Critical Race Theory Translated

Ryan Chapman

1,891 words

One of the greatest traps a mainstream conservative can fall into is taking the Left at its word.

This results from a fundamental misunderstanding of the primary dynamic of the modern culture wars. The mainstream Right wants prosperity — and for centuries the material prosperity in the West came as a result of traditional values such as family, hard work, thrift, patriotism, honesty, piety, and the like. Meanwhile, the Left wants power and nothing less.

These worldviews cannot coexist, because the former is by nature inclusive, while the latter is by nature exclusive. Economic prosperity rises and sinks with the tide; when done right, the rich get richer, the poor become less poor, and the middle class thrives. Millions can partake in economic prosperity, and this is something in which mainstream conservatives take a great deal of pride. Power, on the other hand, is a zero-sum game. The more for me, the less for you. This is the cutthroat world of Leftist politics. This is one reason why, when the Left squares off against the Right, the Left usually wins.

You can buy Spencer Quinn’s novel White Like You here.

And while the people on the Left couldn’t care less about what makes mainstream conservatives tick (they’re all fascists and racists, after all), mainstream conservatives still blunder into the fallacy that Left-wingers want prosperity as much they do; they’re not evil, just misguided.

A great example was the recent push to defund the police, which was spearheaded by the Leftist Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization. Of course, one can reasonably argue that defunding the police will result in increased crime, which in turn will endanger more black lives. This is fundamentally a conservative position because it points to how BLM reduces the prosperity of the very people they claim to represent. But does the BLM leadership care? Would they be moved to change tactics because of a single sound argument? Of course not.

After a while, one begins to realize that it wasn’t really about defunding the police. It hadn’t really been about black lives mattering to anyone. It had been about something else all along.

This is why I don’t like reading Leftist literature. I don’t like being lied to.

Thankfully, YouTuber Ryan Chapman does, and so was able to do all the necessary dirty work last year to produce a 21-minute video called “A Guide to Critical Race Theory.” Chapman did a nosedive into five prominent works about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and deciphered them for us. These works are:

1. Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas
2. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
3. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
4. Words That Wound, by Mari J. Matsuda, Charles R. Lawrence III, Richard Delgado, and Kimberlé Crenshaw
5. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo

Throughout his presentation, Chapman avoids all value judgments and opinion, except in instances when he attempts to interpret CRT in cases where its theorists were not being entirely clear. He does not promote or condemn CRT, and instead offers “a gloves off, very straightforward explanation” of it. I suggest that you check it out, if you’re like me and cannot be bothered to read the lies from the source. I find Chapman’s purely informational approach admirable simply because it allows the viewer to reach his own conclusions.

And this is what I do below, where I translate CRT as channeled through Ryan Chapman. As with the “defund the police” crowd, the CRT people say one thing, but they mean another. Read the highlighted text below to see what they’re really saying:

*  *  *

Ryan Chapman: Critical Race theorists basically say that colorblindness might be a nice idea, but they think that in reality, we’re too racially biased for it to work. So if we’re pretending that we’re colorblind but we’re actually racially biased, then colorblindness is sort of like a facade that keeps us from meaningfully dealing with the racism in society.

Spencer J. Quinn: Critical Race theorists basically say that colorblindness might be a nice idea, but they think that in reality, when whites are colorblind, blacks still cannot compete with them. So if we’re pretending that we’re colorblind but we’re actually genetically different, then colorblindness is sort of like a facade that keeps us from increasing black power in America.

*  *  *

RC: Critical Race theorists believe that [racial integration] has uneven power dynamics, so the dominant majority group, they say, effectively destroys the identity and the culture of the minority group, which is a process they call cultural genocide. Critical Race theorists aren’t a fan of that, and instead they want to conserve the traditions and values of minorities by resisting racial integration.

SJQ: Critical Race theorists believe that [racial integration] has uneven power dynamics, so the dominant minority group, they say, cannot effectively destroy the identity and the culture of the majority group, which is a process they call cultural genocide. Critical Race theorists aren’t a fan of that, and instead they want to destroy the traditions and values of the majority by resisting racial integration.

*  *  *

RC: Critical Race theorists want to use deconstruction and race consciousness to understand kind of the hidden ways that race and racism factor into America and American life, and they want to use that process to question the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

SJQ: Critical Race theorists want to ignore neuroscience, genetics, psychometrics, and law enforcement data to obscure the obvious ways that race and racism factor into America and American life, and they want to use Marxist theory and anti-white hatred to question the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

*  *  *

RC: Authenticity here means resisting integrating into the pressures of adapting to the white world. So if you integrate into the white world, you’re inauthentic, but if you remain true to yourself, by resisting integration as someone that’s not white, then you’re authentic. Then [Critical Race theorists] went further to define their authentic non-white academic voice as specifically being subjective and political. So Critical Race theorists as academics intentionally reject being objective, neutral, and balanced because that would mean that they’re inauthentically white.

SJQ: Authenticity here means not having to live up to the high academic standards of the white world. So if you integrate into the white world, you’re superior to the people who don’t, but if you take the easy way out, by resisting integration as someone that’s not white, then you’re one of us and not one of them. Then [Critical Race theorists] went further to define their authentic non-white academic voice as specifically being subjective and political. So Critical Race theorists as academics intentionally reject being objective, neutral, and balanced because that would prevent them from increasing black power in America.

*  *  *

RC: So they could, say, look at your workplace, and deconstruct your workplace with race consciousness to determine the hidden racial dynamics happening, and if there’s any potential racism happening. And if . . . they do determine that there’s racism happening, they can reconstruct their own alternative for your workplace that, again, takes race consciousness into account, and is designed to take racism out of your workplace.

SJQ: So they could, say, look at your workplace, and deconstruct your workplace with race consciousness to determine if there too many white people in charge, and if there’s any potential to replace them with unqualified blacks or hire black sinecures. And if . . . they do determine that there’s too many whites in charge, they can reconstruct their own alternative for your workplace that would be less productive and profitable, and is designed to keep whites out of your workplace.

*  *  *

RC: From what I can tell, Critical Race theorists use two main sources of evidence. One is to draw on their own personal experiences, or the experiences of others, that support their thesis. . . . The other main source of evidence is to point to unwanted racial disparities in America, which means unwanted statistical diff between racial groups.

SJQ: From what I can tell, Critical Race theorists use two main sources of evidence. One is to make up tragic stories or rely on hearsay in rap sessions with their friends. . . . The other main source of evidence is to point to unwanted racial disparities in America, which decrease black power in America.

*  *  *

RC: This book goes further to say that since these unwanted disparities come from racism, anyone who is not actively working to end these disparities is effectively racist, because there’s no such thing as being not racist in his argument. You’re either racist or you’re anti-racist.

SJQ: This book goes further to say that since these unwanted disparities come from genetic differences between the races, anyone who is not actively suppressing talk of these genetic differences is effectively the enemy, because there’s no such thing as being honest in his argument. You’re either honest or you’re anti-honest.

*  *  *

RC: So Critical Race theorists believe that the status quo of America is the status quo of white supremacy. But it’s not an explicit white supremacy. They believe it kind of hangs in the minds of white Americans in a subconscious, kind of Freudian way where white Americans are kind of conditioned into a white supremacist mindset without necessarily being consciously aware of it.

SJQ: So Critical Race theorists believe that the status quo of America is the status quo of a functional, first-world nation. But indeed it is a colorblind society. They believe it kind of hangs in the minds of white Americans in a subconscious, kind of Freudian way where white Americans inherently know that that the traditional American society was natural and healthy for the white population without necessarily being consciously aware of it.

*  *  *

RC: Critical Race theorists think that the only way we can break out of this cycle is to change the values of society itself, so they think we need to perform sort of an exorcism on that status quo that expels racism from the status quo. And then they think we need to make a new status quo, free of racism, which is effectively making a new society. So then you might say, “Okay, well, what does this new society look like?” And Critical Race theorists basically say that they’re still figuring it out.

SJQ: Critical Race theorists think that the only way we can break out of this cycle is to install black supremacy, so they think we need to perform sort of an exorcism on that status quo that expels white people from the status quo. And then they think we need to make a new status quo, free of the scientific truth about race, which is effectively making a new society. So then you might say, “Okay, well what does this new society look like?” And Critical Race theorists basically say that they will let us know once they’ve seized power in America and put most of the white conservatives they haven’t killed into gulags. And then we will see who was misguided all along.

*  *  *

I hope this little exercise helps deconstruct the deconstructers and reveal what we’re really up against with CRT — because we sure aren’t going to learn that from the Critical Race theorists themselves.

*  *  *

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