Skip to main content

The Fight Against the White Supremacist Whitewash and Fascist Suppression of Historical Truth

Part 3: What IS “Critical Race Theory"? What does it get right, and where does it fall short?

The fight against the fascist suppression of historical truth, in education and beyond, will be a critical and ongoing struggle over the coming period. This battle raises political, legal, and epistemological questions of extreme importance. We will be covering it here at revcom.us and strongly encourage our readers to write in and share your experiences encountering this, research you’ve done on this, or any ideas you have on how to wage this fight. Email: revolution.reports@yahoo.com

As I wrote in Part 1 and Part 2: In recent months, Republican fascists have launched a nationwide assault on the right of students to learn the true history of this country, whipping their base” into a frenzy to stop schools from teaching critical race theory” (CRT)—a catch-all buzzword for any discussion of the actual history and reality of systemic racism against Black people and other people of color. In line with their flagrant disregard for the truth about elections, history, vaccines, and just about everything, most of the Republican fascists attacking CRT don’t even know or care what it is. Others consciously distort it and lie about it.

The truth is, the theoretical framework pioneered in the 1970s and ’80s by law professor Derrick Bell which eventually developed into critical race theory, was an insightful critique of how civil rights law was insufficient to address racial inequality and oppression. Here I am going to briefly sketch out the real problems CRT is addressing, the important truths it confronts about racial oppression in America, and at the same time why it is not scientific about the fundamental problem or the actual solution, and ultimately wont be able to stand up to this fascist assault.

The Essential Problem That Derrick Bell Addressed

Bell analyzed how civil rights laws targeting overt Jim Crow racial discrimination failed to address the many ways racism and white supremacy manifest in this society, and how the law has continued to reinforce racial hierarchy even when it appears to be equal and “race neutral.”1 This is a profound truth, and something which is explored at great length in Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow. From the conscious policies of the ruling class like the “war on drugs” (which was a way to target and control Black people, while appearing not to), to the structure of the laws themselves (like the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity), to the unequal impact of the laws in a society divided into haves and have nots, to the selective enforcement of the laws by racist police, to the unequal access to a fair trial and juries who are conditioned by the media and culture to view Black people as criminals… the end result is a whole section of people locked up, and millions of lives destroyed.

Bell’s critique of the limitations of civil rights was a direct ideological challenge to “liberalism,” to the idea that the ending of overt legal discrimination was leading to a post-racial society, and the notion of a moral arc bending toward progress, and that racism was now just a matter of individual prejudiced people and isolated incidents. In fact, Bell pointed out, in many ways this framework of “colorblindness” has actually made things worse. It masks the ways in which law and institutions continue to perpetuate white supremacy in new forms, and ends up blaming Black people for their own oppression.

Racial Oppression CAN Be Ended, but Not Under This System

Pulling the lens back, Bell looked at the scope of U.S. history and how progress for Black people has always been limited, temporary, and repeatedly reversed—from the violent betrayal of Reconstruction to the vicious counterattacks on affirmative action in the late 1970s and ’80s (Bell did not live to see the all-out fascism we are seeing now from the Republicans and their rabid MAGA base). He looked at the persistent tendency of most white people to grab hold of the benefits they get from the system of white supremacy, rather than uniting with Black people in a common struggle. And he concluded that racial oppression is not an aberration, not a flaw that would be corrected if only America could be pushed to live up to its promise, but an integral, permanent and indestructible component of this society.”

Yes, the history of this country is one of unrelenting horror for Black people, where hopes and dreams have been repeatedly dashed and victories snatched back with a vengeance—where most white people have been the active perpetrators, or passive spectators to this horror, most of the time.2 But within this horror there is the potential for something radically different, IF you take a scientific approach to analyzing the capitalist-imperialist system we are up against, and the possible pathways for revolutionary change that lie within it. The problem with Bell’s “realism” is that it’s a realism trapped within the narrow horizons of this system, that neither gets to taproots of this oppression, nor offers a real solution.

The essential reason civil rights have not brought about fundamental “progress” is because this capitalist-imperialist system is still in place. As Bob Avakian put it in his speech, Why We Need an Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution:

Certain government concessions to the fight against injustice—for example, civil rights legislation; DACA, which granted temporary legal status to some immigrants brought here as children; court decisions establishing the right to abortion and gay marriage—were hard-fought victories, but the problem is that they are, and can only be, partial victories, dealing with only some aspects of oppression under this system, but not eliminating the oppression as a whole, or the source of this oppression—which is the system itself. And even where such partial victories are won, so long as this system remains in power, there will be powerful forces who will move to attack and undermine, and seek to reverse, even these partial gains.

For a full discussion of how white supremacy was poured into the foundation and social fabric of this country, how segregation and discrimination has been reinforced by conscious policy of the ruling class and by the basic functioning of the capitalist economy, and why really moving to overcome this would tear this country apart, read this and watch this.

While Derrick Bell and others in the field of Critical Race Theory point to the connection between white supremacy and capitalism, they do not take the next logical step: that you can't eliminate one without eliminating the other. They don’t dig deep enough into the roots of this oppression, and therefore they can only see how to ameliorate this oppression, but not end it.

Harmful Anti-scientific Currents Within Critical Race Theory

Within the broad category of what is now considered “critical race theory” there have emerged some very harmful approaches which lead people further away from a correct understanding of problem/solution and undercut the necessary search for the truth and the fight that must be waged, including against the fascist forces now attacking CRT. These approaches would be damaging at any time—but they are significantly worse at a time when the question of “race” that has been so central to American society will be resolved, to paraphrase Bob Avakian, either in a very reactionary and potentially genocidal way… OR, a revolutionary and emancipating way.

  • The idea that people of color have a special grasp and authority to speak about issues of race and racism that others don’t have, including its root causes and solution.
  • The idea that the way to challenge the dominant white supremacist “narrative” is with “counter-narratives” from people of color.

It’s one thing to recognize that people of color experience racism, that these experiences should be listened to, and that these experiences can be an important part of deepening the overall understanding of the effects of this evil and how to go to work on it. It is another thing entirely to think that simply being a person of color automatically gives you an understanding of the systemic cause and solution to racism, and that white people cannot arrive at this understanding. The absurdity of this theory is proven every day by people like Larry Elder and Candace Owens.

Racial oppression in America is systemic and objective. It is not just a collection of experiences. And it is not a matter of opinion. If the reality of racism gets reduced to a subjective narrative, how can that stand up to a narrative with more power behind it? It cannot. At a time when Republican fascist forces are aggressively moving to impose a white supremacist whitewash of historical truth, backed by law and the mob, we have to stand on and fight for the truth.

Stop the Attacks on Critical Race Theory!

On one level the fascists attacking CRT are going after a fictional version of it. On the other hand, the things these fascists want to ban from being taught are actually core tenets of CRT: the idea that racial oppression is foundational and integral to this country, not aberrational; the idea that racism is institutional, and not just a matter of a few racist white people; the necessity for a race-conscious approach, rather than a “colorblind” approach, to overcoming this oppression. All of this is anathema to these fascists and an obstacle to the “patriotic” lies they want to brainwash people with, and the false-victimhood they want to claim while they perpetrate even worse oppression and atrocities against people of color.

Even with its limitations and anti-scientific currents, CRT offers important insights into the reality of racial oppression, and as such it is a valid undertaking and should be taught. It should certainly NOT be demonized and banned.

There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness....

 

_______________

FOOTNOTES:

1. The question Derrick Bell began to confront in the 1970s and 1980s was why, after all the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s, had the situation of Black people not fundamentally changed. For example, in 1954 the Supreme Court struck down legally mandated school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education. But rather than leading to full integration on the basis of full equality, this ruling and other similar rulings, ultimately led to discrimination and segregation in new forms. First of all, many white families fled to the suburbs or to private schools rather than integrate with Black people, leaving schools practically as segregated as they had been before, if not more. Second, many Black students had to be bused great distances to go to predominantly white schools, placing a major burden on them. Third, integrated schools typically developed tracking systems, where more privileged white students were funneled into college-bound advanced placement programs, effectively creating two schools in one.  [back]

2. With very notable exceptions in the 1960s, when millions of people in the U.S., including millions of white people inspired by the Black liberation struggle and driven by outrage at the genocidal imperialist war against Vietnam, broke with white supremacy and the “patriotic” myths they had been taught and turned toward revolution for an all-too-brief period. And as the Declaration and Call from the Revcoms says, "We have seen the potential for revolution powerfully demonstrated just last summer when millions of people, of all races and genders, all over this country, and all around the world, rose up together against racist oppression and police murder." [back]

DONATE to revcom.us
DONATE to the revolution.

From the genocide in Gaza, to the growing threat of world war between nuclear powers, to escalating environmental devastation… the capitalist-imperialist system ruling over us is a horror for billions around the world and is tearing up the fabric of life on earth. Now the all-out battle within the U.S. ruling class, between fascist Republicans and war criminal Democrats, is coming to a head—likely during, or before, the coming elections—ripping society apart unlike anything since the Civil War.

Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, has developed a strategy to prepare for and make revolution. He’s scientifically analyzed that this is a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible, and has laid out the sweeping vision, solid foundation and concrete blueprint for “what comes next,” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

The website revcom.us follows and applies that leadership and is essential to all this. We post new materials from BA and curate his whole body of work. We apply the science he’s developed to analyze and expose every key event in society, every week. Revcom.us posts BA’s timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists), including his social media posts which break this down for people every week and sometimes more. We act as a guiding and connecting hub for the growing revcom movement nationwide: not just showing what’s being done, but going into what’s right and what’s wrong and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force.

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but goes up to a whole different level!

So what should you give to make 2024 our year—a year of revolution?
Everything you possibly can!
DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!

Your donations contribute to:

  • Promotion of BA on social media and the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
  • Strengthen revcom.us as an accessible, secure, robust website able to rise to the challenge of meeting the extraordinary demands of navigating the storms and preparing for revolution in this pivotal, unprecedented year
  • Fund revcoms to travel to national “hotspots,” where extreme contradictions are pulling apart the fabric of this country and creating the possibility of wrenching an actual revolution out of this intensifying situation
  • Expand the reach and coverage of revcom.us
  • Printing and distribution of key Revcom materials including the Declaration “WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM” and the Proclamation, “WE ARE THE REVCOMS (Revolutionary Communists)

Comments:

(Comments entered here are moderated and may not be visible right away.)