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Overview Of The Theory
Critical Race Theory, or CRT, was developed in the 1980’s on the heels of the Critical Legal Studies movement that started in the 1970’s. A number of prominent law professors, most notably Derrick Bell, began to piece together the movement in the halls of America’s elite law schools. The main thrust of CRT is that white privilege and white supremacy is so thoroughly ingrained into the fabric of society, that the traditional approaches to combat racism against blacks are not enough. CRT scholars regularly attack all sorts of institutions, legal decisions and approaches that have generally been deemed not to benefit minorities.
It has to be said that there many good points are made in some of the articles, but the Marxist and feminist framework is damning.
CRT has a few main points that need to be laid out to understand what CRT is about. First, is the use of the narrative/storytelling. One of most striking parts of CRT is the emphasis on the personal narrative. Many CRT articles are framed completely through the experiences of the writer. It was referred to me as “naming one’s own reality.” That phrase stuck with me, as often racism is assumed on the part of the person who invokes CRT doctrine. For example, one young woman in my class was discussing a situation in which she was turned down for an internship at the school. She said it was because she was black. I pointed out that she could be right, but the conclusion you reached isn’t necessarily true. I was smacked down and told to stop dictating women’s experiences to them.
Another striking feature of CRT is its emphasis on intersectionality, the fact different people have different life experiences – like the difference between a gay black dude born in Harlem compared to a white woman born into wealth in Boston. It is one the most mindbogglingly obvious concepts in the world, but the creation of the concept has been credited to Kimberlie Crenshaw. This is where feminist, homosexual and class critiques come in. There is no conservative or libertarian thought in this school.
The final point I would like to highlight is opposition to essentialism. Essentialism means reducing one group of people to definable characteristics shared by all members of the group. Race, sex , class and sexual orientation are generally listed. One of those categories is not like the other – sex. CRT does not entertain any notion that men and women are biologically different. Well, they may assume some differences, but one isn’t going to get away with an outright “essentialist” argument that men and women are fundamentally different.
Let’s examine one article – Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory by Angela Harris (pdf).
The article is fairly predictable. In her critique of her fellow radical feminists, she emphasizes that they aren’t racist. She takes them to task for ignoring black voices, knowing how incredibly judgmental feminists are. Her point that white feminists have generally ignored black voices and assumed that their experiences are the same for all women is on point – but her article comes off the rails after that.
She makes an exhortation for women to recognize their common enemy – men. She projects a bunch of personal issues onto other people – including a bizarre part where she states that women can’t gain real identities until male domination is eliminated. Are some feminists waiting to sort out their personal issues until the dreaded patriarchy is destroyed? She makes a point that feminists need to move beyond superficial changes.
CRT Is Narcissistic
I agree with her that feminism, in some ways – and CRT – isn’t about real change. It’s about moral judgmentalism and inaction. I can’t even count how many times I read the phrases “white power structures” or “female subjugation,” or “privilege.” Instead of trying to empower themselves via change, the movement simply wants to spin their wheels in the mud and judge everybody else. It is a form of therapy. At this point, I want to highlight what I am talking about how and why people come to and use CRT. They don’t want to take charge of their life; they want to blame everybody else.
I see this reflected in anti-game blogs. Instead of hitting the gym or learning game, these fools blame all their problems on everybody else and get insanely jealous when they see former equals going out and getting laid on the regular. I believe part of the psychology is that they want everybody at their level – frustrated, angry and impotent – so through their bleatings that game isn’t real, they are hoping that some men that otherwise would have bettered himself stays a simp. The less men stepping up and making their lives better, the less jealous they are.
This is the fundamental problem with CRT. I came to the class naively thinking were going to have some real discussions about race in America, but I was dead wrong. It was clear all the women in the class, save one, had some serious issues – most of them related to men. They didn’t want to hear the truth. They wanted to hear some honeyed words about how it’s racism’s fault they have a bitchy personality or it’s patriarchy’s fault ugly women don’t get alphas. I was pissed off being told repeatedly that I “just kinda have to believe this.”
CRT isn’t about helping black people or minorities. It was and is about therapy. The women came to class to blame all their problems on race and sex. They didn’t have the drive to better themselves. They did what probably pisses off many psychologists – the whole idea that, yeah, racism does exist and hurts you but you are using racism as a way to self-aggrandize and tell yourself you are better than you really are. It really is depraved when you think about it – the black women need black people to be hurt by racism so they can prop up their flagging egos by using racism to explain away their failures to live up their out-sized visions of themselves. Didn’t get the job in Boston – most likely because of your grades in school and because you weren’t friendly in the interview – you can always blame racism!
As for the white women, they just doubled-down on “female oppression” so they didn’t have to check their privilege. They blamed all their problems in life on patriarchy and sexism.
In the end, the articles I read did often make some good observations and, sometimes, some good analysis. However, the framework was downright awful. It was too narcissistic, as evidenced by the concept of the personal narrative and inability to understand the world around them. It was like some perpetual therapy session – they pretend to want to change themselves or the world, but just seek to blame others so they can avoid dealing with reality.
Read Next: Racism Is A Feminist’s Best Friend
Critical Race Theory is an ideology for losers- a reinforcement of victimhood which is a crucial sacrament in the service of the egalitarian religion.
Its essential tenet: all white people are descendants of thieves. It is ultimately an untestable mismash of blinders designed to reinforce an a priori conclusion.
The fact that this garbage is taught at so many universities is truly discomforting for not only the integrity of what is supposedly higher education, but to the future of enlightened thought in the West.
I attend an institution that shoves CRT down our throats. I have been adverse to it since my exposure to it. It’s a lot of wallowing in self pity. Personally, I can’t even identify as a feminist anymore. I don’t know when subjective experience became more credible than objective experience. It’s illogical.
Precisely. The CRT proponents marinate in the malignant narcissism that demonizes the White race as the existential crisis unto itself.
In other words, they endorse and advocate wholesale genocide of the white race, by labeling it “white supremacy.”
This Communist virus, a component of the Western Civilization-dismantling propaganda fomented by the Frankfurt School intertwined with Antonio Gramsci and the survivors of the Weather Underground that called for a bloody communist revolution within USA that seek to execute as many as 25 million non-conformists and resisters according to the shell-shocked undercover FBI agent witness, was propagated by the founder, the Negro Derrick Bell, who was indeed evil, envious and insane, being hellbent on destroying USA by eradicating “white supremacy” towards “post-racial” (in reality, post-white as new minority or genocided to extermination like St Domingo [now Haiti] 1791-1804) era that will be as dystopian as South Africa, Liberia, Haiti, Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Brazil (getting worse in racial, social and moral degeneration every decade, that include wholly nihilistic violence and sexual perversion such as common child rape/prostitution and bestiality), and Zimbabwe (former Rhodesia) combined.
Thank God the Communist Negro agitator D. Bell died in 2011. He lives through “Derrick Bell Legacy” award at Critical Race Theory in Education Association organization, which is an unabashedly open Communist agent.
Intersectionality is code for compound victimhood, and usually the exploitation thereof for pitymongering.
Like all lefty ideologies, the entire thing falls apart when you make it clear that people are not entitled to love, empathy, pity or compassion. Equal opportunity under the law is sufficient. Their precious feels don’t matter. Love is not the aim to begin with. People are not equal, whether by birth of circumstance. The world is a competition first, community second. This is not an evil mean fascist “worldview”. It’s reality.
Removing the emotional element pulls the rug out from under their feet and renders all leftist rationals inert because it de-legitimizes the very goal they work towards.
All critical theory is academic whining. Not just race, but across many fields. First world countries are rarely so oppressive that one cannot succeed because of his/her identity status. Yet, these countries are where all the most radical critical theories originate. The ones who use victimhood as the prime excuse for their failings have the mentality of losers, and will remain losers even if you coddle their victimhood.
People who are truly driven and interested in self advancement NEVER, repeat, NEVER choose to do so by lamenting their own misfortunes. Whether you are black, white, yellow, male, female, gay or whatever else, I can at least work with those who actively seek strategic means to improve their own identity group through objective and material goals, as in, how to obtain greater wealth and status.
The people who spend their time contriving obscure terminologies and concepts to define their victimhood, the kind who waste time majoring in these “studies” at college, then come out of college to waste even more time wielding those concepts to complain about everything – those people deserve neither sympathy or success.
I’ve always been curious what they actually teach in women’s studies classes.
I had to take one last year. Complete joke.
They teach that all of women’s problems are because of you. Class dismissed.
This is the first link which popped up in my google search.
Check the topics they study.Its simply hilarious.
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cws/researchst/index.htm
This: intersectionality. First few weeks were stats about women; then race; then class; then some of the prof’s personal political beliefs. When I objected to her certain claim that Bush knew about 9-11 before it happened (I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised at all but it’s not like she can say authoritatively) she called me on the carpet afterwards for “insubordination”. There was another male student who had agreed with me and she went ballistic when I used the words “back me up” in the course of the discussion. She even considered kicking me out before having a radical change of heart and liking me a lot when she understood I wasn’t attacking her personally. She then blamed the whole thing on complications from surgery. There was also a TA present who gave me a lot of shit, I didn’t know why until I found out it was because I switched out of her section. When I explained that it was because of scheduling conflicts, suddenly it was all good, especially because it was for a music class, which they approved of. I ran into the TA a year or two later and mentioned that it was a very confusing and mostly negative experience — her answer was that “some students have less of a right to talk than others”. True story. BTW I did not come in there to stir shit up, I didn’t even talk that much, I was just curious plus, tbh, I wanted some intel on how women think. I left with a much worse impression of women than I came in with. Can you imagine a male professor acting like that? Crazy.
I’d like to know more about this “white privilege,” because I didn’t see the advantages of it in my family. My mom’s parents were Ozark hillbillies, and it’s still socially acceptable to mock people like that. My father comes from a somewhat more educated and prosperous class of white Southerners, but they weren’t that much better off than mom’s family. Dad was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1945, after he turned 18. The AAC saw the results of his IQ test and trained him as a cryptographer, which says something about his intelligence. The war was winding down in 1945 any way, so Dad stayed in the U.S. during his service and was honorably discharged a few months later during the demobilization. However, he couldn’t have afforded to go to college, despite his high IQ, without the G.I. Bill of Rights, which he used to get a pharmacy degree from the University of Oklahoma. No telling what kind of cognitively wasted life he would have had otherwise as some kind of manual laborer and a beneficiary of “white privilege.”
I’ve been wondering that as well. When is my ticket to Easy Street gonna get here? I see all kinds of special deals for every other “minority” and free rides galore for women…where is this White male privilege I keep hearing about?
Black dude here (though “whitewashed”):
It’s a lot of apex fallacy. We don’t care about the whites that have to struggle like everyone else. Only the ones that were born with silver spoons in their mouths. My parents both grew up poor prior to the peak of the civil rights movement. Somehow my mom got her masters in business and my dad got his doctorate in mathematics. I’m sure it wasn’t without struggle, but dammit, they were able to make it happen. I had the privilege of living an upper middle class lifestyle. However, stories like mine are ignored in the same fashion that stories like yours are.
Which is the primary issue that the majority of whites, most of whom were not born to privilege, take with WP sentiment. It is mostly poor whites who are and will continue to be most affected my social adjustments designed to mitigate so called white privilege. It creates anger, especially when privileged blacks (not you) proceed to lecture poor whites about their WP. There are many other flaws with WP.
One of the largest “meta” problems with WP is that it is an almost precise cognate to antisemitism. In that sense (generalizing an entire group of people to privilege because of the actions of a minority) it holds the philosophical seed of genocide.
To illustrate: there is no way to culturally or administratively eliminate white privilege because whiteness is a function of genetic expression. As long as this difference exists, people can point to whites and claim privilege. As whites become a minority, the logical conclusion to eliminating white privilege becomes eliminating whites by force.
It is shocking to me that the ADL promotes WP literature through one if its programs, given the recent history of antisemitism. Things are not looking good for humanity.
That’s not quite on point. Their definition of white privilege is that even a poor white guy would still be better off than a poor non-white guy because society helps/pities them more, or something.
Not sure how true this is, but I personally don’t feel like anyone’s holding out on me.
Not sure? Even with all the above listed fallacies in this ‘white privilege’ line of ‘thinking’ — even with the fact that there is no white privilege currently and indeed no longer even attempts at ‘equality’ (moreso ‘positive discrimination’) — even with all that set aside – the fact remains that why in hell should white men not expect a little privilege in societies, countries, institutions and civilizations that THEY created?
Well, as a white guy, your father was able to take advantage of the GI bill. most blacks were unable to be accepted into college on a widespread basis until well into the lste 60’s/70’s. the same goes for housing and VA loans. Look up redlining.
Critical Race Theory:
1.) If your White male ancestors succeeded, you have no business taking credit for it. If your White male ancestors swindled someone, that’s still your fault.
2.) If you’re a woman or a minority, just do whatever you want. If you screw up, it’s someone else’s fault.
Congratulations. You’re qualified to teach CRT.
Lol. Dead-on my friend.
The interesting thing is that this is a self-defeating mentality.
You can’t succeed when you’re too busy decrying others’ success and ignoring your own. These people are what are more commonly called “haters”; instead of focusing on themselves, they focus on others, and go nowhere.
Meanwhile, so long as you can shake them haters off and not become bitter and spend all your time trying to judge them back, you get to focus on your own climb to success and ignore those who prefer moaning and complaining to working and building.
While agreeing with your overall sentiments, I feel (somewhat) obliged to question the usage of the word “haters” – it seems to me, judging from its usage, (and the frequency thereof), it is more likely to be applied TO those who identify the group you have classified as haters, and BY said haters……then again, this is what they do, accuse others of the very actions they themselves are guilty of.
The ‘Best Defense’ syndrome, I guess.
What you guys are writing about is just another gift from Europes leftist intellectuals to America. Europe – the continent that keeps on giving…
Being anti-racism, anti-fascism and inequality has nothing to do with communism, feminism and homosexuality. I am a briton of South Asian descent and have nothing against ‘white’ guys so long the latter do not feel entitled in abusing their power. Let’s not forget that it is usually Western right-wingers who instigate one illegal war after another. Israel’s best friends are ‘white’ right-wingers exclusively in the Western world. Humour is good as long it does not come at the expense of the truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Palestine_recognition_only.svg
Not 1 so-called ‘Marxist’ country supports Israel but most ‘white’ countries do.
News flash: the US is israel’s top donor/host but is far from a “White” country or even moderately Right Wing.
Fuck off muslim trash, no one wants you in Europe.
I must have touched a nerve!
‘White’ men, who actually belong in Britain, do not give a rat’s ass whether you think we’re abusing our power.
‘White’ men may belong in Britain. However, they do not belong in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other lands they have illegally stolen. Therefore the only good ‘white’ soldier operating in non-white land is a dead one. Israel did 9/11 and no ‘white’ guy has the balls to admit it whereas a small black child can.
It figures that you’re a Troofer. SMH. Just another muz who hates the white man but insists on living in his country. Why don’t you go help your Muslim brothers in AfPak to kill the white soldier, big boy?
Because ‘white’ guys are poor soldiers anyway. Vietnam is a good case in point.
Now you’re just silly. Goodbye troll.
“Therefore the only good ‘white’ soldier operating in non-white land is a dead one”
You choose a strange place of residence to be so openly, murderously hostile to whites. You’re either with us or against us. Why live amongst us? However, your sentiment is no surprise. I assume that you felt vindication in the Rigby murder, similar to the Muslims who were cheering in Europe after 9/11/.
You’re a South-Asian living in Britain. Being a “Briton” is a racial category (no matter what administrative law says otherwise), as is being “South Asian”, which is obvious by the fact that you still identify as “South Asian”. You can’t keep one identity and simultaneously strip another people of their own.
“Being anti-racism, anti-fascism and inequality has nothing to do with communism, feminism…”
It has everything to do with it. Read a book.
I went to Howard University and spent a lot of my time trying to explain to my brothers that you cannot expect anyone to give you anything you don’t earn. Wasting your time concerned about the privilege of others is time wasted that you could be improving yourself. Critical Race Theory is a waste of time.
LoL. Naygers is naygers.
Someone asked here what they study in “women studies” courses.I always wanted to know it too…
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cws/researchst/index.htm
This is what they spend the taxpayers money on:
-Women Heavy Metal Fans: Representations of Fandom and Community
-Women’s Friendships
-Hypersexualisation and Raunch Culture
-Women Exploring Sexuality through Photography and Visual Representation (!!! for a fucks sake)
-Feminist Blogs
-Generational perceptions of menstruation and menopause
-Integration of Refugees
-Sexing the Body
…
If real discussions on race is what youre after, then look to people whose theories are considered “racist”. If some bleating liberal isnt referring to at least part of the theory as “racist”, then I can guarantee that it does not accurately reflect reality. Reality is never all positive, and liberals are constitutionally incapable of accepting any theory which paints any minority group in a less than 100% positive light. So a liberals brand of raciss is a good indicator that a particular theory might merit further investigation.
Consequently, you will not see real discussions about race anywhere in “polite” society.
CRT basically sounds like self serving bullshit, which is precisely what I would expect of any racial theory that receives support from members of a minority who consider themselves “victims”. Saying that all viewpoints are equally valid is an offense against reason and logic, and effectively protects these people from having to go to the effort of ensuring that their theories are supported by the available evidence. They basically cant be wrong with this system, and that should tell you something…
Hey Big Fella, do go all ‘logical’ on everybody. Truth-telling is not going to help you score with the ladies. Better to cower in white-guilt and shame to better your obvious sense of superiority. Repeat this mantra: “White bad.. truth bad.”
Yes, it is necessary to pick your audience if you are going to be talking about subjects that are not PC. Actually, “know your audience” applies whatever subject you are talking about.
I do avoid talking about this with women – its wasted on most of them. Im not trying to pick up women here though…
it’s all a way for the peasants to better themselves without feeling guilty about how shitty they are
Is every article here homophobic?
Yes. This article is terribly afraid it might be gay.
However: The advantage to Critical Theory is that it provides a means to, well, criticize. So, while utterly and often hilariously lacking as logic-based disciplines, Feminist and Racial Critical theory actually serve a valuable purpose in legitimizing academic critique of the status quo And you don’t have to be a Communist to realize that the system is majorly fucked up: no matter what your political beliefs, I can’t imagine there’s a whole lot of you that wholeheartedly approve of what’s going on (some easy pickings: NSA Spying, the total failure to change or punish the banking system, doubling down on pointless wars, etc.). So, maybe instead of hating on them; and instead of voicing your opinions in the relative echo chamber of the blogosphere, you should emulate: those of you who are so inclined should try to establish a libertarian or male or whatever voice within academia. It’s a tough road to hoe given the current climate, but if you establish your credentials – especially if you start off in a legitimate field (as Chomsky did in linguistics) it can be hard to knock you. (Yeah, I know, I’ve thought about doing it myself… maybe in a year or two, I have some other shit to do first).
Modern liberal arts programs promote a mental health perspective that is the opposite of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – literally creating mental illness. Next time you hear a brother shitlord say liberalism is a mental illness, today they are factually correct.