Thread by @cvaldary

So many ideas that come out of Critical Race Theory are actually cognitive traps that seem to stem from System 1 of our brains which is automatic, impulsive, and conditioned to make connections where there are none.

But the beautiful thing about this (at least to me) is that this actually helps me develop compassion for those who believe in CRT since *all* of us fall prey to system 1. All of us have it, including those of us who are critical of CRT.

If I say 2, 4, 6, 8, what comes next?

It's highly likely you'll say 10, 12, 14.

But the pattern I could've been pulling from could have simply been making the next number larger than the previous one. For example, 22, 5000, 6300.

In other words, there are multiple stories that explain the original pattern.

In CRT, only one story explains power discrepancies, and power discrepancies are also very reductively and myopically defined.

That is a cognitive trap.

And this trap is reinforced especially if you believe that the US is inevitably & systemically racist. There are many CRT programs whose proponents make the claim that the fact of American racism will always be true which is easy proof that they're trapped in confirmation bias.

It means that wherever there is material disparity, the only possible story that explains said disparity is racism. (This is Kendi's position for example.)

Of course I'm not saying that it isn't due to racism. I'm saying that it isn't necessarily due to racism as there are multiple stories/conditions that can explain a pattern and we need to switch from system 1 to system 2 to think through these things.

The other, perhaps more fascinating thing about this is that the more we rely on system 1 to define and explain disparity, the more we actually end up reinforcing white supremacists notions of AA life which defines AA life as full of despair and degradation. It is not.

Moreover the obsession with "material" disparity obscures the fact that there are certain ways of life traditionally derived from AA culture that make it far more resilient than WASP culture, and that WASP culture could benefit from.

In this way, both Kendi and Diangelo overplay the ways in which suffering permeates AA culture and underplay the ways in which it permeates WASP culture. Both communities suffer, to be sure. But to admit to the latter undermines many of the claims made by woke social scientists.