Critical Race Theory and American Culture
We have posted articles on what critical race theory (CRT) is and what its primary political manifestation is, but the truth is that its influence exceeds politics. CRT has made its mark on nearly every American cultural institution. In this article, we will cover some of these highlights.
The most visible realm in which CRT has made its mark, aside from politics, is probably journalism. Consider The New York Times “1619 Project,” an initiative “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year.” Why 1619? Because this was the first year on record that African slaves were brought to the North American continent. Rather than honor the architects of the American system of government for creating the first nation founded on individual rights, Times writers thought it appropriate to judge America’s founders out of context. After all, America’s founders had inherited the barbaric practice of slavery from the rest of human history, and it was their ideas that culminated in its elimination. A more explicit example of CRT’s takeover of journalism is Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot’s declaration that she will only grant one-on-one interviews to “journalists of color,” reminding us that she believes that the skin color of an interviewer is more essential than their talent as a writer or the relevance of their questions.
In literature, CRT is preached by bestsellers such as White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, How to be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi, and Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado. The goal of these titles is to convince otherwise colorblind Americans that they are racist, only to cash in on their readers’ subsequent shame and desperation to remove the ignoble “bigot” label. While this goes on, several Dr. Seuss titles have since been removed from the shelves due to supposedly racist images.
In the Arts and Entertainment Industry, CRT is responsible for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent decision to create diversity quotas. According to that organization, “the standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience.” They add, for good measure, that “the aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them.” In other words, never mind the individual qualifications of actors, actresses, screenwriters, directors, producers, cameramen, gaffers, grips, and the myriad other people required to create a movie; instead, look at each as a representative of their demographic group and ensure that it is the groups that are represented and equalized. Newsbusters reports that in the year since the killing of George Floyd, there have been 127 television episodes that have explicitly pushed the BLM agenda, an average of nearly three episodes per week.
In corporate America, CRT is responsible for companies like Disney and Coca-Cola pushing “anti-racist training” wherein their associates are required to reject “equality” and “whiteness” in favor of “equity.” Tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google are pushing their employees to refrain from using traditional cybersecurity terms such as “blacklist” and “whitelist” to prevent harm from being done to “programmers of color.” Even food labels are not safe from Marxist doctrines, as the “Aunt Jemima” syrup brand and “Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice” are being banned for being racially insensitive.
In professional sports, CRT is behind Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star game out of Atlanta after Georgia passed a law requiring voter id — even though the decision cost Atlanta nearly $100 million in tourism revenue that most directly affected the 40% of Atlanta that happens to be black. We must also recall the influence that CRT had on NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who publicly knelt during the National Anthem to protest “police brutality” against blacks during several games in 2017.
Perhaps most alarming of all is CRT’s incursion into the American military. The U.S. Military is tasked with defending the free world from foreign aggressors and is the Atlas of representative government today. Our allies in Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East stand face-to-face with aggressive, authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Should the U.S. military falter, the free world will be a mere footnote in the annals of history, and yet, even here, CRT has growing tentacles.
Military academies across the country are incorporating CRT as part of their curricula, creating what one retired general called “a culture of fear in the military.” He noted further, chillingly, that “…if you speak out against this Marxist ideology, you will be relieved of your duties.” One recent example is Space Force Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, who was dismissed from his post after publicly speaking out against Marxism in the military. NASA recently put out new recruiting materials championing equity, a development that critics online panned as “critical space theory.” Meanwhile, President Biden and his allies in the Pentagon have identified “right-wing extremism” as the real threat to the safety of the United States. This development likely pleases Beijing and Moscow, who relish America’s developing “cultural revolution”.
What all of this confirms is that American culture has been largely infiltrated and dominated by CRT. If we hope to reverse this, we must speak out against the racist CRT perspective and fight fiercely to keep it out of the schools, where future CEOs, artists, authors, athletes, and journalists are being trained.
