Pundits and politicians have created their own definition for the term, and then set about attacking it.
www.theatlantic.com
"The Republican operatives, who dismiss the expositions of critical race theorists and anti-racists in order to define critical race theory and anti-racism, and then attack those definitions, are effectively debating themselves. They have conjured an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation's defenders from that fictional monster."
"
Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical race theory: “a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country,” as the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who helped coin the term,
recently defined it. Instead, the attacks on critical race theory are based on made-up definitions and descriptors. “Critical race theory says every white person is a racist,” Senator Ted Cruz has
said. “It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin,”
said the Alabama state legislator Chris Pringle."
"And now the Black Lives Matter demonstrators, cancel culture, the 1619 Project,
American history, and
anti-racist education are presented to the public as the many legs of the “monstrous evil” of critical race theory that’s purportedly coming to harm white children."
The right only debates with itself: their view and their version of the left. Fighting with that is near impossible
www.salon.com
The right only debates with itself: their view and their version of the left. Fighting with that is near impossible
Kendi brilliantly lays bare that which many of us have been ensnared in for ages — that pundits and politicians create their own version of many progressive, liberal and leftist views, and then they fight with their version. There is no real debate and certainly no dialogue, because the entire game is to offer up a distorted version of a position, then freak out about it.
Once the pattern is recognized it can be seen everywhere. Kendi refers to the way it has been used with
Black Lives Matter, the
New York Times' 1619 Project,
cancel culture, and
critical race theory, but we can see the same play made with almost all progressive political positions. Professors are trying to brainwash students to become socialists, feminists think all men are rapists, abortion rights defenders don't care about life, the gay community doesn't respect marriage, and so on. We can even see it in claims that young people are snowflake whiners.