They tumbled to the ground not unlike so many toothpicks leaned up one against the other. Affirmative Action – the Supreme Court rules that reverse discrimination is real and diversity is only one among many elements that can be considered for college admissions, and reservedly at that. Affordable Housing – while public housing has been systematically dismantled over the past five decades, local governments increasingly subsidize private, for-profit housing that is “affordable” only to those making four and five times the median income of residents living in formerly redlined housing districts. Fair Housing – while local governments subsidize for-profit development and local banks gain CRA (community reinvestment act) credit for furthering gentrification, urban areas continue to experience displacement and homelessness (in compliance with Fair Housing requirements), while suburban areas continue to rely on exclusionary zoning ordinances that preserve the “aesthetic quality” of neighborhoods with multi-acre zoning lots, height and density, along with other, restrictions designed to exclude all but the richest (and most times Whitest) among us. Education – Not much to say here, other than inequality in our schools is about as bad as it has ever been.
These setbacks in policies and programs intended to “level the playing field” did not collapse under their own weight. These “progressive” programs were targeted for sustained social, legislative and judicial attack. Now, it seems, Critical Race Theory is the latest initiative focused on history, racism and inequality that is under attack – and the attacks are certainly sustained and vicious. One consistent theme accuses CRT of being a “post-modern” form of Marxism (see Art Moore article appearing in the April 29, 2021 issue of Freedom First Network). This analogy of post-modernism and Marxism is interesting and confusing. Post-modernism eschews or at least looks suspiciously at Modernist “grand schemes.” Marxism, if nothing else, represents a grand scheme. Notwithstanding that potential contradiction, the comparison of CRT to Marxism is problematic, as well as historically convenient.
In the article referenced above, the author states that “Critical race theory is a postmodern theoretical framework rooted in Marxist principles that views individuals through the lens of the oppressed or the oppressor, based largely on their skin color.” From that point on, the analysis of Marxist traits in CRT ends, replaced by charges of local schools and CRT teachers “indoctrinating” students and vilifying our country’s founders and their democratic ideals. In a more comprehensive article appearing in the Hillsdale College Publication, Imprimis (March 2021, Volume 50) entitled Critical Race Theory; What it is and How to Fight It, Christopher F. Rufo makes the case that, in response to failed communist nations like Soviet Union and China: “rather than abandon their Leftist political project, Marxist scholars in the West simply adapted their revolutionary theory to the social and racial unrest of the 1960s. Abandoning Marx’s economic dialectic of capitalists and workers, they substituted race for class and sought to create a revolutionary coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.” Is there some reasonable basis for this comparison of Marxism and Critical Race Theory or is this just a continuation of the Right claiming that any effort to provide any benefit or relief or honesty to regular people through government action represents socialism? It is reminiscent of Harry S. Truman’s 1952 speech, charging that Republicans used the claim of socialism to undermine progress: “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports, Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance…” His list went on.
Rufo goes on to target left leaning scholars, bureaucrats and teachers, proclaiming that beyond government agencies forcing employees to equate “White male culture” to White supremacy and the KKK, he is critical of schools that, for instance, “forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” He offers a few other examples of what he refers to as indoctrination through the every-growing menace he sees manifested as the new “institutional orthodoxy” in government, schools and corporate human resources departments. His critique reminds me of past charges that groups like Consumers Union, a consumer protection and advocacy organization (necessarily at odds with corporate producers), were “transmission belts for communism.” The fallback rationale is always consistent and based upon a conservative understanding of liberty. For example, just like More’s article in a publication called the Freedman First Network, author, columnist and publisher Larston D. Farrar wrote a 1952 article in the Freeman entitled “Consumers Union: A Red Front.” CLT may well be the most recent form of this country’s obsession with the “Red Menace.”
As mentioned, Rufo’s treatment of the connection between Marxism and CRT is a bit more comprehensive than that of others. Below is a reference he makes to Kendi, and this brings up perhaps one way to compare Critical Race Theory to Marxist thinking. What I am referring to are the two main strands of CRT, as elaborated upon by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (Critical Race Theory). Those two strands are made up of “materialists” who do not see change coming from education or attitudinal changes. Materialists “need to change physical circumstances.” Alternatively, “idealists” seek to bring about change through the institution of “campus codes, tort remedies for racist speech, media stereotypes, diversity seminars, healing circles” and the like.
This dichotomy can be compared to Marxist analysis. Marx obviously appreciated Hegel’s work, particularly his work concerning dialectics. Hegel’s formulation of opposing forces – thesis, anti-thesis – resulting in a synthesis that marked progress leading progressively toward a more perfect reality without having to destroy the basic fabric representing the source of that necessary tension. Hegel’s was a kind of intellectual dialectic that can be compared to the “idealist” camp of the CRT movement. Marx, however, was critical of this idealist form and took the path of Dialectical Materialism, viewing society’s organization of politics, religion, spiritual belief all being derived from economic forces, thus resulting in his belief in Economic Determinism. Combine that with his sense of historical determinism, from primitive communism, to slave society, to Feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and finally to non-state communism, and the result is not an organic transition defining progress, but more a revolutionary transition defining an entirely new economic, and thereby social, religious, political order. This may be how Rufo is viewing at least the “materialist” version of CRT.
But he is wrong. First, he ignores the different approaches to CRT. He also ignores specific prescriptions of CLT theorists like Kendi, who is cast by Rufo as a “materialist.” This is likely based on sentiments expressed in Kendi’s writing, such as “Educational and moral suasion is not only failed strategy. It is a suicidal strategy.” But Kendi’s arguments are more nuanced than that, and (I would say) combine “idealist” (based upon his call for changes in policy) and “materialist” approaches to effectuating anti-racism (such as his calls for racial discrimination programs that are designed to promote equity as opposed to inequity). “Without pain there is no progress.”
Furthermore, CRT is a discipline, a way of viewing the “essentiality” of life’s economic and social circumstances. Throughout Delgado and Stafancic’s book, referenced above, all they seem to be doing is challenging us to consider how platitudes, stated principles and generalities, absent reference to actual living circumstances, resource access, historical bias, “interest convergence,” confirmation bias, quality of education, inter-generational wealth accumulation and more must be taken into account in the application of any resolution geared toward addressing injustice or attempting even to understand reasons behind mass incarceration rates and the disproportionality of police killings of black and brown men and women. CRT critics seem to rely on notions of “color-blindness” and “free markets” as functioning without real world context and without anyone having to take personal responsibility beyond creating, supporting and then preserving color-blind and free market systems and institutions for them to succeed. Color blindness stands for the “content of character” argument, which ignores color, ethnic background, religion, accent, country of origin, etc. and stands for the proposition that, ignoring history, White grievance, and lingering prejudice, we should allow talent to speak for itself and rise to the top through its own merit. The “free market” is assumed to be flawed, but self-correcting on its own. Don’t interfere, and the “invisible hand” will eventually create the correct result. And, if there is inequality or “temporary dislocations,” eventually this will all be resolved for the common good. If this is an accurate characterization, this suggests that at least some CRT critics just want to be content with liberty for all in principle, regardless of what results in practice. Do not think too much about it, they would say. Everything will be all right as long as we have faith in assumed good intentions and professed democratic ideals.
Finally, Rufo’s argument fails by its simplification of the struggle for justice. His argument, like past arguments over the framing of choices – communism vs. “free market democracy,” God-fearing Freedom Lovers vs. Godless Heathens, flag-waving patriots vs. self-hating Americans – is binary, and as such it is simplistic and misleading. At one point he quotes Kendi: “In order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.” Rufo goes on to say that in “other words, identity is the means and Marxism is the end.” Rufo does not define Marxism, but does identify it with autocratic, repressive regimes such as existed in the Soviet Union and China. The author does not comment on either country’s transition from a command economy to their entry into the global market system. But economic and political choices are far from binary. Capitalism can be centralized or decentralized; unregulated or aggressively regulated. Within a capitalist system, social democracy can operate to limitless degrees and variations of government intrusion, private ownership and free market operations. There are many forms of socialism. Cooperative Democracy is another political system that has never been given an opportunity in this country to thrive through incentives and direct support, in the manner that capitalism has.
To conclude, life is complicated. People are complicated. Social relations are complex, ever-changing and dynamic. History is who we are and yet we are the history that we make, or at least have the opportunity to make. Critical Race Theory is going to continue to expand into more areas and challenge assumptions that need to be challenged. Martin Heidegger once stated that “anxiety is the source of everything.” To make a further point, I would replace the word “anxiety” with the word “tension” and state that tension is the source of all progress. Critical Race Theory challenges us to embrace this tension. It challenges us to get to the core of social and economic issues. It attempts, through exposure and positive interaction, to develop empathy, a virtue that is sorely lacking in our society of atomized individuals who in their isolation and insecurity increasingly seek refuge in tribalism. As this movement develops, will there be mistakes made in the application of the theory? Of course there will be. But just as Ronald Reagan’s depiction of a black woman using food stamps to buy vodka as a “welfare queen” in a generalized attempt to both suggest that most people on welfare are Black (not true) and that all Blacks on welfare are abusing the system (obviously as false as it is racist), citing selected examples of CRT use in the classroom to reject CRT in its entirely is a mistake, and likely embedded with racist intent as well.
CRT critics, from my perspective, want to eliminate the social/racial tension necessary for progress. All that will leave us with is anxiety without an outlet, and that will not resolve the issues of poverty, race, economic insecurity, political marginalization, and alienation that continue to plague this country. In fact, ignoring that anxiety will only make things worse.