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northernstories · 4 years ago

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African American Literature Suggestions from NMU English Department

The English Department at Northern Michigan University has prepared this list of several dozen suggested readings in African American literature, with some materials also addressing Native American history and culture. The first section contains books that will help provide a context for the Black Lives Matter movement. It includes books that will help readers examine their own privilege and act more effectively for the greater good. Following that list is another featuring many African American authors and books. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it does provide readers a place to start. Almost all of these books are readily available in bookstores and public and university libraries.

Northern Michigan University’s English Department offers at least one course on African American literature every semester, at least one course on Native American literature every semester, and at least one additional course on non-western world literatures every semester. Department faculty also incorporate diverse material in many other courses. For more information, contact the department at [email protected]. Nonfiction, primarily addressing current events, along with some classic texts: Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel Stein, editors. The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy. This classic collection of scholarly articles, essays, and interviews explores the links between social inequalities and unequal distribution of environmental risk. Attention is focused on the US context, but authors also consider global impacts. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. A clear-eyed explication of how mass incarceration has created a new racial caste system obscured by the ideology of color-blindness. Essential reading for understanding our criminal justice system in relation to the histories of slavery and segregation. Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. A very well-written but disturbing and direct analysis of the history of structural and institutionalized racism in the United States. Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Anzaldua writes about the complexity of life on multiple borders, both literal (the border between the US/Mexico) and conceptual (the borders among languages, sexual identity, and gender). Anzaldua also crosses generic borders, moving among essay, story, history, and poetry. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time. A classic indictment of white supremacy expressed in a searing, prophetic voice that is, simply, unmatched. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me. A combination of personal narrative in the form of the author’s letter to his son, historical analysis, and contemporary reportage. Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? In this succinct and carefully researched book, Davis exposes the racist and sexist underpinnings of the American prison system. This is a must-read for folks new to conversations about prison (and police) abolition. Robin DiAngelo, What Does It Mean To Be White? The author facilitates white people unpacking their biases around race, privilege, and oppression through a variety of methods and extensive research. Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarshnha, editors. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories From the Transformative Justice Movement. The book attempts to solve problems of violence at a grassroots level in minority communities, without relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing. Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The most well-known narrative written by one of the most well-known and accomplished enslaved persons in the United States. First published in 1845 when Douglass was approximately 28 years old. W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. Collection of essays in which Dubois famously prophesied that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” Henry Louis Gates, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. Must reading, a beautifully written, scholarly, and accessible discussion of American history from Reconstruction to the beginnings of the Jim Crow era. Saidiya Hartman, Lose your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. In an attempt to locate relatives in Ghana, the author journeyed along the route her ancestors would have taken as they became enslaved in the United States. bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation. A collection of essays that analyze how white supremacy is systemically maintained through, among other activities, popular culture. Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Narrative of a woman who escaped slavery by hiding in an attic for seven years. This book offers unique insights into the sexually predatory behavior of slave masters. Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. A detailed history not only of racist events in American history, but of the racist thinking that permitted and continues to permit these events. This excellent and readable book traces this thinking from the colonial period through the presidency of Barack Obama. Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life Any of LaDuke's works belong on this list. This particular text explores the stories of several Indigenous communities as they struggle with environmental and cultural degradation. An incredible resource. Kiese Laymon, Heavy: An American Memoir. An intense book that questions American myths of individual success written by a man who is able to situate his own life within a much larger whole. Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color This foundational text brings together work by writers, scholars, and activists such as Audre Lorde, Chrystos, Barbara Smith, Norma Alarcon, Nellie Wong, and many others. The book has been called a manifesto and a call to action and remains just as important and relevant as when it was published nearly 40 years ago. Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard. An invaluable collection of essays and speeches from the only black woman to win a Nobel Prize in literature. Throughout her oeuvre, Morrison calls us to take "personal responsibility for alleviating social harm," an ethic she identified with Martin Luther King. Ersula J. Ore, Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity. Ore scrutinizes the history of lynching in America and contemporary manifestations of lynching, drawing upon the murder of Trayvon Martin and other contemporary manifestations of police brutality. Drawing upon newspapers, official records, and memoirs, as well as critical race theory, Ore outlines the connections between what was said and written, the material practices of lynching in the past, and the forms these rhetorics and practices assume now. Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric. A description and discussion of racial aggression and micro-aggression in contemporary America. The book was selected for NMU’s Diversity Common Reader Program in 2016. Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy. The author facilitates white people in unpacking their biases around race, privilege, and oppression, while also helping them understand key critical social justice terminology. Maya Schenwar, Joe Macaré, Alana Yu-lan Price, editors. Who do you Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. The essays examine "police violence against black, brown, indigenous and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures." What are alternative measures to keep marginalized communities safe? Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, Is Everyone Really Equal? The authors, in very easy to read and engaging language, facilitate readers in understanding the ---isms (racism, sexism, ableism etc.) and how they intersect, helping readers see their positionality and how privilege and oppression work to perpetuate the status quo. Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. An analysis of America’s criminal justice system by the lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative. While upsetting, the book is also hopeful. Wendy S. Walters, Multiply / Divide: On the American Real and Surreal. In this collection of essays, Walters analyzes the racial psyche of several major American cities, emphasizing the ways bias can endanger entire communities. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery. Autobiography of the founder of Tuskegee Institute. Harriet Washington, Medical Apartheid. From the surgical experiments performed on enslaved black women to the contemporary recruitment of prison populations for medical research, Washington illuminates how American medicine has been--and continues to be shaped--by anti-black racism. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Autobiography of civil rights leader that traces his evolution as a thinker, speaker, and writer.

If you would like to enhance your knowledge of the rich tradition of African American literature, here are several of the most popular books and authors within that tradition, focused especially on the 20thand 21st centuries. Novels and Short Stories James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man Langston Hughes, The Ways of White Folks Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Nella Larsen, Passing Nella Larsen, Quicksand Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison, Beloved Richard Wright, Native Son Drama Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun Ntozake Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf August Wilson, Fences August Wilson, The Piano Lesson Poetry A good place to begin is an anthology, The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, edited by Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton. It includes work by poets from the 18th century to the present, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Countee Cullen, Rita Dove, Robert Hayden, Langston Hughes, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claude McKay, Phillis Wheatley, and many others. Here are some more recent collections: Reginald Dwayne Betts, Felon Wanda Coleman, Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Age of Phillis Tyehimba Jess, Olio Jamaal May, The Big Book of Exit Strategies Danez Smith, Don’t Call Us Dead

#blm movement #blm #african american literature #reading list #english

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years ago

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I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history could be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that ‘the facts’ existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as ‘the truth’ exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as ‘science’. There is only ‘German science’, ‘Jewish science’ etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs – and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.

But is it perhaps childish or morbid to terrify oneself with visions of a totalitarian future? Before writing off the totalitarian world as a nightmare that can’t come true, just remember that in 1925 the world of today would have seemed a nightmare that couldn’t come true. Against that shifting phantasmagoric world in which black may be white tomorrow and yesterday’s weather can be changed by decree, there are in reality only two safeguards. One is that however much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing, as it were, behind your back, and you consequently can’t violate it in ways that impair military efficiency. The other is that so long as some parts of the earth remain unconquered, the liberal tradition can be kept alive.

-- George Orwell, "Looking Back on the Spanish War" (1943)

Eerie.

[ Note: In 1949, Orwell subsequently wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. ]

"One of the key contributions of critical theorists concerns the production of knowledge. Given that the transmission of knowledge is an integral activity in schools, critical scholars in the field of education have been especially concerned with how knowledge is produced. These scholars argue that a key element of social injustice involves the claim that particular knowledge is objective, neutral, and universal. An approach based on critical theory calls into question the idea that objectivity is desirable or even possible. The term used to describe this way of thinking about knowledge is that knowledge is socially constructed. When we refer to knowledge as socially constructed we mean that knowledge is reflective of the values and interests of those who produce it."

-- Ozlem Sensoy/Robin DiAngelo, "Is Everyone Really Equal?"

#George Orwell #Looking Back on the Spanish War #1619 Project #historical revisionism #revisionist history #2+2=5 #woke math #postmodernism #decolonize science #cultural relativism #decolonize STEM #woke #wokeism #cult of woke #wokeness as religion #wokeness #religion is a mental illness

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years ago

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https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity

Gender is much more complex: It’s a social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts. Each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender. This is also generally male or female. But instead of being about body parts, it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex.

https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/transgender.htm (Center for Disease Control)

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity or expression (masculine, feminine, other) is different from their sex (male, female) at birth.

https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms (Human Rights Campaign)

Transgender | An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/102/11/3869/4157558?login=false (The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism)

Transgender: This is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with their sex designated at birth.

https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender (American Psychological Association)

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.

https://pedsendo.org/patient-resource/transgender-care/ (Pediatric Endocrine Society)

Transgender is umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807758612

“Gender: The socially prescribed and enforced roles, behaviors, and expectations that are assigned to us at birth. These roles determine how you are ‘supposed’ to feel and act based on your body.”

-- Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, “Is Everyone Really Equal?”

All of these “expert” medical and LGBT advocacy organizations need you to know that if you don’t act according to “cultural expectations” they define you as “trans.” If anyone should know, it’s them, right?

Imagine a girl who likes football and trail bike riding being told this in school, learning that she thought she was a girl, but she’s really a boy and didn’t know it. Oh no, I’m in the wrong body.

Imagine a boy who likes making his own clothes and enjoys rom-coms, hearing about this for the first time. Apparently, he’s not really a boy, he’s a girl. Oh no, I’m in the wrong body.

[Note that none of the above definitions require or even refer to dysphoria in any way.” It’s not about helping people in distress; the Buck Angels, the Blaire Whites, the Sara Higdons, etc. All the above definitions rely on the concept of gender performativity, a ”stylized repetition of acts”; gender is “real only to the extent that it is performed.” That is, gender performativity asserts that gender is a performance that you do, not something you have, and neither innate nor a stable identity. The obvious next question is why we would endorse irreversible procedures for something that’s performative, socially constructed, and neither stable (”fluid”) nor innate (”social construct”).]

#gender ideology #queer theory #gender stereotypes #stereotypes #gay conversion therapy #gay conversion #gender nonconforming #wokeness as religion #woke activism #cult of woke #woke #wokeism #gender performativity #gender performance #religion is a mental illness

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 3 years ago

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How would you explain crt and its impact to someone in five minutes or less? I want to explain it to my family, but don't have the time to make a full presentation.

If you want to explain Critical Race Theory to them in about 5 seconds, just show them this picture.

Need more? Let's do a 30-second elevator pitch.

At its most simplistic, Critical Race Theory can be quickly - but incompletely and inadequately - understood as Marxism (inheriting its conflict theory and superstructure concepts) but with class replaced by race, and white supremacy acting as the superstructure. White people are the oppressors, black people the proletariat, there's sometimes room for a bourgeois middle-class for brown, Asian, other non-white people, but the fundamental principle is "anti-blackness." Everyone is socialized to just accept this, and undoing all this oppression will require a full-blown revolution, since it's rotten to the core. "Woke" is the critical consciousness that "sees" this hidden "code of the Matrix."

Let's see if we can smash out a 5 minute version. I'm going to cite sources, but they're footnotes or external links.

Deep breath...

Critical Race Theory is the notion that liberal, secular democracies, but the USA in particular, have been founded and built for the benefit of white people, and to the exclusion and detriment of non-white people, but particularly black people (see: DiAngelo, below on "anti-blackness"). Racism, they say, is the underlying basis for American society and on which America was founded (see: 1619 Project). All white people benefit from this system (see: DiAngelo, below) All white people are racist. (see: above)

It posits that even the purportedly and scrupulously neutral language of the US Constitution is set up to uphold this system, as it acts as a form of plausible deniability when brown and black (& etc) people are prevented from succeeding. (see: Delgado/Stefancic, below)

It is postmodern in nature, which is, by design, hard to explain or define, but you need to know only two basic principles: that knowledge is socially constructed and related to identity groups - that is, it has the values of the identity groups of the people creating it (white knowledge, black knowledge, male knowledge, female knowledge, etc), thus objectivity (e.g. science) is a myth (see: Sensoy/DiAngelo, below); and that claims to knowledge are an expression of power rather than an expression of truth.

Theorists are less interested in what's true and more interested in who benefits from that truth claim - white, male knowledge has been privileged, hence why we have been socialized to trust white, male, rational, evidence-based science (see: Bryn Mawr) to further white interests, while the "knowledges" of other categories (black, indigenous, women's) such as feelings, traditions, storytelling, have been ignored or denied. (see: Science Must Fall?, Venezuelan embryology)

Certain qualities and values (see: the NMAAHC infographic) of modern, liberal society, such as individualism, being on time, science, objective, rational, linear thinking, the written word, delaying gratification, hard work, merit and the notion that "intent matters" are cast as aspects of "white cuiture" or "whiteness." It further posits that these values are forced upon racial minorities for whom these qualities are alien and unnatural, and the process of doing so is "white supremacy." (DiAngelo). That is, these values are bad, or at least, oppressive.

It denies the individual and the universal human experience explicitly (see; Crenshaw, Sensoy/DiAngelo), and is collectivist in nature. Everything is attributed to categories, and individuals experience everything about their lives through those categories. (see: Crenshaw, DiAngelo, and Sensoy/DiAngelo) It has concocted language to deal with those who reject its claims: white people are "fragile," (DiAngelo) black people have "internalized oppression" and "false consciousness" (see: Marxism) and aren't "authentically black." (see: Nikole Hannah-Jones, compare: Erec Smith)

Honorary membership in the "whiteness" club is granted to groups who embrace and further this "white supremacy", such as Jews, Italians and sometimes Asian people. They work to uphold this "white supremacy" to keep black and brown people in their place, as well (see: Delgado/Stefancic, below).

Racism is the "normal science" of American society and everywhere, at all times. (Delgado/Stefancic) Every interaction between all humans involves exertion of power - men onto women, white onto non-white, etc, etc. "The question is not ”did racism take place”? but rather “how did racism manifest in that situation?” (see: DiAngelo, "Basic Tenets, below) This is what they mean by "oppression." Because society is designed to grant white people power, only they can be racist. Black people are oppressed and without power, therefore they can't be. ("Basic Tenets").

Because everyone is socialized into this system, everybody just treats it as "the way things are" and the way everybody acts is to unconsciously uphold this oppressive dynamic. We are all merely puppets, keeping each other in our respective places. ("Basic Tenets", also Delgado/Stefancic)

Racism is the sole and only (and only acceptable) explanation for all racial disparities in US society (see: Kendi, below. also: Washington STEM Summit. compare: Lyell Asher, John McWhorter and Roland Fryer for multivariate analysis with respect to education outcomes). This is what "systemic racism" means.

Perhaps the most important thing anyone needs to know about CRT is that to address America's problems, it rejects and opposes the "content of their character rather than the color of their skin" (liberal, universal humanist, definition below) approach of reducing the social significance of skin color (often termed "color-blind"), and demands the opposite: "sse color" increasing the signficance of skin color, aka "color-conscious." (Delgado/Stefancic, DiAngelo "Dangerous", below)

It is the job of the Critical Race Theorist to look for these hidden, unconscious power dynamics, which are simply assumed to be there, identify them, call them out and "disrupt" them. ("Basic Tenets") Being "woke" means developing this "critical conscious" (in the Marxian sense), scrutinising and close-reading the minutiae of everyday life to find what it presupposes (see: Microaggressions). Intentions don’t matter (”Basic Tenets”).

There is no "not racist" (DiAngelo, Kendi); you can be actively "antiracist" ("Basic Tenets", Kendi) which is not merely being against racism, but rather committing "lifelong" to their particular program of activism which amounts to religious proselytism ("Basic Tenets", also John McWhorter); if you're white you're simultaneously still also racist. Saying you're "not racist" is admitting you're "racist' because you're not actively antiracist (Kendi).

It is paranoid, anti-science, shallow and juvenile, divisive, deliberately and explicitly illiberal and antiliberal (definition below) (Delgado/Stefancic) and sits atop mountains of "scholarship" (see: Grievance Studies probe) which is circular, presuppositional, presents no evidence, no statistics, is untestable, unfalsifiable, and asserts that even suggesting it should be is itself white supremacist.

It is also extremely relevant that it is most certainly not "just about teaching about slavery and racism" (Delgado/Stefancic). And particularly that this "movement" is opposed by very many black and other minority status people (see: Free Black Thought, FAIR).

Time?

Quotes

May be useful to show the scripture in the authors' own words to prove this is not a misrepresentation or strawman.

Some of these use what "The Woke Temple" calls the "Kleenex" definition of CRT: it might be arguable about whether it's technically a Kleenex, but it's from the tissue family.

As even the quote from "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" reveals, even "crits" themselves don't agree. It's sort of like Xianity in that way, and denial likewise usually takes the same form of a No True Scotsman fallacy. "tHaT's nOt tRuE cRt!!"

Let's start with a definition of Liberalism, since it's important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy.

i.e. the basis for the Constitutions of liberal, secular countries, including the USA.

---

From: Delgado/Stefancic, "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction"

"The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious.

Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law."

"What do critical race theorists believe? Probably not every member would subscribe to every tenet set out in this book, but many would agree on the following propositions. First, that racism is ordinary, not aberrational—“normal science,” the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country. Second, most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material. The first feature, ordinariness, means that racism is difficult to cure or address. Color-blind, or “formal,” conceptions of equality, expressed in rules that insist only on treatment that is the same across the board, can thus remedy only the most blatant forms of discrimination … The second feature, sometimes called “interest convergence” or material determinism, adds a further dimension. Because racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it.”

"As mentioned in chapter 1, critical race scholars are discontent with liberalism as a framework for addressing America’s racial problems. Many liberals believe in color blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law."

"Critical race theorists (or “crits,” as they are sometimes called) hold that color blindness will allow us to redress only extremely egregious racial harms, ones that everyone would notice and condemn. But if racism is em- bedded in our thought processes and social structures as deeply as many crits believe, then the “ordinary business” of society—the routines, practices, and institutions that we rely on to effect the world’s work—will keep minorities in subordinate positions. Only aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the way things are will do much to ameliorate misery."

"Crits are also highly suspicious of another liberal mainstay, namely, rights. Particularly some of the older, more radical CRT scholars with roots in racial realism and an economic view of history believe that moral and legal rights are apt to do the right holder much less good than many would like to think. Rights are almost always procedural (for example, to a fair process) rather than substantive (for example, to food, housing, or education). Think how our system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity, but resists programs that assure equality of results."

"Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply in- grained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent."

“Another aspect of the construction of whiteness is the way certain groups have moved into or out of that race. For example, early in our history Irish, Jews, and Italians were considered nonwhite—that is, on a par with African Americans. Over time, they earned the prerogatives and social standing of whites by a process that included joining labor unions, swearing fealty to the Democratic Party, and acquiring wealth, sometimes by illegal or underground means. Whiteness, it turns out, is not only valuable; it is shifting and malleable.”

---

“I am Black” takes the socially imposed identity and empowers it as an anchor of subjectivity. “I am Black” becomes not simply a statement of resistance but also a positive discourse of self-identification, intimately linked to celebratory statements like the Black nationalist “Black is beautiful.” “I am a person who happens to be Black,” on the other hand, achieves self-identification by straining for a certain universality (in effect, “I am first a person”) and for a concommitant dismissal of the imposed category (“Black”) as contingent, circumstantial, nondeterminant. There is truth in both characterizations, of course, but they function quite differently depending on the political context. At this point in history, a strong case can be made that the most critical resistance strategy for disempowered groups is to occupy and defend a politics of social location rather than to vacate and destroy it.”

-- Kimberle Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins"

---

https://robindiangelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Anti-racism-handout-1-page-2016.pdf

Racism is a system that encompasses economic, political, social, and cultural structures, actions, and beliefs that institutionalize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of privileges, resources and power between White people and people of Color. This system is historic, normalized, taken for granted, deeply embedded, and works to the benefit of whites and to the disadvantage of people of color (Hilliard, 1992).

Basic Tenets of Anti-racist Education

• Racism exists today, in both traditional and modern forms • All members of this society have been socialized to participate in it • All white people benefit from racism, regardless of intentions; intentions are irrelevant. • No one here chose to be socialized into racism (so no one is “bad��). But no one is neutral – to not act against racism is to support racism. • Racism must be continually identified, analyzed and challenged; no one is ever done • The question is not ”did racism take place”? but rather “how did racism manifest in that situation?” • The racial status quo is comfortable for most whites. Therefore, anything that maintains white comfort is suspect. If you are white, practice sitting with and building your stamina for racial discomfort.

---

From: Robin DiAngelo, "White Fragility"

“Most white people do not identify with these images of white supremacists and so take great umbrage to the term being used more broadly. For sociologists and those involved in current racial justice movements, however, white supremacy is a descriptive and useful term to capture the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white and the practices based on this assumption. White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination. ”

“In this chapter, I will address the uniquely anti-black sentiment integral to white identity. In doing so, I do not wish to minimize the racism that other groups of color experience. However, I believe that in the white mind, black people are the ultimate racial “other,” and we must grapple with this relationship, for it is a foundational aspect of the racial socialization underlying white fragility.”

“I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the “choir,” or already “gets it. ... “White progressives do indeed uphold and perpetrate racism, but our defensiveness and certitude make it virtually impossible to explain to us how we do so.”

“I am often amazed at what I can say to groups of primarily white people. I can describe our culture as white supremacist and say things like “All white people are invested in and collude with racism” without my fellow white people running from the room or reeling from trauma.”

“To put it bluntly, I believe that the white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: that we are capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains come through the subjugation of others. We have a particular hatred for “uppity” blacks, those who dare to step out of their place and look us in the eye as equals.”

“The smallest amount of “racial stress is intolerable—the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility. Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement.”

“However, a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy. This does not mean that we should stop identifying as white and start claiming only to be Italian or Irish. To do so is to deny the reality of racism in the here and now, and this denial would simply be color-blind racism. Rather, I strive to be “less white.” To be less white is to be less racially oppressive. ... I can build a wide range of authentic and sustained relationships across race and accept that I have racist patterns.”

“There is a curious satisfaction in the punishment of black people: the smiling faces of the white crowd picnicking at lynchings in the past, and the satisfied approval of white people observing mass incarceration and execution in the present. White righteousness, when inflicting pain on African Americans, is evident in the glee the white collective derives from blackface and depictions of blacks as apes and gorillas.”

“For example, I was invited to the retirement party of a white friend. The party was a pot-luck picnic held in a public park. As I walked down the slope toward the picnic shelters, I noticed two parties going on side by side. One gathering was primarily composed of white people, and the other appeared to be all black people. I experienced a sense of disequilibrium as I approached and had to choose which party was my friend’s. I felt a mild sense of anxiety as I considered that I might have to enter the all-black group, then mild relief as I realized that my friend was in the other group. This relief was amplified as I thought that I might have mistakenly walked over to the black party! All these thoughts and feelings happened in just a few seconds, but they were a rare moment of racial self-awareness. The mere possibility that I might have to experience not belonging racially was enough to raise racial discomfort.”

Chapter 11: White Women's Tears

“Many of us see emotions as naturally occurring. But emotions are political in two key ways.”

“White women’s tears in cross-racial interactions are problematic for several reasons connected to how they impact others. For example, there is a long historical backdrop of black men being tortured and murdered because of a white woman’s distress, and we white women bring these histories with us. Our tears trigger the terrorism of this history, particularly for African Americans. A cogent and devastating example is Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who reportedly flirted with a white woman—Carolyn Bryant—in a grocery store in Mississippi in 1955. She reported this alleged flirtation to her husband, Roy Bryant, and a few days later, Roy and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, lynched Till, abducting him from his great-uncle’s home. They beat him to death, mutilated his body, and sank him in the Tallahatchie River. An all-white jury acquitted the men, who later admitted to the murder. On her deathbed, in 2017, Carolyn Bryant recanted this story and admitted that she had lied. The murder of Emmett Till is just one example of the history that informs an oft-repeated warning from my African American colleagues: “When a white woman cries, a black man gets hurt.” Not knowing or being sensitive to this history is another example of white centrality, individualism, and lack of racial humility.”

(TBH, this entire chapter is sociopathic.)

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https://archive.ph/2orfM

‘Whiteness Studies’ Professor Says White People Who Treat All Races Equally Are ‘Dangerous’

A guest lecturer at Boston University said last month that white people who judge others as individuals instead of by their skin color are “dangerous,” according to a report in the College Fix.

...

DiAngelo said that when she hears people say they are colorblind, they are revealing their own ignorance. “This person doesn’t understand basic socialization,” she said. “This person doesn’t understand culture. This person is not self-aware.”

“And I need to give a heads up to the white people in the room,” DiAngelo said. “When people of color hear us say this, they’re generally not thinking, ‘Alright, I’m talking to a woke white person right now.’ Usually some version of eye-rolling is going on, and a wall is going up.”

“My friend Erin Trent Johnson — she says, ‘When I hear a white person say this, what I am thinking is: ‘This is a dangerous white person. This is a white person who is going to need to deny my reality,’” DiAngelo continued.

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From: Ibram X. Kendi, "How to Be An Antiracist"

“So let’s set some definitions. What is racism? Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities. ”

“The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” ... “There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism.”

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

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https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/

"To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas."

-- Ibram X. Kendi (2019)

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From: Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, "Is Everyone Really Equal?"

“Many of these movements initially advocated for a type of liberal humanism (individualism, freedom, and peace) but quickly turned to a rejection of liberal humanism. The logic of individual autonomy that underlies liberal humanism (the idea that people are free to make independent rational decisions that determine their own fate) was viewed as a mechanism for keeping the marginalized in their place by obscuring larger structural systems of inequality. In other words, it fooled people into believing that they had more freedom and choice than societal structures actually allow.”

“All the dominant ideologies in society support willful ignorance. The ideologies of meritocracy, equal opportunity, individualism, and human nature we described above play a powerful role in denying the current of privilege and insisting that society is just.”

“All Whites who swim in the cultural water of Canada and the United States are socialized into psychological, institutional, and economic investments in upholding the racial system that privileges them. This socialization is not something we had a choice about nor is it something we can avoid. At the same time, this does not mean that we can’t challenge our socialization and work to overcome it, although this takes a lifetime of commitment.”

“A third related ideology supporting the dominant group’s right to its position is individualism—the belief that we are each unique and outside the forces of socialization. Under individualism, group memberships are irrelevant and the social groups to which we belong don’t provide us with any more or fewer benefits. The ideology of individualism explains gaps between dominant and minoritized groups (in education, health, income, and net worth) as the result of individual strength or weakness. Therefore, those at the top are there because they are the best, brightest, and hardest working”

“Developing critical social justice literacy requires a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process.”

“One of the key contributions of critical theorists concerns the production of knowledge. Given that the transmission of knowledge is an integral activity in schools, critical scholars in the field of education have been especially concerned with how knowledge is produced. These scholars argue that a key element of social injustice involves the claim that particular knowledge is objective, neutral, and universal. An approach based on critical theory calls into question the idea that objectivity is desirable or even possible. The term used to describe this way of thinking about knowledge is that knowledge is socially constructed. When we refer to knowledge as socially constructed we mean that knowledge is reflective of the values and interests of those who produce it.”

“[The] scientific method (sometimes referred to as “positivism”—the idea that everything can be rationally observed without bias) was the dominant contribution of the 18th-century Enlightenment period in Europe. Positivism itself was a response and challenge to religious or theological explanations for “reality.” It rested on the importance of reason, principles of rational thought, the infallibility of close observation, and the discovery of natural laws and principles governing life and society. Critical Theory developed in part as a response to this presumed infallibility of scientific method, and raised questions about whose rationality and whose presumed objectivity underlies scientific methods.”

#ask #Critical Race Theory #Critical Theory #neoracism #Robin DiAngelo #Ozlem Sensoy #Jean Stefancic #Richard Delgado #Ibram X. Kendi #white supremacy #wokeness as religion #wokeism #woke #woke activism #cult of woke #religion is a mental illness

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 3 years ago

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By: James Lindsay

Published: May 24, 2021

Critical Race Theory is currently getting a ton of attention on the national and international stage, which is long overdue, but there are also many misconceptions about it. Here are five questions that many people are asking about Critical Race Theory along with straight answers, explanations, and a raft of proofs from the Critical Race Theory literature itself. My hope is that people will be able to use these proofs to show people that Critical Race Theory is every bit as bad as its critics contend.

Since these proofs run rather long in some cases, here are the questions and answers as a summary:

Is Critical Race Theory racist? Yes.

Does Critical Race Theory advance the vision and activism of the Civil Rights Movement? No.

Does Critical Race Theory say all white people are racist? Yes.

Is Critical Race Theory Marxist? Yes and no.

Is Critical Race Theory an analytical tool for understanding race and racism? No, not really.

Question: Is Critical Race Theory racist?

Answer: Yes.

Critical Race Theory begins by asserting the importance of social significance of racial categories, rejecting colorblindness, equality, and neutrality, and advocating for discrimination meant to “level the playing field.” These things lead it to reproduce and enact racism i\n practice. It also explicitly says that all white people are either racist or complicit in the system of racism (so, racist) by virtue of benefiting from privileges that they cannot renounce.

Examples:

“We all can recognize the distinction between the claims “I am Black” and the claim “I am a person who happens to be Black.” “I am Black” takes the socially imposed identity and empowers it as an anchor of subjectivity. “I am Black” becomes not simply a statement of resistance but also a positive discourse of self-identification, intimately linked to celebratory statements like the Black nationalist “Black is beautiful.” “I am a person who happens to be Black,” on the other hand, achieves self-identification by straining for a certain universality (in effect, “I am first a person”) and for a concommitant dismissal of the imposed category (“Black”) as contingent, circumstantial, nondeterminant. There is truth in both characterizations, of course, but they function quite differently depending on the political context. At this point in history, a strong case can be made that the most critical resistance strategy for disempowered groups is to occupy and defend a politics of social location rather than to vacate and destroy it.” From “Mapping the Margins,” Stanford Law Review, by Kimberlé Crenshaw, p. 1297.

“The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist. … The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” From How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi (pseud. for Henry Rodgers), p. 19.

“Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, p. 3.

“Critical race theorists (or “crits,” as they are sometimes called) hold that color blindness will allow us to redress only extremely egregious racial harms, ones that everyone would notice and condemn. But if racism is embedded in our thought processes and social structures as deeply as many crits believe, then the “ordinary business” of society—the routines, practices, and institutions that we rely on to effect the world’s work—will keep minorities in subordinate positions. Only aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the way things are will do much to ameliorate misery.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, p. 22.

(See also below, in proofs for the question of whether Critical Race Theory says all white people are racist.)

Question: Does Critical Race Theory advance the vision and activism of the Civil Rights Movement?

Answer: No.

Critical Race Theory refers to that vision as “traditional approaches to civil rights” and calls it into question. The Civil Rights Movement called for living up to the foundational promises of the United States (and other free nations) and incrementally changing the system so that those original ideals were met. Critical Race Theory rejects incrementalism in favor of revolution. It rejects the existing system and demands replacing it with its own. It rejects the liberal order and all that goes with it as being part of the system which must be dismantled and replaced. It is therefore fundamentally different than the Civil Rights Movement (and is explicitly anti-liberal and anti-equality).

Examples:

“Crits are also highly suspicious of another liberal mainstay, namely, rights.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, p. 23.

Question: Does Critical Race Theory say that all white people are racist?

Answer: Yes.

More specifically, Critical Race Theory says that all white people are either racist or that they are complicit in a “system of racism” (so, racist) that they wittingly or unwittingly uphold to their own benefit unless they are “actively antiracist” (and usually even then). Those benefits of ��whiteness” are labeled “white privilege” in general and are said to be outside of the scope of things that white people can intentionally renounce. The most they can do is “strive to be less white” and to become aware of and condemn “whiteness” as a system.

Examples:

“Wildman and Davis, for instance, contend that white supremacy is a system of oppression and privilege that all white people benefit from. Therefore, all white people “…are racist in this use of the term, because we benefit from systemic white privilege. Generally whites think of racism as voluntary, intentional conduct done by horrible others. Whites spend a lot of time trying to convince ourselves and each other that we are not racist. A big step would be for whites to admit that we are racist and then to consider what to do about it.”” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, p. 15.

“The relevant point for now is that all white people are racist or complicit by virtue of benefiting from privileges that are not something they can voluntarily renounce.” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, p. 16.

“The white complicity claim maintains that all whites are complicit in systemic racial injustice and this claim sometimes takes the form of “all whites are racist.” When white complicity takes the latter configuration what is implied is not that all whites are racially prejudiced but rather that all whites participate in and, often unwittingly, maintain the racist system of which they are part and from which they benefit.” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, p. 140.

“The white complicity claim maintains that all whites, by virtue of systemic white privilege that is inseparable from white ways of being, are implicated in the production and reproduction of systemic racial injustice.” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, p. 179.

“Here we find a claim about complicity that is addressed to all white people regardless of and despite their good intentions. What I refer to as “the white complicity claim” maintains that white people, through the practices of whiteness and by benefiting from white privilege, contribute to the maintenance of systemic racial injustice. However, the claim also implies responsibility in its assumption that the failure to acknowledge such complicity will thwart whites in their efforts to dismantle unjust racial systems and, more specifically, will contribute to the perpetuation of racial injustice.” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, p. 3.

“White privilege protects and supports white moral standing and this protective shield depends on there being an “abject other” that constitutes white as “good.” Whites, thus, benefit from white privilege in a very deep way. As Zeus Leonardo remarks, all whites are responsible for white dominance since their “very being depends on it.’” From Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy, by Barbara Applebaum, pp. 29–30.

“…a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.” From White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo, p. 149.

Question: Is Critical Race Theory Marxist?

Answer: Yes and no.

It is accurate to say that Critical Race Theory is mostly Marxian but not specifically Marxist. It is more accurately adapted from neo-Marxism, which is in turn adapted from Marxism.

The main difference is that Marxism is concerned primarily with economic class and rejects racial categories in favor of workers’ solidarity. What this means is that Critical Race Theory operates like Marxism but using race instead of economic class as the line of “social stratification,” above which people are “privileged” or “oppressors” and below which people are “marginalized” or “oppressed.” This social order is assumed in Critical Race Theory as “the ordinary state of affairs” and analyzed in the same way Marx analyzed across class stratification. Namely, Marx’s “conflict theory” (a.k.a. “critical philosophy,” so Critical Theory of Race, i.e., Critical Race Theory) is the tool for analyzing society, which is assumed to be totally racialized (by white people).

For those who understand Marxism, where Marxism sees capitalism as a superstructure that organizes society and determines the outcomes of the privileged (bourgeoisie) and oppressed (proletariat) classes, Critical Race Theory sees “white supremacy” as a superstructure that organizes society and determines outcomes of the privileged (white) and oppressed (BIPOC) classes. From there, it is functionally identical except that it operates primarily in the realms of cultural production rather than in the realm of economic and material production.

Critical Race Theory is most accurately “critical constructivist,” which is to say a form of race-based neo-Marxism (Critical Theory) with some postmodernist (social constructivist) characteristics.

Examples:

“The critical-thinking tradition is concerned primarily with epistemic adequacy. To be critical is to show good judgment in recognizing when arguments are faulty, assertions lack evidence, truth claims appeal to unreliable sources, or concepts are sloppily crafted and applied. For critical thinkers, the problem is that people fail to “examine the assumptions, commitments, and logic of daily life… the basic problem is irrational, illogical, and unexamined living” (Burbules and Berk 1999, 46). In this tradition sloppy claims can be identified and fixed by learning to apply the tools of formal and informal logic correctly.

“Critical pedagogy begins from a different set of assumptions rooted in the neo-Marxian literature on critical theory commonly associated with the Frankfurt School. Here, the critical learner is someone who is empowered and motivated to seek justice and emancipation. Critical pedagogy regards the claims that students make in response to social-justice issues not as propositions to be assessed for their truth value, but as expressions of power that function to re-inscribe and perpetuate social inequalities. Its mission is to teach students ways of identifying and mapping how power shapes our understandings of the world. This is the first step toward resisting and transforming social injustices. By interrogating the politics of knowledge-production, this tradition also calls into question the uses of the accepted critical-thinking toolkit to determine epistemic adequacy.” From “Tracking Privilege-preserving Epistemic Pushback in Feminist and Critical Race Philosophy Classrooms,” Hypatia, by Alison Bailey, p. 881.

“Our analysis of social justice is based on a school of thought known as Critical Theory. Critical Theory refers to a body of scholarship that examines how society works, and is a tradition that emerged in the early part of the 20th century from a group of scholars at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany (because of this, this body of scholarship is sometimes also called “the Frankfurt School”). These theorists offered an examination and critique of society and engaged with questions about social change. Their work was guided by the belief that society should work toward the ideals of equality and social betterment.

“Many influential scholars worked at the Institute, and many other influential scholars came later but worked in the Frankfurt School tradition. You may recognize the names of some of these scholars, such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, and Herbert Marcuse. Their scholarship is important because it is part of a body of knowledge that builds on other social scientists’ work: Emile Durkheim’s research questioning the infallibility of the scientific method, Karl Marx’s analyses of capitalism and social stratification, and Max Weber’s analyses of capitalism and ideology. All of these strands of thought built on one another.” From Is Everyone Really Equal?, by Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, second edition, p. 50.

“As the reader will see, critical race theory builds on the insights of two previous movements, critical legal studies and radical feminism, to both of which it owes a large debt. It also draws from certain European philosophers and theorists, such as Antonio Gramsci and Jacques Derrida, as well as from the American radical tradition exemplified by such figures as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Power and Chicano movements of the sixties and early seventies.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, p. 4.

Question: Is Critical Race Theory an analytical tool for understanding race and racism?

Answer: No, not really (there’s a tiny sliver of yes here, in a misleading sense).

Critical Race Theory describes itself as a movement of activists and scholars. This is not exactly what one would expect from a mere “analytical tool.”

More accurately, Critical Race Theory is a worldview, not a means of analysis. Critical Race Theory begins from the underlying operating assumptions that race is constantly being imposed by a “white supremacist” society (“systemic racism”) and that racism is therefore the ordinary state of affairs in society. It believes further that racism is effectively impossible to eradicate within the existing “white supremacist” system and therefore that it has merely hidden itself better, when it seems to be diminished or less impactful. Critical Race Theory is the tool that allows the people who have awakened to a “Critical Consciousness of race” (i.e., Critical Race Theorists) to detect hidden racism in everything. This is a way of viewing the world, however, not a way of analyzing the world as it is.

Examples:

“Racism exists today, in both traditional and modern forms. All members of this society have been socialized to participate in it. All white people benefit from racism, regardless of intentions; intentions are irrelevant. No one here chose to be socialized into racism (so no one is “bad’). But no one is neutral – to not act against racism is to support racism. Racism must be continually identified, analyzed and challenged; no one is ever done. The question is not ”did racism take place”? but rather “how did racism manifest in that situation?” The racial status quo is comfortable for most whites. Therefore, anything that maintains white comfort is suspect. If you are white, practice sitting with and building your stamina for racial discomfort” -Robin DiAngelo (Link)

“The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, pp. 2–3.

“First, [most critical race theorists assume] that racism is ordinary, not aberrational—“normal science,” the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country. Second, most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material. The first feature, ordinariness, means that racism is difficult to cure or address. Color-blind, or “formal,” conceptions of equality, expressed in rules that insist only on treatment that is the same across the board, can thus remedy only the most blatant forms of discrimination … The second feature, sometimes called “interest convergence” or material determinism, adds a further dimension. Because racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, p. 7.

“Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent. The interplay of meanings that one attaches to race, the stereotypes one holds of other people, and the need to guard one’s own position all power- fully determine one’s perspective. Indeed, one aspect of whiteness, according to some, is its ability to seem perspectiveless, or transparent. Whites do not see themselves as having a race, but being, simply, people. They do not believe that they think and reason from a white viewpoint, but from a universally valid one—“the truth”—what everyone knows. By the same token, many whites will strenuously deny that they have benefited from white privilege.” From Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, first edition, pp. 79–80.

The average Xian has never read the bible, they’ve just been told what it’s about by their preacher or priest.

When you tell them what’s in it, they deny it.

When you show them and quote it verbatim, they insist it doesn’t mean what it says, or “you’re taking it out of context.” Even when you’re not.

They insist you can’t claim to understand it unless you’ve not just read it - even though they haven’t either - but believe it. You’re reading it as a cynical non-believer with an agenda and can’t appreciate the Truth™ of living in The Word™.

And even though they haven’t extensively read doctrines that they reject.

Except you don’t need to have extensively studied their bible and other scriptures to reject what it does in the world, how it harms people, how it divides people, in its name and justified by its publicly stated premises.

It’s a religion.

Just as rigorous scientific principles are better than primitive bronze-age superstitions, consistent Liberal ethics are better than unevidenced race-baiting academic conspiracy theories.

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