I’m looking for some answers from the critics of Critical Race Theory (CRT). I want very much to understand what they find so objectionable, so “divisive,” about CRT that they would ban it and a broad expanse of race-based assessment and dialogue.
First, a matter of terminology. Some people imagine that “critical” means “we’re out to get white people.” Actually, the word simply refers to a process. The process of critiquing or assessment. To avoid confusion, I’m going to refer to “race-based assessment,” a term that covers processes that some call CRT as well as an array of other racial inquiries.
The assessment process is very familiar. Businessmen, scientists, policy analysts and others regularly use it to do professional assessments, and most of us also use it in our daily lives. For example, if we want to buy soap, we consider a couple of brands and identify differences between them (maybe cost, fragrance and ingredients). Then we assess the significance of those differences before we decide on a purchase.
Similarly, social scientists use this process to examine the incomes of all workers and then to look separately at men and women workers to see if there are interesting differences between the two. When they carry out these assessments, they often say they are “placing a gender lens” on income. Racial assessments such as CRT place a “racial lens” on a wide array of issues.
We can think of race-based assessments as having three steps. Step one in race-based assessments is to take some phenomenon, perhaps income, a public policy like the GI Bill, criminal justice practices like arrest and incarceration or a private enterprise practice like hiring, and place a racial lens over it to see if there are significant differences between the circumstances of Black people and white people.
The process breaks down a single category into subparts, just as we do for soap brands or incomes by gender. Breaking down the subparts for analysis is not “divisive” but rather is a vital step in exploring differences in our society.
As most of us know, much work of this sort (placing a race lens on phenomena) has already been done, and it reveals major differences between the races. For example, the assessments show that white Americans, on average, have considerably more income, wealth, homeownership, healthcare and education than Black Americans, and considerably less poverty and incarceration. These inquires often reveal that today’s wide gaps have always existed in America and that the gaps have, at best, narrowed slowly.
My questions for CRT critics are these: Is the use of a race lens, looking separately at Black and white data and circumstances and comparing them, considered divisive and problematic? Are the large Black-white gaps revealed by a race lens seen as a problem, perhaps an invitation to racial conflict? Is the ban you seek intended to ban the use of a race lens, to ban the gaps it reveals or both?
Step two of race-based assessments analyzes the differences found in step one to see if they are significant and to see why they exist. The Black-white gaps are obviously significant, for they create vastly different levels of economic well-being, personal safety, quality of life and economic opportunity. So, the important inquiry in step two is to try to identify why they exist.
People who do race-based analyses often attribute Black-white gaps to several dynamics. One dynamic is enduring, intentional racism. For example, numbers of white homeowners today refuse to sell their homes to Black people. Another dynamic is that certain advantages and disadvantages from the past can persist or even amplify over time. For example, having wealth (not just steady income but wealth that accumulates) offers advantages to people and is often passed down through the generations in such forms as businesses, funds for college tuition and inheritance. So, the fact that white people have on average about ten times the wealth of Black people creates an advantage that persists over time.
A third dynamic is that racism can become deeply embedded, often unintentionally or inconspicuously, in public and private policies and practices, cultural habits, and hearts and minds. It is hard to eliminate and tends to persist. For example, after several decades of serious integration efforts by the Armed Forces, the proportion of high-level Black officers continues to lag far behind white officers. This is of concern to many people in the military. Or again, residential segregation persists through individuals’ direct actions as described above, but also through zoning ordinances and engrained private realty and banking practices.
CRT critics seem to reject explanations such as these that recognize continuing racist forces, including ones embedded in us and our institutions (that are “systemic” or “institutionalized”). So, I am very interested in learning how CRT critics explain the major Black -white gaps that persist.
This question (how do you explain these gaps?) is of particular interest because over the centuries such gaps have usually been explained and justified by claims of white superiority and Black inferiority. They have been seen, for example, as the result of God’s creation, of evolution, of variations in the cranial size of races and as the product of inherent racial differences in personality traits such as morality and capacities for hard work and self-direction.
I have heard several new explanations for the gaps, that Obama or the 1960s or government are to blame. If answers like these are held by CRT critics, I’d appreciate a bit of detail, for they seem very weak in light of the fact that the gaps have existed for almost 400 years and that racial differences have always involved the private sector (realtors, bankers, unions, churches, retail establishments, private universities and vigilante groups, for example) as much as government.
Step three of race-based assessments involves ways to address and greatly reduce the significant Black-white gaps that persist. CRT critics attribute a narrow set of conclusions and recommendations to the racial assessors. But actually, people who do race-based assessments differ greatly among themselves in their ideas for solutions.
They differ about such things as white guilt, responsibility for causing racism and responsibility for addressing its effects. They differ in comparing American racism with India’s caste system and the interplay of race and class. They also differ about techniques to correct Black-white gaps, affirmative action approaches, the value of reparations and methods for measuring reparations.
If there is any widespread agreement among these assessors, it is that America should have a serious national discussion about how to address and overcome our historical racial gaps.
The aggressive smearing of CRT and a ban on its concepts are clear efforts to make sure that America never has this sort of serious racial discussion. So, a final question is whether CRT critics believe that the country will be more divided if we have the conversation or if we fail to have it. Help me understand how it would be better for the country to sweep these assessments under the rug than to boldly step up to understand them and learn from them.
(Paul A. Levy lives in Concord.)