We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think "critical race theory." We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.
- Chistopher Rufo, the reporter who got the CRT debate going, and why CRT discussions are so chaotic (different definitions of CRT)
(Spoiler) Earlier comment of mine on the discursivity of identity if needed
Gender and race are discursive traits in the sense that they require the existence of an Other to have meaning. Just like it doesn’t make sense to talk about boneless pizza, it doesn’t make sense to talk about gender when you’re the only person in existence. This due to the definition “man” being useless without a contrastive “woman.”
But discursive identities are “performed” - at least if you follow Judith Butler’s school of thought, there’s no such thing as “a woman” so much as (and this is the phrasing she uses) her experience of “been being a woman.” That is to say the gender doesn’t exist in the person themselves, but rather in the communication between two people and the understanding springing therefrom (because we established earlier the need for an Other). So in critical race theory and queer theory and such, people are not “black” but rather “being black,” which allows for changes in what black means (and blackness can change because it’s a shared understanding and not an inherent trait).
Conversely to discursive, performed identity, class is a material relation to power. That is, in contrast to gender and race, it does make sense to talk about class when you're the only person in existence. You are either reaping the full benefit of your labor or you are not, sort of like being asleep or awake, which can happen in the absence of an Other.
Class reductionism holds that all oppression not along class lines falls away once class struggle is resolved. This is an ignorant position, and also is utilized by reactionaries to shut down any progress in those important arenas in favor of waiting on a revolution springing from the imperial core (won't happen) and therefore only functions as an impediment to real issues. However, this difference between the material and discursive is important in understanding how, for example, the conversation slips into Robin DiAngelo-esque co-opting of these issues into a massive corporate diversity industry, more aligned towards pacification than actual change, springing up from the need to avoid discrimination lawsuits, that doesn't even increase workplace diversity.
Quotes from Harvard Business Review link for the lazy
After Wall Street firms repeatedly had to shell out millions to settle discrimination lawsuits, businesses started to get serious about their efforts to increase diversity
It shouldn’t be surprising that most diversity programs aren’t increasing diversity. Despite a few new bells and whistles, courtesy of big data, companies are basically doubling down on the same approaches they’ve used since the 1960s—which often make things worse, not better.
This conversational slip occurs because, to utilize a common framing of racism, if we view such as "power + prejudice" the current focus is on eradicating the prejudice, leaving power unmolested. It should go without saying that prejudice has existed since time immemorial and will continue to exist for quite some time after this. People kill each other over football games, for chrissake. It also lends itself to an individual-level critique "you, Mr. Trump, are a racist" as opposed to system-level. Its fluidity (like annexation of Irish into whiteness) is not a proof of its soon to-be distruction: racism was propagated to serve the function of uniting the white West against all others, and now must be eradicated due to American multiculturality and reliance on, for example, PhDs from the third world. These particular expressions of a universal jingoism are abandoned once they are no longer useful (in the environment where their use has diminished).
Analogue from the Manifesto about sexism
The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex
The current construction of power, on the other hand, does not suffer this issue. It is important to treat symptoms as well as disease, but don't mix the two up, and don't fall into the trap of either "symptoms all gone once disease gone" or "treating symptoms fixes disease." The former downplays women's, minorities', and the queer community's progress. The latter is reformism and merely shifts the burden (see "white feminism" et al).
- Chistopher Rufo, the reporter who got the CRT debate going, and why CRT discussions are so chaotic (different definitions of CRT)
(Spoiler) Earlier comment of mine on the discursivity of identity if needed
Gender and race are discursive traits in the sense that they require the existence of an Other to have meaning. Just like it doesn’t make sense to talk about boneless pizza, it doesn’t make sense to talk about gender when you’re the only person in existence. This due to the definition “man” being useless without a contrastive “woman.”
But discursive identities are “performed” - at least if you follow Judith Butler’s school of thought, there’s no such thing as “a woman” so much as (and this is the phrasing she uses) her experience of “been being a woman.” That is to say the gender doesn’t exist in the person themselves, but rather in the communication between two people and the understanding springing therefrom (because we established earlier the need for an Other). So in critical race theory and queer theory and such, people are not “black” but rather “being black,” which allows for changes in what black means (and blackness can change because it’s a shared understanding and not an inherent trait).
Conversely to discursive, performed identity, class is a material relation to power. That is, in contrast to gender and race, it does make sense to talk about class when you're the only person in existence. You are either reaping the full benefit of your labor or you are not, sort of like being asleep or awake, which can happen in the absence of an Other.
Class reductionism holds that all oppression not along class lines falls away once class struggle is resolved. This is an ignorant position, and also is utilized by reactionaries to shut down any progress in those important arenas in favor of waiting on a revolution springing from the imperial core (won't happen) and therefore only functions as an impediment to real issues. However, this difference between the material and discursive is important in understanding how, for example, the conversation slips into Robin DiAngelo-esque co-opting of these issues into a massive corporate diversity industry, more aligned towards pacification than actual change, springing up from the need to avoid discrimination lawsuits, that doesn't even increase workplace diversity.
Quotes from Harvard Business Review link for the lazy
This conversational slip occurs because, to utilize a common framing of racism, if we view such as "power + prejudice" the current focus is on eradicating the prejudice, leaving power unmolested. It should go without saying that prejudice has existed since time immemorial and will continue to exist for quite some time after this. People kill each other over football games, for chrissake. It also lends itself to an individual-level critique "you, Mr. Trump, are a racist" as opposed to system-level. Its fluidity (like annexation of Irish into whiteness) is not a proof of its soon to-be distruction: racism was propagated to serve the function of uniting the white West against all others, and now must be eradicated due to American multiculturality and reliance on, for example, PhDs from the third world. These particular expressions of a universal jingoism are abandoned once they are no longer useful (in the environment where their use has diminished).
Analogue from the Manifesto about sexism
The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex
The current construction of power, on the other hand, does not suffer this issue. It is important to treat symptoms as well as disease, but don't mix the two up, and don't fall into the trap of either "symptoms all gone once disease gone" or "treating symptoms fixes disease." The former downplays women's, minorities', and the queer community's progress. The latter is reformism and merely shifts the burden (see "white feminism" et al).