This is the third edition of one of the core introductory texts for Critical Race Theory written by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (2017).
Nothing that I read here leads me to think that the Pluckrose & Lindsay book is overstating the illogic of social justice theory, especially with respect to race. It is ant-liberalism:
“Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equity theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”
Unpack that a bit. Equality under the law, scientific method, and the like are considered problematic. The achievements of the civil rights movement are dismissed as too incremental. The system that enables change and progress is somehow a propagator of racism.
And the issue to be confronted and challenged is effectively unempirical by any measure: “…the unseen, largely invisible collection of patterns and habits that make up patriarchy and other types of domination”. It is a problem framed so abstractly and imprecisely as to describe nothing.
And everything is racist: “…racism is ordinary, not aberrational – ‘normal science’, the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country.”
And the only people able to assess such a statement are the oppressed: “Minority status, in other words, brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism.”
And, by the way, every white person is racist or complicit: “…no white member of society seems quite so innocent.”
And we should strive for socialist ideals: “…system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity but resists programs that assure equality of results.”
In general, rather than taking any empirical approach to this issue, the authors frame the questions of race with comically exaggerated and blatantly racist scenarios, as if they represent the standard interaction (I thought it was “largely invisible”). And they excerpt various court decisions, recommending those that take an unscientific approach to race and criticizing those decisions that insist on more than just anecdotes to confirm a systemic bias.
I would comfortably say that this a theory without real value if the goal is to address issues of race in this country. And because it lacks any empathy for other groups in its discourse, I suspect it will struggle to get the cooperation of the many that is needed for real change to happen.
