I see libs talking about how “haha these chuds don’t even know what Critical Race Theory is!”. But I think I get it now. White folks are so against “CRT” because it allows them to take all of their racist views and launder them through an acronym that makes it sound (to them at least) that no, they aren’t racist. It’s just this specific thing they apparently don’t like, even though they claim “CRT” for anything that not only challenges white supremacy or institutional racism, but anything that implies white Americans aren’t pure and good and the US is really “their” country.
What I mean is, it’s very important to white people that they do not appear openly racist, even to other white people and for some, even to themselves. They’ve internalized the idea that racism is bad. But the problem is a whole lot of them are racist and people can’t usually accept that they’re the bad guys.
I have seen chuds label damn near anything as CRT. When you’re white, history in most US classrooms skips over as much suffering of black and indigenous people as possible. Particularly reactionary parts of the country will nearly avoid any of that discussion entirely. But even in lib parts, you’ll hear about the Trail of Tears, some discussion about slavery in the context of being the reason for the civil war, and then maybe some flowery stuff about MLK Jr (but that’s if the class goes beyond WWII, which a lot will just stop there).
So now, some people are like “hey maybe 98% of history our kids learn shouldn’t just be about how awesome and good white people are”. White people lose their minds over this suggestion. But saying outright “no I don’t want my kids to learn the details about how we stole land from the the indigenous people here or how we fire bombed black people in Tulsa not that long ago”. But they can’t SAY it like that because that’s more obviously racist. So they use this “CRT” as a way to deflect from the idea that what they want is white supremacy but they have to pretend like they don’t.
You’re 100% right. Just want to add that the real history of the USA is covered up on purpose and not taught to instill in children a nicer mental image of the USA.
Learning in lurid detail (over and over) of the horrible things this country has done that were either completely glossed over or not taught me while I was in public school has been one of the most radicalizing elements of my life. I often think coming at people full force as a far leftist is far less effective at radicalizing them than simply getting them to read about the atrocities that our state has committed (or learning the false justifications we’ve used, etc) and then later proposing leftist thought/theory as the natural solution if they ever reach the point where they wonder what must be done.
I sometimes think the USA was way fucking worse than even historical accounts make it out to be. I always marveled about how you can take two black guys from different cities and the majority of the time they’re immediately friendly with each other and kind just “get” each other in a way I haven’t even seen among Hispanic people or any other minority group. I feel like that solidarity has to come out of some truly hellish shit
as Zizek says, disavowal is a core part of embracing a reactionary behaviour
Funny how hogs are allowed to disavow or even embrace being evil but still “look cool” anyway, but they love screeching “despite making up just 13%…” as a way to imply that a millions of Americans should be murdered “just in case” they MIGHT commit a crime.
I think the 13% thing is more insidious even than that. For white folks making that claim, what they are implying is that since it’s not the police’s fault (because whiteys love deepthroating cop boot), and it’s not society’s fault (because we defeated racism already), there must be something intrinsic in being African American. There’s a reason that claim started in the Stormfront world. It’s hella racist.
It’s not just right wingers. I think maybe if you’re white but if you’re on the bad side of the :us-foreign-policy: chart and you are like “yo this country (and honestly both American continents) are extremely racist” you can see even some progressive libs suddenly become really gross