Clifford D. May wrote an article that came under the title: “If critical race theory is correct, is America worth defending?” It was published on June 29, 2021 in The Washington Times.
When
you see a title like that, you immediately think that the author will define
“critical race theory,” will explain what makes defending a nation (America in
this case) a worthwhile endeavor, and think that he will show the nexus
(connection) between the two. Has Clifford May done this? We’ll see.
May
did not come right out and define Critical Race Theory (CRT). Instead, he
quoted others who tried, and then gave a brief history of how the theory
evolved from the period of the Enlightenment until today. Because the exposition
given by May is sketchy and incomplete, I’ll tackle the subject from a
different angle, which I believe will give a clearer picture of the situation.
Way
back then, in my first or second year of college, Emmanuel Kant’s book:
“Critique of Pure Reason,” was assigned for a course I took, that was called
“Ethics and Aesthetics.” It was taught by an excellent professor who encouraged
us, the students, to discuss among ourselves some of the ideas that came to the
fore as we began to understand what we were studying.
What
I retain from those days, is the similarities we saw between Kant’s theory and
the popular ideas that were in vogue during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s.
The belief at the time was that science will not solve all our problems, and
may even add to them. This seems to be a popular idea even today.
Another
impression I retain from those days, is that we must neither be one-dimensional
nor believe that others are one-dimensional. We are all complex creatures,
motivated by a multitude of impulses that change with our changing
circumstances. For example, someone gets fired from his job because he is not
productive enough, and this causes him to believe the economic system is
rigged.
That
same man finds another job, which better matches the skill set he has and so,
gets promoted very quickly in his new job. This causes him to abandon the idea
that the system is rigged, at least for now. But he soon begins to faces a new
hurdle. It is that other employees who were eyeing the position to which he was
promoted, get jealous and show their disdain of him openly. He doesn’t
understand why this is happening, and so attributes the event to the possibility
that he has the wrong color of the skin.
What
this says is that we all have every trend written into our DNA. It is just that
one or more trends spike at a given moment to be suppressed when circumstances
change. If this is true, then it must be that people like Emmanuel Kant, Adam
Smith, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and others did not believe
solely in the one theory they espoused, but were fully rounded mavens. They
must have believed that competing theories were valid as well, but not as much
as theirs.
This
brings us to the reason why Clifford May wrote the article that he did. Here is
what he said about that: “At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee,
Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said: ‘I’ll have to get
smarter on whatever the [Critical Race Theory] is, but I do think it’s
important for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and widely read’”.
It
was in pushing back against this perfectly reasonable statement that Clifford
May has demonstrated that Jews are different from the rest. They are different because
they are brought up to think in a one-dimensional fashion, and to believe that
everyone else is brought up the same way.
May
expressed his bewilderment like this: “How does one become smarter about CRT?
In the media, it’s being described as an ‘academic concept’ or an ‘analytic
tool’ for understanding ‘white rage’ and ‘systemic racism.’” So be it. This is
a valid way to think about the human condition, and voicing it is following a
natural course. It will eventually settle on a number of generalities, and take
its place in American history alongside the many movements that came, lived for
a while and then went dormant.
There
is, however, something wrong in what Clifford May did next. Here it is: “That
assumes there is convincing evidence to support the charge that people with
pale skin are especially prone to violent, uncontrollable anger. And is the
claim that ‘systemic racism’ is the defining feature of the 21st–century
America really beyond debate?”
He
made one assumption, and asked one question that had no basis whatsoever. In
fact, to make an assumption and build a case on it is to say that the
assumption is believed universally, and cannot be refuted. This is plainly false
because only very few believe that Whites are angry or racists.
As
well, to charge that “systemic racism” is beyond debate, is to say there exists
a central authority whose mandate is to enforce the censorship of any debate
seen to tackle White racism in America. And this too is false.
Finally,
Clifford May assumes that because there is some racism in America, colored
people should not want to “serve in the armed forces and risk their lives to
defend the failed experiment that CRT alleges America is and always has been”.
Well,
Clifford May never served in the armed forces of America. Also, many Jews
prefer to serve in the Israeli army rather than the American. Instead of
staying there, they come back to America where they live the good life at the
expense of the taxpayers. Why?
Come to think of it, when young Cliff was of draft age, he went to live and study in the Soviet Union as if to honor “Uncle Joe” Stalin. Why did Clifford May come back to America?