Critical race cult
Atheory is supposed to be a system of ideas intended to explain something, based on general principles and evidence independent of the thing to be explained. But the first thing you notice in researching critical race theory (CRT) is that almost every stated definition by various information authorities refers to it as something other than a theory.
CRT is defined as a “framework” (Oxford Research Encyclopedia), a “movement” (First Amendment Encyclopedia and Wikipedia) and an “interpretive mode” (Purdue University writing lab). The person who coined the CRT phrase has called it a verb, not a noun, and refers to it as a “practice.”
Well, if it’s not a theory—and it fails to rise to a scientific-study level on par with real theories—then, readers may wonder: Why is it called that?
The modern political-social policy vogue is to give things names that label rather than define. Critical race theory sounds a lot better than, say, critical race scheme or critical race propaganda or critical race rant.
The most accurate word substitution, however, might be critical race cult.
A cult is a system of veneration and devotion directed toward a particular object, belief or person. Its main characteristics include total submission to approved thinking (independent thought is not allowed), compulsory, unquestioning obedience (even if members disagree with principles) and zero-tolerance disqualification for dissidents (a cancel-culture mindset). Cults typically declare themselves to exclusively possess the “truth,” and bristle at “heretics” who want to see supporting empirical evidence before pledging blind allegiance.
In an exceedingly granular examination of critical race theory in the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Magazine in January, the mumbo-jumbo is heaped on heavy and thick—and with all the lofty language window dressing to suggest bedrock legitimacy and authority.
CRT “cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice,” we’re told in the opening paragraphs. That’s pretty anti-theoretical; real facts and principles are immutable.
But the very next section demonstrates why CRT can never be a real theory. Its four defining “principles” aren’t principles at all, but highly debatable assumptions that CRT cultists want unquestioning obedience to.
1. “Race is not biologically real but socially constructed.” Only a cult would toss biological fact out of its belief system.
2. “Racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions.” Once we start attributing personal emotions or beliefs systematically or institutionally, all statistical data becomes pliable for manipulation.
3. “CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or ‘colorblindness.’” So much for MLK’s brand of equality.
4. CRT embraces “the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and [rejects] deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.” Genuine research findings, based on true evidence and facts, that cults don’t like is always considered deficit-informed.
Practically speaking, what those tenets translate into is a rash of racial-lens ideas that elevate skin color to the forefront of any analysis, and subjugate normally defined impartial words as irreparably biased.
CRT supporters and “scholars” contend that colorblindness, neutrality, objectivity—even blind justice—are all actually racist.
Scholarship that ignores race doesn’t demonstrate neutrality, for example, but instead fortifies existing racial hierarchy. The rule of law itself (and constitutional derivatives such as “one-person, one-vote,”) actually propagates a racially biased pretense of merit and objectivity.
If First Amendment rights, for instance, perpetuate racist footings in society, then those freedoms must be curtailed.
CRT cultists believe this stuff. They literally argue that legal reforms must treat “unconscious practices” with the same weight as intentional ones to remedy problematic racial statuses or stereotypes.
Name a problem—high Black crime rates, low Black test scores, high Black teen pregnancy rates—and the CRT Kool-Aid lays responsibility not on individual choices, decisions and actions but on a white-dominated system that has “race-d” Blacks for failure (yes, that’s “race” as a verb).
Atheorist welcomes tough tests and challenges, because theories must be questioned and proved to find truth. Each critical triumph brings a theory closer to becoming a fact.
But criticism is regarded as kryptonite by a cultist. Dissenting opinions or adversarial assertions, even the very act of questioning the cult’s unassailable assumptions, are unforgivable blasphemies. Critical thinkers and science are part of the problem for cults. And for critical race theory.
The validity of a psychological instrument is determined on whether it accurately measures what it claims to measure. But Implicit Association Tests, hyped in 1998 as a progressive tool to validate CRT’s unconscious racism, have consistently fallen short of scientific standards and failed miserably in predicting discriminatory behavior. Nevertheless, millions of those tests are still being given.
“Doctrine” being the root word of “indoctrination,” the CRT holy grail would be to work its way into school curricula. Last week, Florida’s governor spoke for many when he proposed banning CRT in state schools there.
“Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
I say, let schools teach it. Only not as a theory, but as the unscientific cult that it is.