BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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George Truett said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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Is there anytime in church history when we have not had victims in the roadway, Jewish priests avoiding victims, Levites avoiding victims and Samaritans? When Jesus told that story, was it only for the audience He had at that time or was it for others as well? I believe he also told the parable about an individual victim and not a class of victims.

---

Glad you brought up this story because it's a great example of what CRT is about. Race is a big factor in it.

One of the points of this is: Your racial and theological suppositions about other people are wrong. The way you categorize people is sinful.

---

Racial suppositions and categorization....exactly what CRT does, right?

---

No. CRT challenges both.

Doc Holliday said:

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George Truett said:

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4yrletterbear said:

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CRT is one of the most harmful ways to attack racism that ever existed.

CRT "assumes" that I am racist because I am Caucasian. That is the very core of racism....assuming something because of a person's skin color.

CRT does not know me and does not know my heart. Making assumptions about a person's view of other races without knowing that same person is racist.

Are their institutions that are racist.? Well there may be a few, but they are few and far between.

Are there individuals that are racist? Yes, and they come in all colors.

CRT is not the way to achieve racial equality. Application of scripture is.

---

I see CRT as a point of dialogue between us and our Black brothers and sisters. It may not be the answer, but it's not incompatible with scripture or evangelical theology, and it's nothing to fear.

---

CRT posits that the problems non whites face are entirely the fault of whites. Not just that, whites are responsible for solving it.

If nothing changes, violence will be justified against whites. If you think that's crossing the line...you will be told you're racist for objecting.

---

This isn't true. It never posits that ALL problems non-whites face are entirely the fault of whites. It posits that systemic racism creates oppression for non-whites.

I don't know anybody who supports CRT who supports violence against whites. This is argumentum ad horrendum.

J.B.Katz said:

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whiterock said:

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J.B.Katz said:

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The Ku Klux Klan was supported and even led by churches and preachers. Here's an article about a Methodist preacher who declared himself Imperial Wizard.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/08/the-preacher-who-used-christianity-to-revive-the-ku-klux-klan/

"Many ministers in Protestant denominations would openly declare their membership in the Klan. And creepy photos would capture Klan members in white hoods standing in churches and sitting in choir pews."

When I was a kid I attended churches wiAt th current and former Klan members. At one the treasurer refused to pay into the central church fund all churches were supposed to support to pay for mission work and minister's retirement pensions because he believed the mission work helped black people.

Churches have a long and trouble history with racism and Sunday morning remains one of the most segregated hours of the week.

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the other side of the coin is that, for over a century, the anti-racist chorus was loudest from the church bench.

Telling only one side of the story to inflame and order minds is classic marxist dialectic.

---

Interesting that you think of this issue as two-sided.

As a Christian I'dassume that churches / Christians would stand against racism and violence because Christ tells us to love our neighbors without a qualifier. One point of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that good people aren't limited to those who share your religion or race and that the good you do shouldn't be limited to your own people but should be extended to everyone.

So it's a sad fact that any churches / ministers / believers led or supported the Klan. When you would expect Christians to do the opposite.

---

There are definitely two sides to the story of the church and race. A lot of it comes down to how culture and economics govern the reading of scripture. Abolitionism in the North came from the church. Many (definitely not all and maybe not even most) church folk in the North read the scriptures to say slavery was inherently sinful. The fact that the economy in the North wasn't dependent on slavery helped that idea grow there.

Meanwhile in the South, much of the economy depended on slavery. So there church folk read the scriptures as supportive of slavery. After all, the Bible never condemns slavery per se. In fact, Paul told slaves to obey their masters. They read the scriptures not just as neutral on slavery, but supportive of slavery.

While there were problems with reconstruction, the idea that the evils of reconstruction led to the birth of the Klan is a southern myth. The "evil" of reconstruction was the elevation of the status of Blacks and granting them equal rights.

The Klan had another surge with the Civil Rights Movement. That movement came from the Black church in the South. White preachers in the South were no longer preaching that slavery was godly. Instead, they were preaching that segregation was godly, and found scriptures to back it up. (You can find scripture to back up almost anything, but I digress!)

One of the most difficult challenges in biblical interpretation is to come out of your culture and economy and see the scriptures clearly. One way to do that is to listen to people who have interpretations different from yours. They aren't always right, but they also aren't always wrong.

George Truett said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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George Truett said:

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4yrletterbear said:

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CRT is one of the most harmful ways to attack racism that ever existed.

CRT "assumes" that I am racist because I am Caucasian. That is the very core of racism....assuming something because of a person's skin color.

CRT does not know me and does not know my heart. Making assumptions about a person's view of other races without knowing that same person is racist.

Are their institutions that are racist.? Well there may be a few, but they are few and far between.

Are there individuals that are racist? Yes, and they come in all colors.

CRT is not the way to achieve racial equality. Application of scripture is.

---

I see CRT as a point of dialogue between us and our Black brothers and sisters. It may not be the answer, but it's not incompatible with scripture or evangelical theology, and it's nothing to fear.

---

CRT posits that the problems non whites face are entirely the fault of whites. Not just that, whites are responsible for solving it.

If nothing changes, violence will be justified against whites. If you think that's crossing the line...you will be told you're racist for objecting.

---

This isn't true. It never posits that ALL problems non-whites face are entirely the fault of whites. It posits that systemic racism creates oppression for non-whites.

---

I mean...if the "system" creates oppression for non-whites and whites created the system then, by default, are not whites the oppressors?

If that is true then it would be easy to see a justification for violence. Would not whites have a reasonable interest in maintaining status quo? Would not everyone else see a need to change the system by any means necessary?

George Truett said:

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whiterock said:

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TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

I am one chapter in on "Cynical Theories" as we speak.

All critical theories are based on marxist philosophy. The early post-modernists were all marxists, and throughout the 60's & 70's were presented with evidence of escalating clarity that marxism in practice wasn't just bad social contract.....it was murderous social contract. Their solution was to determine that Marx was wrong about economics, but right about philosophy. Not only did it explain away killing fields and gulags, it freed marxist dialectics from purely economic and class structures, which made it considerably more effective, as it was freed to attack all aspects of "cultural hegemony" (marxist term) as social constructs in a massive system (systemic oppression) of law and culture used protect the interests of whites.

Part of the appeal of CRT to societal elites is the ideological complexity of it all. It feeds the very kind superiority that CRT purports to fight..."I understand it....let me explain it to you." (just look at Truett's posts here). To those of us who are classically trained anti-Marxists (to paraphrase BLM founders), the blatant bait & switch of it all is so obvious it's really not debatable.

By redefining racism as a personal failing, something that one does or does not do to another, and instead making it a collective problem of systems, CRT creates a vast abstraction that defies specific solutions, a problem which can never be solved and therefore demands eternal contrition. Perhaps the best point Patrick Deneen made in his book "The Failure of Liberalism" when he called progressivism "anti-culture," always attacking every broadly accepted cultural value as "oppressive" without ever offering up any alternatives.

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/articles/2020/07/17/the_tyranny_of_abstractions_499302.html

George Truett said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

George Truett said:

---

4yrletterbear said:

---

CRT is one of the most harmful ways to attack racism that ever existed.

CRT "assumes" that I am racist because I am Caucasian. That is the very core of racism....assuming something because of a person's skin color.

CRT does not know me and does not know my heart. Making assumptions about a person's view of other races without knowing that same person is racist.

Are their institutions that are racist.? Well there may be a few, but they are few and far between.

Are there individuals that are racist? Yes, and they come in all colors.

CRT is not the way to achieve racial equality. Application of scripture is.

---

I see CRT as a point of dialogue between us and our Black brothers and sisters. It may not be the answer, but it's not incompatible with scripture or evangelical theology, and it's nothing to fear.

---

CRT posits that the problems non whites face are entirely the fault of whites. Not just that, whites are responsible for solving it.

If nothing changes, violence will be justified against whites. If you think that's crossing the line...you will be told you're racist for objecting.

---

This isn't true. It never posits that ALL problems non-whites face are entirely the fault of whites. It posits that systemic racism creates oppression for non-whites.

I don't know anybody who supports CRT who supports violence against whites. This is argumentum ad horrendum.

---

It's dehumanizing when people like you think whites are actively engaging in racism whether we intend to or not.

It's an automatic guilty sentence and many people think violence is justified.

CRT basically says that anything t whitey created needs to be destroyed or completely renovated.

nein51 said:

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George Truett said:

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Doc Holliday said:

---

George Truett said:

---

4yrletterbear said:

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CRT is one of the most harmful ways to attack racism that ever existed.

CRT "assumes" that I am racist because I am Caucasian. That is the very core of racism....assuming something because of a person's skin color.

CRT does not know me and does not know my heart. Making assumptions about a person's view of other races without knowing that same person is racist.

Are their institutions that are racist.? Well there may be a few, but they are few and far between.

Are there individuals that are racist? Yes, and they come in all colors.

CRT is not the way to achieve racial equality. Application of scripture is.

---

I see CRT as a point of dialogue between us and our Black brothers and sisters. It may not be the answer, but it's not incompatible with scripture or evangelical theology, and it's nothing to fear.

---

CRT posits that the problems non whites face are entirely the fault of whites. Not just that, whites are responsible for solving it.

If nothing changes, violence will be justified against whites. If you think that's crossing the line...you will be told you're racist for objecting.

---

This isn't true. It never posits that ALL problems non-whites face are entirely the fault of whites. It posits that systemic racism creates oppression for non-whites.

---

I mean...if the "system" creates oppression for non-whites and whites created the system then, by default, are not whites the oppressors?

If that is true then it would be easy to see a justification for violence. Would not whites have a reasonable interest in maintaining status quo? Would not everyone else see a need to change the system by any means necessary?

---

Whites are the oppressors, but I don't think all or most of them are aware of it. Most of them aren't aware of inequities in sentences for drugs, inequities in sentences for crimes, inequities in housing loans, inequities in education, and so forth. They go with their lives thinking that all that got fixed in the '60s and it's not a problem anymore. They feel any problems remaining in the Black community are due to laziness and immorality.

That's why many in CRT call on us to educate ourselves about oppression. I ask, "Why did no one in school teach me about the Tulsa Massacre? About the extermination of Native Americans? About lynchings?" And on and on. As for as I can see, CRT doesn't call for teaching less history, but more.

The reason why whites don't see themselves as oppressors is because no one has ever taught them to see it. That's because racism is baked into our educational system.

I recently led study on racial reconciliation based on the "Be the Bridge" materials by Tasha Morrison, a Black Christ follower. The first step in that study calls for learning and acknowledgment. Many of us have done neither. I consider myself a history buff, but I was appalled about how little I knew about racial oppression in this country.

You CAN justify violence for in many ways, but it doesn't mean a certain theory DOES provoke it or WILL provoke it.

You're could say exactly the same thing about the Civil Rights movement. To be sure, the quest for Civil Rights motivated some Blacks to act violently. But the bulk of them didn't. To be sure, it provoked violence by some whites, motivated to keep their privilege. MLK's death testifies to that.

There was division between MLK and Malcolm X on this issue. In the end, Malcolm X moved a bit more into MLK's direction. That's part of what got him killed.

The white pastors who wrote MLK while he was in the Birmingham jail urged him to chill because his movement could lead to violence. MLK responded by saying that it weren't for the Black church, the streets of the South would be running with rivers of blood. He also said the victim of the violence shouldn't be blamed for the violence.

To bring it in for a landing, just because a movement could provoke violence doesn't mean the movement is wrong.

quash said:

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George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

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TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

C'mon. Saying CRT is based on Marxism is pure intellectual laziness. CRT isn't based on Marxism. Period.

Again, we've strayed from our point. Our point of discussion is, "Is CRT incompatible with the scriptures and Christian theology?" You offer proof of it being pretentious and not based on a body of research. But it doesn't mean it's incompatible with the scriptures and Christian theology. Therefore, it didn't deserve the condemnation of the SBC seminary presidents.

whiterock said:

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quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

I am one chapter in on "Cynical Theories" as we speak.

All critical theories are based on marxist philosophy. The early post-modernists were all marxists, and throughout the 60's & 70's were presented with evidence of escalating clarity that marxism in practice wasn't just bad social contract.....it was murderous social contract. Their solution was to determine that Marx was wrong about economics, but right about philosophy. Not only did it explain away killing fields and gulags, it freed marxist dialectics from purely economic and class structures, which made it considerably more effective, as it was freed to attack all aspects of "cultural hegemony" (marxist term) as social constructs in a massive system (systemic oppression) of law and culture used protect the interests of whites.

Part of the appeal of CRT to societal elites is the ideological complexity of it all. It feeds the very kind superiority that CRT purports to fight..."I understand it....let me explain it to you." (just look at Truett's posts here). To those of us who are classically trained anti-Marxists (to paraphrase BLM founders), the blatant bait & switch of it all is so obvious it's really not debatable.

By redefining racism as a personal failing, something that one does or does not do to another, and instead making it a collective problem of systems, CRT creates a vast abstraction that defies specific solutions, a problem which can never be solved and therefore demands eternal contrition. Perhaps the best point Patrick Deneen made in his book "The Failure of Liberalism" when he called progressivism "anti-culture," always attacking every broadly accepted cultural value as "oppressive" without ever offering up any alternatives.

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/articles/2020/07/17/the_tyranny_of_abstractions_499302.html

---

There's more wrong here than I have time to deal with.

"All critical theories are based on Marxist philosophy," is a terribly lazy statement. And offered without proof. All early Post-Modernists were not Marxist.

This smacks of extremists who use "Marxist" to shut off all conversation. It's the go-to for extreme right-wing folks. It's a shameful trope used by racists to put down equality movements.

There's no ideological complexity to CRT. Racism is baked into our American culture. That sounds as simple as it can be to me. And it can be readily demonstrated.

And Christian adherents do offer remedies, as I've outlined above, which you've seemed to ignore.

George Truett said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

George Truett said:

---

LIB,MR BEARS said:

---

Is there anytime in church history when we have not had victims in the roadway, Jewish priests avoiding victims, Levites avoiding victims and Samaritans? When Jesus told that story, was it only for the audience He had at that time or was it for others as well? I believe he also told the parable about an individual victim and not a class of victims.

---

Glad you brought up this story because it's a great example of what CRT is about. Race is a big factor in it.

One of the points of this is: Your racial and theological suppositions about other people are wrong. The way you categorize people is sinful.

---

Racial suppositions and categorization....exactly what CRT does, right?

---

No. CRT challenges both.

---

You JUST got done saying "whites are the oppressors".

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

I am one chapter in on "Cynical Theories" as we speak.

All critical theories are based on marxist philosophy. The early post-modernists were all marxists, and throughout the 60's & 70's were presented with evidence of escalating clarity that marxism in practice wasn't just bad social contract.....it was murderous social contract. Their solution was to determine that Marx was wrong about economics, but right about philosophy. Not only did it explain away killing fields and gulags, it freed marxist dialectics from purely economic and class structures, which made it considerably more effective, as it was freed to attack all aspects of "cultural hegemony" (marxist term) as social constructs in a massive system (systemic oppression) of law and culture used protect the interests of whites.

Part of the appeal of CRT to societal elites is the ideological complexity of it all. It feeds the very kind superiority that CRT purports to fight..."I understand it....let me explain it to you." (just look at Truett's posts here). To those of us who are classically trained anti-Marxists (to paraphrase BLM founders), the blatant bait & switch of it all is so obvious it's really not debatable.

By redefining racism as a personal failing, something that one does or does not do to another, and instead making it a collective problem of systems, CRT creates a vast abstraction that defies specific solutions, a problem which can never be solved and therefore demands eternal contrition. Perhaps the best point Patrick Deneen made in his book "The Failure of Liberalism" when he called progressivism "anti-culture," always attacking every broadly accepted cultural value as "oppressive" without ever offering up any alternatives.

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/articles/2020/07/17/the_tyranny_of_abstractions_499302.html

---

There's more wrong here than I have time to deal with.

"All critical theories are based on Marxist philosophy," is a terribly lazy statement. And offered without proof. All early Post-Modernists were not Marxist.

This smacks of extremists who use "Marxist" to shut off all conversation. It's the go-to for extreme right-wing folks. It's a shameful trope used by racists to put down equality movements.

There's no ideological complexity to CRT. Racism is baked into our American culture. That sounds as simple as it can be to me. And it can be readily demonstrated.

And Christian adherents do offer remedies, as I've outlined above, which you've seemed to ignore.

---

The terribly lazy statement is "Racism is baked into American culture." Completely ahistorical, and the data you cite does not say what you need it it say.

No country has done more to fight tyranny, to include slavery and racism.

You are not a better person for believing what you believe. You are just wrong.

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

I am one chapter in on "Cynical Theories" as we speak.

All critical theories are based on marxist philosophy. The early post-modernists were all marxists, and throughout the 60's & 70's were presented with evidence of escalating clarity that marxism in practice wasn't just bad social contract.....it was murderous social contract. Their solution was to determine that Marx was wrong about economics, but right about philosophy. Not only did it explain away killing fields and gulags, it freed marxist dialectics from purely economic and class structures, which made it considerably more effective, as it was freed to attack all aspects of "cultural hegemony" (marxist term) as social constructs in a massive system (systemic oppression) of law and culture used protect the interests of whites.

Part of the appeal of CRT to societal elites is the ideological complexity of it all. It feeds the very kind superiority that CRT purports to fight..."I understand it....let me explain it to you." (just look at Truett's posts here). To those of us who are classically trained anti-Marxists (to paraphrase BLM founders), the blatant bait & switch of it all is so obvious it's really not debatable.

By redefining racism as a personal failing, something that one does or does not do to another, and instead making it a collective problem of systems, CRT creates a vast abstraction that defies specific solutions, a problem which can never be solved and therefore demands eternal contrition. Perhaps the best point Patrick Deneen made in his book "The Failure of Liberalism" when he called progressivism "anti-culture," always attacking every broadly accepted cultural value as "oppressive" without ever offering up any alternatives.

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/articles/2020/07/17/the_tyranny_of_abstractions_499302.html

---

This smacks of extremists who use "Marxist" to shut off all conversation. It's the go-to for extreme right-wing folks. It's a shameful trope used by racists to put down equality movements.

---

I see, every critique or disagreement with CRT is an act of racism.

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

Welcome to the new world quash.

We cannot defeat any forms of critical social justice. Society didn't do enough to put out the fire early and it's never going away. It's spreading to every corner of western civilization in all areas of education and livelihood. Your objections make you the enemy.

Doc Holliday said:

---

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

Welcome to the new world quash.

We cannot defeat any forms of critical social justice. Society didn't do enough to put out the fire early and it's never going away. It's spreading to every corner of western civilization in all areas of education and livelihood. Your objections make you the enemy.

---

I'm not new to this world, and as I've told you before there is an academic response to this stuff.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

bubbadog said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

bubbadog said:

---

Here's my two cents on that: Institutional racism is real.

Three quick examples:

Did you know that the GI Bill (which enabled my father to become the first in his family to attend college) originally excluded black veterans? I didn't know that until a few years ago. That shameful bit of institutional racism has since been rectified, of course, but we still feel the effects of it. For example, the network of connections my father and uncle made in college, thanks to the GI Bill, were instrumental in helping me get an interview that led to my first job. But a black kid with my same skills and experience probably would not have had that advantage when I graduated from BU in 1979, because his father wouldn't have been able to go to college on the GI Bill.

Did you know that most black people originally weren't eligible for Social Security? As the bill was working through Congress, it faced serious opposition from Southern representatives. To get the support that would ensure passage, FDR agreed to a compromise -- all domestic and agricultural workers would be excluded. That meant a majority of African Americans at the time would be excluded, and that was the intent.

Did you know that, in many parts of the country, black people were excluded from buying houses in certain neighborhoods thanks to informal agreements by banks and Realtors? And when they could get loans, they usually were on less favorable terms than white people with the same income could get.

---

You said institutional racism is real, then cited examples from the past that no longer exist. Saying it is real or that it exists implies that it is happening today. Yes, there are still effects from past institutional racism, but that is saying something different. Can you give an example of institutional racism that is still ongoing today?

---

I think there are any number of examples of how institutional racism still occurs today.

For one, the discriminatory practices by banks and Realtors are still a thing. Not by all of them, everywhere, but in enough places to matter. One of the (many) things Wells Fargo got in trouble for, if I recall correctly, involved discriminatory treatment to black loan applicants who had the same level of risk as white applicants who received more favorable terms. I think I can find some articles on that later today if you'd like.

Another example involves the differing ways people are treated by representatives of institutions based on skin color. Just about every black person I know has had the experience of being followed around by store security when they're shopping in a department or clothing store. Not that it happens every time, but it happens to all of them at least once and usually more. It happens when they're dressed in business attire, and it happens if they're dressed casually. Every single black male I've talked to about the subject has been followed by the police while they were driving, especially if they have a nice car and are driving in a "nice" neighborhood. Whenever they're in a car, they have to think about the possibility of that. My pastor is an African American man with two college-aged sons. Whenever the sons are out for the evening, and while they're away at school, mom and dad in the back of their minds worry just a little that they could be stopped for "driving while black," and then something could happen because a police officer panicked or got trigger-happy. As a white man, I never have to give any thought to that when I get in my car; I don't have the extra burden of stress that my pastor and his wife have. There are training simulations used by law enforcement that involve videos in which the officer has to make a split-second decision about whether or not to shoot; studies have shown that officers are more likely to feel threatened and shoot if the person in the simulation is black; and this isn't just a "cop thing," because the same effect happens when civilians (even those who think of themselves as non-racist) go through these exercises. In elementary schools, the police are far more likely to be summoned when a black kid is misbehaving or having a meltdown than when a white child is doing the same thing. Now, you might argue that all of these involve decisions made by individuals (store clerks, cops, teachers) and not by institutions. I see that side of it. But when these individuals represent institutions, and when the conduct is much more than a few isolated incidents, it's also hard to dismiss the argument that this is an institutional problem.

I could give more, but I'll just mention one other for now, because I think it's an example of unintended institutional racism (which is perhaps the most common kind). Our cash bail system was not set up to be discriminatory, so far as I know, but it has had a tremendously discriminatory effect. If you're a young white male, for example, you're much more likely to be able to post bail, or know someone who can post it for you, if you're arrested for some small-time offense. You can go on with your life while your case plays out. If you're black, the odds are much greater that you won't be to make bail, which means that you'll wait in jail for months (or much longer, even) for your case to be resolved. In the meantime, you lose your job; if you're a mother, you may lose custody of your kids. You lose your connection to your community. Thankfully, some cities have recognized how destructive this system has been (and part of it is about poverty as well as race; it is often hard in this country to separate the two), and are working to change it.

---

Before I comment on these examples, I'd first like to know what your definition of "institutional racism" is, and whether it's the same or different from "systemic" racism.

Another question: does "institutional" racism, in your mind, only involve whites against blacks, and not other minority groups, like asians? Because asians don't seem to have the problems you listed here.

Also, speaking of asians, do you think asians(and whites) being discriminated against in college admissions is a current form of institutional racism? Because I would agree! Blacks are actually favored during college admissions, simply for being black. Would you consider that "reverse" institutional racism?

---

Is this the post you wanted an answer for?

If so, here goes:

1. In my mind, institutional and systemic racism sound like the same thing. Someone might present a reasonable case for how to distinguish one from the other, and I'm willing to listen, but I don't really perceive a distinction.

2. I've never heard anyone suggest that systemic racism was inherently limited to one race. I certainly don't believe that it is. But systemic racism can play out in different ways. Asians are immune? I think the Japanese Americans who were sent to concentration camps during World War II would take a different view on that.

3. College admissions? I dunno, last time I checked, Asians (and whites) were admitted to elite schools in disproportionately high numbers compared to their percentage of the population of all college applicants. So I'm not sure I buy the case that they're being "discriminated" against. I just googled. Asians make up 5.6% of the US population, but they're 22% of the class of 2020 at Harvard.

Would more Asians be admitted to schools like Harvard (and isn't that really what we're talking about here, rather than, say, Texas State or LSU?) if academic achievement were the sole criterion? Apparently, yes. But that's not the only criterion, never has been, and probably never should be. Diversity is a dirty word in certain circles -- maybe because in some of those circles diversity has surpassed merit as a value -- but that doesn't mean diversity isn't a worthwhile value for schools to use in putting together a class. And they apply diversity in a lot of different ways, not just by race. For example, schools have found value in having students from a lot of different states, because it exposes their students to people from lots of different backgrounds. So if you're applying to Harvard (or Baylor), you stand a better chance of getting in if you're from Montana or Wyoming, where the number of applicants to Harvard will be small, than if you're an applicant with the same test scores but you're from a state like California or Texas, from which there will be many more to choose from. If you can play the trombone in the marching band, you'll have an edge in getting into Baylor over a kid whose only other advantage over you is better test scores.

As kind of a side point to the discussion about college admissions, that whole game is a sordid rat race. Parents waste a ton of time and money, not to mention stressing their kids to the max, because they're so obsessed with getting the kids into the "right" school. (And to digress from the digression, affluent families have a big advantage when it comes to helping get their kids into the right school. They can afford private advisers who can give them tips on crafting college essays; they can afford to give their kids SAT test prep tutoring; they can afford to give their kids experiences that beef up their resums). From my experience, there are literally hundreds of colleges and universities where you can get an excellent education that prepares you for what's next. A school like Harvard or Wellesley or whatever will give you a network of valuable contacts and a door-opening pedigree. But you won't necessarily get a better learning experience than you'd find at any number of liberal arts colleges or even some state universities. In fact, you might well get a better learning experience at a liberal arts college, because your classes are more likely to be taught by a professor rather than some graduate student (who, in many fields, is likely to be from another country and speak in heavily accented English). After I graduated from college and then became a teaching assistant while I earned a master's degree at a Tier I university, I came to realize that I had gotten a much superior undergraduate education at Baylor, where the emphasis was on good teaching above all else, than I'd have gotten for a lot, lot more money as an undergrad at the Tier I school. I also learned that graduate schools all valued a Baylor degree a lot more than I had valued it myself, because they knew how well Baylor prepared people and that was more important to them than a pedigree from a more "elite" school. So the advice I give HS kids is that it doesn't matter all that much where you go to undergrad -- pick a place that wants you and where you think you'll be a good fit.

quash said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

Welcome to the new world quash.

We cannot defeat any forms of critical social justice. Society didn't do enough to put out the fire early and it's never going away. It's spreading to every corner of western civilization in all areas of education and livelihood. Your objections make you the enemy.

---

I'm not new to this world, and as I've told you before there is an academic response to this stuff.

---

The academic response isn't strong enough imo.

People who identify with and accept critical social justice are far stronger and greater in numbers than people who object to it. People who object to it also run the risk of character assassination. You can present all the science against it that you want...but it doesn't matter when that science is automatically dismissed as racist.

This ends with critical social justice being the norm or the mainstream before it ever goes away.

quash said:

---

George Truett said:

---

whiterock said:

---

TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

---

This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

---

CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

---

Just downloaded the book. Thanks for the recommendation.

George is wrong as usual. As to economic interpretations of the Bible, there are far more poor white people and far more poor Christians. And supposedly it is the poorest whites who are the most racist. So you're theory is flat wrong. As for education issues, I grew up in the rural and suburban Midwest and south. I learned about our mistreatment of Native Americans (and I am one) and learned numerous things about slavery up through the civil rights movement and some of the atrocities. There are many famous mainstream Hollywood movies and books on those subjects also. I did not learn about Tulsa until college, but In a few courses on American history in a student's school life, there will be all sorts of significant events missing. Our 3 kids, who also grew up in the Midwest and south, were taught the same thing - extensive study of race, etc.

bubbadog said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

bubbadog said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

bubbadog said:

---

Here's my two cents on that: Institutional racism is real.

Three quick examples:

Did you know that the GI Bill (which enabled my father to become the first in his family to attend college) originally excluded black veterans? I didn't know that until a few years ago. That shameful bit of institutional racism has since been rectified, of course, but we still feel the effects of it. For example, the network of connections my father and uncle made in college, thanks to the GI Bill, were instrumental in helping me get an interview that led to my first job. But a black kid with my same skills and experience probably would not have had that advantage when I graduated from BU in 1979, because his father wouldn't have been able to go to college on the GI Bill.

Did you know that most black people originally weren't eligible for Social Security? As the bill was working through Congress, it faced serious opposition from Southern representatives. To get the support that would ensure passage, FDR agreed to a compromise -- all domestic and agricultural workers would be excluded. That meant a majority of African Americans at the time would be excluded, and that was the intent.

Did you know that, in many parts of the country, black people were excluded from buying houses in certain neighborhoods thanks to informal agreements by banks and Realtors? And when they could get loans, they usually were on less favorable terms than white people with the same income could get.

---

You said institutional racism is real, then cited examples from the past that no longer exist. Saying it is real or that it exists implies that it is happening today. Yes, there are still effects from past institutional racism, but that is saying something different. Can you give an example of institutional racism that is still ongoing today?

---

I think there are any number of examples of how institutional racism still occurs today.

For one, the discriminatory practices by banks and Realtors are still a thing. Not by all of them, everywhere, but in enough places to matter. One of the (many) things Wells Fargo got in trouble for, if I recall correctly, involved discriminatory treatment to black loan applicants who had the same level of risk as white applicants who received more favorable terms. I think I can find some articles on that later today if you'd like.

Another example involves the differing ways people are treated by representatives of institutions based on skin color. Just about every black person I know has had the experience of being followed around by store security when they're shopping in a department or clothing store. Not that it happens every time, but it happens to all of them at least once and usually more. It happens when they're dressed in business attire, and it happens if they're dressed casually. Every single black male I've talked to about the subject has been followed by the police while they were driving, especially if they have a nice car and are driving in a "nice" neighborhood. Whenever they're in a car, they have to think about the possibility of that. My pastor is an African American man with two college-aged sons. Whenever the sons are out for the evening, and while they're away at school, mom and dad in the back of their minds worry just a little that they could be stopped for "driving while black," and then something could happen because a police officer panicked or got trigger-happy. As a white man, I never have to give any thought to that when I get in my car; I don't have the extra burden of stress that my pastor and his wife have. There are training simulations used by law enforcement that involve videos in which the officer has to make a split-second decision about whether or not to shoot; studies have shown that officers are more likely to feel threatened and shoot if the person in the simulation is black; and this isn't just a "cop thing," because the same effect happens when civilians (even those who think of themselves as non-racist) go through these exercises. In elementary schools, the police are far more likely to be summoned when a black kid is misbehaving or having a meltdown than when a white child is doing the same thing. Now, you might argue that all of these involve decisions made by individuals (store clerks, cops, teachers) and not by institutions. I see that side of it. But when these individuals represent institutions, and when the conduct is much more than a few isolated incidents, it's also hard to dismiss the argument that this is an institutional problem.

I could give more, but I'll just mention one other for now, because I think it's an example of unintended institutional racism (which is perhaps the most common kind). Our cash bail system was not set up to be discriminatory, so far as I know, but it has had a tremendously discriminatory effect. If you're a young white male, for example, you're much more likely to be able to post bail, or know someone who can post it for you, if you're arrested for some small-time offense. You can go on with your life while your case plays out. If you're black, the odds are much greater that you won't be to make bail, which means that you'll wait in jail for months (or much longer, even) for your case to be resolved. In the meantime, you lose your job; if you're a mother, you may lose custody of your kids. You lose your connection to your community. Thankfully, some cities have recognized how destructive this system has been (and part of it is about poverty as well as race; it is often hard in this country to separate the two), and are working to change it.

---

Before I comment on these examples, I'd first like to know what your definition of "institutional racism" is, and whether it's the same or different from "systemic" racism.

Another question: does "institutional" racism, in your mind, only involve whites against blacks, and not other minority groups, like asians? Because asians don't seem to have the problems you listed here.

Also, speaking of asians, do you think asians(and whites) being discriminated against in college admissions is a current form of institutional racism? Because I would agree! Blacks are actually favored during college admissions, simply for being black. Would you consider that "reverse" institutional racism?

---

Is this the post you wanted an answer for?

If so, here goes:

1. In my mind, institutional and systemic racism sound like the same thing. Someone might present a reasonable case for how to distinguish one from the other, and I'm willing to listen, but I don't really perceive a distinction.

2. I've never heard anyone suggest that systemic racism was inherently limited to one race. I certainly don't believe that it is. But systemic racism can play out in different ways. Asians are immune? I think the Japanese Americans who were sent to concentration camps during World War II would take a different view on that.

3. College admissions? I dunno, last time I checked, Asians (and whites) were admitted to elite schools in disproportionately high numbers compared to their percentage of the population of all college applicants. So I'm not sure I buy the case that they're being "discriminated" against. I just googled. Asians make up 5.6% of the US population, but they're 22% of the class of 2020 at Harvard.

Would more Asians be admitted to schools like Harvard (and isn't that really what we're talking about here, rather than, say, Texas State or LSU?) if academic achievement were the sole criterion? Apparently, yes. But that's not the only criterion, never has been, and probably never should be. Diversity is a dirty word in certain circles -- maybe because in some of those circles diversity has surpassed merit as a value -- but that doesn't mean diversity isn't a worthwhile value for schools to use in putting together a class. And they apply diversity in a lot of different ways, not just by race. For example, schools have found value in having students from a lot of different states, because it exposes their students to people from lots of different backgrounds. So if you're applying to Harvard (or Baylor), you stand a better chance of getting in if you're from Montana or Wyoming, where the number of applicants to Harvard will be small, than if you're an applicant with the same test scores but you're from a state like California or Texas, from which there will be many more to choose from. If you can play the trombone in the marching band, you'll have an edge in getting into Baylor over a kid whose only other advantage over you is better test scores.

As kind of a side point to the discussion about college admissions, that whole game is a sordid rat race. Parents waste a ton of time and money, not to mention stressing their kids to the max, because they're so obsessed with getting the kids into the "right" school. (And to digress from the digression, affluent families have a big advantage when it comes to helping get their kids into the right school. They can afford private advisers who can give them tips on crafting college essays; they can afford to give their kids SAT test prep tutoring; they can afford to give their kids experiences that beef up their resums). From my experience, there are literally hundreds of colleges and universities where you can get an excellent education that prepares you for what's next. A school like Harvard or Wellesley or whatever will give you a network of valuable contacts and a door-opening pedigree. But you won't necessarily get a better learning experience than you'd find at any number of liberal arts colleges or even some state universities. In fact, you might well get a better learning experience, because at a liberal arts college your classes are more likely to be taught by a professor rather than some graduate student (who, in many fields, is likely to be from another country and speak in heavily accented English). After I graduated from college and then became a teaching assistant while I earned a master's degree at a Tier I university, I came to realize that I had gotten a much superior undergraduate education at Baylor, where the emphasis was on good teaching above all else, than I'd have gotten for a lot, lot more money as an undergrad at the Tier I school. I also learned that graduate schools all valued a Baylor degree a lot more than I had valued it myself, because they knew how well Baylor prepared people and that was more important to them than a pedigree from a more "elite" school. So the advice I give HS kids is that it doesn't matter all that much where you go to undergrad -- pick a place that wants you and where you think you'll good fit.

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You say Asians aren't immune, and then, yet again, you cite something from the past that no longer exists, when the topic is current institutional racism. Got any current examples?

And if an Asian college applicant is refused and race played any part of it, guess what, that's racial discrimination. You can justify it any way you want, but it is what it is. Funny how the left says that's a no-no, but to promote their goal of diversity, that's exactly what they have to do. "Diversity" requires discriminating between identities. Just admit you're okay with it.

And I'm not so sure that "diversity" leads to a better college education. These "higher" learning centers should be more about excellence, not diversity. It's this kind of mindset that has led them to becoming indoctrinating centers for leftist ideas rather than for education. These places are where destructive nonsense like CRT originate and get seeded. The tragic irony? Academic centers of "diversity" have become centers of intolerance for diverse thought.

Basically what's happening:

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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bubbadog said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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bubbadog said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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bubbadog said:

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Here's my two cents on that: Institutional racism is real.

Three quick examples:

Did you know that the GI Bill (which enabled my father to become the first in his family to attend college) originally excluded black veterans? I didn't know that until a few years ago. That shameful bit of institutional racism has since been rectified, of course, but we still feel the effects of it. For example, the network of connections my father and uncle made in college, thanks to the GI Bill, were instrumental in helping me get an interview that led to my first job. But a black kid with my same skills and experience probably would not have had that advantage when I graduated from BU in 1979, because his father wouldn't have been able to go to college on the GI Bill.

Did you know that most black people originally weren't eligible for Social Security? As the bill was working through Congress, it faced serious opposition from Southern representatives. To get the support that would ensure passage, FDR agreed to a compromise -- all domestic and agricultural workers would be excluded. That meant a majority of African Americans at the time would be excluded, and that was the intent.

Did you know that, in many parts of the country, black people were excluded from buying houses in certain neighborhoods thanks to informal agreements by banks and Realtors? And when they could get loans, they usually were on less favorable terms than white people with the same income could get.

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You said institutional racism is real, then cited examples from the past that no longer exist. Saying it is real or that it exists implies that it is happening today. Yes, there are still effects from past institutional racism, but that is saying something different. Can you give an example of institutional racism that is still ongoing today?

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I think there are any number of examples of how institutional racism still occurs today.

For one, the discriminatory practices by banks and Realtors are still a thing. Not by all of them, everywhere, but in enough places to matter. One of the (many) things Wells Fargo got in trouble for, if I recall correctly, involved discriminatory treatment to black loan applicants who had the same level of risk as white applicants who received more favorable terms. I think I can find some articles on that later today if you'd like.

Another example involves the differing ways people are treated by representatives of institutions based on skin color. Just about every black person I know has had the experience of being followed around by store security when they're shopping in a department or clothing store. Not that it happens every time, but it happens to all of them at least once and usually more. It happens when they're dressed in business attire, and it happens if they're dressed casually. Every single black male I've talked to about the subject has been followed by the police while they were driving, especially if they have a nice car and are driving in a "nice" neighborhood. Whenever they're in a car, they have to think about the possibility of that. My pastor is an African American man with two college-aged sons. Whenever the sons are out for the evening, and while they're away at school, mom and dad in the back of their minds worry just a little that they could be stopped for "driving while black," and then something could happen because a police officer panicked or got trigger-happy. As a white man, I never have to give any thought to that when I get in my car; I don't have the extra burden of stress that my pastor and his wife have. There are training simulations used by law enforcement that involve videos in which the officer has to make a split-second decision about whether or not to shoot; studies have shown that officers are more likely to feel threatened and shoot if the person in the simulation is black; and this isn't just a "cop thing," because the same effect happens when civilians (even those who think of themselves as non-racist) go through these exercises. In elementary schools, the police are far more likely to be summoned when a black kid is misbehaving or having a meltdown than when a white child is doing the same thing. Now, you might argue that all of these involve decisions made by individuals (store clerks, cops, teachers) and not by institutions. I see that side of it. But when these individuals represent institutions, and when the conduct is much more than a few isolated incidents, it's also hard to dismiss the argument that this is an institutional problem.

I could give more, but I'll just mention one other for now, because I think it's an example of unintended institutional racism (which is perhaps the most common kind). Our cash bail system was not set up to be discriminatory, so far as I know, but it has had a tremendously discriminatory effect. If you're a young white male, for example, you're much more likely to be able to post bail, or know someone who can post it for you, if you're arrested for some small-time offense. You can go on with your life while your case plays out. If you're black, the odds are much greater that you won't be to make bail, which means that you'll wait in jail for months (or much longer, even) for your case to be resolved. In the meantime, you lose your job; if you're a mother, you may lose custody of your kids. You lose your connection to your community. Thankfully, some cities have recognized how destructive this system has been (and part of it is about poverty as well as race; it is often hard in this country to separate the two), and are working to change it.

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Before I comment on these examples, I'd first like to know what your definition of "institutional racism" is, and whether it's the same or different from "systemic" racism.

Another question: does "institutional" racism, in your mind, only involve whites against blacks, and not other minority groups, like asians? Because asians don't seem to have the problems you listed here.

Also, speaking of asians, do you think asians(and whites) being discriminated against in college admissions is a current form of institutional racism? Because I would agree! Blacks are actually favored during college admissions, simply for being black. Would you consider that "reverse" institutional racism?

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Is this the post you wanted an answer for?

If so, here goes:

1. In my mind, institutional and systemic racism sound like the same thing. Someone might present a reasonable case for how to distinguish one from the other, and I'm willing to listen, but I don't really perceive a distinction.

2. I've never heard anyone suggest that systemic racism was inherently limited to one race. I certainly don't believe that it is. But systemic racism can play out in different ways. Asians are immune? I think the Japanese Americans who were sent to concentration camps during World War II would take a different view on that.

3. College admissions? I dunno, last time I checked, Asians (and whites) were admitted to elite schools in disproportionately high numbers compared to their percentage of the population of all college applicants. So I'm not sure I buy the case that they're being "discriminated" against. I just googled. Asians make up 5.6% of the US population, but they're 22% of the class of 2020 at Harvard.

Would more Asians be admitted to schools like Harvard (and isn't that really what we're talking about here, rather than, say, Texas State or LSU?) if academic achievement were the sole criterion? Apparently, yes. But that's not the only criterion, never has been, and probably never should be. Diversity is a dirty word in certain circles -- maybe because in some of those circles diversity has surpassed merit as a value -- but that doesn't mean diversity isn't a worthwhile value for schools to use in putting together a class. And they apply diversity in a lot of different ways, not just by race. For example, schools have found value in having students from a lot of different states, because it exposes their students to people from lots of different backgrounds. So if you're applying to Harvard (or Baylor), you stand a better chance of getting in if you're from Montana or Wyoming, where the number of applicants to Harvard will be small, than if you're an applicant with the same test scores but you're from a state like California or Texas, from which there will be many more to choose from. If you can play the trombone in the marching band, you'll have an edge in getting into Baylor over a kid whose only other advantage over you is better test scores.

As kind of a side point to the discussion about college admissions, that whole game is a sordid rat race. Parents waste a ton of time and money, not to mention stressing their kids to the max, because they're so obsessed with getting the kids into the "right" school. (And to digress from the digression, affluent families have a big advantage when it comes to helping get their kids into the right school. They can afford private advisers who can give them tips on crafting college essays; they can afford to give their kids SAT test prep tutoring; they can afford to give their kids experiences that beef up their resums). From my experience, there are literally hundreds of colleges and universities where you can get an excellent education that prepares you for what's next. A school like Harvard or Wellesley or whatever will give you a network of valuable contacts and a door-opening pedigree. But you won't necessarily get a better learning experience than you'd find at any number of liberal arts colleges or even some state universities. In fact, you might well get a better learning experience, because at a liberal arts college your classes are more likely to be taught by a professor rather than some graduate student (who, in many fields, is likely to be from another country and speak in heavily accented English). After I graduated from college and then became a teaching assistant while I earned a master's degree at a Tier I university, I came to realize that I had gotten a much superior undergraduate education at Baylor, where the emphasis was on good teaching above all else, than I'd have gotten for a lot, lot more money as an undergrad at the Tier I school. I also learned that graduate schools all valued a Baylor degree a lot more than I had valued it myself, because they knew how well Baylor prepared people and that was more important to them than a pedigree from a more "elite" school. So the advice I give HS kids is that it doesn't matter all that much where you go to undergrad -- pick a place that wants you and where you think you'll good fit.

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You say Asians aren't immune, and then, yet again, you cite something from the past that no longer exists, when the topic is current institutional racism. Got any current examples?

And if an Asian college applicant is refused and race played any part of it, guess what, that's racial discrimination. You can justify it any way you want, but it is what it is. Funny how the left says that's a no-no, but to promote their goal of diversity, that's exactly what they have to do. "Diversity" requires discriminating between identities. Just admit you're okay with it.

And I'm not so sure that "diversity" leads to a better college education. These "higher" learning centers should be more about excellence, not diversity. It's this kind of mindset that has led them to becoming indoctrinating centers for leftist ideas rather than for education. These places are where destructive nonsense like CRT originate and get seeded. The tragic irony? Academic centers of "diversity" have become centers of intolerance for diverse thought.

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If past discrimination shows that a group is not immune, then what happened before could happen again. I think that makes it relevant to the conversation.

But if you're looking for more current examples, I remember the hostility (sometimes violent) that Vietnamese fishermen in Texas faced from Texans who claimed they stole business from them because "they work too hard." I have a good friend who is Sikh (and a highly educated engineer). After 9/11 Sikhs were routinely discriminated against in this country because their turbans made some people think they were Arabs.

Speaking of Arabs, would the treatment that Muslims received in the US in the years after 9/11 count as institutional discrimination to you? Certainly checks a lot of boxes.

Colleges can't admit everyone who applies. Not even close. Thanks to the common app, it's easy for affluent kids to apply to any number of schools -- not uncommon for it to be 15 or 20. The number of spots available compared to the number of applicants means that many of these elite schools have an admission rate of between 5% and 10%. Because the high number of applications makes the odds of getting in so slim, the admissions can seem random. Also, in order to get the freshman class size they want -- they call it the "yield" -- schools have to admit between 2x and 3x of the number of students they actually have places for; past experience has helped them get a pretty accurate gauge, and they know that a lot of these admitted students have also been admitted elsewhere and will go somewhere else.

What it sounds like you're advocating is for a uniform, transparent standard of admission, such as test scores and GPA. But that was never practicable and never will be. First, schools will tell you (they told me when my kids were applying) that nobody wants a freshman class made up entirely of kids with perfect SAT scores. So right away, unless you only pick the kids with the highest scores, you're allowing other criteria to be part of the consideration, and you seem to define that as discrimination. Second, there are just so many variables among applicants that it's almost impossible to isolate one factor, like race, as the determining factor, and schools aren't doing that. Third, you'd have a much better argument for discrimination if one racial group was represented way below its percentage of the population -- e.g., if Asians, who make up 5.6% of the population, were only 2% of the Harvard student body. Fourth, applications by race to some degree involves a numbers game just like applications from Wyoming vs. Texas. If your qualifications are equivalent, you're more likely to get into Harvard if you're from Wyoming than from Texas because they want kids from all 50 states and there's less competition from Wyoming. If you're black or Hispanic, you may have statistically a better chance at Harvard than an equally qualified Asian student because there are so many Asian applicants. Finally, depending on how you define discrimination, all private schools discriminate to some degree. Should Baylor be required to accept all avowed atheists, Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims who happen to have higher test scores than a white Baptist kid from Abilene? If all white applicants to Baylor happened to have higher scores than all the Black applicants, would it be right for Baylor to admit no Black kids (other than scholarship athletes) to its freshman class?

It's all complicated, with lots of moving parts.

I'm not arguing that diversity trumps all other considerations. Obviously, merit matters. So far as I'm aware, it's the top consideration. But not the only one.

You need to be more pithy. I'm not interested in reading your essays.

No, examples of past institutional racism that no longer exists is NOT relevant to the topic of current institutional racism. We're not talking about what you think might happen, we're talking about what is.

Your examples are not institutional racism.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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You need to be more pithy. I'm not interested in reading your essays.

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Thanks for letting me know not to bother.
Have a merry Christmas.

whiterock said:

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quash said:

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George Truett said:

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whiterock said:

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TLR version - CRT is just Marxist philosophy with the word "class" replaced with "race," and the word "capitalism" replaced by "white supremacy."

No society which has embraced concepts of systemic oppression and collective guilt has ever emerged the better for it.

The idea that Marxist philosophy can be an aid for a better walk with the Lord is completely illogical except for those who wish to use said ideas to divide Christianity into a squabbling rabble.

Fight wokeness at all cost. It is flawed worldview built on ideas from the ash heap of history and there is no virtue in it at all, much less divinity.

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This is an interesting misrepresentation of what CRT is.

I'm not sure if you just don't understand CRT or if you're afraid of taking an honest look at oppression because it's too scary.

To be sure, no social theory is a substitute for a walk with the Lord. But I've known many people who were faithful in the church attendance, faithful in tithing, faithful in other spiritual disciplines, but were racist to the core.

The reason for this is their construct of spirituality, which comes from their church community, is badly flawed, and they're not even aware of it.

As I said earlier, the church I grew up in was orthodox and highly evangelistic. But it was thoroughly racist and backed up their racism with scripture. To them, racism wasn't a flaw. It was divinely ordained.

Criticisms like CRT help us understand our blind spots and enable us to overcome them.

And you think Christianity isn't a squabbling rabble at present? Really? The church is terribly divided over every conceivable matter, from the role of women to the practice of tongues, to worship style.

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CRT is based in Marxism. The idea that academia would accept a way of knowing that rejects objective truth is absurd.

CRT is missing the foundation of all other areas of study: a body of research. Their journals are anecdotes of grievance and identity and meaning-free jargon.

I would recommend "Cynical Theories" by Lindsay, Boghossian and Pluckrose. They took a huge dump on the pretentiousness that is CRT by submitting and getting accepted into CRT journals articles about dog park sex and breastaurants. I have posted from New Discourses before. The SBC should read that site.

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Part of the appeal of CRT to societal elites is the ideological complexity of it all. It feeds the very kind superiority that CRT purports to fight..."I understand it....let me explain it to you." (just look at Truett's posts here). To those of us who are classically trained anti-Marxists (to paraphrase BLM founders), the blatant bait & switch of it all is so obvious it's really not debatable.

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In fairness, Truett started off admitting he doesn't understand it.

bubbadog said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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You need to be more pithy. I'm not interested in reading your essays.

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Thanks for letting me know not to bother.
Have a merry Christmas.

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I'm not saying I'm not interested in your responses, you just don't need to be so long.

Rawhide said:

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The real racists in this country are liberals. And many hide it in the form of "compassion".

The reason many black people have a hard time getting ahead today is because, since birth, they've been told over and over by the democratic party that they're victims for not being born white - talk about being racist.

They've been conditioned to believe they can't accomplish greatness because of the color of their skin - talk about being racist.

Many on the left have publicly acknowledged their "privilege" of simply being white - talking about being racist. Just because some pretends to be sorry about their privileged whiteness, doesn't make them any less racist.

liberals/democrats/the left have a really hard time looking at people and seeing them from who they are instead of what (color) they are - talk about racist

Most liberals believe that black people can't succeed unless they are helped by white people - talk about being racist.

This is a classic example of racist liberals disguising their racism as compassion:

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Compassion is almost always the sheepskin worn by stalking wolves. The Soviets filled gulags to the brim in the name of compassion for the working class.

Compassion is arguably the fatal flaw of the liberal worldview. How does one allow the opposition the presumption of virtue, which is essential in healthy social contract, when one is proposing policies of compassion? It is far easier to presume deplorability of those opponents. Truett's principled line of defense of CRT is atypical. Look at the acclaim to DiAngelo's book "White Fragility."

"Whiteness" is a rather unique social construct in that it is a creation of its opponents that is completely foreign to its beneficiaries, who have en masse adopted King's view of a colorblind world where people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

Twitter cannot do this subject justice is 240 characters. That, and I'm guessing this guy has already posted in this thread. If he has already posted here, it's worse than I thought. Facebook indicates he's a longhorn and duke fan.

Zach, if you are reading this, REPENT!!!

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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Twitter cannot do this subject justice is 240 characters. That, and I'm guessing this guy has already posted in this thread. If he has already posted here, it's worse than I thought. Facebook indicates he's a longhorn and duke fan.

Zach, if you are reading this, REPENT!!!

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Twitter is full of such morons. That moron also happens to be a huge

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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Twitter cannot do this subject justice is 240 characters. That, and I'm guessing this guy has already posted in this thread. If he has already posted here, it's worse than I thought. Facebook indicates he's a longhorn and duke fan.

Zach, if you are reading this, REPENT!!!

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Actually, he nailed it. Like capitalism and nationalism, CRT is totally disconnected from biblical teaching, a political ideology recasted from very old and very discredited marxist dialectics.

But unlike capitalism and nationalism, which have throughout human humanity been harnessed as positive forces to order civil societies, CRT has no record of success at anything....just a bloody trail leading to gulags and killing fields.

No serious theologian would pull such ideas from the ash heap of history.

Left Sic'em and went to read news, saw this, pertinent to the discussion at hand:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/soviet-politics-american-style-11608658685?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR3rek24VAXmnvZvgnuGX714ShmeHb8EKTM_w6UQyvBQAC7txJs2nDvVeHg

How can a church adopt such thinking as a way to live a more Godly life?

Interesting story from an admittedly right leaning source

https://m.theepochtimes.com/high-school-student-sues-over-leftist-indoctrination-in-nevada_3634084.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2020-12-28

This is a good discussion, and I applaud the civility by almost everyone who has commented.

I wanted to provide a link to a recent blog post on this topic by Dr. Roger Olson, who teaches theology at Truett Seminary.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2020/12/critical-race-theory-examined-and-analyzed/#disqus_thread

Dr. Olson takes a very nuanced approach by agreeing with a very narrow definition of CRT. In the comment section, he responds to someone by saying, "...every movement and idea has extremists who attach themselves to it. What we need to do is look past the extremes to the truth at the center of it."

I hate that CRT looks at racial disparities and automatically determines that it's because the system is racist.

It NEVER says "this race/group engages in this behavior more than this race, which is why this disparity exists".

Made up example: Black women aren't getting hired as much as other races.

...what if black women aren't applying to jobs as much? That's not on the system. That's a cultural issue. What if you threw money and funding at it and it didn't change? What if you changed the laws and system and it still doesn't change the racial disparities?

I have some thoughts after reading through the thread, but want to demonstrate the same courtesy and respect that so many here have done up to now.

Like others, I have heard a lot about CRT, but cannot say I understand it completely. My first problem with CRT is that it seems to be used mostly to attack existing social systems, which bothers me for two reasons:

1. Not every extant system should be attacked just for being there, especially since a number of systems no in use - while imperfect - are the result of significant improvement and concession by multiple parties. Trying to tear those down and replace them with incomplete, perhaps even presumptuous new systems risks making things worse, not better.

2. People are often open to new ideas if they are presented with civility and solid support. Most people react badly to being attacked, especially if what is attacked includes their heritage and personal history.


I also have gone back to think about the early Christians, who were remarkably disinterested in race. I recall Paul's words about there being 'no Greek or Jew' in Christ, which wisdom was displayed in the practice of Christians for many years. It seems that focusing on the person is what Jesus wanted - and wants - us to do.

Finally, it seems CRT is a political tool as much, perhaps more, as a mean to seek Justice. I find Social Justice a contemptible concept, since it too often involves depriving certain people of actual Justice in order to achieve the political goals. We do not need that, and should not promote such behavior.

I turn the discussion back to my more educated colleagues here.

Thanks.