SITUATION CRITICAL

“Since White people in America hold most of the political, institutional, and economic power, they receive advantages that nonwhite groups do not. These benefits and advantages, of varying degrees, are known as White privilege. For many White people, this can be hard to hear, understand, or accept – but it is true. If you are White in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin.”

These words currently occupy the “Talking About Race” section on the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History of Culture- in modern-day America.
How did we get here?

This is the same country where a Black Senator named Barack Obama ran for President and won-not once, but twice. The same country where, according to author Jason Riley, since 1965, the number of Black elected officials has exploded. Between 1970 and 2012, it has grown from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000. Where, one might ask- is the oppression
What can’t Blacks do in America? Where can’t they go? Where, if anywhere are they restricted from doing anything they choose to do? Are there positions or job titles they are not allowed to achieve? What are their limitations? Where are they oppressed? If you question these things as well, you are among the millions of people worldwide not in support of what is known as Critical Race Theory.
What is Critical Race Theory? This hypothesis also known as CRT, as well as CBC(Culturally Based Curriculum) and CRC(Culturally Responsible Curriculum) with its roots in Marxism, operates on the belief that the status of the oppressors, and the oppressed are based solely on individual skin color. In addition, it teaches that every system in American history has been orchestrated to support and promote White Supremacy. Also known as “Racial-sensitivity training,” this ideology once restricted to College campuses, was originated by American lawyer Derrick Bell and several others over time carrying the divisive baton. Even 40 years ago, this was an unpopular and largely unsupported idea-even in theory. So, why then the sudden revived interest? Why was life given to a dogma with decades of clearly no sustainable merit? Two words: George Floyd.

With the alleged murder of Floyd still dominating the nightly News cycle, and the overblown narrative of police-involved shootings being force-fed to Americans every day-all day, the race baiting, salivating purveyors of hate saw the chance that they had been longing for. They that are steeped in the sewing of division had continuously been stoking the coals of racial-oppression within the Black community, and now there was a four-alarm fire raging in the streets of places like New York city, Portland, Oregon, and Atlanta, Georgia. With no intention of stopping there, they moved with surgeon-like precision to the Teacher’s Unions which were inseparably partnered with the Democrat party, to push this through the school system-at every level possible. However, the question remains-are Blacks the victims of an oppressed and systemically racist society?

To answer that honestly, you would have to go back to the Constitution, founded in 1776. Despite what many would have us to believe, there was nothing in its wording, its preamble, or amendments, let alone the Declaration of Independence, that gives any indication of racist under or overtones. While slavery in America was a horrible stain on our country, of which there is no debate, slavery itself was not uncommon in nearly every country in the world throughout history. What about Blacks post slavery? According to author Riley, in the 1913 Negro Almanac, the Black collective populace had amassed wealth in excess of “$700,000,000 worth of property, or about $70 per capita,” the almanac reported, using Census data, and “70 percent of them have some education in books.” Blacks, at only 50 years after slavery, had achieved success unparalleled since. In the words of economic historian Robert Higgs, “even if Black literacy a half-century after emancipation reached only 50%, “the magnitude of the accomplishment is still striking, especially when one recalls the overwhelming obstacles blocking Black educational efforts. For a large population to transform itself from virtually unlettered to more than half literate in 50 years ranks as an accomplishment seldom witnessed in human history.”

To understand what happened next, one would need only to research the impact either of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, in which U.S. farmers were essentially paid not to farm, thereby forcing Black farmworkers to seek government aid, or the Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society Act,” whose programs soon became a perpetual way of life for generations of millions of Black families. However, to suggest or imply that America is somehow so intrinsically racist, individuals are restricted from garnering the success they seek, aside from historic fallacy, borders on implausibility and absurdity. Through these and other examples, it is clear that Critical Race Theory should remain just that: a theory. It seeks to unravel the very fabric of what makes America the great nation that it is. It is rooted in unsubstantiated lies, hyperbole, and false narratives, and is designed to infiltrate the sense of morality and humanity, as well as right and wrong in our nation’s children. Do not misunderstand the gravity of what is before us. The situation is not merely, imperative, or grave; It is in fact, critical.
-Lawrence Johnson, Sr.