If this regarded a scientific term like mesolithic, then I’d understand your point. But this is regarding a term with a tremendous amount of trauma associated with it. There are racists in the non-academic sense still present today, and there are people who have been
wrongly accused of being racists in the non-academic sense by the left, and then there is this claim that an academic can label a person a racist and it shouldn’t be taken as an insult.
Is this supposed to be part of critical race theory? And, is critical race theory Marxist or not?
In an attempt to brush up my understanding of critical theory, I found this on Wikipedia, and it certainly reinforces (for me) the view that we are in the midst of a “darkness at noon” redefinition of terms:
When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Habermas redefined critical social theory as a study of communication, with communicative competence and communicative rationality on the one hand, and distorted communication on the other, the two versions of critical theory began to overlap to a much greater degree than before.
Yeah - having these different operational definitions on it sure does make for a lot of offense and defensiveness - especially when groups make themselves so thin-skinned as that they are ready to take offense at everything they may hear about or from others not in their pre-approved political tribe.
Regarding the Marxism claim - yeah, I’ve heard that a lot too; always from people eager to find any reason at all to write off messages they don’t like. There will be many on the left who embrace Marxism - which is, by definition, a “left” kind of thing after all. But concluding that therefore all “left-leaning” or liberal political ambitions are Marxist, is the equivalent to finding a few “right leaning” people who self-identify as white nationalists or Nazis, and therefore concluding that anybody who leans right must be a Nazi. Would you be impressed with that conclusion as being reality-based? Of course not, any more than insisting that there is a Marxist behind every bush, and critical race theory must be nothing more than that. These are all little more than thinly veiled excuses to burrow down further into one’s own echo chamber and to refuse to deal with any actual reality of what others are saying.
Well then - I think you can breath easier in that regard; especially in light of what Christy has written above. Yes - there are voices that do challenge us (collectively) to see how we participate in and are even complicit with remaining systems and structures that codify injustice. And if we insist on taking that all personally all the time - then there is probably little help for that.
Reading more about Malcolm Gladwell’s efforts to “look beyond the individual in order to determine how success works and how successful outliers are made” leads me to believe that framing matters in terms of “Liberal/Left/Marxist” vs. “Conservative/Right/Nazi” is not only the least useful way to frame them, it’s misleading and grounds, IMO, for abandoning the terms.
Quoting my new hero, Malcolm Gladwell, he says:
“When we observe differences in how individuals succeed in the world our initial thought is always to say, to argue that that is the result of some kind of innate difference in ability.
And when we look at the different rates that groups succeed we think that that reflects some underlying innate trait in the characteristics of that group. And that is wrong… what capitalization rates say… is there’s another explanation and that has to do with poverty, with stupidity, and with culture.”
“We have a scarcity of achievement… not because we have a scarcity of talent. We have a scarcity of achievement because we’re squandering our talent. And that’s not bad news that’s good news; because it says that this scarcity is not something we have to live with. It’s something we can do something about.”
Human races, to the extent that they are based on actual genetic features such as melanin production levels, reflect very minor differences, and are thus more similar to “variety” than to “race” in common terminology for other species. Human races, biological races, and biological varieties all lack uniform definitions, and the dividing lines are often quite arbitrary.
It is very true that some have much more power than others, and also true that power is very often used to oppress. Focus on power is of great value for seeing where major problems are likely to be. But the “racism is only by the powerful” claim promotes a false us good-them bad dichotomy. More generally, the “power” focus in many social fields tends to present the world as a zero sum game where we have to put others down to get more power for ourselves. In reality, everyone has some power, and none of us use it as well as we should. Identifying specific problems and finding ways to fix them will do much more good than broad categories.
Shifting the definition of racism to focus on power that disadvantages minorities can potentially obscure the problems. For example, it’s worth noting that environmental justice issues often disproportionately affect ethnic minorities. But the root of the problem is rarely racial - it’s more often economic or social - “where’s the cheapest place to put the toxic waste dump?” “does anyone with a connection to the authorities object to putting the factory here?” “where can I afford to live?” (The economic and social disadvantages often trace back in part to the legacy of racism, but are self-perpetuating.) Calling that racism may draw attention to it, but it may direct focus away from other aspects of the problem that are key parts of the solution.
Of course, defining success is part of the problem. If we better valued each individual’s gifts rather than obsessing about certain abilities and devaluing others, that would help.
Probably so. It’s a shame because I am open to having a conversation. I can recognize the ways in which we benefit from historical injustices. My brief course in the history of the American Indians is simply one of the most appalling lessons I’ve had to learn. Second or third maybe to church history or the middle passage. And Twelve Years a Slave is mind numbing, but what a scene that was at the end where Louis Gosset Jr cries out my name is Solomon Northup. Tears. Pure tears.
Kevin DeYoung being told he is not a white supremacist, but that he sees the world through those eyes, is something else I have a hard time seeing past.
Are you sure about those numbers? I hope we aren’t getting into the “rich Jew” stereotype. If Jewish people earn more it’s because their culture values hard work and education. On the other hand, far too many Evangelicals try to prevent the teaching of history, science, and other topics. And they ban books all the time. How are their children supposed to learn anything with such a disadvantage?
Do you mean ‘Appalling’ as in how the course was taught - ideological agenda that you found intolerable? Or ‘Appalling’ in terms of what was brought to light about what happened in those times? I’m thinking you mean the latter, but just wanting to make sure I understand you correctly here.
Will have to look up “Twelve Years a Slave” - that sounds interesting.
Appalling as in what was brought to light. Some of our, speaking as an American, Indian policies from the early 20th century are bitterly sad and very hard to put into perspective.
This reminds me of a topic from contemporary political philosophy. The idea was if one group of people steals from another group, should what was stolen be paid back. I felt like there was no question the wrong should be made right. But typically that’s not the issue (I’m thinking about foreign policy today). The issue is that one group has an advantage over the other group, and benefits with trade or some other relationship with this advantage. This isn’t theft initially, and I’m not sure it’s theft when the advantage is perpetuated intently. It’s certainly uncharitable, but not necessarily theft.
I would be careful about using Wikipedia as a source; I note when diving deeper into the source Wikipedia quotes that it states “Again, however, this excludes more insular Haredi communities, which have some of the lowest income levels in the US”; in other words the poorest didn’t answer. However according to Pew Research How income varies among U.S. religious groups | Pew Research Center Jews do have the largest percentage with a family income over $100,000 followed by Hindus and Episcopalians. However this is also likely a byproduct of education reached. Also I’m not sure how well the “insular Haredi communities” answered this survey.
Academics are not usually interested in labeling individuals racist. Saying that you participate in racist systems is not the same thing as calling you a racist. That said, you usually only get called a racist if you insist that either racist systems don’t exist or they are actually fair and fine.
They say you should understand and own your social location and then use your social capital to advocate for the dismantling of racist systems. See for example, Jemar Tisby’s book How to Fight Racism. There is nothing in there suggesting that all individual white people are personally guilty of racism. It’s a corporate problem with corporate solutions.
I agree. I have seen it play out in multiple conversations though that even when terms are clearly defined by the academic types and they flat out say they are not using racist to mean bigot that is still what people hear and respond to. Maybe it’s a lost cause and they should have picked a different term, though I think their sense and the common cultural sense were developing over time in parallel, it’s not like either usage began last month.
Also agree. But when lay people are going to read scientists, it’s incumbent on them not to import their lay usages. It’s not cool to insist that theory in science means guess or hunch, even though that is a legit sense of the word theory in common parlance. Right now you have a wide swath of the public thinking they are educated about topics like CRT and social justice when in fact they have done no homework on how the vocabulary is used differently, and they are making assessments based on gross misrepresentations.
Sure, it’s a widely recognized sense and appropriate in many contexts. But what I often see is people who have said, “I am not using the word racist to mean bigot” being told that is what it has to mean every time. Everyone should stop correcting other’s usages and recognize there are multiple senses, and if communication is to happen we need to accept the definitions people say they are working with. But I think if a speaker makes it clear what they are intending, it’s on the hearer to adjust, not say “well, the word means X to me.”
It’s not re-writing a definition to use the same word with a different sense. Lots of words have multiple senses and lots of words have common usages and technical meanings that are different. Obese has a medical meaning of a BMI over 30 and a common usage meaning of disgustingly fat. So are some patients insulted when their doctor informs them they are obese? Maybe, but it’s not incumbent on doctors to find a different word or change the common usage connotations. They just need to be clear about what they mean when they use the term and patients shouldn’t be insisting the only meaning of obese is disgustingly fat.
Critical race theory is not the same thing as critical theory. There have been whole threads here dedicated to CRT with good resources posted. Try searching for them.
Good to know, although the “not usually” says to me: “some do”.
I’m not into automatic knee-jerk denials that things exist, …if and when the argument(s) for the things’ existence is clearly presented, … preferably in outline form, with or without bullets. I have the advantage, IMO, of having a nephew and niece-in-law who can 'splain the existence of the things to me when I say or ask something that reveals my ignorance.
Ahhh! A real person, who is in a position to know and to explain, and who ain’t white. I’ve had it with obligatory diversity classes taught by whites, male or female.
A Youtube search yielded these free visual & auditory introductions to Tisby.
