Template:Critical race theory

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory is a theoretical framework in the social sciences, developed out of epistemic philosophy, that uses critical theory to examine society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.

What is epistemic philosophy?

• Epistemologists study the nature of knowledge, justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues.

The key word to is "justification".

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is defined as "disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence": Critical thinking, is supposed to be "the analysis of facts to form a judgment". Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. For critical thinking to produce a viable critical theory there must be an "objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment." In order to produce an objective evaluation of an issue you need to have and objective evaluation of your self.

The school of social standing

Critical race theory (CRT) is a school of thought meant to emphasize the effects of race on one's social standing. Social standing in nature can be a sort of pecking order which establishes a hierarchy at least in the imagination if not in reality.

Seeing people as a groups is the antitheses of seeing people a individuals. It may be convenient in conversation but not in judgment.

• CRT continues to be an influential body of legal and academic literature despite its bias that has made its way into more public, non-academic writing.

If you think your social standing is actually determined by race or the opinion of another race then, That is racism. The idea contradicts the thinking often held by freed slaves who proved other wise by progressing against "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism". Thinking or having the belief that a given race is inherently racists as a group takes power from the individual and gives that power, whether real or imagined, to a collective.

"No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward." Booker T Washington

Origins of CTR

"Critical race theory" first emerged as a challenge to the idea that the United States had become a color-blind society where one's racial identity no longer had an effect on one's social or economic status.

Critical race theory arose as a challenge to the idea that in the two decades since the Civil Rights Movement and associated legislation, abusive racial inequality observed and identified in the system had been resolved and affirmative action was no longer necessary.

Some people obtain a sense of identity and justification from being abused and oppressed. It can be seen in abused people all the time and leads to numerous syndromes and compulsive behaviors. The battered wife or girlfriend returns to her abuser or the hostage defends their kidnapper, even joins them.

When that source of identity and justification was slipping away with rapid moves in society toward equality some felt an inner compulsion to reestablish that oppression or some sense of it in order to maintain that victim identity.

Critical Race Theory was a way to reclaim racial oppression and inequality continued despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Statistics are often banished about without the critical thinking needed to distinguish correlation from causation.

Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, argued that racism and white supremacy were defining elements of the American legal system and despite the actual law they conjectured "equal protection." did not exist.

Derrick Bell argued that Brown v. Board of Education was a result of the self-interest of “elite whites”.

He protested Harvard's failure to hire female faculty of color because he felt they should have jobs based on the color of their skin.

Drawing on ideologies, including feminism, Marxism, and postmodernism the term "intersectionality," was used to highlight the multiple and overlapping systems of oppression.

Race as a social construct essentially means that race has no scientific basis or biological reality.

Race differences make up a fraction of genetic elements and tell us nothing about the content of our character, intelligence, behavior, or moral capacity. None of these are inherent to any single race.

The Critical Race Theory “society frequently chooses to ignore these scientific truths.” Instead they are compelled by their need to be justified, to create races, endow “them with pseudo-permanent characteristics” which is racism.

1. . Critical race theory was a response to the idea that America had become a color-blind society.
2. . While "race" or color effects economic, educational, and the legal system.
3. . Critical race theory inspired "intersectionality" and pushed identity politics.

Correlation vs Causation

"All too often when liberals cite statistics, they forget the statisticians' warning that correlation is not causation." Thomas Sowell

Any fact or even the "messenger" who points to the fact that contradicted that theory of racial oppression is the enemy. Like religious zealots who use their ideology to justify themselves, despite their weakness and frailties, will gather their "pitchforks and torches" and burn you at the stake even if they set the whole world on fire.

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." Thomas Sowell

This idea that racism is the cause of the plight of the Black-man was financially lucrative for many who depended on continuing racial friction or the appearance of it. Men have depended on keeping the people at odds from Caesar to Al Sharpton.

Could the victim of racism become a racist?

Assigning collective guilt may be simple or even comforting but it may be expensive in social capital. Focusing our attention on the negative may graft negative into our own mind. To do so with resentment, judgment and angry unforgiveness may draw us into the very thing we claim to hate.

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Matthew 7:2

Collective guilt

• To assign collective guilt to a race for the actions of some individuals of previous generations is not only unjust but it is also racism and a denial of individual right to choose.

Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. To imagine that an entire race can be assigned characteristics of "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism" toward another race is also racism.

Price of slavery

Enslavement of the Black man in the south made more white men poor than it made rich. Cheap labor in society cheapened the labor of the individual in the market. The greatest cost was the blinding of oppressor to the wisdom of social virtues extended to all man kind.

"Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society." Thomas Sowell

Like the Stanford prison experiment (SPE) demonstrated that there is the potential of a cognitive dissonance molding the thinking of individuals through the roles of prisoner and guard, or slave and master. SPE showed that one third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine sadistic tendencies" while the regular "emotionally, physically and mentally humiliate the prisoners" altered their identity.

"An old and sincere friend of America, I am uneasy at seeing Slavery retard her progress, tarnish her glory, furnish arms to her detractors, compromise the future career of the Union which is the guaranty of her safety and greatness, and point out beforehand to her, to all her enemies, the spot where they are to strike." Alexis de Tocqueville

The subjugation of one class of one group by another weakens both. Both may become dependent upon the other.

"No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts." Booker T Washington.

The Social structures alter society as the people are altered. The private and complete ownership of your self embeds responsibility within the individual.

Most of the people who profess CRT also advocate communism if not socialism. Systems like slavery takes the power of choice and invests it in a master. In systems like socialism and communism the power of choice is vested in the collective or its elected representatives to one degree or another.

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." Thomas Sowell

The less choice entrusted in the hands of the individual, the less freedom of the individual. Te individual is never truly free in a political collective.

“Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing.” Archibald MacLeish

Those wealthy enough to own slaves were able to make others labor on their behalf. They were able to do less and less at other people's expense. But socialism allows the same ability to be supported by the labor of others. The same degeneration of morals and decay of social virtues we saw among the slave owner now has taken place among the recipients of modern Welfare.

"The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state." Thomas Sowell

The same debilitation by "gifts, gratuities and benefits" of society goes back to the free bread of Rome and the unrighteous wages of Nimrod.

"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good." Thomas Sowell

The people will be altered by such systems of welfare and since the days of Polybius where he said they would become perfect savages. We were warned against such covetous practices by the apostles and the prophets, advised against by John the Baptist and forbidden by Jesus.

The Product of enslaving one class

Now people filled with unreasoning anger and contempt for people of the past they do not even know nor have taken the time to know and desire to destroy the statues placed in honor of what good they did lack the characteristics of Critical thinking. The same people who hold the men of the past in such bias contempt will hold their neighbor in contempt as well. They will be so focused on their own justification through the oppression of others in bigotry and hate they will do little to nothing for the present sins of slavery pervasive in the world today.

"Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century – and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of the 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there. But who is singled out for scathing criticism today? American leaders of the 18th century." The Thomas Sowell Reader, chapter “Twisted History”

"Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20 percent of the population." The Thomas Sowell Reader, chapter “Twisted History”

Condemning the slavery of the past is much easier and much more convenient than doing something about the mountain of slavery and injustices of today.

"There are an estimated 27 million men, women, and children in the world who are enslaved — physically confined or restrained and forced to work, or controlled through violence, or in some way treated as property.

"Therefore, there are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade [11 million total, and about 450,000, or about 4% of the total, who were brought to the United States]. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach—and in the destruction of lives." “21st Century Slaves“, National Geographic article, Thomas Sowell