October 17, 2023 • 66 mins
Critical Race Theory has become the right wing’s new boogeyman, but no one seems to even know how to define it. Leading scholar, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, and producer CJ Hunt join host Roy Wood Jr. to break down what CRT actually is, why it’s necessary, and how ignoring the blowback could endanger years of progress.
Original air date: September 21, 2021
Watch the original segments:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes. And I see people always
ask me to say, Roy, what do you mean when
you say the Daily Show? Beyond the scenes? All right? So,
like you ever had Thanksgiving dinner, that's the Daily Show.
But then you know them little scraps and a little
turkey and a little bit of dressing, and you take
all that and you just make a sandwich. You ever
(00:27):
had like one of them sandwiches three days after Thanksgiving
where it's just layers of stuff you had all weekend.
That's what this podcast is. This is the turkey and dressing, macaroni, greens,
spinach and corn bread sandwich. That gives you a deeper
look into what we do here on the show and
how those segments are made, and where we are now
(00:49):
on those issues. Today we're going to be you know,
we were normally pretty heavy on Beyond the Scenes, but this
time this week, we're going with something a little lighter,
something easy, something easier to digest. Critical Race Theory wrote
a clip.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
There's growing backlash tonight against what critics call the indoctrination
of public school students in an anti white curriculum. It
has to do with the teaching of what is called
critical race theory.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Critical race theory teaches people and our children to judge
one another not based on the content of their character,
but solely on the color of their skin. It would
have our children growing up hating this country and hating
one another.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
It teaches more or less that America is inherently racist,
stating more or less that if you're born white, you
are necessarily racist.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Essentially, every white person should apologize for being white and
what happened two hundred plus years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Just because I do not want critical race theory taught
to my children in school does not mean that I'm
a racist, dammit. Ravo tearing up as like a white
woman's go to move for getting out of any sticky situation.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Well, if it got me out of a speeding ticket,
let's see if it works on a historical recommend.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
To help me understand exactly what the hell critical race
theory is. But first we're gonna have to backtrack to
a little bit of the outrage. But to help me
do that, we brought in some of the big guns.
This brother, you've heard them on the show before. What
time is this on the show for you? CJ?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Is this second second?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
But I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I needed it feels like the fifth time you've been
on the show. That is the voice of Daily Show
producer CJ. Hunt, and that very very kind laugh that
you heard this. This is a woman that she's gonna
break a lot of stuff down to us, and first
we're gonna have to hold her accountable for a couple
of things. CJ. I'm I'm gonna say one thing and
then you say slash Okay, lawyer slash civil rights advocate,
(02:56):
slash philosopher, slash professor slash leading scholar and the namer
of Critical Race theory slash co founder and executive director
of the African American Policy Form. It's Kimberley Crenshaw. How
are you doing?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I am just delighted. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Before we get into any of this, the first thing
we need to do is really talk about the reactions
that have come out with regards to this discussion around
critical race theory. Now. I don't know how often you
are able to watch the Daily Show, because you know
you have about I think, what did I count, CJ?
Seven job exactly? Anybody with more than three jobs, you
(03:44):
ain't really got time to be sitting still on the
RECT because you're out there in the fight. I don't know.
I'll be honest, I don't know any activists that has
a favorite TV show, So I know you're out there.
I know you're busy. We have a digital series that's
called Solve Mysteries MAGA Edition.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Okay, okay, so then you already know where I'm trying
to uncover all the mysteries of MAGA and we did
one on CRT. Maybe we should roll that clip first.
Let's producer Alan give us that, give us that Unsolved
Mysteries first. In the nineteen seventies, legal scholars began to
examine the influence of institutional racism on the nation's laws.
(04:25):
They called this movement critical race theory or CRT. Who's
down with CRT at the GOP? And yet the more
conservatives talk about CRT, the more you start to wonder
does anyone even wikipedia this thing?
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Critical race theory is a religion of secularism and guilt.
Critical race theory is the denial of critical thinking.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Critical race theory is a device design to capture white guilt.
It is about working to change and overthrow infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
In ideology that threatens to overturn the advances of human
civilization over the last five hundred years.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Ask conservatives what CRT is, and they'll say, it's a theory,
a religion, a device, and an ideology. This thing's got
more necessary features jammed into it than Microsoft word, So
Professor Crunshaw. Republicans are saying that critical race theory is Marxist,
it's racist. It's also somehow related to the infrastructure of
(05:28):
this country. What the hell have you created? There's got
these I'm gonna go ahead and say it, CJ. You
got these white people, mostly white people. You've got a
lot of people furious, curious.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Over this theory slash religion slash device you've invted. Who
knew that?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So upset, so upset that now they're going and getting
a little bit of history that was in the textbooks
for black people. They're like, no, we got that. You
know what, Doctor King, don't need to be in that,
Nomo doctor. You know what. The plan was a group
of boy Scouts who just did a little bonfire from
time to time.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Civil rights movement was just a dispute about water fountains.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, it was black people power walking for their health.
Everybody knows that's what the sealm of the Montgomery March
was all about. CJ. People know that.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
It's about self care.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Really, just walk us through the elements of what you
created and why you think those are the things that
people are so scared about and have locked in on
with regards to critical race theory.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I so appreciate this on ramp into critical race theory
because so many times the question starts with what is
it about y'all? What did y'all do to make everybody
so mad? So you have to answer as though it
was it's a legitimate question, rather than what is it?
And how is it that this fringe complaint, this this
(07:00):
grievance has come from the far right to the middle
of American politics, Like what happened? How did this happen?
And should we be afraid? So I want to start
with saying the real question is why is it that
the functional equivalent of book burning, like pushing tanahas she
coaches out of the curriculum. Ruby Bridges, who is who
(07:23):
wrote an autobiography about the segregating schools, Brian Stephenson, you
know Brian Stephenson's book, you know, being the object of
so much complaining. I want people to come into the
conversation thinking, how in the hell has this happened that
all of these projects, these important pieces of American history
(07:47):
are now being framed as the beginning of the end
of Western civilization. I want people just to be like
asking that question, as I say, what critical eyesteria is
so critical or eesteria is simply classically a legal investigation
into why, after two decades of civil rights laws we
(08:10):
still have so many yawning inequalities across health, wealth, How
the police interact with us, what schools do to us.
All of these are still markers of racial inequality, and
so critical race theorists, we're simply asking questions about how
racial inequality is embedded in law. Even though we might
(08:34):
have formal commitments to color blindness, color blindness is not enough,
and in some ways color blindness masked, how racial inequality
continues to function in our society. That's all critical race
theory really is.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So here's the thing in CJ and I we went
to Boston to explore, you know, this idea of racism
and who's aware of it and who is like CJ,
how much of this do you believe is blind ignorance?
Versus racist just digging in their heels, going absolutely not.
(09:11):
We will not look into the systemic issues over the
last blah blah blah decades, y'all tripping. We gave you
a couple rights. You ain't a slave no more. Why
you're so mad? Versus the people we met in Boston
who were just like, no, I just live around white people.
I got a white school book, and I just never
I just never thought about what you all were going through.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
I think it can be both. I don't remember who
said this, but there's a point at which ignorance is
not malicious itself, but if held onto in the face
of facts, becomes malicious. Right, So, like what I think
is so funny and wild is critical race theories. Like, yo,
let's look at the connections between race history and the law.
(09:52):
And right now your folks on Front Street being like,
do not look at the connections, Do not teach my
kid connections. So I think it is a it's this
moment where we're seeing whiteness in a different way, right,
Like we're used to talking about white supremacy is like
a privilege to not get pulled over by the police,
but it is literally the privilege to be dumber to
(10:14):
say out loud, please pass laws to make my kids
books smaller, like that's that's a crazy amount of privilege
to ask lawmakers to teach your kids less. So we
saw it in Boston of folks being like, you know,
there were some folks who were like, I guess I
just haven't thought about it. But the fundamental thing we
saw first Roy in Boston was people being like, that's
(10:35):
racist that you're even.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Asking mm hm.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
The question was is racism a problem here? And people
are like, how dare you profile us with that question?
And that's the that's the heart of the pushback against CRT.
How dare you bring up that there is even connections
that's racist?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, I think that. The thing that's interesting, Professor Crenshaw
is that, you know, people tend to become enraged by
stuff based on what they see on social media, and
they try to act like CRT is some sort of
new thing, like they tried to even they tried to
take what you push and make it part of some
(11:12):
sort of quote unquote woke movement. But what y'all have
been doing has been going on since the since the AFRO,
like even before the Jerry curl y'all was out there
doing the right thing.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
It's like, what is this new hairstyle? The hairstyles in
our schools, we'd be like, what it's been here?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
What made you and others doing that? Seventies era?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
What made you all sit and look and go? You
know what? Things aren't moving fast enough. There needs to
be a different way of looking because to a degree,
what you're trying to do is measure like, there's data
points that you have to start finding for something that's
a little blobulous, which is bigger. Try it's hard to
like always because you can hide it. So what made
(12:03):
you all start down this journey in the seventies with
CR two?
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah? Well, I'd like to tell it as a story
of the kids who were watching the civil rights movement
at home, wanting to get involved in it, waiting for
our turn, and when we finally, you know, got past
the baton, the game had changed, but it hadn't. So
I went to Harvard Law School as a graduate from
(12:29):
Africana Studies with an intention to run the next leg
of the race. I wanted to be a lawyer. I
wanted to learn the special words that you could you know,
throw out and the doors to equal opportunity would open.
And so, like many students in my generation, we went
to Harvard to study with Derek Bell, who was like
(12:52):
the godfather of racism and American law. His book was
a book that a lot of us read. It had
a picture in the inside of Tom Smith and John
Carlos with that black power salute, which we wanted, right.
We wanted to run the race. We want to learn
how to be excellent lawyers. But we were not going
to leave our people behind. The whole point of doing
(13:14):
it is to draw attention to the unfinished work of
the civil rights movement. But when we got there, he
was gone, and so was the sense that there was
still work that needed to be done that the law
school was willing to do. So the law school basically
told us, no, we're not going to teach you race, racism,
and American law. No, we're not going to hire scholars
(13:38):
of color because the pool is really shallow. Basically, there
are no qualified people here. And yes, we are an
equal opportunity institution. And so they dumped this on us
precisely at a time when the law more broadly was
pulling back from the forward momentum. The law was basically saying,
you know what, if you can't find you a racist
(14:01):
in the woodpile, then there is no racial problem. There
is no discrimination. They had no ability to think about
structural racism, no ability to think about how history had
placed us in these moments where we were in institutions
where there were virtually no scholars of color in them,
and they were telling us that this was race neutral.
(14:22):
So it prompted us to ask questions about, well, what
is behind this race neutral stuff? What do you have
to be to be a law professor at Harvard? Well,
you kind of have to have had gone to Harvard
or help. You had to have been interested in a
time during segregation, in any other issue but segregation, right,
(14:43):
So being a civil rights lawyer apparently didn't qualify you
to be a professor at Harvard Law School. So it
just allowed us to see what the second layer of
exclusion was. It allowed us to think that the lunch
counters in the eighties are now these elite institutions that
are keeping people like us out, but are saying that
(15:07):
they're doing it simply because we're not qualified. So that
prompted us to ask, what is qualification prompted us to
ask what is structural inequality? It prompted us to ask,
how is the law not keeping up with the way
that race continues to function? And that's how we eventually
became critical race theorious. We created our own course, we
(15:29):
taught out of Derek Bell's book. We had people fly
in from across the country who were these so called
non qualified people. And eventually this group of students, this
group of law professors, other people who are asking the
same questions, Hey, why are our housing patterns still so segregated?
Why are police still able to pull us over simply
(15:51):
because we're driving? While black people were asking these questions,
and we all came together and recognized there was still
a their thing and people weren't talking about that they're there,
and so we called that need to talk about it
critical race theory.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
What's wild to me is I grew up in the
eighties and nineties in you know, and and came into
adulthood during Obama's presidency. So all I've ever known is
the post racial sort of myth about oh we're over
it U. And now, you know, out of twenty twenty,
all of a sudden, like folks learned what structural racism is.
(16:30):
But what's wild? Hearing you talk about that is like, yeah,
if you were in law school in the seventies, you
are literally making the concept of structural racism for a
country that only understands racism as like dogs and fire hoses.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And also on top of that, you're making this construct
and then you're trying to present it to people who
don't even agree that there is a problem. You are
trying to help investigate something that a lot of people do.
It may as well be bigfoot theory. Why is bigfoot
in the forest and not in an urban area? They
would just go, there's no bigfoot, get out of here.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
And some of the people who didn't want to hear
it actually are allies. Right. But the great unspoken in
this is that critical race theory, of course, has been
around for now three decades, but we're only talking about
it right now because the far right has politicized it.
(17:30):
We could have been talking about critical race theory for
the last thirty years. We could have had an understanding
of structural racism long before George Floyd lost his life
to it. We could have had these conversations, but we
didn't partly because kind of everybody agrees that racism should
(17:51):
be thought about solely in terms of a bad actor
or bad apples or bad people. So when people hear
the term racism, they think, oh, you're saying something's bad
about me or something I harbor evil in my heart,
when in fact, although there are a lot of people
who do, what we're talking about is how our systems
(18:13):
consistently reproduce that which is embedded in it, and anti
black racism has been embedded in policing, in housing, and education,
in medicine, almost every arena. There is a history of
African Americans in particular, and also other people of color
being pushed out or being marginalized, and that stuff now
(18:36):
becomes just a natural feature of the world. So it's
not just the conservatives who eventually who initially didn't want
to hear it. It was some of our colleagues and
critical legal studies. It was some of our liberal friends,
you know, who really thought that this whole thing would
work itself out if we just stopped paying attention to race.
(18:58):
So now we see what's happened to that argument. Now
in the language of the folks who are coming after
critical race theory. It is paying attention to race. That's
the problem. Anti racism is the new racism, not the
old racism that we've had for centuries.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Did you even think when you will? I know, in
the seventies you didn't think in a million years that
Trump would be president. But did you think when you
all first started on this journey that you would sit
in the crosshairs of the federal administration? Like Trump straight
up bandit. He was like, nah, don't teach about anything.
(19:37):
Suggest Yeah, he said, don't do it. Fox News followed suit,
and you know, anything Trump says, Fox News is going
to pay it. For three four months, they mentioned critical
race theory over fourteen hundred times on their channel, Like
did you think that it would the grounds because you know,
like for a while, it feels like little engine that
could Hey, I can you carry this curriculum? I know,
(20:00):
come on, y'all, let's just keep going and keep trying.
And one day and then the next thing, you know,
it's people going, yeah, you were anti racist. This was
I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he had written
an article. I think he'd written the article up in
Milwaukee or somewhere. He written an article commenting on the
City of Seattle's anti racism training, of which a lot
(20:23):
of it was. The spine of it was CRT curriculum,
and the whole country was like, Oh, did you think
you were picking your afro when you were rubbing afrochene
in your hair in nineteen seventy one with that black
afro pick, that black afro fist pick. Did you think
(20:45):
did you think in twenty twenty one you will be
going toe to toe with the whole government?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
No? I didn't, But I guess the question might also
be roy should I should I have anticipated it? And
when we look at this historically, there are all kinds
of reasons to suggest that this framework talking about, you know,
racism was eventually going to be politicized as the new race,
(21:15):
because we've seen it happen before. If we go all
the way back to you know, the year that the
change came off of African Americans, right eighteen sixty six,
there was a law that was created to provide equal
opportunity in contracting and property rights. The president vetoed equal opportunity,
(21:43):
just black people should have the same rights. It's white
people have to make a contract. He vetoed it and
said no, to give y'all rights is to take something
away from white people, right, So I mean that's like
when you know, we still had the mark on our hands.
So if you could do that a year after, we're
(22:04):
free to say that doing anything that's anti racist is
racist against white people, you can do it. Then you
could do it throughout history. And it turns out they
have right. They took away our right to vote because
that took away from white people's right to rule. They
took away right to integration because as they said, you know,
(22:24):
forcing you to serve us or forcing us to go
to school with you is discrimination against us. And I'll
take it even to the last moment when I should
have seen it coming for critical ace theary y'all, I
don't think you're too young to remember, but maybe when
OJ gott to quit it a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Of way I remember, hell.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I mad, I mean really really angrious, And they were
looking for someone to blame. So guess who they blamed
for critical race theory. Like all twelve of us, we basically,
you know, put on our ninja outfits and it ran
into the jury's rooms and whispered sweet nothings in their
(23:06):
ears at Night basically our treatises on race, and that's
what forced them to acquit OJ. So they tried it
in the early nineties. It didn't work because there wasn't
Fox News. There wasn't a president sitting in the White
House listening to everything Fox News had with a pen
that he could use to censor all of this stuff.
(23:27):
So it didn't work then. But these are the conditions
around which is working now.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
You could just summarize the whole history of white backlash
with They tried.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
It and kept trying it, and kept trying it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, now, to be fair, but that OJ trial, it
was a lot of black people going he did it,
but y'all lock us up for nothing. We won't even
get free for nothing. Finally, OJ was the moment CJ
where it felt like racism worked in our favor.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
You're going to pretend that I didn't remember when OJ had.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
No I'm asking you if that was the because I
watched the OJ trial in Birmingham, and you know how
racism flows through the city through Alabama, right, It just
it felt like the one the first time in a
long time where Wow, racism worked for us this one time, yay,
(24:22):
And I think that infuriated, like there's always a backlash anytime,
but I just have a theory professor. There's always a
backlash from black people who are happy. Too many black
people happy, Okay, too.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Many black people together? Like what y'all doing over there?
But why y'all all sitting together?
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Your joy is threatening to me?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Are there any valid criticisms of CRT that you've heard
from right wing media? You know, other than could be
in marxist and it being racist against white people. I
know that those two are valid, but are there any others.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
From from right wing media? Know? But I mean, can't
be surprised about that because their critiques are not of
the ideas. They even say they couldn't give I can't
say what they said, but they said they don't care
about the ideas. It's not a debate about any of
(25:19):
the content of critical race theory. What it is is
a misinformation campaign that they have called tea party to
the tent. They realize that we have unfinished business, insensitivities
around race, grievances around race, so they take this concept
they throw everything in it that has to do with
(25:39):
anti racism, from structural racism to even implicit bias a
lot of people thought implicit bias. Y'all can get with that, right,
because we're not saying you're intending to do these things.
It's just hardwired because we've given a society is that okay,
(26:01):
we don't even want to talk about that. So if
you if you recognize that it's not about what it's called,
it's not about the content other than it is saying
that racism is real, it shapes important ways where our
society has landed. Who gets what what kind of lives
(26:22):
certain people have by race? Just to say that race
is still a problem, racism is still a problem. That's
what is the huge, you know, sort of offense that
they're now offended by. So their feelings about talking about
racism are more important than our experiences of actually dealing
(26:45):
with racism. I don't know what's more fragile than that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I'll give you a criticism. I think that that word
race is what scare people. So maybe we just need
a different maybe, like instead a critical race theory. Like
is thing every business and entity goes through. Logo changes,
rebrand is what they call it in the marketing world.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Right, So Domino dominoes.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Exactly dunkin Donuts is now Duncan.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Radio Shock Donuts Radio Shackle.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Went out of business business.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
So how about this, Why don't we why don't we
debate whether we should rebrand black people so we know
anti black racism is real, so we could say, okay, here,
here's the way we're gonna deal with that. There are
no more black people. We're not gonna call ourselves black.
We're gonna call ourselves we're We're just people, and that
(27:43):
is our rebrand. So if they can't find us, they
can't discriminate against it. That wouldn't work because it's it's
not that that's all.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
This is good. This is good right now. Like you're
talking critical race theory, I'm thinking moderated melanine methodologies like that.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So we lived there for about for about six months
until they realize who moved into this.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The melanin curriculum, accelerated millinated curriculum, and NATed vouchers. You know,
because I've said the same thing about defund the police,
we know what that actually means. It's getting the police
to do less work for the same amount of money
and redirecting resources and blah blah blah blah blah. But
the word defund. That's it. Like if you told if
(28:35):
you was in a relationship, you told your girl you
was going to defund the relationship people, So we just
got to come up with new words. We'll work on that.
Matter of fact, let's let's take a quick break.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
What about race conscious patriotism and patriot my patriotism is
grounded and looking at race.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
These are all great ideas. We're going to come back
to break and discuss a little bit more about CRT.
This is beyond the scenes. We're talking about critical race theory. CJ.
I want to start with you right now because, as
we've heard from the first this whole first run of
what we've been discussing, this is a complicated topic. There
(29:17):
are a lot of layers to it. And on the
Daily Show generally, when we're talking about issues, it doesn't
matter how simple or how complicated it is. You have
four minutes. You have four minutes maybe five if Trevor's
feeling generous that week, to explain this and make it funny.
And we've done I think you know, four or five
(29:39):
segments on this topic. You know, as of recent talk
to me about the challenges of figuring out what to
leave in and what to leave out, because the first
thing you have to do is almost unpack the same
as what we did at the beginning of this program,
unpack what it is why people are mad, and then
start getting the jokes in there. So talk to me
(29:59):
a little bit about the creative process of putting these
pieces together.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Given that we only have like five minutes or four minutes,
especially with the topic critical race theory, I think I
think it's working in our favor. Like one of my
favorite pieces is the Unsolved Mega Mystery that you do
for critical race theory. I just love it because you
don't spend a long time defining critical race theory. You
are literally just like you know in the seventies, these
(30:24):
scholars came up with this idea. But watching everyone get
so worked up about an obscure, graduate level theory makes
me wonder, does literally anyone on the right know what
critical race theory is?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Right, Like, if you just.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
Broke down the minutes, the minutes dedicated in the four minutes,
the second count to how long you spent describing what
critical race theory is versus how long you show the
hysteria of people being like it is it's a device
it's a religion. It's gonna make the kids hate this country.
I think that that's actually really dope, you know what
(30:57):
I mean that the time pressure of we only have
this amount of time means that you don't get lost
trying to play defense. You play offense and are just
like this is the crazy things that people are saying
critical race theory.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Is, Professor Crenshaw, where do you think critical race theory
compares to other big right wing issues? You know, if
we're talking let's say, abortions, or gun laws or even
now mask mandates, which you know seems to be all
the craze to show up at a school board meeting
(31:33):
and punch strangers. Do you wish that you were as
divisive of an issue as some of those or are
you cool with where you are or like? Because it's
interesting in that how I'm trying to think, here's here's
a nicer way to ask this question. How much bigger
(31:53):
of a fighter you prepared for critical race theory to
put gum in this country?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
That's it? That's okay, that's great question. So I would
be happy to turn this huge platform that they've put
critical race theory on into a platform that advances what
(32:18):
critical race theory is actually about. Right, So now there's
name recognition to critical race theory. We couldn't have bought
that much media. With all the money in the world,
we could not have bought it. So now the question is,
since everyone has the container, everyone's heard of it, how
do we use this moment to fill it with the
(32:40):
information that people who practice critical race theory every day
can say, oh, yeah, I do that, I do that.
So here's here's here's a point. Critical race theory is practice.
I think every time most black people go outside, every
time you see every time you.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
See it's happening when black people go outside, I know it.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
You're like, okay, hands on the steering wheel, pull over slowly.
You have a theory about what may happen to you
based on what has happened to millions of black people.
You don't know for sure, you but you have a theory.
When you go into the star and someone's following you,
(33:27):
you have a theory about what they're thinking. So we
practice race theory every day. I just want the opportunity
for people to hear what it really is so they
could say, oh, yeah, that's exactly the truth about what
it means to be black in the society.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I've traveled a half million road miles in my car
and anytime and this is what Alabama tags. Anytime I
was outside the state of Alabama, I didn't wear a
hat in my Like just the idea of passing a
speed trapping a cop seeing me in a baseball hat,
just thinking, oh, yeah, the time, let's get them, like
(34:11):
like we're past the seat belt now I'm sitting up
straight and ten and two. Look at me, officer. Wow,
that's I don't drive rental cars without a state plates.
Even when I fly and I get a rental car,
I need a rental car that's registered for the state
that i'm driving it in. No, you're not gonna know.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
I love that grounding it in an emotion and being
like non white people know this as an emotion. Right,
Like when we see a cop who killed an unarmed
black man in broad daylight get off. We have a
theory about why that happened. When we see you know,
white neo Nazis storm the Capitol to kill congressman and
(34:55):
they nothing happens, we have a theory as to something
happening in the law and race that is making that happen,
and I just love that you're naming it not as
an invention, but as placing a name on something that
we already intuitively know works about the world.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And we know why it is so important for the
other side to take the name away from us, because
if you can't conceptualize an experience, if you can't name
an experience, you can't solve an experience. So you know,
this is consistent with what they've done to us throughout history.
We weren't able to read. It was against the law
(35:34):
to be able to read. It was against the law
to testify in court against white people. It's been against
the law to agitate for abolition. So whenever there is
capacity to name our experience, to transform it, that's been
the key objective of retrenchment, to take that away. So yeah,
(35:59):
we're fighting about the content of what we do. We're
fighting to be able to name our experience. And of
course they're fighting not only to take away our ability
to name our experience, but to vote to change our experience,
to protest, to object to our experience. These are all
things that are happening by the same people, supported by
(36:22):
the same money, and advanced by the same politicians. We
need to connect these dots so that people know. You
might have not heard of critical ace theory, but you know,
critical ace theory, it's the life that we're all living
right now.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I've encountered black folks who are like, well, you know
critical race theory is. You know, I don't want to
be dividing people, and I use an analogy I've heard
you say before about asbestos. Can you tell our listeners
that analogy? This is what I go through all the time.
And people are like, oh okay.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Well, you know we tell people if you really care
about a social problem, the last thing you can do
is try to penalize the people who have the expertise
to tell you where the problem is. So let's take
our institutions. For example, we built them with asbest as
tucked in everywhere because that's just how we built things
(37:16):
at the time. Well, it turns out as best this
is toxic. It kills people. So what's the solution, you know,
to the fact that we have as beestess in our institution?
Do we say the solution to it is not to
use the word as bestess, not to look for aware
as best this might be, not to use tools to
(37:37):
try to remove as best as and now to even
criminalize people who are teaching people where to find as
bestics to remove this toxic we that would be ridiculous,
We would never think that makes any sense. But we
think that exact thing about race. So the solution to
racism don't talk about race. So see race, don't teach
(38:01):
people how to I goodify racism and penalize and criminalize
those people who have that expertise. That's what we're doing
when we say critical race theory, anti racism is the
problem rather than it is the solution to that problem.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
I love that analogy because it's like, yeah, white supremacy
is asbestos. It is built into all of the structures.
Some of us have known that it has always been there,
and other people have just been going about their day.
And then when you're like, hey, this is built into everything,
they're like, how dare you do you not like this building?
And we're like, no, the building's fine. I like living here.
(38:40):
I just want to make sure it doesn't kill me.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So basically what you're saying is if there is a
problem and it's detrimental when it comes to race, it's
important to speak up and say something, but when it
comes to love and relationships, just don't bring it up
at all because.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
They're right, it'll go away.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Well yeh yeah, I'll work that out later.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Those are a lot of great solutions, but I want
after the break to talk with you a little bit
more about the hard legal solutions that may be in place,
and whether or not they're smaller moral victories that you
can count between the last time you had that afro
in seventy one and you was roller skating with a
(39:25):
dude named Stucky to the Soakhop. I want to talk
to you about the legal victories and the moral victories
that you've had between then and now with regards to
critical race theory. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be
right back. We're talking critical race theory with Daily Show
producer C. J. Hunt and the wonderful, wonderful professor, scholar, activist, lawyer. Astronaut.
(39:53):
Are you an astronaut yet? What else have you not
done yet? Professor Kimberley Crenshaw, How are you?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I'm great, I'm great, enjoying being here with you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Okay, so no to astronaut, but not yet, but I'm
sure it's coming.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
I'd like to mention that all of those different sort
of identities that Roy has named, that fits into a
new theory that I've developed, that one person can hold
multiple identities and live at the intersection of those identities.
What do you guys think of this idea that I've developed.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
No, No, and that's Marxist and it's wrong. When I
was coming up, you had one job, you went to
a career day, and you got one job. It wasn't
all this slash multi heightened. What is a multi hyphen?
Are you telling me you identify as a hyphen?
Speaker 5 (40:40):
You hate America? Now, doctor Crenshaw, you think my idea
has some legs?
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Though? About these intersecting I know every now and then
when I complain about stuff, people say, you know, there's
a theory that somebody came up about that explains that.
What's it called intersectionality? Yes, but I can still be
mad about it, right.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
I love when Republicans are crapping on intersectionality. In one sentence,
they're like, they can't teach our kids critical race theory, privilege, intersectionality.
I I'm not just a white woman, I'm a Republican.
And you're like, you are naming intersectionality, and their objection
is not to intersectionality, it's to us using it, Like, give.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Me that idea, I'm going to use it to explain
my grievance.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
Yes, I hold multiple identities. I'm a mother, I'm a teacher.
You're like, that's intersectionality.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, before we get into and you know, as we
get ready to bring this conversation home, before we get
into a lot of the pushback that you're starting to
receive now at the legal level, are there any small
victories that you've been able to measure with regards to
your push for critical race theory, you know, over the decades,
(41:57):
Like the fact that I find it, And I know
this isn't a victory, but it is something small in that,
you know, I grew up in a time where the
only real information I got about the world was from school.
When I got in the fifth grade, my mother ordered
a world book, Encyclopedias, and that was it. I would
(42:19):
sit and read Encyclopedias like an actual just book, the
same way you read Bearstain Bears. I would just read
the letter V and that would be my book for
the month. Like the access to information that younger people
have now do you feel like this conversation at minimum
gives them a place to go and seek out new
(42:41):
troops or additional data outside of the traditional school systems,
which will.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Get into next. Well, you know, I think the Internet
is both the bane of our existence and the possibility
for overcoming this censorship. I mean, one of the things
we know about young people is when you tell them
not to do something basically agreeing light neon lights say
come over here, look at this thing that we don't
want you to know anything about. So, you know, I
(43:08):
said earlier that one of the objectives is to take
this platform that has been created by this misinformation and
actually present it in a way that allows people whose
lives actually are all of those dimensions of critical race
theory that we've been writing about it allows them to
(43:29):
see it and to understand it. So the reality is
that despite all of the consternation, less than ten percent
of the classrooms really talk about race at all. Now
we have a new moment in which more people are
talking about race, and hopefully more people will find their
(43:50):
way to actually having access to material that shapes this.
And by that I don't mean you know, the long
law review articles that we make. I mean the kind
of things that you guys are doing, the short hits
that really educate people and allow them to see that
there is a there there that the other side is
(44:12):
trying to erase, and they're trying to erase it with
you know, the sort of authoritarian This is the story
about America that we will allow, and no other story
can we tolerate. I think it's great for people to
see this actually happening in real time and demand the
true stories that some of these politicians are trying to
(44:33):
deny them.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
Are you finding any joy in watching these politicians not
realizing that they're talking about black history more than they've
ever talked about it. They're like, don't you teach my
kid about the dread Scott decision which made the law.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Harwy Coulson massacre, you know, that destroyed Black Wall Street
and made it clear that actually black people can succeed.
It's just that their success makes many many white folks
at the time so angry that they prefer to destroy
them rather than to just let them be. These these
moments of history are seeping in, and it really is
(45:17):
up to us to open the door wider, bring more
people in in various ways, through humor, through short moments
of going to historical sites and saying, let me tell
you what happened here, and importantly, why what happened here
is important? Today? A lot of these laws aren't saying
(45:40):
simply we can't talk about the past. What they're saying
is we can't talk about the past in a way
that makes white folks feel bad and in a way
that shows that the past still lives among us. So
our goal is both to talk about those and make
people understand that down on which we stand is created
(46:02):
by these historical policies and practices. I think we're a
long way away from where we were before, when people
didn't talk about race at all.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Talk to me, I guess. I guess the difference now
between you know, Tulsa and today is that a lot
of what we see instead of, you know, the blatant
eradication through violence, you see the eradication and attacks on
a black community through policy and through laws. Talk to
me a little bit about some of the laws that
(46:35):
are starting to trickle down. I guess what I'm trying
to ask you, in a nice way, how guilty will
you feel when that first black teacher stands up in
front of a classroom and attempts to teach her class
about Tulsa in a school district that said, and she
goes to jail, will you put money on her books? Well,
(46:57):
this is your fault, first of jail.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Well, first of all, the consequences have already started to happen.
Amy Donofrio. Everybody should look her up. She's a white
school teacher in a seventy percent black school, teaching black
young men about the historical determinants of many of the
(47:20):
things that happened to them. Her class was so successful
that they got to go to the White House, so
successful that they won a competition at Harvard, so successful
that the school district defunded her program and ultimately fired her.
So you know, the consequences are happening right now. These
(47:43):
laws have basically said teachers can be fired, they can
be fined five thousand dollars for every infraction. School systems
can lose up to ten percent of their budgets. Teachers
can be de licensed. In fact, this is what's happening
to Amy right now in Florida. So this is an
(48:03):
attack on schools, public schools, It's an attack on teachers.
It's an attack on anti racism, and it's an attack
on people of color. So we have to recognize that
the public school system is, as they call it, the
incubators of democracy. We have to understand that the basic
(48:23):
logic of Brown versus Board of Education was that segregated
education undermined our ability to participate in democracy. Well, this
is basically segregation two point zero. We're going to talk
about this, and we're not going to talk about that,
And it turns out everything we're not going to talk
(48:45):
about explains how we got to where we are today.
So yeah, I'm not going to feel guilty. What I'm
going to feel is we are in the fight for
our laves and we are.
Speaker 5 (49:00):
Do you feel like teachers recognize that betrayal? Do you
feel like they are looking at what we are looking
at and seeing that a party that has spent the
last decade raging against censorship and standing up for academic freedom,
So some professor can use it, Yes, so some academic freedom,
So some professor can use the N word. Do you
(49:21):
feel like these teachers are watching this party now passing
laws so that kids cannot understand where the N word
comes from? Oh?
Speaker 4 (49:28):
And I so want to put a point on what
you just said that we are now in a ploint
where I can walk on a campus and perhaps be
called the in word, or my students can go to
classes and have to deal with another professor writing inward
on the blackboard. But it might be they might not
be able to take critical race theory to understand where
(49:51):
the in word came from. This is the huge asymmetry
that we're facing, along with the idea that like, students
are too fre to hear about the history, but we're
sturdy enough to have experienced it. So yes, I do
think that teachers, the AFT, the NEA are fully aware
that this is just another chapter of the attack on
(50:14):
public education, the attack on equal citizenship, the attack on
learning our history. In order to correct for its long
term consequences, people are on the same page. The question
is whether the politicians.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Are Does this okay? So then to the point with
the politicians, does this have a ripple effect into voters
and voting and voting suppression? Like what are some of
the other how the tentacles of CRT, What are the
issues do they reach out in touch?
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Yeah, well, I mean you put your finger on it.
There is currently an effort to push voters like us
out of the political equation. There's an effort to silence
our voices. There's an effort to make sure that last
summer never happen again. There's an effort to make sure
that the election never happens again. And the reality is
(51:06):
it has happened before. Right, Remember, we used to have
black senators, We used to have black lieutenant governors. We
used to have a whole cohort of elected officials in
the nineteenth century, like a couple years after slavery. So
when they shut it down, they shut it down not
(51:29):
for a season, it was for a century. These moves
that are being made today, they're out of an old playbook,
and unfortunately we don't often know the plays because we
haven't been taught this stuff, and they want to make
sure that people are not taught this stuff. That's why
the fight is for the future, not just for twenty
(51:49):
twenty two and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
The playbook analogy is so good because it's like, yes,
the very chapters of history that are now illegal in
some states because of CRT or dumb dumb laws, right, Like,
those very same chapters are things that like we need
to understand what the hell is happening now. It's like,
don't teach about white supremacy and reconstructions. Oh so you
(52:12):
don't want to teach about an expansion of black democracy
undermined by white supremacy who then disenfranchise our voters because yeah,
based yeah, based on a lot of lies. Yeah, I
think that. I think that's wild. I also, can you
speak to some of the language in these bills, because
(52:32):
what I find so like Twilight Zone, is that they
are they are using civil rights language to then flip it.
I've seen bills that are diversity bills. There are bills
to support diversity in schools that they try to tack
on a CRT ban inside of it, and like are
They're on the floor saying CRT is counter to diversity?
(52:56):
So can you talk about the insane language of some
of these bills?
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Yeah. And one of the things to realize is that
you know, and basically you know, occupying our space. They've
taken our language, they've taken our heroes, and they've kicked
us out of our own community. So Martin Luther King
now plays for their team, right, Martin Luther King is
on our side on this Martin Luther King, does you
(53:20):
know wasn't an advocate for racial justice. He was an
advocate for color blindness.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Well, actually that loved it.
Speaker 4 (53:30):
But you know, part of what they've been able to
do is yank a lot of stuff. So they say,
you know, we don't believe in race stereotyping, we don't
believe in race scapegoating. We don't believe in making people
feel ashamed because of who they are. Okay, so check
(53:50):
check check. Isn't this part of what anti black racism
was about. Isn't this part of what racism against other
people of color were about? They're like, no, this this
what racism against white people is. If you think back
on it. This was a move that they did right
away during the sit in movements. There's this wonderful documentary,
(54:11):
Eyes on the Prize that interviews people who were part
of the sit in and interviews the white people who
didn't want to serve them. And there's this one where
a white woman said, you know, they claim that they
are non violent, but they're most violent. They're making me
serve them. That violates my civil rights. It's like dag on,
(54:34):
you can start with you know, I get to exclude
you and your demand for just integration violates your civil rights.
So these bills are just again a page out of
the old book. We can just take all of the
things that they are saying black people, other people of
(54:55):
color are saying and turn it around and say, we're
the ones that they're being victimized. We're the ones that
are being told we're bad people. We're the ones that
feel bad. So you can't talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
What is it about what you believe? America? Your work,
in my opinion and my humble opinion, your work is
rooted in optimism. Your work is rooted in the optimism
of what we could be as a society and what
we're capable of, full stop. But what is it about
the choice that you've made to go down this road
(55:29):
and fight this battle versus other black people who kind
of lie before, separate but equal. Our own schools, our
own system will teach our kids over here. Let's not
even worry about sending them over there. What kept what
has kept you from crossing over into that? Because it
seems like that would be the logical leap after wall
(55:49):
after wall after wall that you've hit.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Well, you know what's so frightening about this moment, Roy,
is that teaching our own children in our own school
is not a solution to this, because this is applying
to our own children and our own schools. So it's
not just Okay, these bands don't apply to you know,
(56:12):
Lincoln Carver School because it's basically about white feelings. No,
our students are not allowed to learn this stuff. Our
teachers are not allowed to teach this stuff. So this
is basically undermining black education, black educators, and in some
(56:34):
of the same ways that you know, integration did. People
don't know that one of the things that happened after
integration is black teachers, black principles, black administrators lost their jobs.
All of those moments where we learned about who we
were and we had teachers who were deeply invested in
us and believed in us, A lot of that we lost.
(56:58):
And now we're in a moment where where we have
school boards basically dictating to teachers who are now teaching
students of color what they can reveal about the student
of color own history. So there's no escape from this.
This is why we have to fight it. This is
not you know, integration versus separation. This is going to
(57:22):
apply to all institutions, and importantly, not just K through
twelve higher education, and not just higher education, diversity inclusion.
Everywhere where race and diversity is discussed will ultimately come
under the power and control of this effort to censor
real conversation about race and racism in American society.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
How much are you thinking about reconstruction in this moment,
because all the time, it's like, you know me, I am,
I have been making a movie about civil war and
reconstruction and I cannot stop thinking about it, specifically because
we had in a rated schools in eighteen seventies, we did,
and this idea that sometimes I think, like, dang, this
(58:07):
is just a cynical strategy Republicans are using to win elections.
But when I look at the language of these bills,
I am like, wow, they have figured out a way
to attack black education, to censor the very words like
privilege and structural racism that folks like y'all invented to
name what was happening to us. So in this moment,
(58:28):
how much are you thinking about the setbacks of reconstruction
and the first time they sort of knocked our feet
out from under pipes.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
I think about it CJ all the time. I was
just doing a talk here in Mar's vineyard last night
and confess that I think a lot about what people
like us were thinking in eighteen sixty six, in eighteen seventy,
(58:58):
in eighteen seventy six, I wonder if they knew now,
if they knew then what we know now, Like how
much we would have been pushed back, how forcefully we
would have been pushed out of being able to vote,
how forcefully we were pushed out of the professions that
(59:19):
so many of us were exercising, how much we would
be denied education? If they saw what was coming, would
they have done anything different? And can we get those
messages in a bottle? Can we think now, all right,
we are in the same position that our people were
(59:40):
in in eighteen seventy six. What lessons can we learn
about what happened that we could now apply at this moment?
And at least one thing I know is that we
need to sound the alarm. We need to allow people
to see that it's not two step forward, one steps back,
(01:00:03):
one step back. Sometimes it's one step forward and two
steps back. Sometimes it's a decade of progress and a
century of retrenchment. So if we understand that that it's
not just automatic. Martin Luther King said, time doesn't do
anything automatically. Right, time could be the enemy of reform.
(01:00:24):
It's what we do in the time that we have.
So right now, what do we do now that we
see the smoke coming, and we see real estate that
we've been occupying and taking care of for decades burning
up in a period of like six months, we've lost
so much. What do we do in response to it?
(01:00:46):
That seems to be the question. And I think our
ancestors are telling us do more than what we did,
because we lost for a century and we cannot afford
to pass this Batia. I don't want to pass this
to the next generation, and I want to believe that
none of us want to pass this to the next generation.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh In with the final question to you, Well, first
I saw where you know, there's a lot of states
that are already banning critical race theory, amongst them Idaho, Oklahoma, Arizona,
South Carolina, Texas, that's to be expected, Tennessee, Iowa. And
then there's one on this list that goes back to
(01:01:26):
what you were talking about earlier, with regards to sometimes allies.
I found it interested in that New Hampshire band or
is restricting the teachers. I don't know if they're a
blue state CJ, but at minimum they swing. You can't
be next door to Bernie and Vermont and be full
hardcore read but as.
Speaker 5 (01:01:47):
This, you can be anywhere and get people to be
like they're going to abolish the suburbs. Anywhere there's a
critical mass of white folks that you can scare that
black people are coming, then you the work that works
in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Last question, what can people do to help you?
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Oh? In this movement, so many things. So people can
go to APF dot org and learn more information about
where these laws are coming. So we have a map
where they can see where they've been passed. We have
information about how to find out whether this is coming
(01:02:30):
to a school board near you. And we need our
parents to become activated. We need our parents to say,
wait a minute, I know that my school is barely
talking about these issues, and now they're trying to ban
them from talking about it at all. So every time
you see some parents going to school boards and acting up,
(01:02:53):
that needs to be a clarion call you know to
our parents that you'll need to get in those school boards.
Y'all need to see what is being taught and not
being taught. Y'all need to say this is absolutely vital
to the future of my child, in the future of
my country, to learn from whence we came so we
can set a path for where we want to go.
(01:03:15):
So active involvement is everything, and we want to hear
the stories. We think that there's much more going on
that we don't know about. So has your school district
said that we will not teach Ruby Bridges anymore? Has
your child come home with stories about why there's inequality
(01:03:35):
that don't point to the real reason and basically implicitly
point the finger at your child And it's your child's
family and our people. If we don't tell the truth,
that leaves the inference that there's something wrong with us.
Is that happening in your school system? So tell us,
and I think just broadly, we have to draw lines
(01:03:59):
between their story and our story. We have to be
willing to say when they say our country is being stolen,
we have to be willing to say no, no, the
country is being shared for the first time ever. When
they say that, you know, white Americans are being discriminated against.
We say no, Their structured overrepresentation from the White House
(01:04:22):
down to the school board is inequitable and not natural.
When they say diversity is cold for replacement, we say
diversity is a minimal baseline for reclusion, right minimal. And
when they say that our children are being indoctrinated, we
should say no. Misinformation is the key in doctrination. That's
(01:04:45):
what this is about. So, you know, I think just
waking up, really seeing what's in stake, being very concerned
about there being an authoritarian dictation about what can be
taught and what shouldn't, realizing that our country is sliding
in a very difficult direction. And if we care about democracy,
(01:05:07):
we have to care about racial justice. There's no day
life between supporting our democracy and supporting racial equity and inclusion.
The two are the same.
Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
When I tell you thank you for the work that
you have done, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, CJ. Hunt,
I have a much less sincere goodbye for you.
Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
That's fine, See at work, dude, I'll see you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
You guys keep us laughing and keep us learning.
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Absolutely do that honor is ours. You gave us concepts
that folks are using in the street, and now Republicans
are trying to make a legal So thank you for
giving us these concepts. We will protect them.
Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Thank you, Thank you all so much. To the listeners,
I hope that we took you beyond, and I hope
you enjoyed that wonderful Thanksgiving leftover food sandwich we just
served the Lass. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the
Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you
(01:06:22):
get your podcasts.
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes. And I see people always
ask me to say, Roy, what do you mean when
you say the Daily Show? Beyond the scenes? All right? So,
like you ever had Thanksgiving dinner, that's the Daily Show.
But then you know them little scraps and a little
turkey and a little bit of dressing, and you take
all that and you just make a sandwich. You ever
(00:27):
had like one of them sandwiches three days after Thanksgiving
where it's just layers of stuff you had all weekend.
That's what this podcast is. This is the turkey and dressing, macaroni, greens,
spinach and corn bread sandwich. That gives you a deeper
look into what we do here on the show and
how those segments are made, and where we are now
(00:49):
on those issues. Today we're going to be you know,
we were normally pretty heavy on Beyond the Scenes, but this
time this week, we're going with something a little lighter,
something easy, something easier to digest. Critical Race Theory wrote
a clip.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
There's growing backlash tonight against what critics call the indoctrination
of public school students in an anti white curriculum. It
has to do with the teaching of what is called
critical race theory.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Critical race theory teaches people and our children to judge
one another not based on the content of their character,
but solely on the color of their skin. It would
have our children growing up hating this country and hating
one another.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
It teaches more or less that America is inherently racist,
stating more or less that if you're born white, you
are necessarily racist.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Essentially, every white person should apologize for being white and
what happened two hundred plus years ago.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Just because I do not want critical race theory taught
to my children in school does not mean that I'm
a racist, dammit. Ravo tearing up as like a white
woman's go to move for getting out of any sticky situation.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Well, if it got me out of a speeding ticket,
let's see if it works on a historical recommend.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
To help me understand exactly what the hell critical race
theory is. But first we're gonna have to backtrack to
a little bit of the outrage. But to help me
do that, we brought in some of the big guns.
This brother, you've heard them on the show before. What
time is this on the show for you? CJ?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Is this second second?
Speaker 5 (02:28):
But I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I needed it feels like the fifth time you've been
on the show. That is the voice of Daily Show
producer CJ. Hunt, and that very very kind laugh that
you heard this. This is a woman that she's gonna
break a lot of stuff down to us, and first
we're gonna have to hold her accountable for a couple
of things. CJ. I'm I'm gonna say one thing and
then you say slash Okay, lawyer slash civil rights advocate,
(02:56):
slash philosopher, slash professor slash leading scholar and the namer
of Critical Race theory slash co founder and executive director
of the African American Policy Form. It's Kimberley Crenshaw. How
are you doing?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
I am just delighted. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Before we get into any of this, the first thing
we need to do is really talk about the reactions
that have come out with regards to this discussion around
critical race theory. Now. I don't know how often you
are able to watch the Daily Show, because you know
you have about I think, what did I count, CJ?
Seven job exactly? Anybody with more than three jobs, you
(03:44):
ain't really got time to be sitting still on the
RECT because you're out there in the fight. I don't know.
I'll be honest, I don't know any activists that has
a favorite TV show, So I know you're out there.
I know you're busy. We have a digital series that's
called Solve Mysteries MAGA Edition.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Okay, okay, so then you already know where I'm trying
to uncover all the mysteries of MAGA and we did
one on CRT. Maybe we should roll that clip first.
Let's producer Alan give us that, give us that Unsolved
Mysteries first. In the nineteen seventies, legal scholars began to
examine the influence of institutional racism on the nation's laws.
(04:25):
They called this movement critical race theory or CRT. Who's
down with CRT at the GOP? And yet the more
conservatives talk about CRT, the more you start to wonder
does anyone even wikipedia this thing?
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Critical race theory is a religion of secularism and guilt.
Critical race theory is the denial of critical thinking.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Critical race theory is a device design to capture white guilt.
It is about working to change and overthrow infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
In ideology that threatens to overturn the advances of human
civilization over the last five hundred years.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Ask conservatives what CRT is, and they'll say, it's a theory,
a religion, a device, and an ideology. This thing's got
more necessary features jammed into it than Microsoft word, So
Professor Crunshaw. Republicans are saying that critical race theory is Marxist,
it's racist. It's also somehow related to the infrastructure of
(05:28):
this country. What the hell have you created? There's got
these I'm gonna go ahead and say it, CJ. You
got these white people, mostly white people. You've got a
lot of people furious, curious.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Over this theory slash religion slash device you've invted. Who
knew that?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So upset, so upset that now they're going and getting
a little bit of history that was in the textbooks
for black people. They're like, no, we got that. You
know what, Doctor King, don't need to be in that,
Nomo doctor. You know what. The plan was a group
of boy Scouts who just did a little bonfire from
time to time.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Civil rights movement was just a dispute about water fountains.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, it was black people power walking for their health.
Everybody knows that's what the sealm of the Montgomery March
was all about. CJ. People know that.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
It's about self care.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Really, just walk us through the elements of what you
created and why you think those are the things that
people are so scared about and have locked in on
with regards to critical race theory.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I so appreciate this on ramp into critical race theory
because so many times the question starts with what is
it about y'all? What did y'all do to make everybody
so mad? So you have to answer as though it
was it's a legitimate question, rather than what is it?
And how is it that this fringe complaint, this this
(07:00):
grievance has come from the far right to the middle
of American politics, Like what happened? How did this happen?
And should we be afraid? So I want to start
with saying the real question is why is it that
the functional equivalent of book burning, like pushing tanahas she
coaches out of the curriculum. Ruby Bridges, who is who
(07:23):
wrote an autobiography about the segregating schools, Brian Stephenson, you
know Brian Stephenson's book, you know, being the object of
so much complaining. I want people to come into the
conversation thinking, how in the hell has this happened that
all of these projects, these important pieces of American history
(07:47):
are now being framed as the beginning of the end
of Western civilization. I want people just to be like
asking that question, as I say, what critical eyesteria is
so critical or eesteria is simply classically a legal investigation
into why, after two decades of civil rights laws we
(08:10):
still have so many yawning inequalities across health, wealth, How
the police interact with us, what schools do to us.
All of these are still markers of racial inequality, and
so critical race theorists, we're simply asking questions about how
racial inequality is embedded in law. Even though we might
(08:34):
have formal commitments to color blindness, color blindness is not enough,
and in some ways color blindness masked, how racial inequality
continues to function in our society. That's all critical race
theory really is.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So here's the thing in CJ and I we went
to Boston to explore, you know, this idea of racism
and who's aware of it and who is like CJ,
how much of this do you believe is blind ignorance?
Versus racist just digging in their heels, going absolutely not.
(09:11):
We will not look into the systemic issues over the
last blah blah blah decades, y'all tripping. We gave you
a couple rights. You ain't a slave no more. Why
you're so mad? Versus the people we met in Boston
who were just like, no, I just live around white people.
I got a white school book, and I just never
I just never thought about what you all were going through.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
I think it can be both. I don't remember who
said this, but there's a point at which ignorance is
not malicious itself, but if held onto in the face
of facts, becomes malicious. Right, So, like what I think
is so funny and wild is critical race theories. Like, yo,
let's look at the connections between race history and the law.
(09:52):
And right now your folks on Front Street being like,
do not look at the connections, Do not teach my
kid connections. So I think it is a it's this
moment where we're seeing whiteness in a different way, right,
Like we're used to talking about white supremacy is like
a privilege to not get pulled over by the police,
but it is literally the privilege to be dumber to
(10:14):
say out loud, please pass laws to make my kids
books smaller, like that's that's a crazy amount of privilege
to ask lawmakers to teach your kids less. So we
saw it in Boston of folks being like, you know,
there were some folks who were like, I guess I
just haven't thought about it. But the fundamental thing we
saw first Roy in Boston was people being like, that's
(10:35):
racist that you're even.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Asking mm hm.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
The question was is racism a problem here? And people
are like, how dare you profile us with that question?
And that's the that's the heart of the pushback against CRT.
How dare you bring up that there is even connections
that's racist?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, I think that. The thing that's interesting, Professor Crenshaw
is that, you know, people tend to become enraged by
stuff based on what they see on social media, and
they try to act like CRT is some sort of
new thing, like they tried to even they tried to
take what you push and make it part of some
(11:12):
sort of quote unquote woke movement. But what y'all have
been doing has been going on since the since the AFRO,
like even before the Jerry curl y'all was out there
doing the right thing.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
It's like, what is this new hairstyle? The hairstyles in
our schools, we'd be like, what it's been here?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
What made you and others doing that? Seventies era?
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
What made you all sit and look and go? You
know what? Things aren't moving fast enough. There needs to
be a different way of looking because to a degree,
what you're trying to do is measure like, there's data
points that you have to start finding for something that's
a little blobulous, which is bigger. Try it's hard to
like always because you can hide it. So what made
(12:03):
you all start down this journey in the seventies with
CR two?
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah? Well, I'd like to tell it as a story
of the kids who were watching the civil rights movement
at home, wanting to get involved in it, waiting for
our turn, and when we finally, you know, got past
the baton, the game had changed, but it hadn't. So
I went to Harvard Law School as a graduate from
(12:29):
Africana Studies with an intention to run the next leg
of the race. I wanted to be a lawyer. I
wanted to learn the special words that you could you know,
throw out and the doors to equal opportunity would open.
And so, like many students in my generation, we went
to Harvard to study with Derek Bell, who was like
(12:52):
the godfather of racism and American law. His book was
a book that a lot of us read. It had
a picture in the inside of Tom Smith and John
Carlos with that black power salute, which we wanted, right.
We wanted to run the race. We want to learn
how to be excellent lawyers. But we were not going
to leave our people behind. The whole point of doing
(13:14):
it is to draw attention to the unfinished work of
the civil rights movement. But when we got there, he
was gone, and so was the sense that there was
still work that needed to be done that the law
school was willing to do. So the law school basically
told us, no, we're not going to teach you race, racism,
and American law. No, we're not going to hire scholars
(13:38):
of color because the pool is really shallow. Basically, there
are no qualified people here. And yes, we are an
equal opportunity institution. And so they dumped this on us
precisely at a time when the law more broadly was
pulling back from the forward momentum. The law was basically saying,
you know what, if you can't find you a racist
(14:01):
in the woodpile, then there is no racial problem. There
is no discrimination. They had no ability to think about
structural racism, no ability to think about how history had
placed us in these moments where we were in institutions
where there were virtually no scholars of color in them,
and they were telling us that this was race neutral.
(14:22):
So it prompted us to ask questions about, well, what
is behind this race neutral stuff? What do you have
to be to be a law professor at Harvard? Well,
you kind of have to have had gone to Harvard
or help. You had to have been interested in a
time during segregation, in any other issue but segregation, right,
(14:43):
So being a civil rights lawyer apparently didn't qualify you
to be a professor at Harvard Law School. So it
just allowed us to see what the second layer of
exclusion was. It allowed us to think that the lunch
counters in the eighties are now these elite institutions that
are keeping people like us out, but are saying that
(15:07):
they're doing it simply because we're not qualified. So that
prompted us to ask, what is qualification prompted us to
ask what is structural inequality? It prompted us to ask,
how is the law not keeping up with the way
that race continues to function? And that's how we eventually
became critical race theorious. We created our own course, we
(15:29):
taught out of Derek Bell's book. We had people fly
in from across the country who were these so called
non qualified people. And eventually this group of students, this
group of law professors, other people who are asking the
same questions, Hey, why are our housing patterns still so segregated?
Why are police still able to pull us over simply
(15:51):
because we're driving? While black people were asking these questions,
and we all came together and recognized there was still
a their thing and people weren't talking about that they're there,
and so we called that need to talk about it
critical race theory.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
What's wild to me is I grew up in the
eighties and nineties in you know, and and came into
adulthood during Obama's presidency. So all I've ever known is
the post racial sort of myth about oh we're over
it U. And now, you know, out of twenty twenty,
all of a sudden, like folks learned what structural racism is.
(16:30):
But what's wild? Hearing you talk about that is like, yeah,
if you were in law school in the seventies, you
are literally making the concept of structural racism for a
country that only understands racism as like dogs and fire hoses.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And also on top of that, you're making this construct
and then you're trying to present it to people who
don't even agree that there is a problem. You are
trying to help investigate something that a lot of people do.
It may as well be bigfoot theory. Why is bigfoot
in the forest and not in an urban area? They
would just go, there's no bigfoot, get out of here.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
And some of the people who didn't want to hear
it actually are allies. Right. But the great unspoken in
this is that critical race theory, of course, has been
around for now three decades, but we're only talking about
it right now because the far right has politicized it.
(17:30):
We could have been talking about critical race theory for
the last thirty years. We could have had an understanding
of structural racism long before George Floyd lost his life
to it. We could have had these conversations, but we
didn't partly because kind of everybody agrees that racism should
(17:51):
be thought about solely in terms of a bad actor
or bad apples or bad people. So when people hear
the term racism, they think, oh, you're saying something's bad
about me or something I harbor evil in my heart,
when in fact, although there are a lot of people
who do, what we're talking about is how our systems
(18:13):
consistently reproduce that which is embedded in it, and anti
black racism has been embedded in policing, in housing, and education,
in medicine, almost every arena. There is a history of
African Americans in particular, and also other people of color
being pushed out or being marginalized, and that stuff now
(18:36):
becomes just a natural feature of the world. So it's
not just the conservatives who eventually who initially didn't want
to hear it. It was some of our colleagues and
critical legal studies. It was some of our liberal friends,
you know, who really thought that this whole thing would
work itself out if we just stopped paying attention to race.
(18:58):
So now we see what's happened to that argument. Now
in the language of the folks who are coming after
critical race theory. It is paying attention to race. That's
the problem. Anti racism is the new racism, not the
old racism that we've had for centuries.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Did you even think when you will? I know, in
the seventies you didn't think in a million years that
Trump would be president. But did you think when you
all first started on this journey that you would sit
in the crosshairs of the federal administration? Like Trump straight
up bandit. He was like, nah, don't teach about anything.
(19:37):
Suggest Yeah, he said, don't do it. Fox News followed suit,
and you know, anything Trump says, Fox News is going
to pay it. For three four months, they mentioned critical
race theory over fourteen hundred times on their channel, Like
did you think that it would the grounds because you know,
like for a while, it feels like little engine that
could Hey, I can you carry this curriculum? I know,
(20:00):
come on, y'all, let's just keep going and keep trying.
And one day and then the next thing, you know,
it's people going, yeah, you were anti racist. This was
I can't remember the gentleman's name, but he had written
an article. I think he'd written the article up in
Milwaukee or somewhere. He written an article commenting on the
City of Seattle's anti racism training, of which a lot
(20:23):
of it was. The spine of it was CRT curriculum,
and the whole country was like, Oh, did you think
you were picking your afro when you were rubbing afrochene
in your hair in nineteen seventy one with that black
afro pick, that black afro fist pick. Did you think
(20:45):
did you think in twenty twenty one you will be
going toe to toe with the whole government?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
No? I didn't, But I guess the question might also
be roy should I should I have anticipated it? And
when we look at this historically, there are all kinds
of reasons to suggest that this framework talking about, you know,
racism was eventually going to be politicized as the new race,
(21:15):
because we've seen it happen before. If we go all
the way back to you know, the year that the
change came off of African Americans, right eighteen sixty six,
there was a law that was created to provide equal
opportunity in contracting and property rights. The president vetoed equal opportunity,
(21:43):
just black people should have the same rights. It's white
people have to make a contract. He vetoed it and
said no, to give y'all rights is to take something
away from white people, right, So I mean that's like
when you know, we still had the mark on our hands.
So if you could do that a year after, we're
(22:04):
free to say that doing anything that's anti racist is
racist against white people, you can do it. Then you
could do it throughout history. And it turns out they
have right. They took away our right to vote because
that took away from white people's right to rule. They
took away right to integration because as they said, you know,
(22:24):
forcing you to serve us or forcing us to go
to school with you is discrimination against us. And I'll
take it even to the last moment when I should
have seen it coming for critical ace theary y'all, I
don't think you're too young to remember, but maybe when
OJ gott to quit it a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Of way I remember, hell.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
I mad, I mean really really angrious, And they were
looking for someone to blame. So guess who they blamed
for critical race theory. Like all twelve of us, we basically,
you know, put on our ninja outfits and it ran
into the jury's rooms and whispered sweet nothings in their
(23:06):
ears at Night basically our treatises on race, and that's
what forced them to acquit OJ. So they tried it
in the early nineties. It didn't work because there wasn't
Fox News. There wasn't a president sitting in the White
House listening to everything Fox News had with a pen
that he could use to censor all of this stuff.
(23:27):
So it didn't work then. But these are the conditions
around which is working now.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
You could just summarize the whole history of white backlash
with They tried.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
It and kept trying it, and kept trying it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, now, to be fair, but that OJ trial, it
was a lot of black people going he did it,
but y'all lock us up for nothing. We won't even
get free for nothing. Finally, OJ was the moment CJ
where it felt like racism worked in our favor.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
You're going to pretend that I didn't remember when OJ had.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
No I'm asking you if that was the because I
watched the OJ trial in Birmingham, and you know how
racism flows through the city through Alabama, right, It just
it felt like the one the first time in a
long time where Wow, racism worked for us this one time, yay,
(24:22):
And I think that infuriated, like there's always a backlash anytime,
but I just have a theory professor. There's always a
backlash from black people who are happy. Too many black
people happy, Okay, too.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Many black people together? Like what y'all doing over there?
But why y'all all sitting together?
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Your joy is threatening to me?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Are there any valid criticisms of CRT that you've heard
from right wing media? You know, other than could be
in marxist and it being racist against white people. I
know that those two are valid, but are there any others.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
From from right wing media? Know? But I mean, can't
be surprised about that because their critiques are not of
the ideas. They even say they couldn't give I can't
say what they said, but they said they don't care
about the ideas. It's not a debate about any of
(25:19):
the content of critical race theory. What it is is
a misinformation campaign that they have called tea party to
the tent. They realize that we have unfinished business, insensitivities
around race, grievances around race, so they take this concept
they throw everything in it that has to do with
(25:39):
anti racism, from structural racism to even implicit bias a
lot of people thought implicit bias. Y'all can get with that, right,
because we're not saying you're intending to do these things.
It's just hardwired because we've given a society is that okay,
(26:01):
we don't even want to talk about that. So if
you if you recognize that it's not about what it's called,
it's not about the content other than it is saying
that racism is real, it shapes important ways where our
society has landed. Who gets what what kind of lives
(26:22):
certain people have by race? Just to say that race
is still a problem, racism is still a problem. That's
what is the huge, you know, sort of offense that
they're now offended by. So their feelings about talking about
racism are more important than our experiences of actually dealing
(26:45):
with racism. I don't know what's more fragile than that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I'll give you a criticism. I think that that word
race is what scare people. So maybe we just need
a different maybe, like instead a critical race theory. Like
is thing every business and entity goes through. Logo changes,
rebrand is what they call it in the marketing world.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
Right, So Domino dominoes.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Exactly dunkin Donuts is now Duncan.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Radio Shock Donuts Radio Shackle.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Went out of business business.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
So how about this, Why don't we why don't we
debate whether we should rebrand black people so we know
anti black racism is real, so we could say, okay, here,
here's the way we're gonna deal with that. There are
no more black people. We're not gonna call ourselves black.
We're gonna call ourselves we're We're just people, and that
(27:43):
is our rebrand. So if they can't find us, they
can't discriminate against it. That wouldn't work because it's it's
not that that's all.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
This is good. This is good right now. Like you're
talking critical race theory, I'm thinking moderated melanine methodologies like that.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So we lived there for about for about six months
until they realize who moved into this.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The melanin curriculum, accelerated millinated curriculum, and NATed vouchers. You know,
because I've said the same thing about defund the police,
we know what that actually means. It's getting the police
to do less work for the same amount of money
and redirecting resources and blah blah blah blah blah. But
the word defund. That's it. Like if you told if
(28:35):
you was in a relationship, you told your girl you
was going to defund the relationship people, So we just
got to come up with new words. We'll work on that.
Matter of fact, let's let's take a quick break.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
What about race conscious patriotism and patriot my patriotism is
grounded and looking at race.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
These are all great ideas. We're going to come back
to break and discuss a little bit more about CRT.
This is beyond the scenes. We're talking about critical race theory. CJ.
I want to start with you right now because, as
we've heard from the first this whole first run of
what we've been discussing, this is a complicated topic. There
(29:17):
are a lot of layers to it. And on the
Daily Show generally, when we're talking about issues, it doesn't
matter how simple or how complicated it is. You have
four minutes. You have four minutes maybe five if Trevor's
feeling generous that week, to explain this and make it funny.
And we've done I think you know, four or five
(29:39):
segments on this topic. You know, as of recent talk
to me about the challenges of figuring out what to
leave in and what to leave out, because the first
thing you have to do is almost unpack the same
as what we did at the beginning of this program,
unpack what it is why people are mad, and then
start getting the jokes in there. So talk to me
(29:59):
a little bit about the creative process of putting these
pieces together.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Given that we only have like five minutes or four minutes,
especially with the topic critical race theory, I think I
think it's working in our favor. Like one of my
favorite pieces is the Unsolved Mega Mystery that you do
for critical race theory. I just love it because you
don't spend a long time defining critical race theory. You
are literally just like you know in the seventies, these
(30:24):
scholars came up with this idea. But watching everyone get
so worked up about an obscure, graduate level theory makes
me wonder, does literally anyone on the right know what
critical race theory is?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Right, Like, if you just.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
Broke down the minutes, the minutes dedicated in the four minutes,
the second count to how long you spent describing what
critical race theory is versus how long you show the
hysteria of people being like it is it's a device
it's a religion. It's gonna make the kids hate this country.
I think that that's actually really dope, you know what
(30:57):
I mean that the time pressure of we only have
this amount of time means that you don't get lost
trying to play defense. You play offense and are just
like this is the crazy things that people are saying
critical race theory.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Is, Professor Crenshaw, where do you think critical race theory
compares to other big right wing issues? You know, if
we're talking let's say, abortions, or gun laws or even
now mask mandates, which you know seems to be all
the craze to show up at a school board meeting
(31:33):
and punch strangers. Do you wish that you were as
divisive of an issue as some of those or are
you cool with where you are or like? Because it's
interesting in that how I'm trying to think, here's here's
a nicer way to ask this question. How much bigger
(31:53):
of a fighter you prepared for critical race theory to
put gum in this country?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
That's it? That's okay, that's great question. So I would
be happy to turn this huge platform that they've put
critical race theory on into a platform that advances what
(32:18):
critical race theory is actually about. Right, So now there's
name recognition to critical race theory. We couldn't have bought
that much media. With all the money in the world,
we could not have bought it. So now the question is,
since everyone has the container, everyone's heard of it, how
do we use this moment to fill it with the
(32:40):
information that people who practice critical race theory every day
can say, oh, yeah, I do that, I do that.
So here's here's here's a point. Critical race theory is practice.
I think every time most black people go outside, every
time you see every time you.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
See it's happening when black people go outside, I know it.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
You're like, okay, hands on the steering wheel, pull over slowly.
You have a theory about what may happen to you
based on what has happened to millions of black people.
You don't know for sure, you but you have a theory.
When you go into the star and someone's following you,
(33:27):
you have a theory about what they're thinking. So we
practice race theory every day. I just want the opportunity
for people to hear what it really is so they
could say, oh, yeah, that's exactly the truth about what
it means to be black in the society.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I've traveled a half million road miles in my car
and anytime and this is what Alabama tags. Anytime I
was outside the state of Alabama, I didn't wear a
hat in my Like just the idea of passing a
speed trapping a cop seeing me in a baseball hat,
just thinking, oh, yeah, the time, let's get them, like
(34:11):
like we're past the seat belt now I'm sitting up
straight and ten and two. Look at me, officer. Wow,
that's I don't drive rental cars without a state plates.
Even when I fly and I get a rental car,
I need a rental car that's registered for the state
that i'm driving it in. No, you're not gonna know.
Speaker 5 (34:33):
I love that grounding it in an emotion and being
like non white people know this as an emotion. Right,
Like when we see a cop who killed an unarmed
black man in broad daylight get off. We have a
theory about why that happened. When we see you know,
white neo Nazis storm the Capitol to kill congressman and
(34:55):
they nothing happens, we have a theory as to something
happening in the law and race that is making that happen,
and I just love that you're naming it not as
an invention, but as placing a name on something that
we already intuitively know works about the world.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And we know why it is so important for the
other side to take the name away from us, because
if you can't conceptualize an experience, if you can't name
an experience, you can't solve an experience. So you know,
this is consistent with what they've done to us throughout history.
We weren't able to read. It was against the law
(35:34):
to be able to read. It was against the law
to testify in court against white people. It's been against
the law to agitate for abolition. So whenever there is
capacity to name our experience, to transform it, that's been
the key objective of retrenchment, to take that away. So yeah,
(35:59):
we're fighting about the content of what we do. We're
fighting to be able to name our experience. And of
course they're fighting not only to take away our ability
to name our experience, but to vote to change our experience,
to protest, to object to our experience. These are all
things that are happening by the same people, supported by
(36:22):
the same money, and advanced by the same politicians. We
need to connect these dots so that people know. You
might have not heard of critical ace theory, but you know,
critical ace theory, it's the life that we're all living
right now.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I've encountered black folks who are like, well, you know
critical race theory is. You know, I don't want to
be dividing people, and I use an analogy I've heard
you say before about asbestos. Can you tell our listeners
that analogy? This is what I go through all the time.
And people are like, oh okay.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Well, you know we tell people if you really care
about a social problem, the last thing you can do
is try to penalize the people who have the expertise
to tell you where the problem is. So let's take
our institutions. For example, we built them with asbest as
tucked in everywhere because that's just how we built things
(37:16):
at the time. Well, it turns out as best this
is toxic. It kills people. So what's the solution, you know,
to the fact that we have as beestess in our institution?
Do we say the solution to it is not to
use the word as bestess, not to look for aware
as best this might be, not to use tools to
(37:37):
try to remove as best as and now to even
criminalize people who are teaching people where to find as
bestics to remove this toxic we that would be ridiculous,
We would never think that makes any sense. But we
think that exact thing about race. So the solution to
racism don't talk about race. So see race, don't teach
(38:01):
people how to I goodify racism and penalize and criminalize
those people who have that expertise. That's what we're doing
when we say critical race theory, anti racism is the
problem rather than it is the solution to that problem.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
I love that analogy because it's like, yeah, white supremacy
is asbestos. It is built into all of the structures.
Some of us have known that it has always been there,
and other people have just been going about their day.
And then when you're like, hey, this is built into everything,
they're like, how dare you do you not like this building?
And we're like, no, the building's fine. I like living here.
(38:40):
I just want to make sure it doesn't kill me.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So basically what you're saying is if there is a
problem and it's detrimental when it comes to race, it's
important to speak up and say something, but when it
comes to love and relationships, just don't bring it up
at all because.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
They're right, it'll go away.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Well yeh yeah, I'll work that out later.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Those are a lot of great solutions, but I want
after the break to talk with you a little bit
more about the hard legal solutions that may be in place,
and whether or not they're smaller moral victories that you
can count between the last time you had that afro
in seventy one and you was roller skating with a
(39:25):
dude named Stucky to the Soakhop. I want to talk
to you about the legal victories and the moral victories
that you've had between then and now with regards to
critical race theory. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be
right back. We're talking critical race theory with Daily Show
producer C. J. Hunt and the wonderful, wonderful professor, scholar, activist, lawyer. Astronaut.
(39:53):
Are you an astronaut yet? What else have you not
done yet? Professor Kimberley Crenshaw, How are you?
Speaker 4 (40:01):
I'm great, I'm great, enjoying being here with you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Okay, so no to astronaut, but not yet, but I'm
sure it's coming.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
I'd like to mention that all of those different sort
of identities that Roy has named, that fits into a
new theory that I've developed, that one person can hold
multiple identities and live at the intersection of those identities.
What do you guys think of this idea that I've developed.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
No, No, and that's Marxist and it's wrong. When I
was coming up, you had one job, you went to
a career day, and you got one job. It wasn't
all this slash multi heightened. What is a multi hyphen?
Are you telling me you identify as a hyphen?
Speaker 5 (40:40):
You hate America? Now, doctor Crenshaw, you think my idea
has some legs?
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Though? About these intersecting I know every now and then
when I complain about stuff, people say, you know, there's
a theory that somebody came up about that explains that.
What's it called intersectionality? Yes, but I can still be
mad about it, right.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
I love when Republicans are crapping on intersectionality. In one sentence,
they're like, they can't teach our kids critical race theory, privilege, intersectionality.
I I'm not just a white woman, I'm a Republican.
And you're like, you are naming intersectionality, and their objection
is not to intersectionality, it's to us using it, Like, give.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Me that idea, I'm going to use it to explain
my grievance.
Speaker 5 (41:29):
Yes, I hold multiple identities. I'm a mother, I'm a teacher.
You're like, that's intersectionality.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, before we get into and you know, as we
get ready to bring this conversation home, before we get
into a lot of the pushback that you're starting to
receive now at the legal level, are there any small
victories that you've been able to measure with regards to
your push for critical race theory, you know, over the decades,
(41:57):
Like the fact that I find it, And I know
this isn't a victory, but it is something small in that,
you know, I grew up in a time where the
only real information I got about the world was from school.
When I got in the fifth grade, my mother ordered
a world book, Encyclopedias, and that was it. I would
(42:19):
sit and read Encyclopedias like an actual just book, the
same way you read Bearstain Bears. I would just read
the letter V and that would be my book for
the month. Like the access to information that younger people
have now do you feel like this conversation at minimum
gives them a place to go and seek out new
(42:41):
troops or additional data outside of the traditional school systems,
which will.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Get into next. Well, you know, I think the Internet
is both the bane of our existence and the possibility
for overcoming this censorship. I mean, one of the things
we know about young people is when you tell them
not to do something basically agreeing light neon lights say
come over here, look at this thing that we don't
want you to know anything about. So, you know, I
(43:08):
said earlier that one of the objectives is to take
this platform that has been created by this misinformation and
actually present it in a way that allows people whose
lives actually are all of those dimensions of critical race
theory that we've been writing about it allows them to
(43:29):
see it and to understand it. So the reality is
that despite all of the consternation, less than ten percent
of the classrooms really talk about race at all. Now
we have a new moment in which more people are
talking about race, and hopefully more people will find their
(43:50):
way to actually having access to material that shapes this.
And by that I don't mean you know, the long
law review articles that we make. I mean the kind
of things that you guys are doing, the short hits
that really educate people and allow them to see that
there is a there there that the other side is
(44:12):
trying to erase, and they're trying to erase it with
you know, the sort of authoritarian This is the story
about America that we will allow, and no other story
can we tolerate. I think it's great for people to
see this actually happening in real time and demand the
true stories that some of these politicians are trying to
(44:33):
deny them.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
Are you finding any joy in watching these politicians not
realizing that they're talking about black history more than they've
ever talked about it. They're like, don't you teach my
kid about the dread Scott decision which made the law.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Harwy Coulson massacre, you know, that destroyed Black Wall Street
and made it clear that actually black people can succeed.
It's just that their success makes many many white folks
at the time so angry that they prefer to destroy
them rather than to just let them be. These these
moments of history are seeping in, and it really is
(45:17):
up to us to open the door wider, bring more
people in in various ways, through humor, through short moments
of going to historical sites and saying, let me tell
you what happened here, and importantly, why what happened here
is important? Today? A lot of these laws aren't saying
(45:40):
simply we can't talk about the past. What they're saying
is we can't talk about the past in a way
that makes white folks feel bad and in a way
that shows that the past still lives among us. So
our goal is both to talk about those and make
people understand that down on which we stand is created
(46:02):
by these historical policies and practices. I think we're a
long way away from where we were before, when people
didn't talk about race at all.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Talk to me, I guess. I guess the difference now
between you know, Tulsa and today is that a lot
of what we see instead of, you know, the blatant
eradication through violence, you see the eradication and attacks on
a black community through policy and through laws. Talk to
me a little bit about some of the laws that
(46:35):
are starting to trickle down. I guess what I'm trying
to ask you, in a nice way, how guilty will
you feel when that first black teacher stands up in
front of a classroom and attempts to teach her class
about Tulsa in a school district that said, and she
goes to jail, will you put money on her books? Well,
(46:57):
this is your fault, first of jail.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Well, first of all, the consequences have already started to happen.
Amy Donofrio. Everybody should look her up. She's a white
school teacher in a seventy percent black school, teaching black
young men about the historical determinants of many of the
(47:20):
things that happened to them. Her class was so successful
that they got to go to the White House, so
successful that they won a competition at Harvard, so successful
that the school district defunded her program and ultimately fired her.
So you know, the consequences are happening right now. These
(47:43):
laws have basically said teachers can be fired, they can
be fined five thousand dollars for every infraction. School systems
can lose up to ten percent of their budgets. Teachers
can be de licensed. In fact, this is what's happening
to Amy right now in Florida. So this is an
(48:03):
attack on schools, public schools, It's an attack on teachers.
It's an attack on anti racism, and it's an attack
on people of color. So we have to recognize that
the public school system is, as they call it, the
incubators of democracy. We have to understand that the basic
(48:23):
logic of Brown versus Board of Education was that segregated
education undermined our ability to participate in democracy. Well, this
is basically segregation two point zero. We're going to talk
about this, and we're not going to talk about that,
And it turns out everything we're not going to talk
(48:45):
about explains how we got to where we are today.
So yeah, I'm not going to feel guilty. What I'm
going to feel is we are in the fight for
our laves and we are.
Speaker 5 (49:00):
Do you feel like teachers recognize that betrayal? Do you
feel like they are looking at what we are looking
at and seeing that a party that has spent the
last decade raging against censorship and standing up for academic freedom,
So some professor can use it, Yes, so some academic freedom,
So some professor can use the N word. Do you
(49:21):
feel like these teachers are watching this party now passing
laws so that kids cannot understand where the N word
comes from? Oh?
Speaker 4 (49:28):
And I so want to put a point on what
you just said that we are now in a ploint
where I can walk on a campus and perhaps be
called the in word, or my students can go to
classes and have to deal with another professor writing inward
on the blackboard. But it might be they might not
be able to take critical race theory to understand where
(49:51):
the in word came from. This is the huge asymmetry
that we're facing, along with the idea that like, students
are too fre to hear about the history, but we're
sturdy enough to have experienced it. So yes, I do
think that teachers, the AFT, the NEA are fully aware
that this is just another chapter of the attack on
(50:14):
public education, the attack on equal citizenship, the attack on
learning our history. In order to correct for its long
term consequences, people are on the same page. The question
is whether the politicians.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Are Does this okay? So then to the point with
the politicians, does this have a ripple effect into voters
and voting and voting suppression? Like what are some of
the other how the tentacles of CRT, What are the
issues do they reach out in touch?
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Yeah, well, I mean you put your finger on it.
There is currently an effort to push voters like us
out of the political equation. There's an effort to silence
our voices. There's an effort to make sure that last
summer never happen again. There's an effort to make sure
that the election never happens again. And the reality is
(51:06):
it has happened before. Right, Remember, we used to have
black senators, We used to have black lieutenant governors. We
used to have a whole cohort of elected officials in
the nineteenth century, like a couple years after slavery. So
when they shut it down, they shut it down not
(51:29):
for a season, it was for a century. These moves
that are being made today, they're out of an old playbook,
and unfortunately we don't often know the plays because we
haven't been taught this stuff, and they want to make
sure that people are not taught this stuff. That's why
the fight is for the future, not just for twenty
(51:49):
twenty two and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (51:51):
The playbook analogy is so good because it's like, yes,
the very chapters of history that are now illegal in
some states because of CRT or dumb dumb laws, right, Like,
those very same chapters are things that like we need
to understand what the hell is happening now. It's like,
don't teach about white supremacy and reconstructions. Oh so you
(52:12):
don't want to teach about an expansion of black democracy
undermined by white supremacy who then disenfranchise our voters because yeah,
based yeah, based on a lot of lies. Yeah, I
think that. I think that's wild. I also, can you
speak to some of the language in these bills, because
(52:32):
what I find so like Twilight Zone, is that they
are they are using civil rights language to then flip it.
I've seen bills that are diversity bills. There are bills
to support diversity in schools that they try to tack
on a CRT ban inside of it, and like are
They're on the floor saying CRT is counter to diversity?
(52:56):
So can you talk about the insane language of some
of these bills?
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Yeah. And one of the things to realize is that
you know, and basically you know, occupying our space. They've
taken our language, they've taken our heroes, and they've kicked
us out of our own community. So Martin Luther King
now plays for their team, right, Martin Luther King is
on our side on this Martin Luther King, does you
(53:20):
know wasn't an advocate for racial justice. He was an
advocate for color blindness.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Well, actually that loved it.
Speaker 4 (53:30):
But you know, part of what they've been able to
do is yank a lot of stuff. So they say,
you know, we don't believe in race stereotyping, we don't
believe in race scapegoating. We don't believe in making people
feel ashamed because of who they are. Okay, so check
(53:50):
check check. Isn't this part of what anti black racism
was about. Isn't this part of what racism against other
people of color were about? They're like, no, this this
what racism against white people is. If you think back
on it. This was a move that they did right
away during the sit in movements. There's this wonderful documentary,
(54:11):
Eyes on the Prize that interviews people who were part
of the sit in and interviews the white people who
didn't want to serve them. And there's this one where
a white woman said, you know, they claim that they
are non violent, but they're most violent. They're making me
serve them. That violates my civil rights. It's like dag on,
(54:34):
you can start with you know, I get to exclude
you and your demand for just integration violates your civil rights.
So these bills are just again a page out of
the old book. We can just take all of the
things that they are saying black people, other people of
(54:55):
color are saying and turn it around and say, we're
the ones that they're being victimized. We're the ones that
are being told we're bad people. We're the ones that
feel bad. So you can't talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
What is it about what you believe? America? Your work,
in my opinion and my humble opinion, your work is
rooted in optimism. Your work is rooted in the optimism
of what we could be as a society and what
we're capable of, full stop. But what is it about
the choice that you've made to go down this road
(55:29):
and fight this battle versus other black people who kind
of lie before, separate but equal. Our own schools, our
own system will teach our kids over here. Let's not
even worry about sending them over there. What kept what
has kept you from crossing over into that? Because it
seems like that would be the logical leap after wall
(55:49):
after wall after wall that you've hit.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Well, you know what's so frightening about this moment, Roy,
is that teaching our own children in our own school
is not a solution to this, because this is applying
to our own children and our own schools. So it's
not just Okay, these bands don't apply to you know,
(56:12):
Lincoln Carver School because it's basically about white feelings. No,
our students are not allowed to learn this stuff. Our
teachers are not allowed to teach this stuff. So this
is basically undermining black education, black educators, and in some
(56:34):
of the same ways that you know, integration did. People
don't know that one of the things that happened after
integration is black teachers, black principles, black administrators lost their jobs.
All of those moments where we learned about who we
were and we had teachers who were deeply invested in
us and believed in us, A lot of that we lost.
(56:58):
And now we're in a moment where where we have
school boards basically dictating to teachers who are now teaching
students of color what they can reveal about the student
of color own history. So there's no escape from this.
This is why we have to fight it. This is
not you know, integration versus separation. This is going to
(57:22):
apply to all institutions, and importantly, not just K through
twelve higher education, and not just higher education, diversity inclusion.
Everywhere where race and diversity is discussed will ultimately come
under the power and control of this effort to censor
real conversation about race and racism in American society.
Speaker 5 (57:45):
How much are you thinking about reconstruction in this moment,
because all the time, it's like, you know me, I am,
I have been making a movie about civil war and
reconstruction and I cannot stop thinking about it, specifically because
we had in a rated schools in eighteen seventies, we did,
and this idea that sometimes I think, like, dang, this
(58:07):
is just a cynical strategy Republicans are using to win elections.
But when I look at the language of these bills,
I am like, wow, they have figured out a way
to attack black education, to censor the very words like
privilege and structural racism that folks like y'all invented to
name what was happening to us. So in this moment,
(58:28):
how much are you thinking about the setbacks of reconstruction
and the first time they sort of knocked our feet
out from under pipes.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
I think about it CJ all the time. I was
just doing a talk here in Mar's vineyard last night
and confess that I think a lot about what people
like us were thinking in eighteen sixty six, in eighteen seventy,
(58:58):
in eighteen seventy six, I wonder if they knew now,
if they knew then what we know now, Like how
much we would have been pushed back, how forcefully we
would have been pushed out of being able to vote,
how forcefully we were pushed out of the professions that
(59:19):
so many of us were exercising, how much we would
be denied education? If they saw what was coming, would
they have done anything different? And can we get those
messages in a bottle? Can we think now, all right,
we are in the same position that our people were
(59:40):
in in eighteen seventy six. What lessons can we learn
about what happened that we could now apply at this moment?
And at least one thing I know is that we
need to sound the alarm. We need to allow people
to see that it's not two step forward, one steps back,
(01:00:03):
one step back. Sometimes it's one step forward and two
steps back. Sometimes it's a decade of progress and a
century of retrenchment. So if we understand that that it's
not just automatic. Martin Luther King said, time doesn't do
anything automatically. Right, time could be the enemy of reform.
(01:00:24):
It's what we do in the time that we have.
So right now, what do we do now that we
see the smoke coming, and we see real estate that
we've been occupying and taking care of for decades burning
up in a period of like six months, we've lost
so much. What do we do in response to it?
(01:00:46):
That seems to be the question. And I think our
ancestors are telling us do more than what we did,
because we lost for a century and we cannot afford
to pass this Batia. I don't want to pass this
to the next generation, and I want to believe that
none of us want to pass this to the next generation.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh In with the final question to you, Well, first
I saw where you know, there's a lot of states
that are already banning critical race theory, amongst them Idaho, Oklahoma, Arizona,
South Carolina, Texas, that's to be expected, Tennessee, Iowa. And
then there's one on this list that goes back to
(01:01:26):
what you were talking about earlier, with regards to sometimes allies.
I found it interested in that New Hampshire band or
is restricting the teachers. I don't know if they're a
blue state CJ, but at minimum they swing. You can't
be next door to Bernie and Vermont and be full
hardcore read but as.
Speaker 5 (01:01:47):
This, you can be anywhere and get people to be
like they're going to abolish the suburbs. Anywhere there's a
critical mass of white folks that you can scare that
black people are coming, then you the work that works
in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Last question, what can people do to help you?
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Oh? In this movement, so many things. So people can
go to APF dot org and learn more information about
where these laws are coming. So we have a map
where they can see where they've been passed. We have
information about how to find out whether this is coming
(01:02:30):
to a school board near you. And we need our
parents to become activated. We need our parents to say,
wait a minute, I know that my school is barely
talking about these issues, and now they're trying to ban
them from talking about it at all. So every time
you see some parents going to school boards and acting up,
(01:02:53):
that needs to be a clarion call you know to
our parents that you'll need to get in those school boards.
Y'all need to see what is being taught and not
being taught. Y'all need to say this is absolutely vital
to the future of my child, in the future of
my country, to learn from whence we came so we
can set a path for where we want to go.
(01:03:15):
So active involvement is everything, and we want to hear
the stories. We think that there's much more going on
that we don't know about. So has your school district
said that we will not teach Ruby Bridges anymore? Has
your child come home with stories about why there's inequality
(01:03:35):
that don't point to the real reason and basically implicitly
point the finger at your child And it's your child's
family and our people. If we don't tell the truth,
that leaves the inference that there's something wrong with us.
Is that happening in your school system? So tell us,
and I think just broadly, we have to draw lines
(01:03:59):
between their story and our story. We have to be
willing to say when they say our country is being stolen,
we have to be willing to say no, no, the
country is being shared for the first time ever. When
they say that, you know, white Americans are being discriminated against.
We say no, Their structured overrepresentation from the White House
(01:04:22):
down to the school board is inequitable and not natural.
When they say diversity is cold for replacement, we say
diversity is a minimal baseline for reclusion, right minimal. And
when they say that our children are being indoctrinated, we
should say no. Misinformation is the key in doctrination. That's
(01:04:45):
what this is about. So, you know, I think just
waking up, really seeing what's in stake, being very concerned
about there being an authoritarian dictation about what can be
taught and what shouldn't, realizing that our country is sliding
in a very difficult direction. And if we care about democracy,
(01:05:07):
we have to care about racial justice. There's no day
life between supporting our democracy and supporting racial equity and inclusion.
The two are the same.
Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
When I tell you thank you for the work that
you have done, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, CJ. Hunt,
I have a much less sincere goodbye for you.
Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
That's fine, See at work, dude, I'll see you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
You guys keep us laughing and keep us learning.
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
Absolutely do that honor is ours. You gave us concepts
that folks are using in the street, and now Republicans
are trying to make a legal So thank you for
giving us these concepts. We will protect them.
Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Thank you, Thank you all so much. To the listeners,
I hope that we took you beyond, and I hope
you enjoyed that wonderful Thanksgiving leftover food sandwich we just
served the Lass. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the
Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you
(01:06:22):
get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.