Critical Race Theory
There is an ongoing debate about whether Critical Race Theory should be taught throughout education and whether it is a fundamental truth of how our society functions. What is it? It’s the presumption that racism has been embedded into the government, becoming systemic, holding people of color back from being able to use their rights and privileges to their fullest capacity and being kept from opportunities because of their ethnic background. -This impacts people of color in all social systems—in the justice system, work environments, and especially in the education system. CRT suggests that race is a barrier for people of color, holding people of ethnic descent back through racism embeded in the social framework and systems. Preventing schools from teaching about these topics will cause detrimental harm to our moral understandings of history and awareness of how harmful it is to ignore the roots of todays issues.
In defense of Critical Race Theory, the course of time has proven that people have been judged, stereotyped, and discriminated against based on their ethnic backgrounds and are disadvantaged in many ways because of it. The existence of racism has been apparent in the social and justice system since the beginning of American history as it was founded and constructed by European colonizers. This gave Europeans the upper hand in determining what laws to establish to benefit European settlers by enslaving other races to do the physical labor such as enslaving black people, forcing the chinese to build railroads, and wiping out the natives for land. Ethnicities cannot be “just a social construct” when people are evaluated based on and operating within this “social construct” on a daily basis. For example, according to Center for Health Progress, it was believed at the time that certain diseases would only efffect specific ethnic groups which was proven to be incorrect through biased results by Dr. Samuel Morton, fueling the endorsement of slavery (Centerforhealth 2017). It wasn’t that only certain groups would be effected by diseases but because of the environment they were forced to live in, caused stress and sickness due to sanitation issues. The insinuiation of “I don’t see color” is just as harmful as racism by disregarding flaws in these subjects. Hate crimes, prejudice, and xenophobia are not created by social constructs but through discriminatory and violent perspectives passed down through generations. Arguments claiming that Critical Race Theory is inaccurate and only causes a drift between races is dangerous since segregation played a consequential role in North America creating classicism, creating harmful stereotypes, and putting people of color at a disadvantage only to be passed down creating generational trauma.
While Critical Race Theory argues the idea that eradicating the teachings of it in schools is dangerous, those fighting for the removal of CRT teachings offer the premise that it would be best for it to be removed to avoid traumatizing students with brutal historical facts. The argument reasoning that removing CRT would benefit schools is that it teaches students how to become a union, to live without the view of discrimination and racism by removing the idea of isolating others through discrimination. In the ideal world, that would be effective, it would allow for next generations to live without burden and knowing contempt through racism. Realistically, conflict cannot be resolved through abandonment. According to Center for Health Progress, race can be identified as a social construct in the idea that diseases don’t discriminate who to effect, but not in the real world, “structural and institutional racism lead to health inequities”(Centerforhealth 2017). Emphasizing the fact that race goes on to effect more than our educational, work, and justice system.
Over the course of history, minorities living in America have been constructed to live by white standards. This can be changing cultural norms or lifestyles that are foreign to white people, like making changes to how food is enjoyed, what languages are spoken, and how religion is practiced from one generation to the next. Not only were foreign lifestyles frowned upon, but segregation was the birth of passive aggressiveness towards minorities, creating a stigma around other ethnicities and dark-colored skin. Segregation was the foundation that constructed crimes and formed aggravated racism into the new term, racial hate crimes. Racial hate crimes stemmed from slavery and previous wars colonizing foreign countries, giving white people the upper hand and a reason to bully minorities by using history and racial slurs to target people of color. As Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons, writers at Brookings Institution, state in their article, “Many Americans are not able to separate their individual identity as an American from the social institutions that govern us—these people perceive themselves as the system,” (Brookings 2021)). Which is why it is challenging to educate people about Critical Race Theory without receiving backlash for trying to educate instead of villainizing a race.
Eventually, during World War Two, white people created the idea of a “model minority” using the Chinese as an example of how minorities should act in comparison to the Japanese as a form of propaganda (Densho 2021). After World War Two, Asians were used as a whole to represent the “model minority” set aside from other minorities such as black people, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, and even Southeast Asians. This became an inaccurate and harmful act as it soon pitted both minorities and white people against all Asians. The depiction of the model minority was used as an expectation minorities should follow, being quiet, obedient, cooperative, and courteous. East Asians would often be used as an example as some who had moved to America had the opportunity to open up small shops to support their families. Southeast Asians were often left out of the model minority since they were often immigrants with no opportunities that had different cultures and lifestyles to East Asians, often viewed as rugged and urban in comparison to the model minorities. The idea of the model minority has many flaws catering to colorism, bias on ethnicity, and setting unreasonable standards based on expectation.
Not only is the Critical Race Theory proven many plausible claims on why racial tension is prominent in the US system but is the cause of subtle racism, excluding minorities from opportunities. One example would be the idea of the US referring to immigrants and refugees in the US as aliens is a subliminal subjugation, labeling people of color as unfamiliar, oftentimes causing disapproval when hearing the name alien which leads to uproars amongst the white population. This can be stemmed from the five components of the Critical Race Theory explained by Nicholas Daniel Hartlep,
1. the notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational.
2. the idea of an interest convergence.
3. the social construction of race
4. the idea of storytelling and counter-storytelling
5. the notion that whites have actually been recipients of civil rights legislation. (Hartlep 6).
The subtle sneers, glares, and aggressiveness towards minorities are only diminutive parts of the issue that originated from racism established in the country as well as in other countries.
The notion that the idea of CRT is actually enforcing racism only causes harm by ignoring the factors of today's problems and choosing to be ignorant of others' sufferings in the past. The teachings of the Critical Race Theory also make school environments more inclusive and successful by introducing “Culturally relevant teaching and other strategies to make schools feel safe and supportive for Black students and other underserved populations” (Sawchuk 2021). History has been built on racism because of the idea that people of color in America are deemed a ‘perpetual foreigner’ and/or lesser than in comparison to the Western-Euro white American citizens.
In the few states that are against the teachings of Critical Race Theory, such as Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi, these states set the risk of setting back the academic system by refusing to acknowledge the history of racism implanted in America and educating their students on the importance of equality, equity, human rights, and inclusivity (Schwartz 2022). This is also a sign of refusal to acknowledge the rampant white privilege raging in America. Claiming that the teachings of subjects such as Critical Race Theory is a “harmful ideology” for young minds is just as, if not even more harmful, by denying the roots of our current issues today. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, removing the usage of these terms will weaken our understanding of racism, lessening our understanding of the flaws in the US and making us unable to remedy them. The terms we use to teach in schools “are actually concepts used to educate individuals on systemic barriers and discrimination people of color and other marginalized groups still face in this country across our institutions” (ACLU 2021). If removed from education curriculum, students will never understand the severity of the issues, possibly causing history to repeat itself.
Critical Race Theory is the concept of acknowledging and educating oneself about the oppressions embedded into the US systems which harms minorities. The concept of CRT does not mean to target the white population but offers to teach about its flaws since there is a moral responsibility that is held within the American history towards Caucasians to right their wrongs. Racial trauma that was caused by history cannot be forgotten or cured but can be solved by taking accountability for the next generations that will live as the offspring of trauma. If CRT or any subjects regarding the wars and harm done by white people are eliminated from schools it teaches students to be ignorant by turning a blind eye to deepening wounds instead of healing them.
