I think a lot of anti-CRT people would agree that "white" isn't a very useful label. People are Irish or Italian or German heritage or whatever or better yet we are all just individuals that deserve dignity. "Black" and "white" are weird social constructs that somebody made up.
If "black" and "white" and "race" in general are all just constructs that keep us divided then shouldn't we work together to dismantle these arbitrary categories so we can all just live our lives as individuals?
The good news is I think a lot of CRT folks also agree with this. As far as I can tell, many CRT folks also want to get to a point where we can abolish these arbitrary racial constructs so we can live in a freer society.
CRT-influenced social thinkers often call this construct that lumps all "white" people together "whiteness" and say things like we should "dismantle whiteness" meaning the arbitrary category. Sometimes, anti-CRT thinkers hear this as saying abolish the humans who have been put...
...in the "white" category. But I think what CRT folks are actually saying is if you're currently classified as "white" then it would be better to reclassify you as Irish American or German heritage or to just look at you as being a unique individual human being.
I really do think a huge number of anti-CRT folks would prefer a world like that so it's confusing that people fight so much about this. Imagine not having to worry about being lumped in together with all the "white" people who did all those bad things in the past.
I think where CRT and anti-CRT folks differ is CRT folks think a necessary prerequisite to dismantling these categories is to put sustained effort into understanding what these categories are and how they work to propagate inequality and teaching this understanding to others.
The anti-CRT folks seem to think that if we just avoid talking about the social implications of these constructs ourselves and discourage others from doing so, then the bad consequences will naturally go away on their own.
I'm not going to say which approach seems more sensible to me. You decide for yourself. 👍
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
