CRT (Critical Race Theory) Has a Jewish Problem
Shouldering millennia of oppression culminating in the last century’s genocide by the Nazis, Jews are used to being the brunt of antisemitism. Yet, the special place of outrage reserved for them by Critical Race Theory (CRT) has caught many Jews off guard.
As traditional allies of the oppressed and downtrodden, Jews fought alongside Blacks during the civil rights movement. They even lost their lives for the cause. Now, a new type of "civil rights" movement is not only rebuffing Jews but targeting them with hate.
To understand this latest iteration of antisemitism, we need to first understand what CRT is and where it came from.
What is Critical Theory?
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is part of the neo-Marxist Critical Theory movement that asserts that culture is essentially made up of power dynamics – namely, the group that has power imposes its beliefs, values, feelings and ideology on those without power.
Marx focused on economics -- the owners of capital versus the workers. Critical Theory extrapolated Marx’s power binary and applied it to culture. Essentially, Critical Theory is cultural Marxism.
Freud, Gender Theory and the Frankfurt School
Influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theories of repression vis-a-vis the subconscious, academics at the Frankfurt School applied a psychoanalytic approach to Marxism. They divided society into the oppressors and the victims.
“At the time, that was code for males of European descent,” writes author David Galland in The Standard. “From there, they argued that the social roles of men and women were due to gender differences defined by the ‘oppressors.’ In other words, gender did not exist in reality but was merely a ‘social construct.’”
The Frankfurt School Lands in America
Escaping Germany in 1934 before World War II, many Frankfurt School academics landed at Columbia University in New York. There, in American society, Critical Theory was officially born.
“Critical Theory is a play on semantics,” explains Galland. “The theory was simple: criticize every pillar of Western culture—family, democracy, common law, freedom of speech, and others. The hope was that these pillars would crumble under the pressure.”
This is an essential element of Critical Theory and all the “theories” it spawned, like Critical Race Theory. Theories are usually for the halls of academia. But not Critical Theories. Rather, the thinkers behind these theories conceived them fundamentally as activist movements. Their purpose is to dismantle and overthrow society in part by exposing its biases.
Complete Revolution of American Society
However, unlike activist movements such as the civil rights movement, Critical Theory and its second-generation iteration, CRT, do not believe in incrementalism or step-by-step progress. Rather, central to the theory is a total and complete overthrow (“dismantling”) of the entire society.
Thus, it was no surprise that Critical Theory began to flourish in the universities of America in the sixties. It then spilled out to the streets, where the “Establishment” (American society) became the focus of all things evil.
CRT Charges American Society is Completely Racist
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the latest iteration of Critical Theory. Beginning in the 1970s, a group of legal scholars posited that it was not culture but rather racism that was the fundamental organizing principle of American society. White supremacy, they asserted, was the founding principle of America.
According to CRT, whites formulated all of American society, every institution and social structure. They did this as a way to maintain their power over non-whites – in short, racial Marxism. And like Marxism, CRT contends that even when conditions are good for non-whites (for example, they are doing well economically and/or culturally), it is because they are being brainwashed by whites.
Thus, even if non-whites are succeeding and happy, society still needs to be torn down. Why? To make way for (an unarticulated yet promised) utopia.
“[C]ritical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law,” writes one of CRT’s founders Richard Delgado and his wife, Jean Stefancic, in Critical Race Theory: An Introduction.
Plays on Semantics
Like other plays on semantics, what Delgado means by “questioning,” does not mean opening these subjects up to debate. Rather, CRT asserts that equality – as well as the other foundational principles of American society enumerated by Delgado – are ruses. They are inventions by white people used to fool non-whites into thinking that they have more freedom and opportunity than the social structures of society allow, according to CRT scholar James Lindsay.
Lindsay also provides a number of important nuances about CRT that are important for understanding not only the theory itself but its devolution into antisemitic and anti-Israel hate.
First, Lindsay notes that CRT believes that racism is an inescapable and permanent fixture of American society. Second, just as Critical Theory teaches that gender is a social construct, CRT asserts that race is a social construct. Thus, CRT maintains race is an invention imposed upon society by white people.
CRT also believes in historical revisionism (e.g. the 1619 Project), storytelling, “narrative-weaving” and the “unique voice of color” (lived experience versus empirical knowledge).
CRT Is a Closed System
Crucial to understanding CRT is to recognize that CRT is a closed system, meaning that any criticism of it is delegitimized as coming from the perspective of whiteness. Even the concept of critical thinking itself is outside the system since it is deemed an institution of whiteness.
Lindsay also points out that, like Critical Theory, CRT’s name itself is a semantic obfuscation. “Critical” does not mean critical thinking but rather connotes criticism. Since race does not exist but is merely a social construct, “race” refers to a conspiracy theory created by white people to assign human worth and social status to non-whites for the purpose of maintaining power, privilege and systems of oppression. Finally, CRT does not use the scientific definition of the word "theory," as in the “Theory of Evolution” or the “Theory of Gravity”. Rather, it uses the Marxist concept of "theory" -- that in which political action is its end goal.
Critical Race Theory’s Jewish Problem
A central tenet of CRT is that a person or group of people doesn’t have to be white to be deemed “white” or have what is called “white privilege.” Those who have succeeded in American society or even who are simply perceived to have succeeded are considered “white” by CRT. This includes Jews, Asians and a variety of other ethnic groups that have flourished in America and integrated into the larger American melting pot.
“White” can even include brown and black people – both those who are successful as well as those who simply espouse basic American values of equality, merit-based success and hard work.
Yet, of all the non-white groups that CRT considers “white,” Jews present a distinct and unique problem for the theory.
Because of their success, “Jews, in CRT, have an intolerable privilege they need to check,” writes Wayne Creed in “Critical Race Theory and Anti-Semitism.” “But, Jews have a history of legitimate oppression, including imperial destruction, diaspora, enslavement, and a literal genocide in the Holocaust. They are victims historically, including of ‘the West.’”
The contradictory aspect of Jews challenges the very core of CRT, which views the world in Marxian, binary terms. As such, they can’t be tolerated. Hence, it is not uncommon to see CRT advocates making absurd assertions on Twitter accusing Anne Frank of having “white privilege” or downgrading the Holocaust as “white on white” crime. Some solve the “problem” by merely denying it altogether.
CRT Deems Jews 'False Victims'
Essentially, CRT views Jews as part of the privileged (white) class, but because of their historical persecution, “they enjoy an even further privilege of getting a kind of ‘false’ victimhood status as well,” Creed explains.
This problem has led to many CRT proponents espousing such extreme forms of antisemitism and hatred of Israel that they mimic the beliefs of neo-Nazi white supremacists. These extreme beliefs have manifested almost daily in attacks on Jews in New York and throughout America this past year.
“The anti-Semitism in Critical Race Theory isn’t an accident,” writes Creed. “It’s what happens when terrible identity-based Theory rooted in victimhood can’t resolve real-world contradictions.”
And as Creed correctly notes, “It currently bears every unmistakable sign of being a real threat to Jews everywhere.”