Reply to Georgia State Board of Education bans discussion of racism and white supremacy from all classrooms

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]CRT has nothing to do with teaching about historical injustices. It is a THEORY of systemic power that insists white supremacy is both foundational to, and perpetuated through, every system and institution in our society. Hence the tenet that one cannot be non-racist, one must be anti racist (or one is racist), because there is no existing “outside” this system of white supremacy, one is either complicit with it (therefore racist) or actively opposing it (anti racist).

Furthermore, this body of theoretical arguments tends to dismiss the import of the individual qua individual, because it is primarily concerned with questions of SYSTEMIC power. The only relevant aspects of a person (in this body of theory) are the marginalizations (or lack thereof) that work to mark imdividuals’ belonging within hierarchically arranged groups.

The vast majority of CR theorists are sloppy and imprecise. So they pay lip service to Crenshaw’s notion of intersectionality but largely subordinate all other markers of difference to that of (a rude, gross, inelegant, typically American definition of) race.

So, your poor white kid getting beaten up by his peers for being white at a majority non-white school cannot and ever will be a victim of racism, because his individual experience matters not at all: within his society, his whiteness is invested with power.

Anyone with common sense can see that this body of work, while fascinating, is useful largely for philosophical exercises and theoretical excursions. But in a country where individuals have rights, this theory cannot be instrumentalized as a guide to action.

Anyway. I dislike very much any kind of government legislation telling us what we can and cannot teach. But I wince when I see school districts recommend DiAngelo’s or Kendi’s work to high schoolers. It is beyond idiotic. CRT is a complex body of theory even for grad students, and these books’ bastardization and distortion of CRT’s key concepts do not teach students how to think critically. How could they? Critical thought depends on debate, and students aren’t stupid: they know that to question or challenge anything in these texts is to risk being labeled a racist and possibly be doxxed online for it. As do their teachers. As do many of you.[/quote]

Great post.[/quote]
Agreed.[/quote]

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