What is Critical Race Theory?

An Historical Look at the Social Justice Movement in American Society

Photo of Kelly R. Smith   by Kelly R. Smith

Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory
index sitemap advanced

Ads we feature have been independently selected and reviewed. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn a commission, which helps support the site. Thank you for your support.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a term that is much bandied about on social media and in the press today, but the average citizen is likely to be unsure about what it is. After all, the term is non-specific in meaning, the very definition of a specious term. We know it’s got something to do with race (in America), it’s a theory (OK, an academic concept), and it’s critical, so it’s a make-or-break thing. But, put those parts together, and it’s meant to convey… nothing of any substance. So, to go beyond pundit-spout, we must look at the roots of the movement. Which the mainstream media does not (will not) cover.

The History of Marxism

The Marxist Left structured its political program based on the theory of class conflict. Karl Marx thought that the basic characteristic of his day’s industrial societies was an imbalance of power between the few capitalist have-alls (the 1% in today’s terms) and the many workers. His solution to that imbalance was revolution: the workers would at some point gain consciousness of their situation, secure the mechanisms of production, overthrow the capitalists, and thrive in a new socialist society.

Since then, many societies have enacted Marxist-themed revolutions. Each and every one concluded in sheer disaster. Socialist/communist governments in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and elsewhere ended up killing nearly 100 million of their own (expendable or non-cooperative) citizens. Theory generated from the comfort of a London library was one thing, but in practice, Marx’s ideas brought about utter societal destruction.

Fast-Forward to the Mid-1960s

Marxist intellectuals in the West had finally begun to acknowledge these catastrophes. They wanted to close their eyes to Soviet butcheries and ultimately realized that worker’s revolutions could never happen in classic Marxist fashion in Western Europe or in the US, where there were already predominant middle classes and the standards of living were constantly improving. Americans had never really developed a sense of class consciousness or class division in the same sense as those in the Old World. Americans were brought up to believe in the American dream, the concept that they could rise above their beginnings via education, working hard, and practicing good citizenship.

With this realization, Marxists simply adjusted their revolutionary theory to work with the social and racial unrest happening in the 1960s. They discarded Marx’s economic theory of capitalists and workers and substituted the term race for class and initiated a revolutionary conglomerate of the abused based upon racial and ethnic categories, a move where they acted as the cancel culture on themselves! But, Americans preferred the concept of improving the country rather than overthrowing it. The Marxists needed a new strategy.



Critical Race Theory is Born

It was conceived in the 1990s, constructed upon the intellectual skeleton of “identity-based” Marxism. For many years it remained in universities and obscure academic journals. But insidiously, over the past decade, it has solidified into the default ideology in many of our public institutions. It’s been instilled in government agencies, public (and some private) schools, and human resources departments. You’ve probably seen it in the guise of diversity training programs, public policy guidelines, and school curricula. The accepted over-reach is mind-boggling. Writing for Imprimis, Christopher F. Rufo gives some examples:1

  • In the name of equity, UCLA Law Professor and critical race theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing land and wealth and redistributing them along racial lines.
  • Critical race guru Ibram X. Kendi, who directs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, has proposed the creation of a federal Department of Antiracism. This department would be independent of (i.e., unaccountable to) the elected branches of government, and would have the power to nullify, veto, or abolish any law at any level of government and curtail the speech of political leaders and others who are deemed insufficiently “antiracist.” This is the cancel culture at its finest.
  • The Department of Homeland Security was telling white employees they were committing “microinequities” and had been “socialized into oppressor roles.”
  • The Treasury Department held a training session telling staff members that “virtually all white people contribute to racism” and that they must convert “everyone in the federal government” to the ideology of “antiracism.”
  • The Sandia National Laboratories, which designs America’s nuclear arsenal, sent white male executives to a three-day reeducation camp, where they were told that “white male culture” was analogous to the “KKK,” “white supremacists,” and “mass killings.” The executives were then forced to renounce their “white male privilege” and write letters of apology to fictitious women and people of color.
  • In Cupertino, California, an elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”
  • In Springfield, Missouri, a middle school forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” based on the idea that straight, white, English-speaking, Christian males are members of the oppressor class and must atone for their privilege and “covert white supremacy.”
  • In Philadelphia, an elementary school forced fifth-graders to celebrate “Black communism” and simulate a Black Power rally to free 1960s radical Angela Davis from prison, where she had once been held on charges of murder.
  • In Seattle, the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgment of [their] thieved inheritance.”

“The climate crisis is a crisis born of injustice. A crisis born at the pursuit of profit… The trampling of indigenous rights is a cause of climate change. The trampling of racial justice is a cause of climate change.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Terminology

Some of the terms employed by its supporters to describe critical race theory are “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Equity sounds benign. It’s easily confused with the American principle of equality. And really, who among us would object to more home equity? That’s got to be a good thing, right? But the distinction is important. Equality, the principle proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, and codified into law with the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is explicitly rejected by critical race theorists. To them, equality represents “mere non-discrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression.



Critical race theorists and their sycophants like to project the image of themselves as benign social justice warriors, seeking only to improve the condition of society. Nothing is further than the truth. Like Antifa thugs and the more radical arm of BLM, they are Marxists who are determined “by any means necessary” to shift all the power to their control. Unfortunately, the media is only too happy to be complicit and corporate America pays them more homage than they do to consumers. That is capitalism turned on its head. Perhaps it is working after all.

Further Reading


Looking for more great content? Visit our main page or partner sites:

I Can Fix Up My Home

The Green Frugal

Running Across Texas


As Featured On Ezine Articles

I offer article and blog-writing services. Interested? Contact me for a quote!


Did you find this article helpful? Millions of readers rely on information on this blog and our main site to stay informed and find meaningful solutions. Please chip in as little as $3 to keep this site free for all.

 




Visit Kelly’s profile on Pinterest.

About the Author:

Photo of Kelly R. SmithKelly R. Smith is an Air Force veteran and was a commercial carpenter for 20 years before returning to night school at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. After working at NASA for a few years, he went on to develop software for the transportation, financial, and energy-trading industries. He has been writing, in one capacity or another, since he could hold a pencil. As a freelance writer now, he specializes in producing articles and blog content for a variety of clients. His personal blog is at Considered Opinions Blog where he muses on many different topics.


References

  1. Christopher F. Rufo, Imprimis, Critical Race Theory: What It Is and How to Fight It, https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/

It Can’t Happen Here

Authored by Sinclair Lewis; A Book Review

Photo of Kelly R. Smith   by Kelly R. Smith
Rise of the fascist brown-shirts
Rise of the fascist Brown-Shirts
index sitemap advanced

Ads we feature have been independently selected and reviewed. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission, which helps support the site.

Sinclair Lewis wrote the dystopian political novel It Can’t Happen Here in 1935. Fascism was experiencing its heyday in Europe exemplified by the likes of Adolph Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy. The book describes the rise of a US dictator similar to how Adolf Hitler gained power. Today the book is seen as a cautionary tale.



The story describes the rise of one Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after injecting fear into the population and promising comprehensive economic and democratic socialist reforms while promoting a return to classic patriotism and “traditional” American values. Following his election, Windrip assumes complete control of the existing government and imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force similar to Hitler’s Brown Shirts. The basic plot centers on one journalist Doremus Jessup’s covert opposition to the strong-arm regime and subsequently, his struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion.



The story isn’t simply a history of how a complacent population allows itself to be taken over and subjugated with empty promises by (all too familiar) politicians. It also illustrates, through the narrative of one average man, Jessup, how the human spirit, can not only resist, but endure.

How relevant is this story to current-day America? That is a matter of personal opinion for each of us to decide. The world we live in today includes so many more variables that Lewis’ contended with.

  • The Internet facilitates fake news.
  • Just before, and at an increasing rate since Biden took office, social media networking platforms have been censoring conservative viewpoints with impunity.
  • Biden/Harris have put packing the Supreme Court with liberal and Democrat Socialist justices on the table. The Constitution does not specify how many there can be. The current number has been accepted by both parties until now. The “gentleman’s agreement” is out the window.
  • The mainstream media has lost all credibility and has abandoned the principles of impartiality.

It Can’t Happen Here is not only entertaining; it’s well worth a read to examine how it is a mirror reflection of what we are going through at this point in history.

Additional Reading


Looking for more great content? Visit our main page or partner sites:

I Can Fix Up My Home

The Green Frugal

Running Across Texas


As Featured On Ezine Articles

I offer article and blog-writing services. Interested? Hire Me!


Did you find this article helpful? Millions of readers rely on information on this blog and our main site to stay informed and find meaningful solutions. Please chip in as little as $3 to keep this site free for all.

 




Visit Kelly’s profile on Pinterest.

About the Author:

Photo of Kelly R. SmithKelly R. Smith is an Air Force veteran and was a commercial carpenter for 20 years before returning to night school at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. After working at NASA for a few years, he went on to develop software for the transportation, financial, and energy-trading industries. He has been writing, in one capacity or another, since he could hold a pencil. As a freelance writer now, he specializes in producing articles and blog content for a variety of clients. His personal blog is at I Can Fix Up My Home Blog where he muses on many different topics.

Our American Society is Now All-Black, 24-7, a Cultural Shift

by Kelly R. Smith

index sitemap advanced
Martin Luther King and Barack Obama
Martin Luther King and Barack Obama

As the COVID-19 pandemic rolls along so does another social phenomena — the machine that is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and their partners, Antifa. It might seem like this is a recent development, but in fact, it has been fomenting for quite a while.

Long before white people were only acceptable if they were “woke,” and you might notice that’s woke not awoken or woken up (incorrect grammar is NOT cool), things were not as revisionist history portrays it today.

Which Party is Socially Progressive?

That’s a good question and one that has been decided. The Democrats are for the crazy stuff (does the New Green Deal strike a nerve?). It should. The spearhead are the so-called Democrat Socialists, people like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. Just prefixing democrat to socialist doesn’t change anything. Socialism is Socialism.

It’s true that people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden are still wandering the halls but they are not leading anymore. They’re mouthpieces and fund-raisers.

The term progressive is misleading anyway. Returning to Marxist ideology and Saul Alinsky mob tactics is not making progress. Job growth, prosperity, and a renewed military presence under the leadership of President Trump is progress.

Enter Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick, and Antifa

All the rioting, burning, and looting have very little to do with the death of George Floyd, although that was clearly a tragedy. The chaotic domestic terrorism is a means to push a social agenda. Part of that agenda, from blacklivesmatter.com, says, “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

Sound familiar? It should. Disrupting the family unit and transferring allegiance to the central state is what the Soviet, Chinese and North Korean communists did too. How did that work out?

Colin Kaepernick entered the game focused on shining a bad light on the police when he showed up to football practice wearing those cute cops-are-pigs socks. There is some credibility to the theory that this was the impetus to the defund-the-police movement. As a side note, although he riles against the ills of slavery in the past, he stills shills for Nike (paycheck!), who uses child labor in sweatshops to make their shoes. Oh, the hypocrisy is under-whelming.

Antifa is the cadre of domestic terrorists in all this. They are much more organized than many people think, as this article on the history of Antifa shows.

Being All-Black in a Capitalist System

I liken this to curbside grocery pick-up, at least where I live. Once one grocery store chain started doing it, the rest scrambled to get in the game. It’s understandably about market share. And, this was before the COVID-19 pandemic with its social-distancing woes. As one of the order-fillers at Kroger told me, “It’s a blessing for moms with 2 screaming kids. Why would they come in?”

Commercial companies across the board are imitating this model with their pandering to black interests and customers as well as social warriors of all stripes. Just the other day, Discover card announced that they are gifting $5,000,000 to black-owned restaurants, saying, “In an effort to support the restaurant industry as it rebounds from the impact of COVID-19, Discover announced today that it will be giving $5 million to Black-owned restaurants.”

Wait — did I read that right? How is this social justice? What about Mexican restaurants? Chinese? White-owned diners? How about Thai and sushi shops? And Lord help me, pizza shops. I assumed all businesses were on the COVID-19 pandemic chopping block. No sir, only blacks qualify; this is pandering at its lowest.

If you’ve got Discover plastic in your wallet, you’re the patsy here. That $5 million is coming out of your 25% monthly high interest rates, not the CEO’s annual bonus. It doesn’t matter where you stand on non-blacks losing their livelihood while only blacks get the lifeboats. This is life as we know it in the new all-black, 24-7, cultural mode.



References:


Looking for more great content? Visit our partner sites:

The Green Frugal

Running Across Texas


As Featured On Ezine Articles

I offer article and blog-writing services. Interested? Hire Me!


Did you find this article helpful? Thanks for supporting this free site with a small donation!

 




Visit Kelly’s profile on Pinterest.


About the Author:

Photo of Kelly R. SmithKelly R. Smith is an Air Force veteran and was a commercial carpenter for 20 years before returning to night school at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. After working at NASA for a few years, he went on to develop software for the transportation, financial, and energy-trading industries. He has been writing, in one capacity or another, since he could hold a pencil. As a freelance writer now, he specializes in producing articles and blog content for a variety of clients. His personal blog is at I Can Fix Up My Home Blog where he muses on many different topics.

Democrat Activists Have Become the Deplorables


Maxine Waters waving the flag
Maxine Waters waving the flag

This article was updated on 02/18/20.

Do you find this hard to swallow, that the Democrats have become the new deplorables? Well, it’s true. Just the Red Hen restaurant refusing to serve Sarah Sanders is the tip of the leftist bigot iceberg. Not content with just refusing service, the owner “organized a mob and followed her family to their next restaurant where they yelled and screamed at them,” according to CNSNEWS.

How is this not like the Nazi treatment of the Jews? How is this not like the way the Blacks were treated in the Old South? Should we expect another home-grown Kristallnacht against conservatives?


This is how bigot Maxine Waters puts it, “For these members of his [Trump] Cabinet who remain and try to defend him they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store, the people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president ‘no I can’t hang with you, this is wrong this is unconscionable and we can’t keep doing this to children.'”

This is not what America is. Perhaps in California but not in fly-over country. But for some odd reason many Americans are A-OK with the mob mentality that Waters and other liberals advocate. It’s fine to persecute your adversaries as long as they are not in your voter base. This is the same tactic that Obama learned from Saul Alinski.

But keep in mind that this witch lives in a multi-million dollar mansion with guards and she is not offering to host any of these illegals in her home. Because she’s above all the riff-raff. Go figure. She is still against Trump’s border wall (she was for a wall when Obama held sway) likely because she sees illegals as future voters if only we can “give them enough stuff.”

Enter the Radical Anti-Semite Squad

The Democrat party has spent years trying to build an image as the “tolerant and compassionate” party despite its history with the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow. A lot of citizens bought it. But lately their prejudice and hatred is surfacing, spearheaded by the “Squad” — Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (AOC), Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Along with Bernie Sanders, they all lean towards Democratic Socialism.

AOC twists the truth. She claimed that Israel had committed a “massacre” of Palestinian protesters at the border fence last year. In reality, the vast majority were actually members of Hamas which of course is a terrorist organization using the fake “protest” to launch infiltrations and violent attacks against Israel.

As far back as 2012, Omar tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Tlaib made the strange statement that she experienced “a calming feeling … when I think of the Holocaust.” She explained by making the false claim that Palestinians had offered Jews a “safe haven” from the Holocaust.

The more moderate Democrats will not call these representatives out on their hate speech and anti-antisemitism, which is tacit approval. Even Speaker Pelosi is afraid of the power they wield. They have become, as Hillary would say, a basket of deplorables.


Looking for more great content? Visit our partner sites:

The Green Frugal

Running Across Texas

As Featured On Ezine Articles

I offer article and blog-writing services. Interested? Hire Me!


Did you find this article helpful? Thanks for supporting this free site with a small donation!



Visit Kelly’s profile on Pinterest.


Widget is loading comments…


Yvette Felarca – Antifa Schoolmarm

by Kelly R. Smith

Crazy Yvette Felarca alt-left activist
Crazy Yvette Felarca, alt-left activist
index sitemap advanced

This article was updated on 12/26/20.

I just happened to see an interview with this alt-left looney toon some time ago. It is simply impossible to get any more left-coast than this. Yvette Felarca is a public middle-school teacher in California and self-avowed antifascist activist.

She is the leader and spokesperson for the anti-fascist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) and a middle school teacher in Berkeley and has been accused of inciting and participating in a riot in 2016 between white nationalist groups and counter-protesters.

The assault charge was filed after a video captured her hitting Nigel Walker, a member of the Traditionalist Worker Party, and calling a man a Nazi before repeatedly punching him in the stomach while shouting “get the f— off our streets.”

Breitbart.com reports, “In 2016 the educator and two of her radical pals were arrested and charged with several crimes, including felony assault, for inciting a riot in Sacramento. Felarca was captured on video calling a man a Nazi and punching him in the stomach repeatedly while shouting obscenities at him. More than a dozen people were injured in the riot, at least 10 with stab wounds, and the capitol grounds suffered thousands of dollars in property damage. In 2017 Judicial Watch filed a California Public Records Act request seeking records about Felarca’s Antifa activism and its effect on the Berkeley Unified School District that employs her. She sued to stop the school district from furnishing the records and a federal judge determined that it was an entirely frivolous lawsuit and ordered her to pay Judicial Watch’s legal fees.”1

Why on earth is this woman allowed to teach middle-school children? Oh right, California. That’s where when a person incites a riot, commits assault on another citizen, and whose actions lead to damaged property, the courts protect her. That’s the country we live in now. Why bother to de-fund the police? The state has already taken away their man-cards.

Her Activist Mission

It seems that her mission in life is to take on the mantle of police for humanity. Anyone she deems a “fascist,” she said, must be silenced by “any means necessary.” So when someone near her says something that she doesn’t personally agree with, hey, that’s license to just beat the crap out of them on the spot. First amendment be damned.

Democratic Socialist playbook
Democratic Socialist playbook

She particularly focuses her laser beam of violence on Milo Yiannopoulos, surprisingly. She is cool with the fact that he is openly gay but how dare he expose the ugly hypocrisy of her and the non-inclusive alt-left.

Felarca’s Hypocrisy is Overwhelming and Utterly Transparent

She justifies her hypocrisy by defining a target fascist this way, “It is someone who is committing violence and someone who is trying to organize other people to commit violence.” Teacher Felarca said, “And Milo Yiannopoulos is a fascist.”

Oh, but it is OK when she whips her students up into a California style Bezerkley leftist frenzy and and physically assaults peaceful demonstrators that don’t agree with her very narrow view of reality. Oh, that’s what an  antifascist activist is. She’s in good company with violent Antifa thugs. Good to know. Kind of reminds me of those Islamic police that wander around the Iranian streets measuring beards and inspecting burkas.



What a world we live in when a woman like this is allowed to teach the youth of a country that used to honor the First Amendment of the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Only when she approves of it I suppose. Everyone else is a fascist and deserves the business end of a baseball bat. Because she says so. Harrumpf!

So When is the Anti-Fascist the Fascist?

Her definition, from a FOX news interview is, “A fascist is someone who is organizing a mass movement that’s attacking women, immigrants, black people, other minority groups, and a movement of genocide. That’s what a fascist is. It’s someone who’s committing violence or organizing other people to commit violence.”

So, let’s interject a bit of reality here. Her organization BAMN, with Felarca as the spearhead, incites riots and attacks non-violent protesters who are exercising their first amendment rights and then she and her followers destroy property. Now tell me again, who is the brown-shirt fascist here?

It is a sad state of affairs when an individual like Yvette Felarca, an Antifa style operative and a purveyor of violence not only gets a pass from the mainstream media and the very authorities who are sworn to maintain the laws and Constitutional mandates. But that’s now the state of the Union. Dis-Union. Dark days are ahead of us indeed.

Trending Articles

Sources

  1. Tom Fitton, Breitbart.com, Antifa Militant Who Praises Cop Killers Gets Cash Settlement, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/01/antifa-militant-who-praises-cop-killers-gets-cash-settlement/


Did you find this article helpful? Millions of readers rely on information on this blog and our main site to stay informed and find meaningful solutions. Please chip in as little as $3 to keep this site free for all.

 





Visit Kelly’s profile on Pinterest.

About the Author:

Photo of Kelly R. SmithKelly R. Smith is an Air Force veteran and was a commercial carpenter for 20 years before returning to night school at the University of Houston where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. After working at NASA for a few years, he went on to develop software for the transportation, financial, and energy-trading industries. He has been writing, in one capacity or another, since he could hold a pencil. As a freelance writer now, he specializes in producing articles and blog content for a variety of clients. His personal blog is at I Can Fix Up My Home Blog where he muses on many different topics.

close

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

RSS
Follow by Email
Twitter
Follow Me
Tweet
Pinterest
Pinterest
Pinterest
Instagram
LinkedIn
Share