President Trump is pushing back against critical Race Theory, the toxic spawn of critical theory, a sort of philosophical universal acid designed by the Marxist radicals of the Frankfurt School to destroy Western culture.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) denies that racism is a problem of individual bad thoughts or bad behavior. According to CRT, people are racists by virtue of being born white. Christopher Rufo has been prominent in sounding the alarm on CRT; he describes this group approach to racism:
It is imperative that conservatives properly understand the core premise of CRT: The neo-Marxist left now treats members of alleged oppressor groups (whites, males, Christians, Jews, conservatives, etc.) as inherently guilty by virtue of their group membership; conversely, members of alleged victim groups are considered as necessarily morally innocent by virtue of their victim status.
The ideology and racial narrative that underly these [CRT Training] programs pose a grave threat to the ideal of colorblind justice under the law enshrined in our constitutional system. If CRT’s charges against America were true, then the vicious violence of antifa and Black Lives Matter protests would be justified.
In fact, the charges are slanderous.
In CRT, a white person is racist by virtue of being born white; he cannot avoid being a racist oppressor, because racism is not a question of thought, intention, or overt action. It is simply being born with the “wrong” skin color. Likewise, under CRT, a black person can never be a racist no matter how much he might loathe and despise whites, or Asians, or Latinos or whatever. Because the black race is an oppressed race, a black person is automatically virtuous and absolved of any personal guilt for any “wrong” behavior. (Moreover, laws, ethics, the idea of right and wrong, good behavior and bad behavior, are all tools of white supremacy, used by the white supremacists (all of us white folks) to keep black people in “mass incarceration.”)
By the way, white people whose careers depend on functioning in environments where CRT reigns supreme—mainly academics, because Marxism in general and CRT in particular runs American academia with an iron fist—are beginning to act in accordance with CRT’s conceit that whites are always bad and blacks always good. We’ve all heard the pathetic tale of Rachel Dolezal, the white English professor who passed herself off as black and was even president of a local chapter of the NAACP.
A few days ago, another such case came to light, that of Jessica Krug, a Jewish girl from Kansas City and an associate professor of African and Latin American studies at George Washington University. She was pretending to be black for purposes of career advancement in academia (much like Senator Elizabeth Warren—whom Mark Steyn described as the whitest white since Frosty the snowman fell into a vat of white-out—pretended to be a native American in order to land a lucrative gig at Harvard Law School).
Who knows how many more white academics—dozens, hundreds?—are even now passing themselves off as black in order to collect the swag of reverse discrimination, and to avoid the contempt, the obloquy, the ineffaceable blood guilt of having been born white?
If this Marxist folly were confined to academia, most people would pay it little mind. But, alas, it is now spilling out into the streets, the government, the corporations, professional sports, the churches, and pretty much everywhere else. To paraphrase Trotsky, you may not be interested in Critical Race Theory, but Critical Race Theory is interested in you. You will not be allowed to mind your own business and get on with your life; you will not be left alone. Silence is violence.
The largest Protestant denomination in North America, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), officially adopted “critical race theory” and “intersectionality” as “analytical tools.” But after having scanned the NAD’s “Resources for Conversations About Racial Justice and Equality,” it is clear that North American Adventism is much more “woke” and all in for Critical Race Theory than the Baptists are.
The NAD is touting Robin DiAngelo’s book, “White Fragility,” which is based upon CRT; the NAD is also promoting many other books and “resources” that promote CRT or accept its false premises. Although the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture took down the now infamous “Aspects of Whiteness” chart—the one saying that the nuclear family with the father as primary breadwinner, Christianity, rational thinking, and delayed gratification were aspects of “whiteness”—they prominently feature Robin DiAngelo’s born-white-born-racist ideology. DiAngelo was one of the Leftist activists the Smithsonian consulted with in constructing the chart. (By the way, most of the chart’s intellectual content was created by a woman named Judith H. Katz in 1990; that’s how long this way of thinking has been circulating in Leftist ideological precincts.)
To sum up, the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists is promoting the work of an author who was among those who produced a chart saying that Christianity is an aspect of whiteness. Let that sink in.
While our sadly credulous NAD “leaders” have not grasped the fact that Critical Race Theory is a scam and a hustle, the president of the United States has. The crude, bragging real estate billionaire from Queens, New York, sees right through Critical Race Theory and is having none of it. He has directed that “trainings” that rely on CRT concepts like “virtually all White people contribute to racism" or where participants are forced to say that they "benefit from racism” be canceled.
These trainings—really Maoist struggle sessions—treat “whiteness” as a moral blight and malign all whites as complicit in oppression. Corporations, churches, nonprofit organizations, and governmental agencies across the country have subjected their hapless employees to this abuse.
The White House canceled a ‘training” planned for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that framed “racism as a public-health crisis” and blamed “systemic racism” for COVID-19’s disparate impacts.
Russell Vought’s memorandum on behalf of the president notes:
According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job. These types of "trainings" not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. . . . We can be proud of our continued efforts to welcome all individuals who seek to serve their fellow Americans as Federal employees. However, we cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.
President Trump is under no illusions as to where this garbage is coming from:
“The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”
Trump is also pushing back against the 1619 Project, the New York Times-sponsored propaganda effort that holds that American was founded on racism and dedicated to the proposition of white supremacy. This Marxist slander against America’s founding is closely related to Critical Race Theory; the most noted example is Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” which was published about the same time as Critical Race Theory was being hatched.
(Please do not imagine that Critical Race Theory has any connection ideologically or temporally to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement of the 1960s; CRT wasn’t even thought of until years after the civil rights movement was won and in the books, and CRT vehemently repudiates all the core aspirations of the civil rights movement, such as equality before the law, color-blindness, judging by content of character rather than color of skin, etc. )
On September 17, Constitution Day, Trump went to the National Archives in Washington and delivered a major speech announcing the beginning of the “1776 Commission” to counter the 1619 Project. His speech began with an appeal to American exceptionalism:
Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.
To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.
That’s why we have come to the National Archives, the sacred home of our national memory. In this great chamber, we preserve our glorious inheritance: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
On this very day in 1787, our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience. No political document has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress.
He contrasted those who believe in America’s founding with those on the Left who have always viewed the constitution and America’s founding as an obstacle to their utopian goals, which require totalitarian government and hence the discrediting of America’s founding, the foremost feature of which was government of limited, delegated powers, with checks and balances on that limited government:
Yet, as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy. Far-left demonstrators have chanted the words “America was never great.” The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement — the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations.
Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom, the goal is the same: to silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth, and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.
We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny. We will reclaim our history and our country for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.
The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. As I said at Mount Rushmore — which they would love to rip down and it rip it down fast, and that’s never going to happen — two months ago, the left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.
How did we get to the summer of 2020? We got to this sorry pass because Marxists took over America’s educational system and started teaching nonsense like Critical Race Theory and the Howard Zinn twisted version of American history:
As many of you testified today, the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long. Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.
The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project. This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.
Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal, and prosperous nation in human history.
The narratives about America being pushed by the far-left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries — because both groups want to see America weakened, derided, and totally diminished.
Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.
A perfect example of critical race theory was recently published by the Smithsonian Institution. This document alleged that concepts such as hard work, rational thinking, the nuclear family, and belief in God were not values that unite all Americans, but were instead aspects of “whiteness.” This is offensive and outrageous to Americans of every ethnicity, and it is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged.
Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words. For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness. But they’re wrong.
* * *
Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.
That is why I recently banned trainings in this prejudiced ideology from the federal government and banned it in the strongest manner possible.
The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans. That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.
I wish I could be optimistic about reforming the education system in America, but I’m afraid the dwindling sane population of America has neglected it for too many decades. The Marxists have taken over not only post-secondary education, but all of education, down to and including Kindergarten. The ubiquity of the vicious lie of Critical Race Theory is proof of that.
UPDATE (9/22/20):
President Trump has now issued the full executive order.
The order is much broader than it appeared it was going to be based upon the Vought memorandum. Not only does the order ban CRT training sessions in the federal government, it also:
Bans CRT training in companies that contract with the federal government, which is potentially half of the Fortune 500 companies.
Stops all federal grants that support CRT training.
Requires that all federal diversity programs be approved by The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and The Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Requires agencies to initiate adverse action proceedings against managers who continue to hold CRT trainings.
Instructs the Attorney General to assess whether critical race theory trainings create a “hostile work environment” and constitute a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Christopher Rufo writes:
The President’s executive order is nothing short of astonishing: he has used all of the mechanisms of power to destroy the anti-American ideology of critical race theory—and immediately takes the fight to the bureaucracy, woke corporations, and universities. He is playing to win.
Yes. He does that.
UPDATE 9/27/20
Here is some of the text of the order:
From the Battlefield at Gettysburg to the bus boycott at Selma and the Selma-to- Montgomery marches, heroic Americans have valiantly risked their lives to ensure that their children would grow up in a nation living out its creed, expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” It was this belief in the inherent equality of every individual that inspired the founding generation to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to establish a new nation, unique among the countries of the world. President Abraham Lincoln understood that this belief is “the electric cord” that “links the hearts of liberty-loving people, no matter their race or country of origin. It is the belief that inspired the heroic black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment to defend that same union at great cost during the Civil War. It is what inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to dream that his children would one day “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Thanks to the courage and sacrifice of our forebears, America has made great progress toward the realization of our national creed, particularly in the 57 years since Dr. King shared his dream with the country.
Today, however, many people are pushing a different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual. This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.
This destructive ideology is grounded in misrepresentations of our country’s history and its role in the world. Although presented as new and revolutionary, they resurrect the discredited notions of the nineteenth century’s apologists for slavery who, like President Lincoln’s rival Stephen A. Douglas, maintained that our government “was made on the white basis” “by white men, for the benefit of white men.” Our Founding documents rejected these racialized views of America, which were soundly defeated on the blood-stained battlefields of the Civil War. Yet they are now being repackaged and sold as cutting-edge insights. They are designed to divide us and to prevent us from uniting as one people in pursuit of one common destiny for our great country.
Unfortunately, this malign ideology is now migrating from the fringes of American society and threatens to infect core institutions of our country. Instructors and materials teaching that men and members of certain races, as well as our most venerable institutions, are inherently sexist and racist are appearing in workplace diversity trainings across the country, even in components of the Federal Government and among Federal contractors. For example, the Department of the Treasury recently held a seminar that promoted arguments that “virtually all White people, regardless of how ‘woke’ they are, contribute to racism,” and that instructed small group leaders to encourage employees to avoid “narratives” that Americans should “be more color-blind” or “let people’s skills and personalities be what differentiates them.”
Training materials from Argonne National Laboratories, a Federal entity, stated that racism “is interwoven into every fabric of America” and described statements like “color blindness” and the “meritocracy” as “actions of bias.”
Materials from Sandia National Laboratories, also a Federal entity, for non-minority males stated that an emphasis on “rationality over emotionality” was a characteristic of “white male[s],” and asked those present to “acknowledge” their “privilege” to each other.
A Smithsonian Institution museum graphic recently claimed that concepts like “[o]bjective, rational linear thinking,” “[h]ard work” being “the key to success,” the “nuclear family,” and belief in a single god are not values that unite Americans of all races but are instead “aspects and assumptions of whiteness.” The museum also stated that “[f]acing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear.”
All of this is contrary to the fundamental premises underpinning our Republic: that all individuals are created equal and should be allowed an equal opportunity under the law to pursue happiness and prosper based on individual merit.
The Executive Order goes on to prohibit Federal contractors from promoting “divisive concepts,” which are defined in the order as follows:
“Divisive concepts” means the concepts that (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; (3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race. The term “divisive concepts” also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating.
I especially like number seven, because it prohibits the imputation of blood guilt, in which the children are guilty of the crimes that their parents or ancestors committed, which the Bible also teaches against. See, e.g., Jeremiah 31:29-30:
In those days people will no longer say,
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.
The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord,
as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.
Proverbs 21:1