I think the real ominous thing is that critical race theory, which isn’t real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump insurrection-endorsed Republican. What do Democrats do about that?”
So said MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace in bemoaning her Democrats’ drubbing in Virginia. She’s merely one exhibit among many liberals. And what do Democrats do about it?
Some traditional Democrats, like wild man James Carville, acknowledge it and howl from the rooftop at Democrats to stop it. Others, however, cover their eyes and instead blast those concerned about the teaching of CRT to their children. Those of the Wallace school attack the victims. Their assessment of critical race theory in schools usually goes something like this:
Step 1: “No way, CRT isn’t being taught in public schools! Republicans are liars.” Once it is shown that CRT is being taught, they retreat to step 2: “Okay, it is being taught, but that isn’t a bad thing. Republicans are liars. In fact, they’re racists. Their opposition to CRT shows they’re racists.”
When those objections fail, some creative liberals retreat to the Wallace-esque absurdity that CRT itself is a “myth.”
That’s an amusing position to retreat to. As noted by Daniel Greenfield, if CRT isn’t being taught, then where’s the harm in banning it? If it’s a “myth,” what’s the harm in banning something that doesn’t exist? This would be little different than, say, agreeing to a Republican ban on unicorns.
This whole sloppy mess of illogic sometimes sends liberals dashing to a third step: “CRT has nothing to do with Marxism.”
Here, ladies and gentlemen, I step forward to offer my humble services. CRT most definitely has much to do with Marxism. I could offer an exhaustive analysis for you, dear reader. But for now, I thought I’d give an instructive tutorial on what the modern world sees when it searches “critical race theory” on the dreaded Google.
Some 80-90% of the planet’s web searches go through Google. It’s an enormous influence and problem. Google really does rule the world. In fact, who or what truly teaches Americans? Not the public schools. It’s Google — the behemoth of Big Tech.
When typing “critical race theory” into Google, the first thing pops up is the Wikipedia definition. This is where inquirers “learn” about critical race theory. Like many terms, such as “cultural Marxism,” Google and Wikipedia in the past were far more accurate about these terms and their Marxist roots — back before the terms became hyper-politicized and intrepid progressives started redefining them in a way to vilify conservatives and protect their own ideologues. I’ve written here at length about the term “cultural Marxism” (click here and here), including how Big Tech’s sudden redefinition of the term was used against me.
For those of us unfortunates who study this junk for a living, we know better. We watch how ideologues manipulate the meanings. In the past, I’ve printed these web pages and filed them in manila folders; now, I get screenshots. Screenshots are a must, given how quickly leftists remold reality to suit their revolutionary purposes.
Precisely that is going on with the Google-to-Wikipedia search of “critical race theory.” What’s there is barely enough to discern the Marxist roots, albeit only to the discerning few who know the history. Here’s how the definition starts:
Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of U.S. civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race and U.S. law and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice.[1][2][3][4] CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the U.S..[5][6] A tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.[7][8]
CRT originated in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams.[1] It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race.[1][9] CRT is grounded in critical theory[10] and draws from thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s.
Note that there’s no explicit mention of Marxism, though for those who know, the mention of “grounded in critical theory” and listing of Antonio Gramsci first among its proponents tells you just that. Gramsci, the pioneering Italian Marxist (whose leading American scholar was Pete Buttigieg’s father), was a founder of the application of Marxism to culture — that is, cultural Marxism.
And yet, if you search the words “Marx” or “Marxism” in the text of the Wikipedia entry for critical race theory, they do not appear even once. They’ve been scrubbed. You will find, however, a crucial reference at the very bottom of the page in the box on “Origins.” There, it states succinctly: “Critical Theory: Origins: Frankfurt School, Freudo-Marxism.”
That’s it, precisely. Those are the foundational roots of critical race theory. Critical race theory, as one must cobble together from the Wikipedia page, “is grounded in critical theory,” and critical theory’s origins are the Frankfurt School and its infamous Freudian-Marxism.
Case closed. That’s what you need to know. It should be in the lead paragraph, but the scrubbers scrubbed it, though they evidently missed the box at the end.
Get a screenshot of the box, before some hyperventilating liberal deletes it. As I write, that Wikipedia page was last edited on November 4, 2021 at 13:29 (UTC). The box on origins has not changed since I saved a screenshot last Friday. Expect it to change. Expect there to soon be no mention of Marxism whatsoever anywhere on that page. In fact, my flagging it here may prompt the immediate removal.
Spring into action, comrade!
Truthfully, the Wikipedia page ought to say much more. As I laid out in my review of Mark Levin’s smash bestseller, American Marxism, the Marxist basis of critical race theory is extremely important to understand because of how dehumanizing and destructive it is, particularly to children. Karl Marx saw people not as individuals made in the imago Dei — the Judeo-Christian conception of human beings made in the image of God — but as groups to be shoved into opposing categories pitted against one another as foes. Marx did this according to class and economics, i.e., the Proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie, whereas Marxist critical race theorists do this according to race, i.e., white vs. black or some other ethnic-based construct. One group is the oppressor and the other the oppressed; your category defines you. Rather than aspiring to the color-blind world that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned, where individuals are judged by the content of their character, people are foremost viewed by the color of their skin.
It is a terribly dehumanizing way to view people.
Levin quotes Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, who was very close to the Rev. King: “Today, too many ‘remedies’ — such as Critical Race Theory, the increasingly fashionable post-Marxist/post-modernist approach that analyzes society as institutional group power structures rather than on spiritual or one-to-one human level — are taking us in the wrong direction: separating even school children into explicit racial groups, and emphasizing differences instead of similarities.” Walker stressed: “The roots of CRT are planted in entirely different intellectual soil. It begins with ‘blocs’ (with each person assigned to an identity or economic bloc, as in Marxism).”
The Wikipedia entry for CRT says nothing like this. It makes no mention of Marxism, other than the “Freudo-Marxism” reference thus far surviving in the box at the bottom.
And so, for the typical 21st century Googler landing at Wikipedia to learn of Marxist elements in CRT, they’ll find effectively none. For the left, that’s perfect for demonizing conservatives — and parents — who object to CRT’s Marxist influences. Those people can be derided as followers and fabricators of “myths,” and as “white supremacists.”
This is what we’re up against. Big Tech has become the left’s new Ministry of Truth. As it does, the left controls not only the media narrative but the very meanings of terms.
PAUL KENGOR
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Critical Race Theory is Repackaged Marxism
When a Rhode Island local school district allegedly considered suing one woman for the high crime of asking for information about school curricula, many were shocked, and rightfully so. To be sued for making a request for school records, in accordance with records laws, would have been a violation of her basic First Amendment rights. Skepticism and dissent are bedrock American values. But shocking as it may be, I wasn't surprised this happened. See, the woman wanted to know about critical race theory being taught in American schools.
In fact, critical race theory isn't a theory at all. Nor is it a "perspective" of teaching history. It is racism and bigotry, and not only that—it's an attempt to revive a failed Marxist agenda.
Critical race theory is an offshoot of critical theory, the brainchild of the Frankfurt School, a group of 20th-century Marxists associated with the Institute for Social Research. (Fun fact: the founder of the Institute for Social Research wanted it to be named the Institut fur Marxismus, which translates to the "Institute for Marxism." That name was scrapped for fear it would alienate the public.)
In 1937, Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School wrote a manifesto about "critical theory," in which he claimed that when examining society, people cannot reason objectively. In classic Marxist fashion, critical theory divides everyone in society into classes of oppressed and oppressors, but posits that the so-called oppressed stand in the way of revolution when they adhere to the societal belief systems and cultural norms of their so-called oppressors. Therefore, the cultural institutions that stand in the way of the Marxist revolution must be destroyed through relentless criticism (hence the name: critical theory).
This is crucial because by the 1930s, Marxists were realizing that Karl Marx's vision of a worker-led revolution wasn't going to sweep the West.
Of course the Marxists blamed workers. Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist Party, claimed the workers had not successfully revolted because they still relied on institutions of the ruling class like the family, religion and country. Gramsci's observation took critical theory one step further. Gramsci posited that workers needed to be "re-educated" in order to overthrow the capitalist systems that were allegedly stymying the worker-led Marxist revolution.
How did this Marxist ideology infiltrate American society?
When Horkheimer and his fellow Marxists fled Germany to escape the Nazis, they found refuge at Columbia University. Horkheimer returned to Germany after the world defeated the Nazis, but left behind his associate, Herbert Marcuse. It was Marcuse who helped morph critical theory into critical race theory in the United States, by identifying a new "worker" for the revolution who could be re-educated to overthrow societal norms: racial minorities.
In the words of Marcuse, "Underneath the conservative popular base is the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colors." According to Marcuse, "their opposition is revolutionary even if their consciousness is not."
Since a worker-led revolution wasn't happening, they needed another "oppressed" class to serve their purpose. That purpose was to tear down Western institutions that stood in the way of revolt and stage a Marxist revolution. Using racial minorities as their new vanguard would be brilliant. Who better to re-educate than a demographic of people whose ancestors had suffered oppression in America based on their skin color? Who better to paint as victims of a belief system of the "oppressors" and to claim the only way to liberation was to demolish the institutions of the oppressors?
In other words, the designers and adherents of critical theory admitted their true intent. Not equality under the law. Not civil rights. Not freedom, liberty and justice for all. Not a better life for racial minorities. Critical theorists admit their intent is to use racial minorities as the vanguard for a Marxist revolution.
Thus, critical race theory was born.
We now see this slimy ideology creeping into every aspect of American life, from corporations staging "white privilege" trainings to school curricula that teach students to view everything and everybody through the prism of race.
Why does critical race theory peddle bigoted and obviously false assumptions about individuals based on their skin color? Not pure racial hatred. Racialism is a tactic, a tool used by critical race theorists to tear down American institutions. Their aims: abolish the nuclear family, abolish gender, defund the police, abolish the border, abolish prisons, abolish the Senate, abolish the Electoral College, abolish ICE, abolish voter ID, abolish capitalism, abolish private/charter schools, abolish religious freedom, abolish free speech, abolish rights, abolish objective truth, abolish reality.
Sound familiar? Democratic political agenda items are textbook critical race theory. We should reject its reduction of people to the color of their skin. It's a tool with a dangerously clear purpose: to impose simple, unadulterated Marxism in the United States of America. We must overwhelmingly reject it in its entirety on the basis of what it really is.
LIZ WHEELER
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Critical Race Theory – The Marxist Trojan Horse
On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, I was honored to be the leadoff panelist at the Orange County Board of Education community forum on Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies. I spoke on Critical Race Theory (CRT), which has been in academia for decades but has only recently come to the fore in the public consciousness due to progressive advocacy that CRT be taught in K-12. Concerned parents across the country have become acutely aware something is amiss with CRT, and Orange County was no exception. Prior to the panelist speeches, a highly diverse collection of concerned parents crossing race, gender, and political boundaries univocally expressed their deep concerns about the proposed California Ethnic Studies curriculum and the key underlying philosophy driving it: Critical Race Theory. They have good reason.
I think parents finally understand why so many of their children who go off to college full of hope leave those institutions with a disdain for America and our capitalist system. Parents fully expect their children will be exposed to opposing ideas and philosophies in college, confident they have instilled lasting values that will serve them as adults. For K-12 students, however, that is the job of the parent, not the school, and CRT is correctly viewed by parents as the inculcation of a specific worldview based on postmodern and neo-Marxist ideology. Despite the assertion of political pundits such as Donna Brazile, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, or the current White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, CRT is not simply teaching children about systemic racism throughout American history.
CRT has its roots in the early 20th Century thought of neo-Marxist Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Italian Communist Party. His desire was to spur on the stalled communism of 19th Century social revolutionists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels toward an overthrow of the “bourgeoisie” (ruling middle- and upper-class) by the proletariat (working-class). To accomplish this goal, societal norms and institutions, such as family, nation state, capitalism, and God, needed to be torn down, and this is where we begin to see the notion of group-based morality, with the idea that what is moral is what serves the interests of the “oppressed” or “marginalized.”
While European Marxism focused on class, a distinctly American brand of Marxism was brought to America in 1937 by scholars from the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, known commonly as the Frankfurt School, who left Nazi Germany to escape the Third Reich. They eventually landed in New York where they setup shop at the Columbia University Teachers’ College. While most of the Frankfurt scholars returned to Germany after the defeat of the Nazis, Herbert Marcuse stayed behind and became one of the leading spokesmen of Critical Theory (on which CRT is based) during the massive upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s caused by riots and violence associated with the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam movements. The focus shifted specifically to oppressed ethnic, racial, and gender groups.
In short, CRT argues that America’s legal, economic, and political systems are inextricably racist. It argues that racism advances only the interests of white elites materially and working-class whites mentally. CRT Chooses race-consciousness over the Enlightenment view of colorblindness as a societal norm. Since all whites benefit from an unearned advantage, race-consciousness remedies rectify this inherent injustice. CRT criticizes the civil-rights movement and the liberal ideology it promotes. The view is civil rights laws are limited to isolated discriminatory acts by individuals or businesses, when in fact discrimination continues to be both pervasive and systemic. CRT rejects the principle of equal opportunity, believing it to be a myth, and rejects conceptions of “merit” since only those in power determine what is equal or what has merit. Finally, CRT promotes equality of results instead of equality of opportunity.
CRT does provide some important critiques, but its prescriptions hardly accord with the ideals of traditional civil rights and is directly opposed to the vision of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as it rejects the Enlightenment values of classical liberalism with its notions of equal opportunity, individual liberty over group rights, and colorblindness under the law as reflected in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Dr. Wyatt T. Walker, one of Dr. King’s closest friends and advisers, argues that CRT divides people into groups, explicitly pitting racial groups against each other, emphasizing differences instead of similarities, thus destroying the concept of the individual within the context of our shared humanity.
Whereas the hope that one day we would judge one another by the content of individual character, and not the color of our skin, CRT defines people by categories of race, placing people in either “oppressor” or “oppressed” power groups. In response to this, Dr. Wyatt asks, how can two people ever bind together in friendship if they are members of inherently opposed power groups? Why should an individual strive to succeed by merit if group dynamics make this impossible? How will we ever find peace among the races if can’t look at each other as individuals, person to person, based on actual facts and intentions? We simply cannot reconcile as a people if we allow ourselves to be judged by the ethnic, race, and gender essentialism of Marxist-style power groups, and thus we should reject CRT.
Indeed, America has had a long and horrific period of chattel slavery followed by Jim Crow and racial codes that persisted well into the 1960s and 70s. But these practices ended as more Americans understood the gross violations of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. As a black man, I have seen tremendous progress over my lifetime, and while I’m cognizant racism will always exist, simply because evil will always exist, the only systematic oppression I see currently is the failure of public-school systems across America to prepare black and brown children for future economic success. It is the greatest tragedy of our time. And what is abundantly clear is CRT does nothing to advance the basic mission of K-12 education, while doing much to detract from it.
WALTER MYERS III
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Marxism is the new false flag to plant upon critical race theory
On March 15, 2021, Christopher F. Rufo, one of the architects of the anti-critical race theory movement, tweeted, “We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.” In a subsequent tweet, he added, “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”
One of those “cultural constructions” is Marxism. But this Red Scare rhetoric ignores that critical race theory — which the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund describes as a framework that “recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice” and “is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities,” — can be applied in ways that celebrate the free market.
Consider, for example, the issue of school choice. Critical race theorists note how redlining, discrimination in mortgage lending practices and predatory lending have resulted in many people of color dwelling in neighborhoods blighted by de facto segregation, disinvestment and poverty.
That leads me, as someone whose thinking is informed by critical race theory, to regard the idea that parents should be forced to send their children to their neighborhood school as a perpetuation of injustice. How, I think, can one both condemn the systemic racism that led to families of color being trapped in under-resourced communities and then blockade the door to prevent those families from sending their children to school outside those communities? How can one decry the bigotry that coerces nonwhites to live in disenfranchised neighborhoods and then coerce nonwhites to send their children to schools in those neighborhoods?
Ask me to analyze why the public school system is so inequitable, and I sound like one of the forefathers of critical race theory, Derrick Bell. Ask me for one possible solution to the problem and I sound like Milton Friedman.
Or consider regulation. You know what group of people unwittingly apply critical race theory when they observe that an awful lot of professional licensure rules serve not to ensure the quality provision of services, but rather, to allow those with more privilege to keep those with less privilege from competing with them? Libertarians.
For example, the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice observed in its report “Barriers to Braiding” that although stylists who braid hair without a cosmetology license don’t pose a threat to health and safety risks, “higher barriers to entry may constrain opportunity, as most states that require more hours of training have fewer braiders in proportion to their black immigrant and African-American populations.”
Wow — that finding is awfully consistent with the critical race theory tenet that “Although individuals can indeed be racist, racism and its outcomes are perpetuated in society through social processes above and beyond individual actions including through cultural norms, institutional rules, and laws and regulations.” And yet, the legal remedy the Institute for Justice seeks on behalf of the Black hair braiders it represents is not a Marxist one — it’s the removal of barriers that keep the racially marginalized from participating fully in the capitalist system.
And who are those folks lamenting that “Black Americans are significantly more likely to be arrested for a drug crime, even though rates of drug use and trafficking are roughly equal across all races” and noting “Studies have shown that our systems and institutions, though neutral in explicit policies, produce racially unequal outcomes” — information regarded as indisputable by Critical Race Theorists? The Prayer & Action Justice Initiative, a Christian criminal justice reform group that counts among its partner organizations the National Association of Evangelicals, National Day of Prayer and American Bible Society.
Do those sound like folks who share Marx’s view of religion as the “opium of the people?”
The fact is, critical race theory offers a framework for making sense of society’s injustices — it doesn’t prescribe a partisan way of fixing them. Critical race theorists can tackle that challenge from a perspective like that of Milton or Marx or Moses.
And the people lying to you about critical race theory know it.
SHANNON PRINCE