The Mis-Education of White People
If you are reading this, chances are my less than salubrious methods have enticed you to the point of curiosity. But the title of this essay seeks to address the epicenter of effectiveness by those decrying the potential impact of critical race theory.
Inspired by Carter G. Woodson’s 1933 classic, The Mis-Education of the Negro, an examination on the impact of slavery on the black psyche. It is the white psyche that’s now on display, motivated by racial fears, exhibiting the damaging ramifications of mis-education.
I consider the critical race theory discussion to be a disingenuous ruse. In the words of Big Daddy from Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the ongoing critical race theory discussion possesses “a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity.”
What do I mean by the mis-education of white people? Am I suggesting that white people en masse are in dire need of pedagogical retooling or that I possess the keys of enlightenment for the Caucasian race? Both would be ludicrous propositions.
By white, I am referring to a social construct that has enveloped the American narrative. It seems there is an unofficial demarcation, once one is within the United States’ sphere of influence, they cease to identify from their country of origin (Britain, France, Germany, Australia, etc.) to accept America’s nondescript classification of white. This distinction is fortified by designating those of non-European origins by alternative colors.
A controversy that embodies the intellectual heft of raw tofu, critical race theory is intentionally misappropriated by its opponents, leaving out critical thinking and omitting it is a theory taught largely in law schools and graduate level seminars to become a sophomoric catchall phrase designed to titillate mostly suburban whites focused exclusively on the word “race.”
The critical race theory debate is a cyclical trope, a descendent of the infamous “welfare queen” popularized by then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1976. According to Reagan, the unidentified individual had 80 names, 30 addresses, and 12 Social Security cards and was collecting veterans’ benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. She collected Social Security on her cards, received Medicaid, food stamps, and she was collecting welfare under each of her names. Reagan claimed her tax-free cash income exceeded $150,000.
No one, remotely fitting Reagan’s characterization, ever materialized. Moreover, Reagan never mentioned the race of his disreputable protagonist. But such specificity was not necessary; it was commonly assumed the individual in question was a person of color, most likely African American. America’s dalliances with race do not require accurate data when innuendo will suffice.
Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson claimed the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot was “by and large” a peaceful protest and that he would have been more concerned for his safety had it been Black Lives Matter protesters.
Speaking on the Joe Pags Show, Johnson stated:
“Now, had the tables been turned, and Joe — this is going to get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protestors, I might have been a little concerned.”
Race remains an emotionally charged issue tailor made for exploitation — the perfect repository in a disinformation age.
Racism is American catnip. Like our feline companions, racism has a strong impact on our psyche, allowing us to zone out on empty discussions. Classifying conversations on race as “empty” could not only seem cynical, but also callous or sanctimonious. I suspect it is a reflection of all three. But most conversations on race are invariably rooted in the familiar reflexive binary motif of certainty designed more to reinforce than to edify that ultimately go nowhere.
By definition, a debate assumes two sides are presenting opposing arguments. That’s not what’s occurring with critical race theory. Proponents are debating the efficacy of critical race theory as a graduate-level theory that seeks to understand that in the post civil rights movement world, there remain durable examples of social and racial inequalities, while their antagonists counter with bombastic, inaccurate non-sequiturs to simply promulgate fears. It is futile, therefore, to defend the value of critical race theory any further because that’s not the issue. Opponents are not concerned with a judicious debate of differences; they seek only to regurgitate a racial dog whistle. The “debate” has already been lacquered with a heavy coat of misinformation prior to being presented to its intended audience. The artisans of the critical race theory opposition have merely latched on to a term that has been in existence for more than four decades to galvanize political support for the 2022 midterm elections.
Former President Donald Trump’s political strategist, Steve Bannon, called the critical race theory debate, “Tea Party to the 10th power!” The Tea Party movement was critical to the Republican Party recapturing Congress in 2010 and expanding its majority in 2014. Bannon added, “This isn’t Q, this is mainstream suburban moms a lot of these people aren’t Trump voters.”
The irrational fears of race are older than the republic, powerful enough to blind one to other mitigating factors. Moreover, these racial fears are buttressed by threats of Marxism, directed toward individuals that couldn’t pick Karl Marx out of a lineup if he were standing next to Groucho, Zeppo, Gummo, Chico, and Harpo. The success of this campaign hinges almost exclusively on the mis-education of white people. These are the cards of desperation that must be played by a political party that has relinquished any pretense to compete in a marketplace of ideas.
White is the color most often viewed as synonymous with America, the lens that portrays the dominant American narrative. This lens is inadequate. Its inadequacy is linked to a single sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words are the essential element of the American creed, sufficiently abstract in the pursuit of moral perfection, but periodically flawed in the historical application.
The most famous sentence in American history radically enjoined liberty and equality as its civic virtue. It was a civic virtue, however, marred by the social construct of whiteness. “All” as in “all men are created equal,” was originally limited to a select group of white males that comprised the gentry class. All others, to varying degrees, were disenfranchised. Tension has been made manifest when a group not originally considered in the inclusive characterization of “all” possessed the unmitigated gall to ask: “Why not?”
Recently, the PBS Newshour aired a segment on critical race theory. Several questions were posed to a student who will be a senior in the upcoming school year:
Moderator: “In school, did you learn about the Tulsa Massacre?”
Student: “No!”
Moderator: “Did you learn about Juneteenth?”
Student: “No!”
Moderator: “Do you feel like those things should be taught as part of your formal education?”
Student: “Yes!”
Were the aforementioned questions rooted in critical race theory or a reflection of the incomplete nature that American history is taught in the United States?
By using “critical race theory” as an all-encompassing amorphous term to mean whatever its opponents want it to mean as long as it stokes irrational fears, the “mis-education” of white people is really the mis-education of America. It is the struggle to remain beholden to an incomplete and flawed narrative about itself. There are three aspects, in my view, that comprise a comprehensive historical analysis: What, why, and perspective.
The “what” though it represents the least controversial aspect of historical analysis, it is also the least informative. Knowing on July 4, 1776 the 13 colonies of the United States declared themselves free and independent states provides enough information to justify a three-day weekend that includes an array of traditional activities. But it requires further investigation to appreciate the significance — the “why”.
It was unprecedented to declare in the 18th century that sovereignty resided with people and not monarchies. Even more so to declare that equality was part of natural law, especially at a time when the world was a bastion of subjugation. But the lofty heights of the rhetorical declaration were superior to its practices. This complication influenced one’s perspective.
Perspective is the most controversial, but no less important, aspect of historical analysis. Just as a priest and a personal injury attorney standing on opposite street corners witnessing the same car crash could have different accounts of the same incident, the same holds true for historical analysis. How did “all men are created equal” sound to those enslaved or women? Would Westward expansion of the 18th and 19th centuries, through the eyes of many Native Americans, correspond with the commonly accepted account provided by the dominant culture? How would German-Americans, who were the precursor to Japanese internment camps, during the Great War, view President Woodrow Wilson’s call that “the world must be made safe for democracy?”
The disingenuous artisans of the opposition to critical race theory seek to put forth the argument that the American narrative has only one perspective. It is a reductionist supposition that offers a contrarian perspective is not only a threat to the existing American narrative, but also to the preservation of white people.
Though the latter consideration is hyperbolic nonsense, the former makes America better. The effectiveness of the erroneous critical race theory debate is inextricably linked to the naivety of American history.
It is not an either/or proposition. America’s high and low moments must be held together in a delicate balancing act. A judicious understanding of America’s founding creed simultaneously holds the nation accountable for unwavering hypocrisy and the artisan of the most radical governing enterprise in human history. The American narrative is complicated and robust. Some of its greatest moments are paradoxically intertwined with moral failings. The single historical narrative proponents do not want a history that’s complicated. I marvel at those that bemoan the unsubstantiated belief that critical race theory is an attempt to alter history as if the Lost Cause of the Confederacy myth has not infiltrated certain sectors of American society, undiminished by judicious scrutiny for more than a century.
It is possible to examine the same historical event, placing different emphasis on its significance to reach different conclusions.
When one factors America’s seminal moments, it is impossible to hold a prudent conversation that does not include race. Can America’s commitment to its civic virtue of liberty and equality be discussed without factoring race? Can the Civil War be talked about void of its racial impact?
Shouldn’t students taking an introduction to macroeconomics, after learning about the law of supply and demand, also study how critical a cheap and exploitable labor force has been to the American economy? Should The Trail of Tears, Red Summer, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and others remain shackled to their adjunct historical basement, as if these events occurred in a distant land, rather than on American soil? Should the American experiment, already pregnant with valor, hypocrisy, courage, insularity, and greatness, pretend the outcomes, primarily those that place the story in a positive context, are the result of a homogenized uniformity?
Seldom has America been at its best when a large swath of the republic, motivated by their fears, grants all rights and privileges of their critical thinking to troubadours of deception. The unintended consequence of the so-called critical race theory debate is actually a conversation about narrative. But the current debate, as it appears, is an insincere scam to play on the irrational fears of race.
Mis-education assumes American history cannot withstand the addition of less-than-flattering aspects to its canon. America cannot sustain itself with an incomplete, thereby, flawed narrative. To do so is to follow the path blazed by previous great powers — their demise came from within. Casting aside the historical perspective of some Americans because it does not align with the dominant culture is regressive and immature. But this is irrelevant. When the dust settles, lurking behind the kerfuffle of alleged concerns about critical race theory one finds the short-term agenda of the next election.
Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the so-called critical race theory opposition, steeped in mis-education, is ultimately a poor player that merely frets its hour upon the stage of public discourse only to be heard from no more because it must make room for the next racially charged titillation.