How critical race theory is ruining America

In 1998 I co-wrote an article about critical race theory. It was the second article written about that interpretive framework and even then, my co-author and I disagreed on how the theory should be positioned for use by educators and education researchers in the US.

One school of thought was that unequal power relations linked to race, gender and sexual orientation were present everywhere in Western society; as such these unfair operations needed to be dismantled with "all white males blamed for those inequalities."

The opposing view—and the one to which I adhered—was that while white privilege is an "unearned privilege" enjoyed by white males (after Peggy McIntosh), there were many white males who were or could become "allies" of disadvantaged groups and help to dismantle the unfair operations. From that point on, I set out to build a career dedicated to promoting the development and teaching of such allies.

This career aim ripened into an education movement in the US that we are today calling "intercultural education"—where members of diverse groups learn from and share with each other on a level playing field. In such a framework, no culture dominates and no one is blamed.

But this latter application of critical race theory has been overlooked in recent years by many scholars and educators. Choosing instead to focus on unequal power relations that continue to haunt Western societies, many are neglecting the second calling of critical race theory to place diverse people on a level playing field so they can work in harmony with each other.

The result today is a widening practice—urged by an understandably frustrated group of liberal scholars of color—to "blame ALL white people" for the continuing inequalities. We see this in mandatory training programs for government staff being held across the US (Carol Swain, PhD). We also see it manifested as "a policy of blame" directed at all white people as an outcome of President Joe Biden's requirement that all public education present a form of critical race theory that automatically holds all white people responsible for the inequality.

In this way, an originally well intentioned theoretical framework has in my view been used to divide a diverse group of citizens from each other, an outcome that greatly weakens the foundation of a great nation. Might liberal discourse be being used by billionaires to intentionally fragment strong nations, so that they can take control of the world? This needs further study.

As a founding author of critical race theory, the above developments all deeply sadden me. Yes, systemic racism is real. But this doesn't mean that "all white people are the enemy," as some liberals scholars would currently contend.

While the world is seeking to climb out of the economic ravages of COVID-19, the last thing the US needs is to be further divided by a wayward application of critical race theory.

Gregory K. Tanaka, PhD, lives in San Francisco, California and is the author of Systemic Collapse and Renewal (Peter Lang Publishing).