Let me preface this by saying I do not like the term "white privilege." I think it is counterproductive in that it assumes a predestined outcome for whites that leads to resentment among those whites who do not feel so privileged. I also do not believe in white guilt, either that we should all feel it simply because we're white or because the mere fact of being white somehow makes us guilty. Those two factors are probably the greatest risk in the application of CRT in teaching U.S. history. Also, attempts to judge the founders who stated that all men are created equal - in my opinion, the most important idea ever to emanate from the mind of man - by today's standards because they did not interpret it the way we do today is a mistake because doing so fails to recognize both how revolutionary that idea was at the time, however narrow its scope, and the fact that we would not know the universal interpretation of that phrase today that includes ALL people, were it not for the flawed men who first put it to paper.
That said, we'd be wise to mind the adage that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We can think that won't happen, that we won't repeat some of the uglier chapters of our history, but that will only be assured through a combination of diligence and vigilance. Diligence in learning not just about, but from our history. Vigilance in watching for and fighting any embers of that history that might reignite into something far worse.
My personal journey regarding our racial history has been largely unintentional, reading books where race was often tangential to the main topic, but where it was revealing nonetheless.
The first of those books was Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S, Grant, a book I read because I’d enjoyed Chernow’s bio of Hamilton (before it became a Broadway phenomenon). My preconceived notions of Grant were more than blown away, especially as I learned of his dedication to real reconstruction of the South and guaranteeing the rights of freed slaves. But more revealing was how little I knew of Reconstruction, which had been effectively limited during my school days to “carpetbaggers,” so-called northern opportunists who swarmed the south seeking to profit from the societal upheaval and government intervention taking place there. So, to learn that during Grant’s presidency thousands of freed slaves had won elected office in the South, with a Black even being elected governor of Louisiana, came as a shock, as was learning of the impact of the original federal Civil Rights Act that preceded the 1964 CRA by nearly 100 years. To think how different things might be today had that early flourishing of equal rights had not been extinguished is a lot to ponder.
So the question arises, how was that early flourishing of civil rights crushed? Well, we all have some idea - the rise of the KKK and the implementation of separate, but equal laws that came to be known collectively as Jim Crow. But that turns out to be just part of the story. How those developments came to gain the upperhand is less well known. It began with the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the disputed election of 1876 (Bush/Gore was not the first time an election wasn’t decided on Election Day). Thrown into the House of Representatives when no Electoral majority could be reached, Democrats agreed to give the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for withdrawal of federal troops from the South. Those troops had been enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, thus protecting the rights of the now free Blacks. Into the vacuum created by the federal departure stepped the KKK, the deleterious effect of which we should all be familiar, and subsequently, Jim Crow. The question then arises as to why we (the U.S.) allowed this to happen.
Enter another book, “The Second Founding,” so-called because it details the passage and aftermath of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in the wake of the Civil War - amendments that codified the founding value stated in our Declaration of Independence that all men (though not women, just yet) are created equal (note, women were strong supporters of these amendments as they saw common cause with Blacks in the quest for equality - but I digress). The most interesting, troubling and thought-provoking takeaway from this book is how those amendments were eventually used to give Constitutional cover to Jim Crow laws. In fact, the cases Plessy v Ferguson, which found “separate but equal” constitutional and Brown v The Board of Education, which found “separate but equal” unconstitutional, both were argued over the same question - do separate but equal amenities and institutions violate the Fourteenth Amendment? In the former, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they did not, in the latter it found that they did. Consider that for a moment - the exact same amendment was interpreted such to deliver opinions 180 degrees at odds with each other. It speaks to how fragile our Constitutional protections are (Madison referred to them as mere parchment barriers against the willful tyranny of malevolent men) and how the only thing separating liberty from tyranny are the nine people sitting on the Supreme Court, and our willingness to accept the rule of law. It also highlights how much we have to learn from history such that we can avoid backsliding.
I think we all understand the significance of those nine justices, but (personal opinion here), I fear that the nearly single-minded focus on finding justices likely to overturn Row v Wade unwittingly, but almost by default, drives us to favor justices likely to have a narrow or restrictive view of any rights that should be “reserved to the people.” We start to see this as the USSC weakens enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 or cedes more power to government in seizing private property through eminent domain, where “public good” (e.g., higher tax revenue) has supplanted “public use” (eg, highways, dams, airports, etc.) as sufficient justification to seize private property. In fact, in Kelo v New London (Connecticut), the Supreme Court ruled that private property could be taken by eminent domain from one private property owner and given to another private property owner based solely upon the promise the new owner could provide a use that generates higher tax revenue. It is not an exciting topic, so we tend not to consider it much, but such a ruling puts every one of our homes or holdings at risk. We don’t worry about it much because most of us need not worry that our homes will be seized since we live in nice areas where there is little pressure to improve the neighborhood, so-to-speak, nor do we live where there is little land for new development, or if there is limited land, where the difference in tax revenue would make such seizure desirable, but such a ruling cedes tremendous power to the government at the expense of individual rights.
So how does this apply to race or CRT, one might ask. Enter another book, “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s 1974 biography of Robert Moses, New York’s almost dictatorial public works czar during much of the twentieth century who arguably became the most powerful unelected public official in U.S. history. Skilled in writing legislation and unabashed in using the power of his position to get such legislation introduced and passed by state legislators, he was able to use the Constitution’s wording on contract law to make himself a party to state and city bond issues, which are protected under contract law, thereby making his role inviolable in the execution of those bonds - bonds which he used to build parks, highways, bridges, tunnels and eventually, public housing. His use of eminent domain to make way for such projects time and again cleared out poor, but thriving communities that enjoyed low crime, steady employment and pervasive entrepreneurship. What took their place were often displaced communities forced into slums and/ or public housing, the latter which may have replaced the lost roofs over people’s heads, but not the foundation of local businesses and cultural touchpoints - bowling alleys, barbershops, funeral parlors, grocery stores or the front stoops and tree-lined streets - that make for a thriving community. Most often, the communities taken via eminent domain were populated by people of color, including migrants from the Jim Crow South. It wasn’t until Moses proposed a cross-Manhattan freeway (I-78) through Greenwich Village that he finally met his match. And the reason he met his match is because he finally tried to move out connected, wealthy elites, almost exclusively white, who had the resources and wherewithal to fight him. Were such discrepancies in who got relocated and who did not driven by race? Perhaps not, but the outcome was definitely one where those most harmed were Blacks and others who could least afford it. Similar iniquities took place across the country, including Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood, Chicago’s south and west sides, and elsewhere. Even the conservative Federalist Society has weighed in against the sordid racial history regarding the use of eminent domain. It is not a partisan issue.
But, as the late, legendary Billy Mays would say, wait, there’s more. Those Blacks who had been forced out of their homes and communities thanks to eminent domain and urban renewal had often arrived in these northern cities in hopes of finding something better than the Jim Crow south, only to find they could often get work only by accepting wages lower than their white counterparts, putting them at a financial disadvantage in cities that were more expensive than those they had fled, while sparking animosity among whites who lost their jobs to the lower wage newcomers. Not only were their wages lower than those for whites, but rents were often higher because restrictions on where Blacks could live decreased available housing supply. As any Econ 101 student could predict, increased demand from the newly arrived migrants, coupled with limited housing supply for those same migrants led to inflated rents. Thus, these migrants faced lower wages, higher rents and racial animosity from their new hosts. This was made clear in the meticulously researched, matter-of-fact book, “The Warmth of Other Suns” about the Great Migration of southern Blacks to locales in the north and west.
But even as we attempted to make amends for these injustices and obstacles through affirmative action and diversity initiatives - and we have done a decent job for many - we replaced those obstacles with new ones in an effort to fight drugs and crime. One of the most egregious developments of the war on drugs was development of the “Drug Courier Profile.” If one wants to see the unequal application of such profiles, they need only note the demographics of those stopped and having their vehicles searched along I-75 north of I-275 in the area of southern Ohio where I live. I had noticed long ago that a preponderance of those so stopped were Black. Statistics show this to be more than anecdotal evidence. Drug courier profiles are so vague that traveling alone is a valid consideration, as is traveling with a partner. So is dressing poorly, or dressing well. Likewise, driving a luxury vehicle or driving a dilapidated car. Or driving a nondescript vehicle like a used Honda Accord. Two takeaways from the list of red flags is that ANY ONE of us could be guilty of fitting the drug courier profile at any time, and FEW OF US ever think about it. But there are many that do - because too often those criteria are simply a pretext for justifying a thorough search for reasons more nefarious (the problem runs much deeper and is far more insidious, as is described in "The New Jim Crow").
To which it is common to say, well, if you have nothing to hide, there’s nothing to worry about. To a degree, that’s true. But how many of us might have something to hide. A joint in the glovebox, an opioid in a purse, a gun under the seat? I know more than a few white folks who’ve been caught with these or more and been let go without incident. Is such street mercy applied equally?
I had a friend who dabbled in selling marijuana while in school. He once got a message that someone in a specific dorm had called asking about a purchase. This guy went door-to-door looking for the prospective buyer, prompting someone to call the cops, who came and arrested him. Yet, this son of a prominent Detroit advertising executive had all charges dropped. This same friend recently retired from a C-level job with a U.S. automaker. Contrast that with the unconnected Black kid living in Avondale or Lower Price Hill who is trying to help pay the electric bill or put food on the table. Or the Black kid in college trying to make some extra spending money like my friend was. We may picture him as a street thug, but he is far more likely to be no more a threat to society than my friend, but that is not how the criminal justice system treats him. Instead, he is likely to get charged with the most severe crime permissible under the law, with the intent to draw a plea deal that leaves the kid with a jail sentence and a felony record (prosecutors tend to play numbers games, statistics they can use for future campaigns). In fact, Rudy Giuliani made exactly this point recently, inadvertently admitting this was the case while trying to portray the plea deal as leniency. It is no such thing. It is still a felony, and a felon is instantly behind the eight ball in trying to gain meaningful employment. A felon is barred from housing assistance. And since felons are barred from jury duty - and thanks to the proliferation of such drug sentences - they are far less likely to enjoy a jury of their peers that might understand how the system is stacked against them. They are also often precluded from voting, essentially making them non-citizens for crimes no different than that committed by my white C-suite friend. Their options are often reduced to menial jobs or a life of crime, which we then blame on the criminal, rather than a system stacked against him. What we can be sure of is that any chance of gaining a C-level role with a major employer is immediately and forever off the table.
All this feeds the stereotype that leads to unwarranted police shootings. I have witnessed the flip side of this in a way that really brought it home. I was pulled over at 5 AM just outside of Detroit a few years ago after taking a wrong turn while trying to get to the hospital before my 86 year-old father was going into surgery. Now, I’ve been stopped so many times I’ve lost count. Likewise, I’ve been let go more times than I can remember. Seriously. It's not so much that I'm a leadfoot, but that I get so lost pondering stuff like this that I just lose track. But again, I digress. Anyway, I thought this was just another stop. But when I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw the cop crouched low, hand on his holster, approaching wide to my left. He was clearly tense. Until he saw my face. As soon as I leaned out, he visibly relaxed, standing upright, taking his hand off his gun and approaching me directly. Clearly, he did not see a 57 year-old white male as a threat. All very understandable.
But let’s consider the bioscience of what had just taken place. The cop’s stress hormones were clearly elevated. It is easy to imagine his heart rate rising, his palms and back of his neck sweating and his mind racing. He is in fight-or-flight mode, which shuts off the rational mind and turns on the instinctive, reactive one. All that changed as soon as he saw me. It is easy to understand and imagine the wave of relief that washed over him (put yourself in his position and consider the relief - I bet you can feel it). But what if instead of being a 57 year-old white guy, I’d been a 27 year-old white guy. Or worse, a 27 year-old black guy. Not only do those stress hormones remain elevated, but I am not likely to be as relaxed as I was. It is easy to see how a simple traffic stop can escalate to something much worse. And too often, it does. Again, we may say, well there’s a reason the cop was nervous because of the circumstances, but too often we stop considering the circumstances beyond the culture of crime in our cities, ignoring the societal obstacles listed above that have created that culture.
So this is where things are. Most of us live rather innocuous lives unfettered by the realities so many face. Even those Blacks who seem to have made it suffer from the daily uncertainty that comes with not knowing if the invitation to golf with the boss that you failed to receive was an oversight or something else. If the fact the people who arrived after you, got seated before you was a mistake or something else. If the Confederate flag flying at the corner of Tylersville and Lesourdsville-West Chester ( a local suburban intersection) simply represents a good ol’ boy or something darker. And they still worry every time lights go on in the police car behind them in ways most of us never do. It all leads to a form of PTSD, which can be triggered (yes, triggered is the proper term to describe how stress hormones are activated) by what most of us consider insignificant.
To combat this, it is up not to those who suffer the indignities, but those of us who do not. Otherwise, it could be much worse. Returning to “The Warmth of Other Suns,” there was a passage that was almost a throwaway. It involved one of the migrants profiled returning from L.A. to his hometown of Monroe, Louisiana, where he decides to eat at a diner that just a few years earlier had once been Whites Only. The experience is so unremarkable that it leaves him wondering how something so mundane - a black man eating in a restaurant - could have generated so much anger and hatred that not that long before it could have gotten him killed.
That vignette haunted me for several days. How, indeed, I wondered. But then I saw a news report of a rally where the president of the United States - the person charged with defending the U.S. Constitution and the rights of all protected by it - stood by for seventeen seconds without even attempting to silence a crowd as they chanted “Send Her Back!” Suddenly, I realized how it could happen. As Jonathan Haidt described in his 2012 book, “The Righteous Mind,” fight songs, uniforms, flags and yes, rhythmic chants all lead to more fervent binding of those involved. They are essential in creating emotional bonds that can cloud judgment and create unthinking devotion to a cause. They are the source of what’s known as the madness of crowds. It is what makes otherwise good people participate in everything from public lynchings to the Holocaust. And I realized it is a fairly straight line from “Build The Wall!” to “Send Her Back” to “String Them Up!” And “string them up” is what that returning southern Black was remembering at that diner as he considered how fragile his - and our - liberties really are. We may snicker and get a kick out of such chants, but to others they are rightfully terrifying. We need to be able to understand that, and why. Furthermore, it is our duty to stop them in their tracks.
There were more than 4,000 lynchings across the U.S. from 1880 to 1920, yet attempts to pass a federal anti-lynching law was politically untenable until the late 1940s for fear of upsetting white southerners. We are not that far removed from Jim Crow or the hate-filled violence that accompanied it. Claims it can't happen here are misguided because it already has. It is up to us to make sure it doesn't again. That's why learning our history, in all its gory details, is so critical.
Slavery, segregation, voter suppression, eminent domain, forced relocation, simple traffic stops, unequal application of the law, angry chants and the madness of crowds - all things we whites rarely, if ever have to worry about, but which are a daily source of anguish for so many. Anguish that impacts the health, safety and economic well-being of millions of our fellow American citizens today, just as it has since they first arrived on these shores in 1619.
And for all our progress, the system still works to oppress. Consider how so many like to make the case we are a republic, not a democracy (school levies and ballot initiatives prove the lie that claim really is, but yet again, I digress). This argument is often used to justify the electoral college and Senate representation, where there is unequal representation. However, it ignores the real aim of a republic, which is to ensure that all interests are represented, even those in the minority. By that measure, we fail miserably. In an ideal republic, all groups and classes would feel fairly represented, be it business or labor, rich or poor, Black or White, but thanks to gerrymandering and our archaic method of ensuring senate representation - itself a remnant of our desire to placate slaveholding states - many groups are not represented as they should be.
Consider Ohio. In the 2018 election, Republicans earned a slim majority of the vote for US congressional seats, 52 percent to 47.3 percent, yet because of how districts are drawn, the GOP won 12 seats, the Democrats only 4, an unrepresentative 75-25 split. We can take pleasure in “our side's” bonanza, but at what cost to confidence in our system of self-governance. Let us not forget that the rallying cry of our ancestors against the British was “No taxation without representation!” Why should we not think that people who have suffered the indignities, the inequities, the injustices outlined above would not someday take up a similar cry? That is the real threat to our democracy, to our liberty, to our republic. We ignore it at our own peril.
Ours is a history I had really not considered in full, largely because I was unaware it existed, or because it didn’t impact me, how would I even know to care?
Well, that is what Critical Race Theory seeks to address. Yes, how it is taught could simply replace one resentment with another. But if done properly, it could be the transformative change we need.
So, what would make the latter true? I figured the best place to see how awful the teaching of CRT might be would be to look at likely offenders, so I sought out several very liberal U.S. history professors to see how they would teach it. Heather Cox Richardson, who many would view as a liberal U.S. history professor put my fears to rest, while describing it perfectly. She teaches that the U.S proclaimed that all men are created equal, like a company that posts a set of values on the wall but fails to live up to them. But then, like employees who point to those values posted on the wall, the people decided to hold the nation’s feet to the fire and force it to live by its own stated principles. She said that in doing so, we made that creed about us. About we, the people. And that is how the government Lincoln described at Gettysburg - a government of, by and for the people - is supposed to work. It is the American experiment working as it should, in all its glory.
We are not only strong enough to face our truths, but we can and will be all the stronger for doing so. That is the promise of Critical Race Theory. Instead of repeating mantras spewed by ratings-hungry demagogues about Marxism and the downfall of America, we would be better served by engaging in real dialog to ensure productive application of CRT so that we can begin to understand, appreciate and address injustices large and small that so few of us even realize exist. Had we done so long ago, we would not be having this conversation today.
With that, I am out. Happy to share many more reading recommendations.
