What in the World is Critical Race Theory?

"Critical Race Theory" is apparently a facet of the governing philosophy of the Biden Administration; at least, it has been thus far.  Whether one agrees or not with the present trajectory of our country, it seems important that we understand this theory.  

The following is excerpted from that lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 30, 2021 by Christopher F. Rufo (1) and printed in Imprimis (a publication of Hillsdale College), March 2021, Vol. 50. 

"By the mid-1960s, Marxist intellectuals in the West had begun to acknowledge the failures of Marxism.  They recoiled at revelations of Soviet atrocities and came to realize that workers’ revolutions would never occur in Western Europe or the United States... [But] Marxist scholars in the West simply adapted their revolutionary theory to the social and racial unrest of the 1960s.  Abandoning Marx’s economic dialectic of capitalists and workers, they substituted race for class and sought to create a revolutionary coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.  

Fortunately, the early proponents of this revolutionary coalition in the U.S. lost out in the 1960s to the civil rights movement, which sought instead the fulfillment of the American promise of freedom and equality under the law. Americans preferred the idea of improving their country to that of overthrowing it.  The vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Johnson’s pursuit of the Great Society, and the restoration of law and order promised by President Nixon in his 1968 campaign defined the post-1960s American political consensus. But the radical Left has proved resilient and enduring—which is where critical race theory comes in. 

WHAT IT IS: Critical race theory is an academic discipline, formulated in the 1990s, built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism...  There are a series of euphemisms deployed by its supporters to describe critical race theory, including “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell.  Equity, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality. But the distinction is vast and important. Indeed, equality—the principle proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, and codified into law with the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is explicitly rejected by critical race theorists. To them, equality represents “mere nondiscrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression... 

In contrast to equality, equity as defined and promoted by critical race theorists is little more than reformulated Marxism... An equity-based form of government would mean the end not only of private property, but also of individual rights, equality under the law, federalism, and freedom of speech. These would be replaced by race-based redistribution of wealth, group-based rights, active discrimination, and omnipotent bureaucratic authority. Historically, the accusation of “anti-Americanism” has been overused. But in this case, it’s not a matter of interpretation—critical race theory prescribes a revolutionary program that would overturn the principles of the Declaration and destroy the remaining structure of the Constitution." [what Obama called the remaking of America] 

(1) Christopher F. Rufo is founder and director of Battlefront, a public policy research center. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and a former Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. As executive director at the Documentary Foundation, he has directed four films for PBS, including most recently America Lost, which explores life in Youngstown, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, and Stockton, California. He is also a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers topics including critical race theory, homelessness, addiction, and crime.

You will find a much-expanded printing in the publication referenced above.  As a Christian and a disciple of Martin Luther King Jr., what I might add is that the identity-based politics of our current day is an anathema.  My identity is in Christ, not my race.  As St. Paul writes in Galatian 3:28,  "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."