The current president known by a Tribe Called Quest as “Agent Orange,” recently banned Critical Race Theory-oriented diversity trainings because he said they were “anti-American” and “divisive.” There was, strangely, a collective chuckle among many critical race theorists on social media because they have been critiquing diversity trainings for years for being “feel-good” versions of inclusion instead of meaningful analyses of systemic racial oppression.
Additionally, Critical Race Theory is very rarely part of these trainings. Why? Because Critical Race Theory-oriented diversity trainings would actually be effective at meaningfully disrupting systemic racism. Instead, most of these trainings focus on more individualized issues like implicit bias without substantively changing organizational structures.
Therefore, it was almost comical that diversity trainings were equated with Critical Race Theory because that relationship has no basis in reality. This is to be expected from the current president who has a loose relationship with facts. Part of the attack is based upon Critical Race Theory being a rightwing boogieman for years.
In response to the current president’s banning, rightwing hack Tucker Carlson offered, “Critical race theory is a lie. From the first word to the last, from start to finish. It is vicious. It is cruel. It divides the country potentially for good. It makes Americans hate each other.”[1]
There is an irony behind this ideologue who has made his career on dividing the country and peddling in hate make such a statement, but I digress…
Carlson’s attack was eerily similar to the one launched against President Obama by Breitbart.com. They found a video of Obama introducing and hugging former Harvard professor Derrick Bell, one of the founders of Critical Race Theory.[2]They thought this would “expose” the racial radicalism of the Obama administration.
Oh, how racial radicals wished Obama was cut from this same cloth. He obviously was not given his policy agenda, but the larger point was that the rightwing attacks began to develop momentum creating a Critical Race Theory boogieman that is consistently framed as “anti-white,” “radical,” and “racially-divisive.”
Usually in posts like this, authors will spend time setting the record straight on what Critical Race Theory is. Plenty of other people have done this such as Dr. Adrienne Keene’s publicly available syllabus[3] as well as the NOLA Ed Facebook live teach-in on the subject.[4] That is incredibly important, but it is not my intention here.
Instead, as a scholar of Whiteness, my intention is to explore and disrupt the method of creating a Critical Race Theory boogieman. The ability of Breitbart and others to misrepresent Critical Race Theory, relies on mass ignorance about what Critical Race Theory is. When the masses do not know what Critical Race Theory is, opportunistic commentators like the current president and Tucker Carlson are able to define it for their audiences.
They spark fear and outrage about Critical Race Theory making White people think that radical BIPOC are coming for them specifically. Coming for what? No one is quite sure, but they are sure it’s going to be horrible.
Not to be too basic, but this is the same psychology as a kid with a monster under the bed. The more the kid avoids actually checking under the bed, the bigger the monster gets… in their head! By the same token, the more that this misinformation about Critical Race Theory is disseminated, the more dangerous ignorant people think it is.
That fear is predicated on ignorance. To build off the wisdom of Master Yoda:
Fear is the path to the Darkside. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.[5]
To riff on this a little through a racial analysis perspective – fear is not the path to the Darkside, but rather the White (supremacist) side. Racial ignorance leads to fear which is then translated through the rightwing echo chamber into anger. This anger absolutely turns into hate, and the hate leads to suffering, but it is the suffering of Communities of Color.
To this end, I challenge White people to actually explore and understand what Critical Race Theory is – not what Tucker Carlson says it is, but what experts such as Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dr. Marvin Lynn, Dr. Adrienne Dixon, and Dr. Danny Solórzano say it is.
Ultimately, please take the time to look under your bed to check for the racial monster instead of letting it get bigger and bigger in your imagination. To borrow from the Geto Boys, your mind’s playing tricks on you!
Ultimately, you will find that the liberation of Communities of Color from White supremacy does not require the oppression of White people.
Or, in other words…
Dear White folks, don’t be scared. The melanin-enhanced sectors of society have no interest in treating you the way you have treated us for the last few centuries.
Peace,
NC c/s
[1] https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/09/09/fncs-carlson-critical-race-theory-is-a-lie-from-the-first-word-to-the-last-from-start-to-finish-it-is-vicious-it-is-cruel/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/breitbartcoms-massive-barack-obama-derrick-bell-video-fail/254213/
[3] https://blogs.brown.edu/amst-2220j-s01-2017-fall/
[4] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=742369486602720&extid=BHk6d1S72O7caeoK
Thanks Nolan for an excellent response and timely ending statement. Is there a way to explain CRT for folks not in academia without without violating Rule Number 1?
GC
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