How Critical Is Your Racial Theory?

Our local school board is fighting tooth and nail over an issue that most of us thought was gone with the wind. However, some of the throw backs among us believe that they should take some sort of imaginary last stand against godless communism threatening our wonderful white way of life. When you dissect this weird phenomenon, it’s nothing but a head trip to avoid what the heart knows as a “little white lie” to a bigger truth about the mistreatment of African Americans since they arrived on these shores in the chains of chattel slavery to bolster plantation capitalism with free labor.

This mess going on right now started with the former President’s executive order in September of 2020 prohibiting any federal contracts being awarded to any organization that promotes, among other notions, “critical racial theory” [CRT] which came out of academia in the 1970’s. According to the American Bar Association, “CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.” Who can argue with that?

Way back in 1949, the hit musical South Pacific received scrutiny for its commentary regarding relationships between different races and ethnic groups. In particular, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” was subject to widespread criticism, judged by some to be too controversial or downright inappropriate for the musical stage. Sung by the character Lieutenant Cable, the song is preceded by a line saying racism is “not born in you! It happens after you’re born…”

When you hear what is being sung, you can understand how a critical racial theory is already at work during and following World War II: You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear/ You’ve got to be taught from year to year/ It’s got to be drummed into your dear little ear/ You’ve got to be carefully taught. The second verse builds on the racial theory: You’ve got to be taught to be afraid/ Of people whose eyes are oddly made/ And people whose skin is a different shade… The third and final verse drives it all home with a vengeance: You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late/ Before you are six or seven or eight/ To hate all the people your relatives hate/ You’ve got to be carefully taught. Maybe this could become the theme song for our local school board; it might be more fitting than that “sweet land of liberty” song.

Funny how some history was seldom mentioned when I was being carefully taught “to hate all the people my relatives hate”. No one explained how we ran off the first real Americans who were peacefully [though inconveniently] living on “our” land. We let them share Thanksgiving with us! Slave life on the plantations was regarded by our history and blessed by our religion as some kind of God-given privilege. Some of our shameful history just got lost. Whoever heard of the Tulsa race riots of 1921? That unholy siege on our Capitol on January 6 by white supremacist with rebel flags…never happened.

We’ve been grinding this axe for so long that it’s become quite dull and meaningless. Maybe we should “bury the hatchet” like the first real Americans used to do. When two tribes decided to settle their differences and live in harmony, the chief of each tribe buried a war hatchet in the ground to signify their agreement. Wouldn’t that be a lesson for us all?