I really enjoyed working on yesterday’s thought on CRT. It was the prime example of everything I love about writing this blog.
I am a very normal person. I am filled to the brim with preconceptions, biases and unfounded opinions. I was scrolling through Twitter yesterday and I saw that meme about CRT and it pissed me off.
I am against racism and any way of looking at the world that focuses on the differences between the so-called races can only lead to more racism!
Suffice to say, my first draft was much more critical than what I ended up posting.
I pride myself on being a centrist. I define my position as radical centrism: any belief that anyone has, up to and including racism, is based on truth. It’s my role to dig until I find that truth to discover where exactly the belief went wrong. Clearly understanding that point of divergence is the only way to separate a whole, integrated person from a belief that has become part of that whole.
So whenever I write a criticism, I want to write it explicitly for people who support what I’m criticizing. I want to bring full attention to the truth it is based on, then I want to be as clear and accurate as possible about where I disagree.
People think in different ways, but a majority of people think by talking. That’s why therapy is so helpful; having someone trained to ask the right questions and listen while you discover your own answers is the best way for most people to learn.
I have slowly been developing the skill of thinking onto a blank page. I love writing this blog.
First, writing allows me to articulate my beliefs. In articulating a belief, you take a fuzzy picture that exists in the back of your head and you start to find out exactly where the edges are.
On CRT, I had this fuzzy picture of reading race into everything, even things that have nothing to do with race. That means that race is the most important thing about a person and that racism exists in everything. That’s wrong, so CRT must be wrong.
But by articulating, I was able to draw a line between the belief that race is the most important thing about a person and the belief that there is value in investigating the relationship between race and things that, at first glance, should have nothing to do with race.
Second, writing inspires me to learn more about things I don’t quite understand.
I already had a definition of CRT in my head. But when I wrote it down, I realized it was based on hearsay. And with the world’s knowledge at my fingertips, all I needed to do to find a better definition was click a button. I didn’t exactly do a deep dive, but I read several sources about Critical Theory and its original historical context with a curious mind and an open heart. And, surprise surprise, I gained a lot of respect for those ideas, which I hope came across in the way I wrote about them.
Let me tell you, if you like thinking and are fascinated by ideas and are not already writing, I could not recommend it more highly.
I have learned my lesson over and over. Every time I look more closely at a position I oppose, I discover a truth at its base. But my ‘radical centrism’ is a really hard position to maintain in the face of some of the stupid shit people say. It takes active, conscious effort.
And it’s worth it.
