Russ Douthat on Critical Race Theory

[Szdfan]

There's one point which I haven't seen expressed here, and which should be interesting for our liberal-minded readers.
The average white middle class parents have been reeducated to ignore race differences and above all the many differences depending on racial genetics or racial culture.

What would you say are the racial differences that depend on racial genetics or racial culture that you think are being ignored?

[HondurasKeiser]

If someone can provide quotes in which Nikole Hannah-Jones or Ibram Kendi promote violence, please feel free to do so. Is that something Douthat claimed they do?

I know this is late to the game but here is Texas A&M Philosophy professor and Critical Theorist, Tommy Curry in his doctoral dissertation:

Despite the international community’s criticisms of U.S. racism and the denial of self-determination to people of African descent, there have not been any political sanctions or international reprimands for these human rights violations. As such, African people in the United States must start to speak of and act on political alternatives that are not rooted in the eventuation of white sympathy for the “human condition” of Blacks; instead, our political theories must deal with the reality of white imperialism and the apathy of the international community to the concretization of Black self-determinacy....

In an attempt to move Black political theory in this direction, this essay explores the use of violence as a solution to the permanent institutionalization and white cultural reification of anti-Black racism. In African American political thought, integration and the hopes of non-violent progress has become the unquestioned foundation of Black political and legal theory. This author believes that the dogmatic allegiance to non-violence is a price that African descended people in America can no longer afford to pay. Historically, the use of violence has been a serious option in the liberation of African people from the cultural tyranny of whiteness, and should again be investigated as a plausible and in some sense necessary political option....

White socialization reproduces white ways of life, white values, and an ideology of white superiority engrained in the narratives and history of American society. Even causal analyses of racial events in American society are framed in ways that uphold white sensibilities of justice and fairness, especially when those events would imply racism as the cause. Empirically, whites will not lend Blacks their ear.
According to Paul Butler, “the issue is not whether people will suffer and die.African Americans suffer and die now, because of race based punishment. The issues, then, are whether or how that discrimination should end, and whether it matters if others die, in the service to end discrimination.” However, the issue is precisely over who dies. Butler claims that violence needs to be proportionate to the kind of discrimination committed and should not harm innocent people or what he refers to as “noncombatants,” but how can we decide how much oppression is tolerable and who is innocent under a colonial system? What is the threshold for dehumanization, what is the normal amount of genocide allowable? Butler assumes that discrimination can be weighed as abnormal variations in the American landscape, despite its perpetual reoccurrence. While this argument seems compelling it ignores the fundamental truth of the American colonial context, namely that the murder of Blacks appears normal, and as such does not constitute a premise for rejecting the system or punishing those whites responsible for the death of Blacks. Fanon tells us that there are no innocents in the colonial situation. “Colonialism is not a type of individual relation but the conquest of a national territory and the oppression of a people: that is all.”...

The colonial context justifies itself to whites in the persecution and criminalization of Blacks, and in this way it knows that it is legitimate and permanent. Every white that participates in the colonial context, as if the tyranny against Blacks is the norm, and acceptable, in so far as it requires no individual action or culpability, is guilty of colonization, and as such is neither innocent nor absolved for being the particular manifestation of the colonial matrix. The possession of a white racial identity is a very real danger for African people insofar as that identity is embraced as the badge of white superiority. In this sense, every white is a concrete threat to the life of an African descended person, either as their executioner or the enforcer of white supremacy. Insofar as “whiteness” is the expectation of privilege, whiteness is also the expectation of those who cannot enjoy those privileges and the maintenance of their deprivation. Violence against whites is a revolt against both the colonial structures of the American context, as well as the rebellion against the individual whites who choose to claim the legacy of that oppression in a white racial identity....

Do we (African descended people) advocate the death, murder, poverty, and oppression of our people at the hands of whites, or do we advocate the end of racism, even if the means to do so is war? The dissenters to such a view will no doubt support the basis of violence against whites as theoretically, and politically justified, but reject the proposal on the basis of practicality or morality....

Here the criticisms that violence against whites will increase white racism, that violence against whites will inevitably harm more Blacks than our current oppression, that violence is simply not a promising political alternative for Black, or that violence against whites would make oppressed Blacks no better than the white oppressor are largely ideological co-signers to the maintenance of the status quo. These criticisms only maintain the current conditions of Blacks now. Blacks are dying daily from poverty, police brutality and incarceration. Where are the objections to these realities? Is there an ontological difference between the deaths of Blacks that appear normal, and the deaths that appear abominable because they occurred in the midst of revolt? Does our willingness to be moral agents that seek to educate whites and live together peacefully arrest the murder of Black people? The reality of Blacks, especially Black men in American society, is that death is always imminent. Ultimately, the death of Blacks, be it at the hands of white supremacy, or in rebellion against colonialism, should advocate the unrealized possibility of their living, namely the end of racism.

and here direct quotes from podcasts since deleted:

"kill white people… I’m very serious"
“You cannot have progress here without violence and upheaval”
he “turns on the news just to see” “white people being beaten with batons… I’m serious.”

I'm sure though I'm taking him out of context or misunderstanding the Derridean playfulness with which Critical Theorists bait their opponents. I'm positive we shouldn't read him at face-value and follow his open-ended questions to the logical conclusions. After all, 'linear logic' is simply "white logic" that instantiates white systemic oppression, right?

[Bootstrap]

If someone can provide quotes in which Nikole Hannah-Jones or Ibram Kendi promote violence, please feel free to do so. Is that something Douthat claimed they do?

I know this is late to the game but here is Texas A&M Philosophy professor and Critical Theorist, Tommy Curry in his doctoral dissertation:

In other words, no, Nikole Hanna-Jones and Ibram Kendi do not say anything remotely like this, but there are some extremists who also associate themselves with Critical Race Theory. And you would like to play guilt by association?

The problem with this, of course, is that there are also extremists who oppose Critical Race Theory. But it's not fair to treat everyone who opposes Critical Race Theory as though they were Nazis or KKK members. And the other problem is that people tend to excuse extremism "on their side", using extremism "on the other side" to justify it - we need "our" extremists to save us from "them". That's not good on either side.

I disagree with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram Kendi on lots of things, but I do not consider them dangerous. I think they go overboard in one direction on history, but my history teachers in school were overboard in the other direction. HIstory benefits when people look at things from different angles.

[HondurasKeiser]

If someone can provide quotes in which Nikole Hannah-Jones or Ibram Kendi promote violence, please feel free to do so. Is that something Douthat claimed they do?

I know this is late to the game but here is Texas A&M Philosophy professor and Critical Theorist, Tommy Curry in his doctoral dissertation:

In other words, no, Nikole Hanna-Jones and Ibram Kendi do not say anything remotely like this, but there are some extremists who also associate themselves with Critical Race Theory. And you would like to play guilt by association?

The problem with this, of course, is that there are also extremists who oppose Critical Race Theory. But it's not fair to treat everyone who opposes Critical Race Theory as though they were Nazis or KKK members. And the other problem is that people tend to excuse extremism "on their side", using extremism "on the other side" to justify it - we need "our" extremists to save us from "them". That's not good on either side.

I disagree with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram Kendi on lots of things, but I do not consider them dangerous. I think they go overboard in one direction on history, but my history teachers in school were overboard in the other direction. HIstory benefits when people look at things from different angles.

Oh so you mean something like this:

or this:

There’s a lot of consternation on here abt the uprising in Minneapolis & how the only means protestors can be effective is through non-violence.I hurt for the destruction like everyone else. But the fact of history is non-violent protest has not been successful for blk Americans.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) May 29, 2020 (tweet since deleted)

[HondurasKeiser]

Which seems to fit in the same disgusting category as this:

or even more to the point, something like this:

[HondurasKeiser]

I know, I know cue the predictable: "AK-shually, Ms. Hannah-Jones is making a very nuanced argument for why violence is wrong but rioting in the name of justice is understandable and perhaps even justified."

I think you and I would both agree that Donald Trump, even if he officially disavowed the violence and insurrection of January 6th in subsequent tweets and videos; nevertheless winked and nudged his support to his volatile supporters just prior. That is to say, he created a permission structure by which his supporters read his tweets of encouragement as a call to arms. Nikole Hannah-Jones did not directly call for violence (but then again neither did President Trump) - she didn't need to. She simply needed to telegraph her support for said riots and vague notions of violence (much like prof. Curry did) so as to create a permission structure by which others could riot for causes she believes in. Maybe, she truly abhors violence - if she does she ought to be more careful with her language, as words, even veiled or opaque words, convey meanings and ideas and "ideas have consequences". I would think a Pulitzer prize-winning, NYT editorial-writing, Howard professor of Journalism would understand that better than most.

[HondurasKeiser]

Likewise, Critical Race Theory; inasmuch as it silos off people into constituent races and ethnicities, each with its own attributes, vices, levels of privilege, modes of being, ways of thinking, etc. - all of which make it impossible for a member of one group to have true communication with a member of another group - necessarily requires a balkanization of society, turning group against group in a bid for raw power. CRT may not explicitly call for violence in its founding texts but the line of inquiry is certainly explored (see: Prof. Curry & earlier Frankfurt School theorists) but in singling out one group (white people) as the sole contributing factor to the continued inequality and even deaths of other groups (BIPOC) it creates a permission structure by which less scrupulous thinkers and actors might come to find violence in the name of justice perfectly justified, even a requirement. "No Justice, No Peace".

At the very least, as it trickles down from High Academia to pop culture, it leads people of influence, people that should know better; to flirt with, fantasize about and theorize about the justifiable use of violence in the quest for an anti-racist society:

Sarah Jeong, NYT editorial Board

[HondurasKeiser]

A Yale Lecture by Dr. Aruna Khilanani:

Quotes from her lecture:

This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. (Time stamp: 6:45)

I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor. (Time stamp: 7:17)

White people are out of their minds and they have been for a long time. (Time stamp: 17:06)

We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea. (Time stamp 17:13)

We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask. (Time stamp 17:54)

And her she is on BNT where she and the host unpack why having feelings of a desire to kill white people is perfectly understandable even while it may not be actionable

These aren't cranks or crackpots, these are influential people with powerful sinecures that explore, unpack and fantasize about killing, maiming and problematizing an entire "race" of people. I think we've seen this movie before...

[HondurasKeiser]

As for Mr. X. Kendi, he hasn't called for violence that's true - he just tweets really disgusting things about people he doesn't know:

Which, wonder of wonders, enables the creation of a mirror-image of hate on the opposing side:

If that's what anti-racism looks like, count me out.

[Bootstrap]

If someone can provide quotes in which Nikole Hannah-Jones or Ibram Kendi promote violence, please feel free to do so. Is that something Douthat claimed they do?

Oh so you mean something like this:

Screenshot (159).png

or this:

There’s a lot of consternation on here abt the uprising in Minneapolis & how the only means protestors can be effective is through non-violence.I hurt for the destruction like everyone else. But the fact of history is non-violent protest has not been successful for blk Americans.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) May 29, 2020 (tweet since deleted)

Thanks, that's the first example I have seen posted in this thread, I posted the question a long time ago. And I agree, these quotes do seem to promote violence, which is bad. There are certainly CRT teachers who do not support violence.

In your other posts, you seem to be picking the most extreme views you can find among people who associate with CRT, implying that this is what everyone is like. That really is a bit like posting quotes from real racists and implying that is representative of the people who oppose CRT. Really, CRT should be evaluated based on what it teaches. And that depends a lot on who you are listening to.

I tend to agree with this:

Critical Race Theory recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities. According to CRT, societal issues like Black Americans’ higher mortality rate, outsized exposure to police violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, denial of affordable housing, and the rates of the death of Black women in childbirth are not unrelated anomalies.

In other words, the system can have policies that act against black people even if the people who pass those policies are not overtly racist - they may even be trying to be helpful.