The latest bogey man is likely not well understood.
At the risk of turning this into Kevin Drum Day here at OTB, his posting yesterday evening “ What Is Critical Race Theory? ” raises some interesting questions. He attempts to summarize what conservatives mean by the term when they criticize it as follows: To this, he invites audience participation, which he presumes to be futile since few conservatives are among his readers. To some extent, I think the premise of his question is wrong. That is, aside from maybe Andrew Sullivan, I don’t believe many people criticizing CRT have any idea what it is. Mostly, they’re just parroting talking points they’re hearing on Fox News and the like. At best, they’re objecting to things like White Fragility and the 1619 Project, which are only CRT-adjacent. I’m not sure anyone worth having a conversation with much doubts these: While I’m sure that there are people who think racism is vastly overblown, it’s so obvious that there are disparities in treatment as to be incontrovertible.
