Critical Race Theory

Worldly and otherworldly topics
User avatar
Madrigal
Posts: 619
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2019 8:59 am

Critical Race Theory

Post by Madrigal » Wed Mar 10, 2021 11:00 pm

I just found out this term existed. I mean, I always knew about it as a concept but I didn't know this was what it was called. I think however that I'm more accustomed to seeing this concept applied to class, not race.

What is your understanding of what Critical Race Theory means, and what is your take on it? Do you agree that school curricula should be modified to adapt subjects such as History or Social Studies to this perspective? How do you think your race influences your feelings towards this subject?

Tags:

djm
Posts: 244
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:08 pm
Location: Woodplumpton
Formerly: djm

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by djm » Wed Mar 10, 2021 11:55 pm

It is a racist and divisive abomination that has no substance and detracts from class (the real issue).

I will write more on this when I have time, as it is a serious issue in the UK.

djm
Posts: 244
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:08 pm
Location: Woodplumpton
Formerly: djm

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by djm » Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:31 am

To explain my thoughts on this matter, I probably need to first add some context.

I am white, working-class, and grew up in the worst part of one of the most run-down cities in Europe during the 1970s. I experienced a dreadful education and was fairly poor. My great-great grandparents (male line) came from Belarus following the emancipation of the serfs. My great grandfather was a farm worker and ended up serving in both Galipoli (bullet through the leg) and the Somme (gassed). However in the end the appalling living conditions of 1920's Birmingham did for him and he died of TB. Fans of 'Peaky Blinders will recognise the area, and the factory he worked in (BSA). My Grandfather and his siblings were abandoned and left to fend for themselves, he ended up in an orphanage, his two brothers died in WW2 but my grandfather lived and worked his whole life 6 days a week on a building site. I was a teenage accident and grew up in an area described in my high school text book as a slum that had been cleared and made worse.

My demographic (white working class male) has the worst outcomes for education, health and social mobility of any group in the UK, significantly worse than most ethnic minority groups in the UK.

Critical race theory would have me believe that I am innately privileged due to my race, and that I am innately racist due to my colour and that a wealthy middle-class person that is not white is innately disadvantaged. It has become an obsession among the middle-class university crowd, the middle-class civil service, and the middle-class media. It has been picked up by the left and flogged to death by them.

It is hard to decide which group it is most racist towards, but it sows disharmony where there was none (I have never heard race discussed as much before).

I detest identity politics. People deserve to be judged as individuals, not a set of attributes.

User avatar
Utisz
Posts: 676
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2019 4:35 am

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by Utisz » Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:23 am

djm wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:31 am
Critical race theory would have me believe that I am innately privileged due to my race, and that I am innately racist due to my colour and that a wealthy middle-class person that is not white is innately disadvantaged. It has become an obsession among the middle-class university crowd, the middle-class civil service, and the middle-class media. It has been picked up by the left and flogged to death by them.
There exist various dimensions of institutional discrimination, be it class, race, gender, sexual preferences, etc., so I don't see an issue necessarily with theories or initiatives addressing specific dimensions.

An individual may be discriminated against along some dimensions (to differing degrees), and they might be privileged along other dimensions (to differing degrees). Studying or theorising about individual dimensions is important, as each dimension is different, and all dimensions suck for those on the wrong end.

For example, gender discrimination and race discrimination are fairly orthogonal in terms of their origins and expression. The study of gender discrimination is different from -- but does not, in my opinion, detract from -- race discrimination, for example. Initiatives to address institutional discrimination based on gender would be different than those that address institutional discrimination based on race.

I interpret (perhaps wrongly) from your post the idea that these dimensions are exclusive, like focusing on race discrimination "denies" class discrimination. I don't necessarily see it that way. Racial discrimination is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. The same goes for discrimination based on class, gender, religion, sexual preference, etc.

disclaimer: The first time I heard of "Critical Race Theory" was today in this topic.

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by Julius_Van_Der_Beak » Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:34 am

I think racial tensions work to sort of prop up the class inequality in the U.S, so to me you can't really say that "only class matters" or "only race matters". Focusing on only one of those things is going to result in the thing not being fixed. The most threatening thing to the status quo in the U.S. historically seems to be the idea of poor whites and poor blacks on the same side. Take the Black Panthers, for instance. The maintenance of the class hierarchy seems to really depend on the maintenance of the racial hierarchy.

djm
Posts: 244
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:08 pm
Location: Woodplumpton
Formerly: djm

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by djm » Thu Mar 11, 2021 9:52 am

Utisz wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:23 am
I interpret (perhaps wrongly) from your post the idea that these dimensions are exclusive, like focusing on race discrimination "denies" class discrimination. I don't necessarily see it that way. Racial discrimination is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. The same goes for discrimination based on class, gender, religion, sexual preference, etc.

disclaimer: The first time I heard of "Critical Race Theory" was today in this topic.
No I think the opposite is true, peoples situations deserve to be judged on individual merit. Critical race theory wants to over-simplify the world by using a paint by numbers system of privilege, similar to intersectional feminism (another abhorrent and flawed way of looking at life). Indeed intersectional Feminism and critical race theory go hand in hand in the UK and are espoused by the same set of organisations and people.

It leads to very widespread resentment amongst working-class communities, and racial disharmony in them. It leads to policies of female only shortlists (unfair on men and patronising to women), it leads to positive discrimination policies (no such thing as always negative to one side).

In the end these policies are both grossly unfair, and do very little to help people that are not already middle class and doing OK. But is a middle class black person in the UK really disadvantaged compared to a poorer white person? I don't believe so. Neither do the poor white communities who have all abandoned the left in droves and delivered a large Tory majority. Ordinary people see the left obsessing over non-existent issues whilst doing nothing to fix the actual problems on the ground.

Regards structural racism in the UK, there is no evidence whatsoever that it exists. The UK is the most open, and least racist, least homophobic nation in Europe and probably the world. I do not doubt that there are racist individuals here, but there is no racism in law or in our institutions - at least not towards minorities.

I have just moved from a small house in a very mixed area, where I had neighbors that were black, neighbors that were asian, neighbors that were Muslim. Never seen any racism in the area towards them. Recently I have heard very racist slogans start to be used towards people of my background. Ther mother of an Indian friend uses terms like 'male pale and stale' for instance. It is all of a sudden not only acceptable to be hostile to white people, to men etc it is almost fashionable.

White working class people get labelled as 'gammon' a term every bit as rude as the 'N' word. We have people at our elite universities coming out with 'white live don't matter'. Part of this is tied up with the middle class resentment about Brexit - oh those awful gammon are just racist, how dare they interrupt our cosy set up. It is easier for them to demonise ordinary people than understand that their communities have been left to rot, that they have had no benefit from freedom of movement.

Underpoinning all of these fashionable causes are the following:

1. Nice overall aim - hard to argue against anti-racism, anti homophobia, environmental challenges etc.
2. Horrid solution - the answer is always communism
3. Painting of any that agree with 1. but don't think 2. is the right way to fix things are labelled 'racist', 'homophobic', 'anti-environment' etc etc.

Until this stops the UK will never elect the Labour party again.

User avatar
Ferrus
Posts: 270
Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:10 pm
Location: Barcelona

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by Ferrus » Thu Mar 11, 2021 10:33 am

djm wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:31 am
To explain my thoughts on this matter, I probably need to first add some context.

I am white, working-class, and grew up in the worst part of one of the most run-down cities in Europe during the 1970s. I experienced a dreadful education and was fairly poor. My great-great grandparents (male line) came from Belarus following the emancipation of the serfs. My great grandfather was a farm worker and ended up serving in both Galipoli (bullet through the leg) and the Somme (gassed). However in the end the appalling living conditions of 1920's Birmingham did for him and he died of TB. Fans of 'Peaky Blinders will recognise the area, and the factory he worked in (BSA). My Grandfather and his siblings were abandoned and left to fend for themselves, he ended up in an orphanage, his two brothers died in WW2 but my grandfather lived and worked his whole life 6 days a week on a building site. I was a teenage accident and grew up in an area described in my high school text book as a slum that had been cleared and made worse.

My demographic (white working class male) has the worst outcomes for education, health and social mobility of any group in the UK, significantly worse than most ethnic minority groups in the UK.

Critical race theory would have me believe that I am innately privileged due to my race, and that I am innately racist due to my colour and that a wealthy middle-class person that is not white is innately disadvantaged. It has become an obsession among the middle-class university crowd, the middle-class civil service, and the middle-class media. It has been picked up by the left and flogged to death by them.

It is hard to decide which group it is most racist towards, but it sows disharmony where there was none (I have never heard race discussed as much before).

I detest identity politics. People deserve to be judged as individuals, not a set of attributes.
This reminds me of the story about the working class porters at Oxford being sacked for using politically incorrect terminology. A lot of these theories and ways of talking about them have become a class shibboleths in the same way U or non-U was in the past. It gives an old British prejudice towards a significant part of that population the sheen of modernity and egalitarianism.

Regardless of the OP's question, I do feel part of this problem - coming from a family most of which was working class - my great grandfather was a prison guard in Dartmoor and before that was an orphan who was basically raised by the army in India who according to the DNA results my mum did seem to have been a mix of West country farmers from around Devon and Irish farmers from around Donegal who ended up in the lower ranks army for want of anything else to do - with the exception of my dad's dad family who were, at least since the early 1900s middle class (my great grandfather was my dad's side was an accountant, his wife was from Switzerland) a lot of it is the destruction of the spirit of self-improvement that used to exist among the working classes. I did my master's degree in Birkbeck in the evenings and it was deliberately founded as a college for working class people in London to go to after work to educate themselves by George Birkbeck, as part of the mechanical institutes and self-help movements that existed. One of my great-grandfathers (from Wolverhamptom) was actually very much involved in this, apparently he went from son of a blacksmith worker to railway clerk and would extol teetotalism, learning the "King's. English" and became a Labour councillor in Wolverhampton in the 50's. I really don't see any movement within the white working classes now which is trying to do this, except a few isolated philanthropists trying to encourage entrepreneurship. And honestly I don't know what happened to it, except that a kind of benign paternalism which has always existed in British society for centuries ended up smothering it. On top of that the education system seems to have abandoned rigorous teaching of STEM subjects, which is a disaster as by my own experience I have seen that software engineering, by the standards of other professions is very meritocratic. The same from what I've heard applies to other engineering disciplines like mechanical engineering etc. which is why many working class students, the first from their generation to go to universities in the 60s would offer study engineering as it was a path to a decent way out of their class. There is a telling anecdote that in the 80s Oxford students would call working class students "Northern Chemists". The fact that many immigrant groups do well, who in the first generation don't have much income but still end up pushing their kids to be doctors or lawyers or engineers suggests that the issue is not only about money, it is about the cultural attitudes. In working class families there is a real sense of shame for excelling, a tendency to push everyone down to the same level, the tall poppy syndrome, a feeling that it's best not to stand out. I still feel the grammar schools, for all their faults, could have been reformed to allow more working class students a chance in and a good education that encouraged excellence, an environment with a different ethos, rather than creating a postcard apartheid with comprehensive schools which has been the case for the last 50 years that under the guise of egalitarianism has just entrenched social devision. That, as well as failing less academically orientated students the chance to be more economically successful under decent technical schools that teach industrial skills that could actually have made the UK competitive on the international market the way German apprenticeship-gymnasium system does. It goes hand in hand with the way in which for many decades both traditional big businesses in the UK, and the government (and the unions when they used to have influence) all failed to probably invest in long term goals or plans, always chasing a quick win over investment in people and technology.
Ex falso, quodlibet

User avatar
Utisz
Posts: 676
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2019 4:35 am

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by Utisz » Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:18 pm

djm wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 9:52 am
Regards structural racism in the UK, there is no evidence whatsoever that it exists.
I think this is a very strong claim that I doubt is true.

While I don't know of specific evidence off-hand, Google leads me to some reliable-looking statistics (for the UK, from gov.uk websites) that to me constitute examples of evidence regarding structural racism in the UK:
  • Stop and Search: "In the year ending March 2020, Individuals from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background were stopped at a rate 4.1 times higher than those who were from a White ethnic group. This was similar to the previous year when the rate was 4.3 times higher." (direct quote)
  • Ethnic Pay Gap: Data from 2019 shows that while some minorities earn more than White British, most minorities earn less than White British. The following are the pay gaps with respect to White British. The right-most columns are adjusted using regression for a variety of confounding factors (how many people from each group live in London, what are their occupations, are they married, what qualifications do they have, what is the median age of people in the group, etc.); in simpler terms, it is a statistical analysis that tries to remove all other factors that are not ethnicity:

    Image

djm
Posts: 244
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:08 pm
Location: Woodplumpton
Formerly: djm

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by djm » Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:13 pm

Stop and search figures are higher due to the problem of knife crime in London being far higher in those communities. Most stabbings are carried out amongst members of these communities, and the main beneficiaries of increasing searching are those communities. It is clearly not a racist policy, it is driven by the crime as it should be.

As for pay gap, you would expect first-generation immigrant populations to earn less than established populations as people enter on bottom pay scales and have to work up them. This is same in every country and is not evidence of racism structural or otherwise. You already noted some minorities earn more than white British, is this racist? If not then why is it evidence of racism the other way around?

The other bogus pay gap is the gender pay gap, which bears no scrutiny when statistically adjusted but is endlessly trotted out as real.

You could look at access to university, where white British working class males are bottom. I do not think this is racist, but I do think it is a problem that should be understood and addressed. I am absolutely sure though that were that stat to be female and ethnic minority it would be put forwards as racism by the proponents of critical race theory.

The fact is that poor white people and poor people from other communities all deserve to be treated the same way, and have similar problems.

I return to the fact that in the UK discrimination is illegal, and that all citizens are equal under the law. I do not much care about equality of outcome, but I do care very much about equality of opportunity. Oftentimes policy driven by driving stats the right way leads to policy that actually creates discrimination.

As stated, the UK is an extremely tolerant and open society. I doubt there is anywhere better to be a minority. Could it be better? Of course. but would smashing the system and replacing it with a hard left one lead to a better outcome? No chance.

User avatar
starjots
Posts: 238
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:18 am
Location: New Mexico, USA

Re: Critical Race Theory

Post by starjots » Fri Mar 12, 2021 1:51 am

Madrigal wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 11:00 pm
I just found out this term existed. I mean, I always knew about it as a concept but I didn't know this was what it was called. I think however that I'm more accustomed to seeing this concept applied to class, not race.

What is your understanding of what Critical Race Theory means, and what is your take on it? Do you agree that school curricula should be modified to adapt subjects such as History or Social Studies to this perspective? How do you think your race influences your feelings towards this subject?
Never heard of it, skimmed a wikipedia article.

The term that stuck in my throat/eye/brain-bits was the repeated use of 'narrative.' Maybe it's just me skimming, but the extensive use of 'narrative' is how racists do their thing to instill that black, brown, and purple people are not quite human. So fight fire with fire? What happened to sticking to ideals like justice, equal opportunity, and fixing problems?

As an example of racist narrative, take the TV show 'cops' for example, which I detest. Who's getting busted all the time? Some black folks of course. Draw your own conclusions, gentle viewers. Of course, the white folks taking all the same drugs aren't on TV as much because their parents gave to the Sheriff's department fund, or they know the sheriff or they live in the right neighborhood.

I'm white in a mixed state. I recognize race is a big problem in the US, and it isn't always what you would expect either. I think laws and their application should be color blind. I'm not saying those white kids should be getting arrested for drugs, I'm saying nobody should be getting arrested except the big fish making the big money on exploitation, etc.

Post Reply