What Is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and How Can We Resist It?

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has once again become a significant concern in the country. Its visibility has also risen as the media has brought it back into the front stage. While CRT seeks to solve concerns about racial inequality, it creates new problems.

CRT promotes a belief that America is essentially a fundamentally racist country and that all of our institutions are designed to maintain white supremacy.

CRT Sees All Relationships Involving a Power Struggle as Based on Race

According to Critical Race Theory, institutions such as law, education, and business are the primary source of racial problems. But what is the solution that CRT promotes? To overthrow them!

This theory rejects individual freedoms and responsibilities and divides people into racial groups. It pits groups against each other and judges guilt or innocence based on one’s race.

This threatens everything that America was founded on.

CRT has grown in its movement. Off-shoots or hybrids have emerged that take into account various other issues such as linguistic and immigration oppression. CRT now includes Critical Race Feminism (CRF), Latino Critical Race Studies (LatCrit), Asian American Critical Race Studies (Asian Crit), and American Indian Critical Race Studies Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit), Queer-Crit, etc. 

Critical Race Theory rests on the following five major components or tenets:

1. The notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational.
2. The idea of interest convergence.
3. The social construction of race.
4. The concept of storytelling and counter-storytelling.
5. The notion that whites have been recipients of civil rights legislation.

How Can We Resist the Theory?

So how do we fight back against it? We should fight back not by employing violence but by asking for our children’s curricula for subjects such as civics, English, and history.

Together we can fight toxic ideas, regardless of race, by sharing data and having level-headed debates with each other. We can resist by creating equal opportunities for all to thrive and achieve their version of the American dream.

Some politicians are also taking measures against it.

In Florida, Critical Race Theory will be explicitly excluded from the state’s new statewide civics education, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said while unveiling the program.

The Republican governor addressed the academic study while discussing his proposed $106 million initiative to support a new civics curriculum for students at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“A high-quality education begins with a high-quality curriculum, which is why we’re going to be laser-focused on developing the best possible civics instruction standards,” he began.

“Florida civics curriculum will incorporate foundational concepts with the best materials, and it will expressly exclude unsanctioned narratives like critical race theory and other unsubstantiated theories,” the governor added.

Critical Race Theory and the Military

Frankly, there’s no place in America’s military for racist training. I have served alongside men of all different colors, religions, backgrounds, and cultures. And while our core beliefs may slightly differ when the bullets start to fly, your brother is your brother, and you’ll fight and die for those on your left or right. And together, that makes us even stronger.

Last year Senator Tom Cotton, (R-AR), introduced a bill in the Senate to ban critical race theory in the military.

The bill would not allow military officials to teach troops that the United States is “a fundamentally racist country.”

Defenders of critical race theory say is an essential aspect of understanding compounded and systematic racial inequalities that have helped create an unjust society. 

As of now, the military has no training for CRT.

This article was originally published in May 2021.