What we talk about when we talk about "critical race theory," Part V: Why mainstream Democrats defend a model that attacks them

 Here we are.  "We," being the royal we.  Regardless, when I introduced this series, the hook was the observation that mainstream liberals are paradoxically defending this thing called, "critical race theory," despite the fact that one of the central tenets of the actual thing called "critical race theory" is an excoriation of those same liberals.  Sure, we might expect the extremists on the left to defend critical race theory, but why is it that the center-left is defending CRT?  Once we see the ideological tension between mainstream liberalism of the LBJ/MLK/Obama variety, and the writings of Bell, Crenshaw, Williams et al., (see Part IV), how do we wind up with a situation in which those who are actually ideologically predisposed towards the former instead side with Bell et al.?  Let's get into this.

When I introduced the series, I did it with a gimmick.  An exam question:  Define "critical race theory."  Of course, the answer that the average news-consumer on the left might give is something about the history of racism and discrimination.  Why?  Because that's the defense of sarcasm-quotes "critical race theory" generally offered in the popular media, particularly left-leaning outlets.  This leads to the following basic question.  How many people actually bother to read law review articles?

The question answers itself.

Consequently, we have at least part of an answer.  Frequently, when you see people respond defensively regarding critical race theory, they haven't actually read any of it.  They have heard the "history of racism" defense repeated, like Trump's election lies, so frequently that it has simply become its own left-wing myth.  There is the actual critical race theory, and then there is the thing that gets said publicly, and never the twain shall meet.

Two questions follow from this.  Is there dishonesty among those who sell the "history of racism" line, and what kind of psychology is at work in the impulse to defend a scholarly body of work that nobody has read?

Is there dishonesty at work?  This is a little difficult to assess.  If you go on youtube and find videos of critical race theorists, they are usually pretty clear about what they think.  It's just that what they think is... kinda out-there.  But it is not difficult to find people peddling the "history of racism" line who should know better.  The question is, do they?  We cannot crawl inside their heads.  There are plenty of lazy scholars.  Yet, we can also distinguish between Kimberle Crenshaw and a hanger-on.

Crenshaw is an actual scholar.  She wants people to read her work, and push her political agenda.  Hence, you can go watch her speeches, interviews, etc., and she will be perfectly up-front about her arguments.  It would not serve any of her goals to do otherwise because she wrote the stuff.  She's the source.  Yet, can we at least speculate on the potential existence of those who would like to obscure her more... let's say controversial claims?

Yeah.  Crenshaw, like other critical race theorists, will say in any given presentation that there's no such thing as neutrality.  It's all a lie, and worse, a lie concocted to support the white-male racist patriarchy, and so forth.  Crenshaw argues, therefore, that you must judge people on their race, sex, gender, etc., most importantly keeping in mind that any given intersectional identity has unique political and social implications that are not just the additive results of the component identities.  That's Crenshaw, in a nutshell.  But it means she's saying you must judge people on their race, sex, gender, etc.  Gee... could... that... get... controversial anywhere?

Whatever you do, never judge anyone on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin!  Yeah, Crenshaw and the rest?  They really don't like Martin Luther King.  You cannot have Martin Luther King, and critical race theory.  MLK, or CRT.  Pick one.  You can't have both.

Anyway, let's say you want people to get cool with intersectionality as a concept.  Just the idea that there is something unique about being an African-American woman, for example, which isn't merely the additive property of being both African-American, and being a woman.  I mean, that's pretty clear, empirically.  You can accept that without the wackadoo elements of CRT, so just maybe don't go full Kimberle.  Instead, you wait until they are deep into the church before you give them Xenu.  Tell people about Xenu too soon, and they'll just say, thanks but no thanks, bu-bye.  Xenu can't be the public face of critical race theory.  So, find a way to soft-pedal it.

In other words, yeah, there are some people who may a) know what critical race theory actually is, b) believe in it, c) think strategically, and hence d) present something that is, at best, an incomplete sales pitch.

How do you sell this stuff?  Or let me put this in CRT terminology.  What kind of "counter-narrative" do you use to fight the white racial hierarchy narrative?  Remember, this is all about narratives and counter-narratives anyway, according to the ideology of critical race theory, and yes, it is as much an ideology as anything else.  Take that one level up, and the question becomes, what narrative do you tell about what CRT even is?

Just say that it's about the history of race and racism!  The narrative about CRT becomes part of CRT.  Damn, now that's postmodern.  That's post-postmodern.

So you see, what they told you is true, from a certain point of view.  Right?  Have you been Jedi mind-tricked?

Never engage in a dialog with a postmodernist.  Anyone who doesn't accept objective truth isn't worth your time.  They'll just jerk you around.  And yes, critical race theorists are postmodernists.  And yes, some of them are just jerking everyone around, including when it comes to the question of what CRT even is.  You can't trust people to tell the truth when they don't believe in truth.

Which purveyors of the "history of race and racism" line believe that's what CRT is, and which ones are dissembling?  In order to know in any particular case, we might need to crawl inside peoples' heads, and even the overlords of social media have yet to figure out that trick.  For all the hype about FMRI scans, we ain't there yet either.  But here's the way to make some kind of assessment.  Anyone with a law degree who sells you the "history of racism" thing?  Liar.  Oh yeah.  Big time liar.  (Of course, lawyers are professional liars, so you can just assume they're liars anyway.)  Ph.D.s in relevant fields, with teaching and research interests that connect to CRT?  Liars.  Plenty of piled-higher-and-deepers may bloviate about CRT, without actually knowing anything.  We're bullshit artists.  However, anyone who specializes in identity politics?  They've fuckin' read Bell, Crenshaw and the rest.  If they feed you the "history of racism" line?  They're liars.  Anyone who gives you a speech that vaguely touches on some of the five tenets in wishy-washy ways, but then veers back towards "the history of racism?"  Dissemblers.

Those who never mention any of the "tenets" at all, have no connection to academia, and basically just rant on the internet (kinda like this, but without the Ph.D.), they are probably sincere, but misinformed.

That last category is... damn-near everyone.

Hence we have this stupid dialog on this thing called "critical race theory," mostly disconnected from the actual scholarship.  Yet given this, it is no surprise that many mainstream lefties falsely believe that "critical race theory" is some amorphous thing about the history of race and racism, or something like that, or maybe at best, systemic racism.

Yet if you don't know what critical race theory is, why would you defend it?

So here's a fun trick.  This is an old one, but I'll tell you the story of the first time I saw it actually put to work.  I saw it in the classroom, when I was a TA in grad school at Berkeley.  I was TA for Judy Gruber's Introduction to American Politics class, in one of those gigantic lecture halls with who-the-fuck-knows-how-many hundred students.  She was giving her lecture on public opinion, and she wanted to demonstrate an old concept, which she did by fucking with the students.  Masterfully.  She asked the students to raise their hands if they supported or opposed a bunch of stuff.  After a few test policies, she got to "The Wilderness Protection Act."  It was Berkeley, so damn-near every hand in the room went up, tree-huggers that they were.

Yet... there was no such thing as The Wilderness Protection Act.  Why did they raise their hands?  The principle from public opinion scholarship is that people don't like to admit when they don't have an opinion, so they'll answer your questions even on fake shit.  (Phil Converse, again.)  Yet, there are often patterns in how they will respond.  "Wilderness protection."  Gee, sounds good to me!  And they raised their hands.

"Critical race theory."

That could be fucking anything.  It could be some fucking nazi shit, for all you know.  I mean, they had some crazy ideas about race, in case you weren't aware.  However, if you take the term in the context of the knowledge that its advocates are far to the left, and black, what do you infer?

Wilderness Protection Act.

If your goal is to be on the left rather than on the right, and side with black people, you just say "yay CRT."  It is, to some degree, a directional preference.  (I'll spare you a rant on Rabinowitz & McDonald.)  Move left.  Doesn't matter how far.   All you know is that it is left.  And, if you think of politics in terms of a racial divide, and old civil rights divides, where would you have wanted to be in the 60s?  Which side of the racial divide?  There's that great line from Frank Zappa's "Trouble Every Day."  "I'm not black, but there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white."  He was writing about race riots in 1966.  If that's your mindset, and you don't know the contents of the law review articles, what might you do?  You got Tucker Carlson on one side, and some African-American writers on another.

Basic principle of psychology:  heuristic.  A mental shortcut.  A way of making a decision without full information.  This is part of what is happening.

In spatial theory terms (this is my area of mathematical modeling), though, this doesn't quite work.  You actually need to know your own location on the left-right spectrum, and the locations of the various alternatives.  So, for example, where is CRT, where is MLK, where is... I'm goin' with Liz Cheney, and where is Tucker Carlson?  (Hungary!  Fuckin' psycho...)

CRT is so far to the left it's off our spectrum.  It is outside American ideology, as I have explained.  Tucker is hangin' out with Viktor Orban, so... same thing, but in the other direction.  Tucker is a neo-nazi in all but name.  Give me a choice between these two, and it's time to scrap the system, we're done, stick a fork in us.  Everyone tries to hug MLK, but he's left.  Mainstream left on race, but left.  (His economics were further left, but I could not give less of a fuck for the purposes of this discussion because it is not relevant to the point, so if you were going to try that trick of distraction that every CRT advocate uses... no).  Liz Cheney, right.  Mainstream right, except that the right is a Trump personality cult, which may eventually burn her at the stake, and I'll offer her a hiding place at my house, Anne Frank-style, when Tucker comes back to organize the new gestapo, but Liz is just where the GOP used to be.

So to figure out who you prefer on race, you need to know where you are, and where any given alternative is.  Give me a choice between CRT and Liz, and I take Liz.  Not because Liz and I see eye to eye on race, but because CRT is coo-coo for cocoa puffs.  Give me a choice between Liz and MLK, and sorry Liz, I'll still hide you from Tucker's gestapo, but MLK all the way.  I don't have to agree with you to hide you from that nazi shitbag.  See how this works?  It's about proximity.

But in order to do this, you need to know all of the locations.  If you don't, you fall back on heuristics.  Like... there's right, and there's left.  If all you know is that CRT is left, and written by African-Americans, and you want to position yourself that way, you defend CRT.

And having been told that it's just the history of race and racism and so forth, you know no better.

We then add one more important element.  Who attacks critical race theory most vociferously?  Trumpists.  Yeah, I'm attacking critical race theory, and I hate Trump as much as anyone you'll ever find, and I am not in any real way conservative, but in case you hadn't noticed, I'm really weird.  For the most part, the attacks on critical race theory come from those most hated by the left, mainstream or otherwise.  And the result is a simple impulse.  Oh, you hate something?  I must love it.  It is the same reason the left rushes to defend Ilhan Omar, despite the fact that she should be run out of Congress along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, to rid the institution of that noxious, antisemite caucus.  But if Trump attacks Omar, she must be awesome!

No.  Actually, she's terrible.  She's a bigot, an anti-intellectual, and generally speaking, someone with no business anywhere near the levers of power.  Yet if the attacks come from someone despised by the left, the left rushes to defend her.  And yes, some of Trump's attacks were racist and xenophobic.  Why?  Because he's Trump.  He's the worst thing in the history of organic life.

Omar still has no business in Congress.

If you have any degree of self-awareness and tribalism, you can recognize this impulse within yourself.  Your tribe is attacked, so you defend it.  You don't stop to think if the attack was justified.  You just defend your tribe.  (The cognitive benefit of having no tribe is that I am not subject to this particular bias.  We misanthropes have a degree of perspective about the world that comes from total contempt.)

So really, a significant part of this perverse, and one-sided alliance is the basic cognitive bias at the heart of negative partisanship.  Has polarization increased in American politics?  That depends on what we mean by polarization.  Americans are no more ideologically consistent than they were years ago, but Democrats are more driven by animosity towards Republicans than in the past, and similarly, Republicans are more driven by animosity towards Democrats.  The real reason Trump was so politically successful, and remains a cult figure in the GOP is that he is the embodiment of negative partisanship.  He is bile distilled to its purest essence, and personified.  So, all of the hatred in the Republican Party has found its expression in him.  The hatred in the Democratic Party has not found a like figure, and any such figure would need to take a different form, but the impulse to oppose and disagree is part of why the mainstream of the left will rush to defend CRT.  Trump and his side opposes it?

WE LOVE CRT!  WE LOVE CRT!

Have... you read it?

Um... it's, like, the history of race, and racism, and inequality, or... something.  The complete, unvarnished history of America.  Yeah, that's it!

Sorry, zero points for you.

Why does the mainstream of the left defend critical race theory?  There's a lot going on here.  They haven't read it.  They've been deceived, partially by people bullshitting, and partly by people dissembling.  There are simple heuristics at work in the absence of full information.  Side with the left rather than the right, generally speaking.  Side with the minority rather than whites.  If the right hates something, defend it.  All of that together makes it rather understandable why mainstream lefties who haven't read Bell, Crenshaw and the rest would form some positive affect towards the phrase, "critical race theory," accept the premise that it is just the history of racism and inequality and such, and rush to the defense of this thing called "critical race theory."

Yet we come back to the following basic point.  Critical race theory is a specific explanation for why history is as it is, along with a specific set of proposals for what to do about it, and mainstream liberalism runs directly contrary to both the "why," and the "what next" proposed by CRT.  Yet, mainstream liberals fall back on heuristics that predispose them to defend what they think CRT is.

It's the weirdest thing.

Especially when we remember that critical race theory says that mainstream liberals are part of the problem.  That they are complicit in propping up a system constructed and maintained to this day for the purpose of oppressing black people.  Yes, critical race theorists say that the mainstream-left are complicit in a system that exists for the purpose, not just with the effect, but for the purpose of creating a racial hierarchy.  (Recall the issue of conspiracy theories and the teleological fallacy.)

It is one thing for Robin DiAngelo to sell books to self-flagellators in her social justice BDSM boudoir.  Consenting adults, I don't judge.  (When it is imposed without consent, I get more judgy, but that's another matter.  DiAngelo should never be forced on anyone, any more than a gimp suit and ball gag should be forced on anyone.)  This is weirder.  A lot of the defenders of critical race theory don't even realize that they are defending a body of work that calls them complicit in propping up a system of racial oppression.  That's what happens when you defend something without knowing what it is.

Curiouser and curiouser.  Has that dude been cancelled yet?  No?  Interesting.

Anyway, there will be one more piece in this series, addressing a couple of important questions.  Why are we talking about this in the first place?  Short answer:  schools.  Following from that, since nobody is actually assigning Bell or any of this stuff in K-12, how is this actually influencing K-12 education?

So, one more.

Anyway, with yesterday's little rant, I forgot to put up any jazz, so I'll go with some jazz today.  Wes Montgomery, "The Trick Bag," from Boss Guitar.