Critical Race Theory (CRT) was a lightning rod during the recent election, as parents learned to see woke ideology through a new lens. No, it wasn’t from a pedagogical perspective as a way to teach historical awareness of racism, but from a more pragmatic perspective as a tool being used to politicize children.
The theory sounds like a fresh new “progressive” concept. It’s “critical,” it’s about race, and it has a new approach, and it sure sounds impressive. Well, you can put a disguise on Karl Marx and add bells and whistles, but at the end of the day he’s still Karl Marx.
In truth, CRT has recast Marx’s old division of oppressor and oppressed. Now, instead of economic division, it is about racial division. In schools, this translates into making children responsible for the tragedies of history.
Parents have seen for themselves, as school was online during COVID, the new formula that has poisoned the curriculum.
History Exposes Critical Theory
CRT may very well be the most recent mother lode of bad ideas. Born of Marx’s “Critical Theory” and embellished by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, it has been taught in law school since 1995, but for a different purpose. The latest use seems to be to revise history and prioritize group identity over individual rights.
However, according to history, the United States ironically has the best track record on equality. And more ironically, it was Christian white males who found slavery reprehensible during a spiritual awakening!
The awakening began in England and, sparked by Abolitionist movements, swept over the United States with religious fervor. Evangelists challenged slavery based on their beliefs and deemed its practice a scourge on the Church.
In 1861, Charles Grandison Finney, a lawyer turned preacher, wrote to the Senate (and Abraham Lincoln), demanding that slavery be abolished, way before any Marxists entered the academy.
Another irony of ironies is that Marx was never a fan of mixing races, nor were many nineteenth-century thinkers, including the Great Emancipator, but don’t tell anyone. Also, beware of history, for it will change your opinion!
History is a dead-end for the woke preachers of CRT because those they call their supposed antagonists (Republicans) who made slavery an issue fought to free the slaves and later supported passing civil rights acts.
Dealing with Tragedy
In light of decades of Mao’s China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and the pure genocides used to “fix” these conflicts, will the perfect no longer slaughter the imperfect or tragic?
After the civil rights reform of 1964, the efforts made to unify Americans on the issue of race have been unprecedented, and the Christian Church, both white and black, has played an enormous role in a collective dream.
We must ask ourselves: is our challenge to deal with tragedy or to find utopia? We might always be creeping toward our more perfect union, but will these radical theories turn decades of goodwill into another fiery clash?
And how did they get this far? As always, by targeting the youth. America is young, and it is naïve. When the body politic is weak, radical ideas can infest well-meaning youthful minds and change the tide of history as Marx did.
All of God’s people can get to the promised land, but our first step is to erase these racial cul-de-sacs of wrong thinking and re-engage in our most revolutionary ideal of all: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
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