Uncomfortable Truths: Critical Race Theory

Uncomfortable Truths: Critical Race Theory

by C. A. Matthews

This is the third and last article in this series highlighting Black History Month. (You can read the first article here and the second here.) I decided to save the most controversial topic for last.

What is Critical Race Theory exactly? Here's a definition from Britannica.com:

Critical Race Theory (CRT), intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour. Critical race theorists hold that racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans. Critical race theorists are generally dedicated to applying their understanding of the institutional or structural nature of racism to the concrete (if distant) goal of eliminating all race-based and other unjust hierarchies.

Why is Critical Race Theory controversial at all? I suppose most persons currently in power (i.e., wealthy white males) consider reparations a non-issue because they know they'll never utter a word for it, and they assume no legislation will ever be passed concerning it. But the very idea of discussing how our white-dominated society continues to treats people from various racial, ethnic, gender identities, and religious groups in an abhorrent fashion makes the powerful feel uncomfortable. And they can't allow others to make them uncomfortable--that's for them to do to the rest of us and how we're supposed to feel.

For example, what if teachers started conversations with grade school children on the topic of the horrors of slavery for enslaved Africans? Speaking frankly on the subject could open the white status quo up to criticism and blame. No longer would the kindly, white grandfather stereotype be seen as benign or  generous. No, quite the opposite. He'd be painted in an entirely different light, a much more sinister and selfish light.

Those in power can't stand having their image tarnished. They long to be seen as Santa Claus, not Captain Hook. But once the whole sordid truth of American history is revealed, there's no way to get that cat back into the bag. Children will cast a critical eye at every action powerful whites make from now on and will become sensitive to the consequences of these actions. Are the people in power acting fairly? Are they hurting others? What group(s) do those being hurt belong to? What benefits do the wealthy whites gain from hurting others unlike themselves?

Encouraging empathy, a sense of fairness, and a love for the rule of law aren't the kinds of traits white employers would like instilled in their potential wage slaves. The next thing you know, these enlightened youth will grow up to start their own unions and protest for human rights, such as the right to health care and due process in a court of law. 

Think about it from the oligarchs' point of view. Black, white, brown, red, yellow, and purple people shouldn't be able to organize and work together toward common goals of equality and justice. They'll get ideas… Ideas that all human beings are created equal. And what would happen to the status quo then? 

Hierarchies are created to keep those in power on top of the heap and those stuck below subjected to the whims of the upper classes. Equality and justice only muddy the waters and allow the classes to mingle. There's no more cheap prison labor if you can't lock up African American males on petty drug misdemeanor charges. The top tier hates anything cutting into their profits.

Let's be honest. The only people who are against teaching unvarnished and uncensored American history are those who fear they'll lose their ancestors' ill-gotten gains when the ugly truth is revealed. And outright racists. And those who fall into both categories.

The only true controversy I see brewing here is why we've allowed these racist oligarchs to rule over us for this long and what method is best to put them away for the good of all humankind.

Related links:

Confronting Right Wing Attacks on Racial Justice Teaching https://popularresistance.org/confronting-right-wing-attacks-on-racial-justice-teaching/

Real CRT: The Whiteness of Organizations (podcast) https://open.spotify.com/episode/2zOcsy5yc8bITg2BQP5sbk

Whitewashing 101: How To Rewrite Black History  (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3uvcydrxYk&t=1s  

College Faculty Are Fighting Back Against State Bills on Critical Race Theory  https://www.rsn.org/001/college-faculty-are-fighting-back-against-state-bills-on-critical-race-theory.html 

A Century Ago Mississippi's Senate Voted to Send All the State's Black People Back to Africa https://www.rsn.org/001/a-century-ago-mississippis-senate-voted-to-send-all-the-states-black-people-to-africa.html 

A Persecuted Father Deported to Haiti Fights to Reunite with His Family in US   https://truthout.org/articles/a-persecuted-father-deported-to-haiti-fights-to-reunite-with-his-family-in-us/

Seen on Twitter:

So Kim potter only gets 2 years in prison, I seen black people who sold an ounce of drugs get 10 or 15 years and they didn't kill anyone but she gets 2, you really think justice was really served here?

— Marc. (@MARCANDERSONNWO) February 19, 2022

 

Marvin Guy has been in jail for 7 years without even being convicted of anything. During a No knock warrant he shot back trying to defend himself. Charges need to be dropped. Get involved here: https://t.co/1wBzWkBXbA

— Pepper Oceanna Lewis (@PepperOceanna) February 15, 2022

*** 

The reports are sickening: Black migrants tortured by U.S. immigration officers and forced to sign their own deportation orders. Some were beaten, others choked.

This is not an isolated incident. The U.S. immigration system is incredibly racist. Black immigrants are six times more likely to experience being in solitary confinement than immigrants in general, and are disproportionately more likely to be detained and deported.

Especially sad is that so many Black immigrants are eligible to be freed from this cruelty simply by paying a bond. But many can’t afford it, and that’s where we can help. 

Donate to the Black Immigrants Bail Fund to help pay bonds, hire lawyers, and help them reach their goal of $200,000 to get people to safety TODAY.

DoNate NOW

The Black Immigrants Bail Fund was created in July of 2021 by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs as a way to combat these unjust circumstances. 

So far, they have aided over 173 detainees and given over $2.6 million in bond requests to free Black migrants.

This Black History Month, your donation can help supercharge the work of the Black Immigrants Bail Fund and get Black migrants out of horrific conditions.

Your donation will pay bonds that keep loved ones locked up and hire lawyers to represent their cases in immigration court. will you give in any amount right now to help families stuck in detention centers?

DoNate NOW

What our immigration system has done to Black families seeking safety is gut-wrenching and wrong. Our fight isn’t over until we can welcome every family with dignity and compassion in the U.S.

 

In Solidarity,

Erin Mazursky | Organizing Director
Families Belong Together

 ***

The number of people seeking safety and left to suffer in detention has skyrocketed to *20,000* since Biden took office.

It gets worse: the government is expanding programs that criminalize families through hyper-surveillance tactics like home curfews and ankle monitors.

These cruel and unnecessary Trump-era policies are issues the Biden administration should be ending, not expanding, if they’re going to live up to their promise of treating families with dignity and respect – and there is a crystal clear alternative to cruelty.

Instead of spending millions on keeping detention centers open, launching house arrest programs, and even robot border patrol dogs, the Biden administration can choose Communities over Cages by investing in caseworkers, lawyers, and community programs that actually help people fleeing danger. 

Let’s make it unequivocal that our community completely rejects any Trump-era immigration policies, and urge President Biden to choose Communities Not Cages in order to welcome people with dignity and respect now?

take action

The Biden administration promised on their campaign trail to immediately end the detention of families, stop the expansion of programs that criminalize families seeking safety, and create *real* solutions to welcoming people with dignity. It’s time for them to keep that promise.

We cannot be a country that meets families seeking safety with handcuffs and ankle monitors. We have to make the choice to welcome women, children, and families with efficient and timely processing, care, and most importantly, compassion.

Let’s make sure that Biden keeps his promise to reform the system with caseworkers, lawyers, and community-based solutions, not expanding detention, by flooding his team with calls from across the country in support of Community Not Cages.

Add your name to pressure the Biden administration to stop detaining families and welcome people seeking safety with dignity and compassion instead.

take action

We need the government to end the inhumanity of detention centers and the criminalization of families seeking safety. Doing this would get us so much closer to opening up legal pathways for people seeking safety rather than completely shutting them down. It’s time we live up to who we can be as a country. 

 

Thanks for all you do,

Erin Mazursky, Organizing Director
Families Belong Together

 *** 

In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...

Zonta’s world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist fighters) take action?

Available now: https://www.extasybooks.com/Where-the-Bodies-Lie

A great tale of how love, cooperation, and socialism will ultimately save us all. -- Redd Phlagg

 

#AbolishThePolice/DemonetizeTheChildren

#AbolishThePolice/

DemonetizeTheChildren  

How many Humvees and Tasers does an average police department need? How much pepper spray and teargas? If you have a reputation for killing persons of color, it seems you can never have too many army cast-offs or spend too much of your city's budget on obtaining weapons of war to use against your civilian population, in groups or individually.

How much is a child's life worth? If you're twelve-year-old Tamir Rice or thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo, not much. It's not even worth very much if you're sixteen or seventeen or twenty, especially if there's some money to be made in it for private prisons or immigrant detention centers.

Let's not deny the facts any longer. In a capitalist society neither children nor adults of color nor the poor and homeless of any color or gender identity are seen as having much worth in the eyes of those in power. Those of lesser worth  are seen as disposable commodities to the wealthy elites, things to be used and abused and then thrown in a landfill (grave) or cage (prison) at will.

Since testimony began in the Derek Chauvin trial on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of police nationwide. Black and Brown people represent more than half of those killed. With the re-opening of  public spaces as the world is declared "post-Covid," we should only expect more deaths by cops.

According to Marjorie Cohn:

 On April 27, the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States, for which I am serving as a rapporteur, will release its report with findings of fact and recommendations addressed to national and international policy makers. The commission is examining whether police violence against Black people in the U.S. constitutes a gross violation of international human rights and fundamental freedoms. Testimony was presented to the commission by family members and attorneys about police killings of 43 Black people and the paralyzing of another, all of whom were unarmed or were not threatening the officers or others. --The Supreme Court Is Also To Blame For Daunte Wright's Death

So, it's not just Chauvin and his ilk who are at fault. We can't just lay the blame on "a couple of bad apples." Our human rights are being deliberately abridged. The corrupt system that runs our country is to blame for perpetuating this overtly military-style response against its own people.

You aren't seeing things. US policing budgets in total are greater than budgets for the Indian and Russian Armies. Take that Russiagaters! Why should anyone obsess over one poor country like Russia so much  when it can't even afford to spend for its actual army as much as we do on just our police?

Could conspiracies like Russiagate be just another way to deflect attention away from things that really matter? A method of keeping the public from dwelling on the number of deaths caused by the police and the fact that kids are still being held in cages along our border with Mexico?

So, why is the US police force the third wealthiest "army" on the entire planet? (We already have the world's largest conventional army by far.) The answer is clear: we're at war with our own citizens. People of color are being used for target practice, and all citizens are being forced to pay ever more taxes to cover up police malpractice, that is, police brutality.

When we say "demilitarize the police" it means it's time to take away their military-grade weaponry that is being used against civilians who are exercising their freedom of speech and right to assemble. When we say "defund the police" it's backed up by the above memes which demonstrate just how much money our government pumps into what is  one of the best customers of the Military-Industrial Complex, your local police department.

"Demonetize the children" should be self-explanatory. Any cop killing anyone's child--including an adult child--should be charged with murder. Private prisons and detention centers should be closed because no one should be making billions of dollars off the suffering of others, particularly struggling drug addicts and refugees fleeing violence.  Compassion not cages should always be our goal.

Until we see money taken away from police departments, away from the Military-Industrial Complex, and away from the pockets of the for-profit prison/detention center industry, we will only see more innocents shot by the police, more protests, and more arrests to fill the prisons. 

There's really only one answer to this genocidal mess. Replace cops with social workers to answer calls dealing with people in mental/emotional crises. Take the guns off those who walk a beat much like the British bobbies who don't carry weapons. More empathy, more training, more psychological testing of police recruits. Zero hiring of white supremacists, zero military equipment, zero lethal force allowed.

Abolish the police and replace them with what we need, not what the gun manufacturers want.  And stop putting a price tag on human life.

Related Articles:

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68884-rsn-13-years-old-hands-up-dead-forever

https://truthout.org/articles/the-supreme-court-is-also-to-blame-for-daunte-wrights-death/

https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68932-throughout-trial-over-george-floyds-death-killings-by-police-mount

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68899-daunte-wrights-shooting-and-the-meaning-of-george-floyds-death

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68908-police-officers-shouldnt-be-the-ones-to-enforce-traffic-laws 

https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68907-protests-erupt-in-us-cities-over-police-violence-as-riot-declared-in-portland

Live Video from the Daunte Wright protests: https://www.facebook.com/watch/unicornriot.ninja/  and  http://Twitch.tv/statuscoup

Found on Facebook:

"I need to drive my two-year-old to daycare tomorrow morning. To ensure we arrive alive, we won't take public transit (Oscar Grant). I removed all air fresheners from the vehicle and double-checked my registration status (Daunte Wright), and ensured my license plates were visible (Lt. Caron Nazario). I will be careful to follow all traffic rules (Philando Castille), signal every turn (Sandra Bland), keep the radio volume low (Jordan Davis), and won't stop at a fast food chain for a meal (Rayshard Brooks). I'm too afraid to pray (Rev. Clementa C. Pickney) so I just hope the car won't break down (Corey Jones). 

 

When my wife picks him up at the end of the day, I'll remind her not to dance (Elijah McClain), stop to play in a park (Tamir Rice), patronize the local convenience store for snacks (Trayvon Martin), or walk around the neighborhood (Mike Brown). Once they are home, we won't stand in our backyard (Stephon Clark), eat ice cream on the couch (Botham Jean), or play any video games (Atatiana Jefferson). 

 

After my wife and I tuck him into bed around 7:30pm, neither of us will leave the house to go to Walmart (John Crawford) or to the gym (Tshyrand Oates) or on a jog (Ahmaud Arbery). We won't even walk to see the birds (Christian Cooper). We'll just sit and try not to breathe (George Floyd) and not to sleep (Breonna Taylor)." 

 

These are things white people simply do not have to think about.

 

--- Author unknown

 

 ***

My name is Kyle Bibby and I served in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Officer for over six years. As a Black man who earned the uniform and served this country, I, along with many other Black veterans, am growing concerned with the military equipment being utilized by police departments across the country. 

Increasingly, the training, equipment, and ultimately philosophy of policing in the United States are being modeled to approach American civilians as threats. Police departments receive militarized vests, armored vehicles, weaponry, and training that they end up deploying against civilians in the streets — especially Black and brown civilians.

Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a consistent and utterly unacceptable deployment of force by uniformed police, and a culture of violence that seeks to dominate communities rather than serve and heal them. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that we can’t continue this war in our streets.

Yet, the trend of the military giving police combat gear is getting worse, not better — the police are on track to get more military hardware in 2021 than they did in 2020. Congress needs to act.

We must all come together as veterans and civilian supporters to condemn the use of war force in our streets. Sign this petition today to DEMAND that Congress pressure the Biden Administration and the Department of Defense to stop giving police combat gear.

Add your name »

I became a Marine in 2007, but I'll be Black my entire life, treated differently in and out of my uniform.

I know that any interaction with police could all too easily lead to detention, injury, or death. The police don’t care that I’ve gone to war to protect this country — I could be the next George Floyd, or Daunte Wright, solely due to the color of my skin.

While many are saying that our system is broken, I have to disagree. Our system is working the way it was designed — to oppress and disenfranchise the Black community while disguising it as “law and order”. The rot is to the core and to the roots.

Simple reform isn’t enough: We must dismantle the system brick by brick and push for transformative change together by standing strong and not allowing our justice system to stay the same any longer.

Unleashing the military on the people is not the solution and will not stop protests, it will only create more pain and death in our streets. Join us today by signing this petition to DEMAND that Congress and the Biden Administration end the flow of military weapons and training to our police.

Add your name »

We have the momentum to make real, lasting change — now we need your help to mobilize and organize passionate people ready to make a difference.

In solidarity,

Kyle Bibby
U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Afghanistan
Common Defense

***

JUSTICE FOR DAUNTE WRIGHT MEANS DEFUNDING AND ABOLISHING THE POLICE

The Movement for Black Lives and our supporters support the family and community of Daunte Wright who had his life ripped from him by former police officer Kim Potter. Daunte was a beloved son, brother and father to a two-year-old. We’re grieving alongside his family and community, and will continue fighting to defund the police in the pursuit of justice and Black liberation.

A police officer murdered Daunte just miles from where another officer murdered George Floyd last year. As Black people in Minnesota and across the country have been forced to relive George Floyd’s murder during the ongoing trial of his murderer, Derek Chauvin, the murder of Daunte Wright is a harsh reminder of the daily threat the police pose to Black lives, while police departments continue to be rewarded with outsized budgets and impunity.

Police killed 121 people in traffic stops in 2020, and Black people are pulled over at disproportionate rates with deadly consequences — Sandra Bland, Philando Castile and now Daunte Wright. A traffic stop should never be a death sentence. There is no excuse for the continued murders and terror inflicted by police.

As the Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, and broader Minnesota communities grieve, a militarized police force continues to perpetrate tremendous harm on a community in mourning, with police officers recklessly shooting tear gas at protestors and arresting and jailing people at protests for extended periods of time in an intentional effort to further terrorize and silence our communities.  

Charging Kim Potter is not enough to create real accountability for police or real safety for these communities. Ultimately only defunding and abolishing the police will stop this terror and bring about real safety. There is no ‘reforming’ this system—the time is now to divest from deadly policing and invest in a vision of public safety that protects us all.

We’re calling for all those who stand in defense of Black lives to support Black-led organizations in Minneapolis and across Minnesota as they continue to support and mobilize their communities in this moment. If you’re able, send donations to:

• The Daunte Wright Senior Memorial Fund

• 612 M*A*S*H

• Black Table Arts

• Documenting MN

• George Floyd Global Memorial

The Movement for Black Lives will continue to carry Daunte with us as we fight for the justice that Black people and communities deserve.

In Power,

The Movement for Black Lives