Critical Race Theory (CRT) is always a contentious topic, it is also one of those topics that people never desire to hash out. Mr. David Hoffman recently wrote a slew of articles about the problem of “anti-CRT” rhetoric amongst conservatives. He brings up some of the recent cases of the banning of CRT in schools. He quotes Florida’s statement that “it lacks educational value”, but Hoffman still does not provide any information about the educational value of CRT. Instead, he simply speaks about how CRT opponents are essentially cowards, because they do not want to address the real issues and problems. He goes so far as to call those who oppose CRT, grifters, and “organizations soliciting votes, ratings, and funding by appealing to white supremacy.”
When Hoffman gets to his main point, he discusses the two motivations behind it, the first is as follows. Conservatives desire to so loosely define CRT that any conversation about race can be banned from the classroom, as it can be labeled CRT. Secondly, using CRT conservatives can sow distrust in the public school system. Thereby getting people to enroll in their own newly created private schools. Essentially, conservatives want to open their private schools and make people distrust the CRT taught in public schools, so they convert.
There are of course several problems with these lines of reasoning, I will address the last argument first. Why would a conservative, (wanting to start competition) ban the thing that would give them the upper hand? If I seek to sow distrust in something, why would I ban that thing? Would I not first seek to sow as much distrust in it as possible? If I sought to make a bunch of money and get people to switch over to a far more expensive alternative to something that is essentially free, I would need great proof. So, banning the thing that I believed to be my cash cow would be ridiculous. No, marketing wisdom would lead me towards flaunting it, showing everyone how bad this idea is. So, banning something while simultaneously creating an alternative to it, would be a bad idea. You would want to do it in sequence, flaunt its terrible nature, create the alternative, then ban it.
Secondly, nebulously defining something in order to defeat it is one of the worst strategies possible. To truly defeat an argument effectively, one needs to “steal-man” the argument. Our political system has primed us to identify when an argument is straw-manned, people also naturally recognize that. Moreover, I am not aware of any conservative, pundit or otherwise, that has a vague definition of CRT. Conservatives all around agree that CRT is the teaching that every institution in America is designed to oppress and victimize people of color. The problem that conservatives have with it is no more than CRT is patently false. As anyone who believes that something is incorrect, right-wingers seek only to prevent lies from being spread.
Now, in the spirit of steal-manning, CRT has a merit or two, it does identify a problem, disparities, and their solution to that end, is the problem. A critical race theorist would see a disparity between races and immediately attribute that to “Institutionalized racism.” They also have a favorite term “implicit bias” which is a real gotcha, because this means racism so deep that you are unaware of it. This is irrefutable, because if I say “I don’t suffer from that” they would respond “that’s one of the symptoms.” If I were to respond in the affirmative, “yes I realize I suffer from implicit bias” well I just admitted that I am a racist. It’s a catch-22 and therefore it is bad logic. When proposing a hypothesis for the explanation of anything it must be refutable, or else it is a bad hypothesis. In fact, it is not at all a hypothesis instead it is an ideology, and this is the crux of the issue.
The reason CRT should not be taught in schools is the same reason that we do not teach White Supremacy. It is a bad hypothesis, it is an ideology, and bad ideology leads to extremism and the deterioration of a person. One can see a disparity between white people and black people in a job. A white supremacist would say “white people are better, therefore they got the job” a critical race theorist would say “the institution is inherently racist.” As you can see these ideas are two sides of the same coin, a counterfeit coin at that. Truly the cause of the disparity could be so menial as 100 people applied for the job, 80 of them were white 20 of them black. The probability that a white man would get hired was just that much higher.
Finally, Mr. Hoffman brought in Marxists, and to his credit, he did warn about its tendency towards extremism. He spoke about how the Marxists during the Jim Crow south were attempting to exploit the racial tensions that were mounting. Unfortunately, Hoffman denied the connection between Marxism and CRT. Instead saying that it is right-wingers who are falsely connecting the dots. Alas, this is not true, CRT is part-and-parcel with Marxism after all both things require a “bourgeoisie” class, and evil capitalists. Critical Race Theory has its roots in communist thought, and even today communist organizations like BLM are the ones pushing the theory. Because it all boils back down to revolution. Communists and Critical Race Theorists want to burn everything down and recreate the world in their image.
To sum everything up, conservatives do believe that CRT is a problem, and conservatives do not want it taught in schools. Just as we do not want to teach any concept that is a bad hypothesis, we desire not to teach ideology at all. This is regardless of the fact that CRT is a bad hypothesis in and of itself. Schools should not be teaching it, nor should they be teaching an idea rooted in ideology. Instead, they should keep their focus on teaching things that find their roots in Truth and Beauty.
