Thread by @EveKeneinan

Tim Wise has written "13 Questions for those Who Want Critical Race Theory Banned."

I thought I'd answer them.

Carl and his LotusEaters did a video on this, but I haven't watched it yet.

Before we get into the questions, let us note that his framing is utterly dishonest from the start: he frames opposition to Critical Race Theory as opposition to "teaching accurate American history."

This is just an outright lie.

Suppose a 19th century curriculum in American history wanted to teach Manifest Destiny as part of American history, that is, to teach as FACT that America has a God-given right to conquer and annex all of North America.

Would being against that be "against the accurate teaching of history"?

No. Because "Manifest Destiny" is an INTERPRETATION of history, not history itself.

Similarly, Critical Race Theory has a built-in INTERPRETATION of American history, a false, divisive, and evil one.

The same historical facts can be set into a narrative that

1 America is an evil nation, that never did anything right
2 America is a perfect nation that never did anything wrong
3 America is nation of great goods and some great evils

The "accurate history" red herring is the accusation of those who hold to the false "America is evil" narrative that those who hold the "America is not perfect, but it is about as good as it gets" narrative of holding the "America is without sin" narrative.

But literally no one is advocating teaching that America is free from sin and evil in its history.

But it is a lie to claim that refusing to say "X is totally evil" is the same as to say "X has never done anything wrong" or to cover up said wrongdoing.

All men are sinners, so it is not hard or surprising that one can find some wrongdoing in even the best of human beings.

But "one wrong makes the doer totally evil" is false.

"Not perfect" is not "utterly wicked."

And that holds for both men and nations.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are not perfect human beings — but they are both men of extraordinary virtue and goodness, far better men than their modern critics.

So, let us see what these 13 questions hold.

Question 1: We're off to the races with some sophistry. This one is an old bit of sophistry. The anti-CRT laws have an "intent" component, and he asks, "But how can we ever know intent?"

Answer: the same way we know intent in "possession of drugs with intent to sell."

Lots of common laws have an intent component, and in fact, in general, one must have had criminal INTENT to be held guilty of the majority of crimes.

If this isn't a mind-breaking problem in all these other laws, it isn't here.

Does Tim Wise have a long and established history of arguing that we should throw out INTENT in all criminal and civil law?

Or is he just using this bogus "intent" argument in one place?

I bet the latter.

Before I leave this question, let me note that throwing out intent leaves us with what is called "strict liability" — which is just the legal term for "intent doesn't matter."

The best example of "strict liability" and why that's a bad thing is laws that make having sex with a minor a "strict liability" crime: it doesn't matter WHY you did it, just THAT you did it.

Sounds good, right? It sounded good to some state legislatures.

But what happens when a minor male, a 16 year old, say, rapes a 22 year old woman?

Well, she had sex with a minor, so she has to go to prison.

"But she didn't mean to! In fact, it was AGAINST her intent."

Yes, but INTENT doesn't matter. Strict liability.

So, even if this "we can't ever determine intent so we can't use it in law" weren't just sophistry, it would be a terrible, awful idea to get rid of intent from law.

Before we move on from Question 1, we note that the secondary part of it, which asks "what if something accidentally does what the law forbids doing intentionally?"

The answer is that the laws do have an INTENT component, so that wouldn't break them.

It's really only a rephrasing of "how do we determine intent?"

It is just "if we can't determine intent, how do we distinguish intentional and unintentional?"

By intent, of course.

Note, by the way, that by appealing to something we all understand, that an UNINTENTIONAL act is morally very different that an INTENTIONAL act, he is giving away that he isn't actually the "intent skeptic" he is pretending to be.

He knows intent matters.

Moving on. Question 2.

Answer: "Inherently racist" means the Critical Race Theory / Race Marxist interpretation that the United States is racist in all aspects of its polity.

For example, the First Amendment is racist. Freedom of Speech is racist. Freedom of Religion is racist.

.@ConceptualJames treats this issue will in his recent Race Marxism book.

The difference is that the "inherently racist" teaching is the (false) faith-belief that America is racist in essence, cannot be reformed, and must be DESTROYED. Because of this evil essence.

@ConceptualJames It is Marxist because it aims to destroy / violently overthrow America / American liberal democratic republicanism.

It is a rejection of the truth, namely

@ConceptualJames that America bears a moral stain for past racism, slavery in particular, but in other cases also — BUT that this was always DIRECTLY CONTRARY to American principles and ideals, that ALL Americans, white, black,. asian, indian, are heirs to protections and liberties of America.

@ConceptualJames There is, in short, a world of difference between

1 America is and always has been essentially wicked and deserves only to be destroyed

2 America has always fallen short of its good and true ideals and principles, but it gets closer to living up to them over time

@ConceptualJames Again, no one says

3 America is perfect and without sin of any kind

The word "inherently" here means "either essentially in the classical sense of the term, or in the Hegelian-Marxist historical-dialectical sense of a permanent and inescapable historical quasi-essence."

Critical Race Theory teaches a version of Race Essentialism.

Race Essentialism is evil and wrong.

Critical Race Theorists will sometimes attempt to deny they do teach Race Essentialism, on the grounds that they teach it according to Hegelian rather than Aristotelian Essence.

But Hegelian Essentialism is still Essentialism.

I won't dive deep into the philosophy here.

Just know that you are being lied to Race Crits deny they teach Race Essentialism.

The teach that white people are defined and constituted by an inescapable Whiteness — and *that* is an essence.

Question 3.

I count four question marks. Since I did this blind, I didn't read the questions beforehand.

I note that each of these "13 questions" is actually a bunch of questions.

In philosophy and in law, there is a fallacious technique called "complex question," in which you use multiple questions to, in effect, ask a single tendentious question. That seems to be what's going on here.

Anyway, the question:

Answer: I side with Ben Shapiro in holding teachers SHOULD BE concerned about what and how they teach.

Wise's sophistry here is the same as Question 1:

He claims something "is subjective" and then argues that the law could lead to bad results, because we just never know.

But let me ask Wise (and all of you):

If a thug breaks into a woman's home, hits her, throws her to the bed, tears off her clothes, and violently rapes her — did he really INTEND to rape her? How do we know?

Isn't "intent" some mysterious subjective thing we can never discern?

Really, who would buy this, if the violent rapist said "Yes, I did rape her, but I didn't INTEND to. It was an accident."

COULD laws against teaching Critical Race Theory have a chilling effect on teachers?

Maybe. No more so than laws against teaching Nazism, though.

"No Teaching Nazism" laws would have a chilling effect on those who really want to teach Nazism, likely.

But whatever chilling effect happens, if one even does, is a lesser evil than the teaching of CRT in schools.

So I'm willing to accept this consequence.

Laws, I remind everyone, are ALWAYS a trade off between the good to be accomplished and *some* downside.

If there were a perfect law that was all benefit and no downside, we'd all pass it unanimously.

But every law has some downside, so every law involves the question "Is the benefit worth the downside?"

You can't say "This law is bad, because it has a downside!"

I mean, you can say it, but that's true of literally every law. So it is a bogus objection.

You'd have to argue that the downside would be significant and outweigh the benefit.

Here, it clearly doesn't, since the downside is a mere hypothetical even.

"We cannot take action to bring about this benefit because, hypothetically, there might be a downside that outweighs it."

That's an argument against doing ANYTHING, EVER.

"But isn't it possible that some parents overreact?"

It's possible, but that's true of literally every human being in all civil law.

I could overreact and sue Tim Wise for writing this article. Is he deeply worried about this? No, because he knows it would be a frivolous suit.

So, my answer here is that the benefit of anti-CRT laws is worth the cost, even if it were real, and are certainly worth a merely hypothetical cost, and that the "what if the legal system goes wrong" argument is not sincere, since he feels confident about not being sued himself.

Question 4.

Really? Texas only starting telling the truth about slavery in the Civil War in 2019? Wow, that sounds bad! Are you lying? I bet you're lying.

*checks* Yup. He's lying.

Texas had previously taught that the Civil War had multiple cause, three listed.

Democrats recently tried to change the curriculum to say that slavery was the ONLY cause of the Civil War, which is just a virtue-signaling lie.

So they made a compromise, and now teach, apparently, that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War.

This is another case where Tim Wise paints "the interpretation he agrees with" as "telling the truth."

Now, given that the Texas leftists wanted to teach the Civil War with the interpretation that slavery was THE ONLY CAUSE — which is absurd on its face, as a historical interpretation — it isn't clear that Tim Wise's ideas about "downplaying" the role of slavery are sound.

Is it "downplaying" slavery to teach, rightly, that it wasn't the ONLY cause of the Civil War, if it it was the proximate or primary cause? Wise may think so.

Anyway, Wise's questions in "question" 4 are all spurious.

do that.

No, teachers should not refrain from telling truth.

No one is advocating teaching the Confederacy's side.

And we don't have to worry about black students being uncomfortable when teaching the Confederacy's side, because we aren't going to do that.

It takes some twisted reasoning to get from "laws banning the teaching of race essentialism could lead to teaching the Confederacy view of race essentialism!"

Question 5 is a guilt by association train: ONE of the groups advocating against CRT in the classrooms recommends the work of ONE historian who, in Tim Wise's eyes, says objectionable things.

Oh no.

So this means that if I can find ONE objectionable thing in ONE author that Tim Wise or his ilk want taught in schools, it all goes?

Anyway, I don't know the historian who is the "damned soul" on which Wise is trying to anchor this guilt by association chain.

I can, however, note that EVEN IF this historian were the devil himself, ONE MAN'S BOOKS being recommended by ONE GROUP against CRT doesn't make any sort of case that being against CRT is bad or wrongheaded or ... anything.

I'm inclined to investigate the work of the man being used to anchor the guillt by association chain, W. Cleon Skousen, but I think I'll finish with Wise.

I note that Wise is lying about Skousen. Skousen did not call blacks "pickaninnies"—he quoted someone who did, as does Wise.

This is, of course, the problem with "the n-word standard."-

If it is a damnable offense to ever say or write a word, like "pickannnies," then Wise is just as bad as Skousen, because he wrote the word too.

See, it's RIGHT THERE in Wise's Question 5:

"Oh, but he wasn't using the word, only reporting that someone else did."

Well, so was his target.

I'll make one more point here and move on.

Wise's argument is "opposing CRT in schools is bad because Moms for Liberty opposes CRT & also endorses a book by W. Cleon Skousen in which Skousen reports that Professor Fred Albert Shannon reports that 'observers' claimed that 'slave owners were the 'worst victims' of slavery."

So

CRT is opposed by
Moms for Liberty who
Endorse a book by Skousen where
Skousen quotes Shannon who
says unnamed 'observers' said
A SILLY THING

... THEREFORE OPPOSING CRT IN THE CLASSROOM IS BAD!!!!!

When you look at it, this is a pretty remarkable guilt by association chain!

I'm impressed.

Anyway, just because Wise is so desperate there, I'm going to read Skousen's book.

Will report back later on that.

For now, moving on.

Sorry this is so long. Wise lied about "13 questions" since each "question" is SEVERAL questions and a mini-essay too.

I also remind everyone of what I think of as the Bugliosi-Kennedy Effect:

It is very essay to baldly assert or insinuate a falsehood, and it often takes a lot more work to expose the falsehood or manipulation.

So, Wise's Question 6.

This one is easy.

Wise is making a false equivalence.

The answer is that, yes, we can, in fact, ban teaching that black people are inherently inferior to white people from the classroom.

Yes, we can do that.

The prohibition isn't against "making anyone feel uncomfortable ever for any reason" (as Wise is pretending) but rather "making someone feel racially inferior by teaching they are inferior because of their race."

And yes, we can, in fact, prohibit teachers from making any of the students uncomfortable by teaching them that they belong to an inferior and tainted race.

It is evil and wrong and false to teach

blacks are inferior because they belong to a tainted, inferior, wicked race

Jews are inferior because they belong to a tainted, inferior, wicked race

whites are inferior because they belong to a tainted, inferior, wicked race

ALL BAD!

So, Question 7. I hope it's as easy as 6.

And it is! In fact, it's just Question 6 Redux.

The answer is, again, that what would be prohibited would be teaching that THE ENTIRE JAPANESE RACE IS EVIL, TAINTED, AND WICKED BECAUSE OF PEARL HARBOR, or THE ENTIRE MUSLIM RACE IS EVIL, TAINTED, AND WICKED BECAUSE OF 9/11.

So, the answer is YES. Japanese-American parents or Muslim-American parents would indeed have the ability to object if anyone started trying to teach that they belong to a "tainted, inferior, wicked race" on the basis of something some people of the same ethnicity did.

And I'd join them.

The evil is the same in all cases: blaming the "race" or group for the sins of some of its members.

Race guilt is a wicked thing.

Question 8. I wonder if it's just Questions 6 and 7 again?

How about the actual causes of racial disparities?

The main answer here would take a bit, but I'm just going to let @ConceptualJames cover it.

The short answer is, contra Wise, "systemic racism" is NOT the cause of ongoing racial inequities, because it is JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR THAT.

@ConceptualJames "If we can't talk about COVID-19 as the CAUSE of the Coronavirus that came of out Wuhan China in early 2020, what CAN we talk about as the cause?"

No, COVID-19 isn't the CAUSE of the Coronavirus that came from China. It JUST IS that virus.

@ConceptualJames Another name for a thing isn't the cause of the thing, unless you are engaged in a kind of mystical religious belief — which CRT adherents, in fact, are.

@ConceptualJames "Whiteness" and "Systemic Racism" are de facto pagan god-demons.

Much like "Patriarchy" before them.

@ConceptualJames In fact, these things are abstractions, which have no or little connection to reality, and certainly do not have godlike causal powers.

@ConceptualJames "Whiteness," if it exists at all, exists only as an abstraction that can't DO anything.

Attributing causal powers to it is a superstition, an ugly one, since it also grounds imputation of race-blood-guilt.

@ConceptualJames Question 9 is another redux of 6 and 7.

The answer is that it would be wrong to teach racial inferiority on the basis of these things.

@ConceptualJames I saw a black man on TikTok yesterday who made the point that African immigrants who start off as poor as or poorer than American blacks tend to outperform American blacks in a short amount of time.

His point: it isn't "racism" or "blackness" that is the PROBLEM.

@ConceptualJames The American black community has a myriad of problems, but it would be wrong to teach schoolchildren that these problems are caused by "blackness."

Or "whiteness."

@ConceptualJames Question 10. At least these aren't NEW questions, so I've already answered them.

See above. The prohibition is against teaching a one-sided "America is totally evil" narrative.

@ConceptualJames Every American needs to think through and come to terms with the disconnect between America's founding principles and America's obvious failure to live up to them, most stark in the case of slavery.

But it is just false that "racism" and "slavery" are the WHOLE AMERICAN STORY.

@ConceptualJames Question 11: This is a non-question, that is totally irrelevant.

I have read — and taught to my college students — MLK's Letter from the Birmingham Jail.

Do you have a point here?

@ConceptualJames Even people who have never read another word of MLK can know, agree with, and cite MLK's famous dictum about "the content of our character."

You don't have to be an MLK scholar to agree with him on that key point.

@ConceptualJames This question is supposed to ... what?

Say you have no right to quote MLK if you aren't well-versed in his thought? Why?

@ConceptualJames Questions 12 and 13 go together, because Wise is trying to be cute.

He quotes some MLK he thinks is provocative, because leftist don't understand conservatives.

@ConceptualJames I'll put it as simply as I can.

Teaching these things is fine, BECAUSE Martin Luther King, Jr. DOES NOT TEACH RACE ESSENTIALISM.

Critical Race Theory does.

You want to.

King would be adamantly opposed to you and what you want.

As am I.

So, no, I would not and do not agree.

@ConceptualJames I reject both:

"Black people do wicked things because they are black. They instantiate blackness, which causes them to be wicked and depraved."

"White people do wicked things because they are white. They instantiate whiteness, which causes them to be wicked and depraved."

@ConceptualJames I DO NOT WANT this kind of Race Essentialism taught in America schools.

It is evil, and it is false.

Away with it.

Your Critical Race Theory can go to hell. Or into the fires of Mount Doom at least.

@ConceptualJames Okay, I've had my say.

That was exhausting.

I shouldn't do these things BLIND.

I keep having a basic trust in people, even journalists, to mean by
"13 questions," 13 questions.

@ConceptualJames I'll end on this note: if you followed me through this tortured maze of Tim Wise's mind, let's ask:

If he can't even manage to be HONEST about asking 13 questions, why should we think his questions are HONEST?

/FIN

Any questions for me?