A Small Glossary — CRT, White Fragility, Equity, White Privilege, Systemic Racism

Britannica: “Critical race theory (CRT) , is an intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color. Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially Africa Americans.”

This statement makes the White race guilty for the black race’s general failures as to academic excellence, standard of living equality, job equality, salary equality, and social acceptance as equals in majority White societies. It views all these failures as being the result of the socially constructed White man oppressing and keeping the socially constructed black man down.

Equity teaches the only way to right this historic wrong is for the socially constructed white man to give up this previous sinful privilege and accept a current matching discrimination against him from the socially constructed black man to make up for the putative historic discrimination that the socially constructed black man faced in previous years. Equity holds that the socially constructed white man must be kept down until the socially constructed man can catch up. Equity needs to be distinguished from the idea of equality. Equity does not believe in equality except as equality is defined in light of equity. Equality, politically speaking, means everyone gets a seat at the table. Equity teaches that whites should not get a seat at the table since they putatively have had so many seats at the table in the past. Political equality itself, with all its set-asides, quotas, and score enhancements was always a mistake. Equity, however, is a bridge beyond equality. If you are a white person and you vote for someone touting equity you are either a moron or a self-hater because equity explicitly teaches that you, as a socially constructed white man, will never be given the opportunities to advance because your ancestors had the good life and now it is a person of colors turn. So, even if they are less qualified than you are, they will be given the job, the placement, the position until at some unspecific time in the future all peoples are at the same level of accomplishment.

White fragility happens when biological white men and women say this whole scam is monkey fecal matter. The disagreement by White people is listed by those who champion CRT  as White Fragility. White people are “fragile” because they can’t handle the truth and so object. The scam here is clear. If you agree with CRT then that proves CRT is right. If you disagree with CRT then your white fragility proves CRT is right. Heads I win. Tails you lose. It’s a gamed theory.

 

White privilege in this worldview is the systemic advantage that has accrued to white people simply because they are white. The theory goes that because you were born socially constructed white you automatically had advantages that were not fair because other non-white people didn’t have those advantages and so were disadvantaged. For example, a white person may have grown up in a family that loved and nurtured them. Whereas a black person may have grown up in a family that treated him badly. That White person because of that has white privilege that isn’t fair to the black person. Plus, keep in mind in that example, that it was because of systemic racism that the socially constructed black person’s family was less than what it might have otherwise been.

Systemic racism posits that a social order can be racist even if no individual in that social order is racist. As such the socially constructed white people groups can be racist even if no socially constructed white individual is. This means that the whole social order of countries predominantly built by whites works so as to disadvantage and discriminate against people of color. Critical Race theory works to expose that advantage and offers solutions such as societal-wide “Equity” in order to offset that prior advantage.

Notice in all of this that equality/equity is arrived at, at the price of Liberty. Liberty and equality/equity can never exist together. One always cancels out the other. If there is a regime of equity people will not be free to pursue what they want and become what they want. This is because equality/equity will limit and circumscribe that ability. Similarly, liberty means that people will not be equal or have equity because liberty presupposes that people are not equal and will advance or not upon the basis of merit and drive. Two realities not allowed in an equality/equity social order.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

2 thoughts on “A Small Glossary — CRT, White Fragility, Equity, White Privilege, Systemic Racism”

  1. Really, really excellent lucid and concise breakdown. Couldn’t have been done any better.

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