Don’t Take the Bait by Arguing About the Proper Meaning of “Critical Race Theory”

Robby Soave makes his case at Reason. First of all, what does Critical Race Theory seem to mean? I've gathered many pronouncements. Soave offers this:

Critical race theory is the idea that structural racism is embedded in many U.S. institutions. Slavery was the reality when the country was founded, and segregation endured for a century following the Civil War. It would thus be naive to assume that supposedly race-neutral policies are actually race-neutral—there's nothing neutral about America and race. Working from this assumption, adherents of critical race theory tend toward a kind of progressive activism that views post-Enlightenment classical liberalism and its notions of equal opportunity, the prioritization of individual rights over group rights, and colorblindness with hostility.
Here's how the bait and switch is playing out, with a money quote by Ibram X. Kendi:

Now that critical race theory is under attack, Kendi has denied being an adherent of it, saying in a statement, "I don't identify as a critical race theorist." MSNBC host Joy Reid used this as a gotcha moment during a segment with Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the foremost anti-CRT activist. But this is semantics: Kendi also told Slate that CRT was "foundational" to his work:

I've certainly been inspired by my critical race theory and critical race theorists, the way in which I've formulated definitions of racism and racist and anti-racism and Antiracist have not only been based on historical sort of evidence, but also Kimberle Crenshaw intersectional theory, which is she's one of the founding and pioneering critical race theorists who in the late 1980s and early 1990s said, you know what, black women aren't just facing racism. They're not just facing sexism. They're facing the intersection of racism and sexism. And it's important for us to understand that. And that's foundational to my work

What should this thing be called? Soave comments:

We could have called this thing intersectionality (my preferred term), or progressive antiracism, or even cultural Marxism (remember that whole debate?), but instead, we're calling it critical race theory. Oh well.

Regardless of what we call it, what is the solution? We should not prohibit the teaching of any idea, only the preaching. That's where many legislative attempts go awry. Soave offers a two-fold solution:

First, foes of critical race theory should spend their time more productively by working to ban racial discrimination in schools. Tinkering with the curriculum is usually a local issue, but states can prohibit race-based hiring and admissions systems. Bar elite public high schools from requiring white and Asian students to score higher on entrance exams, and from segregating students by race. David French is also correct that civil rights law already provides a potential avenue for students to sue school districts that have fostered a racially hostile and discriminatory climate. If the thinking behind "aspects of white supremacy culture" is put into practice in schools, those schools can be sued.

Soave's article is titled: "Critical Race Theory Can't Be Banned. It Can Be Exposed, Mocked, and Avoided: The semantics battle obscures reasonable objections to antiracist diversity seminars."

For more on David French's criticism of most of the legislative attempts to prevent CRT from being "taught" in schools, with which I agree on legal grounds, here is my comment on the conversation involving David French, Christopher Rufo and Bari Weiss.

Continue ReadingDon’t Take the Bait by Arguing About the Proper Meaning of “Critical Race Theory”

A Question for Those Who Claim that America’s Schools are Properly Teaching Students About Racism

We're repeatedly hearing that Critical Race Theory (or whatever you want to call this, which is being taught in all these places) merely means teaching America's racial history in classrooms (as though this sad and deplorable American history is not being taught in most schools).  Here is a summary of what is happening:

Increasingly, American institutions — colleges and universities, businesses, government, the media and even our children’s schools — are enforcing a cynical and intolerant orthodoxy. This orthodoxy requires us to identify ourselves and each other based on immutable characteristics like skin color, gender and sexual orientation. It pits us against one another, and diminishes what it means to be human.

I would ask a question to those who advocate for CRT: Do you agree with the following basic principles that have been articulated by Foundation Against Racism and Intolerance (FAIR):

What We Stand For

We defend civil liberties and rights guaranteed to each individual, including freedom of speech and expression, equal protection under the law, and the right to personal privacy.

We advocate for individuals who are threatened or persecuted for speech, or who are held to a different set of rules for language or conduct based on their skin color, ancestry, or other immutable characteristics.

We support respectful disagreement. We believe bad ideas are best confronted with good ideas – and never with dehumanization, deplatforming or blacklisting.

We believe that objective truth exists, that it is discoverable, and that scientific research must be untainted by any political agenda.

We are pro-human, and promote compassionate anti-racism rooted in dignity and our common humanity.

The FAIR Pledge

Fairness. “I seek to treat everyone equally without regard to skin color or other immutable characteristics. I believe in applying the same rules to everyone, and reject disparagement of individuals based on the circumstances of their birth.”

Understanding. “I am open-minded. I seek to understand opinions or behavior that I do not necessarily agree with. I am tolerant and consider points of view that are in conflict with my prior convictions.”

Humanity. “I recognize that every person has a unique identity, that our shared humanity is precious, and that it is up to all of us to defend and protect the civic culture that unites us.”

FAIR Principles of Peaceful Change, Based on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Principles of Nonviolence

Exercise Moral Courage. Telling the truth is a way of life for courageous people. Peaceful change cannot happen without a commitment to the truth.

Build Bridges. We seek to win friendship and gain understanding. The result of our movement is redemption and reconciliation.

Defeat Injustice, Not People. We recognize that those who are intolerant and seek to oppress others are also human, and are not evil people. We seek to defeat evil, not people.

Don’t Take the Bait. Suffering can educate and transform. We will not retaliate when attacked, physically or otherwise. We will meet hate and anger with compassion and kindness.

Choose Love, Not Hate. We seek to resist violence of the spirit as well as the body. We believe in the power of love.

Trust in Justice. We trust that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win.

It is my strong suspicion that tens of thousands of teachers in thousands of school districts no longer agree with the above principles.  I am seeing increasing amounts of evidence for this every day.

I proudly stand behind the above principles set forth by FAIR. I am honored to stand for the above principles along with FAIR's Distinguished Board of Advisors.

Continue ReadingA Question for Those Who Claim that America’s Schools are Properly Teaching Students About Racism

The Presidents’ Respective Children

Here is yet more evidence that the two political parties have two separate sycophant news teams.  They cover the dysfunctional children of former President Trump and President Biden in starkly different ways.

Do you remember how the left-leaning news media hid the Hunter Biden laptop discovery? And then Twitter blocked the account of the New York Post as the election drew near? As Glenn Greenwald stated, the story was newsworthy for the corruption angle.

"Pretending that the Biden laptop story was about sex or drugs is utterly deceitful. A person's addiction struggles [and] consensual adult sex is not news. The story was (and is) about financial corruption. And there's *zero* doubt the docs were authentic," Greenwald wrote on Twitter.
Hunter Biden has never denied that it was his laptop. In this CBS interview Hunter Biden stated that it could have been his laptop.

If this laptop and big paycheck (to a person lacking any credentials to merit that kind of pay) had been about any of Trump's degenerate children, the media would have been all over it. I thought about this disparity further while watching excerpts from Russell Brand's recent interview with Glenn Greenwald.

But now there is more about Hunter, yet you will not see any of this in the NYT/NPR/WaPo side of the media:

Really and truly, people are talking about paying Hunter Biden $500K for paintings that look like this.   The NYT did comment on Biden's interest in painting, but never mentioned the big money it is anticipated he would be paid, allegedly, for his paintings. 

Some people who have been in high places are noting the stench in the air:

President Barack Obama's ethics chief on Monday slammed Hunter Biden's 'shameful and grifty' sale of his art pieces for up to $500,000 to anonymous buyers as part of an upcoming exhibition that has already sparked bribery and potential money laundering fears.

Walter Shaub, the former Office of Government Ethics director, also warned that it could be a way for 'influence seekers' or foreign governments to funnel money to the Biden family.

Shaub, who last week called out Biden administration officials for hiring a slew of family members to a variety of positions, has urged Hunter and his art dealer Georges Berges to reveal the identity of the buyers so the public can see if the buyers are trying to get access to the White House.

But there is yet more Hunter Biden news that the left-leaning legacy outlets has ignored. Only a few days after his father delivered a speech on the topic of racism at Tulsa, Hunter is hurling racial slurs in texts directed to his attorney, in the context of his attorney's $88K bill for work done regarding Hunter's joint venture with a large Chinese Oil Company.  One can debate how newsworthy his foul language is, but if any of the Trump kids had written these texts, they would be all over the left-leaning media.

I don't claim to know anything substantive about these deals, including the $50K/month Hunter was being paid by Burisma. Greenwald commented on that back when the story broke in October 2020:

After the Post’s first article, both that newspaper and other news outlets have published numerous other emails and texts purportedly written to and from Hunter reflecting his efforts to induce his father to take actions as Vice President beneficial to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board of directors Hunter sat for a monthly payment of $50,000, as well as proposals for lucrative business deals in China that traded on his influence with his father.

A few days ago, Hunter Biden is reported to have used additional slurs against Asians. 

My concern is, once again, that we have two media teams. They only report "news" that fits their narrative.  The left-leaning legacy news never hesitated to maul the philistine and despicable Trump children, but it is hands-off when it comes to Hunter Biden, even though big amounts of suspicious money are connected with his exploits.  And even though his moral character with regard to race relations conflicts sharply with the stated positions of his father, Joe Biden. On the other hand, the right wing media, such as the Daily Wire, is happy to heavily criticize Hunter Biden.

I'm convinced that many people don't actually want to be well informed. They choose their news sources so that they hear only those sorts of stories that make them feel like the world is the way they want it to be. This is true on the political left and the political right, and it doesn't seem like anything is going to change anytime soon. That said, can we at least start referring to the news media in a different way? Can we start referring to the two news teams as "news filters"? What news filter do you use? "I use the FOX news filter" or "I use the NPR/MSNBC/NYT/WaPo news filter. Doing this would make me feel 1% less bad about this rampant partisanship.

Continue ReadingThe Presidents’ Respective Children

The Straw-Manning of Christopher Rufo

Many people who only read left-leaning legacy media falsely assume that they are well-informed. They take their own select slice of information as a proxy for the full gamut of available information. Many do this because they don't want to spend an admittedly exhausting amounts of time doubling or tripling their news gathering time, much less doing the extra-hard work of processing conflicting accounts from various sources of information. Limiting our news gathering intellectually crimps us, but then we don't know what we don't know, so ignorance becomes bliss. Ignorance feels powerful and omniscient.

I'm posting these concerns because I keep hearing from people who are absolutely convinced that they know that criticism of CRT (Critical Race Theory) is a sham because they've heard about it at NYT/WaPo/NPR. These same news sources also tell us that Christoper Rufo is to be ignored because some Republicans find some of his ideas attractive. There is a much bigger world out there than left-learning legacy media. I lean left on many issues, but I keep encountering ad hominem attacks that I am a "conservative" or "Republican" because I don't pass the DNC purity test. Such simplistic and silo-driven reasoning!

I have been provoked to write this article because I noticed several people on FB citing WaPo's recent piece that starts off by straw-manning Rufo's concerns with this sentence: "Critical race theory holds that racism is systemic in the United States, not just a collection of individuals prejudices--—an idea that feels obvious to some and offensive to others." And with this single sentence, WaPo's entire article becomes a fraud. But those who choose to trust WaPo as authority wouldn't know it. If anyone wants to be truly informed, please consider Rufo's response to WaPo's article on Twitter. Of course, you don't HAVE TO read Rufo's response. But don't consider yourself well-informed unless you do.

[Added June 22, 2021]

The Washington Post walks back many steps.

Continue ReadingThe Straw-Manning of Christopher Rufo

The Power and Danger of Obscure Language

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefids spurting out ink." — George Orwell

“Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound." --Friedrich Nietzsche

Continue ReadingThe Power and Danger of Obscure Language