In those societies with a history of colonization and settlement, colonists and settlers control the land and impose rule on the aborigines on this land, form a country to protect their rule and consolidate their advantages. For such a society, it is difficult for them to accept any critical thinking that might expose their racist reality.
The Iranian-American historian and literary critic Hamid Dabahi pointed out in an article published on Peninsula English website that one of the things the colonists and settlers did was to act as if they were the one. The aborigines on the land they violently occupied, and called all those who came to this land after them as “immigrants.” This is a very strange form designed to convince themselves and the world that they Have the right to own this piece of land stolen by them.
The author Dabahi pointed out that these settlers and colonists knew very well that they were not the owners of this land. Therefore, they felt threatened. They acted in strange ways on issues of identity and land attributes—they claimed that it was their land only, and this is what is currently happening on the settled colonial land that we call “the United States.”
According to Dabahi, the racist settlers living in this country are often angry with the term “critical racial theory” because this statement makes what they claim “they own the land on which the United States was founded”. The myth of “right” has lost its legitimacy. In their view, the term “critical racial theory” blasphemed and insulted their feelings and their pride in their motherland.
But what is “critical racial theory”?
The author Dabashi explained that the view promoted by former US President Donald Trump is that this theory is very bad, and it means that if Americans do not choose him to be re-elected as president, or choose another “like him” If a Republican who holds a reactionary and racist view becomes president, then white Americans will be in danger.
According to the author Dabahi, critical racial theory is a school of thought that believes that the main institutions of the United States are racist in nature and are based on ensuring that the state of “white supremacy” can be sustained.
Dabbashi also pointed out that just before Trump chose to focus on this debate in his fierce re-election campaign, the theory was merely a purely academic issue far from the attention of public opinion.
The author pointed out that “after Trump decided to launch an attack on critical racial theory, the theory became a topic of widespread discussion in the United States because it exposed the racist views held by Trump and his supporters.”
From post-colonial theory to critical racial theory
In September 2020, although Trump lags behind Joe Biden in most public opinion polls, the Office of Management and Budget issued a decree requiring all agencies to begin to reduce their involvement with “critical racial theory” or ” “White Privilege” related academic research project contracts or expenditures, or any research or publicity work that promotes the view that the United States is a racist country.
The author Dabashi believes that this means that if you tell the truth and expose the structural roots of American racism, then you will be in trouble, and federal government agencies will hunt you down.
However, the use of the state apparatus and its immense power to siege critical thinking did not start in the Trump era. As early as 20 years ago, “American Zionists” used the same strategy to try to suppress voices criticizing Israel in American universities. The author pointed out that the main target of their attack at the time was the Palestinian American thinker Edward Said.
In October 2003, as the reporter Michel Goldberg explained, the U.S. House of Representatives “unanimously passed a bill urging the international research departments of U.S. universities to give more support to U.S. foreign policy, otherwise they will May not be able to obtain federal funding.”
The law was passed after a hearing that summer. During that hearing, members of Congress heard testimony about Edward Said’s negative influence in the field of Middle Eastern studies, and this influence was Called “anti-Americanism” to a certain extent.
Dabahi believes that those forces tried to ban Edward Said’s ideas and any other form of critical thinking that could expose the roots of racism in the United States and the world. Now, these forces have turned their attention to criticism. Sexual race theory, which has actually existed for decades. It seeks to expose and eliminate the forces that can breed racism and expose the existence of ideas that understand racism as isolated individual behavior. Wrong, such as what Trump, Netanyahu, Macron, and Boris Johnson are doing.
The deep roots of this theory
Dabahi pointed out that law, politics and even the educational system are the ideological forces that maintain the class structure of society. This assumption is much older than the critical racial theory. It has long been followed by the famous Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci and his The theory of “hegemony” emerged, and Marx also covered this in his seminal documents on German ideology.
In addition, the author Dabahi added that we can also return to the German philosopher Nietzsche, or return to the dialogue between Thracian Marcus and Socrates in Plato’s “Dreamland”, in which Thracian Marcus Kus defined “justice” as “the will of the strong” to question Socrates’ argument about “justice”.
Therefore, Dabahi pointed out that critical thinking about social structure and racist characteristics did not emerge with critical racial theory, but the importance of this theory at this moment in American history is reflected in it It constitutes the “ideological framework” of a wide-ranging social movement that “black people’s fate is also fate”.
It is this dialectical relationship between academic theories and popular social movements that scares American rulers. Therefore, they will not hesitate to launch a fierce struggle to protect and safeguard their racial and class privileges.
This is a pure class war. Those “white” racists want to protect the privileges that they can automatically obtain just because they are “white”, and they firmly oppose any collective consciousness awakening, lest they resist the systematic terrorist atrocities they impose on the ruled.
In fact, the emergence of critical racial theory is no different from the emergence of other academic movements and theories. Richard Delgado and Stefan Seck’s book “Critical Race Theory: A Prologue” published in 2001 was one of the important events that led to widespread discussion of this theory. This book clarified the origin, themes, and dominant views of this theory. Since then, the two authors have revised and updated the book to incorporate the latest developments.
The author Dabahi believes that, similar to post-colonial studies or “theological liberation” theories, critical racial theories are not a product of social reality, but a response to them. Therefore, relevant funding or censorship is cancelled, or the The demonization of a theory cannot erase the social conditions that caused it to appear in the first place, but proves its importance and legitimacy.
U.S. Republican senators recently voted to block the passage of a piece of legislation designed to ensure wider participation by non-white U.S. citizens in voting, thus further demonstrating the validity of critical racial theory. The author believes that what is happening in the United States is a class war in which the rich mobilize their forces to fight the poor.
For schools
The author Dabahi pointed out that Republicans are currently seeking to stop funding academic research and studies on racism.
Just last month, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina introduced a bill to “stop critical racial theories in military institutions and combat racial ideological propaganda.” In his view, this bill would prohibit “the use of federal Funds to promote or teach critical racial theories and prevent members of the military from touching this issue.”
Bishop claimed that “critical racial theory is like a poison that poisons American psychology. This destructive ideology has no place in American institutions, and the bill I propose will help ensure that our government The promise of not wasting public resources to promote the dissemination of this theory”, he also claimed that the Biden administration has received the support of the “radical left” and is “committed to bringing this kind of neo-Marxist propaganda into our classrooms and workplaces.” , Even in our troops”.
The author Dabahi believes that Republicans are particularly targeting public schools because these schools are mostly mixed with children of middle- and lower-class people, and children from poor and minority communities. Once critical racial theory is spread in these circles, it will inevitably increase the public awareness of these students and their parents, and threaten the interests of those influential people.
The author concludes that distorting and censoring critical racial theory, or trying to prohibit its spread, or even criminalize it, will not remove systemic racism from its roots throughout American history. , And protests and demonstrations will continue to appear throughout the United States, because “the voice of truth is invincible, and any sincere theory will be upheld.”
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