A Liberal’s Take on Critical Race Theory

A Liberal’s Take on Critical Race Theory

– By Howard Sierer –

Don’t confuse Critical Race Theory with a belief that schools should teach a more realistic look at the black experience in America. “The neo-Marxist [Critical Race Theory] movement rejects equal opportunity, merit, and objectivity.” So says William Galston, a nationally prominent and widely-respected liberal commentator on the nation’s politics.

Galston’s credentials are impressive. He holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at the liberal Brookings Institution after professorships at the University of Texas and University of Maryland where he served as Dean of the School of Public Policy. He was deputy assistant for domestic policy in the Clinton administration and was employed in the presidential campaigns of Al Gore, Walter Mondale, and John Anderson.

Galston and I don’t see eye-to-eye on most public policy issues but we both recognize that Critical Race Theory is so extreme that any thoughtful observer, regardless of their political leanings, should reject it out of hand.

CRT has prompted hysterical opposition from the likes of Fox News and other populist right-wing media outlets. Since the right opposes Critical Race Theory, too many on the left in a knee-jerk reaction feel obliged to offer ill-considered support without seriously examining its precepts.

In a recent article and to his credit, Galston went to the source, “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.” What he found there should convince even those who believe American race relations are at an abysmal low that CRT is not a path toward improvement.

Galston’s key takeaways:

The theory moves race to the center of our focus. As the book’s editors put it, it aims to “recover and revitalize the radical tradition of race-consciousness,” a tradition “that was discarded when integration, assimilation, and the ideal of colorblindness became the official norms of racial enlightenment.”

CRT’s message is that civil rights activists and all of us who support equal rights have been wasting our time; far more radical action – read “reverse discrimination” – is required to root out “systemic racism.”

The theory rejects the principle of equal opportunity. Its adherents insist that equal opportunity is a myth, not a reality in today’s America and that those who pursue it are misguided. The real goal is Marxian equality of results, measured by black share of income, wealth, and social standing.

Even race-conscious policies such as affirmative action are a diversion. “The aim of affirmative action,” the book’s editors insist, is to “create enough exceptions to white privilege to make the mythology of equal opportunity seem at least plausible.” Such policies are an inadequate response to the persistence of “white supremacy.”

Critical Race Theory is an explicitly radical left-wing movement inspired by the thinking of an Italian neo-Marxist Antonio Gramsci who rejected the idea that sought-after goods should be distributed through systems that evaluate and reward “merit.” Merit is unacceptable because it is “a repository of hidden, race-specific preferences for those who have the power to determine its meaning and consequences.”

The book’s editors state in their introduction, “Scholarship about race in America can never be written from a distance of detachment or with an attitude of objectivity.” In other words, only the “oppressed” can write on the subject.

Summing up, critical race theory teaches that race is the fundamental dynamic of the American experience for both blacks and whites, that equal opportunity and even affirmative action are placebos intended to oppress blacks, and that the concept of merit is hopelessly flawed and requires a Marxian redistribution of wealth to ensure that blacks receive their fair share.

In responding to attacks on CRT, liberals miss the point by arguing that historically schools have not accurately portrayed the treatment of black Americans and that curriculum changes are long overdue. In making this argument, they imply support for Critical Race Theory itself, in most cases without understanding its precepts.

Most Americans including this one will support more realistic teaching of slavery and the black American experience. But such instruction is a far cry from what CRT proponents are implementing around the country. Teaching white elementary school students that they are subconscious and irredeemable racists who are oppressing their black classmates is a far cry from teaching a reasonable and balanced black history.

CRT advocate Ibram X. Kendi, in his bestselling book “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” claims that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” In effect, he suggests that the past 400 years of what he calls white “systemic racism” be replaced by black “systemic racism.” Like all committed CRT advocates, Kendi is a racist, pure and simple.

Most of us of all political persuasions support Martin Luther King’s vision of a color-blind society and would prefer Chief Justice John Roberts’ prescription: “The best way to end discrimination is to stop discriminating.”

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