Still More on Critical Race Theory

 Or the more I learn about it, the worse it sounds. This comes from a source friendly to the concept: Politifact:

Critical race theory — a broad set of ideas about systemic bias and privilege — might have its roots in legal academia, but it is fast becoming one of the more explosive flashpoints in America’s state legislatures...

Critical race theory isn’t one set thing, but more a changing package of ideas.

Legal scholars, such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller and Kendall Thomas, developed Bell’s ideas further. In a 1995 book, they wrote that critical race theory is rooted in the desire "to understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained in America." 

They said that the fundamental problem was the "distribution of political and economic power." And they defined their movement as one that was "race conscious" and was committed to change.

Let's toss in this article from a Journal I once had high regard for, the Economist, Jason Stanley on critical race theory and why it matters.

There are a couple of metrics set by Martin Luther King which I am going to use here. The first is that racism is making one group more powerful than another based upon race. The Second is that racism will be overcome once there is a black president.

Now, I have a problem when people like Ursula Burns, Michele Obama, Megan Markel, Oprah Winfrey, and other black people with money and power want to lecture me on how they are somehow oppressed.  There is this set of blinders which says that white people are somehow privileged and don't suffer from the same issues black people do.

People who say that need to take a trip to Appalachia.

The problem with reparations is that they have been discussed since the Emancipation Proclamation was promulgated. Besides Bacon's Rebellion any serious discussion of this topic needs to look at the Reconstruction Period. I suggest Henry Louis Gates Jr.PBS series for an eye opener on this topic.

The real bottom line here is that any serious discussion of this topic needs to be (1) colour blind (2) all encompassing and (3) informed. 

Right now the issue is that Critical Race Theory wants to place blacks as the victims of a system which lasted 244 years (1619-1863), if even that long. The largest numbers of slaves were taken to the Americas during the 18th century, when, according to historians’ estimates, nearly three-fifths of the total volume of the transatlantic slave trade took place. We need to factor in that this trade also included the Caribbean and South America: which is another factor in having this be colour blind and all encompassing.

As I have pointed out, slavery ended  156 years ago if we use the "Juneteenth" date. Although some say slavery still exists in the US, but that makes this a really interesting topic.

But I seriously question this concept when I see "people of colour" in positions of power. Especially when they want to tell me that I am the one with "privilege".