“What most people are upset about is not Critical Race Theory, it’s CRT.” Did you know that CRT and critical race theory are not the same thing? Michael Harriot, who studied critical race theory, is here to drown out the noise and stick to the facts. In this three-part series, he’ll explain the difference between the two theories and why one is something that was manufactured by white people.Â
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Michael Harriot [00:00:35] Hello. And I’m pretty sure you’ve heard about this whole controversy that’s been going on all over the country where white women are storming into school board meetings, mad about teaching CRT. To be fair, they are not talking about the same critical race theory that you’re talking about. They’re talking about CRT. And to explain this, I want to welcome you to theGrio Daily, the only podcast that will explain that two CRTs. Yeah. So we’re going to do you know, this will probably be multiple episodes about critical race theory. And before we begin, you know, I have to explain to you that I have actually taken a course, a graduate course in critical race theory, even though I wasn’t in law school of professor when I was in graduate school, recommended that I take this course in CRT. So I went to Florida Law School for the University of Florida Law School once a week to take a course in this thing that I had never heard of before called critical race theory, thinking that I’d never use it. And apparently it became a thing. This was 25 years ago.Â
Michael Harriot [00:01:56] So understand this whole fight about critical race theory. You’ll even have to know about it. Because what most people are upset about is not critical race theory, it’s CRT. And to understand what I mean, like most people weren’t upset when they when they talked about Black Lives Matter, they had to shorten it to BLM. Right. Because, you know, white people, especially conservative racist white people like to shorten thing down to like three letters, CRT, BLM. When we talk about critical race theory, they’re talking about a whole different thing than the stuff that I studied. To understand it, first, I’m going to have to tell you about Critical race, because a lot of the stuff that you’ve heard about critical race theory is wrong, right? So critical race theory is not necessarily just about the law or legal education. It’s kind of where it started because, you know, another thing that you heard was wrong, like Derrick Bell started critical race theory, which is not necessarily true. He is one of the originators of this theory that became a standard in his law classes. Right. And he looked at law through a racial lens. Well, there’s all kinds of stuff like that. It’s called critical theory. So they are critical theorists in economics. They are critical theories in sociology. You are critical theorists in almost every form or study of anything. Right.
Michael Harriot [00:03:32] So, for instance, the people who say that America is a Christian country. Right. And that this country was founded on Christian values. And the you know, whenever you say something, they’ll contradict you with a Bible verse. They are looking at politics and society through the lens of their religion, Christianity. So that’s kind of like, you know, what we call evangelical Christianity is really Christian critical theory, right?
Donald Trump [00:04:06] In America, we don’t worship government. We worship God.
Michael Harriot [00:04:12] And there are bunch of people like that, right? So people who automatically deem everything as socialism. It’s because they look at everything through the lens of capitalism. Capitalism is the thing that through which they view economics and anything that opposes capitalism is automatically bad because it opposes their lens. Right. So critical theory is a thing. So what critical race theory does is it looks at things through a racial lens. What it says is that there are people everybody. Right. Me as a Black man can only view America through the lens of how I am treated in this society. Or this society treats me as a Black man. It deems it. People look at me and assume that I’m a little bit more dangerous, you know, when even my good white friends will think that I know the latest rap song. It’s not necessarily bad. It’s not necessarily racist. It’s that they view me through the lens of race. I view the world through the lens of race. What white people don’t understand as they view this world, politics, society, culture through the lens of whiteness. That’s why they don’t have a problem that the founding fathers were slave holders because they are looking at it through the lens of whiteness. That’s why they think that if it’s a majority Black neighborhood, it’s probably a little bit dangerous because they are viewing society through the lens of whiteness. That is the critical race theory.
Michael Harriot [00:05:53] What critical race theory says is that racism and this is one that, you know, tenents, and that racism is a normal. And when I say normal, I don’t mean that it’s either good or bad. It’s not a value judgment. It means that it exists. It’s not very rare. It’s it’s exist in all parts of society in how we define racism. Remember from like every episode we’ve ever done is use it at dictionary thing, right? So it’s not necessarily that people have animus or hate Black people. It is something that disproportionately affects one group of people because of the color of their skin. So if everybody in the world applies for a job and you notice that only the Black people are getting turned away, it’s a racist regardless of the reason, right? If schools are underfunded and schools are underfunded, majority Black schools are underfunded in America is statistically true. Right. The reason for that, there’s a combination of reasons. It’s about school funding because about how we fund schools to property taxes. It’s about the history of redlining. But for whatever reason, majority Black schools are underfunded, so Black children have less of an opportunity to get an equal education. That’s racist. Regardless of the reason.
Michael Harriot [00:07:22] No one thinks that school boards are secretly meeting and say, Hey, let’s keep the Black kids dumb and white kids smart. I don’t think. I mean, like, it’s not crazy to think that in America, but. The outcome is racial disparities, which means racism. And that is normal in society. Right. And that’s what critical race theory says. But critical race theory doesn’t say is that people should feel bad because of that or that everybody in society is racist. No, it explicitly doesn’t say, you know, the next time you hear someone say that. Ask them which literature or book of critical race theory they ever studied, because it doesn’t say that. What it does say is that there is something called interest convergence. So. You know, there are people who will object to, for instance, changing the way schools are funded. No object to the way history is taught, no object to the way schools try to incorporate diversity because they have an interest in preserving the status quo. So that interest convergence preserves racism. And it doesn’t mean that they hate Black people. So we’re going to get a little bit deeper into this. But that is the real critical race theory. And to understand why people object to that, you’re going to have to understand CRT, not critical race theory. There’s a whole different thing that white people have made up that they are terming CRT or critical race theory. That’s not the real thing. That has nothing to do with what I just told you. And that’s what we’ll talk about on the next episode. But you know what you will have to do to get there. You have to tell a friend about this podcast. You’re going to have to subscribe. You’re going to have to download that Grio app. And you’re going to have to remember that we end every episode with a Black saying. And today’s Black saying is “Study long, study wrong or if you’re white, you ain’t got to study at all. We’ll see you next time on theGrio Daily. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. Download theGrio app, subscribe to the show and to share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to podcasts at theGrio dot com.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:10:12] I’m political scientist, author and professor Dr. Christina Greer, and I’m host of The Blackest Questions on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network. This person invented ranch dressing around 1950. Who are they?
Marc Lamont Hill [00:10:25] I have no idea.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:10:26] This all began as an exclusive Black history trivia party at my home in Harlem with family and friends. And they got so popular it seemed only right to share the fun with our Grio listeners. Each week we invite a familiar face on the podcast to play. What was the name of the person who was an enslaved chief cook for George Washington and later ran away to freedom in 1868. This university was the first in the country to open a medical school that welcomed medical students of all races, genders and social classes. What university was it?
Roy Wood Jr [00:11:00] This is why I like doing stuff with you, because I leave educated. I was not taught this in Alabama Public Schools.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:11:06] Question three. You ready?
Eboni K. Williams [00:11:07] Yes. I want to redeem myself.
Amanda Seales [00:11:09] How do we go from Kwanzaa to like these obscure stories? This is like New York Times crossword from Monday to Saturday.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:11:19] Right or wrong, Because all we care about is the journey and having some fun while we do it.
Kalen Allen [00:11:24] I’m excited and also little nervous.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:11:26] Oh. No need to be nervous. And as I tell all of my guests, this is an opportunity for us to educate ourselves because Black history is American history. So we’re going to have some fun. Listen, some people get zero out of five. Some people get five out of five. It doesn’t matter. We’re just going to be on a little intellectual journey together.
Eboni K. Williams [00:11:42] Latoya Cantrell.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:11:45] That’s right. Mayor Latoya Cantrell.
Michael Twitty [00:11:47] Hercules Posey.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:11:48] Hmm. Born in 1754 and he was a member of the Mount Vernon slave community, widely admired for his culinary skills.
Kalen Allen [00:11:55] I’m going to guess AfroPunk.
Kalen Allen [00:11:58] Close. It’s Afro Nation. According to my research, and Samuel Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon.
Jason Johnson [00:12:07] Wrong. Wrong. I am disputing this.
Latosha Brown [00:12:11] Very, very. Very rare 99.9999 sure that it is Representative John Lewis, who is also from the state of Alabama. That you know, Christina, we got some goodness come out of Alabama.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:12:23] There’s something in the water in Alabama. And you are absolutely correct.
Diallo Riddle [00:12:26] The harder they come.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:12:29] Close.
Diallo Riddle [00:12:30] Oh, wait, The Harder They Fall?
Dr. Christina Greer [00:12:31] That’s right. I’m one of those people that just changes one word.
Roy Wood Jr [00:12:36] I just don’t know nothing today. I’m going to pour myself a little water while you tell me the answer.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:12:41] The answer is Seneca Village, which began in 1825 with the purchase of land by a trustee of the A.M.E. Zion Church.
Roy Wood Jr [00:12:47] You know why games like this make me nervous? I don’t know if I know enough Black. Do I know enough? How Black am I? Oh, my Lord. They. They. We goingt to find out in public.
Dr. Christina Greer [00:12:56] So give us a follow. Subscribe and join us on the Blackest Questions.
