America Awakens to the Danger of Cancer Culture, part 2

 

America was founded on the liberal democratic philosophy that government is created to protect individual liberty.   Government is a compact between individuals, who individually lack the power to ward off harm from others, or the strength to deal with some of the vicissitudes of life alone.  They willingly enter into a collective agreement to protect each other from others, and from Mother Nature. 

Unrestrained government power, in the wrong hands, can harm the individual, and can trample on individual freedoms.  The American compact addresses these two fundamental issues in our Constitution.  The Constitutional framework, with its checks and balances distributed amongst three government branches, diffuses and diminishes the Federal government’s power.  The Bill of Rights, added to the Constitution, to protect the individual’s liberty from being trampled on by the Federal government in areas crucial to maintaining the cohesion of civil society – freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press; unlawful search and seizure of property; protecting the individual’s privacy from government intrusion; due process in legal proceedings;  trial by jury of the individual’s peers in criminal and civil proceeding;  limits on the amount of bail and fines the government can impose;  the preeminence of the individual or the State in any matter not expressly assigned to the Federal Government or expressly prohibited to the State; and, a catch-all phrase, an individual’s rights are not limited to just those enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Progressivism wants to turn the Constitution on its head by making society preeminent over the individual.  Progressive’s view is rooted in Critical Theory philosophy, first developed in Germany in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.   Critical Theory is a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole.  It does so by looking below the surface of social life to discover the underlying assumptions through which society functions.  This deep dive is necessary because people in society have no awareness of why they behave the way they do, in the same way that a fish surrounded by water has no concept of water. 

The philosophical development of Critical Theory was heavily influenced by Karl Marx’s writings on the economy and society.  According to Marx, society was structured to favor the wealthy over the workers through power and domination.  Marx’s formulation that problematic societies were those that favored the oppressors over the oppressed became the primary framework of Critical Theory.

Critical Race Theory is, Critical Theory, applied to race.  It was formulated in the 1970s by sociologist Professors in American Universities to explain the slow pace of change in America following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights legislation.  In essence, Critical Race Theory explains the pace of change stymied as a result of the power structure in America set up to impede and ultimately stop the advancement of blacks and other minority groups.  Race and the power structure were the social constructs used to explain what was happening in America.   America and its institutions were founded to benefit whites at the expense of blacks, and by extension all minority groups finding their way to America. 

The charge of systemic racism flows naturally from Critical Race Theory’s conception of America.   Systemically racist because all of its institutions were created to suppress and subjugate blacks and other minorities to the powerful, pale, privileged class.  This was particularly true of law enforcement, whose roots, according to Critical Race Theory, date back to the hunting and capturing of runaway slaves.  Further, no matter how decent whites are, they wittingly, or unwittingly, benefit from the oppressive American society.  “Whiteness”, per Critical Race Theory, is like the proverbial fish in water, not realizing they are racist and oppressors.  From these concepts, an industrial strength cottage industry of books and consultants formed.  Created to educate whites and corporations on how racism is a way of life, and the necessary rectification for America’s injustices – reparations for loss of wages during America’s slave period, and a juncture where whites are disadvantaged in educational opportunities, and in hiring and advancement; lasting until economic equity is achieved between the races.

The major flaw in Critical Race Theory, the data does not support systemic racism in America.  There are a number of data sets of police interactions with minorities and, in particular, the incidence of the killing of unarmed suspects.  The most prominent is the data collected by the Washington Post.  Beginning in 2015 and continuing through 2020, the Post collected nationwide date on police killings of unarmed suspects classified by race.  The data was clear, on a per capita basis there was no difference in the killing of black vs white unarmed suspects.  If anything there was a slight edge in the killing of unarmed whites.  Furthermore, the incidence of killing unarmed suspects in a year was miniscule in comparison to the millions of incidences in a year where police interacted with suspects.  There are over 600,000 police officers on patrol every day, 365 days a year.  The number of incidences of unarmed killings of all races, less than 100.  The number of questionable shootings of unarmed suspects is a small percentage of that, in the teens.

The appearance of rampant police murders of unarmed black suspects is a product of the disproportionate media coverage of the killing of unarmed blacks.  When a white officer kills a black suspect, it becomes national news.  Not so when it is an unarmed white suspect.  Many of those killings are horrifying and gut wrenching to watch, further amplifying the salience of the murders of unarmed blacks. 

Yes, there are racist cops.  They are the outliers, not the norm.  Reflect on the number of incidences over the last decade of unarmed blacks being murdered.  Now compare that to the tens and tens of millions of police encounters over that same time frame.  Doing the math it is impossible to believe the police are on patrol everyday hunting for black targets.

Nor is America systemically racist.  There was one such country, Apartheid South Africa.  There the whites did systematically oppress the blacks in the country.  Laws passed which restricted blacks movements, where they could live, and where they could open businesses.  All done to ensure segregation of the races and to keep the blacks impoverished.  There were no black faces amongst the police forces, or in the legislature, or any other institutions of power within the country.  By that standard, America, with all its faults and history of slavery and segregation, is a paradise by comparison.  The advancements of minorities in this country never would have happened if America’s institutions and laws were systemically racist like in South Africa. 

Critical Race Theory was considered an academic dead end and was never widespread in academic circles, or a part of the general public’s awareness, until revived by Progressives.  The thrust into public awareness, seemingly overnight, as the Progressive wing of the Democrat Party became the animating force for policy, and Progressive Professors and administrators were woven into the fabric of universities at an accelerated pace. 

Most importantly, for understanding the results of the recent November election, Critical Race Theory infiltrated the Public schools, whose Teacher’s Unions and school administrators, lean Progressive.  The opaqueness of what students learned in school, cleared when parents had a window into the classroom during remote learning.  Parents were alarmed by what they saw – white children told they were racist without realizing it, and minority children told they cannot succeed in America without the help of whites. 

The Progressive press and politicians pushed back on the idea that Critical Race Theory is taught in schools with the oft used charge of racism.   Republicans were dog whistling their white supremacist base by questioning the teaching of historical racial injustices in the classroom.  That was an unmistakable distortion of Republicans’ views.  Theirs’ was an opposition to Critical Race Theory taught in the schools, not an opposition to teaching about slavery and the great struggle for civil rights in America.  

School teachers’ unions and school administrators, and some politicians, used a slight of hand distraction, by stating that Critical Race Theory is not a part of the Public School curriculum.  Critical Race Theory is an academic subject, possibly taught at the University level, but not at the primary and secondary educational level.  What Progressives failed to mention is that teaching consists of curriculum, what subject matters are taught, and pedagogy, how the subject matters are taught.  Teachers can and do choose to teach the curriculum through the lens of Critical Race Theory in such classes as history, English, and civics.  The inclusion of Critical Race Theory concepts, like whiteness and systemic racism, are a part of the explanatory concepts used when teaching those subject matters.  Many schools have teacher development courses in Critical Race theory, and school libraries contain books written from the perspective of Critical Race theory, which can be assigned reading in the classroom.

It wasn’t racism, but parents’ protective instincts that animated their vote against Progressive candidates.  The vote was bipartisan and included a majority of independents and suburban moms and dads.  So something is happening here.  What it is I am exactly clear, and telling Democrats you got to beware.  I’m no Buffalo Springfield, but next time I am going to take a stab at explaining what’s going down.