Critical Race Theory--How Should We Respond?

 

A part of our problem is not being able to agree on what Critical Race Theory really is, what it means and how we should respond to it. But it clearly isn't going away.

In the academic and scientific community a theory isn't a set of indisputable conclusions, but a framework for questions that invite further study and research. 

As I understand it, one of the primary hypotheses of CRT is that racism isn't simply a matter of individuals deliberately choosing to be racist or biased but that racial disparities are perpetuated by systemic factors embedded in our cultural and legal systems. In lay terms it means racism continues to inflict harm by our just seeing, doing and believing what we've come to see as just normal and what pretty much everyone else is seeing, doing and believing.

And what many Americans believe is that racism is behind us and that we've finally achieved "liberty and justice for all." Therefore we should stop talking about race altogether and just move on.

But if CRT is a framework for research and inquiry into such assumptions, here are some of the questions for which we might seek more definitive answers.

1. Did race have any bearing on those in power originally choosing who was, and who was not, shackled and shipped abroad in inhumane slave ships? And how are descendants of that forced migration still affected?

2. Did race have anything to do with who was forced to do grueling work at no pay for generations in this country, and how has that impacted the descendants of such a slavery-based society?

3. Did race play any part in determining who enjoyed full civil rights, equal educational opportunities and full participation in the economic and political life in the US during the past centuries? And are there still lingering effects of these past discriminations? 

4. How did race and skin color determine who, and whose lives and property, became targets in the 1921 Tulsa destruction and massacre, and who were victims of multiple lynchings and other crimes before and after that terrible event? What reparations are owed the descendants of such travesties?

5. If racism is something we can simply relegate to past history, and if we can now consider ourselves so colorblind that we can just move on and leave the past behind us, how many of us white Americans would now be ready to change places with people of color in our nation?  

Feel free to add your own comments or questions.