Hello. Honesty is good.

No?

Yes, activist critical theory is a perpetual revolutionary project to promote everlasting revelations of inevitable reproductive oppression/power dichotomies.

It's everlasting purity spirals...

I just feel like all this is very abstract. What's an example of something bad and what's "the right way" to deal with racism?

Hello WilyRickWiles,

Racism exists, obviously. The problem I find with CRT activists is that they seem to go out and look for racism if not creating it.

In a small village in South West England, they have an annual pagan festival where some participants paint their faces black to represent themselves as shadowy evil figures. This festival has been held for centuries. This year, for the very first time, they were accused by CRT activists of being racist against black people by painting their faces black. As I described, the festival has nothing to do with black people.

What is the right way to deal with racism? That's a billion-dollar question, no? Education? The right kind of education? But what is the right kind of education?

@Naomi My thought when it comes to this sort of thing is that racism doesn't hurt many people in a vacuum. A tradition in a small, very white town in England, or a ingrained racial hierarchy in a white community in the panhandle of Florida don't hurt many. But when they are exploited by national leaders for the purposes of colonialism or ethnic cleansing, then they become a big problem. It's clearly a problem in the US, moreover systemic problems were never solved, but I won't speak for the UK.

@Naomi
"It seems to me that CRT is capable of shaping one's mind to seek racism where there isn't. And you're right about politicians (and political activists) exploiting racism for their political gain."

What these theoretical frameworks are doing is shaping the minds of a new sort of fortune tellers, sign readers, bone casters. They can read their intended marks, determine the guilt that they bear, and then reveal the "truth" of their sinful nature, past present and future.

"Institutional racism is when "racial discrimination is established as normal behaviour within organisations that make up society". This is a very serious claim."

It's not just the claim that it "normal" behavior, but the claim that it's been made by the principalities of history to be a pre-determined normative moral good that forces upon us all a false sense of reality...it makes US blind, and they alone bear the light of social righteousness. It's a leaderless cult of spiraling madness.

@govols
CRT is a theory and theory (any theory) can skew our perceptions if we are not careful.
Racial discrimination is against law in the UK. If it is established as normal behaviour within an organisation, it means to me like the supermarket down the road from my house has a company policy not to serve any black people. If that's what institutional racism means, it's difficult to imagine any organisation behaving that way as an entire entity.

@govols
"It's not just the claim that it "normal" behavior, but the claim that it's been made by the principalities of history to be a pre-determined normative moral good that forces upon us all a false sense of reality...it makes US blind, and they alone bear the light of social righteousness." I agree. It looks that way. It's like virtue-signalling big time.

I still have no idea what anyone here is talking about. Are you saying Americans would be out of line to study and form policy based on the history of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, ethnic cleansing, obstruction of civil rights legislation, neoliberalism, and other discrimination? Establishment politicians and their pet philosophers virtue signal all the time, but it sounds like you are making a broader criticism of the substantial remediation of racist systems.

@WilyRickWiles CRT is a huge, complicated subject. I've only started learning about it.

[newdiscourses.com] (It is a long read)

James Lindsay describes himself as a left-leaning liberal.

@Naomi Just like Dave Rubin, I suppose!

@WilyRickWiles I guess. I'm so not a fan of Rubin!

@Naomi human beings can be both subtle and crude. Critical theory indeed has its roots in intellectual marxism of the Frankfurt School of pre-war Germany, it was part of the intellectual and artistic movements of the time which were also expressed in dance art (Bauhaus), music and architecture. Intellectual, analytical and critical ideas are anathema to right wing conservatives and even more so to racist supremacists of any colour. The black face English Morris Dancers are not as traditional as they would like to make believe and the modern versions are historically pretty recent much in the way the statues of slave trading pillars of the community were raised by the Victorians at the height of the British Empire when the slave trade was illegal but colonial exploitation and profiteering from slavery was maximised (with the help of the maxim gun).

True. I don't think it's funny though.

@Naomi - His not laughing made me very uncomfortable. I've since watched Robin DAngelo (really smart fruitcake) video and am a bit more on guard.

@RobBlair It's how Critical Theory plays on people's minds that worries me. Like the example provided in the article, the two customers could be one man and one woman. If you are the shop keeper, which one would you decide to serve first? If you serve the man first, you would be a misogynist. If you serve the woman first, you may be seen patronising the woman, and therefore you're a sexist. Can't win either way. Lol And most of all, If you must struggle to make a decision like that, your thinking process is already being affected by Critical Theory; it's shaping your mind. I don't think my mind is affected like that but if there is a critical theorist watching me, they will probably accuse me of doing all sort of things wrong in their eyes. Lol

@Naomi - as a traditionalist, those things are easy. First come, first served, then ladies first, then as my judgement feels fit. Being racist or misogynist is a degradation to me and therefore it is to my own interest to minimize that foolishness. It is no one else's business.