White Privilege — Let’s Have Done with This Silly Narrative. — Gadsden
The current state of political discourse has led to some damaging policy choices, indefensible political positions, and an obvious regression.
In our current discourse, it appears there is no problem with classifying any white person as an “oppressor” simply by virtue of their skin color, nor is there any problem with classifying a black person as “oppressed” (obviously a victim of the oppressor) simply by virtue of their skin color. Well — there just may be a few things wrong with this.
CRT it seems is largely where this nonsense came from. Whether or not you believe it is “being taught” in public schools, the fact that public school teachers are “informed by” CRT is pretty hard to escape.
CRT grew out of a Marxist school of thought — and it borrows much from Marxism. CRT posits that societal issues come down to a binary equation — oppressor and oppressed (just as Marxism boils down to the proletariat and the Bourgeoisie). This is of course “reductionism” — and it is entirely intentional. Reductionism has its place — in many areas — but crafting a society or an economy is not among them. I should note — at the risk of being accused of an ad hominem attack, that Marx was wrong about everything he wrote, on pretty much every topic. The foundations of CRT are not good.
Further, CRT (like Marxism) has never been proven to work — at all — ever. Conservatives tend to favor things (ideas) that have been shown to work — and to disfavor those that have not been proven at all — and to strongly disfavor those things that have proven historically to be disastrous. Marxism and CRT both fall in that camp.
While it is impossible to argue that Marxism has not been tried (it has, many times, always with the same disastrous results), CRT is only now emerging. To date, CRT has not worked. It’s driving division and promoting hate — I see no evidence it is “working” in the way intended.
The focus within CRT on “identity” (again, just like Marxism) is based on flawed logic. It places undue importance on something that can not be defined and is largely irrelevant. If I hire someone to run a milling machine and they present and identify as a cat, my immediate and logical reaction is “I don’t care — the question is, can you run a milling machine?” I see no “identity politics” justification for singling out or giving special deference to someone that “identifies” as a man, woman, cat, dog, or none of the above that is not equally justified by deference to a straight white male or female.
Now we arrive at “privilege”. “White Privilege” is arguably every bit as offensive as declaring that women are inferior to men because of their DNA. Fredrick Douglass very handily dispensed with the notion that black people were intellectually inferior to white people about 160 years ago. We all know this (well, at least those that know even a little history do).
Privilege is not based on race. Oppressor and oppressed is not based on race. None of the above are based on sex, sexual orientation, sexual preference, or identity. The problem with CRT is that it attempts to remove agency. It also attempts (and this is probably the whole point) to remove any evidence of root cause.
If you are 18 years old, of sound physical health, reasonably intelligent, reasonably educated, have some drive and a desire to succeed, and came from a family of some reasonable means, you are indeed privileged and will probably do quite well in this country. Even if you satisfy half of those prerequisites, you have a pretty good shot. None of that has anything to do with race or sexual orientation.
If you are a criminal, lacking in education or intelligence, lack any drive to succeed, or come from a poor family without any history of any of the above factors for success, then you probably won’t succeed. You’ll probably die young, and maybe in prison. None of that has anything to do with race or sexual orientation either.
In both cases, I’m not talking strictly about immutable characteristics. You have agency, you can decide, you can choose a path.
The real world doesn’t care about your skin color, doesn’t care what religion you follow, doesn’t care how you “identify”, and doesn’t care how you spend your time in your bedroom. The real world cares only about what you can or can not do, how sharp you are, whether or not you can think objectively, and how you treat those around you. Do all that right, and you’ll be fine.
Gadsden1
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Originally published at https://gadsden1.com on June 12, 2023.
