A big issue through the past four years in the USA has been the advancement of Critical Race Theory in high school and elementary education systems nationwide. Some states have banned this controversial material.
Some governors and education administrators have been caught in outright lies hiding the fact that it is in classrooms. What is it, and is it worth the struggle?
The CRT field initially emerged in the early 2000s in the US and UK university systems as a facet of Race Studies courses and is frequently included in courses in Gender Studies. While university studies occasionally pursue degrees in these fields, for the typical student this course material is not required. It is available as an elective.
When I studied for a Master’s in Education in the late 2010s, I took two courses as prerequisites for the program— Women’s & Gender Studies and Race & Ethnic Studies. I had taken several sociology courses as part of my undergraduate degree— sociocultural anthropology, sports psychology, and sociology 101. Taking these extra courses was fascinating.
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The Women’s Studies course was taught by a petite blonde caucasian American who had studied only at Temple University, and nowhere else. Maybe her international experience consisted of tourists raping a few monuments— that’s when you go somewhere foreign with some friends, have no real immersion experiences, take pictures in front of famous places, and then leave. This is no way to understand other cultures.
This woman insisted that white supremacy existed and described it as a global phenomenon that meant white people can’t experience racism. This is an ideological concept. It’s dogmatic in the sense that if you accept it to be true, it requires an entire mindset that essentially ensures that you are a racist.
This mindset ignores explanations deriving from geopolitics, socioeconomics, global trade, and other fields. It requires one to consider only the racial aspects of the current global system. Furthermore, it demands a lack of awareness for the development of economic, financial, and political structures by races other than Caucasians.
Essentially, white supremacy is a self-reinforcing concept pushed by white supremacists.
In one journal assignment, this professor failed me because I wrote that I had been discriminated against while living in China for seven years. She had no idea about what it is like to live in a society not dominated by her own racial group. No sense of how it feels to be a minority. She insisted that I couldn’t experience racism. Well, she was wrong. I did experience it.
I was treated cruelly by some. When I applied for a grant for a social entrepreneurship competition in Hong Kong, I was never contacted and my idea was implemented by a well-connected district council member. I later looked at a picture of the grant winners— all eight of them. They were all Asian ethnicities.
This Temple-educated American professor, wearing way too much makeup and rocking a ridiculously plastic-looking perm, is a white supremacist. Anyone insisting that white supremacy exists is reinforcing white supremacy.
This is not a field where someone is going to boast about being a race supremacist. So, why would another race or ethnicity seek to usurp this claim? They typically wouldn’t. Anyone posting that white supremacy exists seeks to make Caucasians the ultimate scapegoat.
In Hong Kong one evening circa 2015, I shared drinks with some HKU grad students while I pursued a degree in Buddhist Studies. One engineering grad from Shanghai boasted “I am racist!” We had been discussing some facets of interracial relations. That was kind of shocking. Although it reinforced the reality I had been increasingly becoming aware of that Chinese society is incredibly racist, dominated by Han Chinese ethnicity.
This is referred to as intersectionality— a term that is supposed to lend credence to an idea when multiple fields of study support the same notion. It is often used to describe the overwhelming dominance of a term like patriarchy, which supposedly is the worst thing since Lucifer fell from heaven. Of course, these theorists tend to be angry women who are divorced or otherwise unable to find a partner.
Honestly, patriarchy exists, but so does matriarchy. It’s silly to blame all of society’s issues on one gender, without any consideration for historical realities— like the structure and functioning of hunter-gatherer, herding, or strictly agrarian societies. We are about 20 to 25 generations away from that societal structure in the most developed urban centers. Almost all countries still have some of these societal structures still extant.
The other course, Race and Ethnic Studies included a unit on Critical Race Theory that lasted about a week. I learned that this field revolves around one idea: blaming everything wrong with society on Caucasians by labeling them as White. Jews are White. Asians are White. The professor was Indian— as in South Asian. He said even Indians are White. Apparently, even some Latinos are White. Wealthy Blacks are White.
According to CRT, Whites are responsible for slavery— a false blame considering it was practiced by people of all races, colonialism (not entirely a bad practice as it helped regions develop economies and global ties, and it has mostly been ended), poverty, Caucasians as Scapegoat and any other societal ills.
This entire ideology exists to make anyone with darker skin color who is dissatisfied with their position in society feel othered and disenfranchised. And, it makes them believe that the sole fault of this reality is the White Man. Very few, if any, of the people who promote this ideology are white men. Funny, isn’t it?
American society teaches people that all are created equal. That all races, religions, ethnicities, tribes, ideologies, etc, are welcome and supported. This is a beautiful idea. This is supported by the UN’s declaration in 1968 to eliminate racial discrimination. This was a real event that occurred following the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA.
Now, Critical Race Theory depends on racial discrimination. The entire purpose of the field is to create a thought experiment that encourages a deeper understanding of race. It is best studied when one already has a strong understanding of socioeconomics, history, and geopolitics. Otherwise, the direct result of CRT is radicalization and the creation of an individual who desperately hates White Men and all Whites.
This is not a field to teach in elementary, middle, or high schools. This is a field for developed minds who possess a high degree of intellectual sophistication and discernment.
Anyone promoting CRT is regressive and a racist.
End all efforts to provide CRT training outside of universities.
