# Another Critical Race Theory thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 4, 2021, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389 "2021-05-04T19:44:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/605 "2021-05-21T21:47:05Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > My “opinion” is that CRT doesn’t “claim” anything. For a relatively agenda-free summary of what CRT **is** , I refer you to [the link in my first post in this thread](https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory). I think you are confusing crt as it exists in the ivory towers of legal academia with the crt that exists in the intellectual vacuums of education and sociology departments across the country. I agree that crt is a useful tool to add the perspective of non-dominant groups to legal debates. Why are crack sentences so much longer than cocaine sentences? Why do we draw the lines of legality so that joyriding is characterized by how white boys steal cars, or more generally why are the behaviors that whites engage in usually characterized as infractions while the stuff that others do is over the line? Why is the crack epidemic met with prison sentences and the opiate epidemic met with extra health care dollars and rehab centers? I thought CRT was extremely useful (but limited) in defining the contours of justice. When applied to education the use is similarly useful and limited; but education and sociology academics never recognized the limitations and just went to town with it. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/606 "2021-05-21T21:52:41Z")
deleted ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/607 "2021-05-21T21:53:13Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > Racism is the predominant thing that crt is focused on these days. > I don’t think anyone other than you disagrees with this. Well when others get their wide brushes at Sherwin Williams, you get a lot of straw from the Bounds Hay Company. 🙂 Because that was a straw man. Nowhere I do say that Racism is not the largest focus of CRT, only that you and others are still wrong by denying that CRT is not just against racism, and it is not just me, but researchers and law people that published their findings. As it is usual, those findings will be never used just because you are prejudging any effort here. (Again, a lot of right wingers would like to use the research against China regarding what they do the Uighur, the point then as now is that it breaks the narrative from critics like you that declared that CRT scholars don’t do anything useful to Asians.) ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/608 "2021-05-21T21:53:51Z")
OOps sorry. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/609 "2021-05-21T22:02:44Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > Why are asians not doing significantly better (or whites doing significantly worse) Racism? Or, intergenerational transfer of wealth? And how did those stats look a generation or two ago when today’s workers were growing up? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/610 "2021-05-21T22:10:06Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > If you’ve somehow failed to notice the large and increasing amount of white supremacist rhetoric circulating in the last few years, I doubt any cite I could provide would convince you. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > I am pretty sure that flat out anti-black racism like you describe was much more common in the past than it is today. I can’t speak to what you’re “pretty sure of”, but in the timeframe of the “last couple of years” that you yourself gave, we had a President who openly circulated white nationalist rhetoric, hired white nationalist advisors, put forward white nationalist policies, praised white nationalist groups, and emboldened quite a few white nationalists including a disturbingly large number of law enforcement officers who continued to disproportionately target black people, often with impunity and with the support of the aforementioned racist scum. A police officer even felt sufficiently comfortable in torturing a black man to death right in the middle of the street. You might have heard something about it on the news. Anyway, for some reason black people have taken umbrage at being murdered a lot by the people paid to protect them, and have begun to push back on the whole “systemic racism” thing, which due to a number of factors has led to a wider public conversation. > [@](#): > > I think it is pretty clear that implying innate intellectual differences between races is not acceptable even among fairly right wing commentators. AFAICT, the arguments for black underachievement is pinned on out of wedlock birth rates and stuff like that. > > To which the asian response is that if these things really drove success, why aren’t asians do a whole lot better than whites? > Whites have significantly higher: > out of wedlock birth rates, > single parent households, > divorce rates, > incarceration rates, > high school dropout rates > rates of violent crime, > rates of any crime, > etc. > > Why are asians not doing significantly better (or whites doing significantly worse)? Because the metrics you have chosen are the wrong ones. > [@Gyrate](#): > > My “opinion” is that CRT doesn’t “claim” anything. For a relatively agenda-free summary of what CRT **is** , I refer you to [the link in my first post in this thread](https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory). > [@damuriajashi](#): > > I think you are confusing crt as it exists in the ivory towers of legal academia with the crt that exists in the intellectual vacuums of education and sociology departments across the country. You asked me what CRT “claims”. I pointed out that the question is meaningless. Your reply does not change that. > [@](#): > > I agree that crt is a useful tool to add the perspective of non-dominant groups to legal debates. Why are crack sentences so much longer than cocaine sentences? Why do we draw the lines of legality so that joyriding is characterized by how white boys steal cars, or more generally why are the behaviors that whites engage in usually characterized as infractions while the stuff that others do is over the line? Why is the crack epidemic met with prison sentences and the opiate epidemic met with extra health care dollars and rehab centers? I thought CRT was extremely useful (but limited) in defining the contours of justice. When applied to education the use is similarly useful and limited; but education and sociology academics never recognized the limitations and just went to town with it. So your entire argument is just a vague and unsubstantiated smear that “education and sociology academics” are bad or wrong in some way? Okay then. ---
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2021, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/611 "2021-05-21T23:42:57Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Because the metrics you have chosen are the wrong ones. I didn’t choose them. And what are the correct metrics? > [@Gyrate](#): > > we had a President who openly circulated white nationalist rhetoric, Sure trump was a racist and probably the worst thing to happen to america but can you point to some of his anti-black rhetoric that offers up the “the usual “alternative explanation” offered up is simply that black people really are intellectually inferior and naturally prone to criminality and moral bankruptcy.” I mean if its so prevalent, you shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with some mainstream folks offering up the USUAL “alternative explanation” Or you could admit that you were really just arguing about a type of racism that doesn’t really exists anymore. Anti-black racism exists but perhaps not as much as their white “allies” think ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/612 "2021-05-22T08:46:27Z")
> [@damuriajashi](#): > > So the whites are deliberately taking a knee with asians to make the blacks look bad? Or perhaps whites are deliberately losing to asians in order to justify or camoflauge their oppression of blacks? > > These sounds unlikely. Perhaps I misunderstand the point you are trying to make. Clearly. Whites can have absolutely nothing to do with the how, and still take advantage of it. That’s my point. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > So with those 104 mentions of the word japanese american, what insight has she added. Uh, uh. Not gonna go on this Gish Gallop with you. Your original point of Black-only CRT is already toast, you don’t get to move the goalposts on the charred field that remains. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > I would run away from that argument too if I were you. You must get a lot of imaginary debate success if you think “dismiss” looks like “run away” > [@damuriajashi](#): > > crt’s inability to explain how asians and jews succeed despite this white supremacy CRT explains it quite satisfactorily. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > But the “how” of the success is relevant to the arguments presented by crt. Still irrelevant to _my_ point. > [@damuriajashi](#): > > it is a phrase that some people throw around as if it explains why asians are more successful than whites. _Some_ Asians. You’ve just given us the myth in one sentence. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/613 "2021-05-22T16:25:59Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Does the rightness or wrongness of the policy depend on it having racially biased outcomes, though? Just the fact that you would ask this question means that you really don’t get it. It’s not about “rightness or wrongness”, it is whether a policy has an outcome that has a racially biased outcome. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > Do you accept the premise as laid out by Kendi that policies have either racist or anti-racist outcomes? Do you just want me to repeat myself? This was answered in the part of the post that you chose not to quote. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > f so, do you still posit that this policy does not produce racially biased outcomes? I posit that you can play philosophical games, and fine tune a situation that would never occur in the real world that ends up being on that perfect knife edge of “neutral”. I also posit that that is a useless exercise, and has no real world application. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > Furthermore, what population are you using for context to reach that conclusion? Just the set of all corporate employees in both parking lots? As you are erroneous in your presumption about the conclusion that I have reached, these questions are as irrelevant as the number of angels you can fit on the pin of a head. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/614 "2021-05-22T16:26:55Z")
Depends on budgets and things as to how simple that solution is, but yes, that would most likely fall under an anti-racist policy. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/615 "2021-05-22T17:59:43Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Just the fact that you would ask this question means that you really don’t get it. > > It’s not about “rightness or wrongness”, it is whether a policy has an outcome that has a racially biased outcome. If there is no value judgement attached to that then why should anyone care? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/616 "2021-05-22T18:24:05Z")
There is no value judgement attached to the observation that things near the surface of the Earth fall at 9.81 m/s/s either, but people care about that. The problem with value judgements is that people have different values. Jim Crow laws were obviously racist, and yet, a majority of people considered them to be right, and the civil rights legislation that chipped away at them to be wrong. I think that may be your entire problem here. _You_ are trying to attach value judgments to something that doesn’t use them. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/617 "2021-05-22T20:13:28Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > There is no value judgement attached to the observation that things near the surface of the Earth fall at 9.81 m/s/s either, but people care about that. I didn’t mean to imply that value judgements are the only reason we care about anything. There are many practical reasons for knowing the value of g. Sometimes we even wish to learn things purely for intellectual curiosity. But no one is going to believe CRT is motivated solely by a desire to understand the world. It is explicitly about social justice. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > The problem with value judgements is that people have different values. That’s not really a problem. We’re in Great Debates here, different values are part of the debate. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/618 "2021-05-22T21:11:06Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > That’s not really a problem. We’re in Great Debates here, different values are part of the debate. As noted before, when one side bases their arguments on items that are really second or third hand interpretations of a framework and avoids looking at the published science or law papers for what could be proper to falsify (not just opinions), the side that does not do a bit of homework will have a very bad time in that debate. There should be at least some value given to doing some homework so as to not make the logical fallacy that is _the argument of an irrelevant conclusion._ IOW, it is not my problem when one side does not check the history and published science or law journals to see what the CRT scholars are actually talking about. This bad time for your arguments goes also when one side in this debate continues to dismiss the harm CRT researchers and schools will have to endure until someone does a new Scopes trial to show how dumb the teaching bans (those bans are supported by implication by that side) of CRT are. In a way to go meta, the fact that mostly minority researches will be affected should have caused most people to realize how ignorant white republican politicians are, when what they are doing is the very act that those CRT scholars or teachers want to counter. Those politicians have another thing coming at them. And in reality, as history and the internet have shown, trying to keep something banned (and using Orwellian talking points in that attempt) does the opposite. > **[COLUMN: If you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist](https://hechingerreport.org/column-if-you-dont-want-critical-race-theory-to-exist-stop-being-racist/)** > > Conservative legislators across the country who are passing laws to ban books and courses on critical race theory show where they stand. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/619 "2021-05-22T21:43:06Z")
Wow, that wasn’t just a come-on misleading pull quote. It literally does say that. That doesn’t mesh very well with the idea that you can’t be non-racist, nor that society as a whole can be described as “racist” no matter what one person “is being”. Of course, one badly-written line doesn’t invalidate a whole theory by itself. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/620 "2021-05-22T21:48:15Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > But no one is going to believe CRT is motivated solely by a desire to understand the world. It is explicitly about social justice. Yes, it is a tool to understand where social justice is failing. That doesn’t mean that it needs value judgements. A KKK member would look at the same facts, and find them to be right, while a person who does not try to be a racist would see them to be wrong. That’s the point, you judge based on the facts, not on how you feel about them. Now, how you feel about them should indicate how you should act on those facts, but it doesn’t change them. > [@DemonTree](#): > > That’s not really a problem. We’re in Great Debates here, different values are part of the debate. Except that you are interjecting them where they don’t belong. Whether or not you think that we should be investing in space travel has no place in a discussion about _how_ to build a rocket. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/621 "2021-05-22T22:01:07Z")
If you are referring to the one by Kendi, again: 1. It came from a book and as it was noted before, that is like, his opinion dude. Remember that that was looked at to see if there was something that needed be falsified in a scientific setting. the quote was not made in a sociology journal nor a law one. 2. On that same quote Kendi does refer to anti-racist policies. To me it is curious why that does not tell others that indeed it was not well written, but that for some on the right it invalidates the whole theory when even the quote mentions the alternative, then it is a wrong thing to try to ban the teaching of it, and wrong in more ways than one. If you are remarking about the latest article I linked to, what are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/622 "2021-05-22T22:46:22Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Whether or not you think that we should be investing in space travel has no place in a discussion about _how_ to build a rocket. Yes, but whether we are trying to build a rocket that goes to low earth orbit or one that can get to the moon may well do. In general our aims will influence our methods. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/623 "2021-05-22T22:51:18Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > If you are remarking about the latest article I linked to, what are you talking about? I was remarking on the headline which is traditionally thought of as conveying the more important information. It is “if you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist”. Now I concede that despite being more than just one dude’s opinion, while the idea that you can’t be a nonracist is shared by a huge chunk of followers of CRT, it doesn’t necessarily form one of its core beliefs. On the other hand, nothing I see about CRT says that its validity depends on if individuals stop being racist, even if they can, but rather that there are effects caused by institutional and/or structural racism. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389/624 "2021-05-22T22:51:35Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Wow, that wasn’t just a come-on misleading pull quote. It literally does say that. That doesn’t mesh very well with the idea that you can’t be non-racist, nor that society as a whole can be described as “racist” no matter what one person “is being”. Of course, one badly-written line doesn’t invalidate a whole theory by itself. It’s just the normal thing progressives do: accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a bigot to try and deligitimise criticism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-critical-race-theory-thread/941389.md?page=32)