ZeroHedge: UCLA Creates Database To 'Track Attacks On Critical Race Theory'

Thursday, Aug 18, 2022 - 12:35 AM

Authored by Carol Cassis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Faculty at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law have created a database to identify and record efforts to block critical race theory (CRT) being taught in schools across the country.

"CRT pushes a controversial worldview related to Marxism that analyzes all aspects of life through a racial lens instead of through the concept of class struggle."

[zerohedge.com]

Critical Race Theory developed within legal studies starting in the 1970s. It was pioneered by Law Professor Derek Bell at Harvard. It spread to other American law schools in the mid- to late 1980s as a reworking of critical legal studies focusing on race issues.

Critical Race Theory deconstructs some premises and arguments of legal theory: "To the emerging race crits, rights discourse held a social and transformative value in the context of racial subordination that transcended the narrower question of whether reliance on rights alone could bring about any determinate results." As described by Derrick Bell, critical race theory in Harris' view is committed to "radical critique of the law (which is normatively deconstructionist) and…radical emancipation by the law (which is normatively reconstructionist)."

As Critical Race Theory developed, postmodern critical theories, including feminist jurisprudence, and postcolonial theory, also became popular tools. The rise of identity politics and the postmodern understanding of social constructionism created a new focus. Identities began to be seen as created by one's position in society. The social system functions for those who are dominant, while other identities are marginalized, and people in those groups oppressed.

Students of Bell, like Kimberlé Crenshaw, embraced the approach of postmodern critical theory's understanding of power/knowledge. Her theory, intersectionality, argues that the socially constructed identities, should not be resisted, but rather embraced. They are a source of empowerment for marginalized peoples. Those identities, racial, gender, etc. are the basis for the critique of universalized knowledge and political power. Intersectionality creates a system of oppression, in which there are multiple bases for oppression based not only on race, but also gender and other points of discrimination. While Critical Race Theory began by addressing issues of access and poverty, intersectionality played in role in moving it away from a more materialist focus to one based on postmodern view based on identity politics.

“Liberals rely upon Americans being too lazy to pick up a book and educate ourselves and our children properly. Changing this will require a new commitment among Americans to alter their lifestyles. Nowhere did our Founders lay out a plan for our government to attempt to ensure equal outcomes for citizens at the expense of those who excelled in the American environment of freedom and liberty. It was not their intent to create a system that allowed government to punish one class in order to unjustly reward another class to “level the playing field“ while at the same time buying votes. The most formidable enemy we face is far more destructive and even more successful than any acts of terrorism—liberalism, which has become a cancer to America and to western civilization at large. Over the past one hundred years, liberalism has done more damage to the American cause of Liberty and our prosperity than any attack by any group in any war ever could have hoped for." ― Daniel Rundquist

Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism | Jordan B Peterson

Jordan Peterson, Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, speaks with The Epoch Times about Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism. Communism is estimated to have killed at least 100 million people, yet its crimes have not been fully compiled and its ideology still persists. The Epoch Times seeks to expose the history and beliefs of this movement, which has been a source of tyranny and destruction since it emerged. Read the whole series at ept.ms/DeadEndCom

“Jordan B. Peterson is antisemitic because he doesn't like Marxism. It's a fact... at least... that's what passes for logic these days. A little sad.” ― Dmitry Dyatlov