CRT is a worldview

If you want to get entwined in a lengthy thread of points, counterpoints, and derisive comments, post your view of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on social media. People have very strong opinions about CRT and, as one or more of them will inevitably weave into the thread, many don’t know enough about it.

Some commenters think it merely promotes a fuller, more honest reckoning of racism in America’s past and the vestiges of it in our present. But the moniker itself should call that view into question. It’s a “theory,” not an assessment, a plan, or a program, though it entails all those things. A theory is: “a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.”

So Critical Race Theory intends to explain racial inequality by supposing the idea that, “racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society” and claiming that “existing power structures…are based on white privilege and white supremacy.” (from the UCLA School of Public Affairs) It is an offshoot of neo-Marxist Critical Theory that divides the masses into oppressors and the oppressed, but by race rather than by class.

CRT is at bottom and fundamentally a worldview, and its pre-conclusion of systemic racism is an “analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures” for evidence to support it. So when CRT is introduced into the classroom or the boardroom, the school or the business is imposing a worldview and expecting you and/or your children to subscribe to it.

But don’t take my word for it. And don’t only listen to or read secondary sources that align with your politics. Go to the primary sources. Critical Race Theory and its precursors have been around for many decades and there’s a lot of information out there. A lot of it is conflicting, I know, and there are wise and well-respected advocates on both sides.

But if half the country is sounding the alarm about the dangers CRT poses to our freedoms, it’s “critical” that we make the effort to educate ourselves about its origin, its ideology, and its goals.