What Is Critical About Critical Race Theory

By Darrell Ehrlick, Daily Montanan

July 1, 2021

It says a lot about the state of Montana politics when the Friday edition of The Billings Gazette featured two guest columns, one from former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and the other from current Rep. Matt Rosendale, both of which were columns rebutting criticism from voters.

Zinke was called out by fellow veterans for not sharing the circumstances of his Bronze Star.

Rosendale was called out by those disgusted with his vote against making Juneteenth a federal holiday and his refusal to support awarding gold medals to fallen police officers.

The heat is obviously rising on more than just the weather.

Rosendale doubled down on the bluster as he claimed that liberals secretly want to replace the Fourth of July with Juneteenth, musing to himself about “debating a reparations bill being brought forward on Juneteenth National Independence Day, 2031.”

“Juneteenth will become the high holy day of the Left’s calendar, a Lenten repentance to Pride Month’s Easter Celebration,” Rosendale said.

And honestly, I don’t have the space to begin deconstructing that pretzeled logic, other than to say Rosendale doesn’t miss an opportunity to throw red meat to rabid believers that somehow Juneteenth — a distant holiday from most Easters — is in someway connected to Pride Month. It’s honestly hard to tell if this is meant as race-baiting, gay bashing or to rile up conservatives vulnerable to believing that liberals are somehow out to steal your Cadbury eggs or your savior.

In his contorted efforts to muster a reasonable excuse for voting against a holiday that is already on Montana’s books, Rosendale falls prey to the same talking point as so many on the right: That the acceptance of critical race theory somehow means a denial of the American justice system or other institutions that, while imperfect, serve good purposes.

To wit, Rosendale says that critical race theory holds that “key constitutional features (e.g. due process of law) produce unequal outcomes and therefore are a product of white supremacy.”

If Rosendale had read some of the key concepts of critical race theory, it says neither of those things, but plays well with a frightened, even paranoid base.

The fact that Rosendale comes so close to describing one of the key components suggests that he and others are twisting the scholarship and 40 years of study to suit their own political purposes.

The background of critical race theory is well documented, in part because it never began as controversial.

Critical race theory simply made the observation that even after monumental changes in American society that were good, progressive and demonstrated the self-correcting function of a thriving democracy, things didn’t just change as many hoped they would.

For example, even after Brown vs. Board of Education, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, things didn’t change for many places and many people. The question scholars asked was: Why?

The courts had correctly and with due process (note that, Mr. Rosendale) concluded that Jim Crow’s separate-but-equal doctrine was flawed. And yet students, through processes like redlining, remained both separate and unequal.

The same was true with the Civil Rights Act. Voting was made easier. Programs were established, but not much changed. Again, the question: Why?

Critical race theory doesn’t teach that White people are evil. In that regard, way too many politicians have taken critical race theory entirely too personally. It’s not about the individuals, it’s about a larger society and its structures and institutions — like healthcare, education and housing — way too large for any one person or even political party to be held solely responsible.

Scholars noted laws were better, but the outcome was still unequal. Critical race theory understands what the law can’t quite remedy: That you can change the laws, but you can’t change people’s minds or hearts by a Supreme Court ruling.

Instead, critical race theory simply looks at how entire systems operate, not just individuals. For example, we ran a story this week that pointed out that despite a huge rise in the education of Black men, their health outcomes are largely lagging. These are not problems with simple or single-faceted answers, rather they’re complex.

What’s really driving this nearly rabid response to critical race theory is fear. It’s not the fear of letting our children know the truth about history. I’d argue they can handle that better than most adults. Instead, the real issue is that we’d rather demonize an academic theory than face its troubling conclusions.

Those conclusions about how society has treated people of color or minorities lead us to profoundly uncomfortable places. And when we arrive at those conclusions, not just our supposed Christian mores, but our human compassion should compel us to make changes. That is frightening to many.

Montana politicians would love to make this a liberal-versus-conservative or rural-versus-urban battle, but you don’t have to look too far to see Native Americans dying an entire generation earlier than their white counterparts here in the Treasure State. Critical race theory would ask: Why is that?

One of the key differences in a place like Montana, though, is folks like Rosendale can take to his soapbox, and preach that America is coming for all the old White guys to make ‘em pay. He’s betting that it’ll be just enough to scare most folks into believing that fearful claptrap.

Unfortunately, it’s going to have to come from other old White guys like me — and a bunch of others in Montana — to debunk Rosendale. He obviously can comfortably ignore minority voices or those with whom he disagrees and not face much more than blowback on the pages of the state’s largest newspaper.

Sadly, about the only group he’ll listen to is old White people.

It would be funny if not so sad: There is Matt Rosendale all worried that critical race theory is teaching White Montanans to hate themselves, while I sit here worried that the rest of the world is judging Montana by its elected leaders, including Rosendale, which would lead them to think that Montana’s White people are just a bunch of suspicious bigots.

The Daily Montanan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan source for trusted news, commentary and insight into statewide policy and politics beneath the Big Sky.