is centered on race as a social construct. CRT pastes pieces of race essentialism onto the group dynamics of Marxism to come up with a thing that is neither race essentialism nor Marxism but a hybrid ideology that leans more to the Marxist side.
 
Honest question. This is something I want to understand better and in my half-hearted attempts at googling it I didn't come away satisfied. So, here I am, asking my jazzfanz friends and enemies to explain it to me like I'm 5.
Just to add to @One Brow's posts, it's a theory taught in law school (if it's taught anywhere). It isn't taught in K-12 schools. In fact, most of the social studies educators I've spoken with don't even know what it is. It also makes sense to teach it in law school since the basic framework is that race and racism have had a much larger impact on our country than just slavery and Jim Crow. Race and racism have impacted the economics, social fabric, and laws in our country. Which is why law schools may want to teach their students about it. It makes sense for law students to know why most in prison are POC, why we'll throw the book at a black person with a sandwich bag of weed while give a white guy who embezzled millions a tap on the wrist, and the issues with policing in urban areas.

While some countries have a caste system based on religion or economics, ours is largely based on race. This is essentially the backbone for CRT:

  • Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
  • Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.


Lastly, the right has found its new ACORN/DEATH PANELS/BENGHAZI/ETC, and that is CRT. They tried Hunter and Dr. Seuss as a rallying cry to distract from their own party's failures and to attack Democrats, but neither stuck. This one did. This guy appeared on Tucker and ever since then, CRT has taken off. He already explained his strategy in March:

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Look at what happened to Fox News since Rufo's pronouncement talk of Dr Seuss and Mr. Potato Head dropped and CRT took over:
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The other reason why CRT has taken off is that those predisposed to already believing that POC have it easy and just need to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" feel threatened by it. If they admit that being white has benefitted them in some way they then feel like they're not as manly or as accomplished as they deserve. So you can see why those predisposed this way would hate CRT; it calls for vulnerability and honesty. Something they don't want to do.
 
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Yes, but you misunderstand what is being said. When CRT says “race is a social construct”, they aren’t saying race is fake, they aren’t denying anyone’s existence in the way you seem to be claiming.
I was wondering if you were going to either ignore my post or try to redefine "race essentialism". It never occurred to me that you would pull some weird accusation straight from your bum.

Being a social construct means that it is arbitrary, not fake. One point they mention is that 100 years ago, the Irish were not fully "white". That refers to the very real social disapproval the Irish received, not any sort of fakery.

What is being said is that race is a social group thing like class is a social group thing.
I'm not sure what "a social group thing" means here. If money is a "social group thing", then I suppose class is as well.

CRT is a group dynamics ideology, and it does not use race essentialism the way race essentialists do but instead uses the tenets of race essentialism on the level of social groups.
The "tenets of race essentialism" sounds pretty scary, but I don't see the meaning here. Can you name any of the "tenets of race essentialism" that are 1) not banal ("people have different colored skin"), 2) essentialist (i.e., that is, based intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic properties), and 3) held by leading authors in Critical Race Theory?

CRT is centered on race as a social construct.
Astronomers are centered on stars as balls of burning gas.

CRT pastes pieces of race essentialism onto the group dynamics of Marxism to come up with a thing that is neither race essentialism nor Marxism but a hybrid ideology that leans more to the Marxist side.
That's a wonderful string of buzzwords that I've seen no evidence you understand, but less can back up.
 
Being a social construct means that it is arbitrary
It can mean that, but if that were the way CRT were using the term then there wouldn’t be a need for CRT because inclusion or exclusion from any group is arbitrary. In CRT it wouldn’t work to say “an arbitrary group of people colonized an arbitrary group of people and a people oppressed a people with their arbitrary people supremacy”.

If CRT actually used the phrase in that way they wouldn’t be calling for “representation”. The idea of representation relies on people of a given set of biological markers being different and bringing something unique with their involvement. That is pretty much the opposite of believing race is an arbitrary idea imposed by society that needs to be deconstructed.
 
Honest question. This is something I want to understand better and in my half-hearted attempts at googling it I didn't come away satisfied. So, here I am, asking my jazzfanz friends and enemies to explain it to me like I'm 5.

I'm pretty sure you and OB have shelves of literature on this subject which you want to dish out piecemeal to the ignoramus world idly passing by a sports site about the #1 real basketball team in the world.

I don't bnlieve PhD people have anything but made-up definitions and lessons on this subject.

I believe elsewhere you dislike unfounded theories being advanced for political gains.

yah know, I wondered when Obama was elected by a very positive white vote in favor of ending all obstacles to full jparticipation by all people in American politics that we might actually have a lot of positive developments favorable to all our minorities. Equal opportunity. Equal Justice. all that.

But I think Obama actually decided to exploit racism for purposes. Now I'm sure that library of officious dictums and definitions will be advanced to discredit my idea here. I am about as impervious to other views as you seem to be be generally, and I will go on thinking that CRT is fake political tomtoolery. Yes I made that word up. CRT is a political tool made up from incoherent and self-contradictory observations about human nature. If some African peoples had gotten up a book like the Bible that had actual merit as a basis for stable, strong, long-lasting nations capable of setting up trade and financial institutions which were in toto worldwide cartels the likes of Imperialism, it'd be blacks in the suits and whites shining their shoes.

In short, we humans are more alike than different, and everything we have done to one another negative like has been opportunistic exploitation anyone else would have done if they could have.

In short, there is really one human race differentiated only by basically superficial or circumstantial but overwhelmingly obvious differences. We are all sorta tribal on stuff we are familiar with being better in our minds than stuff we are strangers to. People we don't know are always not as "good" as people we either know or can comfortably relate to.

Now I know that Karl Marx advanced political ideas as useful tools for breaking down established systems preparatory to the opportunity for new systems to be built. But the liars who advance Marxist ideas have found they don't just work, and so there have been tons of further ideas put out about how to make to basic political goals sound alright. The great thinkers who have worked up CRT and other "critical" theories will never quit changing their models, even after they win the world. Gotta have new and better tools to hammering the people and cut them down to manageable servants.

Obama wants to transform America. Possibly you do too. Red has declared his being "In" with the resistance or revolution. You both have practically endless fortunes ahead of you plowing the world under to plant a better crop. Endless transformations, endless resistance to some imagined bogeymen, endless idyllic dreams of futures that are better.

I don't want better management or better PhD theories, I just want better food, better cars, better tools for working the fields, forests and mines, better homes and less drudgery. That's progress. Government is not very good at that. Never will be. Less government lets people do that for themselves.
 
Race and racism have impacted the economics, social fabric, and laws in our country. Which is why law schools may want to teach their students about it. It makes sense for law students to know why most in prison are POC, why we'll throw the book at a black person with a sandwich bag of weed while give a white guy who embezzled millions a tap on the wrist, and the issues with policing in urban areas.

While some countries have a caste system based on religion or economics, ours is largely based on race. This is essentially the backbone for CRT:

Lastly, the right has found its new ACORN/DEATH PANELS/BENGHAZI/ETC, and that is CRT. They tried Hunter and Dr. Seuss as a rallying cry to distract from their own party's failures and to attack Democrats, but neither stuck. This one did. This guy appeared on Tucker and ever since then, CRT has taken off. He already explained his strategy in March:

The other reason why CRT has taken off is that those predisposed to already believing that POC have it easy and just need to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" feel threatened by it. If they admit that being white has benefitted them in some way they then feel like they're not as manly or as accomplished as they deserve. So you can see why those predisposed this way would hate CRT; it calls for vulnerability and honesty. Something they don't want to do.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
iu
 
It can mean that, but if that were the way CRT were using the term then there wouldn’t be a need for CRT because inclusion or exclusion from any group is arbitrary.
CRT helps establish the arbitrariness.

In CRT it wouldn’t work to say “an arbitrary group of people colonized an arbitrary group of people and a people oppressed a people with their arbitrary people supremacy”.
Because? Are you saying the oppression of the Irish 100 years ago was not arbitrary?

If CRT actually used the phrase in that way they wouldn’t be calling for “representation”.
You are saying that CRT proponents think that arbitrarily being denied political representation is acceptable?

The idea of representation relies on people of a given set of biological markers being different and bringing something unique with their involvement.
It's the different experiences arbitrarily imposed upon them because of the biological markers that bring the different and unique features.

That is pretty much the opposite of believing race is an arbitrary idea imposed by society that needs to be deconstructed.
It's also a complete misconstruing of CRT. So, let's go back to this:

Can you name any of the "tenets of race essentialism" that are 1) not banal ("people have different colored skin"), 2) essentialist (i.e., that is, based intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic properties), and 3) held by leading authors in Critical Race Theory?
 
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Simpkins was acting in self-defense, only three people were shot, and no one died. However, I'm not surprised a conservative wants to send black people to jail for self-defense.
 
Can you name any of the "tenets of race essentialism" that are 1) not banal ("people have different colored skin"), 2) essentialist (i.e., that is, based intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic properties), and 3) held by leading authors in Critical Race Theory?
This is from the first widely published work on Critical Race Theory titled: Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, published in 1995. It has been cited over 10,000 times.
When a group organizes for social change, it must have a clear concept of what it is fighting to achieve. Essentialism, then, entails a search for the proper unit, or atom, for social analysis and change.

When we think of the term “essentializing,” we think of paring something down until the heart of the matter stands alone. Essentialism has a political dimension. As mentioned in the previous section, the goals of a “unified” group may not reflect exactly those of certain factions within it, yet the larger group benefits from their participation because of the increased numbers they bring.

That quote from two of the leading authors of CRT defines what essentialism is and how it has informed the ideas of CRT. If you'd prefer a more direct definition, they do have a glossary of terms.
Essentialism: Search for the unique essence of a group.
 
This is from the first widely published work on Critical Race Theory titled: Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, published in 1995. It has been cited over 10,000 times.


That quote from two of the leading authors of CRT defines what essentialism is and how it has informed the ideas of CRT. If you'd prefer a more direct definition, they do have a glossary of terms.
So, there is no "tenet of race essentialism".

When a group organizes for social change, it must have a clear concept of what it is fighting to achieve. Essentialism, then, entails a search for the proper unit, or atom, for social analysis and change.
This is referring to the common experience of all oppressed people, and has nothing to do with race specifically. In fact, this passage is leading into intersectionality.

 
This is from the first widely published work on Critical Race Theory titled: Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, published in 1995. It has been cited over 10,000 times.


That quote from two of the leading authors of CRT defines what essentialism is and how it has informed the ideas of CRT. If you'd prefer a more direct definition, they do have a glossary of terms.
Someone is regurgitating Ben Shapiro a few weeks ago. Dr Kevin Kruse has already wrecked this argument:





A few weeks ago this prompted me to read more about CRT. A lot can be learned by actually reading what these scholars have actually written rather than regurgitating nonsense from right wing echo chambers who make millions by peddling fear, anger, and disinformation about every ****ing issue out there from economics, to pandemics, to climate change, to race relations.

BTW i don’t understand that much about CRT. A lot of it goes beyond my abilities. But I think there’s definitely some valid pts made.
 
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I think there’s genuine questions about solutions on how to address racism in America. How to reform institutions and make for a more equitable society. It’s just sad how we’re constantly stuck in first gear. We’re unable to actually address real arguments because we’re so busy regurgitating straw man arguments made by right wing grifters and then busy refuting arguments that should’ve never been made.

We really do need to move beyond “is CRT taught in schools cuz if it is then I’m gonna be angry” and “Ben Shapiro told me to say this” and let’s actually talk about reforming our police and judicial system so it doesn’t prey on POC.

Like, I’m really interested in how you incentivize AGs to not go for broke on POC. It’s just too easy to campaign on “cutting crime by bringing a gigantic hammer on the head of thugs.” And it’s hard to campaign on drug treatments and remediation. It’s just easier to send someone away for decades for holding a bag of weed.

I’m genuinely interested in how you reform the police. I don’t think the police should be allowed to have unions. The power they wield over society is just too great. Imagine if we permitted the marines to “unionize.” So how do you reform the police who have the strongest union in the nation? Especially since neither political party wants to alienate that powerful group of people?

How do you reform our society so POC have a more equitable shot?

LBJ once said:
''You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.''

And history has proven that he’s right. How do we resolve the nation’s original sin and make for a more equitable society? Why should someone have a much harder time obtaining an education, securing employment, receiving health care, etc because of the color of his skin? I’m a white Mormon dude from Utah, why should I have such a privileged start? I don’t want to give up my job and house but it doesn’t seem right to me that many in our country have to change how they drive, how they act around the police, can’t obtain an education, can’t receive adequate health care, don’t live near a grocery store, etc because of race and racism.

So can we make a more equitable situation for everyone?

I saw this a while ago. It applies to CRT and our current situation of POC dying disproportionately from Covid. Watch the first 3 mins of this and tell me it doesn’t tug at the heartstrings. Is This is really the best we can do???



Can we please get past the CRT fear
Mongering and actually resolve real issues?
 
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