Karl Marx and Critical Race Theory

Who's heard about CRT, critical race theory? Yeah, I think we all have. But it's something that is confusing to a lot of people.

To understand CRT, you have to understand its roots- which are in classic Marxism.

But to understand Marxism, at least a passing understanding of Karl Marx himself is needed.

And, as they say, "there must needs be opposition in all things." The opposition to Karl Marx was born 13 years prior in 1805 in Vermont. 

Karl was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843 and she went on to have seven children by him. He's described in Wikipedia as "a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and social revolutionary." Where the only one of those that might bring in money is journalist and it's next-to-last, I wonder how much time he spent actually researching, writing, and getting paid. He actually spent much of his adulthood traveling from friend to friend asking them to give him money to support his family.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Ultimately, the economic plan he devised vilified the Haves, while declaring the Have-Nots as oppressed under the well-heeled boots of the Haves. Under his economic plan, the Haves are taxed.. or their assets are otherwise confiscated by the government and dispersed to the Have-Nots, of course always leaving a lining in the pockets of the government officials tasked with this redistribution.

So that's basic Marxism in a nutshell. After having put it into action multiple times (USSR, China, and more recently in Venezuela), IMO, it doesn't work. It fails, and it fails fast!

So what does this have to do with race and CRT? More than you may think.

CRT is what happens when this redistribution is carried from the economic realm into the social and political realm. Per CRT advocates, there are those who have greater social and political privilege, while there are also those who are oppressed by this privileged class. These classes are defined by skin tone... race.

According to CRT, the privileged class is those of European, and more specifically northern European descent-- whites. The oppressed is pretty much everyone else- brown, black, Asian, etc.

Despite the reality that it's not possible to take that supposed privilege from this privileged class, the vilification of the privileged still happens. And the victimhood of those who are not privileged is still repeated ad nauseum.

The upshot is that CRT teaches the "privileged" a self-loathing that is rooted DNA-deep. They are morally corrupt and evil simply because they're white. And this ideology teaches the "oppressed" a DNA-deep victimhood and systemic helplessness that is a downright lie.

Yes, I'll say it: CRT is a lie.

While there are those who believe that by virtue of skin color alone, some people in this country are privileged and some are oppressed.. and while there are those who actually behave this way, treating those with more pigment in their skin as inferior, it is not systemic (built into the system). There are no laws that say this race has these rights while that race has a different set of rights.

The system is not racist. There is no law that declares that one race gets one set of privileges while other races get less. Those were done away with in the 60s and 70s. I fully acknowledge that there are racist individuals- people who believe that color of skin and nation of origin define a person's value and potential, people on both sides who judge by color rather than character.

The reality is that the USA was, and still is (mostly), the Land of Opportunity. Those opportunities are still available to anyone and everyone who wants to avail themselves of those possibilities for success, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation or identity, marital or relationship or family status, nation of origin, and is only limited by age if you're under 21.