Help me understand… Critical Race Theory

They're scared.

Some may think "ignore it and it will go away" and others think "ignore it and allow it to flourish".

"It" being racism and both those trains of thoughts suck. One being incorrect and naive (at best), the other just evil.

I think you understand it very well. 

The cognitive dissonance of holding their beliefs leads to attempts at rationalization by the leaders of church (going to hurt white children's feelings, "increase division with our colored brothers and sisters" Not my words here, something I just read) and confirmation bias in daily life (explosion of false media outlets, intentional spreading of lies, distrust, and fear). It's not logical, but it is sadly predictable.

My two cents, as someone who still believes in God but refuses to go to a church ever again. Some evangelicals have informed me I’m not a Christian because I don’t condemn gay marriage.

Short answer:
1) because the patriarchy (and Christianity’s role in upholding it);
2) because as humans we sin and do terrible things and being Christian doesn’t exempt us from those behaviours any more than anyone else.

For some reason we tell ourselves that because we are Christian we are therefore good or moral. But I would argue there is nothing in the Bible and certainly nothing in history to indicate Christians have any degree of moral superiority over anyone else.

And the reality is, Christianity has long been a tool of oppression to keep people in power. The church doesn’t have a few bad apples, it’s rotten to the core. And until we face the two millennia of oppression and destruction we have caused, nothing will change.

And sorry - I went on a tangent but in light of what is happening in Canada, it’s difficult for me to talk about Christians having any type of moral standing.

Edited to add: TankTop I realize my tone was a bit more intense than I intended.  None of my comments were directed at you, I'm just feeling a bit raw about Christianity and 'Christian values' right now.

I think it’s important enough to note that what you’re asking for is related only to the honest teaching of our history. That is NOT critical race theory. I say this only because it’s precisely this misunderstanding/misinformation that’s proliferating everywhere as evidenced by hordes of parents noisily demanding it not be taught to their children. This is not CRT.

Many of us (I am a Jesus follower) really love the Old Testament where Christians conquered lands and people who did not worship the God of Abraham. And then they sacrificed bulls for their sins. Many seem to forget that Jesus came along and sacrificed himself and commanded us to humble ourselves, to not judge others, but to love people. All people. Period.

Yes, there is a difference. I think it’s important to qualify this and not allow the waters to be muddied, by people deliberately muddying it with their own agendas.

I love this!  I think that the gritty parts of history are important to be taught.

And really the two goals—pride in your country’s achievements and restorative awareness of its failures—can be achieved simultaneously. It’s not a zero-sum game. Just because white children *might* learn the racial sins of our country does not mean their whiteness naturally makes them oppressors any more than black children’s blackness naturally makes them victims.

I think it was Christopher Rufo who first started using it to characterize schools’ curricula, but once the falsehood caught on it’s been impossible to eradicate. This manufactured controversy is worrisome inasmuch as it’s based not on facts but on presumptions and conflations. CRT is only a theory in legal scholarship.  It’s never been put through the academic rigors of testing and sufficient peer review, and there are legitimate arguments for pro and con and that’s why it has never reached a status of infallibility. As I mentioned on another thread, even black academia was split on this when it surfaced decades ago.

It’s like I went to bed one night and woke the following morning and this was the new culture war. The next thing I knew Twitter and Facebook groups were being referenced in articles about it, and it spread like wildfire. This is a good illustration of why people should not rely on Twitter and Facebook to do their thinking for them.

That's because the fundagelicals lost the culture war on LGBTQ+. The culture has moved on and they're stuck in the past. No fire-and-brimstoning is going to bring the majority of the culture back to hating/closeting the LGBTQ people in their lives/families.

So, they had to find something else to hate. They still have abortion, but they seem to like to have two big baddies in the culture wars.

It used to be abortion and LGBTQ. Now, it seems, it's abortion and CRT.

There are so many uncharitable characterizations in this thread. You asked for the answer from a Christian, but most people who answered said they are not Christians. That's fine, but they don't speak for me. However, the general attitude makes me reluctant to participate. 

But, I know you TankTop to be interested in actual dialogue so I'm hoping I don't regret this.

I don't hold to CRT.

Before I'll explain why, I will also say that I do believe

That this country was built on stolen land
That institutional racism exists and has existed since our inception
That the judicial system unfairly favors white people
That white people have been advantaged in many forms

I don't believe in American Exceptionalism
I don't believe we were or are a Christian nation.

I don't believe in white washing our history and I work hard to make sure I don't actively participate in doing so. 

And I really don't believe the things the people who spoke for me on this thread said I do.

Where I diverge from CRT is here:
I believe racism is wrong because each and every person is created in the image of God and to treat any person badly is wrong because you're treating an image bearer badly, rather than thinking it's wrong because the person is of another skin color and that skin color has been or is oppressed. Both ideas say racism is wrong. I diverge on WHY it's wrong.

I also will not think of whole people groups in terms of oppressors and oppressed. Thinking ill of an entire group of people based on something they can't control, such as their skin color or who their ancestors were or what they did is the very definition of prejudice. That's not to say I don't recognize oppression, or acknowledge its part in our past or present, or even acknowledge that it has and does exist in systems, but I will not categorize human beings that way. I will not say "You're an oppressor because you're white, despite the lack of any evidence that you've ever intentionally oppressed anyone."  My neighbors are a White European Husband and his Mexican wife. They have two black daughters. CRT applied to social relationships says I have to think of him as oppressing his wife and daughters simply because he's European white and they're not. I will not think of him that way because there's simply no evidence that it's true. But CRT says it must be. The theory is supposed to hold more validity than his actual actions.

I also believe that each person answers for his or her own sins, not the sins of his ancestors. I'm only a third generation immigrant, my family coming from Germany and Austria in the early 20th century. I feel no more personal responsibility for slavery than I do the Holocaust. I think it's possible to say those things are horrific, without feeling I have to have personal guilt for them. I believe that's a burden of shame that's being hung on people for things their ancestors may or may not have done (in my case, they didn't). I believe people are responsible for their own sins, not the sins of their ancestors. Each individual IS responsible for righting wrongs that still exist and are in their power to correct, including those things that may have been set in motion by generations before, and I believe institutions need to practice repentance and change for actions of their past, but a person on an individual level is not guilty for something he did not do.

Lastly, I also think it's racist to say that white people will only end racism when it benefits them. That goes back to judging poorly an entire group of people based on something out of their control. I think it's uncharitable to characterize people that way, and it is prejudiced.

But, I think it's possible to diverge from CRT on those fundamental philosophies, and still agree on many of the same practical points, such as those I mentioned earlier. I agree with much of what CRT teaches about our past and present in terms of our history, our institutions, racial relations, etc. However, why it's wrong and what we do with where we are now is where I diverge. 

The results of......

While it appears Ted Cruz was endeavoring to ban the teaching of critical race theory, what he has inadvertently done is bar the teaching of several amendments of the Constitution.

President Abraham Lincoln's effort to abolish slavery with the 13th Amendment would cause problems since it directly addresses the history of U.S. slavery that was abolished by the new law. Cruz's censorship bill would effectively bar the teaching of that as well as the 14th Amendment, which made it so any person born in the United States a citizen of the United States. It also said that no person can be denied life, liberty or property. Teaching it would likely require educators to explain why that amendment came about, which would be censored by Cruz's bill.

It would also stop the teaching of the 15th Amendment, which ensured that all citizens of the United States had the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Even the word "servitude" would violate the censorship law Cruz wants to enact.

Critics wondered how educators would be able to teach about the three-fifths compromise under Cruz's law.
****
The legislation goes back to the manufactured crisis created by a right-wing think tank to create a culture war issue involving people of color and the teaching of slavery. Many on the right feel defensive about their children learning that white people enslaved people of color and being told that it was morally wrong.

www.rawstory.com/ted-cruz-constitution-censorship-bill/

The piece also says that the bill would likely never be brought up, but Cruz will use it for major fund raising.