"Dr. Bell did not share MLK's dream and neither do his ideological children."
Well, you're right about that. But let's be very clear, I'll bet he was a lot closer to MLK's vision than Rufo or, to be fair, most conservatives today. Yes, MLK believed in race blindness at the individual level. But he also believed in affirmative action and reparation for slavery. He also believed in Universal Basic Income for the poor (regardless of skin colour).
So let's be very clear about his too, if King were alive today, plenty of the people who just looove repeating his "content of their character" quote would treat him with just as much disdain as they treat Kendi. If not more.
Whiteness studies is not a "child" of CRT (Wikipedia is wonderful for many things, but not for use was an authoritative source on academic literature). It is a separate field of academia, devised by one of the people who contributed to the original body of work known as CRT.
CRT uses a racial lens because it was designed to look at how the legal system produced and sustained racial inequality. It was focused specifically on this narrow field. Again, I'm not arguing that CRT got all of its conclusions correct. But broadening that philosophy to encompass everything (I don't deny that some people have done this) isn't what the original work of CRT was about.
Finally, whether white flight and the closing of certain black schools led to a more tolerant society depends very much on where you live and what colour your skin is, no? It's easy to look at desegregation with 8- years of hindsight and say what was best. But at the time, it's easy to understand why some black people saw it as a failure. Again, depending on where you live, you could argue that it's been a failure today.
Marla, I think you've made an excellent summary, thank you.
One key problem with discussing what's been happening in our culture is legitimate as well as bad faith confusion of labels vs concepts. Rather than discuss the concepts, some folks prefer to attack the labels in what I perceive to be a diversion tactic.
After several attempts ("political correctness", "successor ideology", "intersectionalism", "identitarianism", "wokism", "neo-progressivism"), I believe the best term for the ideology in question today is "Critical Social Justice Ideology", which I will abbreviate CSJI. It's descriptive, non-pejorative, and becoming recognized by both sides. The battle over labels, however, is illustrative.
The manifestation CSJI in the area of race is an example. People who have bothered to read Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Delgado and Stefancic, the 1619 project, etc tend to perceive, correctly in my view, a general sociopolitical framing shared by these sources. But what can one call that common thread, without listing a 14 syllable compound collection every time?
Many parents and critics wound up using "CRT" as a label of convenience for that whole political ideology of race, which they perceived as emerging in schools, workplaces and society.
Then other people attacked that, pointing out correctly that while Robin DiAngelo's work, Kendi's work, the 1619 project's framing, and such might have been partly inspired by CRT, technically they are not CRT per se - GOTCHA!!!
In my view, that latter was both technically correct, but more importantly a bad faith attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. There is little real and honest confusion about the socio-political framing being referenced, but one side can pretend that there's nothing to discuss because the other side is using "CRT" too loosely.
It's like responding to a citizen objecting to having a smelly sewer plant put in their neighborhood by saying "well, technically it's a primary pre-colloidal treatment plant, so your complaint is ignorant and we don't need to listen to it" (even though the plant will be smelly just as you say). It's using technical terminology to prevent honest engagement, not to facilitate it.
Of course, Critical Race Theory is an expansion upon the earlier Critical Legal Studies, developed beyond a legal theory of interest to some lawyers, into a political theory about the general role of race in society whose concepts (albeit unlabeled as such) should be taught in elementary schools - but the same side that want to be persnickety about the technical definition of CRT sometimes still pretends that CRT today is still merely a legal theory.
In that (often deliberately) confused semantic space, there is a functional need for a common label for communication about the thematically connected set of political perspectives about race. Rufo chose to use "CRT" for that label, broadening its colloquial usage beyond academic precisions to include relevant contemporary themes derived from DiAngelo, Kendi, Hanna-Jones - as well as CRT per se.
If anybody has a better umbrella term than "CRT" to offer for those interwoven political threads, please do so. Until then, picking on the colloquial label for a real phenomenon for its academic imprecision serves largely to avoid engagement with the phenomenon itself.
If any readers think that having an umbrella terms makes it too difficult to discuss components of the asserted collection, please explain. I think we all know what's meant however, and can easily discuss Kendi per se within that umbrella when relevant.
If a parent at the podium says "I object to the way the school is teaching CRT as factual truth in classrooms", I think it's disingenuous to respond "You don't even understand the nuances of academic Critical Race Theory per se, so your critique can be dismissed as ignorance", rather than making a good faith attempt to address WHAT IS OBJECTIVELY BEING TAUGHT, regardless of the precision of the label.
If one wishes, more as a minor sidenote than as a core response, to note that "when teacher X taught Y to the kids as fact, they were actually presenting their interpretation of Kendi, which technically is not CRT per se", that's OK (if pedantic) - but using that tactic to avoid having the discussion about what the teacher was teaching is not OK.
In this context, I think that making a big deal of Rufo's openly stated desire to generalize the term "CRT" in the (colloquial) public mind to include related but technically distinguishable political racial perspectives, winds up being (accidentally or intentionally) yet another "look over there" distraction to unimportant things, distracting for the real issues at play.
"Dr. Bell did not share MLK's dream and neither do his ideological children."
Well, you're right about that. But let's be very clear, I'll bet he was a lot closer to MLK's vision than Rufo or, to be fair, most conservatives today. Yes, MLK believed in race blindness at the individual level. But he also believed in affirmative action and reparation for slavery. He also believed in Universal Basic Income for the poor (regardless of skin colour).
So let's be very clear about his too, if King were alive today, plenty of the people who just looove repeating his "content of their character" quote would treat him with just as much disdain as they treat Kendi. If not more.
Whiteness studies is not a "child" of CRT (Wikipedia is wonderful for many things, but not for use was an authoritative source on academic literature). It is a separate field of academia, devised by one of the people who contributed to the original body of work known as CRT.
CRT uses a racial lens because it was designed to look at how the legal system produced and sustained racial inequality. It was focused specifically on this narrow field. Again, I'm not arguing that CRT got all of its conclusions correct. But broadening that philosophy to encompass everything (I don't deny that some people have done this) isn't what the original work of CRT was about.
Finally, whether white flight and the closing of certain black schools led to a more tolerant society depends very much on where you live and what colour your skin is, no? It's easy to look at desegregation with 8- years of hindsight and say what was best. But at the time, it's easy to understand why some black people saw it as a failure. Again, depending on where you live, you could argue that it's been a failure today.
Marla, I think you've made an excellent summary, thank you.
One key problem with discussing what's been happening in our culture is legitimate as well as bad faith confusion of labels vs concepts. Rather than discuss the concepts, some folks prefer to attack the labels in what I perceive to be a diversion tactic.
After several attempts ("political correctness", "successor ideology", "intersectionalism", "identitarianism", "wokism", "neo-progressivism"), I believe the best term for the ideology in question today is "Critical Social Justice Ideology", which I will abbreviate CSJI. It's descriptive, non-pejorative, and becoming recognized by both sides. The battle over labels, however, is illustrative.
The manifestation CSJI in the area of race is an example. People who have bothered to read Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X Kendi, Delgado and Stefancic, the 1619 project, etc tend to perceive, correctly in my view, a general sociopolitical framing shared by these sources. But what can one call that common thread, without listing a 14 syllable compound collection every time?
Many parents and critics wound up using "CRT" as a label of convenience for that whole political ideology of race, which they perceived as emerging in schools, workplaces and society.
Then other people attacked that, pointing out correctly that while Robin DiAngelo's work, Kendi's work, the 1619 project's framing, and such might have been partly inspired by CRT, technically they are not CRT per se - GOTCHA!!!
In my view, that latter was both technically correct, but more importantly a bad faith attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. There is little real and honest confusion about the socio-political framing being referenced, but one side can pretend that there's nothing to discuss because the other side is using "CRT" too loosely.
It's like responding to a citizen objecting to having a smelly sewer plant put in their neighborhood by saying "well, technically it's a primary pre-colloidal treatment plant, so your complaint is ignorant and we don't need to listen to it" (even though the plant will be smelly just as you say). It's using technical terminology to prevent honest engagement, not to facilitate it.
Of course, Critical Race Theory is an expansion upon the earlier Critical Legal Studies, developed beyond a legal theory of interest to some lawyers, into a political theory about the general role of race in society whose concepts (albeit unlabeled as such) should be taught in elementary schools - but the same side that want to be persnickety about the technical definition of CRT sometimes still pretends that CRT today is still merely a legal theory.
In that (often deliberately) confused semantic space, there is a functional need for a common label for communication about the thematically connected set of political perspectives about race. Rufo chose to use "CRT" for that label, broadening its colloquial usage beyond academic precisions to include relevant contemporary themes derived from DiAngelo, Kendi, Hanna-Jones - as well as CRT per se.
If anybody has a better umbrella term than "CRT" to offer for those interwoven political threads, please do so. Until then, picking on the colloquial label for a real phenomenon for its academic imprecision serves largely to avoid engagement with the phenomenon itself.
If any readers think that having an umbrella terms makes it too difficult to discuss components of the asserted collection, please explain. I think we all know what's meant however, and can easily discuss Kendi per se within that umbrella when relevant.
If a parent at the podium says "I object to the way the school is teaching CRT as factual truth in classrooms", I think it's disingenuous to respond "You don't even understand the nuances of academic Critical Race Theory per se, so your critique can be dismissed as ignorance", rather than making a good faith attempt to address WHAT IS OBJECTIVELY BEING TAUGHT, regardless of the precision of the label.
If one wishes, more as a minor sidenote than as a core response, to note that "when teacher X taught Y to the kids as fact, they were actually presenting their interpretation of Kendi, which technically is not CRT per se", that's OK (if pedantic) - but using that tactic to avoid having the discussion about what the teacher was teaching is not OK.
In this context, I think that making a big deal of Rufo's openly stated desire to generalize the term "CRT" in the (colloquial) public mind to include related but technically distinguishable political racial perspectives, winds up being (accidentally or intentionally) yet another "look over there" distraction to unimportant things, distracting for the real issues at play.