It was about time for bed. I had been texting by voice with our kid out West. We were having problems with raccoons tearing our popcorn down. I said, “ I have to go out and check the live trap for “coons” before bed. My phone, being a pillar of morality, changed “coons” to “c****.”

Later, I did some tests with the words kike, chink, greaser, and honky. The asterisks corrected my ignorant prejudiced vocabulary on all but honky. Apparently my phone thought I, being a white guy, wouldn’t be offended by honky. It was correct by the way. I’m too busy.

Derrick Bell was the Harvard professor who first coined the term “critical race theory,” the key concepts of which are “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” Basically, it all boils down to oppressor and oppressed, to make the subject simple enough to communicate with people. If you are white, you oppress black people.

A key aspect of Bell’s critical race theory is that racism is static; it is not subject to reform. So when I try to pursue a solution, it is difficult to find a proponent of the theory who can tell me what can be done to equitably satisfy the generally opposing parties on the issue.

So far, as with climate change, believers of the theory present no serious cost / benefit analysis of a solution. That is, what can be done and more importantly, what effect will it have?

Once it is accepted that the theory is valid, the only thing we can do is christen the government as an ultimate authority over the distribution of the property of everyone.

Many forms of affirmative action could address the inequities from which our society suffers. But if black people are entitled to lowered standards for hiring or a school admission, isn’t that even more derogatory than the actions that might prove a person to be racist?

Let’s go through a possible scenario that will bring this war to an end (not that Americans ever expect wars to end):

Do we (as usual “we” means the dictatorship) make it a punishable offense for a business who hires a white person when a quota for black employment isn’t met? Then, if you were going in for surgery and the pool of doctors available was determined by identity (race, sex, ect.) rather than qualifications, is your will up to date?

In the big picture, who benefits from all these mandates toward an equitable world? Certainly an economy based on arbitrary standards of fairness instead of who does best at which jobs, will not produce as efficiently as a free one. The state of Oregon is about to pass a bill that would eliminate tenth-grade proficiency in English and Math to graduate from high school, presumably to eliminate cultural differences as a handicap.

Technicalities would loom large in anything “we” do to satisfy a goal of racial equity. What about the actual racial percentage of individuals? What about white people who had abolitionist ancestors? What about black people who had no enslaved ancestors? Do either of these groups deserve to pay or benefit from any program intended to alleviate inequity?

I don’t see how anyone can claim that critical race theory is anything but a move towards collectivism, a denial of the individual. Individual, not collectivist, achievement is what has provided us with the luxury of blaming others for our lot in life. A collectivist view that we are not responsible discourages ambition. And that will cause more damage than the issues associated with critical race theory.

Critical Race Theory

It was about time for bed. I had been texting by voice with our kid out West. We were having problems with raccoons tearing our popcorn down. I said, “ I have to go out and check the live trap for “coons” before bed. My phone, being a pillar of morality, changed “coons” to “c****.”

Later, I did some tests with the words kike, chink, greaser, and honky. The asterisks corrected my ignorant prejudiced vocabulary on all but honky. Apparently my phone thought I, being a white guy, wouldn’t be offended by honky. It was correct by the way. I’m too busy.

Derrick Bell was the Harvard professor who first coined the term “critical race theory,” the key concepts of which are “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” Basically, it all boils down to oppressor and oppressed, to make the subject simple enough to communicate with people. If you are white, you oppress black people.

A key aspect of Bell’s critical race theory is that racism is static; it is not subject to reform. So when I try to pursue a solution, it is difficult to find a proponent of the theory who can tell me what can be done to equitably satisfy the generally opposing parties on the issue.

So far, as with climate change, believers of the theory present no serious cost / benefit analysis of a solution. That is, what can be done and more importantly, what effect will it have?

Once it is accepted that the theory is valid, the only thing we can do is christen the government as an ultimate authority over the distribution of the property of everyone.

Many forms of affirmative action could address the inequities from which our society suffers. But if black people are entitled to lowered standards for hiring or a school admission, isn’t that even more derogatory than the actions that might prove a person to be racist?

Let’s go through a possible scenario that will bring this war to an end (not that Americans ever expect wars to end):

Do we (as usual “we” means the dictatorship) make it a punishable offense for a business who hires a white person when a quota for black employment isn’t met? Then, if you were going in for surgery and the pool of doctors available was determined by identity (race, sex, ect.) rather than qualifications, is your will up to date?

In the big picture, who benefits from all these mandates toward an equitable world? Certainly an economy based on arbitrary standards of fairness instead of who does best at which jobs, will not produce as efficiently as a free one. The state of Oregon is about to pass a bill that would eliminate tenth-grade proficiency in English and Math to graduate from high school, presumably to eliminate cultural differences as a handicap.

Technicalities would loom large in anything “we” do to satisfy a goal of racial equity. What about the actual racial percentage of individuals? What about white people who had abolitionist ancestors? What about black people who had no enslaved ancestors? Do either of these groups deserve to pay or benefit from any program intended to alleviate inequity?

I don’t see how anyone can claim that critical race theory is anything but a move towards collectivism, a denial of the individual. Individual, not collectivist, achievement is what has provided us with the luxury of blaming others for our lot in life. A collectivist view that we are not responsible discourages ambition. And that will cause more damage than the issues associated with critical race theory.