Lindsay - Race Marxism

Copyright 2022 by James Lindsay

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First edition: February 2022

Cover copyright 2022 New Discourses, LLC.

ISBN: 9798795809083 (Paperback)

Imprint: Independently published

Published by New Discourses, LLC.

Orlando, Florida

https://newdiscourses.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

I f you already know what Critical Race Theory is, the purpose of this book is to cement, refine, and deepen what you already know about it and to place what you know about it beyond any doubt. If youre newer to Critical Race Theory and are just beginning to find out what it is, buckle your safety belts and try to hold on. This book uniquely provides a deep and scholarly but totally unvarnished explanation of Critical Race Theory from the perspective of someone who truly understands it and doesnt believe a bit of it. The gap it fills is an important one, too. All existing deep engagements with Critical Race Theory are almost totally useless. They either come from biased cheerleaders who present it in an unrealistically positive light or from naive scholars who cant see the ideological forest for the philosophical trees that compose it. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at a remedy to this civilization-threatening problem, and it has been written, perhaps, only just in time.

The underlying premise of this book is simple. We should not attempt to cure what we dont understand, and attempting to cure Critical Race Theory is an obligation of every person in this world who wishes to remain free. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to aid you in understanding Critical Race Theory for what it is: a belief system that can be summarized entirely in two words, which are given as the title of this volume: Race Marxism. It is also to encourage you to understand the need to resist this scourge against the free people of the world and humanity and hopefully to take smart, strategic steps to stop this monster before it does the damage it will inevitably do if it is not haltedand soon.

Understanding comes first. Therefore, this book begins with an attempt to define Critical Race Theory, both in my own words and in its. This task, we are told by its adherents, is impossible for those who dont embrace the Theory. This is a typical Marxian trick, as you will see. The job here is done well. The first chapter defines Critical Race Theory in the usual approach, through explanation, and the second is given to defining it in terms of its beliefs. The third and fourth add the historical philosophical context that cements the claim that Critical Race Theory arises from Marxist thought and its predecessors in an undeniable way. The fifth chapter proceeds from the maxim that Critical Race Theory is as Critical Race Theory does and explains the praxis of CRT (the Theory put into practice, as every Marxian Theory must, by definitionthe point, after all, of understanding the world is to change it, so Marx himself tells us). The final chapter offers some suggestions about what we can begin to do about the problem of Critical Race Theory.

The analysis in this book is thereby offered humbly to the world and its free citizens as a means of understanding and resisting this terrible ideology at a crucial moment in history, where it threatens us all in a way far bigger than most of us realize. As the author, I wish to make clear that I did not come to the conclusions of this book easily and, in fact, resisted for many years the central contention of the bookthat Critical Race Theory is race Marxismuntil the evidence overwhelmed me. It is my hope that those who read it will find it not only helpful but useful in turning back this advancing tide before it is too late. As I write this (in mid-August 2021), I am optimistic that this is possible, thanks to the valuable work that many have produced and put into action over the last few years, often at great personal sacrifice. I am honored to have contributed to this and am humbled by the excellent work others have done and continue to do in this incredibly important endeavor.

CHAPTER 1

Defining Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory, n.:

(1) Calling everything you want to control racist until it is fully under your control.

(2) A Marxian conflict theory of race; i.e., Race Marxism

(3) A belief that racism created by white people for their own benefit is the fundamental organizing principle of society.

C ritical Race Theorists tell us that Critical Race Theory is a movement being pushed by a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.for thats a bizarre combination. Finally, it tells us that it is a movement that is interested in power, and that tells us rather a lot.

There are a number of ways that one can be interested in power. One might be, for instance, merely interested in power as an academic subject. What is power, and how does it work? One might also be interested in who has it and what effects that has. One might also want to seize it. Critical Race Theory is not particularly interested in the first of these, at least not in the way that their intellectual forebears in the postmodern intellectual movement were. They already believe they know everything they need to know about how power works: it arises from systems, and it oppresses. Critical Race Theorists are very interested in the second topicwho holds power and the impacts it hasso long as we understand interest to mean framing it in accordance with the above understanding. A simple way of characterizing Critical Race Theory is now available: it is an activist movement based upon a motivated study of what it calls systemic racism and how that phenomenon defines power and creates oppression in society.

As for seizing power, this is easily the central, but hidden, interest of Critical Race Theorists. As we read in that very first sentence in Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, quoted above, the point of Critical Race Theory is to transform the relationship among race, racism, and power. Like other totalitarians in a long line preceding them, Critical Race Theorists are interested in ordering the world according to the vision contained in their Theory. As the authors point out, the point of a Theory like Critical Race Theory isnt just to understand the world; it is to change it, to reorganize it according to social power dynamics it obsesses over but can only barely understand. That is because it is a Marxian Theory. This self-serving objective is plainly apparent as one reads through the Critical Race Theory literature, or observes activism based on Critical Race Theory in practice. It is further clarified by observing how Critical Race Theory, its proponents, and the related activism treat members of the so-called minoritized groups who disagree with Critical Race Theory and its prescriptions (as though theyre not authentic members of their racial groups). Through these observations, it is obvious that it is not on behalf of these minoritized racial groups at all that Critical Race Theorists do their work. What its proponents are chiefly interested in is increasing power