The Problem with Critical Race Theory
I worked at an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts in a Black neighborhood about five years ago. In an experience that I will never forget for the rest of my life, a Black man came in and purchased a quart of oil. He paid with cash and when I gave him his change, I laid it on the counter in front of him. He was irate. I had no idea why. He said, “put the cash in my hand.” I was so confused.
Apparently, in Black culture, if you don’t give someone cash in their hand, it’s a sign of disrespect. I didn’t know this at all and from there on out, I put cash in people’s hand.
This customer clearly thought I was racist for not putting the cash in his hand. He thought that I was intentionally disrespecting him. What was an honest cultural faux pas, to him, was an exaample of white dominant culture or whiteness. This is the issue with critical race theory - cultural difference is seen as an indicator of oppression.
Whiteness or white dominant culture is not a real good concept. The problem is that it attaches a cultural sensibility to physical appearance. White people, if there even is such a thing, are diverse. My cultural sensibilities as a labeled white redneck are not even close to the same as the cultural sensibilities of Elon Musk, the Rothschilds, or any other member of the white bourgeoisie and I would bet that the cultural sensibilities of the irate O’Reilly’s customer are dissimilar from Obama or Lloyd Austin or any other powerful Black person.
Culture does of course have visible markers, but skin color is not a good cultural markers because it’s not a choice. Style of dress, accent, types of adorment, tattoos are all choices that people make to indicate who they are, but being white-skinned indicates very little. Thus, the assumption that white skin = white dominant culture is just that an assumption. The culture of any human being is and should be an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
Something like white dominant culture does exist, but it’s merely the implicit or explicit belief in racial hierarchies. Importantly, this white dominant culture must be backed by institutional power to be actual racism. If it’s just the weird ideas in the head of some rando, it’s just bigotry and there is plenty of inter-racial bigotry to go around on all sides. This is really kinda normal. We know from anthropology that all cultures are a bit ethnocentric; it’s only when this ethnocentricism is backed by institutional power that it rises to the level of racism.
This brings us to the final and most damning critique of CRT. CRT is an esoteric legal theory designed to reform the criminal justice system. The institutional context of the theory, the courts, is implied. The American justice system is rigidly hierarchical and the intent of CRT is to change the behaviors of people with power in that system. This has been more or less effective and is a good use of the theory.
However, CRT has moved out of the legal realm and been applied to every institution with white leadership regardless of whether that institution is rigidly hierarchical or flat and democratic. CRT assumes hierarchy and critiques every institution as if all are racially hierarchical. Maybe they are, but, again, that is an empirical question, not a theoretical one. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The problem with CRT is that as it gets out into the population and because of it’s lack of specificity in terms of institutional context, it tends to reinforce already existing petty bigotry. Are judges, who have institutional power, behaving in ways that are racist? Without question. Does some bloke with retrograde views with zero institutional power need their behavior modified by an academic theory? Probably not.
I suppose not having to deal with assholes would make the lives of Black and indigenous people more pleasant, but all of us have to deal with assholes including people who get irate because money is not placed directly in their hand.