Animated discussions around Critical Race Theory have reminded us that Americans can act with great dispatch against anything they believe to be unjust. In the wake of this recent awareness of CRT, parents have found the money to enroll their children into private schools; the governors of Florida and Texas are cutting through rigid bureaucracies to prevent local students from being exposed to the tenets of CRT; and many in the media are frankly losing their minds. For these individuals, the very notion that racism was a design element infused into America's foundation is a bridge too far.
Addressing a group of white politicians and local black leaders in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Racial injustice is still the Negro’s burden and America’s shame.” And while he made sure to honor the progress made in America, he reminded his audience that the next phase of civil rights, the quest for genuine equality, would be a more difficult fight. While it did not cost the nation a dime to integrate public accommodations or grant all citizens the right to vote, Dr. King and others knew that, to eliminate poverty, eradicate slums, and elevate education, there would be a cost many would be unwilling to pay.
In the midst of worsening racial injustice in the post-civil rights era, critical theorists have sought to examine and call into question abusive power structures. This to provide a framework for understanding the persistence of discriminatory policies during what appeared to be social progress. Fast forward to the present day: for several months, I have been standing on the sidelines listening to the public discourse and seeking discernment and wisdom to inform my involvement. Neither you, nor I, should be forced into a false binary of accepting CRT wholesale or a complete rejection of the same. I do not subscribe to every iteration, implication or proposed tenet of this ideology. Instead, I believe in faithfully confronting issues of injustice, historical or contemporary, no matter what acronym you place around it.
That said, a few questions continue to haunt me regarding the CRT debate. If the teaching of a theory, a methodology, can serve as such a powerful catalyst for action, why hasn't the experience of negative racial actions had the same impact in law, in corporate America, in our churches, and in the justice system? When we see the unjust killings of unarmed citizens on video, too often, the phrase that follows is “We don’t know the whole story, so we must withhold judgment.” The problem with that response is, the citizen on the said video is dead, not in theory, but in fact. When we hear of atrocities like those committed in Tulsa, why is it so difficult to understand the probability of lasting impact to those standing in that same bloodline today?
It is convenient to claim that wealth disparities, sentencing inequities, social determinants of health, home valuations, and racial bias in resume callbacks have no roots in the political and social systems of the past. However, this claim is about as accurate as saying a 150-foot-tall oak tree is a product of this generation; in reality, we know the seed was planted long before we were born. It saddens and angers me to see this selective avoidance of what is real. The entire discussion is mind-bending, but our oak tree raises another question.
One cannot read The U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence and claim that those who composed these documents considered enslaved or free blacks equal in any way, shape, or form. Though some of the country’s founders spoke and wrote against chattel slavery, the difference between their words and their actions is stark. If these documents are pivotal to our foundation as a country, then how can it then be said that racial hierarchy is not baked into our most fundamental systems?
Better it is to acknowledge the past and work toward a better future in the areas in which racism has done the greatest damage. We have laws on the books today penalizing the unequal treatment of black Americans because such treatment in the past was not theoretical: it actually happened. As heated as the current debate over Critical Race Theory has become, this debate is not the ultimate battle for the soul of America—but the struggle to remedy the day-to-day racial realities of its citizens continues to be.
