A critical look at Critical Race Theory

by Robert Maynard

I have been doing a lot of reflection lately on the subject of liberation after conversations with bot the proponents and critics of “Critical Race Theory.”  The first matter of business is to address the technical matter that this theory is actually taught in colleges as a college level class, so what is being taught in primary schools is not the real thing.  Perhaps, but that is like insisting that, because mathematics is taught at the college level, it cannot possibly be taught at the primary school level.  Basis principles that lead to a later understanding of Mathematics most certainly is taught at the pre-college level.  I wish to propose that the same is true for Critical Race Theory.  In the early stages, the material being presented at that level explicitly referred to CRT.  So, with that out of the way, I would like to point to the criticism that CRT’s opponents do not wish to confront our own history.  It is a hard issue to address, as CRT’s supporters, either out of bad faith or ignorance’ are doing the same thing.  

Some Americans saw America’s Revolution as an extension of the  conflict in England between the British Monarchy and The Puritans, who were seeking a Republic.   Of course, the Puritans here in America supported the Puritan cause in England.  In the South, there were wealthy supporters of the British Monarchy called Cavaliers.  They were also ardent supporters of slavery.  In the time leading up the War for Independence, they had no intention of joining that war.  It wasn’t until British troops among the settlers here did not differentiate between Puritan revolutionary and Cavalier monarchists, that they decided to join in with the struggle for independence.  The price of their participation was the removal of any explicit terminology banning from the Declaration of Independence.  There still was an “implicit” attack on slavery that would rear its head again when the South decided to separate fro the Union.

First, let’s look at the authority that our Declaration cited for their rebellion.  They believed that “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” entitled them to an equal and separate political station.  Because of this, they were about do break the political bonds that they once shared with England.  Some saw this language as an expression of Deism, and a cooling of the religious views among the colonists.  This language actually was an expression of the British Common Law tradition, going all the way back to the Magna Carta of 1215.  It relied explicitly on Biblical views and had the support of both Catholics and Protestants.  At the time of our revolution, the two figures with the most expertise in this matter were Sir Edward Coke and Sir William Blackstone.  These were the figures whose legal theories were taught in law courses in our institutions of higher learning.  That included the College of William and Mary, where Thomas Jefferson attended law school  Whatever his personal religious views, his legal views were rooted in the English Common Law tradition.

The other matter is that our Declaration asserts that “all men are created equal.”  This harkens back to Augustine’s “City of God” where he distinguishes between pagan views of liberty and those originally intended by God in the Genesis account.  In Plato’s Republic, the Sophist Thrasymachus, who had visited several Greek City States and saw a wide variety of views on morality and declared that, since there is no absolute standard of justice, morality is necessarily the advantage of the stronger.  When we assume no transcendent standard of values, we do not pave the way for tolerance, but for the rule of the jungle.  Later Aristotle, who was advising Alexander the Great, argued that “Some men are born to rule and some men are born to be ruled.”  Against this notion, Augustine argued that “God did not give men the right to rule over other men, but over creation.  Reasonable beings are to rule over irrational nature, not over other rational beings.  This ideal, in our fallen world, must start with the ability to rule over ourselves, or we will remain slaves even if we become kings.  Likewise, a slave with the ability to rule himself is more free than a king who lacks that ability.

So, now we come to the lead up to the Civil War.  Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens gave a March 21^st 1861 speech called “Cornerstone”, in which he referred to the issue of slavery as the cornerstone upon which the Union would stand or fall.  In it, he quotes Jefferson in saying that slavery was “rock upon which the old Union would split.”  Stephens argued that the founders all thought slavery was a sin and a crime against human nature, but did not know what to do about it.  He also thought that it was destined to crumble on its own.  In this, he insists that the founders were wrong and that it would continue.  The Confederacy intended to split with the Union to ensure that slavery endures.  What is unclear here is why did they think they had to split if they had time on their side.  Could it be that they under estimated the strength of the  abolitionist movement?  I think that the answer to that question is affirmative.

America’s involvement with the abolitionist movement was a bit complicated.  Once they no longer had the protection of the fee that England payed to the Arab slave traders to allow free access to their shipping, Americans own merchant ships came under attack and their passangers taken as slave.  Whe the sent envoys to meet with the Arab slave traders, they assumed that the Arabs simply had a beef with the European countries and informed them of the policy of peaceful commerce and non alighment.  The Arabs informed the Americans that they were holy warriors engaging in holy war against the infidals.  Jefferson got himself a copy of the Koran to check out whether their scripture actually said this.  When he found out that it did, he had a dilemna.  The Americans did not think they needed a military force during peace time.  Now, they saw just how naïve that was, so that was when we came up with the Marines.

The story of Edward Wilmot Blydem, born in the Danish West Indies went to America to study Theology: due to racial blocks in his path, he ended up Liberia.  One of the bigget problems with slaves being taken from Africa was their vulnerability.  He came to view Islam as a force that would make Africans less vulnerable and stopped trying to convert them to Christianity.  Instead, he wanted to develop a coalition of Jews, Christians and Muslims to use Africa as hub to link the ancient Middle Eastern Civilization and the Western Civilization it spawned.  The pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Egypt caught their imagination as they imagined the splendor of a past civilization that had once occupied the land. Then you had the Fertile Crescent, which was generally believed to be the location of where human civilization came from. Finally, there was the Middle East, which gave birth to the Judeo-Christian tradition that Western Civilization.

An American General and a French artist came up with an idea to solidify their dream.  They would erect a monument in the image of an Egyptian peasant woman, that would be twice as high as the Sphinx.  When this idea failed to attract support, they moved the location to the harbor in New York City.  France would supply the statue and America would create the pedestal.  When the job was finished, the statue did not bear the image of an African peasant woman, but of an idealized Western woman.  Although no one realized it at the time, this outward display was not the end the link of Africans and the movement for liberation.

One of the most consequential figures in this quest was the former escaped slave Frederick Douglass.  Fittingly, he too had traveled to Africa several times as a speaker in support of the ideal of liberation.  To get an idea of just how much of a role he played in the abolitionist movement, consider the fact that he was likely the most sought after speaker in their celebration of July 4^th.  Those who invited him to speak were well aware of the disconnect there was of inviting a person to give the main speech, at a celebration which did not yet include his people.  They knew that they were in for a tongue lashing over the contradiction, but invited him anyway, because he was that central to the abolitionist cause.  He starts out by affirming the ideals behind America’s founding:

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….

…Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?   

He then goes on to absolutely demolish America for failing to finish the job and extend these great principles to those who are enslaved.  Those who hold themselves to a standard as high as reaching toward “A City on a Hill” can never be satisfied with anything less than perfect justice.  After that tongue lashing, he looks forward with the visionary clarity of a prophet:

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from “the Declaration of Independence,” the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city.

Today, we have seen commerce and communication reach levels that he could only dream of.  Be that as it may, I would like to suggest that, while the slave in America could not see themselves being represented by the 4^th of July, they most certainly can and should be represented by the Statue of Liberty.  I would like to point to two books, which shine a bright light on the role American slaves played in carrying on the unfinished business that Douglass refers to.  One book is by former UN Ambassador Alan Keyes, which dears the title “Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of Black America”.  The other is call “The American Religion” by Harold Bloom.  Keyes bemoans the materialistic understanding of what we call “The American Dream” and insists that it is really a spiritual asperation of freedom.  By that measure, America’s slaves were masters of that dream, despite their desperate condition.  Bloom wrote about “American originals” in its approach to religion.  This referred to a uniquely American approach focused on a solitary encounter with the Holy and personal connection with the Divine that resulted in that encounter.   

To start with, Southern slave owners tried to destroy any trace of traditional African religion from the slaves.  Then, starting around 1760, they tried to co-op the possible influence of Christian preaching among the slaves by havving them come to approved services where submission to their masters was preached.  This had the unintended result of the slaves realizing that their masters  did not practice the Christianity they preached when the slaves came to realize that  their masters were selectively choosing which Bible passages to focus on.  This led to a certain realization of personal dignity, the rebirth of family life and collective religious life.  The slaves may not have had any economis, or political power, but they were coming to see that they had more moral and spiritual power than their masters.

Starting in 1800, a distinctive African American Religion started to develop.  Although there had been an attempt to eliminate traditional African religion, elements of it survived and merged with their Christian understanding creating an American original hybrid.  West Africa had a religious approach referred to as a “Sacred Cosmos”.  Within in each person, there is a “little person.”  That little person was an eternal divine spark, that was present within each person.  This merger led to a synthasis in which the inner dynamics of the religious experience was as personal and intense as any in the other American originals.  What makes this more important to American religious history is that pentecostal movements like Cane Ridge and the Azusa Street Revival, got a lot of their early energy and drive from this African American original.  The Pentecostal movement, in turn, spread worldwide.

Now is a good time to shine a critical light on whether Critical Race Theory should be given a monopoly consideration in addressing the question of racial liberation.  Several decades ago, a Catholic Philosopher, who had been a supporter of “Liberation Theology”, became a critic and posed the question, in the form of a book: “Will it Liberate?”  If we are to take this noble ideal of liberation seriously, we must ask the same question  in regards to “Critical Race Theory.”  Critical Race Theory is simply Critical Theory applied to race.  Opponents of this view have labeled it “Cultural Marxism”.  Proponents have resisted the label.  Technically, Critical Theory most certainly is “Cultural Marxism”  The question, which we need to explore, is whether this makes it less useful in fighting for the cause that we seek to engage in.  The whole reason why Cultural Marxism rose, is the failure of traditional Marxism.  The problems with traditional Marxism was two-fold.  First was the failure of the working class to realize “revolutionary consciousness.”  The next problem was the idea of using violence as a means of realizing the revolution.  The first problem was that workers never did come to see themselves as simply part of an economic class, who dedicated their lives to the Socialist State.  This had to be realized before the step toward pure communism could be made.  Any individual interest, or sense of personal identity, had to be abolished in favor of a group identity as an oppressed economic class.

The person who came to be an early proponent of “Cultural Marxism” was the Italian Communist Antonino Gramsci.  He suggested two departures from traditional Marxism.  First of all, the main reason why workers did not see themselves simply as an economic class, was the cultural hegemony of the Judeo-Christian tradition and its view of a transcendent reality.  A person’s identity, in this view, transcended categories like class.  Cultural Marxism would wage war against Judeo-Christian values and the whole idea that values came through such transcendence.  As an opposing view, it would suggest that the philosophy of materialism and the practice of science be equated and religion be looked at as a superstition.  Interestingly, Behavior Psychologist B.F. Skinner has argued that, if we are to apply the discipline of the physical sciences to human behavior, we have to assume that Man is not free.

In addition, a report from the Commission of Children at Risk called “Hardwired to Connect” argues that human beings are biologically “hardwired” to connect to a transcendent source of spiritual  meaning and purpose and to a community, which helps them live out that purpose.  Another tactic employed by the Cultural Marxists is to come up with a growing list of victims that they can use as part of an expanded dialectic.  What has not changed is the insistence that these “victims”  achieve “revolutionary consciousness” and see themselves only in terms of their designated victim status.  Any suggestion that these victims in need of liberation can themselves becomes “victors” who participate in the liberation of others, is derisively referred to “blaming the victim.”  Anything to keep them as victims, who their would be saviors can liberate.  There is also the blatantly materialistic argument that “blacks cannot be racists, because they have no power”.  Again, this removes the possibility that blacks may attain more moral and spiritual power.  It also keeps the power in the hands of their would be saviors.

In the effort to wipe out the Judeo-Christian tradition and its notion of transcendence, Marxists have come forward with the notion of Post-Modernism, which basically argue that there is no truth, only claims.  This gives us the whole mess of “Wokeism”, which is good at calling people out on violations of a standard, that is not really clear.

Finally, we have the partnership here in America, between Taylorists and Progressives.   The Taylorists were captains of industry, who hand MBAs from places like Harvard Business School.  They proposed that the tools of scientific management, that they mastered in factories, be applied to the entire economy.  The Progressives were to apply the same “rule by experts” approach to the government.  Both were driven by the goal of insuring that the public at large be cured of its insistence on individual concerns.