Colloquium on Racial Justice: What is Critical Race Theory, Anyway, and Why Do Politicians Care?

Institute for Ethnic Studies Author

11/17/2021 Added

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Panel discussion October 14, 2021 with Dr. Luis Othoniel Rosa, Dr. Cynthia Willis-Esqueda, Dean Richard Moberly (College of Law), Jordan Charlton, and Eli Ornelas.

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[00:00:00.120]Welcome to our colloquium on racial justice.
[00:00:03.520]What is critical race theory anyway and why do politicians care?
[00:00:08.640]The Institute for Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary academic unit
[00:00:12.520]focusing on indigenous and racial justice, comprising 20
[00:00:16.440]tenure line faculty members and offering a major seven miners
[00:00:20.520]and graduate specializations at the Masters and Ph.D.
[00:00:23.600]levels, as well as co-curricular events like this one throughout the year.
[00:00:29.000]Next spring, the institute will celebrate our 50th anniversary of doing Indigenous
[00:00:34.400]and racial justice education at Uno with a lineup of terrific events,
[00:00:39.120]including keynote lectures by historian Keisha Blain, literature
[00:00:43.480]scholar and UANL alum Norma Cantu, historian Virginia Espino,
[00:00:48.800]indigenous studies scholar and UNL alum Daniel Heath Justice
[00:00:53.400]and prize-winning filmmaker Rene Tajima Pena.
[00:00:56.920]We hope you will join us in March
[00:00:59.600]today. Each of our speakers, whom I'll introduce in a moment
[00:01:02.600]we'll talk for about five minutes and will then open Q&A, which I'll facilitate
[00:01:07.800]for the remainder of the hour, will aim to wind up at around 7:00 p.m. Central.
[00:01:13.480]But first, a little background.
[00:01:16.560]Many Nebraskans were surprised and puzzled this summer
[00:01:19.960]when a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska,
[00:01:23.800]a regent who's also running for governor,
[00:01:26.480]proposed a resolution with the support of our current governor,
[00:01:30.520]barring what was framed as the imposition
[00:01:33.840]of critical race theory in the University of Nebraska classroom .
[00:01:38.600]Many students, parents, teachers and even college professors had never
[00:01:42.840]heard of critical race theory before and were confused by the controversy
[00:01:47.080]and the protests against the resolution, which eventually was voted down.
[00:01:53.040]Even within ethnic studies, many of us, myself
[00:01:56.120]included, are not experts in critical race theory,
[00:01:59.560]which is a fairly specialized graduate level mode of inquiry
[00:02:03.720]that developed within legal studies and now influences other fields as well.
[00:02:08.920]So we thought we would host a panel for those of you
[00:02:11.360]who are still wondering and would like a little more clarity.
[00:02:14.640]I'm very grateful to the four panelists from ethnic studies
[00:02:18.000]who volunteered to speak this evening
[00:02:20.000]and to our special guest, the dean of the College of Law.
[00:02:23.920]In the chat, I will now drop four links one
[00:02:27.880]to a Chronicle of Higher Education story about the situation here last summer.
[00:02:32.600]Another one about the situation in our state of Nebraska,
[00:02:36.440]one about the nationwide political attempt to use critical race theory
[00:02:40.960]as a wedge issue to incite controversy about education.
[00:02:45.360]And then one link that provides a really wonderful
[00:02:48.000]compendium of sources on critical race theory.
[00:02:51.320]By founding scholars in the field.
[00:02:54.080]So let me just drop that in there
[00:02:56.760]right now. So you will have that.
[00:03:00.880]Not that I'm assigning you homework, but I am a with.
[00:03:05.920]Louise is designing it,
[00:03:09.800]so toward the end of our colloquium,
[00:03:11.800]I will draw up a list of suggested further reading in the.
[00:03:15.720]For those of you who want a real deep dove into this topic.
[00:03:19.160]And many thanks to our five panelists for suggesting books for that list before
[00:03:24.360]we start a quick word about boundaries and civility given our current climate.
[00:03:29.920]We organized this colloquium in a respectful spirit
[00:03:33.120]of generosity, inquiry and a genuine desire
[00:03:36.400]to fulfill our educational mission and expand it to the general public.
[00:03:40.840]Please know that it's designed as a forum for the genuinely curious
[00:03:44.880]who want to learn from trained scholars in the field.
[00:03:48.080]It's not a forum for hostile attacks.
[00:03:50.960]So to that end, please know that questions or comments
[00:03:53.880]posted in the Q&A will not be visible to the audience
[00:03:57.640]and that harassing or hostile questions will not be asked.
[00:04:01.840]Please also note that if anything, racist or harassing is posted,
[00:04:06.000]that audience member will be removed from the webinar.
[00:04:09.360]And please know that if any threats are posted,
[00:04:12.480]that person's name and identifying information will immediately
[00:04:16.320]be forwarded to law enforcement who will perform a threat assessment
[00:04:20.360]and then, if appropriate, open a case file and pursue legal measures.
[00:04:25.200]It's unfortunate to have to frame the conversation this way,
[00:04:28.680]but we are responding to unfortunate experiences. Thank you.
[00:04:34.560]I'll just finish by saying that land
[00:04:36.880]acknowledgments are insufficient, but they are a start.
[00:04:40.720]And so we acknowledge and honor the Pawnee punker
[00:04:44.920]O'Toole Missouri and Omaha, Dakota, Lakota,
[00:04:49.040]Arapaho, Cheyenne and Called Peoples,
[00:04:52.240]as well as the relocated Ho-Chunk , Iowa
[00:04:55.800]and Stack and Fox Peoples upon whose homelands now reside. The campuses
[00:05:00.640]and programs of the University of Nebraska, a land grant institution.
[00:05:06.320]And we recognize the legacies of violence, displacement
[00:05:09.720]and survival that bring us here today.
[00:05:14.040]Oh, now introduce our speakers one by one.
[00:05:17.320]And you can post your questions in the Q&A at any time when they've all finished
[00:05:21.920]speaking will open it up for a conversation and discussion.
[00:05:26.880]So our first speaker is a special guest and a wonderful colleague,
[00:05:31.520]Richard Moberly, who has been the dean of the University of Nebraska
[00:05:35.240]College of Law since 2016 and a professor at the law school since 2004.
[00:05:41.480]He's also the Richard C and Catherine Smoker Professor of Law,
[00:05:45.760]a distinguished professorship he has held since 2016.
[00:05:50.200]Richard, the floor is yours.
[00:05:53.000]Thank you, Dr. Castro.
[00:05:54.080]I really appreciate being here.
[00:05:56.320]And to my fellow panelists, I'm excited
[00:05:58.760]to learn from you all throughout this conversation.
[00:06:01.920]In fact, I come at this.
[00:06:03.760]I told Dr. Castro when she asked me that I'm not sure I'm the best person for this.
[00:06:09.040]This is not my area of expertize.
[00:06:11.200]I'll just own that right up front so I come with.
[00:06:13.920]I hope some humility to this conversation.
[00:06:16.240]I think I'm being asked here, though, because as Dr.
[00:06:20.400]Castro mentioned,
[00:06:22.720]CRT really started in law schools
[00:06:25.480]and is thought to have started in law schools
[00:06:28.360]off of some other critical legal studies, ideas and then bringing in ideas
[00:06:32.720]of race and intersectionality before moving on to a number of other fields .
[00:06:37.400]And my co panelists are going to have a great deal to say
[00:06:41.680]about all of those things, and I think we should all be excited
[00:06:44.560]to hear from them.
[00:06:45.680]I also think she asked me because she knows
[00:06:49.080]and I've spoken publicly that I strongly believe
[00:06:52.880]that academic institutions should have the freedom to explore these issues
[00:06:57.800]and to challenge norms in society and to be able to question
[00:07:02.320]current dogma and current ways our society is run.
[00:07:05.760]And that's actually what the university is for.
[00:07:08.480]And we're at our very best when we do it.
[00:07:11.040]So I want to just say that part of this discussion,
[00:07:15.520]I hope, will be about CRT as a substantive matter.
[00:07:19.120]And it's also underlined when we think about academic freedom
[00:07:22.680]and what politicians are thinking about with institutions.
[00:07:26.200]That's also part of the context and and I'm a strong believer
[00:07:29.920]in our academic freedom and our ability to have these conversations.
[00:07:33.040]And I think she also invited me.
[00:07:36.560]I hope, because she knows that.
[00:07:38.920]I believe that thinking about how race and the law interact
[00:07:42.960]is crucial to understanding the current context
[00:07:45.920]of our situation and our legal institutions.
[00:07:49.240]So it's important to understand our history,
[00:07:51.480]but it's as important,
[00:07:52.640]if not more important, to understand what that history means today .
[00:07:56.560]The tail of that history and then also to look with a fresh eye
[00:08:00.000]that perhaps I we may be repeating.
[00:08:02.880]Ideas and concepts that have already we've already done
[00:08:07.400]right, then how race and law interact with each other.
[00:08:10.920]So in today's world, I think it's kind of hard actually
[00:08:13.560]to wrap your arms around what it means to when people say critical race theory.
[00:08:17.880]It's being used as a dog whistle
[00:08:20.120]and as an entry point for a lot of other conversations.
[00:08:23.320]But I'll suggest, and I hope my co panelists disagree with me, actually,
[00:08:26.560]so we can have a discussion about this.
[00:08:27.920]But at its core, I think what we're really talking about is examining
[00:08:32.360]the role of race and racism in the law,
[00:08:36.000]in our society and in our institutions.
[00:08:39.120]So in my view, race in the law have been intertwined
[00:08:42.880]in this country for over 400 years and in numerous ways,
[00:08:47.160]including at the very founding
[00:08:50.280]by enshrining slavery into the Constitution,
[00:08:53.280]but continuing by accommodating racist institutional design
[00:08:58.040]through numerous legal legal restrictions, some of which are
[00:09:01.240]well known, such as Jim Crow, some of which are more subtle,
[00:09:05.160]perhaps such as redlining and restrictive covenants and property.
[00:09:09.400]And now I think even today, by refusing to acknowledge that that history continues
[00:09:14.120]to impact our society and our legal institutions.
[00:09:18.080]Critical race theory, as I understand it again, not an expert
[00:09:22.400]attempts, among other things, to explain the importance
[00:09:25.160]of these connections among race and the law and our society
[00:09:29.080]and our institutions and students and these institutions
[00:09:32.560]and our educational institutions, I believe, should be allowed
[00:09:35.880]to explore this history and also the modern day manifestation
[00:09:40.200]and residual impacts through this critical race lens.
[00:09:44.240]So we need to teach in our law schools and in our institutes of higher education,
[00:09:49.960]not only about slavery and segregation, but also about their legacy
[00:09:53.920]and how it still impacts communities of color today.
[00:09:57.160]And so just a few examples that CRT will give us a lens to be able to examine
[00:10:03.640]the fact that Brown versus
[00:10:05.200]the Board of Education did not lead to integrated schools.
[00:10:09.120]There's all sorts of legal history after that.
[00:10:11.840]In case law on why, but that idea
[00:10:15.160]that we have in society that 1954, all of a sudden segregation was over
[00:10:21.040]just didn't happen and it wasn't
[00:10:24.600]unplanned, right?
[00:10:25.680]I mean, I think it was part of the way
[00:10:28.000]the institutional structure work and the way the remedies were set up .
[00:10:32.360]That integration never actually occurred in many places for decades
[00:10:36.160]and in some places ever.
[00:10:38.400]I think CRT allows gives us a lens to understand that
[00:10:44.280]segregated communities that happen still today did not arise from the
[00:10:49.600]individual preferences of people alone,
[00:10:52.920]but also because of legal exclusions
[00:10:56.760]enforced through by force
[00:11:01.840]of people of color from neighborhoods to redlining through restrictive covenants
[00:11:05.720]that get passed down through legal enforcement of social norms.
[00:11:11.040]And I think CRT will help us imagine what that means today.
[00:11:16.480]Why do communities of color often have health disparities
[00:11:20.440]that are well-documented can be traced back to
[00:11:24.520]examples of highways going through communities of color
[00:11:28.280]and leading to all sorts of environmental discrimination?
[00:11:34.000]It leads to Superfund sites being placed in certain areas
[00:11:37.800]where there are high minority populations,
[00:11:41.200]and these have an impact today in the real lives of real people.
[00:11:45.120]And understanding that those are institutional decisions
[00:11:49.040]and legal decisions at the time.
[00:11:51.320]And so in short, a lot of the current disparities that we experienced today
[00:11:56.400]don't arise from neutral law and neutral governing institutions.
[00:12:01.480]They arise from circumstances and decisions, decisions
[00:12:04.880]made generations ago and perhaps even today.
[00:12:08.280]And CRT, I think, gives us a theory
[00:12:11.680]about how and why that is occurring, right?
[00:12:15.280]That race and racism are embedded in some of those institutions and structures.
[00:12:19.920]And we need to acknowledge that in order to address it.
[00:12:24.320]So CRT can not only give us a lens on history,
[00:12:27.760]but also examine our current system and institutions
[00:12:31.440]to think about how these neutral sounding legal rules,
[00:12:35.560]things like stop and frisk,
[00:12:39.440]sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine,
[00:12:43.160]and the idea that opioid addictions are a health issue.
[00:12:47.840]While crack addictions are a criminal issue,
[00:12:50.560]those type of neutral sounding things have these racial impacts
[00:12:55.480]and overtones in CRT, I think gives a way to explain some of that and really
[00:13:01.440]help us come to grips with the idea that racism is not this relic of the past.
[00:13:07.560]It's still felt and perpetuated today in our society
[00:13:11.240]and at its best will allow us to then, I think, have a discussion
[00:13:15.040]about how we can once we acknowledge,
[00:13:19.280]I think those things,
[00:13:20.960]those ideas, it can help us come to some sort of reconciliation
[00:13:24.320]or at least move further towards reconciliation into the future.
[00:13:29.240]That's a little bit about how I think about it from a legal perspective,
[00:13:32.560]and I'll now turn it over to my better colleagues.
[00:13:36.680]Thank you so much, Richard. Excellent.
[00:13:40.120]Our second speaker is Cynthia Willis Escada,
[00:13:43.600]an associate professor in psychology and ethnic studies.
[00:13:47.400]She is the chair of the American Psychology Law Society's Committee
[00:13:52.400]on Broadening Representation, Inclusion, Diversity and Global Equity.
[00:13:57.400]And she's a new research fellow of the Boston Center for Anti-racism Research.
[00:14:02.960]Her research focuses on the motivational and cognitive causes for race bias.
[00:14:08.960]Cynthia, you have the floor.
[00:14:12.000]Thank you very much, I hope you can see this
[00:14:16.560]and put it in presentation mode. Very good.
[00:14:20.240]Everyone can see it. I'm assuming it. Okay, great.
[00:14:23.400]So I wanted to just say how, how really delighted
[00:14:26.440]I am to be part of this panel with my wonderful panelists.
[00:14:30.480]And it's on such a critical topic.
[00:14:32.640]No pun intended a critical topic at this time, given the media
[00:14:36.960]coverage of critical race theory and the issues that go
[00:14:40.840]along with the race and race disparities.
[00:14:45.200]So I'm delighted to be here.
[00:14:47.560]So there are many theories that help to explain racial disparities
[00:14:51.360]and injustice dating back to the late 1800s, early 1900s.
[00:14:56.280]A lot of people are surprised to learn that critical race theory is only
[00:14:59.800]one such approach to examining these kinds of disparities and injustice,
[00:15:03.720]and to examine what might be a common cause in these issues.
[00:15:12.040]It was founded by
[00:15:12.960]several legal scholars, as was previously stated,
[00:15:17.320]to try and explain the race disparities for every piece of social life,
[00:15:22.000]housing, education, health, even food access
[00:15:26.240]and also if the law had anything to add to that explanation.
[00:15:30.440]And so Derrick Bell, for example,
[00:15:34.000]or Kimberly Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, etc.
[00:15:37.400]all were concerned about these kinds of racial injustices
[00:15:41.000]and how might the law be implicated in that?
[00:15:43.280]And as was previously stated, it went along with another
[00:15:47.360]another whole genre of critical studies
[00:15:50.880]to examine the way that our society ends
[00:15:54.960]up, the way that doesn't, as law, have anything to add.
[00:15:58.760]But as scholars, we strive to examine issues from a multitude of perspectives
[00:16:03.560]to understand our world, including deductive methods and interactive
[00:16:08.920]methods such as critical race theory or CRT with deduction on methods.
[00:16:14.440]We start with a theory and then experiments would determine
[00:16:19.520]if the theory is correct or not, and we revise that therapy with induction.
[00:16:25.640]We look at prevailing issues such as structural racism and disparities,
[00:16:30.720]and try to explain the phenomenon or the pattern that's occurred.
[00:16:34.760]So CRT, then, is not really a theory.
[00:16:37.840]It's a research approach to examine the disparities by race.
[00:16:42.560]So deduction really is a theory.
[00:16:45.360]You test it with hypotheses, you test the hypotheses, you revise the theory
[00:16:49.800]and or keep the theory based on the results. It's a result.
[00:16:53.880]And this is a result of Plato's Plato's philosophies.
[00:16:57.680]Induction, on the other hand, is looking at these kind of real world issues
[00:17:01.800]and then looking to see if you can find an explanation or some kind of cohesive
[00:17:07.920]examination of those issues
[00:17:10.720]and come to some kind of consensus about the cause.
[00:17:14.520]And this is the work of Plato's student, Aristotle, actually.
[00:17:21.280]And again, CRT is meant to look at all
[00:17:25.480]the different kinds of disparities that we find within the United States.
[00:17:29.200]Every piece of social life involves disparity, whether it's incarceration
[00:17:33.800]rates or homeownership or health
[00:17:37.520]or medical insurance or
[00:17:40.120]education levels or even children in poverty.
[00:17:44.000]All of those involved disparities.
[00:17:46.600]And even if you look at the education level and the average
[00:17:49.560]income chart right here, you'll see that every single
[00:17:54.200]at every single stage of educational completion whites
[00:17:58.120]end up making more money regardless of what that educational completion is,
[00:18:02.360]whether it's high school graduation or a professional and graduate degree.
[00:18:07.640]You'll see these kind of disparities persist.
[00:18:12.440]CRT then considers the treatment of people of color in the United States,
[00:18:18.360]but also some whites at one time were not considered to be white.
[00:18:23.200]So the Irish, for example, were not considered to be white at one time
[00:18:27.840]and the Italians were not considered to be white at one time.
[00:18:32.680]And in fact, in New Orleans,
[00:18:36.080]as you can see in this newspaper, clipping a cartoon to the mascot,
[00:18:42.280]they tell you what they think of Italians who weren't quite human.
[00:18:45.600]So I don't know if you can see this, but I'll just go through it.
[00:18:48.240]So they're a nuisance to pedestrians.
[00:18:51.000]They're sleeping.
[00:18:52.320]Apartments are just crowded
[00:18:55.280]and all in the afternoon.
[00:18:58.480]Their pleasant diversion is to fight and stab each other.
[00:19:01.880]The best way to get rid of them is to put them in a cage and drown them.
[00:19:06.240]And the best way to rest
[00:19:07.560]them is to beat the hell out of them and then throw them into a paddy wagon.
[00:19:11.240]Why? Well, because they weren't considered to be quite human.
[00:19:13.800]And in fact, in New Orleans, the largest mass mass hanging of Italians occurs
[00:19:19.640]as part of this kind of anti Italian sentiment.
[00:19:26.240]So CRT them proposes that we examine our history and our laws
[00:19:30.920]and our social categories to determine what
[00:19:33.880]drives inequality and race conflict in our society.
[00:19:37.000]It would come up at this from a number of different perspectives.
[00:19:39.680]You could look at individual racism, which then might have
[00:19:43.560]implications for internalized racism.
[00:19:46.840]We're both dominant culture people, as well as people of color
[00:19:50.680]on that individualized racism
[00:19:53.880]spreads out across our entire social fabric.
[00:19:57.120]It creates issues for structural racism
[00:20:00.400]and the protocols that we use in our daily lives.
[00:20:04.160]And then this can be reflected in our institutions.
[00:20:07.360]And so as a result of the individual racism and the internalized racism
[00:20:12.080]and the structural racism, we have institutions
[00:20:15.200]that are not completely representative of the population at large.
[00:20:23.000]So race and ethnic bias
[00:20:24.960]and race and ethnic issues leave populations
[00:20:28.520]with a particular psychological state.
[00:20:32.200]There's a history behind our current issues and so critical
[00:20:36.480]race theory, then it's really an attempt for us to understand those issues
[00:20:41.600]and in a clear way and all aspects of the U.S.
[00:20:45.560]social fabric with all the flaws and all the great
[00:20:49.000]myths that make up who we are today in the United States.
[00:20:52.960]So thank you for letting me share that.
[00:20:58.320]Thank you so much, Cynthia,
[00:20:59.720]that was an extremely helpful overview.
[00:21:06.040]For some of you,
[00:21:06.560]you might have heard the audio going in and out
[00:21:10.320]and that that I think that was for everyone. So we're
[00:21:13.080]really glad that you had those slides that really helped a lot. Thank you.
[00:21:18.200]Our third speaker this evening is Jordan Charlton.
[00:21:22.040]Jordan is a Ph.D.
[00:21:23.480]student in English and a wonderful poet.
[00:21:26.400]He serves as the nonfiction editor for the literary journal Prairie Schooner,
[00:21:31.040]and he teaches in the Institute for Ethnic Studies. Jordan.
[00:21:37.520]Thank you, Joy, and thank you everyone else
[00:21:39.840]for the opportunity to be on this panel and to contribute a little bit of
[00:21:44.560]what I think is important in trying to understand critical race theory.
[00:21:48.760]And so I think this curiosity surrounding what critical race theory is
[00:21:53.240]and what the implications of this theory might be is a reminder
[00:21:57.480]that the role of education outside of the classroom
[00:22:00.640]and it is a reminder that life are done in theorizing as meaning that is alive
[00:22:05.320]and occupies the thoughts of people from all walks of life.
[00:22:09.040]At times, it seems like many people, myself included,
[00:22:11.920]have been trying to understand an answer to a multilayered question,
[00:22:15.840]sometimes articulated and sometimes intuited.
[00:22:19.080]Is this critical race theory a legitimate thing people are talking about?
[00:22:22.960]And or if it is, how might this reflect my experience ever?
[00:22:28.240]I think it's important for us to acknowledge
[00:22:30.160]the limitations of our own experiences, which I think critical race theory does.
[00:22:35.080]Each of our experiences, yours mine, someone else's.
[00:22:38.160]They are legitimate and deserving of consideration and respect.
[00:22:42.080]Those experiences are valid.
[00:22:43.480]They're not singular
[00:22:44.560]to the rest of the world, as they are not singular to you or to me.
[00:22:49.120]And you gain a better understanding of critical race theory and means
[00:22:51.880]understanding that our own conclusions are not the only conclusions
[00:22:55.640]and that people may be living a very different experience,
[00:22:58.840]even those in close proximity to us.
[00:23:02.640]And this is something that many of us already understand
[00:23:05.640]when we consider history.
[00:23:07.800]Seems illogical to observe a difference in history and then think about the past
[00:23:12.040]as some imagined space where different kind of final resting place.
[00:23:16.560]And in a similar way, critical race theory becomes a means of observing difference
[00:23:21.000]in ways that move outside of the textbook and outside of the black
[00:23:24.400]and white pictures. I think the backdrop of where we might
[00:23:27.880]imagine prejudice and segregation to exist.
[00:23:31.120]It's important to take this into consideration because it's a never
[00:23:35.080]or they never have been, and they never are solely imagined spaces.
[00:23:40.080]These spaces where people experience isolation, disturbance
[00:23:43.680]or the many violences of race based prejudice and racism.
[00:23:48.480]And so critical race theory in my understanding of it
[00:23:52.000]is it's something that allows us to look into our current moment
[00:23:56.120]to analyze how we move through the world.
[00:23:59.840]I think it's important to understand that parts
[00:24:01.520]of the academic conversation surrounding critical race theory
[00:24:05.280]also utilizes what I believe to be a helpful metaphor
[00:24:08.120]for understanding the type of work we're gathering or trying to understand.
[00:24:11.800]Earlier, we heard about this idea of lenses.
[00:24:14.920]Scholars will often talk about theory as a critical lens or critical frame.
[00:24:20.320]I think both metaphors work.
[00:24:23.160]What I love about the metaphor, though, is that it's a way that helps us understand
[00:24:27.960]a critical race theory
[00:24:28.960]as a theory is about understanding a different way of seeing.
[00:24:32.800]Which is not to say that is creating the thing that we see or how we see it,
[00:24:37.320]only that it might make a difference visible.
[00:24:41.000]And there's beauty and difference, especially regarding what we believe
[00:24:45.760]in this country regarding what politicians believe about this country, too.
[00:24:50.800]There is no melting pot without difference.
[00:24:52.960]There is no tapestry of interwoven experience without difference.
[00:24:57.200]There is no stained glass glory of any kind without observing difference.
[00:25:03.160]Instead, if we see everything the same,
[00:25:05.480]if we continue confusing ideas of quality and equity,
[00:25:09.600]unfortunately we're always going to settle for something that's way too simple.
[00:25:14.840]So instead of critical race theory then allows us a way of giving language
[00:25:19.600]to experience and naming the oddities that exist
[00:25:22.600]outside of our main or regular gaze.
[00:25:25.880]And this is the role of critical, credible theories in academia, largely
[00:25:30.360]trying to understand the ways that we can grow in our awareness
[00:25:33.880]because our awareness and the things that we name
[00:25:36.280]have implications on the people that they affect.
[00:25:39.440]And I think to about a hoax writes
[00:25:42.240]the privileged act of naming often affords
[00:25:44.600]those in power to access modes of communication
[00:25:47.760]that enable them to project an interpretation and definition,
[00:25:52.560]a description of their work, their actions, et cetera.
[00:25:56.480]That may not be accurate.
[00:25:58.000]It may obscure what is really taking place.
[00:26:01.880]Critical race theory is the great divergence
[00:26:04.360]from this master narrative of experience and interpretation for so many
[00:26:08.400]who not have the opportunity the privilege affords.
[00:26:13.680]Well, the more I think
[00:26:15.360]when we talk about critical race theory or any other theory,
[00:26:18.920]I think the work of bell hooks in theory
[00:26:20.960]as deliberate laboratory practice is also important.
[00:26:24.640]So it's explains when I lived, experience of theorizing is fundamentally
[00:26:28.280]linked to processes of self recovery of collective liberation.
[00:26:32.520]No gap exists between theory and practice.
[00:26:35.800]And also, the theory is not inherently inherently human, laboratory
[00:26:40.720]or revolutionary and fulfills this function only when we ask
[00:26:45.280]and it do so in direct theorizing toward that end.
[00:26:48.680]I think that's part of the value of understanding critical race theory,
[00:26:52.920]having conversations that include critical race theory
[00:26:56.040]in our academic spaces, but also in our social spaces as well.
[00:27:03.000]Thank you. Outstanding.
[00:27:06.080]Thank you so much.
[00:27:07.120]That was excellent.
[00:27:08.120]We appreciate your thoughts.
[00:27:11.480]Our fourth speaker is Eli Ornelas, a Ph.D.
[00:27:15.360]student in the Department of Sociology who teaches for the Institute
[00:27:19.720]for Ethnic Studies.
[00:27:21.120]Eli, take it away.
[00:27:25.200]Everyone, I'm happy to be here and happy to be a part of this discussion.
[00:27:29.280]So for me as a sociologist, I'm primarily concerned
[00:27:33.880]with trying to understand how racism operates in society.
[00:27:37.760]And so for me, I find it useful to consider if we don't use
[00:27:43.560]a critical perspective whenever we're conducting our research analyzing society.
[00:27:47.840]What insights might we actually miss by not doing so?
[00:27:51.920]And so to that end, there are four points that I would like to make.
[00:27:56.880]So for the first point, I just want to reiterate
[00:28:00.440]some of what was already said just because it bears repeating.
[00:28:03.720]But I think one of the most key and fundamental insights
[00:28:07.880]that has come out of sociology and out of all other disciplines
[00:28:12.280]that study race in a critical way is the insight
[00:28:17.200]that racism can and does exist beyond the realm of the individual.
[00:28:22.640]And so by that, I mean, sort of the traditional way of thinking about
[00:28:27.200]about racism. And I would say perhaps how the average person tends
[00:28:30.520]to think about it is solely people can be racist.
[00:28:34.680]But what we know now is that racism become,
[00:28:37.800]can become and is embedded within our institutions,
[00:28:41.640]the institutions that provide structure and organization to our lives.
[00:28:46.360]And we need to remember that these or these institutions are
[00:28:51.480]they are people are in these institutions
[00:28:54.960]and people design these institutions and everyone sort of has ideas
[00:29:00.240]or attitudes about race and these can be racist or not.
[00:29:03.280]And so these these ideas tend to sort of take on a life of their own over time.
[00:29:08.600]And that that's 11 of the ways that we can say that
[00:29:12.760]structural racism is possible.
[00:29:15.320]And so it really has a particular staying power that can be hard,
[00:29:20.840]that they can be hard to get rid of, and it's important to consider the ways
[00:29:25.880]that it impacts our institutions.
[00:29:28.280]There are other advantages to thinking about racism in this way as well.
[00:29:33.480]So if we only consider if we would only think that racism
[00:29:39.040]can be perpetuated by individuals, well, then it becomes
[00:29:43.440]kind of easy actually to dismiss it as a problem altogether.
[00:29:47.800]So it's we can then say, Oh, it's just those individuals over there
[00:29:52.080]that are racist.
[00:29:53.400]They're sort of on the periphery of society, of their irrational.
[00:29:57.400]They're crazy, whatever.
[00:29:59.080]What have you, it becomes super easy to dismiss it as a problem.
[00:30:04.560]But we know for sure that there's it's not quite that simple. Right? And so
[00:30:11.200]if racism really
[00:30:12.640]sort of wasn't an issue, then we wouldn't see such massive disparities
[00:30:18.120]across a whole range of outcomes across racial groups.
[00:30:22.240]For example, the gaps that we see in wealth and income,
[00:30:26.320]for example, across racial groups, are incredibly massive
[00:30:30.640]and they have nothing to do with with race on its own.
[00:30:35.480]It has nothing to do with with the race that one is and has everything to do
[00:30:40.120]with the experience of that group in society
[00:30:43.640]and the unequal distribution of resources that goes through that society.
[00:30:47.840]And so these these resources are distributed in unequal ways
[00:30:52.520]across racial lines.
[00:30:54.320]And that's why it's particularly important to understand it
[00:30:57.520]from a structural perspective and not just an individual perspective.
[00:31:03.320]The other point that I'd like to make
[00:31:05.200]is that racism is not a static phenomenon.
[00:31:08.400]And by that, I mean, is that it's quite adaptable.
[00:31:11.560]It can change over time.
[00:31:13.560]It transforms across time and place.
[00:31:17.480]And we know that it has looked different at different points in time.
[00:31:21.320]So for example, in the the early 1900s and throughout most of the 20th century,
[00:31:27.320]especially in the first half, we know that racism was particularly overt.
[00:31:32.280]It was very in-your-face.
[00:31:33.720]So we can look at things like legal segregation.
[00:31:37.200]The fact that interracial marriage was illegal.
[00:31:40.160]The frequent public lynchings that occurred over time.
[00:31:43.160]It's very, very much undeniable, right?
[00:31:46.000]That it was it was present as a as a key feature of society.
[00:31:49.880]And what we see, especially once we move past the post-civil rights era,
[00:31:54.720]especially in the 1970s going into the 1980s,
[00:31:57.920]we start to see the development of a more nuanced and more covert form of racism.
[00:32:03.920]That is a lot trickier to identify,
[00:32:06.760]and this is what we would call colorblind racism, actually.
[00:32:12.240]And so on that note, I'd like to sort of clarify
[00:32:16.800]what colorblind racism is because I think color blindness on its face,
[00:32:22.800]it sounds like something that should be an ideal right.
[00:32:26.640]It sounds like something that we should probably be striving for.
[00:32:30.840]But in fact, it doesn't actually mean to not see color
[00:32:34.840]or to not or to believe that race doesn't matter anymore.
[00:32:38.160]It actually colorblind racism is about the denial of the existence
[00:32:43.760]of structural racism, so it has nothing to do
[00:32:47.400]with not seeing color. And in fact,
[00:32:52.800]this this new form of racism is actually particularly dangerous,
[00:32:58.320]I would say, because it can be really, really difficult to spot
[00:33:03.000]if we're not careful.
[00:33:04.600]And so a couple of examples
[00:33:06.920]that we can use to sort of see like how how this would play out.
[00:33:10.560]Affirmative action, for example, is something that we're probably all familiar
[00:33:14.600]with and critics of affirmative action are those that are opposed to it.
[00:33:19.680]We often say that they oppose it because they believe
[00:33:23.120]that every individual, like students going into college
[00:33:26.080]should be judged on the basis of merit that no one should be treated
[00:33:31.720]any differently or receive any special treatment on the basis of race
[00:33:35.600]that we just need to sort of treat everyone the same across the board.
[00:33:40.280]The problem with that argument, though, is that argument only makes sense
[00:33:45.080]if all individuals that were entering college have an equal probability
[00:33:50.000]of getting accepted, and that's just simply not the case.
[00:33:54.400]And so while affirmative action isn't perfect, what it's attempting to do
[00:33:58.880]is to try to correct
[00:34:01.840]many of the barriers that are in place
[00:34:04.640]that prevent folks of color from entering college.
[00:34:07.720]They're already sort of
[00:34:10.400]a disproportionate number of them
[00:34:12.040]in universities and without something like affirmative action.
[00:34:15.240]That disparity would be much, much larger.
[00:34:18.280]And so something like colorblind racism is, in my opinion,
[00:34:22.560]something that we need to pay particular attention to
[00:34:25.480]just because of how how much more difficult it is to see it.
[00:34:30.160]And I recognize that that's sort of a kind of an interesting
[00:34:33.920]and maybe kind of confusing thing to talk about .
[00:34:36.960]And so I'm more than happy
[00:34:38.240]to answer any other questions or talk more about it during the Q&A.
[00:34:43.240]Thank you. You know,
[00:34:45.040]and people are starting to post questions in the Q&A.
[00:34:48.840]Please go ahead and draw up your questions in the Q&A as our last speaker
[00:34:54.240]begins to share his thoughts with us.
[00:34:57.360]Our fifth and final speaker today is Lewis O'Donnell.
[00:35:01.000]Rosa Lewis is a Puerto Rican novelist,
[00:35:05.000]a scholar of Latin American literature and an associate professor
[00:35:09.840]of Spanish and ethnic studies. Please.
[00:35:13.600]An honor to be here.
[00:35:15.280]Race and unruliness.
[00:35:17.520]A year ago, India and South Africa proposed in the World Trade Organization
[00:35:21.440]that the intellectual property rights of for the COVID
[00:35:24.520]vaccines were temporarily waived in order to allow poor countries
[00:35:28.680]to manufacture their vaccines rather than depending on Big Pharma.
[00:35:32.520]The US, England and Germany rejected the proposal, said in a film
[00:35:36.960]the universal importance of intellectual property rights.
[00:35:40.760]Millions of black and brown people in postcolonial countries
[00:35:43.920]all around the world have died because of this meat.
[00:35:47.400]This is what we mean when we talk about systemic structural racism.
[00:35:52.360]This is how racism is embedded in the central algorithm
[00:35:56.600]of the modern world system beyond individuals, says Eli just talked about.
[00:36:02.400]This is what critical race theory born in law programs in the US decades ago.
[00:36:07.760]Studies in the funding do abstract ideas
[00:36:11.200]that were born in the white empires, namely private property and capitalism.
[00:36:15.160]They justify the death of millions.
[00:36:17.720]They said that if suspended, if suspending property loss,
[00:36:21.640]even for one second, there would be chaos that avoid unruliness.
[00:36:26.560]We had to let millions die, and it was only a coincidence that white,
[00:36:30.880]imperial and rich countries will benefit while their previous colonies will suffer.
[00:36:37.080]Curiously, one of the arguments that both English and Spanish
[00:36:40.960]colonial settlers use centuries ago to prove their
[00:36:44.720]humanity is supposed to humanity, of course, of indigenous peoples
[00:36:48.640]was precisely that they did not have any concept of property.
[00:36:53.360]Oh my God, we need that cultural knowledge now.
[00:36:56.480]The modern concept of race was the same 500 years ago to justify the genocide
[00:37:01.480]enslavement of the Native American peoples and then the transatlantic slave trade.
[00:37:05.480]We can see it quite clearly in the writings of Columbus or even,
[00:37:09.560]Bartholomaeus says.
[00:37:11.200]Clearly, it was said that these indigenous peoples
[00:37:14.600]did not have the human means to rule themselves. Therefore,
[00:37:18.640]it was the Christian responsibility of the white peoples to rule them.
[00:37:22.440]It is the same rhetoric that is today
[00:37:25.160]used to justify wars, genocides and military coups.
[00:37:29.280]These original racist conception 500 years ago
[00:37:32.920]is the stone on which all of our modern institutions are built.
[00:37:37.520]Reasons police, nation state.
[00:37:39.720]But what about that institution?
[00:37:42.280]That is the modern university? What are its worth?
[00:37:45.480]The university had two missions.
[00:37:47.480]On the one hand, the university was to be the factory of rulers
[00:37:51.600]where white men learn how to govern the world.
[00:37:54.400]On the other hand,
[00:37:55.640]the university was the secularization of knowledge studies, the creation
[00:38:00.080]of a way of separating knowledge from superstition, science and philosophy.
[00:38:04.840]This secular aspect of the original mission of the modern
[00:38:08.200]university will progressively find itself at odds with its first mission
[00:38:13.840]since the separation of knowledge from superstition.
[00:38:16.640]Scholars will arrive at the conclusions that the forms we organize power in modern
[00:38:22.320]in the modern society are themselves superstitions.
[00:38:27.040]So this is the birth of critique critical as a form of modern knowledge.
[00:38:32.760]God, the nation state, private property, the individual etc are all superstitions
[00:38:38.360]of the white tribes of Europe imposed over
[00:38:42.040]the world as universal values in the 20th century.
[00:38:46.120]The universities, the university changes once again.
[00:38:49.480]If the worker in the factory was the revolutionary figure par excellence
[00:38:53.760]after in 1968, the revolutionary subject becomes the student in the university.
[00:38:59.680]The university becomes relatively more democratic and affordable
[00:39:03.680]starting in the fifties, and it opens itself up for the first time
[00:39:07.880]in its history to the unruly,
[00:39:11.600]to the poor, the black, the brown, the woman.
[00:39:15.680]The idea of the public university as a human right becomes popular
[00:39:19.040]and also threatening to some knowledge itself.
[00:39:23.480]As we understood, it changed ethnic studies programs are burnt
[00:39:26.440]all over the U.S.
[00:39:27.680]starting in the seventies like ours, the same way
[00:39:30.600]scientists have been telling us since the seventies
[00:39:33.320]that our oil driven capitalist machine is warming the planet.
[00:39:37.080]Score scholars in the humanities and social sciences
[00:39:40.160]started to warn us during this same time
[00:39:43.000]that the institutions that ruled the world are fundamentally racist.
[00:39:48.280]We are being attacked
[00:39:49.360]by those who profit from the racist organization of our society.
[00:39:53.200]The same week, like climate scientists, were attacked.
[00:39:56.120]Their attacks only confirm that we are doing our job.
[00:40:00.200]We don't even take it personally, OK?
[00:40:02.240]There is a connection
[00:40:03.720]between global warming and white supremacy,
[00:40:05.800]but I don't have the time to get into that right now.
[00:40:08.240]For the past four decades, the ruling class has made universities.
[00:40:12.840]More and more expensive in order to keep the unruly out.
[00:40:18.440]This is by design, this is why you students right now
[00:40:22.200]are paying so much more than the previous generations
[00:40:25.640]are paying in their tuition.
[00:40:27.880]They may not. People like me entered the university.
[00:40:31.560]The university couldn't be anymore.
[00:40:34.280]The factory of rulers, when I see, for example, that the U.S.
[00:40:39.120]government is an empire that exploits black and brown countries
[00:40:42.640]all over the world as de facto colonies or many other unpopular groups like Beach.
[00:40:48.760]I am not stating a personal opinion.
[00:40:51.280]Entire libraries and generations of scholars
[00:40:54.120]are speaking through me, many of whom were persecuted in key.
[00:40:59.400]Every true professional professor is willing to follow that path
[00:41:03.600]because we know we have the conviction that the knowledge that we teach
[00:41:07.280]is more important than individual lives.
[00:41:10.280]We are thinking in the time of the species and not in the time of the individual.
[00:41:14.320]They might call us unruly, but we are dangerous.
[00:41:18.360]We have no interest in ruling, and yet they are furious.
[00:41:22.920]I spoke of what the university is now.
[00:41:26.400]I conclude by saying what I think the university should be.
[00:41:30.120]I want the university to beat the pedagogy
[00:41:32.840]and practice of a life without rulers,
[00:41:36.920]a sort of rehearsal, a brainstorming in a safe place of the desirable
[00:41:42.120]horizontal world where no one person can rule over the other.
[00:41:51.280]Thank you so much, Louise.
[00:41:53.000]A beautiful provocation on which to end. Love it.
[00:41:57.240]Thank you very much.
[00:41:58.840]five beautiful perspectives wonderful overviews
[00:42:03.080]from different disciplinary arenas and different commitments.
[00:42:08.040]So all of you. Brilliant.
[00:42:10.640]Really brilliant. Thank you.
[00:42:14.000]We have questions.
[00:42:17.320]In the Q&A, I won't ask this by the person's name.
[00:42:21.760]I will just ask the questions for you and let you know
[00:42:25.920]if there's someone designated as a desired answer.
[00:42:30.920]So our first question? Is.
[00:42:35.400]It seems that a strong majority of the opposition
[00:42:39.600]to CRT critical race theory and its history in the United States
[00:42:43.880]believe that this generally accepted history is a false narrative.
[00:42:48.120]How can we argue for the validity of CRT
[00:42:51.480]when the opposition refuses to acknowledge historical evidence?
[00:42:59.080]I would love to answer that question
[00:43:00.440]very quickly, because it really connects with climate change, right?
[00:43:04.440]The same thing could be said about climate change scientists.
[00:43:07.080]There's consensus here, right? There's no debate there.
[00:43:09.920]But still right.
[00:43:11.800]They cannot get the message across.
[00:43:13.600]I think the thing is that we can offer all the data that we want, right?
[00:43:17.400]And we have to we have to offer the data right.
[00:43:22.360]But it's more than that.
[00:43:24.400]We have to convince on an emotional level, we have to hack the system
[00:43:29.080]in order to upload that virus that that
[00:43:32.280]that bug of of curiosity. Right.
[00:43:35.800]Of making people want to research for this
[00:43:39.480]free tuition universities.
[00:43:43.200]A political statement.
[00:43:44.920]A right. Universities are great places to pursue curiosity. Right?
[00:43:51.920]In a learned way.
[00:43:56.320]Thank you. Thank you, Louise.
[00:43:58.120]Are there other comments in response to that question?
[00:44:03.960]I guess I just said
[00:44:05.800]I won't say this as eloquently as always, but it's incumbent
[00:44:09.720]upon educational institutions to teach this right
[00:44:14.560]and to have people do the work and do the reading.
[00:44:18.800]My views have changed over my lifetime because I read a lot
[00:44:22.880]and and I still question a lot of the things I read.
[00:44:26.320]And so some of this is getting enough people to dig in
[00:44:31.600]and have that curiosity that Lewis was talking about.
[00:44:36.600]It's a great Walt Whitman quote.
[00:44:37.920]I got it from Ted Lasso.
[00:44:39.080]I'm not that smart, but it's, you know, be curious, not judgmental.
[00:44:42.480]And and I just think if we had more of that,
[00:44:46.360]you know, I gave a book club this summer for rising to three hours.
[00:44:51.480]And one of the books in your reading list, The Color of Law.
[00:44:54.960]It's a great book and it delves into this.
[00:44:57.320]And I think it opened all of our eyes and we're legal scholars and studying
[00:45:01.520]the law and the way the law has imposed certain regimes on us over time
[00:45:07.040]to lead to the type of disparities that Cynthia and I were talking about.
[00:45:11.000]So I think just being curious and refusing
[00:45:14.200]to not teach it now, there's a double negative there.
[00:45:17.280]We have to teach it. That's how.
[00:45:20.440]Terrific. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:45:24.920]Another question.
[00:45:26.920]This is for all of you panelists,
[00:45:29.800]what are your thoughts on?
[00:45:33.600]OK, here's the question if individual racism were completely eliminated,
[00:45:38.400]how would that ripple into structural and institutional racism?
[00:45:43.800]I feel that so many people don't realize how far racism reaches
[00:45:47.920]into laws, institutions, the structure of society and so on
[00:45:52.760]that even if all racism on individual level ceased to exist,
[00:45:56.280]the structural prejudice could still be there.
[00:45:59.920]So would you like to address that question?
[00:46:05.840]I can start us off there.
[00:46:07.960]So I think what's important to consider
[00:46:11.560]is that, well, for one, it might be a big ask to sort of discuss
[00:46:16.720]like the total elimination of individual level racism.
[00:46:22.280]And I hope that doesn't
[00:46:23.680]sound like me being too pessimistic, but here's why I say that.
[00:46:27.120]And the thing that we need to consider is that the relationship between
[00:46:33.040]individual racism and institutional racism is a reciprocal one.
[00:46:38.640]They are mutually reinforcing.
[00:46:40.720]And so what happens is, even if an individual isn't,
[00:46:46.880]is a racist or tries to live sort of an anti-racist lifestyle,
[00:46:51.400]other folks can sort of see other outcomes and institutions.
[00:46:56.680]Let's take something like mass incarceration.
[00:46:59.720]We know that it's certainly true
[00:47:03.200]that folks of color, especially black men, are several times more likely
[00:47:07.920]to be incarcerated for the same crime compared to white men, for example.
[00:47:13.080]And so what happens is someone can look at that and say,
[00:47:18.160]Oh, well, they are disproportionately represented in our jails and our prisons.
[00:47:24.320]So perhaps it's it's just right,
[00:47:28.280]perhaps that it's meant to be, and that sort of reinforces
[00:47:32.480]the stereotypes that exist on an individual level.
[00:47:36.240]So in other words, what I mean is, even if we were to see this sort of
[00:47:40.440]individual level of racism go down, it won't ever fully
[00:47:43.680]go away from our institutions and it will just sort of feed back
[00:47:47.480]right back into the sort of the stereotypes that individuals have.
[00:47:52.160]So it's really important to consider how that relationship is reciprocal.
[00:47:57.360]That's a very beautifully complex answer, Eli,
[00:48:00.360]and I think it possesses the nuance that the question really deserves.
[00:48:04.720]Thank you very much.
[00:48:07.320]A question in the Q&A, and please do drop your questions in the Q&A, if you would.
[00:48:11.880]We're going to focus on those first, and I see that some are
[00:48:14.720]going into the chat too, but we'll go to the Q&A box first.
[00:48:19.760]Someone asks since Lewis's initial point got lost due to sound issues,
[00:48:25.080]although I heard it, so maybe it didn't work for the whole audience.
[00:48:29.560]Would would we? Can we go back to it for a second?
[00:48:32.360]So Luis, do you want to make your initial point
[00:48:34.800]when it connects with the previous one?
[00:48:36.800]What my first point was precisely
[00:48:39.880]this this proposal to waive property rights for COVID
[00:48:43.760]vaccines, what the cruel thing barely covered in the press.
[00:48:47.200]You know that the U.S.
[00:48:48.400]and Germany opposed the waiving for a second.
[00:48:52.000]The patent rights?
[00:48:53.440]What the what? What were they protecting, right?
[00:48:56.480]Well, they weren't protecting an abstract idea that has meant millions of deaths
[00:49:02.400]of that people in
[00:49:03.880]poor countries in all over Latin America and all over Africa. Right.
[00:49:08.280]Because they didn't want to waive Martin's right intellectual property rights.
[00:49:13.400]Does that mean that those officials were individually racist? No.
[00:49:17.800]It means that the system is so if you want to be an anti-racist
[00:49:22.520]is not about just how you relate with other people.
[00:49:26.360]You know, it's about imagining another reality. Right?
[00:49:29.840]And in that we have to be taking the knowledge of indigenous peoples,
[00:49:34.280]the knowledge of African people
[00:49:36.320]around the world, you know, those knowledge that have been disdained
[00:49:39.680]to make us smarter for the world to come. Right.
[00:49:42.880]So it's about building a is about thinking a new society.
[00:49:46.240]We are in the university.
[00:49:47.320]We can do that without harming anyone.
[00:49:49.800]Politicians can't. The media can. Hollywood can.
[00:49:54.840]Thank you. Excellent.
[00:50:00.200]In the Q&A, someone asks
[00:50:02.640]we know that the teaching teachings of the American public education system
[00:50:06.800]in terms of American
[00:50:08.400]and world history is largely formulated through the imperial gaze, which does not
[00:50:12.880]adequately discuss colonialism and imperialism and its effects.
[00:50:17.040]What resources do you suggest for us to use to educate ourselves
[00:50:21.120]and relearn these histories without that imperial gaze?
[00:50:25.160]I'm going to go ahead and now drop that list of suggested
[00:50:29.080]readings that the panelists put together into the chat.
[00:50:32.200]So go ahead and do copy that
[00:50:35.560]and save it, because I think that really does answer your question.
[00:50:39.360]But please, panelists, are there specific
[00:50:42.520]what you would like to recommend to the audience in?
[00:50:47.320]I have at least one it's very related to what you're saying there,
[00:50:50.880]but I think it's critical to the work that we do in ethnic studies
[00:50:54.960]and that is recentering the experience of people's cultures,
[00:50:58.440]communities, histories on scholars from those communities as well.
[00:51:02.920]You know, thinking about where you get these histories and thinking about,
[00:51:06.640]I think it's Louise's point who you support in
[00:51:09.280]academia, you know, with tenure, with all of these opportunities.
[00:51:12.760]I'm thinking about where you can start to be learning these things.
[00:51:17.720]Part of the master narrative is that the master
[00:51:19.720]narrative has no interest in changing.
[00:51:21.920]So we have to think about what value is there in this inverse of narratives
[00:51:25.600]that might be offering something different.
[00:51:27.600]It might be offering something that's slightly left of center in some ways.
[00:51:33.960]Thank you. Thank you.
[00:51:36.800]Would anybody else like to offer something?
[00:51:41.160]OK. OK. Can I make just that?
[00:51:44.880]I probably shouldn't make this comment, but I'm just so interested in
[00:51:49.520]Louise the the kind of
[00:51:53.280]I don't want to say overthrow, but it's sort of an overthrow
[00:51:56.400]of our kind of institutions and system as the reaction to
[00:52:01.600]kind of institutional racism and from a lawyer's
[00:52:04.720]perspective, right, who's grounded in the system itself.
[00:52:08.360]It strikes me as so interesting that this theory arises
[00:52:12.160]in the law with with so many pressures and
[00:52:16.760]and norms about reforming
[00:52:19.520]the institution from within to make it not racist.
[00:52:23.240]And seeing the racism in the institution, the solution would be to reform
[00:52:26.720]the institution. And as this theory has kind of
[00:52:31.400]gone on two different fields and different ideas and different theories
[00:52:35.360]to wind up with your idea of,
[00:52:37.920]you know, I don't know that it's able to be saved, right?
[00:52:40.640]We ought to think about these other ways of thinking about it.
[00:52:42.920]And I just think that having that debate
[00:52:46.520]and that and that structure, I just think that's fascinating.
[00:52:50.160]And I'm so glad you brought that up.
[00:52:53.560]And that is the US for our students, reimagine this full institution, right?
[00:52:58.040]I mean, we have to wait.
[00:52:59.760]There's that level of knowledge to when we say, let's study other
[00:53:03.360]a other world systems, other worlds, other ways of conceiving the world.
[00:53:08.320]When I was saying there are countries that thrive with our concept of
[00:53:12.080]private property as a lawyer.
[00:53:16.600]What am I, right?
[00:53:19.040]Well, and then of course, I know that as a teacher of American law, right,
[00:53:22.520]it's hard to imagine you've got to just breaking down the whole system.
[00:53:26.120]I'd like to reform it and figure out how.
[00:53:27.960]And I'm now. I'm kind of in my mind, Well, how is that possible?
[00:53:31.440]So I love hearing this perspective, and I so appreciate
[00:53:34.800]that we're able to do this. Thank you.
[00:53:40.440]Someone asks, how early would it be the most beneficial
[00:53:44.040]to implement critical race theory at an educational level?
[00:53:48.600]Listen, very interesting question.
[00:53:50.760]What do you think?
[00:53:55.640]So I think I can address this, and part
[00:54:00.680]of the learning of social categories by race takes place
[00:54:06.680]so early in our development and in our cognitive systems
[00:54:11.600]that by the time people are three years old, they're already making distinctions
[00:54:15.240]among people in terms of in-group favoritism and even outgroup derogation.
[00:54:21.960]And it's not necessarily what they learn in home.
[00:54:24.400]They learn it from the so from the social world as well.
[00:54:28.720]So, of course, age appropriate instructions are always helpful.
[00:54:34.760]Let me tell you what's been the most.
[00:54:38.400]At least from the research that's been done,
[00:54:40.840]what's been the most helpful to raise children, to not be racist?
[00:54:44.560]And that is for parents to practice, not being racist.
[00:54:49.960]You can instruct children all you want to.
[00:54:52.760]You can have them read books, you can have them watch films,
[00:54:57.600]but direct modeling of anti-racist behavior, direct modeling of being on
[00:55:03.800]or just direct modeling
[00:55:06.680]of exposure, direct modeling of engagement, all tell all send
[00:55:12.200]the most direct, most direct lessons
[00:55:16.840]so that they can grow up and at least have some way of countering
[00:55:22.520]the kinds of of messages that they will receive
[00:55:25.520]in a social world, right in a social world.
[00:55:28.720]Because we know that these kinds of messages get sent loud and clear
[00:55:33.440]so that by the time actually, even by the time children are about to a half,
[00:55:37.960]they are beginning to to understand cognitively
[00:55:41.200]that there are these differences
[00:55:42.920]and they begin to actually show preferences based on those differences.
[00:55:46.280]So I think being, you know, if you want to be an anti-racist,
[00:55:50.120]you have to have role models that demonstrate that for you.
[00:55:54.560]So this is fascinating.
[00:55:56.120]Thank you for this developmental psychology perspective,
[00:55:59.400]which would suggest then that all daycare workers,
[00:56:03.400]all nursery school teachers and all K-through-12 educators
[00:56:08.680]should be introduced to a clear and appropriate version
[00:56:13.040]of critical race theory.
[00:56:14.440]Maybe not the graduate level legal studies version,
[00:56:17.800]but something that they can really work with and implement in a fruitful way.
[00:56:23.240]Just as you're suggesting, Cynthia, thank you.
[00:56:27.040]I'm getting some notes in the chair saying that it's not possible.
[00:56:31.040]There's some setting that's not letting you save the list of the readings.
[00:56:35.680]So I'm going to put my email address in the chart really quickly.
[00:56:41.400]And if you drop me off last email, I will send that to you directly
[00:56:46.960]as soon as we're done here.
[00:56:48.560]So it's been there now, and I'll send you like a Microsoft Word document.
[00:56:52.360]I'm sorry that's not working.
[00:56:54.080]You can copy paste if you did do it in chunks, so
[00:56:57.880]don't do it all the way if they are trying to copy paste from the chat.
[00:57:01.640]OK, give that a whirl, everyone.
[00:57:03.200]Thank you is OK.
[00:57:05.800]All right. Let me see in the questions someone asks
[00:57:12.520]for Lewis if the
[00:57:13.760]ideology of capitalism were to shift to a more socialism based model
[00:57:18.800]with the effects that capitalism has had on racism.
[00:57:22.640]Shift to socialism, do you think?
[00:57:25.360]Or would that create new effects?
[00:57:27.720]OK, interesting.
[00:57:29.320]Well, I think we got to avoid that binary.
[00:57:33.800]That binary still quite western socialism and capitalism.
[00:57:38.080]Socialism comes out of capitalism.
[00:57:40.080]I mean, socialism.
[00:57:41.520]Is this based on this idea
[00:57:43.360]of the notion state being able to regulate the market to the point that
[00:57:47.000]so I don't think socialism is the insert that we're looking
[00:57:51.240]for theoretically, right?
[00:57:53.360]Although in the policymaking world of compromises,
[00:57:57.200]I think socialism has a lot to digest, right?
[00:58:00.560]And and I would favor right socialism in that sense.
[00:58:05.480]But I don't think I think the nation state is an obsolete idea.
[00:58:10.040]We keep working on this thing that was invented
[00:58:14.040]by white people so long ago
[00:58:16.600]that it doesn't connect to a world that is completely interconnected, right?
[00:58:21.320]Completely interconnected, right?
[00:58:22.960]So I think the challenge here.
[00:58:25.440]I think so. If the question is, didn't socialism be racist? Of course.
[00:58:29.680]Of course, there are many considerations that comes to prove it in homophobic
[00:58:33.360]and in many other things.
[00:58:34.600]The right of the nation state
[00:58:37.960]is not the form that we're looking for.
[00:58:40.120]We need a new we need.
[00:58:41.680]We need new algorithms.
[00:58:43.000]We new ways. I still defend the idea of a direct participative democracy.
[00:58:47.880]And today, with our technological means, we can have a direct
[00:58:52.240]participative democracy.
[00:58:53.800]Is Facebook can follow with an algorithm what everybody does
[00:58:57.720]around the planet, right?
[00:58:59.120]We can invert that and make everybody around the planet be able to add
[00:59:04.600]what they need to say, what they need and add it to an algorithm
[00:59:08.360]right to vote every day, right?
[00:59:10.600]We can have, I think, in that sense, anarchism
[00:59:14.000]both in the European sense, but also
[00:59:18.000]the ancestral anarchism of so many indigenous societies
[00:59:23.080]around the globe has a lot to teach us of how to share right
[00:59:26.720]and how to use our technological means as a global village. I.
[00:59:33.480]Beautiful. Yes. Direct democracy
[00:59:36.480]and with everyone able to participate.
[00:59:40.640]Not just for the white male citizens, as in ancient Greece, OK,
[00:59:45.640]Jordan, are you seeing? Let's see.
[00:59:47.520]Help me with the questions there.
[00:59:50.400]There's one that says I am a third year history Ph.D.
[00:59:53.480]student who specializes in world history.
[00:59:56.320]I'm wondering what the panelists recommend as an approach when teaching
[01:00:00.120]and writing about complex factors such as race and ethnicity
[01:00:04.080]from the perspective
[01:00:05.040]of different cultural context and those different understandings of race
[01:00:09.440]and the way that legacies of colonialism and imperialism play a role
[01:00:12.960]in our understandings.
[01:00:16.360]Of the question just disappeared simply
[01:00:18.960]because Eli was typing the response to it.
[01:00:23.400]Yeah, I can just just sort of piggyback off on that.
[01:00:26.040]Yeah, it's funny.
[01:00:26.560]I was already typing a response whenever you started asking it.
[01:00:31.160]I think it's an excellent question, and I think that there are a lot of books
[01:00:35.240]in the reading list that can help with that.
[01:00:38.600]I want to just quickly highlight one in particular,
[01:00:43.120]The Fall in Sky by Adobe Copenhaver and Bruce Alpert is a book written
[01:00:48.360]by an indigenous shaman from a community that lives in the Amazon rainforest.
[01:00:54.520]And the reason why I said that this would be a good book to its readers
[01:00:58.120]because it's written from a completely an indigenous perspective
[01:01:03.160]and the way in which that culture views the world is just
[01:01:06.880]fundamentally different from how we do so in Western society.
[01:01:12.000]Completely different.
[01:01:13.360]And so much of world history is taught
[01:01:16.440]from a western perspective as as as mentioned in the in the question.
[01:01:21.880]And so I think one thing that we can do in order to try to
[01:01:26.200]to sort of broaden our horizons horizons is to read the works
[01:01:30.000]of more indigenous scholars, more indigenous
[01:01:32.400]writers and listen to the others perspectives that are out there.
[01:01:35.720]Because the sort of the western way of doing it is certainly not
[01:01:39.040]the only one, right?
[01:01:41.840]Brilliant and an excellent suggestion.
[01:01:44.320]It's in the chat again, and it's a fantastic,
[01:01:46.600]phenomenal sort of mind blowing book.
[01:01:48.560]So thank you. You and I,
[01:01:50.960]we are past the hour.
[01:01:53.680]Our panelists are busily typing answers to people.
[01:01:57.280]Thank you so much.
[01:01:59.760]Did you panelists see anything in the chat or the Q&A?
[01:02:05.080]And there are many more comments that we won't get to tonight, unfortunately.
[01:02:09.120]Brilliant participation.
[01:02:10.640]Is there anything else that you want to say as we wrap up?
[01:02:16.320]That everybody should read what the book that Eli just mentioned.
[01:02:20.360]Oh my God, this is one of the best books of the 21st century that I've read.
[01:02:24.120]David Kopen, Iowa, and Bruce Aylward. The filing sky
[01:02:30.440]about this Amazonian philosopher really is amazing.
[01:02:35.240]It's just amazing. It turns the way the world upside down.
[01:02:41.720]Excellent. Turning the world upside down is what we get to practice
[01:02:45.400]doing imaginatively in the safe space of the university.
[01:02:50.040]And of course, this is threatening to some people for valid reasons.
[01:02:54.160]Having to do with the conservation of power is understandable
[01:02:58.600]that there would be nervous about that kind of imaginative experimentation.
[01:03:04.160]But it's beautiful that for tonight we are still preserving it.
[01:03:08.400]And I'm thrilled that these panelists are here and that you all joined us.
[01:03:12.800]I love the comments in the chat.
[01:03:15.320]Thank you. Thank you all for coming. And
[01:03:20.160]we hope to see you in the future again.
[01:03:22.520]All right. Yes, goodbye.
[01:03:24.240]Take care, everybody. Happy night.

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Colloquium on Racial Justice: What is Critical Race Theory, Anyway, and Why Do Politicians Care?

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