The prevalence of laughable race malarkey in progressive spaces isn’t one of the left’s biggest problems. But it is among its most readily solvable ones. EricLevitz writes
Defend the pursuit of racial justice. Defund accidentally racist equity consultants. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images A Republican won Virginia’s governorship last week after campaigning on a vow to “ban critical race theory in our schools.”
Alas, there is also a conservative media apparatus hellbent on eliding the distinctions between those two things. Thanks to the right-wing activist Christopher Rufo, “critical race theory” has become a catchall term for just about any form of racial discourse, historical scholarship, or pedagogy that discomfits white conservatives.
In Virginia, the right used “CRT” to collapse the distinctions between three very different propositions: that public-school curricula shouldn’t elide the centrality of white supremacy to U.S. history, that public policy should proactively redress harms wrought by centuries of racial injustice, and that public-school districts should spend tens of thousands of dollars on equity coaches who promote weird racial stereotypes.
It is also, by all appearances, racist. The notion that expecting one’s children “to form and express opinions” and “questions elders” is a definitionally white parenting style, while expecting children to “show respect by quiet listening” is a “color group” one, is a racial caricature. As is the broader idea that white families prize individualism over communal obligation.
I can’t speak to the validity or utility of this pedagogy. Its characterization of rural Latin American culture seems crude. Whether it nevertheless improves understanding between U.S.-born teachers and their immigrant students is beyond my purview. The Smithsonian’s graphic took inspiration from the work of Tema Okun, a co-leader of the Teaching for Equity Fellows Program at Duke University, and a popular consultant in progressive circles. In Okun’s account, “objectivity,” “a sense of urgency,” and thinking in binaries like “good or bad” and “right or wrong” are defining characteristics of “white supremacy culture.” She therefore advises progressive organizations to rid themselves of those “damaging” tendencies.
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