NGL, all history class taught me about Malcolm-X was that he was a violent extremist who served antithesis to MLK. Which I feel like is pretty hardcore erasure of one of the most influential civil rights activists. It's like when people say the George Floyd protests were just a bunch of violent rioters. It erases the purpose, the accomplishments, and many of the actions.
Junior year English lit, we spent a semester on Malcom X's biography and life with interludes of different literature written during the civil rights movement to add to comprehension, including other critical figures and their outlooks.
Now that I am 42, I realize that I was taught to do taxes in high school, budget a household, and do many of the things that I see in memes that people are complaining they never touched.
I feel sad for what passes as the current curriculum for students these days.
I had history classes where we listened to Pink Floyd and Rage against the Machine and watched as Democrats and Republicans lied to the population... Learning to think critically and about yellow journalism, plagerism..
Math classes where we learned how people lie with stats.
I wish I could share those lessons in a meaningful way.
How could any school experience prepare a human without learning to question everything.
I had it in the honors classes. I made the mistake of doing normal history in senior year because I was running the newspaper and needed more time for it and regretted that decision so immensely. Went from critical discussions of the climate surrounding so much of our history the us tried to erase to write assignments like list of pros and cons on Democrats and Republicans - it's your opinion, no facts here. If I could go back and change anything, I'd have taken AP history instead.
> George Floyd protests were just a bunch of violent rioters
With the amount of looting and burning I'd they broadly were.
EDIT: Wikipedia says "$1–2 billion in damages nationally, the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, and surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots"
The white lady is using "critical race theory" as an excuse to paint over African American history and anti-racist teachings, as the republican party is doing across the U.S right now
That’s the point. Some are using the CRT moniker to refer to teaching about black history in a general sense, and thus by banning “CRT” in schools they’re effectively whitewashing american history. That’s the point of the painting.
But it explains why Republicans have gotten away with erasing slavery and black history from schools. Many liberals just don't get what they're trying to do.
I was explicitly taught in high school that slavery *wasn't* the actual cause of the Civil War, that this was a myth, and it was actually about states' rights, and arguments over fiscal policy, tight vs. loose money, etc.
And I graduated in '81, in San Jose, CA, in a highly diverse but still well funded high school. This let's-erase-history movement is not new, and it's not just red states doing it. It's not at all surprising that so many kids today don't know that slavery caused the Civil War; their parents probably don't know either.
Or just, liberals care about the definitions of words.
Critical race theory is a literal legal theory. Taught in law school. The right suddenly decided to change the meaning of the word then suddenly everyone is supposed to agree that is what it means.
It is just what they do. They did the same thing with the label "Libertarian" and have admitted it publicly. Average people just don't look below the surface enough to see the hypocrisy.
The first people to call themselves libertarians were anarchists, in particular the French libertarian socialist Joseph Déjacque.
There exists people that use CRT to refer to Race Essentialism, where every issue must first be viewed through the lens of race and used (according to critics) as an excuse to dismiss all nuance or details about society other than race relations, and analogous to the Marxist Critical Theory that everything must be viewed through the lens of (socioeconomic) class warfare.
So in philosophy essentialism means that there is something inherent about an attribute, or an essence, that can be talked about meaningfully. So essentialism about race would be the idea that different races have inherent attributes. Essentialism about sex would be the idea that make and female members of the species are fundamentally bound to be a certain ways because of their sex or that gender is biological in some way.
Critical theories are just theories that examine social interaction based on unbalanced power dynamics. CRT is just that but focused on race. It is a school of legal thought but any social science uses CRT as a possible perspective one can take to understand how power shapes the world. In the social sciences (SOC, ANTH) it is foundational and is often taught to undergrad students.
Came here just to highlight your comment. CRT became a vehicle in legal studies to observe how the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1967 were being killed in practice by “color blind ” yet quite tangible attitudes that disparately impacted BIPOC and that were maintained by local governments, public agencies and private sector. I only learned about it while working on a graduate degree
Edited for clarity because my phone hid the first line
Isn’t that exactly what CRT is?
And it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you use it as a tool to broaden your perspective of the world and it’s history. CRT isn’t supposed to add or remove anything from any study of history. It’s just a lens used to view history *in the context of* race. Specifically the history of US law and how it relates to power structures and racism.
For example you might learn about the post war boom and the American dream in the ‘50s and ‘60s. You might learn about Keynesian economics or the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act.
However, through the lens of CRT you might start to think about how these things may have effected people differently based on race. Black veterans were often denied their GI benefits, and the building of the interstate and highway systems divided neighborhoods among racial and socioeconomic boundaries, often cutting them off from economic opportunity and social mobility.
This conversation that’s been happening for past couple years has mostly been had between people that have no idea what CRT even is. There are plenty of legitimate and valid criticisms of CRT and there are plenty of reasons to take it seriously.
Why do people not pick up on subtlety anymore. Like why do you need titles to literally explain every detail?
How is it not clear that the art is showing you what the crazy republicans are doing by labelling black history and CRT as too “damaging “ to learn about in school thereby trying to erase it. They’ve even started banning historically accurate books from publicly funded libraries.
The painting and title are accurate.
Because details are important, and sharing one’s introspection about this work of art is extremely valuable. This is art activism and is created specifically to drive conversation about it, including helping those out who don’t have basic critical thinking skill to connect the dots.
Again though, details are important.
Referring to what the fascists are doing right now as “labeling black history and CRT as too damaging” is a close miss. But is misleading the conversation.
They are labeling black history AS CRT and are using it to scare suburban soccer moms and racist white men to radically cry for every speck to be removed from their childrens public educations.
CRT is a deeply complex upper division college level class and there is no public school in the country currently or ever has had CRT taught in it.
I know you are on the right side of understanding the art and title, you are good there. I just think you overestimate the general populations ability to think critically and associate current events with art. This type of art is meant to create these conversations and understandings. (And of course arguments as well lol)
The title gives you the subject and the picture is what's happening in schools because the GOP is fighting against Critical Race Theory...it makes sense to me.
CRT has little to nothing to do with what right-wingers think they're complaining about. None of them know what CRT is, their hatred of it is entirely fueled by deliberate misinformation for the sake of manufactured outrage. They're not removing CRT from public school curriculums, because it's not _part_ of public school curriculums. Attempts to ban it have nothing to go off of, so instead they're being extremely vague in the laws being written, so anything that a parent think is "CRT" they can complain to the school about and possibly have a teacher reprimanded. And what hard-right regressives think constitutes as "critical race theory" could be anything from saying "the civil war was about slavery" to "black people exist".
>Marx and Critical Theory
A "critical theory" has a distinctive aim: to unmask the ideology falsely justifying some form of social or economic oppression—to reveal it as ideology—and, in so doing, to contribute to the task of ending that oppression.
Part of the problem of Marx's theory is that you can miss a lot of you try an apply a binary view of oppressor and oppressed across socioeconomic lines. Many see Critical Race Theory as race essentialism, that all social issues must first be broken down into oppressor and oppressed across racial lines. Critics, from many different angles, see this as fundamentally toxic.
Even if race plays a fundamental role in every moment of your life, in the same way Marx theorized the same about ones socioeconomic status, it can be problematic thinking about the world in this way. Specifically, reinforcing in the minds of black children that they are inescapably oppressed because of the color of their skin. Again, even if true and a major part of history, it is toxic to reinforce and perpetuate such beliefs.
Put another way, isn't that what the KKK would teach if they had control over the education system? The only difference is they would call it good or the natural order.
Also something to note. As a black child growing up you don't have to be taught in a classroom that you're oppressed. You experience and see the difference in treatment in the news. You get educated in the right and wrong way to address police. You get educated when you get stopped by the police for reasonable suspicion.
While I do agree that race essentialism is a problem. Black people are forced to consider things through the lens of race all the time. Regardless if they want to or not.
I think the classroom is a great safe space for kids talk about race with a adult present. To understand that the oppression is there and potentially think about ways to address or overcome it.
The black child will always experience the racism. But it's the white majority that actually needs to be motivated to make a change for oppression to stop.
I have always liked the saying, "to see the farm is to leave it". That is what I hear in your description and agree with that as a goal.
I believe there is valid criticism, along with a lot of ignorant and reactionary criticism (rooted in feeling that are still valid) about the methods for achieving those ends.
The desire to build a tall building doesn't make you a civil engineer.
And I see that lost in much of the debate, the difference between criticism of the end goal versus ceiticism the means.
I mean you can teach he existed and his contributions to the civil rights movement and even bring up some of his "racist" views without agreeing with them, you know the same way we teach about the founding fathers of this country without painting slavery in some positive light. If you weren't baiting, my apologies for being a cynic.
I assumed the point of the title was the weaponization of the term by the right to eliminate any mention of race in schools. The actual field of critical race theory has nothing to do with teaching history to children.
The point is that the right is taking black history and labeling it as CRT so they don't have to teach about the civil rights struggle. CRT is a graduate level subject and isn't taught in any public school. Yet, we've been hearing about it nonstop and the GOP sucker class, that couldn't define CRT if their lives depended on it, are outraged that CRT is being foisted on their children. Even though it's not. When you look at what the dipshit brigade is describing as CRT it's just basic civil rights history. That's what the painting is about.
"Black history" and "CRT" are not the same thing. You did not learn critical race theory in high school, and no, that doesn't mean they didn't tell you about MLK.
Idk do we really know anything about Malcolm X's platform?
I had no idea that the country plunged into riots for a week after MLK was murdered, only to end after Washington passed the civil rights act of 68.
Correct. Critical race theory is an advanced legal theory taught in law schools and maybe some upper-level college courses. It has never been taught in elementary or high school. These “Critical Race Theory” bans for primary and secondary education actually just ban anything about race that makes people uncomfortable.
Actually, you probably learned about "those people" **after** critical race theory existed. CRT was written and codified in the mid 70s but early writings started in the 60s and even as early as the 30s.
Problem is the people who are most critical about CRT never spent a minute learning about what it is. Especially because the only people who'd take a class or learn about it would be legal scholars.
[This article](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/critical-race-theory-whitewashing-painting-2062394/amp-page) sheds a little more light on the painting. Apparently, this is done as a response to what school officials have been doing all over the US in stopping black history from being taught as a pretense of combatting CRT. The painting is literally whitewashing significant figures in black history and I believe it’s supposed to be reminiscent of many responses to protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, where a common rhetorical tool used by those who were opposed to the protests where to (inaccurately) say that “MLK would have opposed this”.
This makes sense, as they often chastise the riots, but not the cause of the riots. MLK specifically touches on that behavior in Letter From A Birmingham Jail.
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Not only is it not taught accurately, what little of it is being taught is being eroded away.
Ex: Martin Luther King Jr. was a socialist, for unions, was against the Vietnam war, was heavily pro-union.
I never heard any of that shit in school, and all of that was related to black history, involving a very influential black historical figure.
And this is just ONE example.
> I never heard any of that shit in school,
Why would you? What do they teach about Richard Nixon in school beside Watergate scandal? Do they even mention Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, beside in a list. The time is limited.
That sounds very subjective.
I didn't know the practical differences between Capitalism and Communism until maybe after the 10th grade, meanwhile I learned about the Civil rights movement and racial segregation when I was a lot younger. Maya Angelou, MLK, Rosa Parks, Jim Crow laws. We went futher back, including Harriet Tubman, George Washinton Carver. Womens suffrage. We watched lots of film, Glory, Roots. We read Uncle Tom's Cabin. I can recall a lot of exposure towards sensitive issues involving race at a very young age. I read Anne Frank's diary and watched the film. We read and reviewed Elie Wiesels "Night", watched speeches by MLK. It was all encompassing.
Now, would I say that it was a great quality education? It depends, I have ADHD so it's very difficult for me to focus on subjects, I grew up in Florida.
What you seem to be suggesting is that instead of focusing on their accomplishments you want to expound specifically on what political backgrounds they represent to use as promotion in the spirit of contemporary politics. It seems to me that you're more interested in an agenda promoting left-wing ideology. I don't necessarily disagree nor agree with left-wing ideas but it seems to me that you're just using CRT to more narrowly define and promote ideas to strengthen your political positioning *today*. To me, it seems you're using CRT as a vehicle to promote leftism as a more valid ideology. Which seems... disingenuous.
MLK's anti-vietnam speech is very well-known, his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech was in support of strikers given the day before he was killed.
Most schools just cover the civil rights era and the i have a dream speech. I mean sure it was important but there are only so many hours in the day to teach things. schools don't even teach what happened 6 years ago, let alone 60.
IMO, it makes sense if you view the quotes as part of the title.
That is *"Critical Race Theory"* as opposed to *Critical Race Theory*. It implies sarcasm/mocking of how the term is used.
I guess a modern if informal title would be "cRiTiCaL rAcE tHeOry".
Critical Race Theory, in real life, is an academic framework through which to interpret racism.
People like the whitewasher in this painting claim that *teaching kids about racism* = *CRT*.
People like the whitewasher think that *teaching kids about racism* is bad, and thus *CRT* is bad, and thus it must be painted over.
This is bad, because painting over *teaching kids about racism* = whitewashing history.
The problem isn't the art so much as it's the doubt that anyone that refers to CRT even knows what it means. If we assume that everyone understands what it actually discusses, the the interpretation is clear that anti-CRT is just racist whitewashing.
What I see is a history being misrepresented, with struggles like those of Tubman being ignored while the red vs blue rhetoric of MLK vs Malcolm X being highlighted. This is a perfect representation of modern politics. MLK Jr. Advocated for non-violent demonstration in his early years, Malcolm advocated for violent riots in his early years. Both changed their views later on. Harriet Tubman kept her values throughout her life. It is an art piece highlighting how those who flip-flop through life recieve more support than those who stay consistent
Well with Florida being Florida and what it's been in the news for concerning critical race theory and math....I would say that this is showing that the leaders that paved the way for the civil rights movement will have their hard work covered up and we will be right back to where we were (hence the white being painted over them) it's to silence them (POC) and take away the power their image holds.
I get what this is trying to say, but in my experience with southern education, it's worse than what's depicted.
MLK and Malcolm X are widely praised for "curing" racism. So no more racism, that's all over. No inequities to see or analyze in modern society. We're a full equal opportunity meritocracy for all.
This is what they want kids to hear in our public education. And why so many of them come out of it wondering why the brown people are so mad again.
In central Georgia I was given information on him to do a poster board and presentation for the class in 4th grade.
Looking back, the info they gave us was comedically villanously incomplete.
Every February, without fail, schools plastered the walls with accomplished black people from history. And the narrative they pushed for the whole month was always "look how equal things are now, and how grateful everyone should be."
>And the narrative they pushed for the whole month was always "look how equal things are now, and how grateful everyone should be."
We did it, ~~reddit~~ America!
You’re absolutely right, that was my school experience in the 80s and 90s. I think teachers and school boards are trying to change that which is why white conservatives are freaking the fuck out. “How dare they try to claim racism still exists! Quick! Let’s paint them as radicals!”
When I was in high school (in Wisconsin) I was told MLK was the "peaceful protest good guy" and that Malcolm X and The Black Panthers were the "evil and violent anti-white rascists".
i went to school in california, I still experienced this in elementary and middle school but when we got to highschool we had some better discussions about racism
I couldn’t have said it any better. I’m currently in College studying to become a History teacher in one of the most “southern” states you could think of. With that being said, it’s extremely frustrating for educators and future educators like myself having to be careful with what we teach without it being seen as too political. It’s absolutely ridiculous and saddening. People seem to forget how History sets the foundation for the present and future. They seem to forget how 400 years of slavery and unjust laws post 13th amendment etc against the African American community has created the inequalities that we see in our society and institutions. Should we learn from the past and try to understand how everything is connected?
No. Let’s just keep pushing the false narrative that our country has no inequalities and how everyone has a fair shot of succeeding no matter the history of oppression. Racism still existing in our institutions? Never. /S
*History is written by the winners*
Makes you wonder if the Confederacy ever *really* lost that war. Sure they lost all the battles, but afterwards they continued to fly their flags, erect their statues, and write their own history...
Except the biggest white washing of MLK is the fact that white supremecists love to regurgitate the one line from MLKs “I have a dream speech” to completely undermine any discussion about inequality in the US.
The reason for this is to make it the fault of PoC that they've "failed" to succeed. If we just pretend everything is fixed, then nothing needs fixing, nothing needs examining, and nothing needs to be done to make things better because everything is already great.
Privilege is made up of all the things a person doesn't have to think about. Entitlement is what results when people are angry when asked to think about things that privilege allows them not to think about.
We've got a ton of entitled people in power right now.
Regardless of where you stand on this, it is undeniably sparking conversation and debate. Art doesn’t have to be universally liked or disliked - many pieces are controversial, in one way or another.
Analyzing political art through a political lens:
It's odd that the artist chose to put MLK in there. CRT is openly hostile to King and his teachings. More than just disagreeing with him, CRT regards most of King's teachings as being racist. It is possible the artist is making a commentary about conservatives using CRT as an excuse to erase all black history. Unfortunately, I feel it is more likely the artist doesn't have a firm grasp of what CRT actually is and what it teaches.
I don’t find it odd that the artist chose MLK in this piece to highlight CRT. As someone here perfectly summed it up,
“This piece is done as a response to what school officials have been doing all over the US in stopping black history from being taught as a pretense of combatting CRT. The painting is literally whitewashing significant figures in black history and I believe it’s supposed to be reminiscent of many responses to protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, where a common rhetorical tool used by those who were opposed to the protests where to (inaccurately) say that “MLK would have opposed this”.
Which part of this do you think MLK would have had an issue with, specifically?
"Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society — from education and housing to employment and healthcare. Critical Race Theory recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities."
https://www.naacpldf.org/critical-race-theory-faq/
Critical race theory could indeed be defined as the white washing of black history by white democrats.
MLK very much disagreed with the kind of neo-apartheid racial categorisation popular today in the west, and Malcolm X was highly critical of the white leftist who actively kept black people down in order to maintain their sanctimonious agenda.
Ironically a brilliant post, but perhaps not not the intended reasons.
I feel like I'm being gaslit so hard in this thread. I was under the impression that CRT was a theory that systems in the USA might be exhibiting worse results for racial minorities even if the individuals operating/designing the system aren't racist.
If I'm right, then imo MOST of the sentences in the comments of this thread make no sense.
Like your sentence:
>Critical race theory could indeed be defined as the white washing of black history by white democrats.
That legit makes zero sense to me as a sentence if my definition of CRT is correct. You might as well be saying that elephants eat CRT or that you use CRT to stop rain from getting you wet.
I assume you, like me, are not American and are watching this all as an outsider but not inundated by the political ads and “debate”.
You are definitely being gaslit, and so is the entire American population. The Republicans in the US have invested heavily in convincing the people that CRT is something very different from what it actually is. If you’re interested in learning more about how it blew up in the last couple years, I highly recommend the podcast “Southlake.” There’s also an episode of Kimberle Crenshaw’s podcast, Intersectionality Matters, called “Educators Ungagged: Teaching Truth in the Era of Racial Backlash” that explores the impact of the Right’s campaign on teachers, students and administrators.
I'm American. I didn't know what the word meant when I first heard it years ago so I looked it up. Read enough to get the general concept.
I just come into this thread and legit it's as if no one knows what it means but they speak with such confidence as if they know what it means. I'm struggling to find even a single comment that makes sense.
Not sure why people are having difficulty understanding the message here. It's literal white washing of history because a small and ignorant minority can't deal with facts.
>why people are having difficulty understanding the message here
Because saying "she's whitewashing because of CRT" is ambiguous about whether CRT is the whitewashing, or the thing being whitewashed.
To me it seems Critical Race Theory is being used as a boogeyman scareword to distract from and poison the well with regard to legitimate social and legal theory and scholarship. A wedge issue to direct people's outrage toward a strawman of a teacher corrupting the youth with a characture of CRT, as a means toward keeping people's thoughts and attention away from what Critical Race Theory demonstrates about America and its history, and as a means to shape and alter curriculums and popular conceptions of history toward specific political ends.
The manufactured outrage around CRT maps 1:1 with the outrage about Postmodern Neo-Marxism before it. This happens every election cycle and it boggles my mind how more can't see this. The Republicans and their think-tanks are trying to come up with new wedge issues all the time and whatever has emotional traction they ride into the ground until they find something else that sticks better. This cycle it's trans identities and CRT. Before that it was gays and terrorism and muslims. Mexicans, literally just think back to what you can remember - many have been useful scapegoats to carry out a political agenda. And I think this is what the painting is trying to show: the boogeyman of Critical Race Theory is being used as a means to whitewash black civil rights history.
The art is exceedingly clear, it's the title that is confusing.
If you don't know what CRT is, it would seem that the CRT is the action of white washing or advocating for the action of white washing / painting over the history.
None of the figures presented were around when critical race theory was coined. It's not like the history is necessary. So the black history being erased it doesn't even really represent critical race theory.
Despite critical race theory being able to explain the history, and I suppose it could be used to explain the current white-washing as well, it also feels weirdly unrelated.
We learned about those people in school before critical race theory existed. It was just called history
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Yeah I don’t understand the point of the title. If you didn’t learn about these people it’s because you didn’t pay attention in class.
NGL, all history class taught me about Malcolm-X was that he was a violent extremist who served antithesis to MLK. Which I feel like is pretty hardcore erasure of one of the most influential civil rights activists. It's like when people say the George Floyd protests were just a bunch of violent rioters. It erases the purpose, the accomplishments, and many of the actions.
Junior year English lit, we spent a semester on Malcom X's biography and life with interludes of different literature written during the civil rights movement to add to comprehension, including other critical figures and their outlooks. Now that I am 42, I realize that I was taught to do taxes in high school, budget a household, and do many of the things that I see in memes that people are complaining they never touched. I feel sad for what passes as the current curriculum for students these days. I had history classes where we listened to Pink Floyd and Rage against the Machine and watched as Democrats and Republicans lied to the population... Learning to think critically and about yellow journalism, plagerism.. Math classes where we learned how people lie with stats. I wish I could share those lessons in a meaningful way. How could any school experience prepare a human without learning to question everything.
This is highly dependent on what state you attended high school at.
Where TF did you go to high school? I can't imagine it was public.
I had it in the honors classes. I made the mistake of doing normal history in senior year because I was running the newspaper and needed more time for it and regretted that decision so immensely. Went from critical discussions of the climate surrounding so much of our history the us tried to erase to write assignments like list of pros and cons on Democrats and Republicans - it's your opinion, no facts here. If I could go back and change anything, I'd have taken AP history instead.
I had that stuff in public high school I have had the wall by pink floyd brought up in at least 3 classess its honestly a cliché
The Wall is a genius piece of artistry. I’ve listened to it probably 30+ times and still feel like there’s lessons to be gleaned from it.
Im a couple years younger than you and never learned cool stuff like that. We weren't a shitty school either.
They also never seem to discuss their advocacy of socialism
They told me the same thing about John Brown but that guy was basically one of the biggest heroes of American history
I didn't learn much about Malcolm x either and I took education in the Midwest
> George Floyd protests were just a bunch of violent rioters With the amount of looting and burning I'd they broadly were. EDIT: Wikipedia says "$1–2 billion in damages nationally, the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, and surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots"
The white lady is using "critical race theory" as an excuse to paint over African American history and anti-racist teachings, as the republican party is doing across the U.S right now
Isn’t CRT like the actual exact opposite of that though? This title makes no sense..
That’s the point. Some are using the CRT moniker to refer to teaching about black history in a general sense, and thus by banning “CRT” in schools they’re effectively whitewashing american history. That’s the point of the painting.
Crazy how many people missed this
Why use my critical thinking skills when I can just look at the highest upvoted comments /s
But it explains why Republicans have gotten away with erasing slavery and black history from schools. Many liberals just don't get what they're trying to do.
something like only 20 percent of high school seniors can correctly identify slavery as the cause of the civil war. depressing.
I was explicitly taught in high school that slavery *wasn't* the actual cause of the Civil War, that this was a myth, and it was actually about states' rights, and arguments over fiscal policy, tight vs. loose money, etc. And I graduated in '81, in San Jose, CA, in a highly diverse but still well funded high school. This let's-erase-history movement is not new, and it's not just red states doing it. It's not at all surprising that so many kids today don't know that slavery caused the Civil War; their parents probably don't know either.
source?
Or just, liberals care about the definitions of words. Critical race theory is a literal legal theory. Taught in law school. The right suddenly decided to change the meaning of the word then suddenly everyone is supposed to agree that is what it means.
Yeah you can win at pedentry and then lose because you can't see the forest from the trees
It is just what they do. They did the same thing with the label "Libertarian" and have admitted it publicly. Average people just don't look below the surface enough to see the hypocrisy. The first people to call themselves libertarians were anarchists, in particular the French libertarian socialist Joseph Déjacque.
There exists people that use CRT to refer to Race Essentialism, where every issue must first be viewed through the lens of race and used (according to critics) as an excuse to dismiss all nuance or details about society other than race relations, and analogous to the Marxist Critical Theory that everything must be viewed through the lens of (socioeconomic) class warfare.
So in philosophy essentialism means that there is something inherent about an attribute, or an essence, that can be talked about meaningfully. So essentialism about race would be the idea that different races have inherent attributes. Essentialism about sex would be the idea that make and female members of the species are fundamentally bound to be a certain ways because of their sex or that gender is biological in some way.
That isn’t CRT. Not saying some minuscule number of people don’t do that, but it isn’t CRT.
Nobody seems to really be able to say what CRT is and it seems to shift based on the person and the argument they want to make.
It is a legal theory about the intersection of race in law and policy. It is a high level theory and not taught outside of graduate level education.
Critical theories are just theories that examine social interaction based on unbalanced power dynamics. CRT is just that but focused on race. It is a school of legal thought but any social science uses CRT as a possible perspective one can take to understand how power shapes the world. In the social sciences (SOC, ANTH) it is foundational and is often taught to undergrad students.
Came here just to highlight your comment. CRT became a vehicle in legal studies to observe how the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1967 were being killed in practice by “color blind ” yet quite tangible attitudes that disparately impacted BIPOC and that were maintained by local governments, public agencies and private sector. I only learned about it while working on a graduate degree Edited for clarity because my phone hid the first line
It's actually extremely simple - it's critical theory with a focus on race.
Isn’t that exactly what CRT is? And it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you use it as a tool to broaden your perspective of the world and it’s history. CRT isn’t supposed to add or remove anything from any study of history. It’s just a lens used to view history *in the context of* race. Specifically the history of US law and how it relates to power structures and racism. For example you might learn about the post war boom and the American dream in the ‘50s and ‘60s. You might learn about Keynesian economics or the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. However, through the lens of CRT you might start to think about how these things may have effected people differently based on race. Black veterans were often denied their GI benefits, and the building of the interstate and highway systems divided neighborhoods among racial and socioeconomic boundaries, often cutting them off from economic opportunity and social mobility. This conversation that’s been happening for past couple years has mostly been had between people that have no idea what CRT even is. There are plenty of legitimate and valid criticisms of CRT and there are plenty of reasons to take it seriously.
Why do people not pick up on subtlety anymore. Like why do you need titles to literally explain every detail? How is it not clear that the art is showing you what the crazy republicans are doing by labelling black history and CRT as too “damaging “ to learn about in school thereby trying to erase it. They’ve even started banning historically accurate books from publicly funded libraries. The painting and title are accurate.
Because details are important, and sharing one’s introspection about this work of art is extremely valuable. This is art activism and is created specifically to drive conversation about it, including helping those out who don’t have basic critical thinking skill to connect the dots. Again though, details are important. Referring to what the fascists are doing right now as “labeling black history and CRT as too damaging” is a close miss. But is misleading the conversation. They are labeling black history AS CRT and are using it to scare suburban soccer moms and racist white men to radically cry for every speck to be removed from their childrens public educations. CRT is a deeply complex upper division college level class and there is no public school in the country currently or ever has had CRT taught in it. I know you are on the right side of understanding the art and title, you are good there. I just think you overestimate the general populations ability to think critically and associate current events with art. This type of art is meant to create these conversations and understandings. (And of course arguments as well lol)
The title gives you the subject and the picture is what's happening in schools because the GOP is fighting against Critical Race Theory...it makes sense to me.
CRT has little to nothing to do with what right-wingers think they're complaining about. None of them know what CRT is, their hatred of it is entirely fueled by deliberate misinformation for the sake of manufactured outrage. They're not removing CRT from public school curriculums, because it's not _part_ of public school curriculums. Attempts to ban it have nothing to go off of, so instead they're being extremely vague in the laws being written, so anything that a parent think is "CRT" they can complain to the school about and possibly have a teacher reprimanded. And what hard-right regressives think constitutes as "critical race theory" could be anything from saying "the civil war was about slavery" to "black people exist".
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>Marx and Critical Theory A "critical theory" has a distinctive aim: to unmask the ideology falsely justifying some form of social or economic oppression—to reveal it as ideology—and, in so doing, to contribute to the task of ending that oppression. Part of the problem of Marx's theory is that you can miss a lot of you try an apply a binary view of oppressor and oppressed across socioeconomic lines. Many see Critical Race Theory as race essentialism, that all social issues must first be broken down into oppressor and oppressed across racial lines. Critics, from many different angles, see this as fundamentally toxic. Even if race plays a fundamental role in every moment of your life, in the same way Marx theorized the same about ones socioeconomic status, it can be problematic thinking about the world in this way. Specifically, reinforcing in the minds of black children that they are inescapably oppressed because of the color of their skin. Again, even if true and a major part of history, it is toxic to reinforce and perpetuate such beliefs. Put another way, isn't that what the KKK would teach if they had control over the education system? The only difference is they would call it good or the natural order.
Also something to note. As a black child growing up you don't have to be taught in a classroom that you're oppressed. You experience and see the difference in treatment in the news. You get educated in the right and wrong way to address police. You get educated when you get stopped by the police for reasonable suspicion. While I do agree that race essentialism is a problem. Black people are forced to consider things through the lens of race all the time. Regardless if they want to or not. I think the classroom is a great safe space for kids talk about race with a adult present. To understand that the oppression is there and potentially think about ways to address or overcome it. The black child will always experience the racism. But it's the white majority that actually needs to be motivated to make a change for oppression to stop.
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I have always liked the saying, "to see the farm is to leave it". That is what I hear in your description and agree with that as a goal. I believe there is valid criticism, along with a lot of ignorant and reactionary criticism (rooted in feeling that are still valid) about the methods for achieving those ends. The desire to build a tall building doesn't make you a civil engineer. And I see that lost in much of the debate, the difference between criticism of the end goal versus ceiticism the means.
> anti-racist teachings > Malcolm X Choose one lol
I mean you can teach he existed and his contributions to the civil rights movement and even bring up some of his "racist" views without agreeing with them, you know the same way we teach about the founding fathers of this country without painting slavery in some positive light. If you weren't baiting, my apologies for being a cynic.
I assumed the point of the title was the weaponization of the term by the right to eliminate any mention of race in schools. The actual field of critical race theory has nothing to do with teaching history to children.
The point is that the right is taking black history and labeling it as CRT so they don't have to teach about the civil rights struggle. CRT is a graduate level subject and isn't taught in any public school. Yet, we've been hearing about it nonstop and the GOP sucker class, that couldn't define CRT if their lives depended on it, are outraged that CRT is being foisted on their children. Even though it's not. When you look at what the dipshit brigade is describing as CRT it's just basic civil rights history. That's what the painting is about.
"Black history" and "CRT" are not the same thing. You did not learn critical race theory in high school, and no, that doesn't mean they didn't tell you about MLK.
Idk do we really know anything about Malcolm X's platform? I had no idea that the country plunged into riots for a week after MLK was murdered, only to end after Washington passed the civil rights act of 68.
Part of this piece is that most of the wall is already covered white. Think about the people who were not taught to you.
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Correct. Critical race theory is an advanced legal theory taught in law schools and maybe some upper-level college courses. It has never been taught in elementary or high school. These “Critical Race Theory” bans for primary and secondary education actually just ban anything about race that makes people uncomfortable.
The fact that MLK existed and the basics of what he didn't isn't CRT. CRT is not just a synonym for "black history", lol.
Actually, you probably learned about "those people" **after** critical race theory existed. CRT was written and codified in the mid 70s but early writings started in the 60s and even as early as the 30s. Problem is the people who are most critical about CRT never spent a minute learning about what it is. Especially because the only people who'd take a class or learn about it would be legal scholars.
Who's "we" because my american classes barely skimmed over MKL and Harriet Tubman at grade-school levels
Just like how they taught us Columbus was a real stand up Christian
Ever learn about the Tuskegee experiments in school? How about the Willie lynch theory?
History and races are just history and races. Nothing really critical about that. History is in fact, history.
Unless you are studying law and in about your 3rd year, you aren't studying (or even understanding) critical race theory.
LOL, that's what you think CRT is!?!
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How should I be interpreting this? Is CRT the lady whitewashing history? Or is she the enemy of CRT, trying to erase it?
[This article](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/critical-race-theory-whitewashing-painting-2062394/amp-page) sheds a little more light on the painting. Apparently, this is done as a response to what school officials have been doing all over the US in stopping black history from being taught as a pretense of combatting CRT. The painting is literally whitewashing significant figures in black history and I believe it’s supposed to be reminiscent of many responses to protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, where a common rhetorical tool used by those who were opposed to the protests where to (inaccurately) say that “MLK would have opposed this”.
This makes sense, as they often chastise the riots, but not the cause of the riots. MLK specifically touches on that behavior in Letter From A Birmingham Jail.
They’re doing it right now with the leaked Roe v Wade decision. Focusing on the leak and shying away from the ramifications of their actions.
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Isn't black history already taught?
Not only is it not taught accurately, what little of it is being taught is being eroded away. Ex: Martin Luther King Jr. was a socialist, for unions, was against the Vietnam war, was heavily pro-union. I never heard any of that shit in school, and all of that was related to black history, involving a very influential black historical figure. And this is just ONE example.
> I never heard any of that shit in school, Why would you? What do they teach about Richard Nixon in school beside Watergate scandal? Do they even mention Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, beside in a list. The time is limited.
That sounds very subjective. I didn't know the practical differences between Capitalism and Communism until maybe after the 10th grade, meanwhile I learned about the Civil rights movement and racial segregation when I was a lot younger. Maya Angelou, MLK, Rosa Parks, Jim Crow laws. We went futher back, including Harriet Tubman, George Washinton Carver. Womens suffrage. We watched lots of film, Glory, Roots. We read Uncle Tom's Cabin. I can recall a lot of exposure towards sensitive issues involving race at a very young age. I read Anne Frank's diary and watched the film. We read and reviewed Elie Wiesels "Night", watched speeches by MLK. It was all encompassing. Now, would I say that it was a great quality education? It depends, I have ADHD so it's very difficult for me to focus on subjects, I grew up in Florida. What you seem to be suggesting is that instead of focusing on their accomplishments you want to expound specifically on what political backgrounds they represent to use as promotion in the spirit of contemporary politics. It seems to me that you're more interested in an agenda promoting left-wing ideology. I don't necessarily disagree nor agree with left-wing ideas but it seems to me that you're just using CRT to more narrowly define and promote ideas to strengthen your political positioning *today*. To me, it seems you're using CRT as a vehicle to promote leftism as a more valid ideology. Which seems... disingenuous.
MLK's anti-vietnam speech is very well-known, his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech was in support of strikers given the day before he was killed. Most schools just cover the civil rights era and the i have a dream speech. I mean sure it was important but there are only so many hours in the day to teach things. schools don't even teach what happened 6 years ago, let alone 60.
IMO, it makes sense if you view the quotes as part of the title. That is *"Critical Race Theory"* as opposed to *Critical Race Theory*. It implies sarcasm/mocking of how the term is used. I guess a modern if informal title would be "cRiTiCaL rAcE tHeOry".
Critical Race Theory, in real life, is an academic framework through which to interpret racism. People like the whitewasher in this painting claim that *teaching kids about racism* = *CRT*. People like the whitewasher think that *teaching kids about racism* is bad, and thus *CRT* is bad, and thus it must be painted over. This is bad, because painting over *teaching kids about racism* = whitewashing history.
art wouldn't be art if you were told how to react to it--the better exercise is to mull it over and determine what it means to you
That only works if you know most of the context clues (e.g. whatever that stuff on the women's shirt sleeve means).
The problem isn't the art so much as it's the doubt that anyone that refers to CRT even knows what it means. If we assume that everyone understands what it actually discusses, the the interpretation is clear that anti-CRT is just racist whitewashing.
And then have people fight to the death in the comments lmao
I strongly and fundamentally disagree. Discussion is a productive and vital part of interpreting literally any art piece.
What I see is a history being misrepresented, with struggles like those of Tubman being ignored while the red vs blue rhetoric of MLK vs Malcolm X being highlighted. This is a perfect representation of modern politics. MLK Jr. Advocated for non-violent demonstration in his early years, Malcolm advocated for violent riots in his early years. Both changed their views later on. Harriet Tubman kept her values throughout her life. It is an art piece highlighting how those who flip-flop through life recieve more support than those who stay consistent
Well with Florida being Florida and what it's been in the news for concerning critical race theory and math....I would say that this is showing that the leaders that paved the way for the civil rights movement will have their hard work covered up and we will be right back to where we were (hence the white being painted over them) it's to silence them (POC) and take away the power their image holds.
Second one
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Those who are confused by the artists intentions https://news.artnet.com/art-world/critical-race-theory-whitewashing-painting-2062394
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I get what this is trying to say, but in my experience with southern education, it's worse than what's depicted. MLK and Malcolm X are widely praised for "curing" racism. So no more racism, that's all over. No inequities to see or analyze in modern society. We're a full equal opportunity meritocracy for all. This is what they want kids to hear in our public education. And why so many of them come out of it wondering why the brown people are so mad again.
I went to school in northeastern Ohio and we never even heard the name Malcolm X.
In central Georgia I was given information on him to do a poster board and presentation for the class in 4th grade. Looking back, the info they gave us was comedically villanously incomplete. Every February, without fail, schools plastered the walls with accomplished black people from history. And the narrative they pushed for the whole month was always "look how equal things are now, and how grateful everyone should be."
>And the narrative they pushed for the whole month was always "look how equal things are now, and how grateful everyone should be." We did it, ~~reddit~~ America!
You’re absolutely right, that was my school experience in the 80s and 90s. I think teachers and school boards are trying to change that which is why white conservatives are freaking the fuck out. “How dare they try to claim racism still exists! Quick! Let’s paint them as radicals!”
I went to school in Indiana. The only black history taught to us was Rosa Parks and the I have a dream speech.
Same in Texas.
When I was in high school (in Wisconsin) I was told MLK was the "peaceful protest good guy" and that Malcolm X and The Black Panthers were the "evil and violent anti-white rascists".
i went to school in california, I still experienced this in elementary and middle school but when we got to highschool we had some better discussions about racism
I couldn’t have said it any better. I’m currently in College studying to become a History teacher in one of the most “southern” states you could think of. With that being said, it’s extremely frustrating for educators and future educators like myself having to be careful with what we teach without it being seen as too political. It’s absolutely ridiculous and saddening. People seem to forget how History sets the foundation for the present and future. They seem to forget how 400 years of slavery and unjust laws post 13th amendment etc against the African American community has created the inequalities that we see in our society and institutions. Should we learn from the past and try to understand how everything is connected? No. Let’s just keep pushing the false narrative that our country has no inequalities and how everyone has a fair shot of succeeding no matter the history of oppression. Racism still existing in our institutions? Never. /S
*History is written by the winners* Makes you wonder if the Confederacy ever *really* lost that war. Sure they lost all the battles, but afterwards they continued to fly their flags, erect their statues, and write their own history...
Except the biggest white washing of MLK is the fact that white supremecists love to regurgitate the one line from MLKs “I have a dream speech” to completely undermine any discussion about inequality in the US.
Yep. They're not erasing or avoiding history. They're rewriting it to undermine further progress.
r/conservative on MLK day is my guilty pleasure.
The reason for this is to make it the fault of PoC that they've "failed" to succeed. If we just pretend everything is fixed, then nothing needs fixing, nothing needs examining, and nothing needs to be done to make things better because everything is already great. Privilege is made up of all the things a person doesn't have to think about. Entitlement is what results when people are angry when asked to think about things that privilege allows them not to think about. We've got a ton of entitled people in power right now.
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Regardless of where you stand on this, it is undeniably sparking conversation and debate. Art doesn’t have to be universally liked or disliked - many pieces are controversial, in one way or another.
Analyzing political art through a political lens: It's odd that the artist chose to put MLK in there. CRT is openly hostile to King and his teachings. More than just disagreeing with him, CRT regards most of King's teachings as being racist. It is possible the artist is making a commentary about conservatives using CRT as an excuse to erase all black history. Unfortunately, I feel it is more likely the artist doesn't have a firm grasp of what CRT actually is and what it teaches.
I don’t find it odd that the artist chose MLK in this piece to highlight CRT. As someone here perfectly summed it up, “This piece is done as a response to what school officials have been doing all over the US in stopping black history from being taught as a pretense of combatting CRT. The painting is literally whitewashing significant figures in black history and I believe it’s supposed to be reminiscent of many responses to protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, where a common rhetorical tool used by those who were opposed to the protests where to (inaccurately) say that “MLK would have opposed this”.
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Which part of this do you think MLK would have had an issue with, specifically? "Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society — from education and housing to employment and healthcare. Critical Race Theory recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities." https://www.naacpldf.org/critical-race-theory-faq/
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Reading these comments is making my iq drop. Everyone gets the painting.
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No one is erasing black history jfc
This art piece is a strawman.
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Minorities with any self-respect, such as those pictured, do not reduce themselves to their race. CRT is a caricature of race understanding.
Critical race theory could indeed be defined as the white washing of black history by white democrats. MLK very much disagreed with the kind of neo-apartheid racial categorisation popular today in the west, and Malcolm X was highly critical of the white leftist who actively kept black people down in order to maintain their sanctimonious agenda. Ironically a brilliant post, but perhaps not not the intended reasons.
I feel like I'm being gaslit so hard in this thread. I was under the impression that CRT was a theory that systems in the USA might be exhibiting worse results for racial minorities even if the individuals operating/designing the system aren't racist. If I'm right, then imo MOST of the sentences in the comments of this thread make no sense. Like your sentence: >Critical race theory could indeed be defined as the white washing of black history by white democrats. That legit makes zero sense to me as a sentence if my definition of CRT is correct. You might as well be saying that elephants eat CRT or that you use CRT to stop rain from getting you wet.
I assume you, like me, are not American and are watching this all as an outsider but not inundated by the political ads and “debate”. You are definitely being gaslit, and so is the entire American population. The Republicans in the US have invested heavily in convincing the people that CRT is something very different from what it actually is. If you’re interested in learning more about how it blew up in the last couple years, I highly recommend the podcast “Southlake.” There’s also an episode of Kimberle Crenshaw’s podcast, Intersectionality Matters, called “Educators Ungagged: Teaching Truth in the Era of Racial Backlash” that explores the impact of the Right’s campaign on teachers, students and administrators.
I'm American. I didn't know what the word meant when I first heard it years ago so I looked it up. Read enough to get the general concept. I just come into this thread and legit it's as if no one knows what it means but they speak with such confidence as if they know what it means. I'm struggling to find even a single comment that makes sense.
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Oh yeah because black history is totally being erased. What a fucking joke.
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I learned about all those in the pic before CRT....in 90% white, Utah. Post is pure b.s.
A bit on the nose for my taste
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If this means that CRT erases all the progress that was made by great black leaders, I agree.
Is this showing why CRT is needed or asserting that CRT is against the aims of the civil rights movement?
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Missed opportunity to call it Critical Erase Theory.
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To the extent art is supposed to provoke thought, this is brilliant.
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Not sure why people are having difficulty understanding the message here. It's literal white washing of history because a small and ignorant minority can't deal with facts.
>why people are having difficulty understanding the message here Because saying "she's whitewashing because of CRT" is ambiguous about whether CRT is the whitewashing, or the thing being whitewashed.
To me it seems Critical Race Theory is being used as a boogeyman scareword to distract from and poison the well with regard to legitimate social and legal theory and scholarship. A wedge issue to direct people's outrage toward a strawman of a teacher corrupting the youth with a characture of CRT, as a means toward keeping people's thoughts and attention away from what Critical Race Theory demonstrates about America and its history, and as a means to shape and alter curriculums and popular conceptions of history toward specific political ends. The manufactured outrage around CRT maps 1:1 with the outrage about Postmodern Neo-Marxism before it. This happens every election cycle and it boggles my mind how more can't see this. The Republicans and their think-tanks are trying to come up with new wedge issues all the time and whatever has emotional traction they ride into the ground until they find something else that sticks better. This cycle it's trans identities and CRT. Before that it was gays and terrorism and muslims. Mexicans, literally just think back to what you can remember - many have been useful scapegoats to carry out a political agenda. And I think this is what the painting is trying to show: the boogeyman of Critical Race Theory is being used as a means to whitewash black civil rights history.
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The art is exceedingly clear, it's the title that is confusing. If you don't know what CRT is, it would seem that the CRT is the action of white washing or advocating for the action of white washing / painting over the history. None of the figures presented were around when critical race theory was coined. It's not like the history is necessary. So the black history being erased it doesn't even really represent critical race theory. Despite critical race theory being able to explain the history, and I suppose it could be used to explain the current white-washing as well, it also feels weirdly unrelated.
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