By Thomas Oppenheimer, Esquire

If you think history has been whitewashed, to the benefit of whites, you have not seen anything yet. School boards across the country, and some states, have been seeking to remove from the classroom anything that, to them, smacks of critical race theory, that is, anything that suggests in any way, shape or form that racism exists as a systemic problem in our country. If the truth will set you free, what will result from this attack on the truth?
My purpose here is to describe in a general way what critical race theory (CRT) is, by setting out some propositions and themes that are often cited in discussions of the subject.
Critical race theorists are engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism and power. The movement concerns many of the same issues that conventional civil rights studies take up, but it places them in a broader context that includes economics, history and group and self-interest. Among CRT’s basis premises are the following:[1]
1. That racism is “ordinary”, that is, it’s the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country. This ordinariness means that racism is hard to remedy because it is not acknowledged by the majority.
2. Our system of white over color serves important purposes, psychological and economic, for the dominant group. Since racism advances the interests of both white elites and working class whites, large parts of society have scant desire to eliminate it.
3. The “social construction” concept says that races derive from social thought and relations – they relate to no biological or genetic reality. They are categories that society invents, manipulates, or no longer subscribes to as convenient.[2] Society thus often ignores the scientific truth, creates races, and falsely gives them characteristics that fit their purposes (how else to justify slavery?).
CRT identifies and analyzes the ways in which racism pervades our systems, including the continuation of poverty, barriers in accessing housing, education and health care, and economic development that disadvantages minority communities while privileging predominantly white neighborhoods and business interests [3]
CRT revises history, that is, it reexamines the historical record, often replacing the majority’s view of events with ones that more accurately reflect minorities’ experiences, and offering evidence to support the new interpretations. It is not unusual for that evidence to have been previously suppressed.[4]
Many well-meaning people believe in colorblindness, which can be admirable in some circumstances, but the notion has taken such hold in the Courts that is has become extremely difficult to take any note of race, even to remedy an historical wrong.[5]
Finally, I want to discuss the value that critical race theorists put on narratives and storytelling. As Delgado and Stefancic point out, whites cannot easily grasp what it is like to be non-white, and “the hope is that well-told stories describing the reality of black and brown lives can help readers to bridge the gap between their worlds and those of others. Engaging stories can help us understand what life is like for others.”
They point out further that many victims of racial discrimination suffer in silence or blame themselves, or pretend it didn’t happen. Stories can give them a voice, show that others have had similar experiences, and can give a name to the discrimination suffered (such as micro aggression, unconscious discrimination, structural racism). Once named, it can be combated. Thus if race is constructed, it should be able to be deconstructed. After all, the beliefs and categories underlying them are our own creation. “Powerfully written stories and narratives may begin a process of correction in our system of beliefs and categories,” note Delgado and Stefancic.[6]
The urgent task of storytelling then is to immerse readers in a new or different perspective of truth. We might think of it as a battle between the old paradigm, or view of the world, and an emerging one. Once one’s framework for viewing the world begins to break down – once one begins to see systemic racism for what it is – everything else follows. That I believe is the great, perhaps inchoate, fear of those opposing CRT, that the foundations of their world will crumble. That I believe is the emotional wellspring of the resistance.

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[1] From Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory (NYU Press, 3rd Ed. 2017)
[2] I was surprised to find that at one time society considered me part of the “Jewish race”. At the point Jews became “white”, the Jewish racial category was left behind.
[3] In a follow-up article I will describe how racism has impacted the Springfield minority community, particularly in the areas of housing and education.
[4] As CRT opponents now seek to do, all over again.
[5] My follow up piece will also discuss how the Biden administration’s efforts to remedy historic wrongs, as with Black farmers, foundered on these shoals, as did voluntary school desegregation efforts in Seattle and Louisville.
[6] I will also discuss more fully in a coming issue some of these powerful narratives, such as the brilliant “Dasani Left Home” from the October 3, 2021, New York Times, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s grand piece on reparations in the Atlantic, and Nicole Hannah-Jones’s Statement on her decision to reject the tenure offer from the University of North Carolina and accept the one from Howard, which was reproduced in the Af-Am Point of View issue of August 1, 2021. And I will report on some of the prominent legal cases that demonstrate the formidable barriers in the law to remedying historical wrongs, and Richard Rothstein’s landmark work The Color of Law, which unpacks the deep involvement of government in our shameful history of housing segregation. ■