Some Notes on Critical Race Theory

It’s the hot topic, so I must weigh in upon it. No; that’s not true. It’s the hot topic and I’m relentlessly interested in the evolution of ideas and philosophy, and so, when I encounter something new, I do something a republican congressman or governor is incapable of: I do my research and try to learn. You’ve probably already figured out that a great deal of the topics I go into here are things I’ve become interested in, and I’m using the expedient of writing about them (once I’ve done my research and thinking) in order to cement the high points into my less and less reliable memory.

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It’s What Science Was

This is a difficult topic, for me, because it entails trying to pull together a bunch of tangled threads that don’t make sense. Pseudo-science and racism are tough, like that, since the pseudo-science in the service of racism may look like it’s science, but it’s not. Yet, for most purposes, I’m going to declare a lot of American popular science as pseudo-science.

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Martin Luther King Day, 2021

Back when I was CEO of NFR, in 1999, I broke labor laws by sending an email to all staff on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, reading, “your assignment today is to listen to the full speech by Dr King (link) and think about it while you take the rest of the day off, or you can come in and work.”

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The Missing Piece Of A Puzzle

I have added another book to my recommended reading list [stderr] Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. In the last few months, I have gone backward and forward through it, trying to make sense of how the facts it exposes fit with my historical understanding.

If you pay any attention to US history, you know that slavery and racism are one of the supporting institutions that have defined and shaped the United States. You cannot understand the United States without understanding slavery and racism. But, that understanding has always felt incomplete, to me; I knew there was more. Obviously, there are details, but what is the big picture?

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