49 minutes ago, homersapien said:

In a word, politicians.

by Shay Khatiri

July 16, 2021

 

The last Americans left Bagram Airfield in the middle of the night and didn’t even tell the Afghan base commander. The top American commander in Afghanistan has stepped down. President Biden announced that the United States will have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of August. It is perhaps not too soon to conduct a post-mortem on Operation Enduring Freedom.

In one sense, the problems with the war in Afghanistan date from its very inception. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, the United States went to war in October, 2001, as a direct response to an attack on American soil. Both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 caught the United States by surprise, but the U.S. government had anticipated and meticulously planned an eventual entry into World War II. The preparation for the Afghanistan War, however, consisted of less than a month of mobilization and strategizing. On such an abbreviated timeline, unpreparedness should be expected and perhaps even justified—but not after 20 years. H.R. McMaster, who served as the planning officer for NATO forces in Afghanistan and as special assistant to the president for national security affairs under President Trump, declared that Afghanistan hadn’t been a 20-year war, but rather “a one-year war fought 20 times over,” a blistering indictment of the failure of those who ran it to plan, adapt, and follow through.

There have been many valid criticisms and explanations of U.S. shortcomings in Afghanistan. Some have pointed out that our mission in Iraq took away resources for an adequate operation in Afghanistan. Others have charged that we never had a long-term strategy for success, or that we have been looking to get out since the day we got in, or that domestic politics caused the failure in Afghanistan. Defenders, including me, have argued that the situation in Afghanistan before Biden announced the American departure, while far from ideal, produced a great return at a low cost. The American footprint in Afghanistan was very small, and our NATO allies and partners were shouldering much of the burden, ensuring the country wasn’t a safe haven for terrorists to plot another 9/11.

Share on Twitter Share via email Print

The last Americans left Bagram Airfield in the middle of the night and didn’t even tell the Afghan base commander. The top American commander in Afghanistan has stepped down. President Biden announced that the United States will have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of August. It is perhaps not too soon to conduct a post-mortem on Operation Enduring Freedom.

In one sense, the problems with the war in Afghanistan date from its very inception. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, the United States went to war in October, 2001, as a direct response to an attack on American soil. Both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 caught the United States by surprise, but the U.S. government had anticipated and meticulously planned an eventual entry into World War II. The preparation for the Afghanistan War, however, consisted of less than a month of mobilization and strategizing. On such an abbreviated timeline, unpreparedness should be expected and perhaps even justified—but not after 20 years. H.R. McMaster, who served as the planning officer for NATO forces in Afghanistan and as special assistant to the president for national security affairs under President Trump, declared that Afghanistan hadn’t been a 20-year war, but rather “a one-year war fought 20 times over,” a blistering indictment of the failure of those who ran it to plan, adapt, and follow through.

There have been many valid criticisms and explanations of U.S. shortcomings in Afghanistan. Some have pointed out that our mission in Iraq took away resources for an adequate operation in Afghanistan. Others have charged that we never had a long-term strategy for success, or that we have been looking to get out since the day we got in, or that domestic politics caused the failure in Afghanistan. Defenders, including me, have argued that the situation in Afghanistan before Biden announced the American departure, while far from ideal, produced a great return at a low cost. The American footprint in Afghanistan was very small, and our NATO allies and partners were shouldering much of the burden, ensuring the country wasn’t a safe haven for terrorists to plot another 9/11.

But all of these arguments, while valid, miss the point. The United States had the right objective in Afghanistan, but it never allocated the necessary resources to accomplish it.

Nation-building became synonymous with the Afghan War. In the Afghan context, nation-building really meant state-building: What the country needed wasn’t so much a civic culture that would overcome sectarian differences (as in Iraq) but a government capacious and trusted enough to prevent the country from falling under Taliban control again. The U.S. and coalition militaries failed to produce such a state because it wasn’t their job—or, at least, it shouldn’t have been. That’s not what militaries are for. The U.S. military is trained to fight wars, not build civilian institutions.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction conducted a survey of what went wrong, and the Washington Post managed to publish its reports in late 2019. There were revealing passages. In one instance, it said, “the U.S. military paid Afghans to dig or renovate miles of canals and ditches to irrigate fruit trees and other crops. But the canals worked just as well to irrigate poppies—which were much more profitable to grow.” USAID, whose mission is closer to state-building, also participated in such schemes, which demonstrates the difficulty even the right government organs have with state-building projects. (America’s allies faced similar struggles: The British military paid the Afghans to destroy their opium crops, “which only encouraged them to grow more the next season.”) But for the most part, warfighting personnel were making and implementing agricultural and labor policy in Afghanistanbecause they were the only players in town, and their bosses had not sent the necessary civilian reinforcements and experts to supplement the warfighting efforts. In other words, the military was called on to do non-military tasks, thereby distracting it from its military mission.

There were also prerequisites for victory in Afghanistan that the military wasn’t asked to do because no one was. The violence in Afghanistan was never going to fully subside as long as elements of the Pakistani government supported the Taliban. It is, however, not a military function to press the Pakistani government on this matter, and none of the four U.S. administrations that oversaw the war were able to convince the Pakistanis to abandon their cooperation with jihadist terrorists.

Douglas Lute, a senior Army officer and advisor on Afghanistan to both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said he “bumped into an even more fundamental lack of knowledge; we were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan—we didn’t know what we were doing.” Lute, like most if not all of his fellow officers, should not be blamed for his ignorance of Afghanistan. He was trained to defeat military threats. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama bear the responsibility of appointing an Army officer to a political position for which he had no experience nor training, and the Senate, which confirmed Lute’s nomination by a vote of 94-4, bears responsibility for overwhelmingly approving this choice.

War is fought by combatants but won by politicians. A successful war requires civilian care, attention, and expertise. This is one of the reasons the American military is subordinate to political control. Washington delegated its responsibility to the military, but the military can’t win wars for politicians.

By 2020, the military had largely succeeded in making Afghanistan relatively safe and had succeeded entirely in thwarting international terrorist plots emanating from its territory. The coalition had also secured a level of respect for human rights—especially the rights of women—that the country hadn’t known in decades. But beyond that, Afghanistan was not going to become a liberal democracy within five or ten years of the Taliban government’s collapse. It could have become a functional state, however, and responsive to the needs of its citizens, had the U.S. government not abdicated its responsibility.

---

All signs point to Kabul’s imminent capture by the Taliban. Reporting indicates that the U.S. intelligence community assesses that the Taliban could recapture the capital within six months of America’s final withdrawal. Maybe it will take longer. Maybe other events will intervene. Miracles sometimes happen.

But assuming Kabul does fall, and falls quickly, how much will it matter? For the Afghans, of course, it would be a calamity.

But for the United States? The truth is that, from the American point of view, the war was over in 2014, when the United States ended its fighting mission and turned to providing logistics, training, and fire support to the Afghan military, which has been at the vanguard ever since. It’s possible that the fall of Afghanistan could lead to an international crisis—a terrifying combination of militant groups, unstable governments, massive refugee flows, and loose nuclear weapons from Pakistan.

On the other hand, the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has been compared to the shameful abandonment of South Vietnam, which fell to North Vietnam in 1975. But the United States, which intervened in Vietnam largely on the theory that doing so would prevent the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia, largely accomplished that goal, though it lost Vietnam. Almost 50 years later, Vietnam is, while not a close ally, a key American partner in the face of an aggressive China.

It’s easy for politicians to blame losing Afghanistan on the conditions, unrealistic objectives (as Biden has), the military, or the Afghans. They will say, as they have been saying, that we changed our objective, that the Afghans couldn’t govern themselves or are too immature for democracy, or that the military failed to do what we asked of them. But it is the politicians who lost the war. In foreign policy, the military should always be a tool, but never the only tool.

Shay Khatiri

Shay Khatiri is a graduate student of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. He grew up in Iran and left the country in 2011. He is currently seeking political asylum in the United States. Follow him @ShayKhatiri.

 

https://thebulwark.com/who-lost-afghanistan/

 

 

Great article! I can't disagree with much of anything she said, and also share her unpopular opinion that our presence there the last few years has been a good return at a relatively low cost, part of which is having an air base on that side of China (Can't wait to be flamed by the LOLbertarians for that one).

Who lost Afghanistan? Any country that's ever tried to invade it lol.

7 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I appreciate the civil response.  I think without retracing all of the things I said in response, my words at the end summarize where I'm at on this tempest in a teapot:

 

And I find it ironic and funny that the same people who can't seem to admit that you can take a secular theory or framework and utilize only the parts that comport with Scripture and discard the rest are so eager to follow the lead and accept the arguments from an avowed atheist without batting an eye.  I mean, if you can find some if not all of what he has to say on spiritual and biblical matters related to CRT and race useful, how are you not able to take that same approach with CRT?

No worries. As a true liberal, I believe in open and honest debate. Truth is the north star to me, so I'm not here as a tribalist that's unwilling to be swayed by logic and reason. 

As far as your last statement, I generally agree when it comes to most topics. I think what makes CRT different is what occurs every time this type of ideology takes root. Plenty of serious atheists are extremely pro-religion on empirical grounds. It might be irrational, but people aren't rational and religion certainly can help (though it can also obviously be destructive itself). The ideas that Lindsay is selling the church aren't atheist ideas or ideas rooted in atheism. He's simply educating the church on what all of the Woke stuff means, not selling them in an ideology based in atheism; whereas to pull ideas from CRT is to pull ideas derived from Marxism. I also have never seen atheism destroy cultures like Marxism pretty much always does. No one would ever suggest the church should pull material from the writings of Kevin Strom (white nationalist, neo-Nazi, Holocaust denier, and white separatist) or ideas from "Mein Kampf." Marxism has been every bit as destructive as those ideologies.

My bottom line is, of all the secular ideas you can pull from, this is one of the worst that the church or any organization could choose. MLK Jr. made probably the most eloquent defense anyone has ever made about the right way in which to treat other human beings, and those ideas allowed arguably the greatest—albeit imperfect and sometimes ugly—progress in race relations the world has ever seen. His intent was to empty the social significance of racial categories, and instead said "I am a man." CRT fundamentally rejects this notion and instead places social significance back into racial categories.

If CRT is the antithesis of the principles that led to the greatest racial progress in human history (Civil Rights Movement and the liberal order), then does it suffice to say that it could very well lead to a rapid regression in race relations?

On 7/14/2021 at 11:07 AM, homersapien said:

Jesus was blond and blue eyed.  I saw a portrait of him in our church when I was a kid.

Like many current Christian traditions, it actually emerged from adoption of Roman mythology (kind of like Easter adopting eggs, Christmas adopting another pagan holiday, etc.). One of the earliest adaptations was "The Good Shepherd", which portrayed him as beardless and in the likeness of Orpheus, Hermes, or Apollo. They were less concerned about capturing his actual likeness than they were about clarifying his role as ruler and savior, which is why they made him in the image of gods that the culture could already relate to. Others portrayed him as more mature, with shoulder length brown hair and a beard, kind of a "Syrian Style." The Renaissance was when we started seeing more of the blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus; and that was due mostly to the anti-semitism of the time. Those images kind of stuck and were also carried throughout the rest of the world during the colonial period, and it did carry with it a hierarchical theme (whites were at the top of the food chain and non-white were subordinate), especially in Latin America. As far as why it persists today, well, I'd say it's mostly tradition, though the most modern and influential churches aren't commonly displaying that old school white Jesus art anyway. I don't say this in defense of the church, as I've become quite disaffected towards it myself. I don't think church members even give that kind of stuff much thought, though I don't doubt there are some clergy out there beating their chest on believing in the revisionist history of Christ. 

Well, consider the following:

1) The virus came from a city that has one of only several labs in the world that study bat Coronaviruses.

2) Multiple workers from that lab were hospitalized right before cases began popping up in the general population.

3) Multiple people in the scientific community have observed potential human engineering in the genetic make-up of the virus.

Any of those things by themselves doesn't make a strong case, but the compounding odds of all those things make it more difficult to believe it came from anywhere else.

I don't believe it was a bio-weapon, as I haven't seen a shred of evidence to support that hypothesis other than "Look how China benefited from it" (motive =/= evidence), but it's hardly an unreasonable hypothesis that negligence in protocol led to an accidental release. It deserves investigation, and people shouldn't be considered "deranged conspiracy theorists" for suggesting such. People have believed JFK was killed by the CIA for decades and have been shunned less.

22 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

It's part of a larger picture.  He's an unqualified, unserious, uneducated (on the subject matter) and unChristian person being used as a primary resource for how Christians ought to think about how to engage society on cultural and social issues through a biblical lens.

 

Let's deal with the totality what it says rather than cherry picking things to argue against.  Here is the entirety of Resolution 9 from last years SBC annual meeting:

https://pastorjonbeck.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/sbc-resolution-9-critical-race-theory.pdf

 

They aren't "endorsing" any of it.  CRT was a point of discussion and some controversy and the resolution intended to address it - and clearly stated that like many other "secular" frameworks and analytical tools that may have elements that fall under General Revelation ("truthful insights found in human ideas that do not explicitly emerge from Scripture and reflects what some may term “common grace”"), whatever may be gleaned from it as useful or helpful in understanding racial dynamics are subordinate to Scripture.  In other words, one can use it filtered through the teachings of the Bible and keep what aligns with Scriptural teaching and discard what does not.  

This is not any different than any number of other frameworks, tools, or ways of thinking that the church has uncontroversially been able to use as needed over the centuries.

 

This is an association fallacy.  First, no one was arguing that Critical Theory or Critical Race Theory are Christian in origin or that all (or even most) of the concepts therein are Christian in nature.  But more to the point - what a "noted Critical Theorist" thinks about socialism and how it should take down Christianity tells us nothing about whether there's anything useful or helpful to be gleaned from CRT - things that do align with biblical teaching.  Saying that CRT might have some useful components to it isn't tantamount to an endorsement of socialism, much less an endorsement of what this particular socialist thinks about Jesus and Christianity.  

 

Well, they didn't endorse it.  To read that resolution and make this claim is to persist in intellectual dishonest argumentation.

And I find it ironic and funny that the same people who can't seem to admit that you can take a secular theory or framework and utilize only the parts that comport with Scripture and discard the rest are so eager to follow the lead and accept the arguments from an avowed atheist without batting an eye.  I mean, if you can find some if not all of what he has to say on spiritual and biblical matters related to CRT and race useful, how are you not able to take that same approach with CRT?

First I will give you kudos for making by far the best argument I've seen in favor of CRT. It far surpassed anything that the MSM has stated since the discussion on this topic began a few months ago. However, I still disagree. I could spend some time on the technicalities of what "endorse" actually means, or Lindsay's qualifications, the value of satire, etc. But I think that doesn't really get down to the brass tax of this issue, which is: What does the SBC, any institution, or society as a whole stand to gain from using CRT as a form of education?

This never just stops with using a few of the tools to aid in addressing an issue. Social Justice scholarship began with good intentions in universities. Black Studies, Queer Studies, Women's Studies, etc. all started in an effort to highlight the contributions of these groups to society and to de-stigmatize the members of those groups. However, once the same tools that formed CRT were applied to these studies, they quickly turned from celebrating women to vilifying men, and from celebrating black people to demonizing whites. Disciplines intended to de-stigmatize suddenly began to re-stigmatize. Applying the tools of Marxism, Critical Theory, and Post-Modernism to any sociological issue will always inevitably metastasize and create a pit of vipers. 

CRT's ideological precursors are clear and its goals are equivalent to that of those precursors: to deconstruct and dismantle everything it touches. A wake of destruction occurs virtually everywhere that these ideas take hold, all in search of an elusive utopia; a search which has never and will never end without a descent into dispair and authoritarianism. Even if CRT were true—that all white people are racist and all people of color, LGBT, and women are oppressed—it is still profoundly unhelpful. It is not an ideology in pursuit of reform, unification, or progress. It isn’t a solution for justice. It’s a solution for endless ongoing division. So even if there are "good" aspects that we can glean from it, there is still no claim Critical Race Theory can make that cannot be made better by approaching it in some other way than Critical Race Theory. Marxism and its derivatives have an abysmal track record of helping societies, and a tremendous track record of destroying them. I fail to see how this could play out any different.

Thank you for the discussion. I appreciate the intellect behind your opinion, even if I disagree.

1 hour ago, tomcat said:

Caleb, stop hogging the joint man! If you let me have a few tokes I might get on…..naawww

Haha would love to hear your inputs, @tomcat! War Eagle!

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

 

Stop falling for the grift.

https://religionnews.com/2021/05/18/james-lindsay-southern-baptists-crt-al-mohler-hoax-new-discourses-beth-moorerace-ofallon/

The assessment of James Lindsay as a general hoaxster is specious. He contrived a hoax that was purposeful and brought to light something that needed to be exposed. Stetson Kennedy pranked the KKK in the 1940s and played a significant role in marginalizing their influence. To stonewall the merits of Lindsay's work because he's an atheist, a mathematician, former massage therapist, or because he a played a hoax on academic journals to convey a point is a weak attempt at defamation. If anything, it shows how shoddy the academics who write for these journals are; that a mathematician could produce papers that were better than many of those who are trained Critical Theorists.

As far as the SBC, the resolution specifically states, "Critical race theory and intersectionality alone are insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills that they identify, which result from sin, yet these analytical tools can aid in evaluating a variety of human experiences." So they endorse using CRT, so long as there is no "misuse of the insights gained from critical race theory, intersectionality, and any unbiblical ideologies that can emerge from their use when absolutized as a worldview." 

Okay, I will be fair in this. The SBC is not endorsing all of CRT, just the "good" parts of it; however, that doesn't provide a lot of CRT that can actually be utilized. There are *some* kernels of truth and valuable insights that can be gleaned from CRT—particularly in its original form when some of the problems it identified were more accurate of the state of society in the 1970s—but those insights run out pretty quickly before becoming a destructive tool; and the school of thought certainly doesn't match up with Andre E. Johnson's statement in the article that there are "no contradictions between the study of critical theory and Christianity, despite claims by critics that CRT conflicts with the Christian gospel."

Antonio Gramsci, a prominent Critical Theorist himself wrote, “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

Yeah.... Not anti-Christian at all. Critical Theory in general does not hold the church or Christianity in high regard. There are a million things that are anti-Christian about Critical Theory and CRT. The rest of the stuff Johnson said in that article about Critical Theory and CRT was either dishonest or distorted. The author is also guilty of appealing to authority by automatically crediting Christian scholars who study Critical Theory as the beacons of truth on this topic.

There are a lot better means of secular analysis available to the church than CRT. Critical Theory and Christianity do not merely exist in tension towards one another: they are directly at odds in almost every facet possible. Endorsing the use of CRT at all by the SBC is essentially playing with fire.

Bringing some of the CRT debate over here? Mainstream religion has declined globally, not just in the U.S. It isn't just "whitewashed" (eye role) Christianity that's declining. Per Ronald Inglehart, who wrote a book about this issue:

"An analysis of religious trends from 1981 to 2007 in 49 countries containing 60% of the world’s population did not find a global resurgence of religion—most high-income countries were becoming less religious—however, it did show that in 33 of the 49 countries studied, people had become more religious (Norris and Inglehart, 2011). But since 2007, things have changed with surprising speed. From 2007 to 2020, an overwhelming majority (43 out of 49) of these same countries became less religious. This decline in belief is strongest in high-income countries but it is evident across most of the world. (Inglehart, 2021)"

So, nice way of twisting things as another screech moment by the author about the GOP and the church's stance against CRT. I do agree with some of it, such a total lack of understanding for why Christians had such an infatuation with Trump. Funny story: My friends and I got a kick out of visiting the Trump Store in Gatlinburg where they had "Jesus is my Savior and Trump is My President" shirts as merchandise, right next to "Buck Fiden" bumper stickers lol. But, this isn't really accurate of a lot of churches and Christians. A lot are getting steam rolled by the Social Justice movement and many Christians have become Woke (see the Southern Baptist Convention). They've replaced their faith in a metaphysical higher power with their "Critical Consciousness" and ability to see all the pervasive systems of power that are so prevalent through their eyes. Humans have an innate desire for religion that has to be filled with something.

On 7/9/2021 at 11:24 AM, homersapien said:

There Is No Debate Over Critical Race Theory

Pundits and politicians have created their own definition for the term, and then set about attacking it.

By Ibram X. Kendi

The United States is not in the midst of a “culture war” over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren’t divided. The American people are being divided.

No argument there! As Mohomad Safa once said, "Our world is not divided by race, color, gender, or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, color, gender, or religion." Ibram Khendi is one of those fools. Republicans and the anti-Woke aren't trying to prevent racism from being taught. They're trying to prevent schools from engaging in it.

Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical race theory: “a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country,” as the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who helped coin the term, recently defined it.

"Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline." Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (p. 3)

Instead, the attacks on critical race theory are based on made-up definitions and descriptors. “Critical race theory says every white person is a racist,” Senator Ted Cruz has said. “It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin,” said the Alabama state legislator Chris Pringle.

Those don't sound like definitions at all, but rather they are solely descriptors, and they aren't made up. As "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" also states, “Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent.” But I wouldn't expect Khendi to understand what a definition is, considering he wrote a book on being an "Anti-racist" but fails to give a somewhat cogent definition of what racism is. "RaCiSm Is RaCiSt PeOpLe DoInG rAcIsT tHiNgS tHaT rEsUlT iN rAcIsM." [Paraphrased]

There are differing points of view about race and racism. But what we are seeing and hearing on news shows, in school-district meetings, in op-ed pages, in legislative halls, and in social-media feeds aren’t multiple sides with differing points of view. There’s only one side in our so-called culture war right now.

Perhaps because we've all heard and seen plenty of the Neo-Marxist, Post-Modernist views on race, racism, and power for several years now (particularly the last year), and it's time that it's exposed for what it really is. As a matter of fact, until recently, you couldn't argue about racism at all with any of the CRT inspired activists without simply being stonewalled with, "That's because you're a racist!" or whatever other insult of the day was popular. Only one side? That's laughable.

Conor Friedersdorf: Critical race theory is making both parties flip-flop

The Republican operatives, who dismiss the expositions of critical race theorists and anti-racists in order to define critical race theory and anti-racism, and then attack those definitions, are effectively debating themselves. They have conjured an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation’s defenders from that fictional monster.

Nice straw man to attack a steel man, Khendi. The criticism against CRT is beyond warranted, even if it is those damned Republicans that are the primary ones making it. There's plenty of liberals and progressives who are arguing against it as well, myself included. I fundamentally disagree with Republicans and conservatives on many things, but I agree with them taking a stance against CRT and all things Woke. Pretty much anyone who's not of the Woke left or completely in the dark on what's at the heart of this secular religion tend to disagree with it.

The evangelist Pat Robertson recently called critical race theory “a monstrous evil.” And over the past year, that “monstrous evil” has supposedly been growing many legs. First, Republicans pointed to Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Three days after George Floyd’s murder last year, President Donald Trump recast the largely peaceful demonstrators as violent and dishonorable “THUGS.” By the end of July, Trump had framed them as “anarchists who hate our country.”

"Largely peaceful." War is also 93% peaceful. FYI, that 93% peaceful stat us dubious at best. The Meme Policeman completely exposed that fallacious report (I can link to it if necessary). Many of the demonstrators from both BLM and Antifa (the primary groups involved in the protests last summer) absolutely were/are anarchists who do hate our country. In a recent instance, the Black Lives Matter Utah Chapter tweeted about the American flag on July 4th weekend, "When we Black Americans see this flag, we know the person is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred." That's just one of many many many examples.

Then “cancel culture” was targeted. At the Republican National Convention in August, Trump blasted “cancel culture” as seeking to coerce Americans “into saying what you know to be false and scare you out of saying what you know to be true.”

Again, this is all a Red Herring. He's trying to make this out to be a case of Republicans just attacking whatever the left puts out rather than addressing the actual argument about CRT, which I'm not really sure what he's trying to say about it since he spends all his time just trying to attack Republicans.

Next came attacks on the 1619 Project and American history. “Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains,” read Trump’s executive order on November 2, establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.

Okay, are you going to defend the 1619 Project or just say, "Republicans just wanna attack us! Wah!"?

And now the Black Lives Matter demonstrators, cancel culture, the 1619 Project, American history, and anti-racist education are presented to the public as the many legs of the “monstrous evil” of critical race theory that’s purportedly coming to harm white children. The language echoes the rhetoric used to demonize desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, in 1954.

CRT is harmful to all children, not just white children. It's the bigotry of low expectations. It's the bigotry of making non-white kids feel like they're victims in this world, who won't succeed because the whole country is against them. Also funny that he mentions and defends the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, because Derek Bell and the other founders of CRT openly criticized that decision themselves. Nonetheless, this is yet another Red Herring.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the conservators of racism organized to keep Black kids out of all-white schools. Today, they are trying to get critical race theory out of American schools. “Instead of helping young people discover that America is the greatest, most tolerant, and most generous nation in history, [critical race theory] teaches them that America is systemically evil and that the hearts of our people are full of hatred and malice,” Trump wrote in an op-ed on June 18.

False equivalency. Trying to prevent an ideology rooted in Neo-Marxism from being taught in public schools is not in any way comparable to trying to segregate schools. What a stupid argument.

After it was cited 132 times on Fox News shows in 2020, critical race theory became a conservative obsession this year. Its mentions on Fox News practically doubled month after month: It was referred to 51 times in February, 139 times in March, 314 times in April, 589 times in May, and 737 times in just the first three weeks of June. As of June 29, 26 states had introduced legislation or other state-level actions to “restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism,” according to Education Week, and nine had implemented such bans.

Red Herring. Can this guy even make an argument based on any kind of merit?

I have been called the father of critical race theory, although I was born in 1982, and critical race theory was born in 1981. Over the past few months, I have seldom stopped to answer the critiques of critical race theory or of my own work, because the more I’ve studied these critiques, the more I’ve concluded that these critics aren’t arguing against me. They aren’t arguing against anti-racist thinkers. They aren’t arguing against critical race theorists. These critics are arguing against themselves.

He isn't the father of CRT, so he actually got one point there, but he's definitely one of its zealots. The conclusion he comes to based off this is just stupid, "ThEyRe ArGuInG aGaInSt ThEmSeLvEs." What does that even mean?? Again, misleading or distracting from the relevant topic.

Read: The GOP’s ‘critical race theory’ obsession

What happens when a politician falsely proclaims what you think, and then criticizes that proclamation? Is she really critiquing your ideas—or her own? If a writer decides what both sides of an argument are stating, is he really engaging in an argument with another writer, or is he engaging in an argument with himself?

You can quite easily conclude what the praxis of CRT is stating. It's in books and literature all over the place. If I read your book and address it, isn't that me engaging with what your argument is? Also, he hasn't engaged the argument once himself in this article. He's just said stuff like, "Republicans are just obsessed with this and it's like the Brown v. Board of Education." Blah blah blah. Perhaps he needs to debate Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter, Bret Weinstein, or James Lindsey on this topic, but he won't. He refuses. Until then, don't lecture us on engaging arguments.

Take the journalist Matthew Yglesias. In February, in The Washington Post, he wrote that I think that “any racial gap simply is racist by definition; any policy that maintains such a gap is a racist policy; and—most debatably—any intellectual explanation of its existence (sociological, cultural and so on) is also racist.” But nowhere have I written that the racial gap is racist: The policies and practices causing the racial gap are racist. Nowhere have I stated that any intellectual explanation of the existence of a racial gap is racist. Only intellectual explanations of a racial gap that point to the superiority or inferiority of a racial group are racist.

Semantics. I've already stated that Khendi's zero sum views on "Racist vs Anti-Racist" are simplistic and ridiculous. Nonetheless, what argument is he trying to make here that isn't ad hominem or a deflection?

Was Yglesias really arguing against me, or was he arguing against himself? What about the columnist Ross Douthat? In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, he did what GOP thinkers keep doing to Americans striving to construct an equitable and just society: re-create us as extremists, as monsters to be feared for speaking out against racism. Douthat accused me of “ideological extremism that embarrasses clever liberals,” comparing me to the late Rush Limbaugh. I’ve spent my career writing evidence-based historical scholarship and demonstrating my willingness to be vulnerable; Limbaugh had no interest in being self-critical, and for decades attacked truth and facts and evidence.

More of the same arguments. Defend what is being taught, Khendi. Seriously.

Douthat claimed that I have a “Manichaean vision of public policy, in which all policymaking is either racist or antiracist, all racial disparities are the result of racism—and the measurement of any outcome short of perfect ‘equity’ may be a form of structural racism itself.”

Where did he get perfect equity? In How to Be an Antiracist, I define racial equity as a state “when two or more racial groups are standing on a relatively equal footing.” I proposed that an example of racial equity would be “if there were relatively equitable percentages” of racial groups “living in owner-occupied homes in the forties, seventies, or, better, nineties.” By contrast, in 2014, 71 percent of white families lived in owner-occupied homes, compared with 45 percent of Latino families and 41 percent of Black families. That’s racial inequity.

Oh, man, he threw in "perfect" before equity, so that whole argument is bunk. Now, let me defend my book rather than addressing CRT! At least Khendi is somewhat addressing an argument here by stating what his actual position is. The way he gets to this "relatively equal footing" is essentially through ethno-communism though, so he once again scores no points. I also doubt Khendi and the deranged Wokies of the world would be content with "relatively equal footing." They will never be satisfied, no matter how many concessions we make to their mob.

What we write doesn’t matter to the people arguing with themselves. It doesn’t matter that I consistently challenge Manichaean racial visions of inherently good or evil people or policy making. It doesn’t matter that I don’t write about policy making being good or evil, or that I write about the equitable or inequitable outcome of policies. It doesn’t matter that I’ve urged us toward relative equity, and not toward perfect equity.

Just the dichotomous view that EVERY policy is either "racist or anti-racist" and that people should never be just a "non-racist." So if racism is evil, and the only other path to being "good" is being an "anti-racist", wouldn't that be looking at the world through the Manichaean lense of "good or evil people or policy making"? Perhaps not entirely as simplistic, since you can be a lukewarm "non-racist", but it's still such a CRT argument to believe that racism is central to everything in our society.

If you want to understand why I’ve made these arguments, you first need to recognize that for decades, right-wing thinkers and judges have argued that policies that lead to racial inequities are “not racist” or are “race neutral.” That was the position of the conservative Supreme Court justices who recently upheld Arizona’s voting-restriction policies. Those who wish to conserve racial inequity want us to focus on intent—which is hard to prove—rather than the outcome of inequity, which is rather easy to prove. Case in point: GOP state legislators are claiming that the 28 laws they’ve enacted in 17 states as of June 21 are about election security, even though voter fraud is a practically nonexistent problem. They claim that these laws aren’t intended to make it harder for Black voters or members of other minority groups to cast ballots, even as experts find that’s precisely what such laws have done in the past, and predict that’s likely what these new laws will do as well.

So, let's assume intent because of the results, without even realizing that even intentionally benevolent policies have been pernicious to the black community arguably as much as policies that are enacted with colorblindbess. "Now, let me attack Republicans again!" This guy would make an incredible goalie with all his deflections.

Jarvis R. Givens: What’s missing from the discourse about anti-racist teaching

These critics aren’t just making up their claims as they go along. They are making up the sources of their criticism as they go along. Douthat argues that work like mine “extends structural analysis beyond what it can reasonably bear, into territory where white supremacy supposedly explains Asian American success on the SAT.” Who is giving this explanation other than Douthat? I’m surely not. I point to other explanations, including the history of highly educated Asian immigrants and the concentration of score-boosting test-prep companies in Asian (and white) neighborhoods.

White supremacy does explain why more than three-quarters of the perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents before and during the pandemic have been white. Asian American success as measured by test scores, education, and income should not erase the impact of structural racism on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This group now has the highest income inequality of any racial group in the United States. Asian Americans in New York experienced the highest surge of unemployment of any racial group during the pandemic. Do the critics of critical race theory want us to think of the AAPI community as not just a “model minority,” but a model monolith? Showcasing AAPIs to maintain the fiction of a postracial society ends up erasing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Already addressed this, and I'm getting tired of addressing his pathetic arguments laced with logical fallacies.

Critical race theory has been falsely labeled as anti-Asian. Helen Raleigh, an Asian American entrepreneur, defined critical race theory as a “divisive discriminatory ideology that judges people on the basis of their skin color” in Newsweek. “It is my practice to ignore critics who have not read the work and who are not interested in honest exchange,” responded one of the three Asian American founders of critical race theory, Mari Matsuda, a law professor at the University of Hawaii. “But I do want to say this for the record: Asian Americans are at the center of CRT analysis and have been from the start.”

I will agree that anti-Asian racism isn't a tenant shared across all who fall under the CRT umbrella, even if there have been examples of anti-Asian racism by CRT proponents. The Washington Post had a article in 2014 titled, "How the Asians Became White", and in 2019 a New York City DOE-sponsored panel designed to combat racism told parents that Asian-American students “benefit from white supremacy” and “proximity to white privilege.” There are many other examples, so the sentiment has definitely been widely expressed. Bottom line though: the Woke only care about Asians or any other minority group when it benefits them. They wield race as a tool to obtain power. 

How should thinkers respond to monstrous lies? Should we mostly ignore the critics as Matsuda has, as I have? Because restating facts over and over again gets old. Reciting your own work over and over again to critics who either haven’t read what they are criticizing or are purposefully distorting it gets old. And talking with people who have created a monologue with two points of view, theirs and what they impute to you, gets old.

Projection and deflection. The criticism of CRT is well-deserved, even if some Republicans get some of the details wrong. There have been some inaccuracies in the criticisms, but the critics of CRT are mostly correct in their objections. I also don't see any "monstrous lies." At most, it's differing semantics.

But democracy needs dialogue. And dialogue necessitates seeking to know what a person is saying in order to offer informed critiques.

As a scholar, I know that nothing is more useful than criticism to improve my scholarship. As a human being, I know that nothing is more constructive than criticism to improve my humanity. I’ve chronicled how criticism and critics have been a driving force on my journey to be anti-racist, to confront my own racist, sexist, homophobic, and classist ideas—and their intersections. Constructive criticism often hurts, but like painful medical treatments, it can be lifesaving; it can be nation-saving.

But what’s happening now is something entirely different and destructive—not constructive. This isn’t a “culture war.” This isn’t even an “argument.” This isn’t even “criticism.” This is critics arguing with themselves.

 

So, Khendi, how do you justify the Critical Theory of Race and its praxis being taught in schools? Why is it okay to have kids indoctrinated with principles derived from Neo-Marxism? He never once answers that. Just a bunch of drivel about how Republicans only want to attack CRT and highlighting some of the details they might get wrong, or deflecting with Red Herrings. Khendi isn't the father of CRT, but he's definitely one of its Cardinals. It's like posting an article written by a Catholic Priest on why Catholicism is being unfairly attacked.

 

I'm all for a discussion on how to solve some of the issues that still manifest themselves in our country due to its racist past, but advertising CRT as the solution is a hard "No" from me. Almost anything else would be better. Staring at the wall would be a better way of solving these problems.

 

Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of several books, including the National Book Award–winning Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an Antiracist.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/opponents-critical-race-theory-are-arguing-themselves/619391/

2 hours ago, SaturdayGT said:

Ask any democrat if they support BLM, and you'll have a good idea who among them supports defending the police ....

I think a lot of people have failed to understand that there's a very distinct difference "black lives matter" and "Black Lives Matter." The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in the statement "black lives matter", and are thereby sucked into agreeing with the efforts of the organization that is "Black Lives Matter." But that's a different can of worms.

Pretty sure the fact checkers at Washington Post rated this story as "Three Pinocchios", which is pretty bad, especially considering how biased the WaPo can be towards the Democratic Party. Fact is, Democratic leadership from cities across America did call for a defunding of the police last year, and it was often done in combination with not allowing the police to enforce any laws. 17 Walgreens stores are shutting down in San Francisco due to rampant shoplifting. Apparently people can shoplift legally so long as it's less than $950. Buckhead is trying to secede from Atlanta due to the rapid increase in crime, and Brookhaven already left the city. The city cut their corrections budget by 60% and converted the Atlanta jail into a "center of equity, health, and wellness."

I can't believe this is even an argument. Talk about Gaslighting. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/murders-surge-as-police-are-defunded-up-64percent-in-minneapolis/ar-BB1fEEib

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

White supremacy does explain why more than three-quarters of the perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents before and during the pandemic have been white.

I'll just go ahead and dispel that myth as well. Bureau of Justice Statistics:  https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv18.pdf

Scroll to Table 14 and you'll see the following information: 

24.5% of crimes against Asian Americans are by whites, 27.5% are by blacks, 7.0% are by Hispanics, 24.1% are by other Asian-Americans, and 14% are by other ethnic groups. The dude just lies. To be fair, he does say, "and during the pandemic", but it's dubious to think that it went from 24% to over 75% in two years.

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

There Is No Debate Over Critical Race Theory

Pundits and politicians have created their own definition for the term, and then set about attacking it.

By Ibram X. Kendi

The United States is not in the midst of a “culture war” over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren’t divided. The American people are being divided.

Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical race theory: “a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country,” as the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who helped coin the term, recently defined it. Instead, the attacks on critical race theory are based on made-up definitions and descriptors. “Critical race theory says every white person is a racist,” Senator Ted Cruz has said. “It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin,” said the Alabama state legislator Chris Pringle.

There are differing points of view about race and racism. But what we are seeing and hearing on news shows, in school-district meetings, in op-ed pages, in legislative halls, and in social-media feeds aren’t multiple sides with differing points of view. There’s only one side in our so-called culture war right now.

Conor Friedersdorf: Critical race theory is making both parties flip-flop

The Republican operatives, who dismiss the expositions of critical race theorists and anti-racists in order to define critical race theory and anti-racism, and then attack those definitions, are effectively debating themselves. They have conjured an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation’s defenders from that fictional monster.

The evangelist Pat Robertson recently called critical race theory “a monstrous evil.” And over the past year, that “monstrous evil” has supposedly been growing many legs. First, Republicans pointed to Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Three days after George Floyd’s murder last year, President Donald Trump recast the largely peaceful demonstrators as violent and dishonorable “THUGS.” By the end of July, Trump had framed them as “anarchists who hate our country.”

Then “cancel culture” was targeted. At the Republican National Convention in August, Trump blasted “cancel culture” as seeking to coerce Americans “into saying what you know to be false and scare you out of saying what you know to be true.”

Next came attacks on the 1619 Project and American history. “Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains,” read Trump’s executive order on November 2, establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.

And now the Black Lives Matter demonstrators, cancel culture, the 1619 Project, American history, and anti-racist education are presented to the public as the many legs of the “monstrous evil” of critical race theory that’s purportedly coming to harm white children. The language echoes the rhetoric used to demonize desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, in 1954.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the conservators of racism organized to keep Black kids out of all-white schools. Today, they are trying to get critical race theory out of American schools. “Instead of helping young people discover that America is the greatest, most tolerant, and most generous nation in history, [critical race theory] teaches them that America is systemically evil and that the hearts of our people are full of hatred and malice,” Trump wrote in an op-ed on June 18.

After it was cited 132 times on Fox News shows in 2020, critical race theory became a conservative obsession this year. Its mentions on Fox News practically doubled month after month: It was referred to 51 times in February, 139 times in March, 314 times in April, 589 times in May, and 737 times in just the first three weeks of June. As of June 29, 26 states had introduced legislation or other state-level actions to “restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism,” according to Education Week, and nine had implemented such bans.

I have been called the father of critical race theory, although I was born in 1982, and critical race theory was born in 1981. Over the past few months, I have seldom stopped to answer the critiques of critical race theory or of my own work, because the more I’ve studied these critiques, the more I’ve concluded that these critics aren’t arguing against me. They aren’t arguing against anti-racist thinkers. They aren’t arguing against critical race theorists. These critics are arguing against themselves.

Read: The GOP’s ‘critical race theory’ obsession

What happens when a politician falsely proclaims what you think, and then criticizes that proclamation? Is she really critiquing your ideas—or her own? If a writer decides what both sides of an argument are stating, is he really engaging in an argument with another writer, or is he engaging in an argument with himself?

Take the journalist Matthew Yglesias. In February, in The Washington Post, he wrote that I think that “any racial gap simply is racist by definition; any policy that maintains such a gap is a racist policy; and—most debatably—any intellectual explanation of its existence (sociological, cultural and so on) is also racist.” But nowhere have I written that the racial gap is racist: The policies and practices causing the racial gap are racist. Nowhere have I stated that any intellectual explanation of the existence of a racial gap is racist. Only intellectual explanations of a racial gap that point to the superiority or inferiority of a racial group are racist.

Was Yglesias really arguing against me, or was he arguing against himself? What about the columnist Ross Douthat? In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, he did what GOP thinkers keep doing to Americans striving to construct an equitable and just society: re-create us as extremists, as monsters to be feared for speaking out against racism. Douthat accused me of “ideological extremism that embarrasses clever liberals,” comparing me to the late Rush Limbaugh. I’ve spent my career writing evidence-based historical scholarship and demonstrating my willingness to be vulnerable; Limbaugh had no interest in being self-critical, and for decades attacked truth and facts and evidence.

Douthat claimed that I have a “Manichaean vision of public policy, in which all policymaking is either racist or antiracist, all racial disparities are the result of racism—and the measurement of any outcome short of perfect ‘equity’ may be a form of structural racism itself.”

Where did he get perfect equity? In How to Be an Antiracist, I define racial equity as a state “when two or more racial groups are standing on a relatively equal footing.” I proposed that an example of racial equity would be “if there were relatively equitable percentages” of racial groups “living in owner-occupied homes in the forties, seventies, or, better, nineties.” By contrast, in 2014, 71 percent of white families lived in owner-occupied homes, compared with 45 percent of Latino families and 41 percent of Black families. That’s racial inequity.

What we write doesn’t matter to the people arguing with themselves. It doesn’t matter that I consistently challenge Manichaean racial visions of inherently good or evil people or policy making. It doesn’t matter that I don’t write about policy making being good or evil, or that I write about the equitable or inequitable outcome of policies. It doesn’t matter that I’ve urged us toward relative equity, and not toward perfect equity.

If you want to understand why I’ve made these arguments, you first need to recognize that for decades, right-wing thinkers and judges have argued that policies that lead to racial inequities are “not racist” or are “race neutral.” That was the position of the conservative Supreme Court justices who recently upheld Arizona’s voting-restriction policies. Those who wish to conserve racial inequity want us to focus on intent—which is hard to prove—rather than the outcome of inequity, which is rather easy to prove. Case in point: GOP state legislators are claiming that the 28 laws they’ve enacted in 17 states as of June 21 are about election security, even though voter fraud is a practically nonexistent problem. They claim that these laws aren’t intended to make it harder for Black voters or members of other minority groups to cast ballots, even as experts find that’s precisely what such laws have done in the past, and predict that’s likely what these new laws will do as well.

Jarvis R. Givens: What’s missing from the discourse about anti-racist teaching

These critics aren’t just making up their claims as they go along. They are making up the sources of their criticism as they go along. Douthat argues that work like mine “extends structural analysis beyond what it can reasonably bear, into territory where white supremacy supposedly explains Asian American success on the SAT.” Who is giving this explanation other than Douthat? I’m surely not. I point to other explanations, including the history of highly educated Asian immigrants and the concentration of score-boosting test-prep companies in Asian (and white) neighborhoods.

White supremacy does explain why more than three-quarters of the perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents before and during the pandemic have been white. Asian American success as measured by test scores, education, and income should not erase the impact of structural racism on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This group now has the highest income inequality of any racial group in the United States. Asian Americans in New York experienced the highest surge of unemployment of any racial group during the pandemic. Do the critics of critical race theory want us to think of the AAPI community as not just a “model minority,” but a model monolith? Showcasing AAPIs to maintain the fiction of a postracial society ends up erasing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Critical race theory has been falsely labeled as anti-Asian. Helen Raleigh, an Asian American entrepreneur, defined critical race theory as a “divisive discriminatory ideology that judges people on the basis of their skin color” in Newsweek. “It is my practice to ignore critics who have not read the work and who are not interested in honest exchange,” responded one of the three Asian American founders of critical race theory, Mari Matsuda, a law professor at the University of Hawaii. “But I do want to say this for the record: Asian Americans are at the center of CRT analysis and have been from the start.”

How should thinkers respond to monstrous lies? Should we mostly ignore the critics as Matsuda has, as I have? Because restating facts over and over again gets old. Reciting your own work over and over again to critics who either haven’t read what they are criticizing or are purposefully distorting it gets old. And talking with people who have created a monologue with two points of view, theirs and what they impute to you, gets old.

But democracy needs dialogue. And dialogue necessitates seeking to know what a person is saying in order to offer informed critiques.

As a scholar, I know that nothing is more useful than criticism to improve my scholarship. As a human being, I know that nothing is more constructive than criticism to improve my humanity. I’ve chronicled how criticism and critics have been a driving force on my journey to be anti-racist, to confront my own racist, sexist, homophobic, and classist ideas—and their intersections. Constructive criticism often hurts, but like painful medical treatments, it can be lifesaving; it can be nation-saving.

But what’s happening now is something entirely different and destructive—not constructive. This isn’t a “culture war.” This isn’t even an “argument.” This isn’t even “criticism.” This is critics arguing with themselves.

 

 

Ibram X. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of several books, including the National Book Award–winning Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an Antiracist.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/opponents-critical-race-theory-are-arguing-themselves/619391/

Yeah, we can really expect a fair analysis on this from one of the great grifters of our time. Let's trust the guy who said, "In order to truly be anti-racist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist…. And in order to truly be anti-capitalist, you have to be antiracist, because they’re interrelated.” —Angela Davis said something like this almost verbatim. Let's trust the guy who said, "The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." Let's trust the guy who, in this article, talks about accepting constructive criticism, but refuses to engage in any sort of debate about his ideas—John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, and Bret Weinstein have tried to debate him on this multiple times, but he refuses to even answer. Let's trust the guy whose world view is so simplistic that he thinks racism is literally at the heart of everything (sounds like the first principle of CRT to me), and that you're either a racist or an anti-racist. How about sometimes things happen that have literally nothing to do with race? Or it might play only a meniscule factor and society is far more complex than this black and white paradigm of "racist or anti-racist." Let's trust the guy who can't even define racism. His definition of racism is literally, "Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities." (p. 17-18, How to Be an Antiracist). You can't use a term in order to define a term.

I'm sorry, but this article is just full of lies. It could power downtown San Diego for over a year with all the Gaslighting. CRT is being taught in schools, even if it doesn't go by that name. It is the praxis (theory in practice) of CRT. It didn't just stay in law school. The literature even says so itself. CRT is divisive and it is rooted in Marxism. Name one country in history that has benefited from Marxism and its derivatives.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/californianewstimes.com/national-geographic-tweets-that-july-4-fireworks-are-racist-smoke-targets-communities-of-color/426732/%3famp

And now fireworks are racist. Thanks Nat Geo for more explemplary journalism. 

"An asteroid is headed towards earth! Here's why women and minorities will be impacted the most! #AsteroidsAreRacist"

It all goes back to CRT and the belief that racism is in everything, like the force in Star Wars or something.

The Iron Law of Woke Projection remains unbroken.

1 hour ago, Bottomfeeder said:

While stationed in South Korea, propaganda leaflets dropped on US military camps/bases were commonplace. I believe we were fighting the Red China in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Communism is a direct threat to our republic, and has surfaced in many areas of national security interests.

While finishing my military hitch in the US army (1984), I competed for and won medic of the quarter at the 3rd Brigade HQ (WAR EAGLE BRIGADE). One of the questions was about real threats to our country, and they expected me to say Muslim world, but I answered with Red China. Of course I had to explain my position, but that was easy. 

My cousin is self-proclaimed communist/socialist/liberal who has written at least five books and teaches (chair) political theory at a private college in New York state. Comrades! She has some skewed views IMHO.

I believe they have infiltrated and installed all of the planks of the communist manifesto. What's their next move? Weaken the west's financial and military capabilities by releasing a virus? The virus made me mad enough, but to threaten us militarily is something quite extraordinary. I just don't see the CRT being more than just a distraction from the real threats.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ted-cruz-blasts-cori-bushs-stolen-land-tweet-as-divisive-lies

I've yet to see any reliable evidence to support the hypothesis of an intentional release. If you're looking to intentionally leak a virus on the world, you don't do it right on the doorsteps of your own country at one of the only virology institutes in the world that studies Coronaviruses. Logically, the way it occurred makes me believe it was an accidental leak, and the growing evidence emerging suggests that as well. CRT is part of our own culture war and has distracted us from focusing on China, though we do need to resolve our own internal conflicts if we want to effectively fight one that is external.

12 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

That's the rub, isn't it? What evidence..?

All I know is that NTD is associated with the Falun Gong, which is the same organization that runs The Epoch Times, which is a known conspiracy and propagandizing source. 

I have no love for China, but just because a news source is anti-China doesn't automatically make it trustworthy.    

Agreed completely. It wouldn't surprise me if they've infiltrated much of our institutions, and I know of instances where they have infiltrated our institutions, but to say it's as deep as he says is a strong assertion; and strong statements require strong evidence.

15 hours ago, Bottomfeeder said:

All of this stuff is just communism plain and simple.

https://www.ntd.com/china-in-focus-july-3-the-ccp-has-infiltrated-every-level-of-american-education-trevor-loudon_636960.html

Some very bold statements, and I'd like to see what evidence he has to support it. I do know he's not the first person to say this, and I can speak from experience that the CCP are launching an assault on pretty much every non-kinetic front in order to undermine our position in the world. For instance, when I was stationed in Okinawa, some of the bases had protests by locals in front of the gates on a daily basis. It was a well known fact that they were paid by the Chinese to do this.

While I haven't been fully sold on Loudon's claims, the Neo-Marxist influence associated with CRT is absolutely undeniable. The ideology is heavily rooted in Critical Theory (essentially "Cultural Marxism" for lack of a better term) and many of the individuals surrounding it are self-proclaimed Marxists and Communists. I hate that the Republicans cried wolf about socialism/communism/Marxism for so long, because I think it's made many hesitant to believe it now.

https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/

The nation's largest teachers union has approved a plan to promote Critical Race Theory in all 50 states and in 14,000 local school districts.

Can we stop denying the fact that CRT is being taught in K-12?

59 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

Interesting thread:

 

This whole theology (a more appropriate term than "theory") may label itself as "anti-racist", but it's actually incredibly racist towards everyone. For instance, the Smithsonian put out a poster last year stating various aspects that encompass "White culture." Things such as: self reliance, objective and rational linear thinking, hard work, progress is always best, and being on time. As if though these things are bad and other races aren't capable of doing such things.

Then we have other instances where segregation is making a comeback. Example: Columbia University had segregated graduations based on race. 

The irony of calling yourself "anti-racist" by advocating for a return to segregation and infantilizing minorities.

9 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

So the crime rate decrease is due to the dead baby future criminals not being able to commit crimes because they are dead. Well that’s one way to look at it.  Minority report here we come.

Skynet certainly saw it as a viable means of dealing with John Connor! Lol

9 hours ago, AUDub said:

The approach is wrong.

Yes abortion inevitably drives down crime. You have lot fewer children born into bad situations.

The solution should be to fix those situations, rather than defaulting to "abortion is a necessary evil."

I agree, which is why I'd advocate for the sentiment of "safe, legal, but also rare." Meaning that women can safely access it if they need to, but that it isn't the go-to whenever a pregnancy arises.

I used to be a Republican and was against abortion. Now I'm just politically homeless and try to judge every topic on its own merit. This study changed my mind on the topic of abortion:

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_201975.pdf

14 hours ago, homersapien said:

Some of those people you quote are saying outrageous things.  Others are making defensible arguments. 

I am not familiar with any of them and I don't know if any of these people can or should be seen as representing critical race theory.   Certainly they didn't all author the original academic papers - dating back to the mid 70's - that can be defined as the founding papers that created CRT.  They appear to be rhetorical comments that may or may not be supported by these "founding papers".

Unless you can show the links between these statements and these "originating" papers that represent the idea of CRT academically, these comments simply represent rhetorical statements which may or may not be classified as representative of the theory.

Otherwise, this is like cherry picking statements from the 60's made by radical activists - such as the Black Panthers - and insisting that represents the civil rights movement.

So no, I am not going to defend this "crap".  (And in my opinion it is crap.)

I think CRT is a graduate level thesis which is unlikely to be applied in 1-12 education at all, other than maybe presenting it for what it is - a theory of race relations.

Meanwhile, it has been appropriated by the right wing as a political tool and it is being being flogged to incite irrational fear. 

In my opinion, the assertion that such an academic theory is going to be used to brainwash or somehow pervert the psychology of our children is hysterical. 

It smacks of a watered down QAnon.

 

 

The originating documents of CRT do express such sentiments. Derek Bell (who is considered the father of CRT) wrote that he essentially believed that white people would never allow blacks to achieve equality and that it was hopeless to assume that the liberal ideal of judging people as individuals rather than their racial category was hopeless. Kimberlé Crenshaw's solution (developer of intersectionality and considered kind of the mother of CRT) was outlined in her essay, "Mapping the Margins" where she proposed that instead of emptying the social significance of racial categories (as proposed by Civil Rights activists such as MLK), that group identity should be emphasized above all else as a "statement of resistance" against the system that is propped up in order to maintain white dominance and oppress everyone else. She also mentions Angela Davis in this essay as an influencer of her work. Angela Davis was a staunch communist in the 1960s and was radicalized by Herbert Marcuse, a prominent Critical Theorist out of the Frankfurt School. I could go on about the two of them, but that's another can of worms. 

To question if these statements by scholarship activists can be supported by the founding papers in the 1970s is a good question, but upon further examination is irrelevant since CRT expanded far beyond its origins in Harvard Law School. Richard Delgado said himself, "Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline." He specifically stated that CRT is a movement of scholars and activitists interested in studying and transforming the relationship between race, racism, and power. It continues, "Today, many in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy."

Nicola Rollock and David Gill Borne (CRT activists themselves) wrote in “Critical Race Theory (CRT)” “Although critical race Theory arose in the United States in response to a very specific historical racial context, it has not remained in the United States. The British Educational Research Association has formed its own list of tenets of critical race Theory.

1. Centrality of racism
2. White supremacy
3. Voices of people of color
4. Interest convergence
5. Intersectionality"

It concludes,

“CRT has developed rapidly into a major branch of social theory and has been taken up beyond the United States to include work in Europe, South America, Australia and Africa.”

As far as all of the authors who essentially labeled the white race as evil, they all have ties that can be traced back directly to CRT in its original form, or their frame of study is undeniably derived from CRT. 

Barbara Applebaum's bio from Syracuse University: "Barbara Applebaum is trained in philosophy of education. Professor Applebaum's scholarly interests are currently focused on the point where ethics, education, and commitments to diversity converge. Her research is heavily informed by feminist ethics, feminist philosophy, and CRITICAL RACE  THEORY."

Noel Ignatiev was an American author and historian. He was best known for his work on race and social class and for his call to abolish "whiteness". Ignatiev was the co-founder of the New Abolitionist Society and co-editor of the journal "Race Traitor", which promoted the idea that "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity". Under the name Noel Ignatin, he joined the Communist Party USA in January 1958, but in August left (along with Theodore W. Allen and Harry Haywood) to help form the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (POC). His book "How the Irish Became White" is a suggested reading in"Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" on Page 85.

Derald Sue is a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University. He has authored several books, including Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, Overcoming our Racism, and Understanding Abnormal Behavior. He has written over 150 publications on various topics such as multicultural counseling and psychotherapy, psychology of racism and antiracism, cultural diversity, cultural competence, and multicultural organizational development, but more specifically, multicultural competencies and the concept of microaggression (a term specifically mentioned in page 106 of the Intro to CRT).

Johnny Williams is a Professor of Sociology at Trinity College in Hartford, CN. He is the author of numerous articles examining culture’s role in politics, social movement mobilization and scientific knowledge production. He is also currently writing "The Persistence of White Sociology" (Palgrave Macmillan) which explores how conventional sociology as a theory, method and ideology functions to ensure the viability of systemic racism. All things in line with the central tenants of CRT.

Robin DiAngelo - Critical White Studies is a specifically mentioned spin-off of CRT. She is a consultant, and facilitator working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies (I'd find it hard to argue that Critical White Studies and "Whiteness studies" vary in any way). DiAngelo has published a number of academic articles on race, privilege, and education and written several books. Her first book was co-written with Ozlem Sensoy, "Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Critical Social Justice Education."

Ozlem Sensory's primary field of research is social justice education. Social justice education seeks to reveal how social inequities become embedded in the fabric of society, and to identify strategies for socially just change. Her research examines the opportunities and barriers inherent in advancing a more equitable society, through social justice education. In doing so, she studied a dual track: analyzing how inequities are reproduced in social institutions (such as schools, media, policing), and identifying constructive interventions to interrupt them (such as thinking critically about knowledge, pedagogical approaches, and political activism).

I will agree with you that of all the places it has spread, K-12 education is not the most prominent, particularly in red states. While it isn't part of the curriculum in those states, teachers have still been teaching many of the central themes as outlined by CRT scholars and their derivatives. I think the reason it is becoming so heavily contested in K-12 is because of how impressionable children in that age group are. Social Justice Theory has turned many college campuses into a pit of vipers, and Republican legislators are trying to prevent the same thing from happening in their  public education systems. 

It is undeniable how Woke-ified our institutions have become, and there should be pushback because at its core, CRT is an enemy of liberalism. The advocates of CRT try and put lipstick on the pig by saying, "Oh it's just diversity training and making everyone feel welcome! It's just trying to fight racism." If all you do is post a bunch of BS articles coming from the leftist media that are either lying about it or delusional, then of course it's not going to look so bad. But read the actual material and it becomes apparent that this is a white washed tomb. It's pretty on the outside, but full of decay on the inside.

I feel like there is no amount of evidence that will ever convince you that CRT is being pushed on our society and that it's a bad thing. I think your anti-conservative tribalism is going to make it nearly impossible to convince you otherwise, but let me ask you: What would convince you that many of us on here are correct in our stance on CRT?

25 minutes ago, homersapien said:

BS.  How about a quote from an authoritative source that supports that assertion as a part of Critical Race Theory.

If you believe that racism is evil, as we all should, then telling white people that they're all racist is essentially calling an entire group of people "evil." They do this:

“All white people are racist or complicit by virtue of benefiting from privileges that are not something they can voluntarily renounce.” Barbara Applebaum, Being White, Being Good.

“Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” Noel Ignatiev in the film "Indoctrinate U"

“If you abolish slavery, you abolish slaveholders. If you want to abolish racial oppression, you do away with whiteness.” Noel Ignatiev in the film "Indoctrinate U"

“White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.” Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility

“White people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview because it is the bedrock of our society and its institutions." Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility.

“Whiteness is an invisible veil that cloaks its racist deleterious effects through individuals, organizations, and society. The result is that White people are allowed to enjoy the benefits that accrue to them by virtue of their skin color. Thus, Whiteness, White supremacy, and White privilege are three interlocking forces that disguise racism so it may allow White people to oppress and harm persons of color while maintaining their individual and collective advantage and innocence.” Derald Sue, “The Invisible Whiteness of Being.”

“Whiteness by its very definition and operation as a key element of white supremacy kills; it is mental and physical terrorism. To end the white terrorism that is directed at racially oppressed people here and in other nations, it is essential that self-identified whites and their whiteness collaborators among the racially oppressed confront their white problem head-on, unencumbered by racial comfort.” Johnny Williams in the Hartford Courant.

Still gonna try and keep defending this crap?