Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a system of Liberal Ideology frames all of society’s institutions, cultural expressions, symbols, and features, in terms of its genealogy — or how it came down through the times. This is a mouthful. The point is that it is an ideological system that builds out and understands all cultural expressions based on where that expression came from. The claim that structural or systemic racism exists in America is forcibly conjoined to liberal theology, stigmatizing any and all other ways of trying to address this. Evidence of this is easy to see: if the problem of systemic racism were not forced into complying with liberal ideology, the claim, “All lives matters,” in place of “black lives matter” would not be troublesome or met with vitriolic behavior. What this really shows us is a big time epistemic problem; this is fancy talk for saying that the bottleneck of the media and social media is becoming increasingly dictatorial. As an ex-professor, freedom of thought is an absolute virtue that is nearly dead in the academy these days — bear in mind, that protecting freedom of thought is not the same as condoning or accepting those thoughts.

Two points require careful navigation when looking at this issue: (1) that something of systemic racism might exist is not to be rejected out of hand, and (2) that accepting the framework of systemic or structural racism as conjoined to liberal ideology must be rejected out of hand. The past two years have made it clear that reframing the racism discussion in any way except as it serves liberal ideology will be censured immediately. This happens either through violence/vitriol or epistemic limitation (what I mean by this is that media and/or big tech will stifle alternative ways to address racism). It must be understood that brokering in knowledge, intel, or data, is perhaps the most powerful human device, in the form of media/social media, ever constructed since the Tower of Babel. Being able to set the limits to what humans think on a matter is profoundly consequential and markedly powerful.

We know this means that we must be able to know our audience and likewise demands that we build our own likeminded communities. The claim that echo chambers are bad is misleading, a tool of liberal ideology to keep likeminded people apart. To speak to (2) above, we must realize that one step into that liberal ideological framing of structural racism is to be utterly overwhelmed and defeated with no way out. We cannot play nice with a system as well thought out as that one; to admit that structural racism of this liberal ideological sort exists at all is to admit that everything in Western civilization is racist. One step into it means absolute ruin and endless class/race warfare. Let me show you where such leads. Although historically inaccurate, the State of Washington schools recently affirmed that “math was racist.” It is historically inaccurate because the numerals we use today are Arabic numerals, coming from brown people. Of course, we ask, “How can math be racist?” In the logic of liberal ideology on structural racism, math ails from Europe, a bunch of white people. If non-whites have trouble with math, this is an institution and field of knowledge (math) that inhibits non-whites from advancing. That math is troublesome and hard to get combined with the claim that it comes from Europe makes the math itself racist.

To speak to (1) above, the notion of systemic racism is as old as the world itself, or at least nearly. My point is that all human development occurs through certain races. Certain developments win out over time for a myriad of reasons. That the initial development was done by a particular race and might be troublesome later for another race to handle is the shear nature of civilizations’ ebbs and flows. Hence, this is a perfect issue for endless warfare. There is no end to it because you’d have to eliminate human civilization in its entirety to get rid of it. Systemic racism, packaged this way outside of the framework of liberal ideology and agenda, is salient and non-dismissive of the issue. It allows us to address its reality without obliterating every institution as guilty of some especially grotesque evil; this likewise frees kids and young people from finding a monster behind every single bush. Furthermore, it allows for change within those institutions — Equal Opportunity Employment being one example — to have very different ethos than what it might have had long ago. In my experience, such change is accurate and reflects on the growth of the idea of equality among all people

Although I think the battle cry of “I am a man!” was perfectly suited for the civil rights movement, the continued sanctification of such an idea leads to the idea of humanity’s destiny as it is tied to the perfect humanity of Christ. Scripture tells us to consider no one anymore according to the flesh, but to consider them in terms of the economy of salvation. Therefore, I think the Church’s framework here is profoundly healing on the matter, and it advances and perfects the idea of “I am a man!” The genetic fallacy, of faulting an idea because of where it came from, is less important than repackaging said idea within the Church’s economy of salvation. In other words, an idea or institution’s viability is tied to its destiny not its origin. Civilization itself, as conveyed in the metanarrative of Scripture, is flawed in its origin (the fall) but revived and reconstituted in its destination in Christ. I could say a lot more on this, but I believe these thoughts are enough to reflect on for the moment, and dinner is callin’.

Dr. Scalise