Normally for me, that word has more to do with high energy collisions of atomic particles, splitting the nucleus of an atom into two or more smaller nuclei and releasing a lot of energy real quickly. Especially if it is self-sustaining. In another world, I wrote for military journals and visited places where things that went critical were the main topic of conversation.
But there is another topic, not military but societal, where things are going critical and where like the other form it could destroy everything.
We live here in the backcountry, lost in the mountains, where most people believe in the Constitution and the political beliefs that brought it into existence. Key beliefs and ideals include the intrinsic worth of all persons, regardless of race, color, creed or gender. That all are equal before the law, and that the law should treat them so. That laws are made, and enforced, with the consent of the governed. And that everyone, so long as they stay within the law, has the right to advance their personal economic and social status as best they can.
For most of the Gentle Readers, it sounds like what we were raised with. It is what we consider to be, if not “normal” at least the aspirational goal for a free society. It is what we were taught at home, in church and in school. Especially in school. Not only in history and civics classes, but from the very beginning of the day with the Pledge of Allegiance from kindergarten on.
Now you and I know that things are different in urban areas, especially those ruled by Democrats. And we know that what starts there, comes out here whether it fits, is right or is even legal.
We have something else coming, and it is as critical as the neutrons splitting that I talked about above, and its intent is to split our country irrevocably.
The name of this threat, and yes that is where I got the title, is Critical Race Theory. It is being pushed out of the Department of Education, and indeed from throughout the Federal government. States that are Democrat controlled are pressing forward to make it the centerpiece of education. We cannot allow that to happen.
What is Critical Race Theory?
As pushed by the Democrat Party, the Federal government, and Academia it is defined thusly:
1. Racism exists everywhere in American life -from within our own thoughts, to our personal relationships, to our places of work, to our educational and judicial systems.
2. Neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness and meritocracy are not real. How can one be truly neutral on issues of race when racism is baked into the fabric of America?
3. All oppression interrelates and CRT focuses on eradicating racism and other forms of oppression by centering on People of Color and taking a stance on issues of social justice.
4. The lived experiences of People of Color however expressed are crucial to understanding racism and oppression, more so than mere academic or legal matters.
Short form, it is that those with White skin are irredeemably evil. That consciously or otherwise their very existence oppresses “Persons of Color.” “Persons of Color” (PoC) consist of Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and any indigenous peoples other than (interestingly enough) Asians. All failures of PoC are not the fault of the PoC or anything that they do, but rather can be blamed exclusively on the existence of Whites (and Asians). Specifically on the culture and society created by them, where results are products of actions and efforts. Which is why we Asians are lumped in with the White “oppressors” because Asians in the main prosper here.
Their belief system posits that while almost all Whites (and Asians) are knowing oppressors of PoC, those few who do not know still are guilty. Because skin color equals culture which is oppression in the Critical Race Theory theology. And no act, no submission, nothing that leaves Whites (and Asians) in existence will remove the oppression.
Which leads to another interesting bit of Leftist logic. Even though nothing that a White (or Asian) can do or say can redeem them or make them less evil, it is mandatory that Whites (and Asians) be lectured and berated on how evil they are. We have seen it as a new series of mandatory classes in colleges and schools nationwide. We are seeing it coming into the business world. And not just in a small way.
Coca-Cola is not exactly a small business. At the beginning of the year, Coca Cola sent out a memo to its contract law firms demanding that they prove that 30 percent of the man hours billed for legal work was performed by “diverse” attorneys (PoC) or they would unilaterally cut their payment to those firms by 30 percent. Leaving aside that their law firms did not have 30 percent PoC, unilaterally changing contracts to the disfavor of the lawyers you depend on may not be the brightest thing in the world. After the screaming about that died down, a whistleblower revealed copies of an 11-minute video that was to be mandatorily shown to all employees as part of their “diversity training.” Based on a best selling book from 2018 titled “White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism” by a Robin DiAngelo; the presentation told employees to “Try to be less White,” “Understanding What it Means to be White, Challenging What it Means to be Racist” and “being 'less white' meant being 'less oppressive,' 'less arrogant' and 'less ignorant.'” Basically, it recapped the definitions of CRT for all Coca-Cola employees.
When news of it got out in February, Coca-Cola tried to claim that it was not an official Coca-Cola training program. The problem with that was that every slide and segment of film had Coca-Cola's corporate trademark in the upper right hand corner. Coca-Cola is known for protecting the ownership of anything with its trademark. That was not an accident.
Coke's sales took a major hit and they took the training program down. Mind you, there is no indication that they stopped believing in Critical Race Theory, just that they did not want it known. The Vice President of Personnel who pushed all that also left . . . . with a very expensive long term severance package to go do the same thing elsewhere. That is not punishment, that is trying to cover their own b**t.
Colleges that are in theory training the next generation of leaders are falling into line with CRT, some with opposition from the governor and legislature, some with the full support of both. Not unsurprisingly, Washington, Oregon and California schools have adopted CRT at the college level and it is moving down into school districts as the state develops curriculum. Other states are still fighting. But the threat is real and has to be resisted wherever it pops up.
Keeping track of developments at the college level is helped by a website supported by Cornell University Law Professor William A. Jacobson. https://criticalrace.org/. Click on the state map in the main page to see what is happening in each state. In Colorado, they list four colleges teaching and supporting CRT. Colorado College in the Springs, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, University of Colorado in Boulder and Denver University in Denver. Noting that both CSU and CU have branch campuses around the state, I suspect that the same curriculums are there too.
CRT is basically a belief that our country is irredeemably evil, and that anyone who is White or Asian is also. If you follow the theory to its conclusion, it ends with a PoC genocide of Whites and Asians as the only solution. In case you have not noticed or figured out, such an attempt would not be unopposed. And the definitions of “majority” and “minority” do have concrete meanings that are objective. And objectively the majority has most of the weapons, most of the training with them, and lives in defensible areas that control the logistics of where the minorities live. Anything that forces one side or another to try genocide will result in literally scores of millions of deaths. Maybe hundreds of millions.
CRT claims to fight racism by being both racist and threatening violence with no possible peaceful resolution. That is the road to national suicide, which may be the intent of its proponents. It must be suppressed anywhere it pops up; in our schools, in businesses (that is why G-d created boycotts) and in our laws. You will note that the proponents of CRT are all on one side of the political spectrum. The same one that has nothing but contempt for those of us who were raised as described at the beginning of this piece. Those two points may be related.
Our mainstream media is swamping us with stories claiming that it is Whites (and Asians, for consistency's sake) who are killing masses of Blacks in this country. Let me leave you with a couple of thoughts.
We are a species that if Darwin was right evolved from dinosaurs through apes to being human. Our forebears were neither gentle nor civil and we reflect that. Civil society is something that has to be enforced, and it is not always done successfully.
The human race, for whatever reason, is chock full of fools, miscreants, maladroits and ambulatory anal orifii. It is what it is. They are distributed across the spectrum of race, color, creed and national origin. And they are depressingly common. There are killings every day.
The mass media (which is Democrat or further Left) would have us think that every time a Black is killed, it is the fault of a White or an act of a White (OK, or Asian). Let me give you a little rule of thumb. If a Black is murdered in a street shooting, a robbery, burglary or whatever; watch the news. Now the first reports of a recently committed crime may not have all the information. That is something that is to be expected. However, if there is no description after a few hours, it is quite likely that it is being deliberately withheld. Once again, that may be legitimate. Or it may not. If the media has ranted on about evil Whites killing innocent Blacks, and the description of the suspect involves high melanin content; they may be stalling, hoping that people will forget the rant. And if they admit that they have caught the perp, and refuse to either name him or release his picture for a day or so, you can bet that the person caught was Black. Not releasing the picture is obvious if they want you to forget the ranting. Not releasing the name is also a possible clue. Names reflect ethnicity. A lot of . . . distinctive. . . names can indicate that the owner is urban Black. I will leave it to the Gentle Reader to ponder examples. But you can be absolutely sure that if they do catch a White killing a Black, the media will be screaming it from the rooftops for days.
Don't let either the politicians use CRT or the media with its false news divide us by race.
Benjamin Franklin printed an editorial cartoon in his “Pennsylvania Gazette” in 1754 that had the motto JOIN OR DIE. Maybe it is time to listen to old Ben again.