From: Kathleen A. Smith
Columbus
In a letter I wrote (“Critical race theory divides us, based on color of skin,” April 21), I explained how CRT activists unhelpfully focus more on race and how CRT is not taught but practiced in K-12 education. I now want to focus on the substance of CRT.
CRT is not a theory but a movement. CRT scholars think of themselves as activists whose role is to recruit and train more activists. From “Critical Race Theory, An Introduction” by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic: “The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” And “Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”
CRT pits oppressor against oppressed, and white against Black with no room for commonality. CRT puts a barrier between every white person and every Black person. We cannot be friends, or spouses, or coworkers without CRT demanding we see the racism in the relationship.
CRT purposefully ignores our common humanity, universal truths, and the content of an individual’s character. With CRT, one is only a dot on a graph, a member of an identity group, and defined only by skin color, or even more precisely by gender, sexual orientation, or another oppressed role … one must represent the group, not one’s self.
CRT has deconstructed science and math. CRT claims that narratives, storytelling, and anecdotes should be prioritized over the scientific method, even higher than proofs, theorems and solid evidence. CRT contends we shouldn’t expect Blacks or people of color to use reasoning, logic, or linear thinking because those are “white” ways of knowing. That is the epitome of racism.
CRT doesn’t have an end game. CRT cannot be satisfied. The fight for victimhood is never-ending. The only objective is division, and the plan is to dismantle the Western world through deconstruction and chaos. The disastrous result will be tribalism or worse.
CRT shuts down any argument. The theory either (1) calls the person arguing a racist, (2) insists he has “internalized whiteness” if he is black, or (3) claims that the person just has to “do the work” to get himself educated.
The entire CRT argument is unfalsifiable; advocates set up a Kafka trap where the more you shout that you are not a racist, the more it proves that you are a racist. It is a kind of original sin out of which we cannot be baptized, and from which we cannot repent (because we aren’t racists.)
A theory which is unfalsifiable, will not engage with any dissenters, demands that each person commit to a lifetime of work toward the cause, and hurls slurs against nonbelievers is a cult. Critical Race Theory resembles a cult, if it is, in fact, not one already.
