Making the case against
'critical race theory'
Mackubin Owens
Published in the Providence Journal on June 15, 2021
Mackubin Owens, of Newport, a monthly contributor, is a
senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in
Philadelphia.
The latest battlefield in America’s culture war is “critical
race theory,” a pernicious and reactionary theory that, until
recently, was confined to academia. No longer. CRT now
infects most U.S. institutions, corporations and the
government, including the military.
CRT can be traced to Karl Marx and his epigones,
manifesting itself first as “critical theory,” a Marxist
philosophical framework that rejects the validity of concepts
such as rationality and objective truth. It posits two
categories: oppressed and oppressors. In Marx’s original
formulations, the lens was economic class. The bourgeoisie
was the oppressor class and the proletariat were the
oppressed. CRT substitutes race for class. According to CRT,
the entire system of a society is defined by those who have
power (whites) and those who don’t (people of color).
Several states have now sought to ban the teaching of CRT.
In response, CRT’s advocates make three arguments: first,
CRT is simply a benign academic theory supporting the
latest stage in the struggle for equal civil rights; second,
banning the teaching of CRT is an assault on free speech;
and third, opposing CRT is an attempt to whitewash
American history.
Regarding the first, CRT is fundamentally at odds with the
principles that underpinned all advances in the rights of
Black Americans, from the Civil War constitutional
amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964: that all
Americans should be treated equally, regardless of race,
color, creed, or religion. These are philosophically linked to
the Declaration of Independence, which holds that human
beings are equal in their possession of natural rights and
that, accordingly, no one has the natural right to rule over
another without the latter’s consent.
But CRT attacks the American Founding. Advocates of CRT
do not wish to fulfill the promises of the American Founding,
which they regard as racist. Instead, they want to replace
the principles of the Founding with something radically
different, for instance, replacing such concepts as “equality”
with “equity” and subverting the meaning of “justice.”
Regarding free speech, CRT employs a rhetorical tool
developed by the neo-Marxist philosopher Hebert Marcuse:
“repressive tolerance.” According to Marcuse, to tolerate all
ideas — the essence of reasonable discourse that
traditionally has defined the mission of education — is, in
fact, repressive, since it does not “privilege” the “correct”
ideas. True tolerance, Marcuse argued, “would mean
intolerance against movements from the Right and
toleration of movements from the Left.”
Adopting Marcuse’s “logic,” CRT brooks no dissent. To argue
against CRT is itself fundamentally racist, evidence of the
dissenter’s “white fragility,” “unconscious bias,” or
“internalized white supremacy.” Thus rather offering a
perspective that invites debate, CRT “education” is
essentially ideological indoctrination.
Finally, opponents of CRT do not want to whitewash
American history. But perspective matters. Slavery is
America’s original sin, but when the United States was
founded in 1776, slavery was a worldwide phenomenon.
America’s Founding principles made the abolition of slavery
a moral imperative. Jim Crow was indeed a terrible stain on
America, especially as it was nationalized by Progressives
such as President Woodrow Wilson. The Tulsa Massacre
must never be forgotten.
But CRT ignores what Frederick Douglass said of President
Abraham Lincoln: Most Americans of all races have “risen
above their prejudices,” striving to bring American practice
into accord with American principles regarding justice.
CRT demeans African Americans by stripping them of all
agency, treating them as simply inanimate objects, helpless
victims of impersonal forces. It also essentially absolves
politicians of bad policy.
But in the end, CRT is nothing more than a return to 1850s-
style racism as espoused by John Calhoun and Chief Justice
Roger Taney in his infamous Dred Scott decision. It is
divisive; it fosters racial hatred by trafficking in racial
stereotypes, collective guilt, racial segregation and race-
based harassment. It rejects Martin Luther King’s hope that
we should be judged, not by the color of our skin, but by the
content of our character.
