Critical race theory

[sophie]

Can someone sum up what CRT is?
From the wiki page I gathered that it is focused on white skin being a property, and consequently that any perks from owning it should be modulated. If so (and I am not sure I got it right, although that specific claim is part of the article), how can one hope to maintain a balance without perpetual systemic modulation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

From Lexi's post 5 pages ago. It'd be nice if people would actually, y'know, engage with the material rather than making **** up to get mad about.

You know it only takes like 50 seconds to google the Encyclopedia Britannica definition of critical race theory and realize that this is a lie.
Here is the beginning of that definition:

Critical race theory (CRT), intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, 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 colour. Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

So I am curious as to who in this thread disagrees with the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings.

Here is a further quote from the EB article:

In their work Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, first published in 2001, the legal scholars Richard Delgado (one of the founders of CRT) and Jean Stefancic discuss several general propositions that they claim would be accepted by many critical race theorists, despite the considerable variation of belief among members of the movement. These “basic tenets” of CRT, according to the authors, include the following claims:
(1) Race is socially constructed, not biologically natural.
(2) Racism in the United States is normal, not aberrational: it is the common, ordinary experience of most people of colour.
(3) Owing to what critical race theorists call “interest convergence” or “material determinism,” legal advances (or setbacks) for people of colour tend to serve the interests of dominant white groups. Thus, the racial hierarchy that characterizes American society may be unaffected or even reinforced by ostensible improvements in the legal status of oppressed or exploited people.
(4) Members of minority groups periodically undergo “differential racialization,” or the attribution to them of varying sets of negative stereotypes, again depending on the needs or interests of whites.
(5) According to the thesis of “intersectionality” or “antiessentialism,” no individual can be adequately identified by membership in a single group. An African American person, for example, may also identify as a woman, a lesbian, a feminist, a Christian, and so on.
Finally, (6) the “voice of colour” thesis holds that people of colour are uniquely qualified to speak on behalf of other members of their group (or groups) regarding the forms and effects of racism.

The only one of these points I would dispute is (6) and that only partially. I also might partially dispute (3) but to a lesser extent.

 

[Joij21]

So race doesn't exist is what CRT is all about?

 

[sophie]

So race doesn't exist is what CRT is all about?

Where does it say in that list that race doesn't exist? Show me.

 

[Joij21]

Where does it say in that list that race doesn't exist? Show me.

Race is a social construct right?

 

[sophie]

Race is a social construct right?

Mmm seems to me like you're making a category mistake.

Money is a social construct. America is a social construct. The law is a social construct. Without their socially constructed nature they would just be, respectively: random bits of paper, arbitrary bits of land, and meaningless words on some old parchment. Does that mean you can walk into a store and take a bunch of **** and walk out without paying for it? Laws and money don't exist, right?

 

[Senethro]

Race may not be real but racism is, and victims of racism (especially racism by the state) should be compensated.

 

[Joij21]

should be compensated.

By who?

Does that mean you can walk into a store and take a bunch of **** and walk out without paying for it?

I thought you were a Marxist? What does money even mean to someone like you? Moderator Action: Let's go down that path please. --Birdjaguar

 

[sophie]

Race may not be real but racism is, and victims of racism (especially racism by the state) should be compensated.

You're committing the same category mistake. Race is real. It just isn't real in the sense that it represents some profound, transcendent, metaphysical essential Truth. It's social and cultural categories we've built up and assigned to certain geo-historical and cultural groups due to historical, cultural, and geographic factors. They're boxes we've drawn around things and assigned social meaning or importance to. Much like language: the meaning and grammar of a language are socially constructed, that doesn't mean "English" isn't real or that you can go around making up your own words and feel justified in getting mad when people don't know what they mean.

I thought you were a Marxist? What does money even mean to someone like you?

Great reading comprehension. I can really tell you're paying attention and are critically engaging with the words I'm writing. You get a gold star.

 

[Farm Boy]

Money is a construct, so no matter what happens whether you feel like you've lost something or not is up to you

Yeah, but that gets unpopular quick in a political football thread. See, taxes just destroy money, if they're federal, we're clever enough to know. New taxes don't target earnings up to 400,000 per annum. That's a person making in their 30s the accumulated savings of now partially four generations. Driving around in a bigger pickup to the pool than gets used to haul fertilizers. But it's open season on wealth. So let's bulldoze and flat remove the nesting pastures and root barriers carefully retained. Scrape off the feet of organics prevented eroded, and build a McHouse with a McDeveloper because McSprawl isn't the problem under our new political environmentalism, that's growth which enables neat toys that are goodness and science and !mine!

 

[Yeekim]

@Joij21 There are black people and white people, usually from different ethnic groups, with objective (not socially constructed) biological differences.
There are black dogs and white dogs, sometimes from different breeds, with objective (not socially constructed) biological differences.
However, there are no biological races among humans. Nor among dogs.

Afaik, owing to complexities of human evolution, subSaharan Africa has greater genetic diversity than rest of the world combined. Consequently, two random black people don't necessarily have any greater genetic affinity between each other than they would have with a random white person.

Skin color is just one superficial characteristic which also changes quite fast (in evolutionary terms). For instance, afaik inhabitants of British Isles used to be black just a couple ten thousand years ago.

At least this is my layman's understanding.

 

[Farm Boy]

You're committing the same category mistake. Race is real. It just isn't real in the sense that it represents some profound, transcendent, metaphysical essential Truth. It's social and cultural categories we've built up and assigned to certain geo-historical and cultural groups due to historical, cultural, and geographic factors. They're boxes we've drawn around things and assigned social meaning or importance to. Much like language: the meaning and grammar of a language are socially constructed, that doesn't mean "English" isn't real or that you can go around making up your own words and feel justified in getting mad when people don't know what they mean.

You all are fighting over whether or not ideas are real?



...Well, not fite me fight, but you know.

 

[Kyriakos]

I generally agree with Yeekim (being also a layman, not a biologist). One has to suppose that some biological differences are existent in peoples of different ethnic groups (race being sensed, it seems, as often arbitrary or basic groupings of such ethnicities). Of course those differences aren't of a type which can justify any belief in superiority of one race over another; if this was so, you wouldn't have the majority of any ethnicity being lowly.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It seems to me that CRT is trying to build an "academic" foundation for the idea that white oppression of non whites in the US is "baked into" US culture.

 

[Lexicus]

What's your take on "ethnicity"? This area of debate if loaded with tricky concepts

Ethnicity and race are distinct concepts although the socially constructed nature of race means that different ethnic groups can fall into different racial categories depending on the fashions of the time. There was a time when most European or American people would have said of course Italians are of a different race than Germans, though not so many people believe things like that anymore.


A crucial difference between race and ethnicity is that while ethnicity has a life of its own (being based on things like language and religion) race is generally imposed on the non-dominant group by outside forces (which is why we talk about "racialization" in this context but have no equivalent concept for ethnicity).

 

[eyrei]

It seems to me that CRT is trying to build an "academic" foundation for the idea that white oppression of non whites in the US is "baked into" US culture.

Yep. And it is partially correct in that assertion. However, one of the very valid criticisms of this theory is that it is too US-centric while claiming to apply to all humans and all societies.

 

[Joij21]

@Joij21 There are black people and white people, usually from different ethnic groups, with objective (not socially constructed) biological differences.
There are black dogs and white dogs, sometimes from different breeds, with objective (not socially constructed) biological differences.
However, there are no biological races among humans. Nor among dogs.

Afaik, owing to complexities of human evolution, subSaharan Africa has greater genetic diversity than rest of the world combined. Consequently, two random black people don't necessarily have any greater genetic affinity between each other than they would have with a random white person.

Skin color is just one superficial characteristic which also changes quite fast (in evolutionary terms). For instance, afaik inhabitants of British Isles used to be black just a couple ten thousand years ago.

At least this is my layman's understanding.

All I'm saying is why do we even still use race as a concept when it just causes racism? We would have solved racism if we got rid of race as a social concept, and for a second I thought this thread was close to achieving that. Unfortunately it seems humanity's natural impulse for unnecessary conflict has prevailed.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's fair to say that it causes problems. And there would be two comebacks, "they started it" would be one. The 2nd is that racist tendencies when coupled with legal power can create permanent effects that can only begin to be unravelled once the racism is identified.

For example, if your parents were arrested for marijuana possession and your school was defunded because of lower property values ... there's no way you're not still affected by the chains placed around other people's necks. This is compounded if someone else profited from the injustice.

There's a fable that I've not yet figured out how to compress

I mugged someone on the way to the dentist and stole their $1000 they were going to use to replace a tooth. By the time they were next able to afford treatment, the cavity had worsened into a $2000 problem.

Meanwhile, I took their $1k and invested it at average levels of success and now I have $1.1k. Is there any reasonable world where I 'earned' that $100?

 

[Yeekim]

permanent effects that can only begin to be unravelled once the racism is identified.

I've seen it frequently claimed, but nevet really proven. I'm also reluctant to buy it, since if it were so, US would be caught in eternal loop 22.

 

[Estebonrober]

Whats the obsession with CRT as an applicable scientific theory? Its a social theory whose premises may have insights on motivations in US society at present. I'm not reading much about it being applied outside the US, but its a US grown thing so. . . (Also the US is pretty unique in its social structure). Also I'm still not clear what the hub bub about this is anyways? Other then right wing propaganda outfits who is spending time getting worked up about this one way or another? A social outlook like this can't be taught as fact in any setting without debate and contestation, just like any other social theory imo.

 

[Ajidica]

I had this discussion elsewhere, but thought I might as well note it here.

My problem with CRT is that it takes a -let us say contentious- view on white-black dynamics in the United States, and then presents itself as universal theory to not just racial dynamics worldwide, but as a framework for all forms of oppression.
Some of its positions make complete sense, but others, not so much.