Hiding the Ball on Critical Race Theory

“Marcuse and Bell might not be on the reading lists at elementary schools, but CRT’s cynical mentality and Marxist tenets are still present in the pedagogical exercises being exposed by Christopher Rufo’s investigative journalism.”

The good news for critical race theorists is that Americans are learning more about their ideological project. The bad news is that the more they discover, the less likely they are to be fans. While most people have not read the foundational scriptures of Critical Race Theory (CRT), they are not wrong to blame them for the endless list of buzzwords—“racial equity,” “whiteness studies,” “unconscious bias,” etc.—currently entering the lexicons of corporate America and the public school system.

Rather than rally to the defense of their ideas, CRT advocates have instead resorted to a semantic game of hide-the-ball. The rules of engagement are still being worked out; however, so far the players seem to have found two main, winning strategies. The first is to insist that anything one cannot defend is “not really critical race theory.” The second, more audacious tactic is to admit that while something calling itself “critical race theory” is blitzing its way through the nation’s institutions, all that means—in practice—is acknowledging the ugly side of the United States’ past. Therefore, as their reasoning goes, anyone against CRT is denying the history of racism.

Neither of these defenses against the backlash to CRT can be squared with the facts. Critical Race Theory arose at Harvard Law School during the 1970s as a method of exposing the racism thought to be inherent in the American legal system. Here, the word “critical” does not mean open-minded or objective in the scientific sense. Drawing upon the school of Critical Theory founded in the 1960s by Marxists such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, CRT understands “critique” to mean condemning and dismantling the “power structures,” which theoretically keep certain groups oppressed by their oppressors.