Critical Race Theory: A Deep Dive

A seven-episode mini series on critical race theory.

It seems like a good day for me to mention that earlier this year I recorded a seven-episode conversation about critical race theory with Berkeley law professor Khiara M. Bridges. My basic goal was to try to learn more about what critical race theory really is and what it entails, from an expert on and practitioner of critical race theory. (Khiara has written Critical Race Theory: A Primer.)

Last year I recorded a similar series on originalism, where I advanced my theory of constitutional interpretation while my colleague Adam Chilton posed a series of skeptical questions. As I mentioned at the time, I wanted to do something similar about critical race theory, which I did not feel I understood. This time, Khiara was the one explaining the theory and I was the one trying to learn about it.

In any event, here are the episodes. (I think my favorites might be 1, 5, and 7.)

1. Critical Race Theory is a Verb (What is critical race theory?)

2. We're Actually in a Haunted House (structural racism)

3. Taking The Easy Way Out (implicit bias)

4. Liberation Isn't a Zero-Sum Game (intersectionality)

5. Life of the Mind (education)

6. Life of the Body (health)

7. Finale

Enjoy!

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

The Critical Race Theory that's a figment of Right Wing Klingers (HT (the very Wrong)(Reveredn) Jerry Sandusky/Arthur. T. Kirtland) imaginations??

Frank

[DaivdBehar]

The lady is promoting Chinese Commie interest in destroying America from within. Yet, she has no awareness of the total idiocy and quackery of this profession. Every self stated goal of every law subject is in failure. It needs to be totally redone into an empirical practice, devoid of supernatural, quack, failed doctrine, and practices. The biggest failure committed against black people is not protecting them enough from crime. Did she say that?

[DaivdBehar]

Baude assumes the validity of this garbage propaganda. He has no skepticism about it. He is a Yale indoctrinated, Hate America, servant of the Chinese Commie Party. The terminology is taken from Mao's criticism of the US in the 1960's.

[DaivdBehar]

All -isms are folk statistics, mostly true, most of the time. This talk is a denial of reality. If you trust your finances to a black guy, and hire a Jew for your professional basketball team, you deserve the consequences. You will name great black financiers, and great Jewish basketball players. You will not run out of fingers. The obverse list will have thousands on it.

[DaivdBehar]

Two awful people agreeing with each other. Two deniers of reality agreeing about their delusions. This is a data free discussion. They selectively pick out rare biased decisions, and deny greater reality. They commit the Exception Fallacy without any self awareness.

They leave out how the lawyer profession carpet bombed the interests of black people. They destroyed the black family, and exploded its bastardy rate. Any discussion that does not mention bastardy as a factor in the disparity in social pathology is quackery. They failed to mention the lack of police protection because that is a lawyer policy. They failed to mention the failure of Marxist praxis to address poverty, and its hideous consequences of massive impoverishment.

I heard no evidence that the speaker attended law school. This is like a midnight college dorm debate.

[DaivdBehar]

I recommend both lawyers attend a night high school course in Critical Thinking. The violation meter is whirring at supersonic speed. One of the features of education is to cover all sides of a subject. The coverage of one side is called indoctrination. There is no mention of very dark skinned African immigrants who are the new Koreans, and curve busters. If race and not performance were the determining factor, they would not be outperforming whites economically.

[DaivdBehar]

David Duke does not lie on his hate speech website. He selectively publishes negative articles and events that make Jews and blacks look bad. His website commits the Exception Fallacy. He is honest about his hate. This podcast has no more validity than the David Duke website. These Ivy indoctrinated are not honest about their hatred. What they hate most is America, in service of the tech billionaires kowtowing to the Chinese Commie Party to gain access their market.

[DaivdBehar]

There is no mention of the Crime Victim Survey, a household survey of victimization by 7 common law crimes. It validates the double crime rate by blacks. There is no difference in their rate of antisocial personality disorder. There is a difference in their bastardy rate, after the lawyer destroyed the black family. The intellectual level of this podcast is really low, and devoid of empiricism. It is just spewing of hate.

[DaivdBehar]

Baude lives in Chicago and has no shame.

[DaivdBehar]

Baude's fawning interview of this propagandist shows him him to be either an osequious child or a running dog of the Chinese Commie Party.

[DaivdBehar]

Did anyone mention the police took 20 million 911 calls from black people and provided adequate service? The nitpicking of rare problem interactions is propaganda and a form of lying.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Ya know ... I've heard all sorts of descriptions of what CRT is, from all sides, with all sides lying to one extent or another.

I condemn it precisely because it hinges on the idea that you can eliminate racism by enforcing racism. It is just too damned illogical to have any credence.

The only way to eliminate racism is by eliminating racism. Describe a fleeing suspect by his skin color, not his race. If literacy tests to vote or abused, eliminate the tests, or prove the abuse; don't cloak it as racism when the one drop and 1/32 rules prove they don't detect race.

[Sarcastr0]

Listen to the freaking podcast.

Everyone is lying, except for you, who proceed to be incorrect about what CRT is talking about.

Guess what - not a lot of affirmative action comes up in the deep dive! It's basically orthogonal to the discussion.

Sorry about your pet racial issue, but if you're going to come in hot and accuse everyone else of lying, try and get your facts straight.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I don't care about the details of CRT, because anything which depends on racism is racist.

Why is that such a hard concept?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

What you really meant to say is that you’d rather ignorantly bitch about something and be wrong than educate yourself and have no reason to complain.

At least you stay true to your own brand.

[Mr. Hook]

A historian I TA'd for referred to it as belligerent ignorance. He was talking about students who were ignorant about the subject matter (he was a Civil War historian and mostly speaking about Southerners), but fuck you, asshole, if you think you can teach them otherwise.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I sure see a lot of racism coming from the people in the CRT/intersectionality/anti-racism crowd. They’re very open with it, almost proud.

[Sarcastr0]

Those are some different crowds you're mixing.

And with respect to anti-racism at least, you're not wrong!

But bottom line is you're talking about a thing, you should engage with the content of the thing, not the people you associate with the thing.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But bottom line is you're talking about a thing, you should engage with the content of the thing..."

Why?

Why should anybody be concerned with the boundaries of the particular thing instead of the concepts themselves?

[Sarcastr0]

The content is the concepts.

The concentration on how some associated people are dicks is a tell you don't care about the content.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, where you guys are getting hung up is bickering over whether or not what the dicks are doing counts as CRT, instead of focusing on keeping dickishness out of the classroom.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem here is that it's a freaking podcast. I read 300 words a minute, I listen no faster than anybody else. So I'm going to have to find several free hours before I can listen to this, instead of the half hour that would have been sufficient if it were written.

I'll listen to it eventually, maybe I can get a start on it this evening while I'm splitting firewood.

[Currentsitguy]

My problem too. I can't stand having to listen to or watch something at a snail's pace that I could read in minutes or less.

The electronic book reader is one of the greatest inventions of the last 50 years.

[Will Baude]

We should get transcripts up sometime this summer.

[Currentsitguy]

I hope. The problem I have is then when listening to or watching something the pace is so slow my mind tends to wander. When I read I am focused.

[Lee Moore]

In the end, it's a question of stamina. I lasted 7 minutes and 39 seconds into the first podcast and concluded that I did not have enough time left before the Grim Reaper comes, to stay tuned until she said something in plain uncircumlocuted English.

I need something clearer and lighter - maybe Kant.

[Currentsitguy]

Stamina. Sometimes I wish there was something like Viagra for patience.

[Sarcastr0]

Plenty of things you could criticize her for, but her language being unclear or full of jargon is not one of them.

I know different ears can catch stuff differently, but she was really plainspoken. You're so off-base on this criticism I wonder if you even listened to 7:39 like you said you did.

[Lee Moore]

This is not the way to win friends and influence people :

I kept saying it’s a legal theory it’s a legal theory it’s a legal theory, but legal or law is nowhere in the term critical race theory which makes it kind of easy, for perhaps is easy, it made it easier for folks to take the term and make into something that it’s not, you know to propose that critical race theory is just this you know caricature of what it actually is and that can’t be taught to you know kindergartners. But it’s called critical race theory because it’s a response to kind of two formations of thought and one formation of thought was critical legal studies* and I know we’ll probably get into this more in depth later but the term critical race theory is to set it off from critical legal studies and so indicated its position as a critique, as being left of the left position. The race in critical race theory is to identify the subject , right, what will be its primary locus of focus, and the word theory is designed to gesture towards the possibility that perhaps one day the thoughts that would comprise critical race theory would be able to offer a sort of coherent account of what it investigates which is the laws role in reproducing racial hierarchy.

• we don’t get to hear what the other formation is

[Sarcastr0]

...This is what writing out colloquial speech looks like? Not seeing a lot of jargon here.

Glad you read it, though!

The other train of thought is, I believe, the idea of optimism about change - of legal instruments being able to deal with the issues.

[Sarcastr0]

Different people are different - spoken media is my jam.

But if you don't get to it, that's fine!
Just don't pretend you know what it's saying, or dismiss it as lies before you listen to it.

[Brett Bellmore]

We're not declaring the motte to be a lie, we're declaring the claim the bailey doesn't exist to be a lie. There has been too much evidence uncovered of something its proponents call "critical race theory" being taught in schools, to declare the bailey nonexistent.

Now, maybe you want to argue that for instance, when the Detroit public schools superintendent says, “We were very intentional about creating a curriculum, infusing materials, and embedding critical race theory within our curriculum.”, he's simply mistaken, and is teaching something else. Have at it.

But don't try to tell us that nobody is teaching something they call "critical race theory" in the schools. They come right out and say they are!

[Sarcastr0]

No, dude, it's not motte and bailey, it's the right making shit up.

Lets look at what you linked.
Lots of presentations to teachers. Which is not your thesis (which is about students), nor does it support your thesis.

And lots of space given to the hot takes of a prof who teaches “Hip Hop and the American Constitution.” As one might expect from realclear politics that has a narrative and publishes nothing but confirmation bias as hard as they can to support it.

The main thing regarding students is 'Have you ever taught critical race theory to your K-12 students or discussed it with them?' which you and the linked article is using to prove vastly more than that 'discussed' language would suggest to anyone who isn't looking for nonsense.

And they also cited a study by the notoriously anti-public-school AAE for the proposition that CRT is required in 4% of schools, but refused to publish the questions they used so...
===
The right has found a wedge issue, and they've gotten enough of a following hungry for red meat that actual practitioners explaining what they practice will just have people saying they're part of a vast conspiracy!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, look at what I linked to: The Superintendent of the Detroit Public School system, in an official public forum, coming right out and saying that they've integrated CRT into their curriculum.

He's also attacked Michigan's House bill 5097. Apparently he finds the following objectionable:

"However, the core academic curriculum must not, in any way, include any form of race or gender stereotyping or anything that could be understood as implicit race or gender stereotyping.

...

"Race or gender stereotyping" means a set of statements, beliefs, or ideas that conform wholly or in part with the following general or particular statements:
(i) That all individuals comprising a racial or ethnic group or gender hold a collective quality or belief.
(ii) That individuals act in certain ways or hold certain opinions because of their race or gender.
(iii) That individuals are born racist or sexist by accident of their race or gender.
(iv) That individuals bear collective guilt for historical wrongs committed by their race or gender.
(v) That race or gender is a better predictor of outcome than
character, work ethic, or skills.
(vi) That cultural norms or practices of a racial or ethnic group or gender are flawed and must be eliminated or changed to conform with those of another racial or ethnic group or gender.
(vii) That racism is inherent in individuals from a particular race or ethnic group or that sexism is inherent in individuals from a particular gender.
(viii) That a racial or ethnic group or gender is in need of deconstruction, elimination, or criticism.
(ix) That the actions of individuals serve as an indictment against the race or gender of those individuals."

So, which of those items do you object to? Which of them should be taught in our schools?

[Sarcastr0]

anything that could be understood as implicit race or gender stereotyping. This language is so awkward and broad for one reason: to pick a fight.

That individuals act in certain ways or hold certain opinions because of their race or gender. Privilege: Not a thing.

That race or gender is a better predictor of outcome than
character, work ethic, or skills What if this is true, statistically? Potential censorship of the truth right here. Certainly censorship of any criticism of our meritocracy is suddenly outlawed.

That a racial or ethnic group or gender is in need of deconstruction, elimination, or criticism Teach about slavery, but not who did it! And MeeToo? That's outlawed.

This is pushing a viewpoint wherein the status quo is good and right and not to be criticized. The bill doesn't say CRT, either, so you bringing it up as related is telling about your broad definition. I presume from the bad reporting in the article you pulled it from.

[Jmaie]

So, which racial group is in need of criticism over slavery? I presume you were thinking of white folks, how would you put that to current students?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Privilege: Not a thing."

Well, at least you finally figured out that much. No, it isn't.

"What if this is true, statistically?"

Wow, and you're ragging on ME for thinking the Bell Curve had some sensible things to say? Well, if it's true, statistically, it tells you nothing at all about any individual you encounter, so what use is that knowledge?

"Teach about slavery, but not who did it!"

Long dead people, obviously. Who did you think did it?

[Lee Moore]

Actually, she concedes that there is no canonical motte. Lots of disagreement, apparently, between CRT aficianados, and its prescriptions keep changing according to the political wind.

Which is kinda what you'd expect if CRT is simply a political movement.

[Sarcastr0]

She concedes the academic project doesn't have a final upshot.

That is not the same as 'just say it means whatever you want!' Prof. Bridges laid out some very specific lines of inquiry as the boundaries of what CRT is.

[Union of Concerned Socks]

Nobody cares.

Nobody.

[Sarcastr0]

People should, if they care about saying true things.

Lots of those throwing the term around are using it wrong.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Except you. You throw it around correctly.

[Sarcastr0]

I listened to the podcast.

[Currentsitguy]

I don't. I tend to think people who constantly need to talk or think about race are a regressive influence on society.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, fuck MLK.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Well, times were a helluva lot different when MLK was doing his thing relative to now. There’s really know comparison. MLK had bigger fish to fry than white girls wearing their hair in cornrows or 14 year olds referring to their friends as n***ahs.

[Sarcastr0]

A blanket ' if you specialize in talking about race you're bad' is nonsense.

It's the *exact same* rhetoric MLK had to deal with, and dealt with quite decisively in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
I guess I should
have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and
passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by
strong, persistent, and determined action

So, in conclusion, white people saying 'the problem with race is all those who want to talk about it' don't have a lot of standing these days.
Especially when that's being employed to ignore without listening what some black lady is saying about race.

[bevis the lumberjack]

If you want to pull your hair out over white women operating a taco truck, knock yourself out. Or over Vietnamese sandwiches in the school cafeteria being served on the wrong bread. Go to town dude.

Don’t try to act like I’m a racist because I think so much of today’s caterwauling is overwrought crap.

You’re the one supporting actual racism. Attributing bad characteristics of some people of a particular race to all people of that race is bigotry 101.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not going to (at least not full time), but I'm not going to tell people who still want to struggle for racial equality to shut up.

I'm not saying you're racist - you're not the one who said ' I tend to think people who constantly need to talk or think about race are a regressive influence on society.' That's the one who I think is, not racist exactly, but happy to crap on anyone questioning a status quo that has them so comfy.

[bevis the lumberjack]

That’s the problem. And I think (maybe?) that’s what the guy is referring to. You referenced MLK earlier. Actual racism today is like 10% of the bullshit he was dealing with. And unfortunately the real racism today is getting stirred up with all the manufactured garbage.

I’ve learned to not react to headlines claiming racist this or racism that, but to read the story first to judge if it’s really something or not. Much too frequently it’s not. It’s a corollary of the boy who cried wolf.

And a lot of crt/intersectionality/anti-racism is overwrought crap like that. Or simply things that are taken as truths that are not.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's what bothers me about a lot of this. "Natural" or "spontaneous" or whatever you want to call it, racism, is close to dead in this country. The rate of interracial marriage keeps climbing, for instance.

At this point we're mostly dealing with what you might call iatrogenic racism. Racism created by the efforts to fight racism. Racial quota systems pissing people off, for example.

And a lot of it is being produced by people who really, really wish they could have been around for the Civil rights revolution, and marched alongside MLK, and maybe gotten hit with a fire hose while trying to vote. They desperately want to believe, and make other people believe, that they're living in a deeply racist country, and fighting the imminent re-imposition of Jim Crow.

You try to get them to open their eyes and look at the real world, and they'll call you a racist. Because only racist wouldn't see the US as deeply racist, right?

[Sarcastr0]

Actual racism today is like 10% of the bullshit he was dealing with.
I don't agree. You say this like it doesn't need support, but it absolutely does.
Just because the racism is no longer mostly driven by individuals hating you for the color of your skin doesn't mean it's solved.

Minorities of all stripes are still being treated pretty poorly. Not on purpose, but nevertheless. That's not something to ignore. I long ago learned not to assume calling a system I worked in racist was calling me racist. Because it's not about individual intent as much anymore. The podcast makes that really clear, (though this is an area of contention prof. Bridges has with some of her colleagues).

I don't disagree that the race-card is overplayed. But I think it's committing that exact same sin to assume all discussion of racism are crap.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Minorities of all stripes are still being treated pretty poorly. Not on purpose, but nevertheless."

But racists WOULD treat minorities pretty poorly on purpose. What you're mostly looking at isn't minorities being treated badly because they're minorities, which would indeed be racism.

You're looking at people who are minorities being disproportionately treated badly because they're disproportionately situated in a manner that would and does get members of the majority treated badly, too. They're poor, they live in high crime neighborhoods, they're wearing their pants halfway down their butts, or what have you.

But similarly situated white people get treated like crap, too.

[Sarcastr0]

What you're mostly looking at isn't minorities being treated badly *because they're minorities*, which would indeed be racism.

Some might argue that the fact that those who build the system are the ones most benefited by it is the causal link you're looking for.

But I would more argue, who cares why? This is a flaw in our systems - we're neglecting people in need, and failing to highlight those with merit, all correlated with certain attributes (race, gender, class, handicap, etc. etc.)

They're poor, they live in high crime neighborhoods, they're wearing their pants halfway down their butts, or what have you.
Each of these should be addressed; none of them should mean we don't care about you because you don't fit into the shapes our system can currently handle.

But similarly situated white people get treated like crap, too.
Sure! But not in the same way, and not in the same proportion. Make sure they're also not neglected!

[Brett Bellmore]

"But not in the same way, and not in the same proportion. "

Because they're not similarly situated in the same proportion! Is that not getting through to you?

We've got problems, but they're not racism problems. And if you misdiagnose problems, you pursue the wrong treatment. If you tell some dude who wears his pants halfway down his butt that people are treating him like an idiot because of his color, he's not going to go out and get a belt! He's just going to be really mad at people on the basis of their color.

[Currentsitguy]

I think the whole point of MLK was that we needed to work toward that no longer being an issue, you know the whole "content of character" thing. That's never going to happen until people actually start doing that. I don't care if you're black. I don't care if you're white. I don't care if you're gay, straight, or whatever. I don't care what happened in the past. I don't care about your personal past or how hard you say you had it. We all have skeletons in our closet and personal crosses to bear. It doesn't make you different or special. All I care about is if you are competent in what you do, if what you do benefits those you claim to serve, and if you are a decent person. This is 2022. Nothing else is relevant or important, certainly nothing as superficial as your personal appearance, the tone of your skin, or whom you are attracted to.

I'm not just directing this at those who are black, it goes equally for someone who is white, or any other color for that matter.

Crazy, huh?

[Sarcastr0]

Thumbs up from me!

I thought it was a pretty good and thoughtful examination of what CRT really is from an academic actively writing in the field.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I thought it was a pretty good and thoughtful examination of what CRT really is from an academic actively writing in the field."

Are they using the academic definition of CRT, or the mainstream definition, which basically means all the kooky left-wing racism that children are being indoctrinated on in the classroom?

[Sarcastr0]

The mainstream definition the right made up is just a pack of lies.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's just asking if they're using the motte or the bailey. It's a reasonable question.

[bevis the lumberjack]

The part about indoctrinating children is not a made up lie. Power point slides and videos and curriculum guides related to that are all over the internet.

[bernard11]

I didn't listen to the podcast either, sharing Brett's views on the matter.

What is this "indoctrinating" business?

[bevis the lumberjack]

In very broad terms teaching elementary aged children that all whites are oppressive and all POC are oppressed and that whites née led to deny their whiteness. That whites today are still responsible for slavery. Making children numerically rate their privilege. Crap like that.

People keep denying it’s happening (or saying “but it’s not that”, which is contradictory) but lesson plans and presentation materials keep popping up from all over.

[Sarcastr0]

lesson plans and presentation materials keep popping up from all over

Everyone I've seen pop up is debunked.

[bevis the lumberjack]

That’s not at all the case.

If you glibly dismiss every concern then there’s nothing to be concerned about I guess.

[bernard11]

Bevis,

Let me be blunt. The right is very good at manufacturing these issues. Find one example of something someone might have said, and run it through the usual amplifiers - Tucker Carlson, the WSJ editorial page, etc. Repeat endlessly.

Could we see some of these lesson plans from "all over?"

[TwelveInchPianist]

Weird. None of the ones I've seen pop up are debunked. Maybe gaslighted out of existence.

[Sarcastr0]

Articles from partisan magazines written by people who have not set foot on a campus in decades? This is the real insider info!

Objections from actual teachers? They're in on it, don't listen to them!!

[Brett Bellmore]

I linked to one above.

Here's another report.

So, go ahead, tell the superintendent of the Detroit public school system that they don't teach CRT. He must be lying about it.

[Sarcastr0]

"Detroit school district pushes back against anti-CRT legislation?"

Because that's about a bunch of teachers saying this superintendent is full-out lying for political reasons...not sure that helps your case, but it sure helps mine!

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, that's an interesting take on it. You did notice that the Super was endorsing opposition to the bill, right?

"“You have white Republicans largely outside of Detroit — a community of color — legislating what you can or cannot teach in schools. If that’s not one of the best examples of structural racism, I don’t know what is.”"

And now, look at what the bill itself said they couldn't teach in Detroit. For instance, "(iv) That individuals bear collective guilt for historical wrongs committed by their race or gender."

Oh, yeah, it's deeply racist to object to teaching collective racial guilt.

[Sarcastr0]

So what? The teachers quoted right before him say he isn't right.

[Brett Bellmore]

Are you reading a different article than I am? Because I don't see that anywhere. Literally nobody denying they're teaching Critical race theory. They just object to a bill that would make them stop it.

[Sarcastr0]

CRT has quickly become a catchall term used by some conservative lawmakers and activists to describe various state and local efforts to create equity policies or diverse curriculums in K-12 schools.

To wit:
Michigan educators could also be docked for teaching “anti-American ideas” about race, or material from “The 1619 Project,” a New York Times Magazine initiative that ties the growth of the United States to the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and none of that is a denial that they're teaching CRT, which makes sense given that the Superintendent of the school system says they are, and he'd know, wouldn't he?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The mainstream definition the right made up is just a pack of lies."

How can a definition be a pack of lies?

[Sarcastr0]

You going to be full postmodernist words are whatever people say they are?

The right doesn't get to pick a wedge issue, gin up nonsense and yell loudest about it, and claim *any* legitimacy because it's now 'mainstream.'

The fact that anyone is pushing that is monumentally screwed up - it shows a cynical discarding of the truth as a value that is pretty bad news.

[Lee Moore]

Excellent. Help those of us with shorter attention spans with a five hundred word summary.

[Frank Drackman]

Cathode Ray Tubes, what's the problem?

[Michael P]

They are full of toxic chemicals, inherently dangerous to handle, and the active elements are intentionally highly charged.

[Frank Drackman]

so don't eat one

[y81]

I look forward to listening to these. Prof. Bridges did a one hour session on CRT just for Berkeley Law alumni some months ago which I found to be an exceptionally useful exposition. (Back in the day, I read Faces at the Bottom of the Well, along with lots of CLS reading, but the demands of raising a family plus biglaw practice haven't left much time for that sort of intellectual activity in 30 years, so it's useful to have accessible summaries of current thinking.)

[ragebot]

I always wonder about why so many peeps use the term liar to describe someone who at least to me seems to be convinced what they are saying are true even if there may be some question about how true it actually is.

The story of the elephant and the blind men comes to mind. But maybe more specific to CRT is how little slavery existed in the US pre Civil War compared to the rest of the New World. Well documented research tells us around 3-4% of all the slaves in the New World were in the US with at least 95% in Central and South America and the Caribbean. Maybe more to the point is that the US evolved into the dominant world economy with this small fraction of all the New World slaves while the rest of the New World (excluding Canada who did it with no slaves) turned into what Trump would describe as shit hole countries. Seems like the economic contributions of slaves decreases as the fraction of slaves contributing to the economy increases.

It is also interesting to note that only Haiti and the US needed a war/revolution to end slavery. Everywhere else in the New World it simply died out on it's own. An Austrian explanation for this would likely include the Hayek idiom 'incentives matter'. Not to mention that the total number of slaves world wide is higher today than any time in history; probably due to the world population today higher than any time in history.

[bernard11]

I'm not sure what your point is.

There were about 4 million slaves out of a total population of around 30 million. Why it matters what percentage that was of total New World slaves is not clear to me. (I'd also like to see the source of your claim that there were 100 million or so slaves elsewhere.

The US evolved into the dominant country well after the Civil War. WWI helped a lot.

[Brett Bellmore]

Having Europe destroy themselves twice in a century in wars that mostly left us untouched certainly did give us a leg up, on a relative basis, even though both wars set us back, too, on an absolute basis. It's easy to dominate a destroyed world, if you haven't yourself been destroyed.

The downside is that those wars disrupted society in Europe and Asia, shaking established interests and rent seekers loose. That didn't happen here, so we're suffering a rather high 'parasite load' compared to countries that went through that disruption. We haven't been "rebooted" in over a century.

Our biggest advantages as a country are that we have a fairly complete natural resource base, and are large enough to internally capture any economies of scale that are available.

A former advantage, now lost, is that our economy used to be relatively free of oppressive regulation, so it used to be easy to establish new businesses and industries. But that's largely gone now. (That's why the internet boomed so; It provided an outlet for entrepreneurial activity that wasn't yet locked down by regulators.)

The idea that our economy is based on the past products of slavery is really economically ignorant. The North beat the South because their non-slave economy was superior, could out-produce military goods and afford a larger army, and the war destroyed basically all the wealth that had derived from slavery, so the post-Civil war US basically had nothing that owed to slavery anymore.

[ragebot]

Not saying the US lacks natural resources but so do other countries in South America like Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela. Yet compared to the US all three are basically Trump's shithole countries. In fact Venezuela is the posterboy for all shithole countries. Maybe more to your point none of those three countries suffered damage from WWI or WWII. In fact some would argue that Argentina benefited from an influx of Germans after WWII.

I had to laugh at your posting "The downside is that those wars disrupted society in Europe and Asia, shaking established interests and rent seekers loose." given that what ever else anyone thinks about CRT bozos they are clearly rent seekers.

As for the Civil War outcome given something like a three to one advantage in manpower the North had not to mention the South having to keep track of maybe a third of it's population who would be capable of open revolt given half a chance along with advantages you mention lots of military science guys wonder how the South was able to fight as long as it did.

Props for your point about the wealth the South derived from slavery all being destroyed during and after the war. Wonder what the reparations fanboys say about that.

[bernard11]

A former advantage, now lost, is that our economy used to be relatively free of oppressive regulation, so it used to be easy to establish new businesses and industries. But that's largely gone now. (That's why the internet boomed so; It provided an outlet for entrepreneurial activity that wasn't yet locked down by regulators.)

This is ideological nonsense. US gdp per capita has not grown more slowly since, say, the Depression than earlier in history. The only data I've been able to find suggests quite the opposite.

But never mind the facts. Nothing libertarian economics hates more than data.

[ragebot]

bernard11 wrote:

"(I'd also like to see the source of your claim that there were 100 million or so slaves elsewhere."

I would like to see where I made that claim. Reading comprehension is your friend.

[bernard11]

I would like to see where I made that claim. Reading comprehension is your friend.

OK. You wrote:

Well documented research tells us around 3-4% of all the slaves in the New World were in the US with at least 95% in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

There were just under four million slaves in the US according to the 1860 Census.

Arithmetic is your friend.

[bernard11]

Well?

[Lee Moore]

I think the arithmetical confusion is explained roughly as follows.

The 4% number refers to the destination of African slaves transported across the Atlantic. A rather small proportion went to the USA (or the British North American colonies prior to the formation of the USA.) Say about 400,000.

Thus the great majority of bernard's 4 million slaves in the 1860 US represent "American-bred" slaves, obviously including those of mixed race, not transported ones.

Meanwhile, by 1860, in other parts of the Americas, quite a large proportion of the non-white (and non-indigenous) population were not slaves - ie they were the desendants of transported slaves, and mixed race, who were now free. In Brazil, for example around the time of the US Civil War, there were roughly three free non-whites for every non-white slave. Whereas in the US there were roughly eight slaves for every free non-white.

So in 1860 or so there were nearly 6 million non whites in Brasil, and about 4.5 million in the US; but of those only 1.5 million were slaves in Brazil, while there were 4 million slaves in the US.

But there had been nearly 5 million slaves transported across the Atlantic to Brazil, but only 400,000 to the US.

So - there probably were times early in the slave trade when the US slave population was less than 4% of the total, given the early start for slaves going to Latin America, and the relatively low numbers going to North America. But by 1860, US slaves were certainly not a mere 4% of the total. US slaves grew as a proportion, largely because :

(a) their death rate was lower than in say Brazil
(b) their birth rate was higher, and
(c) they became free more slowly

[Stephen Lathrop]

Maybe more to the point is that the US evolved into the dominant world economy with this small fraction of all the New World slaves while the rest of the New World (excluding Canada who did it with no slaves) turned into what Trump would describe as shit hole countries.

France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain owe roughly as much of their subsequent world status to their activities as former colonial slave powers as does the U.S. Fairly obviously, the question whether slavery works to deliver enduring economic advantage depends on which side of the slave-owning question the ancestors of various present-day nations were on. Those present-day nations which count their ancestry mostly among slaves, instead of among slave-holders, seem to remain burdened down to the present.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Slavery was practiced virtually everywhere back in history, including Africa. Practicing slavery didn't seem to help the African countries, or South America. Or the Middle East. Meanwhile countries like Switzerland and South Korea and the Scandinavian countries, among others, have become very successful economically without colonialism. And people always neglect to note that America was colonized as opposed to being a colonizer. And you left out Japan as a successful colonizer, presumably because you want to make this a White People Bad thing.

There's one thing all of the successful countries you list, along with the United States, and the successful countries I mention have in common. Liberty. Personal and economic freedom that they evolved having into after their slavery/colonial days. It's the freedom that makes them economically powerful, not the slavery.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm an American exceptionalist, but we need to be clear-eyed about slavery.

The institution of American slavery was vastly worse than slavery elsewhere and across history.

American slavery was unique because of how profoundly slaves outnumbered slaveholders, and how much the slaveholders' way of life depended on their slaves.

This lead to a fear of revolt that created a system of terrorism and dehumanization. Black people were not just enslaved, they were broken, their names stripped from them, their language, their faith, their family. That was not something even visited on the slavs or any system in Islam. Teaching a slave to read was a crime, because keeping blacks in dehumanized ignorance was a requirement of the system.

And that doesn't mention the forced breeding, often via forced rape. Another uniquely monstrous aspect of the American institution.

Fear of revolt lead to an affirmative policy of breaking up families and keeping black people terrorized.

And all of this in a country that considered itself a beacon of liberty among all mankind, a blindness and hypocrisy that must also be factored into American slavery's towering awfulness throughout history.

We made a helluva promise - an exceptional promise. But living up to it takes *work*.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Where did I dismiss slavery? My response barely addressed the US and included it no more heavily than 10 other countries. The point is that slavery isn’t the common thread among economic powers. Liberty is.

But please do tell - what in my post was dismissive of how awful slavery was.

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, maybe I was triggered by your comparing of slavery across countries. Not that you dismissed it - didn't think that!

[Frank Drackman]

Enough already, I saw "Django"

[ragebot]

I am not sure if you are trying to use lawyer double speak with this comment or you are just a shit eating turd face who is ignorant of the facts when you post "American slavery was unique because of how profoundly slaves outnumbered slaveholders, and how much the slaveholders' way of life depended on their slaves."

It is well established that even in the South the majority of people (both black and white) were not slaveholders and the majority of slaveholders often owned one or two slaves. While there were slaveholders who owned many slaves this was the exception rather than the rule. In the South by total numbers maybe one third of the population was slaves. I have never seen estimates of just what portion of population in the South owned slaves but clearly slaves did not "profoundly" outnumber the population.

[Sarcastr0]

What I think you're missing is how many slaves were on the plantations. And how much plantations drove the policy of the South.

Sure, if you spread over all the South things look equal.

But the plantation owners? They lived in fear. And they were the landed gentry that drove the politics and made policy when it came to that peculiar institution.

That's why the model in our heads even today of southern slavery is on a plantation.

[ragebot]

What I am sure you are missing is "the model in our heads even today of southern slavery is on a plantation" is wrong and there is no way to sugar coat it.

I still have to keep repeating the James Carville maxim "its the economy stupid". The federal government depended on tariffs to fund it's operations and the bulk of those tariffs were from exporting cotton and imports from Europe (UK mostly); the North contributed little to funding the federal government. Anyone with even a passing knowledge knows that slavery was hardly mentioned in the ramp up and early stages of the Civil War. It was only much later when the North started winning that slavery became an issue. Lincoln would have been happy to get some type of settlement with the South where slavery would have been allowed; but only as long as the South kept funding the federal government.

As I alluded to early in my comments and several times in other threads slavery is not the best use of human resources and died out of it's own inefficiencies in modern economies. The same thing goes for silly things like limiting jobs to women, minorities, and other groups. It is simply more efficient to hire the best person and not doing so puts a company at a disadvantage.

[bernard11]

Wow.

Someone is still trotting out the old "The Civil War was about tariffs, not slavery," line.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge knows that slavery was hardly mentioned in the ramp up and early stages of the Civil War.

Just amazing.

[wreckinball]

When you need to keep "splaining" because you're trying to cover up what you're actually doing you're doing it wrong.

Racism, Jim Crow, Civil War have been taught in this country for decades. I know because I was taught all of the above when I started school back in the 60's.

CRT is not history. CRT is BS so supporters who want to teach racism can teach it. Maybe we should start teaching Eugenics as long as racist teaching is OK?

[Lee Moore]

Shamed of my lack of stamina, I managed another ten minutes, and we did eventually get some concrete examples. Laws allowing slavery were bad, laws abolishing slavery were good. OK.

So how is this different from Critical Commerce Theory ? Some laws are good for commerce, some bad. The devil – or rather the entire subject – is in the details. You might choose an overall stance for your Critical Commerce Theory - eg "free markets good, socialism bad" which might guide you in your assessment of which laws are good and which laws are bad for commerce. But that's not a "legal" theory, it's a political and economic theory.

Anyway we did at last get a current example – laws that finance schools from property taxes are “racist” because BIPOCs live in poor “hoods.” But this is only “legal” because the alleged cause of the racial disparity is the economic inequality inherent in the legal mechanism for funding schools. The analysis requires no deep legal thinking, it’s just a policy question. A mixture of fact and politics.

And on the facts, it’s crap. The same sort of economic inequality affects poor whites just as much as poor Blacks, poor Hispanics and poor Native Americans. Moreover the evidence that low spending is the cause of low achievement is decidedly scanty. DC spends something like $30,000 per pupil per year, for execrable results. Correlation between spending and achievement is limited, and in any case muddied by the confounding correlation between wealth and ability.

But this is routine Marxism – the alleged cause of disparity is money, and equalizing money is the cure. The evidence, meanwhile, suggests that money is much less important than the school ethos – Catholic schools do way better than secular public schools.

And the evidence from around the world that egalitarian economic policy helps the poor is threadbare. Which is a euphemism for “the reverse of reality.”

[Sarcastr0]

First, if you're angry about that, maybe check out the ep on intersectionality which talks about issues of inequality that hurt whites and males specifically - it's not just about blacks!

Did she call laws with a disparate impact racist, or are you reading into that?

Because as the first episode noted, Critical Theory was the one that was all about noting that there are fundamentals to our system that favor being rich and white and male and then just yelling about it.

CRT departed from there to have a different mission - it sees systemic inequality, and asks how the mechanisms available at law can help address it.

The same sort of economic inequality affects poor whites just as much as poor Blacks, poor Hispanics and poor Native Americans.
Hah. You stumbled into a bit of intersectionality here! Poor whites absolutely face issues. But one of the keys of intersectionality is not to play the oppression olympics - poor whites face challenges, and so do blacks and so do poor blacks etc. etc. Just because poor whites are effected too doesn't make it not a problem for blacks, and indeed arguably makes it even more of a problem!

the evidence that low spending is the cause of low achievement is decidedly scanty. DC spends something like $30,000 per pupil per year, for execrable results.
At some point, money matters. The extreme you generalize this example to is ridiculous.

[Lee Moore]

First, if you're angry about that, maybe check out the ep on intersectionality which talks about issues of inequality that hurt whites and males specifically - it's not just about blacks!

First, I'm deplorably unangry about almost everything. Probably the self satisfaction that comes from White Cis Male Privilege.

Second. Bingo ! Critical Race Theory is simply the Racial branch of Critical Inequality Theory. Which is not a legal theory, but a political theory. Which used to be called Marxism until the body count became embarrassing.

The causes of inequality are various. No doubt the law is usually structured to assist the people who make and administer the law, at the expense of the rest. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes is the oldest of all political problems - for which the best solution discovered so far is the US constitutional system - designed by men ungraciously suspicious of government, to have a lot of folk each with strictly limited powers, watching each other like hawks.

In a reasonably open system like the modern US, the causes of inequality have much more to do with differences in talent, application and luck than any kind of structural legal bias. Uncountable Americans of all races have struggled up from the bottom of the heap to position of power and wealth. Is it all perfect ? Far from it.

But inequality is an inevitable consequence of liberty in a world of variable talent, perseverance and luck and insisting that there must be structural solutions to such sources of inequality is the road to serfdom.

Did she call laws with a disparate impact racist, or are you reading into that?

If it's not about race - remember "the race in critical race theory is to identify the subject , right, what will be its primary locus of focus" - what's it got to do with Critical Race Theory ?

[Sarcastr0]

The podcast *starts* by explicitly talking about how CRT split off by discarding many of Critical Theory's assumptions.

The assumptions that legal instruments could not help. Which is why it is a *legal theory.

Uncountable Americans of all races have struggled up from the bottom of the heap to position of power and wealth. Is it all perfect ? Far from it.
THIS is Marxist analysis. Not Marxism, but Marx is the dude who says materialism is all that matters, and to heck with anything regarding identity.

If it's not about race - remember "the race in critical race theory is to identify the subject , right, what will be its primary locus of focus" - what's it got to do with Critical Race Theory ?
That is actually correct, if you listened to the ep. on intersectionality.

Bottom line, this is a discipline that says the system has issues and there are ways within our legal system to address those issues. You don't seem to have a problem with this baseline foundation, but you still are straining to find problems with every other detail you can.

[Lee Moore]

The podcast *starts* by explicitly talking about how CRT split off by discarding many of Critical Theory's assumptions.

That would be Critical Legal Theory.

The assumptions that legal instruments could not help. Which is why it is a *legal theory.

So CLT is a theory that legal instruments can't help. And CRT is a theory that they can. Both are "legal" theories. On this basis, the theory that left footed place kickers are better is a legal theory.

moi : Uncountable Americans of all races have struggled up from the bottom of the heap to position of power and wealth. Is it all perfect ? Far from it.

toi : THIS is Marxist analysis. Not Marxism, but Marx is the dude who says materialism is all that matters, and to heck with anything regarding identity.

Materialism is not all that matters. Uncountable Americans have achieved positions of respect in their communties, seved their country, happily raised families, and done all that pursuit of happiness thing. America is not a deeply troubled society, and to the extend that it is troubled, the trouble is not that it does not have enough federal government programs; it is that it has too many, and consequently far too many bureaucrats and other trough-feeding parasites.

Bottom line, this is a discipline that says the system has issues and there are ways within our legal system to address those issues. You don't seem to have a problem with this baseline foundation, but you still are straining to find problems with every other detail you can.

I'm struggling to see how as advertised any of this differs from a standard Jordan Peterson lecture. Society requires institutions to provide order. Established order becomes corrupt. It is necessary for the natural corruption of established order to be confronted and reformed by each generation.

What's CRT got that Jordan Peterson hasn't ?

Answer - CRT is

[Sarcastr0]

I'll not venture whether America is deeply troubled or not; I'm just not ready to rest on our laurels just yet.

Saying society can and should be improved does not make you Jordan Peterson.

[Lee Moore]

Indeed not. But Peterson does not need an entire grandly titled "theory" with hundreds of facultised acolytes to spin his tale, nor does he need to sting the government for squillions in education funding.

To justify the grandly titled theory, the facultised acolytes and the funding CRT needs to be offering something a bit deeper than Peterson's diagnosis. Laws can be good or bad and let's equalise school funding does not seem very deep to me.

[Lee Moore]

moi : the evidence that low spending is the cause of low achievement is decidedly scanty. DC spends something like $30,000 per pupil per year, for execrable results.

toi : At some point, money matters. The extreme you generalize this example to is ridiculous.

So how is it, if the general answer is that money is really important, that DC can spend so much to so little result ?

And whether my scepticism that money is the root of all educational inequality is justified or not, the point is that whether money is or is not to blame has literally nothing to do with any legal theory. It's a pure policy question.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a strawman. Prof. Bridges doesn't say that's the root of *all* educational inequality, only some.

I don't know enough about the DC thing to disagree with you, and I do know there are wasteful schools.

Indeed, you seem to be arguing the reverse of this strawman - that there are *no* underfunded schools - "the evidence that low spending is the cause of low achievement is decidedly scanty."

Are you really arguing this superlative?

[Lee Moore]

I'm arguing absence of evidence. There are too many high spending low achievement, low spending high achievement inconsistencies to draw a close correlation between spending and educational outcome.

And there are much better correlations with - parental education, school ethos (eg Catholic schools), cultural differences (eg Jews, Asians, Indians, African and Caribbean immigrants - all of whom perform better than the allegedly dominant waspy-whities)

So, sure, money may help a bit. But unless it can be demonstrated pretty clearly that lack of money is a major cause of poor educational attainment, compared to the other possibilities, it makes no sense to increase the flow of money. Particularly as increasing the flow of money has been the favored solution for fifty years, and has so far done roughly squat.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm arguing logic, not phenomenology. Mostly due to laziness in looking up the stats.
1) There is a funding per student threshold below which a school is unable to function at a level commensurate to other schools with better funding.
2) Due to the property-taxes based funding model for schools, there are some districts funded below this threshold.

The fact that there are other factors at play is insufficient to show that funding is not a factor. That's just throwing chaff. Address those in parallel to the funding issue.

I hate to appeal to incredulity, since I spend a lot of my time asking people to support stuff they've provided via appeal to authority. But I find myself unable to countenance the argument you seem to be slouching into - that funding level *does not matter* in educating a child.

[Lee Moore]

I'm not slouching and I'm not saying funding doesn't matter.

But while you're exercising your incredulity module, why don't you exercise it on the fact that spending per pupil has gone up yuuugely EVERYWHERE in the US over the past fifty years, and educational attainment has not.

[Sarcastr0]

This is routine Marxism – the alleged cause of disparity is money, and equalizing money is the cure.

*This is already about the distribution of tax money* it's not Marxism, good lord.

[Lee Moore]

No, it's about the disparity in education performance between the schoolchildren of District A and the schoolchildren of District B. For which her diagnosis is a disparity of spending of schools.

We only arrive at the redistribution from the taxpayers of District A to the children of the taxpayers of District B if we first accept her diagnosis that it's all about the money.

Other folk might diagnose the problem as having more to do with, say, the dissing of class discipline and homework as manifestations of White Privilege. Or even wasting valuable lesson time on gender propaganda instead of concentrating on reading, writing and arithmetic.

[Sarcastr0]

"There is a disparity in government funding in this governmentally funded institution, and there should not be."

This is not Marxism.

[Lee Moore]

I very much doubt that's what CRT proposes. She didn't sound at all keen on facially neutral government rules. She sounded very much into the outcome - so I'm confident that she's quite OK with a disparity in government funding, so long as you keep loading up on the disparity of funding until the disparity of outcome magically disappears.

Which is Marxism.

But feel free to point out where she says equality of government spending is what she wants.

[Sarcastr0]

Now you're just arguing vibes.

She didn't say anything like the words you put in her mouth, of course.

[Lee Moore]

“We had accepted a sort of way of thinking about the civil rights laws that had been passed to address racism, and we thought those laws were awesome and we thought that racism was you know like individual bad actors and like those laws were designed to sniff out those individual bad actors and then run them away and then like in the 1980s we were sort of facing the Reagan Revolution and like oh my God, what’s wrong with the civil rights laws and why aren’t they working and like it’s oh it’s Reagan and the people he’s appointing to the courts and he’s appointing to these executive agencies and critical race theory is like I understand what you guys are assuming but I’m going to challenge that and like I don’t think that the problem is Reagan necessarily, the problem might be the civil rights laws themselves, the problem might be the way that we understand racism”

The bit in bold - directly out of her mouth - refutes your theory. It's not individual bad actors and it's not just wicked folk that Reagan appointed, it's that the formally race neutral civil rights laws are themselves a problem. And if you think that race neutral civil rights laws are not the problem, then you don't "understand racism."

[Frank Drackman]

Remember that great "Andy Griffith Show" episode where Expert-on-Everything (Medicine, Law, History, you know, I think Reverend Kirtland might really be Barney Fife) Barney Fife tried to explain what the "Emancipation Proclamation" was?
Seeing as how it didn't free a single slave, (don't blame me, blame the Great Railsplitter), it's the perfect Holiday to celebrate in a nation which hasn't had slaves for 156 years

[swood1000]

Whenever I have read a description of critical race theory written by an advocate it has invariably assumed the existence of systemic racism, sometimes by pointing to racial disparities as enough proof. I am hoping that this series will address that issue.

[Sarcastr0]

Good news, there! It gets at some causes for sure, and does not spend a lot of time on the effects (except in a racially neutral way about how few IHEs feed into elite power positions like SCOTUS).

[swood1000]

I finished listening to the series and was very disappointed. From the term “deep dive” I assumed that the invited expert would be asked to respond to criticisms of CRT but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, everything she said was just accepted uncritically. For example,

• She referred to the implicit bias test, sometimes called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) without being asked to respond to the studies finding that “IATs are widely used without psychometric evidence of construct or predictive validity.”
• She says that the funding of schools by local property taxes is an example of systemic racism without being asked if every example of advantage as a result of wealth is systemic racism.
• She says that the low reimbursement rates of Medicaid are an example of systemic racism but is every failure to ameliorate the hardships of poverty an example of systemic racism?
• She says that an example of systemic racism is that black people are more likely to live in areas subject to environmental pollution, and that a new factory is more likely to be built Berkeley than in Oakland, but these are obviously straightforward financial considerations. People are not forced to live in Oakland.
• She says that Chris Rufo knowingly and falsely claims that CRT has been introduced into primary and secondary schools but she is not asked whether what he is describing doesn’t exist or whether it does but it is not CRT. Her statement seems inconsistent with the fact that in July, 2021, the National Education Association passed New Business Item 39 announcing its support of critical race theory. What is her response to the fact that training material put out by the Buffalo Public School system declares that “All white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”?
• She acknowledges that in some cases where there are white kids and black kids from the same socioeconomic group the white kids will outperform the black kids but this is proof to her that the explanation can only be systemic racism. She was not asked to explain why she is comfortable blithely dismissing any cultural explanation for the educational disparities, such as the one described by anthropologist John Ogbu in his book Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement.
• Disparities in health outcomes are attributed to systemic racism without question but according to the CDC, there is a white, non-Hispanic obesity rate of 23.5% as compared to the black rate of 35%, and common morbidities associated with obesity include coronary heart disease, hypertension and stroke, type 2 diabetes. I would have appreciated an explanation as to how systemic racism causes obesity.

I’m not sure why there was no pushback from Baud, or how it’s possible to have a “deep dive” without addressing the main criticisms and instead accepting all claims uncritically. Maybe he was worried about danger to his career as a result of not being on board, but more likely he was not willing to make the effort.

[swood1000]

The following is a quote from Critical Race Theory by Delgado and Stefancic: “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.” If this sentiment is being taught in K-12 schools, then the charge that Chris Rufo is dishonest when he says that these schools are teaching CRT needs to be explained.