You can't really say that critical race theory is so ephemeral and inchoate that it's impossible to define and also say specific claims about critical race theory, otherwise this turns into a Fox News thread of you posting random outrages and blaming it on Critical Race Theory.

My post to you was talking about my inability to describe it appropriately. I know alot about spider webs, but I couldn't accurately describe one.

They did a lot more than just tell them things fwiw.
I do understand your point of course.

What I mean is, people socially constructed/construct this idea of POC and it was/is negative, and had/has negative/bad outcomes.

Here's my understanding of what is going on here. Critical theories typically start from the assumption that many of the basic categories of social life are constructed, eg gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, law, and so on. They then also assume that these categories are largely constructed so that they maintain the existing power relationships of society, since those in power have the most control over the understanding and definitions of these categories. Thus, a critical approach to understanding these categories will try to understand how basic social categories perpetuate the power and privilege of those in control.

Of course, different people have different ideas about who holds power. Marxists will claim that it is the holders of capital that have power, and so to understand why we have the social categories we have we should study how they benefit those who hold capital and keep working class people in line.

Critical feminists will emphasize the patriarchal nature of society, and how gender categories and understandings are primarily constructed to benefit men.

Critical race theorists believe that to understand the social categories of race we have to see how it benefits those with power - which, in the US, has historically been white people through various forms of white supremacy. This is not a denial that "white" has been defined in American society either in colorist terms, or through the one-drop rule, or as descent from Northern Europeans, etc., but rather is meant to explore why those definitions have been adopted, i.e. because they preserve the privileges and benefits of white people in America.

This is not typically a matter of individual choice either. For instance, a black man cannot simply decide to not be black - if other people in society view him as black and treat him as such, then that identity is forced on him regardless of his own desires. This is where socially party of "socially constructed" is relevant.

To a certain degree, I think you are describing intersectionality, which is an offshoot of CRT.


I want to cite something:

How can you be a traitor to something you did not have allegiance to begin with? Oh wait, that allegiance is being forced unto folks. This class goes far beyond power differentials.

All you have to do is just denounce your whiteness and it'll all be over. Go to your bank, make sure it's witnessed and notarized, and you'll make the world a better place. CRT isn't so scary.

Um, no. You can't escape "whiteness", as OP said...

But if they really wanted to overthrow the existing order, instead of asking people to renounce whiteness, they should have them renounce paying taxes

Live in the jungle with non-whites. That's still my plan to escape them.

The elephant in the room is, what do we do about "whiteness", and those who reject their allegiance to it (i.e. deny it)?

Not really? Intersectionality is a thesis about how these marginalized identities interact with each other. I'm trying to describe what I take to be the project of critical theory.

I laughed.

Turn off twitter and/or just ignore them if they start going off on something silly.

I see. I get it.

Always was a random Fox News outrage thread.

/astronaut_meme.gif

Itshot,
If CRT were limited to this then you would have no issue with it, correct?
Because I really don't see how anyone could and it therefore likely makes a good starting point for a fair delineation of what the actual problematic aspects of CRT are.

Nothing?
After you acknowledge your white privilege and the inevitable "so you agree we should get rid of capitalism (or whatever)?" follows just tell them "no."

Not correct. They don't examine those in power/disempowered(?), they examine those they assume to be in power, or lack power, and they decide that based on skin color, which is a really broad and inaccurate, then they draw conclusions and present as fact as opposed to theory (or what I would call assumption/conjecture) (see: the 8 white identities)


I'm most definitely not a proponent of critical theory.

I can take care of myself. You probably can too (college kids aren't really, but their adults so, they can do what they want), but it's not about us, a 10 y/o is ill equipped to consider CRT, especially if it's taught as fact. Those without the means can't reject it if it's a condition of employment.

If that were the case we wouldn't have any atheists in the US.

@luckbox

This letter from J. Church, who is another person who I tend to align with (he has some effective criticism of critical theory, not just CRT):

That sword cuts both ways. And one side of it has been a reality for a long time. A good friend of mine growing up(he passed away a few yrs ago to a heart attack) was Reggie Lewis' nephew--the lawyer. And to say he had every advantage would be a bit of an understatement. He still said f it and left America ~20yrs ago basically because he was just tired of being viewed as less than for a completely ridiculous reason--and also knowing it doesn't really change much even when you win the success game etc. A hell of a lot of black people don't really have those kinda options to just bail to another country.

Yep, people have it hard, some more than others.

And pretty clearly in American history how hard people have it has not been evenly distributed across the races. I don't think acknowledging this commits us to the full CRT viewpoint.