What are your thoughts re Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church?

[joshuabgood]

Racism was and is a grievous sin, but it is untrue that we are morally stained by our membership in particular demographic groups (Ez. 18:1-24, Deut. 24:16).

And yet God repeatedly judged and spoke against whole groups/identities/tribes/families of people.

A Jewish person once explained it to me, that all of society bears some responsibility for individual sins in some senses. For instance, he mentioned, when society really "frowns" upon a sin, that sin is hardly ever practiced in society. It happens, but almost never. When a society doesn't think a sin is too big a deal, that sin happens a lot. He explained that cannibalism almost never happens in our society b/c it is universally condemned. Whereas adultery happens a lot as it is tolerated. Therefore, to an extent, society does bear the guilt of individuals - hence God's judgement on folks like the Amalekites and even Israel. And Jesus categorically judging Israel or the group of Pharisees even though there were individuals in those groups who were righteosu. It also works the other way he noted, as in universal forgiveness is given, like in the case of Nineveh, or Israel in some instances.

Therefore Germany as a whole bears some complicity for Hitler's Third Reich.

So in my view, it isn't completely out of line to hold white America in general, or even the white American church in general, with some liability even if we all weren't directly involved. Outside of the Black church and the liberal Protestants, where was the church witness again racism in the 60s? The lack of that witness does bear some culpability.

[Falco Underhill]

Again Ken, you wave this example off with a 'nothing to see here' rhetorical flip, because Collins was tossed out last year by the voters of SF. I agree that a lot of this stuff may be self-correcting but I posted this as an example of CRT/Anti-Racism, come down from the Ivory Tower and at work, in real-world events; that it's not just some stuffy academic argle bargle or a cute lens to view the world through.

I disagree. Critical Race Theory is a useful tool that can be used to examine inequities that appear in a school district like San Francisco. Just like the example I cited upstream where I tossed out 5 separate theories that might explain differences in discipline rates between Black and White children.

But it doesn't presuppose that you jump to stupid solutions to those problems like mandating the ethnic and gender composition of school board committees, wasting your pandemic time renaming closed schools rather than getting kids back into school, or coming up with a lottery-based admissions system for highly competitive magnet schools. Those are just as stupid as the people on the right who think you can fix education by implementing 1950s style mandatory school prayer or not talking about race. Or by closing public schools and giving every child a voucher. There is nothing about CRT that says we must take the most stupid and politically performative solutions to problems rather than rolling up our sleeves and trying to do the hard work of finding useful and equitable solutions to real problems.

I could go onto YouTube and find and endless array of ridiculous and outrageous examples of performative Christianity and preachers doing and saying over-the-top crazy stuff. There are whole YouTube channels devoted to that stuff. But I don't treat that as an indictment of Christianity. Just like I don't treat examples of lefty idiots like the former SF school board as evidence that racism or system racism isn't actually a problem in education. Or that examining educational issues through the filter of race isn't a valid and useful exercise.

If CRT ever does become a watered down and domesticated harmless and useful "lens" for evaluating things it will be thanks in large part to those parents aware of the radical agenda initially behind it, and who had the good sense to criticize it publicly. Not much thanks to all the "so what if they're Marxists?" liberals.

And if you still need proof of the radical agenda of many of those who have been pushing this, including it's founders, I'm sure I can find some for you.

[HondurasKeiser]

Racism was and is a grievous sin, but it is untrue that we are morally stained by our membership in particular demographic groups (Ez. 18:1-24, Deut. 24:16).

And yet God repeatedly judged and spoke against whole groups/identities/tribes/families of people.

A Jewish person once explained it to me, that all of society bears some responsibility for individual sins in some senses. For instance, he mentioned, when society really "frowns" upon a sin, that sin is hardly ever practiced in society. It happens, but almost never. When a society doesn't think a sin is too big a deal, that sin happens a lot. He explained that cannibalism almost never happens in our society b/c it is universally condemned. Whereas adultery happens a lot as it is tolerated. Therefore, to an extent, society does bear the guilt of individuals - hence God's judgement on folks like the Amalekites and even Israel. And Jesus categorically judging Israel or the group of Pharisees even though there were individuals in those groups who were righteosu. It also works the other way he noted, as in universal forgiveness is given, like in the case of Nineveh, or Israel in some instances.

Therefore Germany as a whole bears some complicity for Hitler's Third Reich.

So in my view, it isn't completely out of line to hold white America in general, or even the white American church in general, with some liability even if we all weren't directly involved. Outside of the Black church and the liberal Protestants, where was the church witness again racism in the 60s? The lack of that witness does bear some culpability.

Well that's the thing of it. Who decides when the generational sin has been washed away? You? 51% of Black people? Certain Critical Race Theorists contend the "sin" of Whiteness can never be truly gotten rid of. The difference between your examples from the Bible and our current discussion is that it was God condemning and then redeeming whole nations. You seem keen on condemnation of "White America" or the "White Church" but who decides what redemption even looks like or when it has finally occurred? What's more, who decided that God is judging the current generation of White Christians for the culpability of racism from 50 years ago? You think I am condemnable for the sins of lots of people I have no blood relation to even though I was born in 1982, but does God?

[HondurasKeiser]

I disagree. Critical Race Theory is a useful tool that can be used to examine inequities that appear in a school district like San Francisco. Just like the example I cited upstream where I tossed out 5 separate theories that might explain differences in discipline rates between Black and White children.

Two thoughts Ken:
1. I don't need a critical line of inquiry e.g. CRT, to see that there are extant inequalities in outcomes in the Black population as a whole. Indeed, I don't even need a Critical Theory to ask the question of 'why is it so?' or 'Might there be some injustice at work here?'

2. Critical theories of all stripes are not simply meant to be useful sociological lenses. We all see the problems already - the point of CRT and other critical theories is to narrow our questions down to ones of "who? whom?" or as Boot elucidated:

"Who benefits from this? Who makes money from it? Who gains in power? Why do people join in?"

Once narrowed in such a way that we're only asking questions about competing groups - as Angela Davis states: "the philosophical idea, unless it was a lie, must be translated into reality." That is, now that we've seen it in this way, we must do something about it so that the power differential is balanced. The outcomes then cannot be nuanced because a critical line of inquiry only allows for questions of group power and group injustice - your 4 other reasons for disparate discipline rates would be subjected to a critical inquiry and found racist, or unjust or even exhibiting false consciousness (in this case "Whiteness") and thus they'd be tossed out.

But it doesn't presuppose that you jump to stupid solutions to those problems like mandating the ethnic and gender composition of school board committees, wasting your pandemic time renaming closed schools rather than getting kids back into school, or coming up with a lottery-based admissions system for highly competitive magnet schools. Those are just as stupid as the people on the right who think you can fix education by implementing 1950s style mandatory school prayer or not talking about race. Or by closing public schools and giving every child a voucher. There is nothing about CRT that says we must take the most stupid and politically performative solutions to problems rather than rolling up our sleeves and trying to do the hard work of finding useful and equitable solutions to real problems.

I guess I don't see the proof of this at work in the real-world. Everywhere I see CRT-influenced decisions working themselves out they seem to have all the nuance of a hurricane and that I think is because Critical Theories in general and CRT particularly don't allow for competing lines of inquiry, they don't allow for nuanced explanations of inequalities or disparate outcomes. By way of example in the form of an axiom: Ibram X. Kendi and Angela Davis both tell us that:

1. The opposite of racist isn’t “not racist”. It is “anti-racist”.
2. To be antiracist is to view the inequities between all racialized ethnic groups as a problem of policy.
3. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.
4. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist”.

Not much nuance or room for competing explanations there.

Ken , let me put to you this question as you recently tasked me with something: Can you think of a CRT-influenced policy or decision that has recently occurred that exhibits nuance, and influence from other "lenses" or lines of inquiry?

[Ken]

Two thoughts Ken:
1. I don't need a critical line of inquiry e.g. CRT, to see that there are extant inequalities in outcomes in the Black population as a whole. Indeed, I don't even need a Critical Theory to ask the question of 'why is it so?' or 'Might there be some injustice at work here?'

You might not, but a lot of people apparently do as there is a tremendous amount of denial about the continued existence of racism and systemic racism in our society. Some of it right here on Mennonet.

Ken , let me put to you this question as you recently tasked me with something: Can you think of a CRT-influenced policy or decision that has recently occurred that exhibits nuance, and influence from other "lenses" or lines of inquiry?

I gave you an example upstream. The disparate nature of school discipline between Black and White children. And I even linked to a nuanced article in Education Week that explores the issue and possible solutions.

You want another example? We can look at disparate school funding, resources, and facilities between predominantly Black and predominantly White communities. There is a lot of complicated nuance there.

You want a third example? We can discuss staffing inequities between poorer Black and wealthier White schools. That is one for which the unions are largely to blame so they don't talk it so much. But the issue is real.

You want a fourth example? We can get into the whole topic of state-driven school ratings which reinforces inequities due to how the algorithms are written.

I am less familiar with other avenues of analysis such as criminal justice, theology, etc. But I'm sure there are examples in those areas as well.

[joshuabgood]

You seem keen on condemnation of "White America" or the "White Church" but who decides what redemption even looks like or when it has finally occurred?

I am not keen on condemnation and that isn't a word I used. Would you care to respond to the substance of what I wrote with a charitable interpretation?

Because redemption and peacemaking are hard surely doesn't mean we shouldn't therefore pursue redemption and restitution as a church, does it?

[HondurasKeiser]

Two thoughts Ken:
1. I don't need a critical line of inquiry e.g. CRT, to see that there are extant inequalities in outcomes in the Black population as a whole. Indeed, I don't even need a Critical Theory to ask the question of 'why is it so?' or 'Might there be some injustice at work here?'

You might not, but a lot of people apparently do as there is a tremendous amount of denial about the continued existence of racism and systemic racism in our society. Some of it right here on Mennonet.

Well that's a reframing of my words into CRT language. I said I see "extant inequalities in outcomes in the Black population as a whole." and that 'some injustice' may be a causal factor. However, and pace the updated definition of racism; inequalities of outcomes are not ipso facto 'racism' and to name them racism is to have a kind of a priori knowledge of why they exist and thus to not intervene to change the causal factor is to be for racism. This line of thinking is that narrowing effect that excludes all other inquiries or explanations for why a disparity may exist.

[HondurasKeiser]

You seem keen on condemnation of "White America" or the "White Church" but who decides what redemption even looks like or when it has finally occurred?

I am not keen on condemnation and that isn't a word I used. Would you care to respond to the substance of what I wrote with a charitable interpretation?

Because redemption and peacemaking are hard surely doesn't mean we shouldn't therefore pursue redemption and restitution as a church, does it?

You wondered aloud about the culpability and liability of we modern-White Christians for events that occurred 50 years ago. Who determines my culpability/liability?

[HondurasKeiser]

I gave you an example upstream. The disparate nature of school discipline between Black and White children. And I even linked to a nuanced article in Education Week that explores the issue and possible solutions.

You want another example? We can look at disparate school funding, resources, and facilities between predominantly Black and predominantly White communities. There is a lot of complicated nuance there.

You want a third example? We can discuss staffing inequities between poorer Black and wealthier White schools. That is one for which the unions are largely to blame so they don't talk it so much. But the issue is real.

You want a fourth example? We can get into the whole topic of state-driven school ratings which reinforces inequities due to how the algorithms are written.

I am less familiar with other avenues of analysis such as criminal justice, theology, etc. But I'm sure there are examples in those areas as well.

Well you gave me quite a few problems that contain nuances. What are the nuanced solutions and how his CRT-influenced thinking at work on those solutions?

[HondurasKeiser]

Because redemption and peacemaking are hard surely doesn't mean we shouldn't therefore pursue redemption and restitution as a church, does it?

In the spirit of charitability: I asked who determines that redemption is needed and what it ought to look like....not that we shouldn't try it if that's what's called for. Because, in the Bible depictions you described, it's God determining the culpability, liability, restitution and redemption, not competing groups and ideologies.