Is "Critical Race Theory" the "Defund the Police" of 2022?

[brooklynite]

An issue that some on-the-left groups advocate, and very few Democratic candidates will campaign on, but which Republicans and conservative media will try to tag all Democrats with?

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Yep. Every year, it's something new. Gay Marriage was the GOP sword used in early 2004.

[Caliman73]

2. Conservatives will surely try to make it the issue.

"Defund the police" is a bad slogan for a necessary idea. We need to fund community services and programs to reduce crime at the cause instead of continuing to fund more and more surveillance and police on the streets. Police make up between 40% to 60% of municipal and county budgets, while health services and social programs are meagre. Funding communities and not just police is sound strategy, but it was a slogan served up to conservatives on a tee.

Critical Race Theory has been around for 40 years, FORTY, FOUR O, as long as I have been alive. No one has ever heard about it outside of people in certain political circles and academics.

All conservatives have in their bag of tricks are scare tactics. They have NO policy. NO plan for improving people's lives. So, yes, CRT, the Border, and anything that comes up between now and 2022 will MOST CERTAINLY be the "greatest threat to America Ever!!"

Look out for the next Caravan heading to the US within the next few months.

[uponit7771]

3. Yes, GQP will make *ANY* issue to tag dems pols with vs dem pols getting out first and tagging them

... with their crap against the constitution and beating the shit out of them with it.

Their lord, savior and whore for Putin killed 500,000 Americans and we're concerned with what they tag us with ?!

We need to get out messaging machine straight

[maxsolomon]

4. SOME people were actually advocating reducing Police Budgets (like me)

Who on the "Far Left" is demanding CRT be incorporated in to school curricula, particularly in the way the GQP is asserting? Seems like a pure GQP propaganda campaign.

[wellst0nev0ter]

32. Just more goop Koolaid

CRT is an area of graduate study that was initially push forward and explored in law schools, nothing more. It's where we get terminologies like "disparate impact" from.

And now unnamed "activists" sabotaging Democratic candidates with this issue? Really?

(this is a response to OP, not you)

[FBaggins]

5. I guess that depends

Will there be a split on the left in whether/how/when to apply it AND will swing voters feel it’s misguided?

I don’t know either answer

[underpants]

6. Yes and it will probably just as effective

The Defund thing and only televising later night riot last year did the GOP very well. Abigail Spanberger correctly read Pelosi the riot act about this stuff.

[moose65]

9. Why was that Pelosi's fault?

Very few Dems (if any) were really saying "Defund the Police." Republicans seized on that idea and tried to convince voters that every Dem candidate advocated abolishing the police force.

Dems need to do the same - tar every Republican with Marjorie Taylor Greene's Qanon baloney. Let THEM defend those ideas!

[underpants]

10. Well they had a closed door meeting from what I read

And Abigail was one of many trying to tell their fellow Dems that what works in our safe districts just about killed us on the competitive districts.

[wellst0nev0ter]

33. DCCC autopsy blamed the House wipeout on trumpanzee turnout

turnout of low-turnout goop voters was responsible for 70% of the electoral losses in the House. "Defund the Police" didn't even amount to 30%.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-2020-autopsy-midterms/2021/05/18/6114af82-b80d-11eb-a5fe-bb49dc89a248_story.html

Another report shows that Democrats wasted six times as much money on positive ads than the goops, even though the Dems had a pandemic and an economic collapse handed to them on a silver platter. Dems wasted three times the money than the other side promising "bipartisanship" with the enemy.

Meanwhile, the goops correctly spent more than 10 times as much as Dems on attack ads, and they worked. Dems need to fire whatever election strategists they hired.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/can-democrats-avoid-pitfalls-2020-new-analysis-offers-striking-answers/


(Use www.printfriendly.com to get around paywall if you need to)

[underpants]

35. Okay thanks. Good info.

[KT2000]

7. Defund the Police

had to have been the stupidest phrase - ever. Critical Race Theory is easy to address intelligently starting with the question for all - have you read it?

[wellst0nev0ter]

34. Trumpanzee turnout and bad Dem adverting was the cause of the election losses

A DCCC autopsy of the 2020 election showed that turnout of low-turnout goop voters was responsible for 70% of the electoral losses in the House. "Defund the Police" didn't even amount to the other 30%.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-2020-autopsy-midterms/2021/05/18/6114af82-b80d-11eb-a5fe-bb49dc89a248_story.html

Another report shows that Democrats wasted six times as much money on positive ads than the goops, even though the Dems had a pandemic and an economic collapse handed to them on a silver platter. Dems wasted three times the money than the other side promising "bipartisanship" with the enemy.

Meanwhile, the goops correctly spent more than 10 times as much as Dems on attack ads, and they worked. Dems need to fire whatever election strategists they hired.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/can-democrats-avoid-pitfalls-2020-new-analysis-offers-striking-answers/


(Use www.printfriendly.com to get around paywall if you need to)

[KT2000]

48. It sure made fodder

for cable news, social media, and personal conversations. It was a phrase utilized in the mess that occurred in Seattle which then became a talking point on local news and defined divisions even more. It was an idiotic phrase at the grass roots.

[wellst0nev0ter]

52. How many goops won in Seattle?

Or Washington for that matter?

Quit running away from culture wars. Win them.

[KT2000]

54. we see things differently

and let's leave it at that because you are bordering on offensive.

[LanternWaste]

8. And there's the back of the t-shirt.

[leftstreet]

11. What fucking idiot decided to call it a "theory?"

That's just a rightwing whistle right there

[JHB]

12. The scholars who came up with the phrase over 20 years ago.

Those "fucking idiots."

Actually, closer to 40 years ago.

[leftstreet]

15. And nothing's changed in 20 years

There's a good chance 20 years ago those scholars (who probably meant well) decided something was wrong when they chanced into the surveillance nightmare in a Target on Chicago's south side.

[JHB]

19. There's a whole internet for you to just look up its history and see who they were...

...and decide whether or not a Target on the South Side had anything to do with it.

[wellst0nev0ter]

37. CRT actually got its start in the 1970s

It was (and is) a pretty dry field of graduate study that was initially push forward by legal scholars. It's where we have "disparate impact" and all the other legal remedies to combat the legacy of discrimination.

Those who believe "activists" were the ones who gave birth to the phrase have fallen for a laughable disinformation campaign.

[iemanja]

43. It has led to a lot of innovation

in academic disciplines. Without critical race theory we wouldn't have critical disability theory, and many other approaches to understanding society, law, and history. The problem isn't that forty years ago a group of academics coined the term that I seriously doubt is taught in K-12. The problem is the lying GOP and people who lap up whatever they say, which now seems to include Democrats. This is about erasing history. That is exactly what the Republicans want to do. Are you advocating that we lie to the nation's children to appease them? No mention of the Tuskegee experiment or the Oklahoma race massacre? Don't accept their language. Understand that this is about historical truth.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Lol the people who understand what "theory" actually means.

[leftstreet]

14. Racial justice isn't a theory

Examining historical and current intersection of law and race is...theoretical how?

[brooklynite]

17. Remember how angry people got at Trump's "Patriotic Education" idea?

You don't BRAND it, you just tell publishers to update the history textbooks.

[leftstreet]

18. but alas our media and politicians rely on branding n/t

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. A theory doesn't determine whether something exists; it's meant to explain how/why something exists.

CRT doesn’t prove racism exists. It attempts to explain how and why institutional racism replicates itself within systems, even as people try to eliminate it.

[iemanja]

44. It's a mode of analysis

used by academics. It's a way of examining society, the law, and culture. There are many theories: World Systems theory, critical disability theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, conflict theory, etc. Here is a brief introduction to sociological theories.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-introductiontosociology/chapter/reading-theoretical-perspectives/

[iemanja]

41. The academics who use it in their work.

It's an academic theory that has nothing to do with politics. The Republicans, who couldn't begin to understand it, use it as a proxy to fan the flames of white rage. Critical race theory is not taught in k-12. US history is, and that is what Republicans want to erase. Do you suggest we lie to students to appease the GOP?

[GoCubsGo]

16. Yes.

It's one of the GQP's latest boogeymen, along with Stacey Abrams.

[Hekate]

21. Absolutely. Especially good since it came it came straight off some university campus so it sounds...

…real “elitist” with a side order of “you think you’re better than we are” (thank you James Carville for hitting this particular nail on the head).

GQP is by now composed of nothing but playground bullies who grew up to be thugs. They’ve gone from giving wedgies and stealing other kids’ lunch money, to being politicians who actively harm the rest of us just because they can.

They will take your sainted grandma’s name and turn it into a slur.

Do I think we need to learn to “think critically” about race? Hell, yes. I think we need to teach our kids to be critical thinkers, period, on every subject, so when it comes time to discuss race we won’t have to use words like “critical race theory” and scare the yahoos.

I was in the middle of writing an OP about two of the images that slapped us in the face last week (the embroidered bag, and the cartoon and postcard of a lynching) when our internet went down for 26 hours and it became old news for DU.

But my thoughts remain — I’m a mythologist, which means I’m a storyteller, and further back my roots are studying history. There is a way to ask middle schoolers and high schoolers about what they see in silent images, and then weave a true story that will provoke questions rather than ending them.

Or maybe we should just get Pixar to tell the stories.

[StarfishSaver]

25. Critical Race Theory isn't taught to kids in elementary school

[Hekate]

27. Which is why I referenced middle schoolers & high schoolers

[StarfishSaver]

28. It's not taught in middle or high schools either.

[Hekate]

29. The issue, as I understand it, is whether it *should* be taught to anyone at any time for any reason

…regardless of whether they are in grade school, middle school, high school, community college, state college, graduate school, or possibly a branch of the military. The answer from the yahoos is a resounding no. Do I have that right?

And, if I may repeat/rephrase myself, the GOP (building on the lessons of Newt Gingrich) has twisted both the words and the concepts in such a manner as to ensure that in many parts of the country no school board will touch it with a 10-foot pole. If it is called “critical race theory.” So fcking call it something else enfolded in age-appropriate settings.

[StarfishSaver]

30. That's not the issue

Or at least it's not a REAL issue.

Not only is it not taught in elementary, middle or high school, there's been no attempt to introduce it into any curriculum at that level. This is a false outrage ginned up by the right wing to scare white people.

[maxsolomon]

38. CRT is code for Facts.

No one is teaching that "Whites are inferior to Blacks" or "All Whites are Racist".

They're scared that the concept of White Privilege might be taught, because it makes sense. Or Racial Sensitivity/Anti-Racism training.

Knowledge of Historical Injustices or Systemic Racism must never enter the minds of innocent White Children.

[Hekate]

64. Got that at the outset

[StarfishSaver]

22. No and yes

"Defund the Police" was a slogan created within the last couple of years.

Critical Race Theory is an in-depth and well-established framework for legal and cultural analysis that has been around for more than four decades.

So, no, "Critical Race Theory" and "Defund the Police" are not even in the same stratosphere.

The only thing they have in common is that the right wing (and some left wingers) have seized on both of them as political cudgels.

[Ms. Toad]

26. Exactly. n/t

[Klaralven]

39. According to wiki, it began in 1989 with a workshop at UW Madison

The first formal meeting centered on critical race theory was the 1989 "New Developments in Critical Race Theory" workshop, an effort to connect the theoretical underpinnings of critical legal studies (CLS) to the day-to-day realities of American racial politics. The workshop was organized by Kimberlé Crenshaw for a retreat entitled "New Developments in Critical Race Theory" that effectively created the field. As Crenshaw states, only she, Matsuda, Gotanda, Chuck Lawrence, and a handful of others knew "that there were no new developments in critical race theory, because CRT hadn't had any old ones—it didn't exist, it was made up as a name. Sometimes you gotta fake it until you make it". Crenshaw states that critical race theorists had "discovered ourselves to be critical theorists who did race and racial justice advocates who did critical theory".[25][24] Crenshaw writes, "one might say that CRT was the offspring of a post-civil rights institutional activism that was generated and informed by an oppositionalist orientation toward racial power".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#:~:text=national%20best%20sellers.-,Spread,in%20the%20context%20of%20schooling.

Beginning in 1995 it began to be applied by scholars in education.

In 1995, Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate began applying the critical race theory framework in the field of education, moving it beyond the field of legal scholarship. They sought to better understand inequities in the context of schooling. Scholars have since expanded work in this context to explore issues including segregation, relations between race, gender, and academic achievement, pedagogy, and research methodologies.

The issue is not whether Critical Race Theory should be taught in K-12 schools, but whether the k-12 curriculum design should be informed by Critical Race Theory.

[StarfishSaver]

55. You misread the Wikipedia article

From the second paragraph:

Critical race theory originated in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams. It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race.

Critical Race Theory long predated this workshop in Wisconsin, which was a meeting of CRT legal scholars to share and delve into the work that had already been going on for some time. I participated in the next Critical Race Theory workshop with these and other legal scholars held the following year and I can tell you that CRT was already well-established as a discipline at that point.

Here's a good article that explains CRT, its definition, origins and substance:

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

[Ms. Toad]

23. One of at least 2 -

the other being trans- (take your pick of women's sports; transition care for trans-youth, or bathroom use).

All issues on which conservatives are united - and Democrats are not. All will be used to drive conservatives to the pollls on election day in 2022; all are issues on which our most liberal candidates will be force to choose visible support v. discouraging otherwise Democratic voters. All issues which have a natural election loss scapegoat. (Once again, like 2004, we will be blastted for not being willing to wait for our sparkly pony - even though it is Conservativs drummming up the issue and ignorant/bigoted Democrats helping them.)

There's at least one thread now beating the "keep women who happen to be trans out of women's sports" drum. Including one post that explicitily suggests that allowing women, who happen to be trans, to participate in women's sports is a win for men.

[SunImp]

24. .

Link to tweet

/photo/1

[ismnotwasm]

36. "All Democrats" should be supportive of CRT

It’s history. Period.

[iemanja]

40. NO

Critical race theory is an academic mode of analysis. It should not be a political issue, except the dumbshit Republicans have used it as a proxy to capitalize on white rage. It says nothing that they claim. It's a theory that examines how structures and culture have led to and reinforced racism. I can assure you that critical race theory as a discipline is not taught in K-12. The history of the US is taught in those classes, and that is what the Republicans want to erase.
Now you're going to repeat their claims?

[brooklynite]

45. You lost me (and most voters) at academic mode of analysis...

…and I’m on the Board of a school.

If you want to change the history curriculum, get schools and Education Boards to tell publishers to change the books. Don’t talk about “academic modes”

[iemanja]

46. No one is

Except the fucking GOP. They want to erase history. This is about their forcing schools to lie to children about US history. It has nothing to do with theory. Do you want to ensure that students aren't taught about slavery, the Tuskegee experiment, the Tulsa race massacre? That is what they want, and you are going along with it.

If you don't understand the concept of critical race theory, don't talk about it. Repeating ignorance is not okay. Isn't it enough that the GOP wants to promote lies? Why do you have to do it as well?

There is nothing obtuse about my post. You made a deliberate choice to refuse to understand. Long story short, you're repeating GOP lies.

[brooklynite]

47. Are you familiar with the Texas School Board?

They tweak the curriculum of Texas textbooks all the time. What they don't do is give the changes elitist-sounding themes to promote publicly.

[iemanja]

49. That is exactly what the right has done

They dug up the term as an excuse to erase history. And here you are swallowing it whole.

The Texas textbook committees are horrific, and they have a lot of power over K-12 textbooks throughout the nation. You can put me down for not giving the right control over our children's minds, any more than they already have. You seem all too comfortable with brainwashing the nation's children. That is what your support of the right's attack is about, whether you realize it or not.

[brooklynite]

51. I'm NOT objecting to changing the curriculum; I'm objecting to the pointless phraseology

[iemanja]

53. the phrasing is the right wing's

I seriously doubt you have K-12 teachers saying, "let's teach critical race theory." You might encounter it in college, and certainly in many graduate programs in law, the humanities, and the soft social sciences.

You are picking up the right's argument and using it against Democrats.

[StarfishSaver]

56. Thank you

This is ridiculous.

And despite what the liars say, Critical Race Theory isn't taught, even at the higher education level. It's an APPROACH to analyzing and teaching, not a subject matter.

[iemanja]

60. right

but grad students in relevant disciplines will read key figures who have discussed and used critical race theory so that it might inform their own work, just as they learn about other theories.

[StarfishSaver]

63. True

I was just countering the "They're trying to teach Critical Race Theory to our sweet, innocent little white babies!"

[jalan48]

42. Yes. The latest "be afraid of black people" tactic used by Republicans.

[wellst0nev0ter]

50. Once Again, Some Dems Are Ready To Dodge a Culture War Instead of Winning It

First of all, everything you've been hearing from the goops about CRT is a big, honking lie, a deliberate misinformation campaign designed to scare perpetually nervous Democrats.

Second, this should be an opportunity to speak from a position of extreme confidence, not from a fear of backlash.

"Education is good"

"Racism is bad"

"The U.S. had a racist history"

"White nationalists suck"


This isn't complicated unless you WANT to make it complicated.

[StarfishSaver]

58. But but but

white Republicans might not vote for Democrats if they think we don't want their children to learn racist history.

[wellst0nev0ter]

59. Who wants to win trumpanzee votes anyway?

[Crunchy Frog]

61. Culture wars aren't about winning. They're about whipping up hysteria,

and they seem to be pretty effective for that.

I think our side needs to be very careful in how we engage with the RW on culture war issues. I don't claim to have any answers on how to handle it, but I do know that they're good at hurting us, and we're not good at fighting back.

[wellst0nev0ter]

62. Goops are better at making people pissed off at imaginary shit

while too many of us Dems struggle to make people pissed off at shit that is actually happening.

[aocommunalpunch]

65. Damn straight.

My parents are not THE most informed and are getting up there (>70) and my mom brought it up over breakfast this last week. I told her flatly it is not a thing, other than to build fear. She said that was what she thought. It avoided focusing on the right wing framing, because they want it to be a thing. It's just not. End of discussion.

[wellst0nev0ter]

66. That's exactly what I'm afraid of

Democrats treating it like a real think like defund the police.