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Forgive the irrelevancies and the digressions, here is as much of the original journal as I could recover. Plus some interesting things about the Indian Nations.
Why the GOP-fueled 'controversy' over critical race theory, nothing to do with critical race theory
Yes, that was the original full title. Might have been clipped.
Reported at The Editorial Board
The right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, has lately been making a fetish of something called “critical race theory” (CRT). This has prompted academics to defend it. It’s not a radical political ideology, they say. It’s merely a form of critical inquiry. It is not the boogeyman it’s being made out to be. There’s nothing to fear.
I understand the need to defend critical race theory. Colleges and universities are beset on one hand by Republican fascists accusing scholars of indoctrinating students, on the other by anti-left liberals accusing the same of hostility toward freedom of speech. Meanwhile, administrations act more like corporations that privilege efficiency over research and teaching. It’s enough to think CRT is an appropriate hill to die on.
Yes, this is an opinion piece. That does not necessarily entail that it is not news to most Soylentils. And, the important piece:
Explaining CRT’s particulars to people who seem to fear them won’t change their minds if you don’t also take into account that explaining them can be seen as intolerable aggression.
Put it in the same category as "cultural Marxism", Feminazism, and Woke-ness. Operant conditioning, not intellectual discussion.
This, however, overlooks the larger dynamic at work. The more you defend CRT as an ideologically neutral mode of seeing and thinking about the world, the more the propagandists are going to do what they do best, which is terrifying the ignorant. More importantly, CRT defenders are not seeing the true nature of their opponents. From the authoritarian perspective, modes of seeing and thinking about the world are never ideologically neutral because once you learn to see and think about the world on your own, you don’t need authoritarian leaders to tell you what to see and think.
I risk making them seem like cartoons. I risk making people who treasure “traditional” and “conservative” and “Judeo-Christian” values look like they yippy-skippied over the Enlightenment on their way from the Spanish Inquisition to the 21st-century America. But it’s worth the risk given that most respectable white people, in my opinion, tend to overestimate the societal effects of liberal arts education. Critical thinking is so uncontroversial among respectable white people as to be barely worth mentioning. The authoritarians, however, see it quite clearly for what it is—an existential threat.
This is why the particulars of critical race theory don’t matter.1 (You don’t care about the particulars when you’re fighting for survival!) This is also why explaining those particulars to people who seem to fear them won’t change their minds if you don’t also take into account that explaining the particulars of critical race theory can itself be seen as intolerable aggression. What most of them fear is loss of social control. What most fear is loss of authority. Where you see an individual merely muddling through life the best she can, coming to the best conclusions she can, most of them see an individual whose ideological aggression is so monstrous as to justify any response.
Always wondered by the alt- and elder-right brought this up at the strangest of points in a discussion.
Respectable white people look at the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, and marvel at the fact that Americans consuming its propaganda inhabit a fact-free world. I think what they misunderstand is lying isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. Facts are available to individuals to see and think about on their own, free and independent of authorities licensed to say what individuals see and think. Facts, therefore, are aligned politically with perceived enemies. A rational response to facts is nonstop lying. So “alternate facts” are not a result of authoritarian politics. They are a first principle.
Critical race theory is not a political ideology, but it may as well be to the world of the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale. It might as well be because anything that teaches individuals to see and think about facts independent and free of groupthink compromises the integrity of the authoritarian’s grip on the group. Case in point is Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney. The Republican believes the former president tried bringing down the republic. She is factually correct. For the “crime” of seeing and thinking about the world on her own, she’s now being punished. The House Republicans are poised to purge her from the House conference leadership. The Republicans are not individualists. They are collectivists enforcing groupthink.
Who's doing the de-platforming, now?
Other sources:
The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession (MSN)
The GOP’s ‘Critical Race Theory’ Obsession (The Atlantic)
Why 'woke' and 'critical race theory' are the GOP's new favorite words (MSNBC)
GOP Looks to Ban ‘Woke Philosophies’ Like Critical Race Theory in Texas Schools (Yahoo)
The GOP’s bizarre obsession with ‘critical race theory’ has almost nothing to do with critical race theory (DroolingDog)
Oklahoma governor signs ban on teaching critical race theory (Madison)
Texas GOP Passes Bill to Ban Critical Race Theory, Stop 'Blaming White Children' for Slavery
Republicans seize on conservative backlash against critical race theory
Freeze Peaches, indeed!
Previously on Critical Race Matters: Who’s afraid of ‘Critical Race Theory’? Jews should embrace the right’s latest bogeyman (Forward.com)
******
There was an update, before the Deluge, something about Oklahoma, where the right-wing nut-jobs were sweeping down the Planes before the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
100 years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, last living survivors urge America to not forget, of course. But the Governator of OK signed a law about teaching the Dread Critical Race Theory, and got hisself kicked off the board of the Centennial observance, and was rebuked by the Oklahoma City School board in no uncertain terms.
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, was removed from the commission overseeing the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre on Friday after he signed a bill banning critical race theory in the state’s schools.
So sad, it was such a non-racist feather in his cap.
And, this is popping up everywhere, more than Hunter Biden's laptop, or Seth's assassination, or the pimple on Sean Hannity's left cheek. Seriously. Donald Trump allegedly said there were good people on both sides of the Tulsa Massacre.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @02:16PM (33 children)
Oppression of oppression is simply more oppression, until the strongest of the strong relents and cries, "Freedom!"
Tit for tat, while seeming to be justice, is an infinite loop, until both sides admit the possibility of forgiveness and pardon and reconciliation, and agree to suffer a temporary loss for the sake of long-term benefit (i.e. a future free of vengeance).
Superstitious preconception (AKA prejudice) is unavoidable in minds that yearn to hypothesize hidden correlations governing cause and effect and nature versus nurture, until experiment proves that the color of your socks does not make your sports team win every time, and the color of your skin does not naturally or certainly determine your value in the world.
It is easy to fall into self-reinforcing fallacies, and the only sure way to escape them is to declare a fundamental truth at the outset of any endeavor, and when prejudice leads you into conflict with that truth, examine how best to abort that prejudice from your heart.
Hence the phrases, "All men are created equal," and "Ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch."
The real question is whether or not we can love one another enough to abandon selfish interest and surrender our positions of advantage and uphold the hopes enshrined in those fundamental truths.
--
At least, that is how I tend to think about it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Socrastotle on Sunday May 23 2021, @06:49PM (8 children)
I think there's one really basic issue in play that we always fail to consider: desire to do or be something.
CRT mostly applies to young well educated middle to upper class whites. And I think the reason is pretty simple. These people have grown up in a relative "utopia". I put it in quotes because it's not. They've grown up in a world with no real threats, plentiful surplus of everything, and nary a concern in the world. This is what we've always been aiming for as a "utopia", but really? It's just sterile boredom that many will realize at some point leads to a completely meaningless existence. Whether they had been born or not, would not have mattered. And, for the most part, nothing they do will matter. And their children? We'll they'll be set to enjoy such "utopia" themselves.
And so I think this drives people to become overtuned to any sort of cause to fight for, or against. It's easy to claim our rather extreme response to COVID (relative to previous viruses/plagues, many of which have been far more deadly) has been because we've grown weak in safe times. But I don't think that's quite it, at least not alone. I think it's that we WANT something to fear, to have to fight like there's no tomorrow against, to totally change society or face utter annihilation. And so any cause we can find, we tend to be disproportionately more inclined to attach ourselves to - it's like ambrosia for the wistful.
The desire for nothing more than a boring job and a white picket fence made all the sense in the world for the people that lived through the horrors of WW2 and quite literally saved the world as we know it. But, such is the irony of life that those who then grow up within the confines of that white picket fence would go on to seek something, anything, just to make them feel alive. The exact sort of things millions sacrificed their lives to ensure these children of the fence might never have to face.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @08:31PM (4 children)
Ah yes, all those BLM protesters were just bored people looking for something to do.
Why can't those stupid kids, or middle aged families really, just go work every week and stop making waves over things that don't seem to cause you any discomfort???
Sure you're not pandering to the Fox crowd?
Nope, def not, dear christ.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @09:31PM (3 children)
You need look no further for a display of the outright stupidity of BLM than BLM activists in the UK calling for police to investigate the shooting of Sasha Johnson. [bbc.co.uk] Yes - the same police they've been campaigning to defund.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:06PM (2 children)
While they are still around, the might as well do what they are supposed to be doing.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:27PM (1 child)
ACAB. Defund. There is no middle ground, whitey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @02:35AM
Apparently so, since they cannot do what they are supposed to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:03PM (1 child)
Or perhaps what we lack is the courage to be nothing at all, except a servant of others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @08:50AM
The problem you face here is that if one wishes to stake out on their own, nothing and nobody is stopping them. The barriers you do face, such as the ability to provide self sustenance, are relatively minimal and can be overcome in endless ways. And these organizations people are drawn to will in no way ease these tasks.
And if you believe a social economic system is the cure? Imagine if you had a school with 300 million students in your class, and the grade you received was not your own personal grade, but the average of what everybody made. Many people would simply feel discouraged or disinterested and do the bare minimum, because what does it matter anyway? And so suddenly the school teachers are required to bring down the hammer like never before, only to ultimately see what would likely be a substantially worse overall average anyhow.
When you look to history you invariably find social economic systems do not drive freedom, but authoritarian controls on an unprecedented level. And the above is the exact reason. The country becomes entirely dependent on the production of society to keep the gears turning, but society no longer has a motivation to keep producing. And so coercion (work or starve, study or fail) is replaced with the whip and chains.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday May 24 2021, @02:38PM
I think it's a moderate different basic issue: worry. My take is that worry is the mental equivalent of an immune system that helps protect us from the dangers of the world. But the worry system doesn't go away when the dangers do, your "sterile boredom". Instead, something new is found to worry about - sometimes even if the person has to invent the danger from scratch and shoehorn their entire worldview into a small box.
Except work for it, let us note. This world is filled with amazing opportunity, but you have to act to get it. I think this is how we can distinguish between hypotheses. For so many people, they would rather adopt an imaginary danger, such as a child porn ring in a pizza parlor basement or the looming threat of conservative denialism and worry endlessly about that, than seek something, anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @08:45PM (3 children)
Oh, grate! It's a Nietschean Ubermunching type!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @09:36PM (2 children)
Nope, I was summarizing the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII, and CRT.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 25 2021, @06:36AM (1 child)
No, you are an idiot.
Nietzsche, like Gandhi, held that non-violence is the highest form of bravery. Republicans are so afraid of a Theory, that they cringe in fear over being called racist, mostly because they know in their hearts it is true. Untermenchen, all.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @08:30AM
It is quite likely that you are correct about that idiot thing. Still I feel like you have mistaken my premise, and misunderstood my position (Hint: I am not a Republican). To be quite explicit.
In the Civil war, the North was there to crush the South and cry for an end to slavery.
In WWII the Allies were there to crush the Axis and cry for an ending of the "master race" ideology.
In this day CRT is there to war against any last vestiges/adherents to racist ideologies and cry for the end of racism.
Each of these cases features opposition of an oppressive "social construct" if you will. Each opposition temporarily requires that the victor engage in oppression to achieve his victory. The end result is that the oppression of the victor is withdrawn that freedom might be given a chance to work.
So I tried encapsulating all of that into the single phrase. I guess it was expecting too much.
Now there are several subtle points I was aiming to highlight with that sentence.
The first is that CRT is an oppressive movement which seeks annihilation of racism. It is a necessary opposition to a vile practice which tends to fester if left unchecked. Yet, while necessary, it is wrong since it is not promoting liberty. So like any war effort, it is simultaneously necessary and wrong, and the only hope that any of us has it that it might be quickly victorious, so that freedom might be restored.
The second is that CRT by its very mission statement is racially biased, since the only way to discover entrenched systemic racism is to see the world through the lens of "race" as defined (or socially constructed) by others. This leads to tiresome complaints of it detractors that it is in essence racist. The truth of the matter is quite simply that it is anti-racist, but the detractors cannot understand the difference, having not been lynched nearly as often as others have. So this becomes a pointless unwinnable argument - as evidenced by most of the postings in this journal entry.
The third subtlety is hidden in the "strongest of the strong" phrasing. Slave-owners thought they were doing slaves a favor by giving them work and providing for them. Nazi's thought that they were doing the world a favor by putting the master-race back in charge of the continent of Europe. People who are unconsciously racist think - no rather they "feel" - that the world is better off with beneficent white European-type folks running everything and so they unconsciously make that happen. The common feature in these groups is a blind spot in their self-introspection and an innabililty to see with the eyes of the ones that are oppressed in the deal. This is why they will never be the strongest of the strong, and they will ultimately always be defeated.
Anyway, it is late and I don't have time to go into the other subtleties I was pointing out in the original post. I've been lobbying against racism for fifty years now, and I've heard all the same lame arguments over and over from the folks who do not admit their unconscious bias - and we all are tainted by it - be it the horror of King Kong going after that white girl, or the idiocy of Jar Jar Binks who screwed up everything he ever tried to do. I was _not_ trying to start any arguments. I was trying to condense my fifty years of effort into a few pithy statements that those truly concerned about this issue might do well to reflect on. If you cannot see the truth in those few lines, then you will not likely see the truth in the thousands I might employ to explain what I meant.
--
See, Hemo, I told you nobody understood me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Monday May 24 2021, @04:29AM (15 children)
Or perhaps, the unexamined life is not worth living? If you're not examining those "fundamental truths", then you are not examining your life.
And yet we know that men are not created equal in many ways, such as ability or opportunity. And you have to go a long ways back to get to common ancestors for most people - with many of the commonalities being people of remarkable brutality (like Genghis Khan for a recent example).
The real answer is hell, no. We can do better than to ask pointless questions like that.
For example, suppose you are a really, really outspoken person who goes out of their way to meet and have significant interactions with as many people as possible. My take is that you're not going to do better than say 100 people per day and that would need to be in group interactions like parties, groups of people at meals, perhaps documentaries, and so on. For normal people, they probably would be one to ten new people a day on average. If the supergregarious person so meets 100 new people per day, that's ~36.5k per year and would be ~3.65 million over a century of life. So in this extreme scenario, you've met less than four million people, that's almost half a percent of the world's population.
So how are you going to love the 99.5% you will never meet and never know? You merely describe nebulous feelings about statistics.
A far better approach is to construct a world where even the self absorbed and advantaged are encouraged to positively contribute. That's where stuff like capitalism comes from BTW. It encourages even the wicked and selfish to help others.
Instead, I find the people who complain about human nature ignore outright how we are making everyone's lives better, right now. My take is that it's more righteous to consider how to make the present, self-interested human being a better part of our world than to pine for the perfect human who doesn't have our flaws and for which, we don't have even the slightest inkling how to consistently create.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @06:02AM
*smacks forehead*
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday May 24 2021, @02:36PM (4 children)
Heh, easy to do when the Americans and Russians aren't blasting you into oblivion [foreignpolicy.com]. But hey, opportunity for the brickyards and cement mixers, electricians, and plumbers, eh? Interesting thing this "Capitalism". Is this just a side effect? Or is it part of the main process?
And some people still have high regard for Genghis Khan [blogspot.com]. You might too, if you were from Mongolia
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 24 2021, @09:38PM (3 children)
A lot of people fall in that camp. Maybe it's time to think why the Americans and Russians aren't blasting the Germans or the Greeks into oblivion.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:14AM (2 children)
They present no threat to western finance. Greece made a feeble effort a few years ago, but it was a waste
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 25 2021, @12:17PM (1 child)
They present more of a threat to "western finance" than the nations getting blasted do. The narrative needs work.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:42PM
Not at all, they are fully compliant and complicit. That is the path of least resistance for defeated nations
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @04:16PM (8 children)
Leave it to khallow to utterly miss the subtlety of the OP. All of the comments were intended to be read in the context of CRT, explaining where and why it fails, and yet why it is absolutely necessary at this moment in time; then, at the same time to suggest the world view that must ultimately supplant it and obviate the need of it.
There was a time when red hair was considered a sign of mental deficiency (some still feel that way about blondes). Such a notion is nonsensical to the average person these days. Likewise the nonsense of the ideology of racism will one day be universally understood and acknowledged.
Between now an then, there will be many silly arguments.
--
Posted by a red-head with measured IQ exceeding 150 FWIW.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 24 2021, @05:35PM (6 children)
Explain some more about why the US needs to fail at this moment in time. And, tell us what waits after the failure. I'll remind people that the Carthaginians didn't arise from the ashes, nor the Greeks, the Romans, or any other great power. When they were defeated and broken, history moved on and forgot about each one in turn.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @05:57PM (5 children)
Are you perchance blonde?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 24 2021, @07:19PM (4 children)
No, but there are a lot of privileged white blondes eating up this CRT shit.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @08:59PM (3 children)
Since you have no understanding of CRT beyond what Fucker Tarlson tells you your opinion is worthless. Try using that smooth organ inside your cranium, don't be afraid of developing a few wrinkles at your age!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @10:34PM (2 children)
Runaway's curtains don't match his drapes! He is a reverse Oreo! Polacks are genetically, um, non-white. That is why Hitler had a plan to get rid of all Slavs and repopulate eastern Europe with the Tootonic Race. Not all stupid people cite the Gateway Pundit, but everyone who cites the Gateway Pundit is stupid, ergo, all Part-Polacks are stupid. QED.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 24 2021, @10:44PM (1 child)
Correct. And, thank you. Now, try explaining that to your CRT retards.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @12:03AM
But in Arkansas, they are white! So the social construction of "white trash" must not be genetically based?
(And, oh, Runaway, the "R" word has been abandoned. If you keep using it, it makes you look like a Polack Bohunk Serbo-Croat.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 24 2021, @09:40PM
Words have meaning.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 24 2021, @02:50PM (3 children)
Because they will totally do that. That's not even wrong. Such an environment of oppression is great for the strong - they have little interest in fixing it. It's the rest who cry "Enough!".
The tit for tat strategist usually does that. They just recognize that forgiving transgressions without negative consequence for the transgressor leads to more transgressions. A few rounds of tit for tat with a subsequent forgiveness period provides that negative consequence - that incidentally counts as "temporary loss for the sake of long-term benefit".
The tribal conflicts that result in indefinite conflict break tit for tat in important ways. First, retaliation is routinely inflicted on innocents that are associated with the guilty party (like killing a cousin in retaliation). Closely related to that is a common disinterest in making sure they get the right guilty party (it's not rare for someone to blame an out-group for misdeeds of an in-group member). Second, escalation is a common symptom with retaliation being substantially harsher than the original transgression.
In summary, don't blame tit for tat for the people who do it wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @10:36PM (2 children)
Khallow
Oh, Grate! I can hardly wait!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 25 2021, @12:15PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @03:35AM
Khallow's words! They are broken! I read, but they contain no thoughts! I have been duped!