Thread by @SeanCasten

OK, @NRCC. I'll bite. Let's talk about critical race theory. Buckle up and take notes. Thread:

https://twitter.com/NRCC/status/1408504017681059843

1/ As a general matter, I don't engage with the @NRCC. They serve only to provoke and are run by people with the intellectual rigor and moral compass of an emotionally-stunted 12 year old.

2/ But this matters. They are talking about CRT not because they care about the substance. It's because they want to blow racist dog whistles at their base AND encourage parents to attack teachers. They think it will help them win elections and don't care about the cost.

3/ It's the 2021 version of welfare queens, Ebola, Obama's birth certificate, unmask the kids, etc. It will pass when they find a new whistle. But racism in America matters. It is real. It hurts real people. And I don't like bullies.

4/ They put this post up because I praised the Trump-appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If you want to know why they're provoked, listen to him again.

https://twitter.com/SeanCasten/status/1407782486420201480?s=20

5/ Milley's sin for the @NRCC was apparently having the gaul to suggest that our military leaders should know our history. And to acknowledge that our imperfect history informs our present. What's the sin?

6/ The answer of course is that every time we have moved closer to MLK's dream it has scared the dickens out of that subset of white men who are petrified to live in a world where they might be judged by the content of their character. But let's move on to the substance.

7/ Frederick Douglass memorably said "the best friend of a nation is he who most faithfully rebukes her for her sins - and he her worst enemy who, under the specious garb of patriotism seeks to excuse, palliate or defend them."

8/ We are not perfect. Our founders were not perfect. We were founded on a genocide and built the first foundations of our economy on chattel slavery. We need not be proud of that history, but if we are to be our nation's best friend, we must acknowledge it.

9/ There were over 50 million people in the Americas in 1491. Our forefathers killed most of them. They then invented an entire theory out of whole cloth (manifest destiny) to reconcile their sins and their Christian faith.

10/ Once done, it was a trivial intellectual leap to justify chattel slavery - the idea that we could own, buy, coerce and rape not only our fellow human beings but all their unborn children as well.

11/ Our founders not only tolerated this, they participated in it. Sally Hemings' kids didn't have lighter skin because of Loving v. Virginia. George Washington took his slaves teeth to replace his own.

12/ Which is not to say we don't owe our founders our gratitude and respect! As Jon Meacham has so eloquently written, their gift was to design a country and a Constitution based on a moral standard they themselves could not personally abide by.

13/ Perfect people have no capacity to inspire, because perfection is unattainable. But imperfect people who 'aspired to a more perfect union' show us all what we are capable of if we refuse to be constrained by anything but our ambition.

14/ What Milley, said, and what so triggered the @NRCC is the idea that to understand our present, we must know our history. Consider:

15/ Why did the southern states overwhelmingly vote for US Grant after the Civil War, even as the north did not... and why has it been so hard for any politician who supports racial equality to win the south since reconstruction?

16/ Why is the image of suburbia a bunch of middle class nuclear white families but "inner city" conjures the opposite?

17/ Why are black men so much more likely to be arrested, convicted and sentenced for minor drug offenses than white men committing the same crimes in fraternity basements?

18/ Why do we talk of "crack addicts" differently than "victims of the opioid crisis"?

19/ I could go on. But one cannot argue that these differences all derive from innate differences between the races* unless you believe that there are innate differences between people based on the color of your skin.

20/ * (As an aside, what the heck is "race" anyway? Stanley Ann Durham was a white woman. Why do we think her son is black? Because race is an inherently social construct - it has no independent scientific meaning)

21/ If, on the other hand, these questions all make you uncomfortable or curious... good! Read up! Study! Learn our history so that you may better understand our present. At core, that is what CRT asks us to do.

22/ The @NRCC doesn't want to do this for reasons that have a lot more to do with their character than the character of our nation. But there is a lot more 'twixt heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their philosophies. Don't let them hold us back.

23/ For years, the Army's recruiting slogan was "Be all that you can be". That, in a nutshell is what Milley was talking about. Our military - and our country - is at it's best when everyone has the ability to live up to their full potential.

24/ Our military, our private employers, our American competitiveness is all advantaged when we make maximum use of everyone's talents. That was our founder's vision. That's why we have been the beacon for so many around the world who have come to our shores.

25/ Not because we have ever fully achieved that vision. But because we strive for it. And when we find mistakes, we fix them. Sporadically, insufficiently, non-linearly, incompletely. But we do strive towards perfection.

26/ CRT asks us only to continue on that quest. Milley was right. And none of us are fooled by the "specious garb of patriotism" that the @NRCC sees fit to wear. Maybe some day they will see fit to join the rest of us in the 21st century. Until then... /fin