In my discussion over critical theory, I have realized that I have a gap in my understanding of perhaps the central evil driving at least critical race theory, but also a core bugaboo of other critical theories: systemic power (racism, sexism, cis-heteronormativity… fill in the blank with the applicable -ism.)

I have listened to…. probably somewhere between 50-100 hours of podcasts on the subject and read gobs more papers and sites on critical theory, all in an attempt to understand this.

My own background is that though I am white, I grew up with more racial diversity than I really understood at the time. I didn’t really think of the various friends I had as ‘diverse’, because I was a kid and to kids there are just other kids, especially when there is a wide difference anyway. I was vaguely aware of some differences, and I remember being pissed at one of my friends who would jokingly recite the pledge of allegiance as ‘to the United States of Mexico’…. But I didn’t think about race much at all unless confronted directly with it.

When I look back at the pictures of my classmates, there were Hispanic, white, Asian, middle eastern, and less, but some black. 

I live now in a heavily Hispanic area, but our little condo complex has 2 Asian families, 4 White, 1 Romanian, 2 Indian, 3 Black, and 4 Hispanic households, so fairly diverse.

I myself, a born-again Christian, have gone to a black church and helped with worship there and so gotten to be in situations where I am the minority as well.

I tend to not think too much about racial issues, and I’ve been perturbed by the eruption of anger over police shootings, which I think gather way more attention than they merit- particularly and only when black people are the victims.

But I’ve also seen the reaction of my black friends over this and am aware that they don’t see things the same way, and I know them to not be reactionary or irrational people, so I am trying to understand the truth of the situation. It’s likely I’m missing something.

While I don’t like critical theory for a variety of reasons, I know a big part of the rationale for it lies in its understanding of the idea of systemic power.

My son, for example, noted that my misunderstanding of racism is rooted in following the old definition of a personal sin of believing certain races to be inferior/superior, as opposed to the anti-racist definition of systemic racism.

I have long heard of systemic racism but have never been able to pin down exactly what that means. It’s referenced as the boogie-thing behind it all; it influences white people’s decisions, prejudices, the way we think, and its proof is that there are outcome disparities among populations.

Now without even having to think more than 10 seconds about it, I can see problems with that. But I have to be willing to accept I don’t know enough about it.

I went to a party on Saturday and was talking with my brother-in-law about some engineering. He was saying you need to know how something works in order to fix it.

That sentiment strikes me as supremely relevant in these discussions. I need to understand what people are saying in order to correctly assess whether they are making sense or not. I can’t just assume people know what they’re talking about because they use a level of language that puts discernment beyond my reach. Nor can I assume they’re wrong because I’ve never taken the time to figure it out.

And maybe most important, none of us can pretend to fix ills in society unless we understand how they got there, what brought them about, and what we can reasonably change. Since society is a complex system, I have serious doubts such knowledge is really within anyone’s reach, but I can at least attempt to understand what the proposed solutions are.