“Racism robs…”

His truck which has a license plate. Which isn’t the license plate of the allegedly stolen vehicle.

— Nicole Arlette, PhD (@nicole_arlette) September 14, 2022

He was simply sitting. In his vehicle. That he owns.

— Nicole Arlette, PhD (@nicole_arlette) September 14, 2022

I can’t imagine a white person being handcuffed for sitting in their own damn car. For 15-20 minutes, so police could verify that it was, as they claimed, their car.

— Nicole Arlette, PhD (@nicole_arlette) September 14, 2022

Racism robs people of time and respect and dignity.

— Nicole Arlette, PhD (@nicole_arlette) September 14, 2022

I know I’m beating my NextDoor experience (“NOT THAT AGAIN!!!”) to a dead horse’s dead horse, but reading this opened my understanding again.

The evil subtext of CRT as a way if teaching whites are inferior and guilty and the source of all suffering in the world…well, that evil is pretty obvious when I put it that way, isn’t it? But one thing I pointed out in that “discussion” was that the attacks in CRT sounded just like the complaints about affirmative action I remember from the ‘70’s. In essence, that white privilege was threatened by affirmative action, that this was a zero-sum game and any gain by non-whites came at the expense of whites. It was never discussed as racist; indeed, it was affirmative action that was racist. Anything that benefited non-whites was (is) racist. And so the status quo must be preserved, in the name of not being racist.

“Racism affects people’s abilities to draw logical conclusions.”

I’m not sure the people I was arguing with were capable of drawing logical conclusions without racism. The response to my points was largely to cite websites or results of google searches which revealed a use of terms (like “critical theory”) without any understanding of those terms. The only point was to find ways to support a predetermined conclusion. There was no understanding how to do that, just a determination to make it so. It didn’t help that the argument was using racism to denounce racism. Racism, that is, aimed at white people. That’s what they saw CRT doing; and that’s what they opposed.

Do the police in that incident think they are racist? Probably not. Are they? Can it be argued? Actions speak much louder than words, and are more honest than we want them to be. Would a white person be treated like that? No. Would it be the fault of CRT if they were? It seems ridiculous, but I wouldn’t doubt it. Not from what I’ve seen of people so upset by what they think CRT is.

In fact, that’s really the use of CRT as a shibboleth. There’s no understanding of the theory; it’s just an ink blot on which they can project their fears and anxieties; which is their racism, actually. Racism makes you arrogant in your superiority (Stephen Miller), or makes you very afraid the status quo could change and you find yourself in the inferior position. That’s where the fear and anxiety come from, and why none dare call it racism. Because racism is a great evil, and only violent white supremacists are evil.

But they are, these people who fear and despise CRT; just like those police officers. They are racists, who fear losing the protections they think their racism provides them.

Racism does affect our ability to draw logical conclusions. And it robs people of dignity; which is another reason we protest so much against it. We know it doesn’t rob the victim’s dignity; it destroys ours. And even as we fear our loss of status, we fear the damage to our dignity, too. And so we insist more strongly that the fault is on others, that “they” are the evil which must be suppressed.

And that’s where our troubles begin.