Roy Schimelpfenig tries to tie critical race theory to Marxist ideology (“We are not a racist nation,” Our Readers’ Views, Jan 4), misunderstanding both. Marxism is a political and economic theory that says society’s classes, labor vs. owners, are in perpetual conflict and, to avoid exploitation, workers should own the means of production. Bastardized interpretations of this theory were tried and failed in Russia, Cuba and China, although they persist.
Critical race theory is simply a method of looking at how society applies laws to ethnic minority populations in the U.S.; not an ideology, but a mirror through which legal scholars can compare the application of laws and sentencing outcomes among white and nonwhite populations to see if there is racial bias. Surprise! There is such bias.
The 1776 Project is history as it always has been taught in U.S. schools: only white males created anything of value throughout history. The 1619 Project adds that this nation’s foundations were built primarily with the muscles and skills of involuntary, nonwhite immigrants. The economy of the pre-Civil War South was based on slave labor. Meanwhile, America’s industrial boom ran parallel to the migration of newly freed labor, along with equally despised European immigrants, to cities in the north. Denying racism is lying to ourselves.
