Ep. 2 - Getting Critical of Critical Race Theory

This is the second of four episodes that look at racism and its relation to BYU's Committee on Race Equity and Belonging's report and recommendations published in February 2021. In this episode we discuss critical race theory to better understand where the thought process behind this report came from.  

Racism has always been a problem in every part of the world for all time. It is one sin among many that humans just cannot seem to shake off, and at many times do not want to shake off. I do not begrudge anyone who wants to try and “root out racism” as President Nelson said recently. But as we pointed out in the first podcast on this topic, racism is attributed to things that cannot be confirmed as racist. The narratives of racism are seemingly made from whole cloth, and conveniently are very politically advantageous to those who spin those narratives. The legacy of slavery has been invoked as an excuse for riots and looting that have caused an estimated $2 billion in damages. The legacy of slavery has been invoked to push all sorts of ideas from the ridiculous reparations proposals to the removal of statues of founding fathers. Even Abraham Lincoln does not escape the anti-racist wrath of the woke. A San Francisco school board determined that schools can no longer be named after him because he did not demonstrate that “black lives mattered to him. Even sympathizing with those that have been deemed racist will get you labeled as a racist and possibly lose you your job. A recent high-profile example of this is Chris Harrison, former host of the bachelor, who made the grave error of suggesting compassion towards a former bachelor star who years earlier had attended an antebellum party. Clearly this woke train went off the reality tracks long ago. But how does that happen? Things this crazy don’t happen overnight, this has been a long time coming. Its called critical race theory and today we are going to look at where it came from, why its so dangerous, and the kinds of craziness it produces.