LogFAQs > #961692825

Disclaimer: Sometimes there is more to the story than the gist/headline covers, but for the sake of this discussion I am going to take this article at face value.

Ruvan22 posted...

@joe40001
I remember you talking extensively about the valid criticisms/fears of CRT. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm very pro-free speech so this censorship of these books goes strongly against my ideals/values. I think something like "White Fragility" is a dumb book with bad ideas, but I wouldn't even support removing that from libraries. I honestly can't think of a book I would support removing from libraries.

The problem with CRT based ideas isn't that they are available, or even if they are shared, it's only a problem when they are taught as the only valid way to think.

Andrew Yang has a good example story about a friend of his who had a young daughter who came home and asked their mom "why can't I be friends with... [daughter's female black friend]?" And that's the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me. Pro-segregation that is taught as truth in service of being "progressive" even though it's regressive and divisive.

IMO, nobody EVER should insist to children that they can't identify with other children of a different race, but there are descendants of the CRT orthodoxy who teach exactly that.

Even so, those people have a right to have their bad ideas out in the world, the only thing I push back against is when those bad ideas are taught as truth.

John McWhorter is the best thinker on this, I strongly recommend you check out his book "Woke Racism". Alternatively I can provide links where he sums up some of his ideas.

One thing I will say (and this is not to defend the censorships): Part of the reason to push against the CRT descendant orthodoxy of race based essentialism is the white conservative response is going to be bad. Things like these censorships or worse can happen. There is only so long you can insist to people that they view everything view the lens of race before some far-right white-nationalists take you up on that proposition. And I really don't want to live in that world.