There actually have been active debate, discussion, agreement and disagreement about CRT for decades. I can recall animated conversations in graduate school 30 years ago. Today, these conversations are still happening in academia and among antiracist educators and now are being debated outside of academic walls. For example, the discussions about White Fragility and White Privilege has been active for decades and I, and many others on this platform have written critiques of it as well.
I am a strong proponent of many tenets of CRT: race is a socio-political construct as anthropologists have said for 150 years. There’s strong and convincing evidence for systemic racism and that systemic racism reproduces racism. Where I diverge is in not believing that racism is tethered to skin color and that Whites are inherently racists. This principle is not a formal part of CRT as forwarded by many of its scholars.
In our current radicalized society, anyone who holds ideas or who practices behaviors or who promotes policies that intentionally benefit one racial group over others and who perpetuates racial group inequity would be racist. In the U.S. Whites benefit from how systems such as employment, criminal justice system, healthcare, wealth creation, housing, and education are designed, and BIPOC are disadvantaged.
Whites, in their collective group identity, created social, economic, and political systems that are inherently racist and these systems still exist today. To the extent that BIPOC promote policies that work to keep the status quo which are designed to strategically benefit Whites then they would be participating and perpetuating systemic racism and therefore could be considered racist. BIPOC didn’t create the systemic racism but they can perpetuate it. Similarly, to the extent that Whites promote policies and work to keep the status quo which are designed to strategically benefit them then they would be participating and perpetuating systemic racism and considered racist.
Most advocates of CRT believe and forward this understanding of who is considered racist. Being racist is determined by a pattern of racist behavior. Racist is not a tag attached to skin color.
Of course, it is easier to simply use this tag and name it CRT as a way to forward a political agenda. We have to unpack it and be aware of what it happening. Most politicians cannot even define its tenets, have never read an academic article, or listened to lecture or talk about CRT. They have never studied CRT or care to understand it or even engage in meaningful dialogue about it. CRT has been around for over 40 years. We have to ask why the pushback is happening so aggressively now?
Today, there is an active campaign by conservatives to frame CRT as negative and to make it a liberal progressive “brand.” From the Washington Post: “Christopher Rofo, a prominent opponent of critical race theory, in March acknowledged intentionally using the term to describe a range of race-related topics and conjure a negative association. “We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into pubic conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions,” wrote Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under the brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory’.”
Our goal is quite the opposite to create a society that is antiracist, inclusive, diversity-affirming, productive, and innovative. Our “brand” is a society that works for all.