Equip: CRT

Intro: 3 stories collide

Story #1 Government tags Parents who challenge school boards as Domestic Terrorists

Back in October Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memo to the FBI to use its authority against parents who threaten violence

He did not clarify what he meant by violence

This followed a letter from the National School Board Association asked Garland to get involved with the “Immediate threat” faced by boards and educators from Parents

The board said they were equivalent to domestic terrorism and hate crimes

There was immediate push back from both political parties

At first Garland denied sending the memo but the FOIA act proved that wrong

Then it was found out that the board of the NSBA didn’t authorize the letter but two executives did it at the request of the Biden Administration

Once again the FOIA act showed that emails were sent from the department of Education asking the NSBA to send the email to the Attorney General

What was all the fuss about? CRT

Parents for the last year have been protesting at school boards over the teaching of CRT

Story #2 School Board allows boy to rape 2 girls

On that letter that the NSBA sent to Garland was a list of parents

One of the names was Scott Smith

Smith went to a board meeting because his daughter had been raped in a school bathroom by a boy in a skirt

The school had covered it up and at the board meeting an activist parent confronted him and his wife

When he told her to stop he was grabbed by a police officer from behind and arrested

Turns out the school attempted to cover up the charges and never sent it to the police

They subsequently transferred the student to another school where he did the same thing

It became national news and led to the democratic governor candidate who had a commanding lead in the polls to lose the election

Intersectionality

These stories bring up interesting cases against world belief of Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory

What is it?

How does it function?

How do you respond to it?

Definition:

First, they don’t want to be defined

Second, they will tell you it’s not a real thing

All of societal life is structured along racial power dynamics. Race is a “social construct,” it is not biologically based and exists only in our imagination. Race is America’s original lie that has led to America’s original sin: racism

CRT is correct to note that we do not live in a color-blind or post-racial society, that racial disparities still are enormous, and that racism is still a real problem.

It manifests itself in 3 areas of focus

Systemic Racism

Antiracism

Intersectionality

Other Important Terms

Wokeism: “the act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue”

White Privilege: a set of unearned advantages that whites experience relative to non-whites, by virtue of their skin color

Equity: refers to fairness and justice and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.

History of CRT

3 stages

Early 1990’s Critical Race Theory

The early CRTs were legal scholars working in the field of Critical Legal Studies, which argued that supposedly “neutral” and “objective” legal standards were really mechanisms by which the ruling class concealed its self-interest

Major players in the movement

Ibram Kendi Professor at Boston and author of how to be an Antiracist

Robin DiAngelo author of White Fragility

1950’s Critical Theory

Modern critical theory views reality through the lens of power.

Each individual is seen either as oppressed or as an oppressor, depending on their race, class, gender, sexuality, and a number of other categories.

Oppressed groups are subjugated not by physical force or even overt discrimination, but through the exercise of hegemonic power—the ability of dominant groups to impose their norms, values, and expectations on society as a whole, relegating other groups to subordinate positions.

Also goes as cultural marxism

1850’s Marxism

Karl Marx wrote in Communist Manifesto that there were two categories of people: Oppressed and Oppressors

3 Areas of Focus

Systemic Racism

discrimination or unequal treatment on the basis of membership in a particular ethnic group (typically one that is a minority or marginalized), arising from systems, structures, or expectations that have become established within society or an institution

Can only be addressed through political and economic means

DiAngelo: The “regular American” is worse than the cross-burning Klan member. America is worse today that in the days of Jim Crow, and “white fragility” and all it disguises are to blame.

The true villain is ordinary men and women who live quiet lives

White people commit “microaggressions”, voicing subtle and unintended stereotypes that negatively imply power over ethnic minorities

Think “I don’t see color.”

The only solution is antiracism

Antiracism

A commitment to actively dismantling systems and institutions that produce racism

Because antiracists see racism primarily as a system of racial dominance rather than as personal racial prejudice, they believe that personal rejection of racial prejudice is insufficient to combat racism.

Ibram Kendi: “The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a white ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a “race neutral” one.”

Intersectionality

This term comes from the image of a intersection of two or more roads

It feeds off of the thought that all of these marginalized groups and minorities come together

On the surface, it argues that social oppression does not simply apply to single categories of identity — such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc. — but to all of them in an interlocking system of hierarchy and power.

7 Tenets of CRT

Racism is a normal part of American life, often lacking the ability to be distinctively recognized

Ideas like liberalism, neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy… camouflage [how] racial advantage propels the self-interests, power, and privileges of the dominant group.

CRT gives voice to the unique perspectives and lived experiences of people of color

CRT recognizes interest-convergence, the process whereby the white power structure ‘will tolerate or encourage racial advances for Blacks only when they also promote white self-interests’.

Revisionist History is another tenet of CRT [which] suggests that American history be closely scrutinized and reinterpreted as opposed to being accepted at face value and truth.

CRT also relies on Racial Realists, or individuals who not only recognize race as a social construct, but also realize that ‘racism is a means by which society allocates privilege and status.’

CRT critiques claims that: (a) [colorblindness] will eliminate racism; (b) racism is a matter of individuals, not systems; and (c) one can fight racism without paying attention to sexism, homophobia, economic exploitation, and other forms of oppression or injustice

It’s Application

Schools

1619 project

The ”1619 Project” was an effort to reframe Americans history and the founding of the United States away from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the arrival of the first slave ship on U.S. shores in 1619.

Criticized by History professors at Princeton, Brown, and New York U

Corporations

Coca-cola telling employees to be less white

Fastest growing position is Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Churches

God is a Black Woman by Christena Cleveland

She was at once a rising scholar is Christian academia

She now rejects what she calls the Whitemalegod for the Sacred Black Feminine

“The liberation of all Black women requires the dismantling of all systems of oppression–white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and more”

“more than anything, we must eradicate the transphobia within ourselves and our communities. For if God is a Black woman, then She’s a Black trans woman. Obviously.”

CRT Functions as a World View

It answers our most basic questions:

Who are we?

What is our fundamental problem?

What is the solution to that problem?

What is our primary moral duty?

How should we live?

Compare Biblical Worldviews

Who we are:

According to Christianity:

We are made in the image of a holy, loving, and just God

According to CRT:

Our identity is not found in who we are created to be, but how we relate with other groups as defined by our class, gender, sexual preference, etc

What is wrong with the world?

According to Christianity

Sin against a holy God

According to CRT

Oppression is what is wrong

How can this problem be fixed?

Christianity

Sin is fixed by Jesus taking the punishment for our sins upon Himself, dying the death we deserve, so we could be reconciled to God

How can this problem be fixed?

CRT

Oppression is fixed by activism, raised awareness, and the overthrow of oppressive systems and their power

What is the meaning of life?

Christianity

To glorify God

CRT

To free groups from oppression

How can you engage the culture on this issue?

Watch your language

We need to recognize that the local church is a witness to God’s kingdom.

In a world saturated with evil and divided by enmity, it’s no wonder that critical theory’s promises of justice and inclusion are attractive.

When a church demonstrates true neighbor-love and fellowship across lines of race, class, and gender, it undermines the idea that critical theory is the only path to human flourishing and gives credibility to the charge that critical theory fails to deliver on its promises.

Do Your Research

You fix what you don’t understand

Resources

Fault Lines by Vodie Bauchman

Neil Shenvi Apologetics www.shenviapologetics.com