My pov is that CRT (critical race theory) and related policies, like DEI, put an undue emphasis on race instead of on poverty, and the resulting effect is that policies which are aimed at helping minorities seem like “favoritism” (and called as such by political opponents), which makes a growing population of poor whites (due to the adverse effects of wealth inequality) polarized against minorities.
Separately, the polarization is used by others who want to weaken a democratic nation. For democracies, a growing immigrant population of more poor people will cause further polarization because the growing poor white population believes that “they’re taking our jobs”. This happened during Brexit, this happened with Trump, and this is happening now in Germany and other western democracies.
I know that there are racist groups who have an agenda of their own, and what I am saying is that instead of focusing on what are painted as culture war issues, leftists are better off focusing on alleviating systemic poverty. Like, bringing the Nordic model to the U.S. should be their agenda.
So, maybe I am wrong about CRT and DEI and how it’s well-meaning intentions are being abused by people who have other goals, but I want to hear from others about why they think CRT and DEI help. I want to listen, so I am not going to respond at all.
— Added definitions —
CRT: an academic field used to understand how systems and processes favor white people despite anti-discrimination policies. Analysis coming out of CRT is often used to make public policy.
DEI: a framework for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion; DEI isn’t focused on race or gender only, but also includes disability and other factors (pregnancy for example) which affect a person.
— —
Okay , so end note: I appreciate the people who commented. I questioned the relevancy of CRT/DEI previously out of an alarmed perspective of how aspects that highlight group differences can be used by others to create divisions and increase polarization. But I get the point everyone is making about the historical significance of these tools.
I understand and sympathize with where your coming from. I don’t have all the counter arguments, but one that stuck with me while I was devils advocating it with two of my friends stuck with me. (Mind you, I’m drunk on a Friday night at 3 AM, so just posting this before I forget to do it tomorrow).
One of your arguments (not all!) is built on an opposing side abusing the cultural impact of CRT/DEI. However, that can be applied as a premise to a slew of other political efforts with the same mechanics where the singling out of a group can be twisted into discrimination of an adjacent group:
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) for Alaskans
- Shelters and Services Program for Immigrants
- Any policies surrounding Native Americans
In all the above programs, one could make the case that there are adjacent groups that do not, but maybe should, receive those benefits. CRT/DEI just is an easier target to gather people around. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s just the most prominent and easily targetable policy.
All that doesn’t invalidate CRT/DEI or any of the other policies, and even with political opposition one could still argue for their benefit. So, my point is this: Bad actors abusing and misrepresenting a program that focuses on specific groups is not an argument against that policy. If it didn’t exist, they’d latch on to something else. So you’re letting a policy be ruined, not based on its merits, but on how others can twist a narrative around it.
Again, you have made other points that I’m not addressing at all in this argument. I’ll let others argue against those.
CRT and DEI are misrepresented by both the left and right. They make more sense when you look at them without the point of view of 14 year old Redditors or 400 year old dinosaurs.
It’s actually a bit ironic, because CRT is viewed by many White Americans as a theory which demonizes them; but CRT also defines how racism has harmed poor white people in the past and continues to do so today.
CRT defines the biggest winners of Racism in America as being wealthy white folks. According to CRT, Racism as we know it today, was created as a means to take advantage of poor whites. Rich plantation owners recognized slavery caused great economic harm to poorer whites who did not own slaves. So a solution to stop revolt was to create this system of Race so that poor whites would remain divided from black slaves, and not work together to retaliate.
CRT also claims that this is still occuring today. Racism continues to divide poor white people from poor people of color so that they don’t work together to fight against Injustice.
This is a great question to ask in a .ml community as I think they will be able to contextualize this a bit better for you, and I would be interested in what they say too. Cause I agree, I think identity politics (which I think is what you’re getting at here) is used especially by the ruling class as a way to look nominally progressive (or anti-progressive) and make people feel like they have a real choice in politics, but is ultimately damaging both to its own goals and to the overall political consciousness, in the ways you noted, by divorcing them from the material realities that create and perpetuate these divisions for all people in society. I think that in either direction, they are pushed as a means to distract from the root causes of those issues (which is all the better for a ruling class that benefits from this social order), which if addressed would be a much more equitable way of dealing with them and far more difficult for criticism to take hold.
I think people would see that we have far more in common than not if we weren’t constantly pitted against each other to compete for resources that are only made scarce for the sake of profit and austerity.
CRT though, in actuality, is precisely what you are talking about. It is a school of thought that analyzes racial inequalities in the context of history and critiqueing the ways that they are perpetuated in our society. It became a buzzword because conservative media made it into one totally divorced from its original context.
Imagine a hundred runners entering an insanely long footrace. Before the race starts, the official says that due to his complexion, one runner will start running at the second gunshot, and the other runners will begin at the first gunshot. The darker skinned runner contests, but those are the rules and if he wants to race, he must follow them.
BLAM
The palest runners are off and running while the other one anticipates the second gunshot. He patiently waits, but it doesn’t come. After ten minutes, the runner complains to the official, but he repeats that these are the rules, and if you just wait patiently, it’ll be your turn. After an hour the crowd is outraged by the injustice and begin to protest.
BLAM
The official fires the second shot in order to deescalate the situation and prevent the stadium from being torn apart. The runner is off and he is determined to gain as much ground as possible as the other runners.
At the end of the day, the runners meet up at a checkpoint to rest before the next section of the race. When they announce the official times, the darker skinned man is 50 minutes behind the other runners. He mentions to the officials that he had to wait an hour to start, and that he would have had a better time than many of them if they had started at the same time.
Fine, they say, not wanting another scene like they had at the starting line, “from now on, all runners start at the same time.” That’s great! So, can I deduct an hour from my time?
WHAT!? WE ALREADY CHANGED THE RULES TO MAKE IT EQUAL. EVERYBODY STARTS AT THE SAME TIME! AND NOW YOU WANT MORE? THE OTHER RUNNERS DIDN’T NEED ANY TIME DEDUCTIONS!
I now see I went too heavy on the caps, but I’m not typing it again.
Anyway, DEI is the one hour time deduction. It’s making up for holding them back for so long while everyone else was sprinting ahead. But, those other runners, they were so busy running that they don’t know how long it took for that second gunshot to go off. All they see is a runner with a mediocre time getting a 1 hour deduction which moves him to the top 3. The guy getting bumped to fourth is REALLY going to feel cheated, and resent the system that gave that guy an hour just because of his skin color.
I like how you made all about a race. Nice touch.
I’m thinking of starting a whole philosophy based around this analogy. We can call it race-ism. 🤔 Or… maybe not.
You’re definitely my favourite race-ist.
Thanks. I hope I never hear anyone say that to me again. 😂
There’s a video I watched that explains the concept very similarly here: https://youtu.be/4K5fbQ1-zps
What’s interesting is that in the video, none of the questions even mention race, but you can see how the racial minorities are affected more than the rest.
Thank you
This is such a big non-answer lol
It’s alright that you weren’t looking back, just take his word when he says he’s not as far ahead as he should be.
The facts are that black Americans are worse off than other groups in almost every way we can measure. There are two competing theories to explain this.
1-the systems of our society are biased against black people. That’s Systemic-Racism. 2-black people are inferior to everyone else. That’s racism, original recipe.
How are these systems biased against black people? That’s what the field of CRT seeks to answer.
- A culture was developed during a period of racism that discouraged activities beneficial a thriving community, because they were denied in a racist era. That culture hasn’t adapted to a less racist era.
Good on OP for seeking challenges to their existing view points and being open to changing them upon compelling enough thoughts. In a genuine way no less.
So like that environmental justice database musk just shut down, that analyzes things like pollution, asthma and other health impacts, death rates, etc? So environmental cleanup efforts can focus on those who are most affected? Apparent it’s crt or DEI or woke or something since those most affected tend to be disproportionately non-white. It can’t be the “merit” of being most impacted by pollution
You’re writing as if CRT were a set of policies instead of an academic discipline—that’s why everyone is asking you to clarify what you think it is before they reply. It’s like trying to respond to someone criticizing “quantum theory” whose argument is based on the economic effects of nuclear power plants.
First off, CRT is a red herring. It’s an extremely niche framework for historical analysis and egalitarianism which is irrelevant outside academic contexts and only gained ground due to a racist asshole.
When it comes to DEI I think that your heart is in the right place - this is all about economic justice and if there were better ways to account for that it’d be an excellent thing to correct for (though, imo, the better correction would be to ensure all children had a genuinely equal chance at success). Unfortunately, because America has a long history of racism, race and poverty are strongly correlated.
The other half of DEI is that people tend to hire like. It’s a deep social flaw but we need to acknowledge it - white men will tend to hire white men, a company composed entirely of black women will tend to hire black women… we have studies. Most entrenched wealth is held by white men and so white men have an inherent advantage in employment.
The last thing I’d highlight is that a rising tide raises all ships - your assumption that immigration causes an expansion of poverty usually hasn’t been born out. In capitalism more people means more labor means more innovation means more wealth - there are some limits around resources but we’re not near any hard limits in that regard.
Remember the story of the woman who pretended to be a man because of how easy it was? The secret wasn’t being a man or white or even educated. The secret is always being rich enough to buy out your problems.
If you want us to talk you out of your position we need you to describe what exactly you think CRT and DEI actually are in your own words.
If you can invest your time in explaining those things as you understand them then I am willing to discuss it with you.
If you copy paste from the net I will call you out and take that as a hostile response.
It’s in the OP.
No, that is not what you think those things are. That’s your position on them. In order to tell if you actually understand what they are, I need you to explain them. If you can’t explain something then you don’t actually understand it.
That’s the only way I can get a real baseline for where you are coming from and where you potentially went wrong.
Okay, I’ll add those.
Ok, now that you’ve added those very basic descriptions. Be honest, could you have done that without looking it up?
Now that you presumably know that both of these things are primarily educational, and not actual favoritism. What is it about them that you think makes poor white people so angry? I’m also curious why you think it’s just poor people that take issue with this? The biggest public detractors are all quite wealthy.
Edit: I’m sorry but this process is going to involve a lot of questions. That’s just how this works if we’re both trying to be constructive.
I am not angry about anything, and I didn’t look them up now, tbh. The issue I find is that well-meaning and useful policies are painted as something they’re not, or used by others to create polarization. So, my pov is that leftists and progressives are better off focusing on poverty alleviation. If minorities face generational wealth issues (they do) then poverty alleviation policies that don’t single them out in particular will be harder to attack by political opponents.
The problem is that systemic racism is a large part of why minority groups are in poverty in the first place.
You can’t address poverty in minority groups without addressing the racism.
You’re also falling for the fallacy that this is an either or situation. You can fight systemic racism and other underlying causes of poverty at the same.
There’s nothing wrong with educating people on specific issues related to specific demographics. That’s why BLM existing isn’t saying that other races don’t matter.
Would you say that the New Deal policies are the types of policies that you are talking about. The ones enacted by the US government during the recovery from the depression?
I didn’t say you were angry, I was asking why you think it makes poor white people angry.
I think policies in the Nordic model are more along those lines, tbh.
Reading this as a third party… Someone came to learn and you’re being unnecessarily hostile.
This isn’t “why is it my responsibility to tell you, the offender, how to be decent” - it’s strangers opting in to inform strangers. Just prefix with your assumptions about definitions, and answer.
You familiar w flies, honey, vinegar, etc?
Fun fact: flies actually prefer vinegar.
🤦 omg I never registered the fruit fly apple cider vinegar traps as vinegar nor as more effective than honey
Feel free to take time out of your day to enact your preferred approach.
- Lol you’re suggesting “being the one who makes the effort entitles one to be a dick”
- “It’s not my job to educate people on” what being a dick is
- I believe that’s technically whataboutism since none of my words were responded to directly
Should be a salaried position^ 🫡
No it is not. You have complaints against DEI and CRT, but you don’t have a definition. Write your own definition as if you were trying to write a dictionary entry.
I added it.
Wow, you actually did.
There are two major problems with focusing only on wealth or income inequality. First, you need to have a degree of racial consciousness in addition to class consciousness if you want any hope of addressing wealth and income inequality. If you don’t, it’s far, far too easy for those opposed to economic inequality to use racial divisions to tank efforts at economic reform. That’s ultimately what killed the New Deal and the Great Society. We had enough class consciousness to get major economic reforms passed. But then the opponents of economic reform used racial divisions to grind these reforms to a halt. See “welfare queen.” If you can convince the poorest white man he is being held down by a black man, it is trivial for the rich to rob him blind.
Second, often times wealth and race are inseparable. Wealth and income are correlated with race. Imagine tomorrow you waived a magic wand and completely reset the national wealth. You literally take every single asset in the country and divide ownership equally among all citizens. Come back 20 years later, and you would still observe massive disparities in wealth and income due to systematic racism.
The real point of DEI is to make it so meritocracy is more than just a slogan. You design hiring and promotion procedures so as to remove bias of as many forms as possible. The problem is that even if people aren’t overtly or intentionally racist, they will inevitably hire and promote people with subconscious biases. A company full of white men will inevitably just end up hiring and promoting people most like themselves, unless active measures are made to remove bias from the hiring process.
Economic justice is impossible without racial justice.
Poverty and other lack of opportunity are how we target programs that elevate people toward equity.
Diversity is how we can objectively measure outcomes - whether people in positions of power are actually applying the above principles.
What is your current view?
It’s shared in the OP.
Oh, the body was blocked by my word filter.
You are wrong because it is far easier for people to discriminate based on what they can see as opposed to a bank account.
The only people you mention “abusing” what you call the “well-meaning intentions” of “DEI” are:
a growing population of poor whites
As they are, as implied by your formulation, misinterpreting the policies as favoritism. It this what you meant with abuse?
I meant politicians will abuse the intention of these policies to gain favor from poor white voters, and that nation state actors will cause polarization by highlighting the growing discontent in various ways.
Ok, so politicians that sow polarization by complaining about DEI is bad?
Personally I find the meta-question more interesting than the question here. Your take is pretty much the majority one in any Western society today (albeit particularly thoughtfully expressed here). Personally I share your analysis right down the line. But you’re asking to be talked out of it. Is it because you feel that it’s not presentable here? Or maybe among your friends? Who perhaps might belong to the small minority (7%) of the US population that pollsters categorize as “progressive activists”? Just a thought.
In any case, steelmanning is a great technique to practice. Well done for having a go.
Your take is pretty much the majority one in any Western society today
False.
