Google, CRT and Reality- A Brief Critique

[HKHaugan]

Google, CRT and Reality- A brief Critique

       “The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.  A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas (Google entry).”

       Note here color of skin defines race.  Note also that ‘people of color’ is an invented euphemistic phrase denoting dark skinned people, their exterior appearance.  That needs questioning especially since every human being is a shade of one color or another.  There are not white people or black people.  Everyone is a shade of color from light to dark, colored in one way or another. There are light dark people and dark light people.  Look at a cross section of the US population. 

       The classification is false in terms of loans.  It is not black but poor, not color but economic distinction.  The fact that darker people congregate with other dark people or light with lighter, is not racial but social choice and economic circumstance.  The judgment placed by upper class professionals on the economic condition of a neighborhood is the real culprit.  Every shade of color has both poverty and wealth in their experience.  Social choices are conditioned by the sinful mind that is behind judgment by appearance.  This is the condition that needs a heart change.  It cannot be done by constant legal battling, intellectual gerrymandering or condemnatory accusations.  It is a spiritual problem and it’s not going away.  To place blame on others because of their external appearance is just as bad as its social and economic counterparts.

       This is not to avoid the fact of slavery in our early history and the effect it has had on large numbers of people.  Neither is it a way to excuse or dismiss anyone from facing what that oppression has meant for so many.  There is a French expression, autre temps, autre moeurs, other times, other practices.  This is not the 18^th or 19^th centuries.  Populations, governments, immigration and social policies change.  One thing remains constant and that is human nature and its imperfections.  Remember that fact as we continue.

       On with the quoted reference:  “Here’s a helpful illustration to keep in mind in understanding this complex idea. In a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court school-assignment case on whether race could be a factor in maintaining diversity in K-12 schools, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion famously concluded: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But during oral arguments, then-justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “It’s very hard for me to see how you can have a racial objective but a nonracial means to get there.””

       Justice Roberts is correct in the sense that race is a false concept. It means species not color differences.  Color to those who believe race exists means there are unequal species of human beings.  Justice Ginsberg using a non sequitur seems to have believed that race means species, therefore unequals should be considered equals.  She also seems to conclude that you fight a non-provable concept with another non-provable concept.  As one author sardonically stated, “All men are created equal, it’s just that some men are created more equal than others.”

      Moving on with the quote: “As one teacher-educator put it: “The way we usually see any of this in a classroom is: ‘Have I thought about how my Black kids feel? And made a space for them, so that they can be successful?’ That is the level I think it stays at, for most teachers.” Like others interviewed for this explainer, the teacher-educator did not want to be named out of fear of online harassment.”

       There you have it on the classroom level.  The belief is that black kids are not equal to begin with, that dark skinned kids have emotional, physical differences because they look different than those who are light skinned.  Of course, we sympathize with any poor person, with anyone who feels they are being put down but that is not racial, it is the human heart of those who use color to discriminate.  That is a heart issue.  It is sin that causes the disruption in social choices.

       Everyone has a color, but everyone is made up of one human flesh on the outside, with a mind, heart and spirit on the inside. Discrimination based on appearance is a spiritual issue of the heart not a species issue which is false.  And if a person feels condescension, is treated patronizingly, like “Oh you poor black kid, Hispanic kid, dark skinned kid,  (or just a plain kid), I feel so sorry for you.” It’s insulting and disrespectful to their personal humanity. That kills their sense of equality right there.  Also, if they are conditioned by parents and educators to believe they are always going to be judged on the basis of appearance, equality disappears.  Creating, promoting and disseminating social paranoia victimizes and alienates not only those it aims to help but its originators suffer from the hardness in their hearts which becomes their heart’s basic attitude.    That’s what intellect apart from God does.  That’s what belief in race does, but also beliefs about poor people, women, men, foreigners, outsiders, homeless, ex-cons, rich people, employers, employees, professionals, garbage collectors, etc. 

       Among all people groupings there are class distinctions and the judgments that go with them.  Critical Race Theory?  It’s based on intellectualized blame-seeking.  The real problem is the heart’s judgmentalism and that can be found in any difference you can name.  From the high-rise executive washroom to the lowly basement latrine, the country club to the slum, the varsity to the junior varsity, Park Avenue Penthouse and its lower floors, ethnic neighborhoods, the ins and outs in any ethnic group and whatever neighborhood distinction is in your area, fraternities in college to state and country residencies.  Wherever there are differences there will be prejudices, biases and discrimination.  Doctors, nurses, janitors in hospitals, non-coms and officers in the armed services, corporate boardrooms and middle management.  Team rivalries and the emotional ties that develop from them.  Humanity is rife with judgmental discord due to the spiritual disorder of sin in the individual human heart.  To center on a manufactured concept that creates division and false guilt is to avoid the real problem, the individual heart’s judgmentalism.  Is it any wonder the Father sent Jesus His Son into this social quagmire as a spiritual Savior?