Supreme Court once ruled Blacks are not people

To The Eagle:

My neighbor is presumptuous to claim he speaks for our community. He certainly doesn’t speak for me. I felt no insult and considered the editor’s AP article on racism to be timely and informative. To those protesting its publication, I say if the shoe fits, wear it.

That author compares teaching Critical Race Theory to teaching just another version of original sin, of which we are all supposedly guilty at birth -- an odious anti-humanist religious belief.

The fable of “original sin” -- of God’s children choosing to eat fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge, delivers the message that gaining knowledge can be a mixed blessing -- such as when education opens minds to unpleasant truths that contradict prevailing assumptions.

One such assumption is that ours is not a racist society. Critical Race Theory is a 40-year-old concept which explains how and why racism is not a natural phenomena, but rather, a cultural construct invented to oppress people of color. Racism is not inherited at birth. It is taught through the example of parents, peers and society. Racism is as American as apple pie.

Critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social inequalities between whites and nonwhites, particularly Black Americans. Current events and American history provide ample evidence of the existence of such systemic racism.

The Supreme court once ruled that all Blacks are merely commodities, not people, and could never qualify to be citizens of this country. White supremacist Jim Crow laws in the South re-shackled newly emancipated Blacks. Those racist statutes remained in effect as late as the 1960's. Civil rights legislation ended the letter of those abhorrent laws, but has been unable to eradicate their spirit, which pollutes American culture.

Teaching Critical Race Theory will help students identify and critique racially based causes of social inequality, learn how to avoid propagating those causes and understand the need, as Dr. King said, “to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

JB Bouchard

Puget Island