The critical theory of race, the ideology that is poisoning America (and the West)
In a recent tweet, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that the so-called Critical Race Theory "is part of the radical left's attempt to inject socialism into every aspect of our lives and indoctrinate the next. generation of Americans ”. Pompeo's alarm ends with an exhortation that portends a rather bleak future: "We cannot allow our military leaders to be subjected to an un-American curriculum". non-American).
The national debate on CRT has only recently opened with great fanfare, although in America it is an academic concept that has its roots in the 60s and 70s and officially saw the light in 1989. The topic exploded in ' public arena this spring, especially in education – in the preschool-to-secondary school segment, or K-12, as it is defined in the US education system – as numerous state legislations have passed or are planning laws that intend to ban application / classroom teaching of the theory itself.
Relegated for many years to universities and obscure academic journals, in the last decade the CRT has practically become the new American institutional orthodoxy, that is, the default ideology in the country's public institutions. The central idea is that racism is a social construct and that it is not simply the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. For greater precision you can also see the definition that can be read on the Encyclopædia Britannica website:
Intellectual movement and legal analysis structure not very well organized and based on the premise that race is not a natural and biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings, but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color. Critical race theorists argue that law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist to the extent that they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and non-whites, especially African Americans.
The conservative organization Heritage Foundation probably started the dance by blaming the CRT for fostering the emergence of often violent protest movements, such as Black Lives Matter , or the limitations of free speech and debate on university campuses. "When its logic is fully applied, the CRT is destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which our constitutional republic is based," the organization said. "The critical theory of race", explains the Foundation on the first page of the section of its website dedicated to the topic, "makes race the prism through which its supporters analyze all aspects of American life, classifying individuals into groups of oppressors and victims. It is a philosophy that is infecting everything from politics to education, to the workplace and the military ”. Consistent with these heavy charges, laws banning CRT in schools were passed in mid-May in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee, while similar laws are in the works in other states.
A few examples of critical race theory in action (among those reported by Christopher F. Rufo in the New York Post in July 2020 and last May ): 1) the Department of Homeland Security tells white employees that they commit "micro iniquity" and that they are permanently "socialized" in the role of "oppressors"; 2) the Treasury Department holds a training session in which it tells staff members that "virtually all whites contribute to racism" and that they must convert everyone in the federal government to the ideology of anti-racism; 3) Sandia National Laboratories , who design the American nuclear arsenal, send white male executives to a three-day re-education camp where they are told that "white male culture" is analogous to KKK, white supremacists and, listen listen, to mass killings (executives are therefore forced to give up their "white male privilege" and write apologetic letters to fictitious women and people of color); 4) In Cupertino, California, an elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and to rank themselves according to their "power and privilege"; 5) in Springfield, Montana, a middle school has seen fit to force teachers to place themselves in a "matrix of oppression" based on the idea that straight, white, Christian, and English-speaking males are members of the oppressor class and they must atone for their privilege and "hidden white supremacy"; 6) in Philadelphia, an elementary school forced fifth-graders to celebrate Black Communism and simulate a Black Power rally to free 1960s radical Angela Davis from the prison where she was once held on charges of murder; 7) in Seattle, the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of "spiritual murder" against black children and must scrap their privilege "in recognition of the inheritance stolen from the latter." Could it be enough to convey the idea? “I'm just an investigative reporter,” writes Rufus, “but I've developed a database of over 1,000 of these stories. When I say that critical race theory is becoming the operational ideology of our public institutions, I am not exaggerating: from universities to bureaucracies to K-12 school systems, critical race theory has permeated collective intelligence and government decision making. American, with no signs of slowing down ”.
Another emblematic episode, reported among others by the National Review for the pen of Charles CW Cooke. A fortnight ago, actor Tom Hanks wrote for the New York Times a piece about the 1921 Tulsa massacre, when a mob of white people attacked the people and property of the African American community, resulting in many casualties, several hundred. hospitalized, several thousand blacks with their homes destroyed and damages for the equivalent of more than 30 million dollars today. “Throughout my study,” Hanks admitted, “I've never read a page in any school history book about how, in 1921, a mob of whites burned down a place called Black Wall Street , killed up to 300 of its own. black citizens and displaced thousands of black Americans living in Tulsa, Oklahoma ”. This, Hanks wrote, was perhaps due to the fact that "history was written primarily by whites on whites like myself, while the history of blacks – including the horrors of Tulsa – was too often overlooked." In response, NPR (National Public Radio) television critic Eric Deggan explained that what Hanks wrote in the NYT "was not enough." "Tom Hanks," admitted Deggans, "is a non-racist." But, he added, "it's time for it to be anti-racist." Yes, because there is a difference between being non-racist and being anti-racist. "Anti-racism", Deggans specified, "implies action: looking around in one's universe and taking specific measures to dismantle systemic racism". And if Hanks' words are "cute", we must not forget that ours "has built a considerable part of his career on stories of white American men doing the right thing." "If he really wants to make a difference," concluded Deggans, Hanks, as well as all the other stars, "has to talk specifically about how his work has contributed to these problems and how he intends to change things." We can swear that even if Tom Hanks decided to follow Deggans' instructions to the letter, the popular actor would still be found guilty of something …
What to say? Fortunately, this ideological madness and the excesses to which it induces its followers has ended up making some blacks sick as well as many whites. Also the New York Post has revived a video published on TikTok in which a black father and his daughter speak out against the critical theory of race. The video quickly went viral. “It doesn't matter if you're black or white or any color,” says the little girl. "The way we treat people is based on who they are and not what color they are," notes her dad, and the little girl adds, "and if they are nice and smart." “This is the way children think here,” the father comments, and concludes: “The critical theory of race wants to put an end to all of this. Not with my kids, it won't happen. We need to stop the CRT. Point. Children do not see the color of the skin. They love everyone. " The video has garnered 26,000 views since it was posted on TikTok on May 19, but garnered 1.6 million views on Twitter when it was shared by Republican congressman Robby Starbuck.
The exaggerations and manic Manichaeism of those like Deggans have gone so far that now the left, after trying to exploit (last summer) the enthusiasm aroused by the Black Lives Matter movement in order to carry on its idea of anti – racism and the critical theory of race itself, is frantically trying to redefine the terms of the debate, since the whole issue is backfiring against its promoters. Liberals are now beginning to distance themselves from the pasdaran of anti-racism and hypocritically deny that CRT is taught, overtly or covertly, in K-12 schools, even though, as we have seen, there are clear examples that contradict them. . And for that matter, the New York Times only published a piece three weeks ago stating that critical race theory is a " framework that has found its way into public K-12 education."
This does not, in fact, mean that there is a certain turning point in the air, as Zachary Faria points out in the Washington Examiner of 16 June. Which means that the push against these toxic ideas, both from concerned parents at local school board meetings, and from governments in various republican-led states, is working. The truth is that they are losing the battle to indoctrinate young Americans with their toxic and divisive racial obsession. That things are probably moving in the right direction is proof of what Victor Davis Hanson wrote in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on June 12: “Although this elite left revolution is more dangerous than its sloppy 1960s predecessor, it is also more vulnerable, given its hateful and heavy machinery, but only if the proverbial 'people' finally say to its madness: 'When it is too much is too much'. " In short, the time has come to say enough is enough.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/rubriche/la-teoria-critica-della-razza-lideologia-che-sta-intossicando-lamerica-e-loccidente/ on Wed, 23 Jun 2021 03:58:00 +0000.