I think Michael DC Brown has something serious to say:
We have entered an era in which the relative neutrality of racial identity no longer exists in the mainstream of American life. The truce signed in the 70s by nominal blackfolks and nominal whitefolks has broken. Not by you and I, but by a collection of people who are determined to say that race matters, and that it matters more than you or I. It has broken over some truly phenomenally trivial bullshit which has been magnified many orders of magnitude into a symbol, perhaps the most incredibly weighty hot air balloon America has ever seen. It doesn’t matter that St. George has put more people and violence in the street than anybody short of Rodney King and MLK, it matters that the truce is broken and people are scrambling to do something. This is a poignant moment. Things are out of balance. It’s fair to say that so-called whitefolks and so-called blackfolks are at odds, or even at war. Sucks to be them.
So what do I mean by personal deracination? Well in distinction from the some of the talk above, it means that you abandon whatever it is you think your racial role should be in improving ‘race relations’. You must first grasp the fact that anything having to do with race relations is a game for which you must don a uniform and represent your team. You never will get to be the leader of your team, and every time you attempt to be an individual, you will not get recognized unless you are following the team playbook. [Stoic Observations]
In combination with Andrew Sullivan’s recent furious diatribe against Jon Stewart and Critical Race Theory (CRT) campaigner Lisa Bond, this is convincing to me to come around to the position that CRT is just another vehicle for grifters, those creatures that can tell ridiculous lies with completely straight faces, like Greg Locke.
Bond’s gig? In Sullivan’s words:
Stewart invited on, and fawned over, a woman named Lisa Bond, who runs an organization called Race2Dinner. She charges white women $2,500 per dinner to be harangued for their racism.
The best grifts have a patina of plausibility that covers up an abyss: missing context, generalizations that collapse like a tent in a windstorm, mis-direction, refusal to engage. It was while reading Sullivan’s description of Bond, which goes on a trifle longer, that I finally began to clue in to what I think CRT is really turning out to be.
So if someone starts howling CRT tenets in your ears and sticks a hand out, or into your pocket, remember my words and start thinking for yourself. Not their thoughts, but your own.
Although Mr. Brown’s thoughts are well worth considering.
