Strawmen from the Critics of Critical Race?
One of the common features that you will see from some in their responses to critics of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is that the critics don’t truly understand CRT. And what usually triggers this response is when a critic names a person that the Crits do not think should be included as a Critical Race Theorist. For example:
This is a fairly standard response from Nii Amaa. Although, I have yet to see anything of substance from him where he actually defines CRT.
Nii’s own laziness aside; is this a fair assessment? Is there something wrong in “lumping kendi and Diangelo into CRT”?
Yes and no.
I would say, yes, it’s fair, but only if you understand the battle that takes place within the CRT movement.
Movements can be a complicated mess. First, you have those who get the movement started. These “founders” can contradict each other, contradict themselves, or change their minds. Then you have disciples of the founders. Some disciples will stay faithful to the original vision. Some will veer off a bit. Some may take the thing in an entirely different direction. And at any time, these disciples may contradict each other or themselves or change their minds. The more people who get involved, the messier it can get. And then you have the outsider looking in, trying to piece all of this together.
This happens to every movement. It has happened to CRT. And the reason Nii responds the way he does is that he is aware of this internal conflict within the CRT community.
One of the Crits that has been drawing attention to this internal conflict is Professor Tommy Curry. Curry was a student of Derrick Bell - the granddaddy of CRT - and it’s been said that he reflects the ideals of Bell better than anyone. Curry has major problems with what is today popularly known as Critical Race Theory. He writes,
Richard Delgado’s “Crossroads and Blind Alleys: A Critical Examination of Recent Writing About Race” argues that the popularization of CRT and its adoption by predominately white institutions and academic departments have hastened the de-radicalization of the material analyses formulated by the original race-critics across multiple disciplines (Delgado 2004). The adoption of Continental philosophy and post-structuralism as the methods of analyzing problems of racism and other social inequalities has allowed many disciplines to embrace CRT as a general label designating any number of inquiries into questions concerning race generally without any attention to the methodological and theoretical commitments of Critical Race Theory in its original formulation. The initial formulation of CRT was racial realist, meaning it focused on the empirical and historically defined differences in economic status and political power, and made its concern the social stratifications which had emerged throughout America as the foundation of its analysis into not only the law but the routine function of white supremacist ideology more generally. The present-day interpretation and popular understanding of CRT however, is quite different, and imagined only to exist as a conceptual and discursive engagement with issues of identity, or privilege.
In an interview found on YouTube, Professor Curry says that “what's called critical race theory or race theory in the university system is really nothing more than the iteration of the Democratic platform.” (39:38)
So yes, one could take a purist angle to this and argue that men like Shenvi, Baucham, and Lindsay are off.
But, on the other hand, there’s a sense in which I don’t think this is a fair response. By Professor Curry’s own admission, nobody today gives a crap about pure Critical Race Theory. In the PDF linked above, Curry writes:
Derrick Bell is perhaps the most ignored black political theorist of the twentieth century. While Critical Race Theory is routinely mentioned in practically every philosophical text on race over the last two decades, the political theories, phenomenological investigations, and critical interventions by Bell have remained ignored.
This is why they whine every time a critic of “CRT” speaks up. And they need to get over it. The internal debates over who is truly sticking to the original CRT plan is their fight, not ours. By their own admission, CRT has been hijacked by the DiAngelos of the world. And guess what? Those are the people getting all of the attention and whose ideas Crits run with to cause disturbance in the church. And so if Dr. Voddie Baucham writes a book against “CRT” and includes people like DiAngelo in it, it’s not his problem. Nor is it a straw man just because some Crits want to hold on to an outdated, irrelevant, earlier version of CRT.
I remember when “white privilege” started getting popular. Who was the person many pointed to, allies and critics alike? Peggy McIntosh. But some did not like that. They whined about how Peggy was new to the game and that there were real, black scholars before her that developed the idea. But it didn’t matter. Why? Because nobody was paying attention to them. The colleges, universities, mainstream media, and so on were pushing Peggy, not some long-forgotten black scholar that has “remained ignored.”
Peggy was the one who got popular. Peggy’s Invisible Knapsack was what the kids were reading in school. Peggy’s arguments were the ones we had to put up with from the numbskulls. And so Peggy was the one who got the attention of the critics.
It wasn’t our problem that those before Peggy didn’t get the spotlight.
There is a thing today called Critical Race Theory. And it’s causing many problems in the church. And whether or not you like the fact that CRT has drifted from its roots is completely irrelevant. The revised, hijacked version of CRT that is popular today is what everyone is dealing with, whether you like it or not.
People like Nii need to get over themselves. Face it - nobody cares about Tommy Curry. And claiming that men like Dr. Baucham are ignorant and/or “mischaracterizing” CRT is misleading and false.
Sure, if you’re a purist, you have a case.
But guess what? Nobody cares because nobody knows who you are and you’re irrelevant.