MAGA Republicans promote banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. Currently, there are 16 states where such legislation has passed. Here are links to two articles – one by Forbes explaining what laws have been passed in which states and one by Brooking Institute explaining what CRT actually is: https://www.forbes.com/…/teacher-anti-crt-bills-coast…/ and https://www.brookings.edu/…/why-are-states-banning…/
Democrats/Progressives are in favor of teaching about the history of racism in our schools. The post from Ken Burns I provided earlier explains why as well as anything I have read.
I have written five discourses on the topic of racism. They are a distillation of what I’ve learned over the past two years about the history of racism in America – these discourses are what I consider CRT to be and what I believe should be taught in the schools.
Let me summarize the key points:
I. Human beings are naturally selfish and tribal creatures. It is normal and natural for a people group that can obtain power and wealth over other people groups to use whatever means available to maintain dominance over other people groups. If there are distinguishing physical features of the dominant group that distinguishes it from the subjugated group, this greatly enhances the dominant group’s ability to subjugate them. Skin color provides an ideal way to discriminate between the groups and was the defining characteristic in North America between the dominant and subjugated people groups. People with white skins were dominant. Those with red, brown, or black skin were subordinate. (Whether God intended it to be this way is open to debate.) The slave owners of the day were not bad or evil. They were simply men being human.
II. The Core Creed of the newly formed nation of the United States of America was “All men are created equal.” This was an ideal and by no means a reality. The person who coined those words – Thomas Jefferson – did not believe them to be true nor did the first chief magistrate of our nation, George Washington. And yet, they and the other Founders set this as a goal that they hoped would be achieved as the USA became “a more perfect union.”
III. Relative to where we were during colonial and Ante-Bellum days when human beings with black skin were born into bondage, our society has made tremendous progress toward achieving our Core Creed. When I contrast the experience of going to a movie or a restaurant today to what it was like in the 1960s, the improvement is remarkable. We have truly made a lot of progress. Those who fret that we are a racist society today need to appreciate how far we have come in the past half century.
IV. We need to pause and recognize how powerful and current racism is in our society. During the lifetime of some people alive today and certainly of many of their children, the law of the land was that only “white people” were fully Americans. Our Supreme Court ruled several times that people from outside Western Europe could not immigrate to America and become citizens because they were not “white”.
V. When we step back and really look at it, we find that the English colonies and later the United States designed and created a caste system. This caste system was quite lucrative for the dominant (white) class. It was imposed for over 300 years and was not repealed until the mid-1960’s with the passage of the Civil Rights laws.
VI. People in the United States have paid huge prices to move us away from the caste system to where we are today where there is substantially more equality between the races than there has been in the past.
VII. And yet, as the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrates, we still have a long way to go before we get to a point where we truly exist as a society where most citizens accept that “all men are created equal” and people are judged on “the content of their character and not the color of their skin.”
So, the question is, what, if anything should we as a society do to move us farther further toward the realization of our Core Creed?
The MAGA Republican say we should do nothing. We have come far enough (if not too far). The Progressives say we should teach our citizens about the history of racism in America so that most citizens understand how we got to where we are today.
Now, search as I may, alas, I could not find any scripture in the NT where Jesus says, “Teach Critical Race Theory”. So, we are left to interpolate. Jesus commanded us to love other people and to treat them as we want be treated. Any mindful adult has learned through personal experience that the only way you can love someone is to get to know them. From there I can only infer that if those of us who have heretofore been the dominant race are to truly love those from in the formerly subjugated race, then we need to know and understand their story. Critical Race Theory, properly defined and taught, is their story.
Progressives want to teach CRT. MAGA Republicans want to pass laws to ban teaching it. I submit that the Progressives’ perspective is more in line with Jesus’ teachings than is the MAGAs
Relevant Comments
Stewart JuneauI agree wholeheartedly with you David. We need to keep moving toward the light of true equality for all. Only then will we be one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all! 
Alice DevallI am reading the book “Cokie: A Life Well Lived.” by her husband Steven Roberts. I greatly appreciated her strong stand that political figures should have demonstrate strong morals. And when they didn’t, regardless of whether they were democrats or republicans…she called them to tasks!
Thank you…I certainly appreciate your thoughtful, well written efforts on FB.
Don WhiteCritical Race Theoryhttps://www.americanbar.org/…/a-lesson-on-critical…/
AMERICANBAR.ORGA Lesson on Critical Race TheoryA Lesson on Critical Race Theory
I am going back an looking over these posts. The single most insightful one from my perspective is this post by Don White where he provides a link to “A Lesson on Critical Race Theory.” That article does a marvelous job of explaining what CRT is and is not. If all Americans understood CRT as described in that article, one of American society’s biggest challenges would be greatly mitigated.
David, it is not dissimilar to seeking to understand other old documents by seeking to understand the historical and cultural context.
Thank you David for another thoughtful article. Our not teaching CRT is like Germany not teaching about Hitler and what took place under his leadership in WWII. Refusing to teach real history is not only stupid, it is dangerous.
CRT advocates are generally opposed to meritocracy and the idea of color-blind policies. These notions explain much of the opposition. In the upcoming Supreme Court term, I expect the court to issue a ruling in the case of Asian Americans accusing Harvard of illegal discrimination in their admissions policies. I think that the Court will ban all consideration of race in college admissions. And as a relative of Asian Americans, I welcome such a decision.
Mark, The Asians were not enslaved and were not subject to Jim Crow laws. While the Asians were treated abysmally in the 20th century and were discriminated against, even by the Supreme Court because they were not “white”, they were never placed into a rigid caste system so as to allow the dominant (white) caste, to control the subordinate (black) caste’s very being and thereby enable the the dominant caste to enrich itself by enslaving the subordinate class. Its apples and oranges.
Dennis LegerThis is probably a discussion I am best staying out of. On similar previous blogs regarding equality/inequality and racism in America, I have posted questions multiple times that nobody is willing to answer; will not post them again at this time. That is because those questions makes them uncomfortable; they are intelligent enough to know that they cannot come with any good answers to such questions, while keeping their narrative intact. As a bonus, I researched some of the most “woke” major corporations in America. Performance of their stock was down two, three, or even four times more that the DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE. I am cheering them on to ride that wave of “wokeness” right into bankruptcy court.
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