5 ms·

Can someone simply explain what is this critical race theory?

by muhehe 4y ago

gizajob 4y ago
The giveaway is in the name.
marsven_422 4y ago
foxyv 4y ago
Talking about anyone other than White people. In all actuality it is the idea that race doesn't exist, it's just something made up by people to exploit other people with different skin color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Tenets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Tenets
- gizajob 4y ago
  Yes. Race doesn't exist, which is why we need affirmative action.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - vmception 4y ago
    Consensus is a gradient amongst representatives in a system where compromise is paraded as a feature instead of a bug. The cognitive dissonance you experience is because there is no specific individual supporting these competing ideas.
    - gizajob 4y ago
      I was highlighting a paradox in the postulate above mine, not expressing cognitive dissonance which is an ungrounded assumption to make based on such a pithy comment.
      - foxyv 4y ago
        The dude asked for simple. Trying to argue with a simplified version of someone else's argument instead of the actual argument is a favorite straw man.
  - foxyv 4y ago
    Agreed!
Clubber 4y ago
I don't know much about it but it sounds like a topic designed to get the citizenry to bicker at each other about so they don't come together on much more important issues like economic, tax policy and justice reform. News has been trying to get it to stick for a while now.
- klyrs 4y ago
  It's a technical field of legal scholarship that isn't taught outside of law school. It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right. That they never define what it is should be a red flag for any critical thinker. The easiest boogeyman to construct is completely amorphous. It requires zero evidence, just a constant onslaught of fearmongering.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    >It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right. Again, don't care one way or the other but I'll take the "bait," if it was never designed for the citizenry, why is it being taught in elementary, middle and high schools, or is it? As an aside, police are allowed to lie about evidence when interrogating suspects. Police are allowed to interrogate children without their parents consent or knowledge. Police are allowed to confiscate any cash they find in your car during a routine traffic stop without due process. This is typically done to bolster police budgets. I deem these as a way more important reforms that people are distracted from thinking about with this new wedge issue.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      > or is it? That's the question, isn't it? We're being told that it is. We're told that 42 out of 54 rejected math books "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Of those 42 books, how many included CRT and not some other "prohibited topic" or "unsolicited strategy"? Doesn't say. What does an example of a math book including CRT even look like? Doesn't say. And as much as I agree with your aside... this was done by the Florida Department of Education and textbook review is within their mandate and abusive policing is not. While I wish it wasn't a partisan issue, it seems that everything is a partisan issue these days, even chicken sandwiches.
V__ 4y ago
John Oliver did a pretty good general overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICp1vGlh_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICp1vGlh_U
capableweb 4y ago
The wikipedia definition seems to match with my own understanding of what it is: > cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law In the country where I was brought up that was just part of history/society classes instead of a separate thing, but racial tensions in the US seems more extreme than anywhere else so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?
- klyrs 4y ago
  > so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing? In the same way that number theory is its own thing, and algebra is its own thing, and you might take separate classes on each; algebraic number theory is its own thing and you probably wouldn't take a class on it before grad school.
FunnyLookinHat 4y ago
I like this definition. > Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-sta... Put another way, it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist. However, I think you will find that the definition is heavily swayed by your political bent (especially if you are a politician).
- herbstein 4y ago
  >> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. I'm reminded of this aphorism: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.". Similarly, while cops might arrest/stop the people they see breaking the law, if they're disproportionately patrolling minority-majority neighborhoods there will be an unequal effect.
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  > it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist. It's much too weak a phrasing to say that it only "allows for the possibility." Its core doctrine is that 1) the idea of race itself is a social construct used to oppress/exploit, and 2) laws and institutions are racist and function to create and maintain inequalities.
vmception 4y ago
basically anybody extending Black History month beyond 28 days and reminding people that black history is US history and that it doesn’t make sense to have any race-history months if US history was taught more accurately. (It includes other heritages too, Black American community is just more organized to more effectively spearhead representation pushes.) Conservatives news sources spend alot of air time on the idea of this happening than reality. The general idea is that they don’t like unpleasant history for their children, that they preemptively call revisionist. This has now become a boogeyman in conservative leaning states and affecting real world things.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > reminding people that black history is US history Perhaps we should also remind people that there's plenty of black folks outside the U.S. too. U.S. history is only a tiny, even negligible fraction of history taken as a whole.
  - vmception 4y ago
    Why? We are talking about Black Americans and US history. The post was pretty clear about which subsets we are talking about, the adjectives used (black American) were very intentional. We have international history courses as well. Most countries focus on their own history for sake of time.
netsharc 4y ago
I think it's a study of how race relations affect just more than how people perceive others, it also affects things like big governmental policies. IMO it's like studying how lack of water lead to more than thirst, it causes things like kidney and other organ failure; meanwhile the people who are against the theory seem to think "it's just thirst!".
a_shovel 4y ago
Honestly, no. The law-school subject, a certain set of proposed changes to education relating to race in U.S. grade schools (not even getting into which set of changes), and the thing Republicans are opposing are all called "critical race theory", and they really have nothing to do with each other.
Scarblac 4y ago
The actual theory isn't so important. It's a tool used by some politicians to paint the other side as insane radicals. Insane news stories are pointed at and accused of being a result of CRT, and of course their own side would outlaw it. That's why they ban books without even saying which books are banned: so they are seen as taking action against the enemy, CRT. In reality there is perhaps some corruption and they want to help a specific publisher.
krapp 4y ago
When it comes to anything to do with race, gender, sexuality or politics is better to do research elsewhere than ask HN. This is the relevant text from the first couple of paragraphs of Wikipedia's page on CRT: Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. The word critical in its name is an academic term that refers to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people. A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender and disability. Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis. One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals. CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order, where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
thatsunlikely 4y ago
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/beginners-curriculum-critical-race-theory/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/beginners-curriculum-criti...

Can someone simply explain what is this critical race theory?

by muhehe 4y ago

Can someone simply explain what is this critical race theory?

gizajob 4y ago

The giveaway is in the name.

marsven_422 4y ago

foxyv 4y ago

Talking about anyone other than White people. In all actuality it is the idea that race doesn't exist, it's just something made up by people to exploit other people with different skin color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Tenets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Tenets

gizajob 4y ago
Yes. Race doesn't exist, which is why we need affirmative action.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vmception 4y ago
  Consensus is a gradient amongst representatives in a system where compromise is paraded as a feature instead of a bug. The cognitive dissonance you experience is because there is no specific individual supporting these competing ideas.
  - gizajob 4y ago
    I was highlighting a paradox in the postulate above mine, not expressing cognitive dissonance which is an ungrounded assumption to make based on such a pithy comment.
    - foxyv 4y ago
      The dude asked for simple. Trying to argue with a simplified version of someone else's argument instead of the actual argument is a favorite straw man.
- foxyv 4y ago
  Agreed!

Clubber 4y ago

I don't know much about it but it sounds like a topic designed to get the citizenry to bicker at each other about so they don't come together on much more important issues like economic, tax policy and justice reform. News has been trying to get it to stick for a while now.

klyrs 4y ago
It's a technical field of legal scholarship that isn't taught outside of law school. It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right. That they never define what it is should be a red flag for any critical thinker. The easiest boogeyman to construct is completely amorphous. It requires zero evidence, just a constant onslaught of fearmongering.
- Clubber 4y ago
  >It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right. Again, don't care one way or the other but I'll take the "bait," if it was never designed for the citizenry, why is it being taught in elementary, middle and high schools, or is it? As an aside, police are allowed to lie about evidence when interrogating suspects. Police are allowed to interrogate children without their parents consent or knowledge. Police are allowed to confiscate any cash they find in your car during a routine traffic stop without due process. This is typically done to bolster police budgets. I deem these as a way more important reforms that people are distracted from thinking about with this new wedge issue.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    > or is it? That's the question, isn't it? We're being told that it is. We're told that 42 out of 54 rejected math books "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Of those 42 books, how many included CRT and not some other "prohibited topic" or "unsolicited strategy"? Doesn't say. What does an example of a math book including CRT even look like? Doesn't say. And as much as I agree with your aside... this was done by the Florida Department of Education and textbook review is within their mandate and abusive policing is not. While I wish it wasn't a partisan issue, it seems that everything is a partisan issue these days, even chicken sandwiches.

V__ 4y ago

John Oliver did a pretty good general overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICp1vGlh_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICp1vGlh_U

capableweb 4y ago

The wikipedia definition seems to match with my own understanding of what it is: > cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law In the country where I was brought up that was just part of history/society classes instead of a separate thing, but racial tensions in the US seems more extreme than anywhere else so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?

klyrs 4y ago
> so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing? In the same way that number theory is its own thing, and algebra is its own thing, and you might take separate classes on each; algebraic number theory is its own thing and you probably wouldn't take a class on it before grad school.

FunnyLookinHat 4y ago

I like this definition. > Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-sta... Put another way, it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist. However, I think you will find that the definition is heavily swayed by your political bent (especially if you are a politician).

herbstein 4y ago
>> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race. I'm reminded of this aphorism: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.". Similarly, while cops might arrest/stop the people they see breaking the law, if they're disproportionately patrolling minority-majority neighborhoods there will be an unequal effect.
bitshiftfaced 4y ago
> it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist. It's much too weak a phrasing to say that it only "allows for the possibility." Its core doctrine is that 1) the idea of race itself is a social construct used to oppress/exploit, and 2) laws and institutions are racist and function to create and maintain inequalities.

vmception 4y ago

basically anybody extending Black History month beyond 28 days and reminding people that black history is US history and that it doesn’t make sense to have any race-history months if US history was taught more accurately. (It includes other heritages too, Black American community is just more organized to more effectively spearhead representation pushes.) Conservatives news sources spend alot of air time on the idea of this happening than reality. The general idea is that they don’t like unpleasant history for their children, that they preemptively call revisionist. This has now become a boogeyman in conservative leaning states and affecting real world things.

zozbot234 4y ago
> reminding people that black history is US history Perhaps we should also remind people that there's plenty of black folks outside the U.S. too. U.S. history is only a tiny, even negligible fraction of history taken as a whole.
- vmception 4y ago
  Why? We are talking about Black Americans and US history. The post was pretty clear about which subsets we are talking about, the adjectives used (black American) were very intentional. We have international history courses as well. Most countries focus on their own history for sake of time.

netsharc 4y ago

I think it's a study of how race relations affect just more than how people perceive others, it also affects things like big governmental policies. IMO it's like studying how lack of water lead to more than thirst, it causes things like kidney and other organ failure; meanwhile the people who are against the theory seem to think "it's just thirst!".

a_shovel 4y ago

Honestly, no. The law-school subject, a certain set of proposed changes to education relating to race in U.S. grade schools (not even getting into which set of changes), and the thing Republicans are opposing are all called "critical race theory", and they really have nothing to do with each other.

Scarblac 4y ago

The actual theory isn't so important. It's a tool used by some politicians to paint the other side as insane radicals. Insane news stories are pointed at and accused of being a result of CRT, and of course their own side would outlaw it. That's why they ban books without even saying which books are banned: so they are seen as taking action against the enemy, CRT. In reality there is perhaps some corruption and they want to help a specific publisher.

krapp 4y ago

When it comes to anything to do with race, gender, sexuality or politics is better to do research elsewhere than ask HN. This is the relevant text from the first couple of paragraphs of Wikipedia's page on CRT: Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. The word critical in its name is an academic term that refers to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people. A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender and disability. Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis. One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals. CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order, where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

thatsunlikely 4y ago

https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/beginners-curriculum-critical-race-theory/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/beginners-curriculum-criti...