A politically-correct social media community I am a member of summarized the goals of Critical Race Theory as follows:
"1) History needs to be taught as completely as possible, including the ugly elements.
2) Recognition that it is impossible to surgically separate today's society from the past.
3) Examine the issue of today's people's personal responsibility for the status quo."
Couched in these terms, Critical Race Theory is a most noble and edifying educational and intellectual endeavor.
But let us not be deceived by appearances. Let us dig deeper point by point:
"1) History needs to be taught as completely as possible, including the ugly elements."
Does this mean that only black and Native American slave ownership in the antebellum South will be taught? Or will children also learn that slavery was endemic to Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans and that it was abolished by Europeans - although it still exists in some parts of Africa and the Muslim world? Probably not, since such "ugly elements" would hurt the sensitivities of minority students.
So what does this point in practice mean? Ít means that all ugly elements of white Christian culture will be highlighted to make sure that only white Americans feel ashamed of their history.
"2) Recognition that it is impossible to surgically separate today's society from the past."
I thought that history as a discipline has taught this since the days of Herodotus. So why does this point need to be spelled out? Because what it actually says is that schools should teach that contemporary problems are rooted in the past.
In other words, if black gangster rappers are killed in drive-by shootings today, the cause is no longer that they freely choose to lead lives of violence and crime, but because their great-great-great-great grandfathers were mistreated as slaves.
Of course, there are valid reasons to argue that certain patterns formed in the past still subsist in the present. However, the goal of Critical Race Theory is not to discuss the role of the past in the present, but to convince our children that all problems affecting non-whites are rooted in past (and present) oppression while all advantages of whites are rooted in past (and present) supremacy.
That the past is not a perpetual curse is proven by the fact that the descendants of Asian coolies and millions of other non-whites have successfully overcome their initial social, legal and economic handicaps in America. However, Critical Race Theory will ignore their achievements, since they undermine the woke narrative that Critical Race Theory is designed to undergird.
3) Examine the issue of today's people's personal responsibility for the status quo.
This is the point I love most! Does this mean children will be taught to be studious, conscientious and to take responsibility for their lives and their future?! Critical Race theorists argue that doing so constitutes subordination to dominant white values (sic)... So what does this beautiful sentence actually mean?
It means that white children will be taught to see themselves as oppressors due to the real (and alleged) crimes of their ancestors and minority children will be taught that whites have an inextinguishable debt in their regard. Regardless of affirmative action, quotas, reparations and so forth no amount of contemporary white penance will atone for the crimes whites have committed against minorities.
The fact that most whites in America have ancestors who arrived after the Civil War is irrelevant. Just like in tribal systems, guilt and responsibility no longer attach to individuals or even to interrelated communities, but to races in their entirety. In other words, a Jew who arrived penniless in America after the Holocaust is just as responsible for the crimes of plantation owners in the first half of the 19th century as any contemporary white supremacist in the South.
I tremble at the thought that this garbage will be taught to American children.
I tremble not because I think it will empower blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans, but because the opposite is true.
The backlash against this race-driven folly will be so strong and so violent as to undo the progress in race relations since the Civil Rights movement. In other words, Critical Race Theory is a movement that foments racism and vows to tear America apart.
Rafael Castro is a Colombian-Italian Noahide who graduated from Yale and Hebrew University and who can be reached at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com
Rafael Castro