The fact that no pro-GOP person appalled at CRT will read this post shows they know their beliefs are too fragile to be subjected to disproof.
The anti-CRT rhetoric makes six arguments:
1. People in K-12 are teaching CRT
2. Because they are talking about racism as an institutional and structural problem,
3. And CRT talked about racism that way, and some CRT authors were Marxist (or said things that could be characterized as Marxist)
4. Therefore, anyone who talks about racism as institutional or structural is Marxist,
5. And they are violating the principles of Christianity,
6. And promoting an ideology MLK would have rejected.
The first thing I want to say is a lot of people repeating these anti-CRT talking points are doing so because they are genuinely concerned about reducing racism, and especially racial conflict, and they sincerely want a world in which racism is just not an issue.
I argue with these people a lot. And I’ll say that they aren’t all bad people, and they aren’t necessarily stupid people. They are often people tremendously successful in careers that require considerable training. But they refuse to read anything that disagrees with them, and that makes them gullible. They believe that the truth is pretty obvious to reasonable people, that you should get your information from trustworthy sources, and that a good argument is one that has data and rings true.
What those beliefs mean, in effect, is that, if you want to be an “objective” person you should only get your information from sources that confirm what you already believe. That’s pretty much the opposite of objective.
In other words, they reason like Stalinists. As I’ve mentioned before, I was in Berkeley for a long time, so I’m very familiar with what it’s like to argue with people who only get their information from in-group sources, and who reject all other information and sources as “biased.”
If you’re reasoning like a Stalinist, you’re reasoning badly. But the problem is that people trapped in the world in which a claim is true because it seems true don’t care whether they’re reasoning like Stalinists. They tell themselves, “Stalinists were wrong, but I’m not!” Anyone can believe that what they believe is true if they only honor sources that tell them that what they believe is true.
Every one of those six talking points is false and fallacious, but no person worked into outrage about them will admit that. I think they know that the arguments aren’t rational, and that’s why they won’t read any CRT, or anything trying to point out that the anti-CRT rhetoric doesn’t make sense.
Lots of people arguing with them point that out refusal to be informed by reading actual sources, and it has no impact. I’ve only had one person try to defend themselves by citing CRT, but he obviously hadn’t read the link he’d offered. It was a law school textbook from 1995. So, it didn’t actually support his claim that CRT was being taught in K-12 now.
The argument that CRT is being taught in K-12, and that it’s Marxist and anti-Christian works this way. (And, unlike people up in arms about CRT, I’ve read the things I’m criticizing.) First, what is being taught in K-12 is that the US still racist, racism is a problem of institutions and structures and not individuals hostility, and the US has a history of racist action. CRT was a theory advocated by legal theorists, some of whom were Marxist, that said that racism was not a question of intent, but legal systems and institutions.
Therefore, and here’s one of many fallacious leaps, anyone who says that racism is not a question of individual intent, but institutional racism and systemic oppression got their ideas from CRT. Since Marxism also says there is systemic oppression, and then all people who say that there is institutional racism are Marxist. If someone teaches that, for instance, the GI Bill was applied in racist ways, or that the system of slavery was racist, or that segregation was systemic racism, then that person is teaching that there is institutional racism and therefore they’re a Marxist and teaching CRT.
That’s a way of arguing that makes absolutely no sense–it’s a combination of the genetic fallacy and the fallacy of guilt by association. And people can see that it’s fallacious when that kind of reasoning is applied to them. For instance, Marx said that capitalism relies on workers being desperate for employment, and therefore it requires that there be people who can’t survive without working. That was the GOP argument for workfare, and it’s what many GOP politicians have said is wrong with the stimulus package–that it’s making things harder for businesses. In other words, they are saying that a free market requires that there are people who can’t survive without working. Since GOP political leaders are saying something Marx said, they must be Marxist, and since CRT theorists are Marxists, Republicans are CRT!!!!!
I could go on. The first Puritan settlers in New England tried to hold all their property in common. Since that’s something Marx advocated, they were Marxist! Therefore, Thanksgiving is Marxist. Therefore, schools that put up Thanksgiving decorations are advocating Marxism.
That argument makes as much sense as the anti-CRT demagoguery.
Of course it’s a flawed argument, because it’s a flawed way to argue. If it’s a flawed way to argue about Republicans or Thanksgiving, then it’s a flawed way to argue about K-12 teachers.
So, let’s just start with the claim (which I’m happy to have disproven) that no one making the above six claims can support them with rational-critical argumentation.
In other words, the people making those arguments are consuming and repeating demagoguery.
As far as the first claim, that depends on making CRT every way of talking about racism that says it’s systematic and institutional. Since even abolitionists talked about racism that way in the 1830s, and Marx didn’t start theorizing Marxism till the late 1840s, Das Kapital wasn’t published till the 1867, and the first English translation was in 1887, then the claim that anyone who talks about racism as built into American institution is inspired by Marxism fails on its face. That takes care of 2-4.
Since critics of CRT will not themselves live by the standard they’ve set for their opposition (argument by association), they also fail at making a rational argument (again, even they think that the logic behind 2-4 is fallacious, but only when it applies to them, and not when they apply it to others).
The claim that there is institutional discrimination, and that not every individual has the same chances at success does not invalidate the principles of Christianity. It does invalidate the “just world model” or its incarnation as “prosperity gospel,” but those are very recent ways of reading Scripture, and not all Christians endorse them. So, talking about institutional discrimination might invalidate people who think Christianity and prosperity gospel are identical, but they don’t speak for all Christians. (And, really, they need to know their own history—the notion that people deserve what they get was used to justify slavery, after all.)
That these people claim that MLK would be on their side is the final thing that frosts my cupcake.
If they think that MLK never talked about institutional racism, then they’re just showing that they reason and read badly. But, really what they’re showing is that, just as they’ve read no CRT (but only things about it), they’ve read little or no MLK. In fact, MLK talked a lot about how racism was not about angry redneck individuals, but white “moderates” who wouldn’t face the institutional problems (that’s the point of most of “Letter from Birmingham Jail”). For instance, from his speech “The Other America” (which every critic of CRT should read in its entirety):
But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality, and it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good, solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine quality integrated education a reality. And so today, we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality. It’s not merely a struggle against extremist behavior toward Negros. And I’m convinced that many of the very people who supported us in the struggle in the South are not willing to go all the way now. [….] I say that however unpleasant it is, we must honestly see and admit that racism is still deeply rooted all over America. It’s still deeply rooted in the North, and it’s still deeply rooted in the South. [….] In 1875, the nation passed a civil rights bill and refused to enforce it. In 1964, the nation passed a weaker civil rights bill, and even to this day, that bill has not been totally enforced in all of its dimensions. The nation heralded a new day of concern for the poor, for the poverty-stricken, for the disadvantaged, and brought into being a poverty bill. But at the same time, it put such little money into the program that it was hardly and still remains hardly a good skirmish against poverty. White politicians in suburbs talk eloquently against open housing, and in the same breath, contend that they are not racist. And all of this, and all of these things, tell us that America has been back lashing on the whole question of basic constitutional and God-given rights for Negros and other disadvantaged groups for more than 300 years. [….] But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities, as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. So in a real sense, our nation’s summer’s riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
What I learned arguing with Stalinists is that some people believe that personal certainty is objectivity, data is proof, and sources that agree with them are unbiased. The Stalinist were wrong on all counts. But, if reasoning like some group means you are part of that group (people who talk about institutional racism are like CRT and CRT are Marxist), then critics of CRT are Stalinists.
