Systemic v individual
Let’s try yet again to tease out some of the polarities of Critical Race Theory versus The Approved Kind of Discussion of Racism.
Marisa Iati in the Post a couple of months ago:
Some lessons and anti-racism efforts, however, reflect foundational themes of critical race theory, particularly that racism in the United States is systemic.
So there’s one: racism as systemic, i.e. embedded in various systems and institutions, as opposed to being random and individual – just people with bad manners.
Critical race theory is an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is systemic, and not just demonstrated by individual people with prejudices. The theory holds that racial inequality is woven into legal systems and negatively affects people of color in their schools, doctors’ offices, the criminal justice system and countless other parts of life.
Ok so do we think that’s wrong? Do we think it’s factually mistaken?
If we do I have to ask why. Why would it be wrong? At what point did we complete the job of removing racism from all US systems? I must have missed the news that day.
Just off the top of my head I know that black women have much worse statistics in childbirth than white women do. Is it likely that systemic racism has nothing to do with that? Generations of poverty because employers and unions and landlords and realtors are riddled with systemic racism? Unequal access to healthcare because of the above plus systemic racism in the healthcare system (such as it is)? And I know that the prison stats are grotesquely out of whack – and even if you decide “Wull that’s because there are fewer white criminals” you can surely see that that can be for similar systemic reasons. Jobs, schools, housing, transportation – they’re all part of a system that was not what you’d call enlightened on the issue of racial equality.
Khiara Bridges, author of “Critical Race Theory: A Primer,” said traditional civil rights discourse maintained that racism would end when people stopped thinking about race. The dissenting scholars, she said, rejected that conclusion and believed race consciousness was necessary to overcoming racial stratification.
“I don’t see color” versus “Oh yes you do see color and we all need to talk about what happens because of that, so that we can FIX IT.”
“Critical race theory is an effort really to move beyond the focus on finding fault by impugning [should be “imputing”] racist motives, racist bias, racist prejudice, racist animus and hatred to individuals, and looking at the ways in which racial inequality is embedded in structures in ways of which we are very often unaware,” said Kendall Thomas, co-editor of “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.”
Which means in a way that conservatives ought to like it, because it’s not about sniffing out individual racists; it’s impersonal. It also means those stupid “Give us lots of money to come to your dinner party and call you racist” scams are the very opposite of CRT.
Although the phrase “critical race theory” refers to an area of academic study, its common usage has diverged from its exact meaning. Conservative activists and politicians now use the term as a catchall phrase for nearly any examination of systemic racism in the present. Critical race theory is often portrayed as the basis of race-conscious policies, diversity trainings, and education about racism, regardless of how much the academic concept actually affects those efforts.
The Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, recently attributed a range of events to critical race theory: property destruction and violence during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, efforts to fire a Yale University professor amid a Halloween costume controversy, two White actresses stating that they would not play mixed-race characters, and the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17. They reasoned that critical race theory makes race the primary lens through which people see the world and reimagines the United States as divided by factions that are pitted against each other.
Christopher Rufo, a prominent opponent of critical race theory, in March acknowledged intentionally using the term to describe a range of race-related topics and conjure a negative association.
Hat tip to Jesse Singal for asking about that today.
It’s neither wrong nor mistaken, but it does miss out all the contentious aspects of CRT that people can rightly object to.
I guess it’s to be expected. After all, how many Americans understand compounded interest.
It’s no doubt a gross oversimplification but I can’t understand what’s so hard to imagine that 150 years of selective advantage most likely results in huge disparities based on race. It’s not just a marginal difference. Each successive generation of whites has been able to build exponentially on the success of the previous generations. My dad changed the stars of our family because of the GI bill and VA loans – entitlements not available to blacks of his generation. His education brought opportunities and security for his family and instilled an appreciation of education that resulted in his kids all going to college. In two generations, the grandchildren of an illiterate white immigrant earned doctorates.
My father was the least racist man I’ve ever known. Yet it would have been hard for him to grasp that the pathway to the American dream that he followed, though hard, was not an option to most blacks of the era. That’s systemic racism – two worlds now so far apart and entrenched that it’s hard for one to see how stacked the deck has been in their favor.
It’s not hard to imagine. Everyone understands this. Everyone agrees. Yes, such past systemic racism has indeed had a huge effect on how things are now.
OK, guessing a bit: people defending CRT are thinking “CRT is about systemic racism; I think that systemic racism (certainly past systemic racism) has had huge effects, and I want us to talk about that, therefore I support CRT”? And they’re thinking “those opposed to CRT are thus opposed to any proper consideration of systemic (as opposed to individual) racism”?
Well no, that’s not what the objections to CRT are about, and everyone would agree on your above analysis, and its effect on today.
Where you’d get less agreement is the extent of present day (as opposed to past) racism in today’s structures and institutions.
And when you say:
Absolutely true, when considering group averages. But, the distribution within each group is far greater than the difference in the group averages. In other words, plenty of white kids are born into just as poor and disadvantaged circumstances as plenty of black kids (and plenty of black kids nowadays are born into well-off, middle-class families with more means than plenty of white families).
So, the question becomes — and this is where the disagreement arises — should we treat the group as primary, and consider the most important thing to be equalising group averages (this is the CRT and “woke” position), or should we consider the individual as primary, and care more about equality of individual opportunity (this has long been the “liberal” position, based on the “enlightenment values” that emphasize the individual)?
Imagine if I said, “Gender theory is a conceptual framework centered on the idea that people’s conceptions of themselves and others in relation to gendered social norms has a significant impact on their lives. The theory holds that gendered prejudice is woven into language and custom and negatively impacts gender nonconforming people in their schools, doctors’ offices, the criminal justice system, and countless other parts of life.” Would I be wrong or factually mistaken?
The answer is that the description is correct but incomplete. As long as the description is incomplete, people can hear or read something like, “Critical race theory is an effort really to move beyond the focus on finding fault by impute racist motives, racist bias, racist prejudice, racist animus and hatred [Ed: Why both animus and hatred? Why not open a thesaurus and include every synonym?] to individuals,” and confidently infer that the theory does not impute racist motives, bias, prejudice, or animus. Which it does, of course, by way of concerning itself with entire populations rather than individuals. “Of course, I’m not saying that you’re emotional, Karen, just all women.”
Suppose I learn in Sunday school that non-believers are destined to burn in the fiery lakes of Hell for eternity, and that the Adversary has kept them ignorant of the True Word and saving Grace of the Lord. Helping non-believers see and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior seems like a rational course of action for me, yes?
Suppose I learn in my CRT course that all white people are complicit in racism, and that they are conditioned not to see their complicity. Helping white people see their personal involvement in racism seems like a rational course of action for me, yes?
The first half is roughly accurate. Someone I respect expressed a similar sentiment over eighteen years ago, writing, “Race is a fiction, therefore everyone must learn to be completely obsessed by it. Eh?”
The second half, though … The US has pretty much always been divided, and it frankly seems bizarre for the Heritage Foundation to suggest otherwise.
“It’s not hard to imagine. Everyone understands this. Everyone agrees. Yes, such past systemic racism has indeed had a huge effect on how things are now.”
Sadly, I don’t agree that everyone understands or accepts this. Also, economic status is only part of the problem. (the issue of poor whites voting against their own interests is another topic…) Status before the law is another. Even among those considered educationally and/or economically successful there were huge differences compared to whites. In my own experience, the first African-American admitted to my surgery training program preceded me by just 5 years. All of the attendings that trained me had themselves been trained at segregated residency programs. My black attendings had come out of black-only residencies in inner cities with only white visiting attendings to train them. That wasn’t very long ago.
Weird–I literally just this morning posted something on Spinster about the idea that ‘Robin de Angelo’ antiracism is not only not critical race theory but in fact the opposite of critical race theory. I suggested that the arguments of critical race theory with respect to race mirror Caroline Criado-Perez’s arguments in Invisible Women with respect to sex, and that every man in the world becoming a staunch and respectful profeminist ally tomorrow would not create a world in which women lived free from the effects of sexism.
Just as with women’s suffrage, education, sports, etc., there’s a tendency to forget just how recent the Civil Rights movement was, never mind any subsequent progress or regress. Human intuition about time and history groups everything preceding our own births into “way back”. It’s not dissimilar to intuitions regarding large numbers.
Coel @ 3 –
Aw come on – not nearly everyone. Does Donald Trump agree? Do all his fans and followers agree? I know Pliny already disputed this but I’m disputing it more roughly.
If you mean everyone here ok, but everyone everyone, not even close.
guest @ 6 – spooky!
In my case the catalyst was Jesse Singal asking about the Rufo tweet (asking what the source was, because he remembered the content but not who said it).
@Ophelia:
Well I’ve never heard any of the critics of CRT dispute the existence of past systemic racism that is still affecting how things are today. Though perhaps there may be some such people. (The degree of present-day systemic racism is more in dispute.)
Ok, and there could be more than one explanation for the fact that the degree of present-day systemic racism is more in dispute, right? It could be more in dispute because people genuinely think it’s bullshit, but it could also (or instead) be in dispute because otherwise we might have to do something about it. Or both.
And a third possibility: it could be more in dispute because it reflects badly on us, the collective us. It feels bad. It feels difficult, and tangled, and hard to fix, and worrying. It feels that way to me for sure. It kind of takes a worry off the agenda if we can convince ourselves there’s no truth to it at all.
I don’t mean that cynically or accusingly, I mean it as a claim about a general problem of human arrangements. It’s hard to fix complicated crap that’s been building up for centuries.
More and more, it seems that the United States is “divided by factions that are pitted against each other.” Red vs. Blue is one of the easier ones to see, but there are multiple “axes of division”, just as the original formulation of intersectionality posited multiple, relative axes of oppression, or privilege, including sex, race, class, etc. How can anyone on the recieving end of injustice meted out on the basis of any of these characteristics not see their existence through such a lens when their faces are rubbed in it every day by the basic structures and institutions in which they are emmersed? Those who can’t see or don’t experience this can count themselves lucky, but just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Isn’t that the essence of privilege?
I think you’re a lot less likely to get a good honest look at current structures where there’s still powerful resistance to admitting the racism of the past. Can those who see the American Civil War as only having been about “states’ rights”, who still proudly wave the Confederate flag, who refuse to see how retaining and defending the monuments that commemorate, celebrate, and valourize a regime that fought for the right to own human beings, might be seen as problematic, really be credited as having come to terms with past racism? This failure to do so turns honouring this shameful “heritage” of past racism into present racism.
“All lives matter”, and the inability to “see colour”, are rightly seen as a deflection tactics, as ways to avoid coming to grips with present reality by those whose lives are not disproportionately at risk in that present reality because they are not Black. I wonder how many in that camp would argue that that things are fine as they are, that America is a level playing field, a meritocracy, where people get what they deserve.
The Republican desire to promulgate a sanitized, “approved” national mythos that minimizes the foundational disposession, and largely successful elimination of the Original Inhabitants of the land, along with the forced importation, and enslavement of millions of Africans, is unlikely to be conducive to any acknowledgement, let alone correction, of the systemic racism in American structures and institutions of governance and commerce.
There are plenty of people who will agree wholeheartedly that there was significant racism in America’s past but who will deny the existence of systemic racism. Poor black people can’t buy into better neighborhoods? “There are poor white people, too.” “Nobody is discriminating against them, they just don’t have the money.” “That was then, this is now.” “We all have problems, we all have roadblocks, we need to overcome them.” So long as a situation exhibits no current discrimination, everything is fine. “Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.”
And there are people now, I know several, who will argue that Black people are behind due to their own faults. Bell Curve and all that. One could argue that this attitude is racist, but the discussion then becomes about whether it’s racist or not, rather than whether the argument is true, or whether the question is fair, or what confounding factors might be.
It’s really, really hard for some people to understand racism as anything other than individual feelings toward other people.
Coel#10: ‘the existence of past systemic racism that it is still affecting how things are today’. I am sorry to nit-pick, but if ‘past systemic racism’ is ‘still affecting how things are today’, then systemic racism is not merely past but present. No, it is nor slavery, or Jim Crow laws or African-Americans not having the vote, and, regarding Nullius’s comment that ‘there’s a tendency to forget just how recent the Civil Rights movement was, never mind any subsequent progress or regress’, which I very much agree with (though I strongly remember the success of the Civil Rights movement), it is very chastening to recognise clearly how recently many of the rights too many people take for granted (or want to take away) were won.
As for Coel’s point that ‘the degree of present-day systemic racism is more in dispute’ (no doubt I am wrong in feeling that this seems to edge very delicately towards suggesting that the whole concept of systemic racism in the present might be questionable, or that systemic racism, though it exists, is a very minor problem), the British government has recently issued a report on race that basically denies the existence of systemic racism, and it appears to be an article of faith among right-wing commentators and politicians that it does not in fact exist.
And this at a time when Republican-held state governments are quite blatantly introducing laws that make it more difficult for non-white voters to vote. Not to mention the gerrymandering that has gone on for years, and the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to address the problem.
Finally, I would say it is not unusual for academic theories, particularly where the social sciences and subjects like politics and history are concerned, to be controversial simply because there is inevitably a political aspect, with bearing on the real world in the present, to such theories. Max Weber, Veblen, Du Bois, Talcott Parsons, Carl Schmitt, Raymond Aron, C. Wright Mills, Richard Hoggart, Jurgen Habermas, Reinhart Kosselleck, Ernst Gellner, Pierre Bourdieu, Leszek Kolakowski… the list is endless: all have been controversial in many ways, and it is naive to suppose that they should not have been, or that thinkers in these disciplines now should not be. I have read many of these writers, and regard them as a providing a provocation to thought, even when I disagree profoundly with some of what they say. I am at present reading that nasty old Nazi Carl Schmitt’s ‘The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy’ with great interest because he puts his finger on some extraordinarily important issues. I recommend the book.
One might remark on the huge, and in many ways pernicious, influence Hayek & the Chicago School of economics have had on public policy. Or the extraordinary influence that right-wing ‘think tanks’, which are basically organs of propaganda, have over public policy. I find it odd that it is only when the subject of race comes up that certain people leap into the fray and become exercised about the political influence of ideas .
Finally, whatever the faults of CRT (and I’m sure it has some), what we are seeing is the blatantly dishonest use of it as a blanket term in order to make it difficult for the questions of race and racism to be taught in classrooms.
I want to add that the distinction drawn between the ‘individual’ and social institutions, which seems to be an article of faith on the right (it is very strong in Boris Johnson’s cabinet and on the right wing of the Tory party), is both false and pernicious. It is through the reform of institutions that individuals are liberated or their lives improved so that their individual talents may flower. James Baldwin was very well aware of that, as may be seen from his interview with Professor Paul Weiss of Yale University in 1969 (it may be found on Youtube). Weiss pompously trots out all the stale tropes & fantasies about the ‘individual’ that may be heard today. Baldwin is cogent and illuminating in response.
To move from the matter of race, a great many young people in the UK & Northern Ireland benefitted from the implementation of the 1944 Education Act by the postwar Labour government, including the poet Seamus Heaney, with whom I was acquainted (I introduced his work at a conference when he first came to Japan). It is ridiculous to talk about ‘equality of individual opportunity’ when institutional structures do not provide equality of opportunity.
And to add another name to those who benefitted from the postwar educational reforms in Britain: Alan Booth, the closest friend I have had in my life, author of ‘The Roads to Sata’ (about walking the length of Japan – it’s just been re-published by Penguin) and ‘Looking for the Lost’, was born ‘out of wedlock’, and was adopted at a very young age by a poor family in the East End of London. He got to Birmingham University, where he acted and directed student productions (getting very favourable reviews even in national newspapers). He came to Japan, where I met him, and set himself down to writing.
The postwar educational reforms have been whittled away at for a number of years now, and are likely to be whittled away even more under the present government.
I am sorry to have been so personal, but talk of ‘individuals’ existing in some sort of fictional space where there are no constraints on their individuality and on the development of their talents makes me very angry indeed.
Discussion of systemic x-ism gets weird sometimes partly due to differences in how people perceive and categorize the same fact. Even granting that two people believe something to be an example of x-ism, they may differ on whether it be an example of systemic x-ism. How can that be? Well, your seeing something as systemic depends on what you consider the system. For instance, you might use “legal system” to refer to the laws that are enacted, or you might not. You might draw a distinction between the things we do and how we do things. And so on and so forth.
Yes, Nullius, no doubt that is true, though I find it, I’m afraid, entirely trivial. I suggest that you look up the account of ‘institutional racism’ in the Macpherson Report and go from there.
‘How can anyone on the recieving end of injustice meted out on the basis of any of these characteristics not see their existence through such a lens when their faces are rubbed in it every day by the basic structures and institutions in which they are emmersed? Those who can’t see or don’t experience this can count themselves lucky, but just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Isn’t that the essence of privilege?’
Really well put, thank you. And @16 I completely agree with you, and share your anger at how much individual talent, let alone individual growth, satisfaction and happiness, is destroyed by ‘individualist’ politics.
@9 for me it was my ‘morning bath’ thought of the day that day, no consciously identifiable trigger. But an important point to get out there I think.
@Ophelia #11:
Agreed, yes, and I’m sure that the spread of attitudes you point to does exist.
What we need is a reasonable, evidence-based discussion of the extent and prevalence of present-day systemic racism in the US, together with a reasonable, evidence-based discussion of group disparities and their causes.
The CRT-style insistence that all group disparities must necessarily and always be “systemic racism” and that no other explanation can be considered, is not helpful.
@Tim #14:
Well that depends entirely on your definition of “systemic racism”. Under the CRT definition, yes, that’s true, but that’s an unhelpful definition since it serves to obscure actual causes and reasons and so hinders arriving at solutions.
If it were the case that, owing to past racism, blacks families tend to be poorer, but that today, black and white youths of the same economic status have the same chances and opportunities, but overall in society there are big inequalities based on economic status, then it is not sensible to call that present-day systemic racism.
That’s because the term would be obscuring the actual causes and so does not point to the appropriate remedies.
A better definition of systemic/institutional racism acting today is structures/institutions that tend to treat black people worse than white people in otherwise identical circumstances, controlling for economic status, age, educational level, etc.
It does not depend entirely on one’s definition of ‘systemic racism’. Perhaps you might tell us precisely what the CRT definition is, Coel, or what you suppose it is.
As I pointed out to Nullius in Verba, I find the Macpherson Report’s definition a useful starting point.Perhaps you disagree with this definition?
I find your own definition interesting, and almost certainly useful to a degree, but think that because of its lack of any historical understanding or recognition of workings of historical factors in the present it is not altogether satisfactory, particularly in the light of blatant attempts by Republicans to depress the black vote and the attitudes of many white people towards black people that support these attempts to depress votes among minorities (the British government, by the way, is attempting to the same, in a less blatant way, and, in Boris Johnson’s own words in the House of Commons, not because there is any evidence of electoral fraud, but because he wants to protect elections from “the idea of voter fraud”) . What do you think of these Republican attempts, as a matter of interest? What do you think of Republican gerrymandering (and, yes, I know that the Democrats have been guilty of it, too). You seem very chary of addressing any actual instances, preferring to keep to a comfortable level of abstraction.
What comes across from your constant posts on the subject of racism (why does it so much exercise you – it seems to be about the only thing that interests you, here and, in my memory, on Jerry Coyne’s blog, or website?) is that you simply want simply to deny the existence of systemic racism in the present tout court, and reduce structural inequalities to the mythical figure of the ‘individual’, as do so many who drink the cordial of the right.
#23:
That definition (“failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour”) is fully in-line with the definition I gave. It was based on the finding that the police would give a different priority to finding the killers of a murdered youth depending on whether the victim was white or black.
Nope. As I’ve said, I want a proper, evidence-based discussion of the issue. In contrast to the Kendian/CRT assumption that any and all group-outcome disparities must always and necessarily be “systemic racism”.
Nope, wrong, as can be verified by anyone wandering over there. But I note your woke “attack the person” tactics, akin to suggesting that anyone who thinks that sport should be segregated on sex must be a “phobe” motivated by hatred.
I note the refusal to spell out what the CRT definition, but am nevertheless glad that you find the definition in the Macpherson Report satisfactory. I’m afraid I doubt your claim that the assumption of CRT is that ‘any and all group-disparities must always and necessarily be (due to) “systemic racism”‘. Evidence, please.
I’ve already stated it twice. The CRT definition of “systemic racism” effectively amounts to: anything and everything that results in disparate outcomes between racial groups. Because they don’t allow themselves any other explanation.
They usually don’t state it that explicitly (though Kendi does), but sometimes they do. As an example , systemic racism is: “A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity”. Thus, if there is racial group inequity, then it is “systemic racism”. (Note that “equity” is explicitly equality of outcome, not of opportunity.)
See also their definition of “racial equity” in which they say that a “genuinely non-racist society” would be one in which all racial group outcomes would be the same.
See also their statement: “The structural racism perspective … works to identify ways in which these disparities can be eliminated”, aiming for equality of outcome between racial groups.
Thank you, Coel, for the links. Having skimmed through them, I’m afraid I find little to quarrel with. I note that in fact ‘opportunity’ is mentioned, and is clearly regarded as important since it is intimately connected with ‘outcome’:
“…structural racism takes direct account of the striking disparities in well-being and opportunity areas that come along with being a member of a particular group and works to identify ways in which these disparities can be eliminated.”
Another helpful book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Steele#Whistling_Vivaldi
I have actually only recently read this, but had been exposed to, and used, Steele’s ideas before. In the book Steele explores two ways of addressing e.g. racial disparities in outcomes (specifically in his case why Black students were doing relatively poorly at Harvard)–unfortunately I can’t remember the two terms he used, but one of them tried to figure out what the problems were with the students themselves, and try to mitigate them by providing extra coaching, remedial classes, student support, etc. and the other, taking as given that there was nothing wrong with the students, tried to determine what in the students’ environment was keeping students from succeeding and remove it.
I heard a similar working out of these two approaches the other day, in a talk about a new initiative British Transport Police is taking to curb, and hopefully stop, ‘unwanted sexual behaviour’ on trains and in stations. They speakers were very clear that this was not a ‘victim-focused’ initiative; what they meant by that was that they would in no way attempt to understand or change women’s behaviour. Women would not be asked to not drink, travel in groups, avoid travelling late at night, etc. (incidentally one speaker said there is far more unwanted sexual behaviour on the morning commute than on a late weekend service) but rather, by increasing reporting and increasing BTP actions, the initiative sets out to make it more difficult for sex pests to victimise passengers.
Coel – even if you’re right about that, why are you so exercised about it? Given the history, given all that we know about how people who were imported from Africa like so much hemp or fish oil, and their descendants, were treated here for more than four centuries, why are you so focused on perceived exaggeration of the problem? It looks like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
That’s not to say that scholars of racism shouldn’t get the facts right, because of course they should, but your passion seems to be all on the side of “Kendi overstates the problem!!”
I should also add, Coel, that I think you misconstrue the definition of systemic racism you provide in #26. Here is the quotation and your gloss:
(definition) ‘“A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity”. (your gloss)Thus, if there is racial group inequity, then it is “systemic racism”. ‘
Your gloss does not follow logically from the definition at all. The public policies, etc are defined as those which perpetuate racial group inequity, and which form a system that, since its elements are those which serve to perpetuate racial group inequity, perpetuates racial group inequity. The definition makes no such (really rather ridiculous) claim as you propose it does. It merely says that there is such a thing as racial inequity and that there are a number of factors which interact to bring about and perpetuate racial inequity. The corollary to this is simply that these factors and the ways in which they interact need to be examined.
Tim I changed “Your gloss does follow logically” to does not, so let us know if I got it wrong, because it’s kind of central!
Thank you, Ophelia!
@Tim #30:
I think it does. If you define the concept “systemic racism” as any system in which factors work to perpetuate racial inequity, it follows that any system in which there is racial inequity is systemically racist.
That is because, if there is racial inequity, then there must be factors causing it, and — under their definition — that is sufficient to make the system “racist”.
This is reinforced by their definition of “racial inequity” in which they say that any “genuinely non-racist society” would be one in which “the distribution of society’s benefits and burdens would not be skewed by race”, and thus all outcomes would have to be the same for all racial groups.
Sorry, Coel, I find your logic infantile, and I am going to leave it that.
@Ophelia:
Because CRT-style ideology is doing great damage to race relations in the US (see polls), and that is spilling over into my country. Further, by misdiagnosing the problem, CRT prescribes remedies that won’t work and will make things worse. This is not in the interests of blacks in the US.
CRT started in universities, and is now spreading from social-science departments into universities as a whole. And since it’s an ideology that disdains evidence it is doing a lot of damage. The truth is that US and UK universities are (nowadays) pretty much the least-racist institutions the world has ever seen. And yet we’re supposed to accede to the opposite claim.
Just for example, my university has recently declared the self-assessment that it is guilty of “persistent, systematic and comprehensive” racism and stated that this assessment was based on “overwhelming evidence”. I asked them what this evidence was. They couldn’t supply any. None! They just give me a long list of links to various CRT literature, none of which was even about my university! (The assessment was not evidence-based, it was virtue-signalling based. Currently we’re in a game of “the one who claims the highest prevalence of racism is the most virtuous”.)
As a result of this self-assessment we’re now all supposed to be “de-colonising the curriculum” and all sorts of other stuff. (I’m in hard science, the science curricula are not “colonised”.) So, our science departments are being damaged by this CRT-inspired stuff, and it’s all originally coming out of America. That’s why.
As for US universities, the claim is that they are infused with prevalent racism that only large (and expensive) teams of CRT-trained DEI administrators can root out. Black students are claimed to be in a state of perpetual trauma owing to the daily racism they face on campus.
The truth is pretty much the opposite. There is almost no racism on US campuses these days. And black students’ concerns and complaints are treated as vastly more important than anyone else’s.
A good illustration is the Smith College incident where a black student made false accusations of racial bias that got four low-status employees fired. The university (and the local ACLU) just took the black student’s side throughout, they didn’t dare say boo to her, even though her complaints were groundless. This incident is illustrative and typical.
Meanwhile, in order to sustain the narrative of how racist university campuses are, there has been a near-epidemic of race hoaxes. So many that Wilfred Reilly wrote a whole book about them! And they haven’t stopped since that book, with the hoaxes outnumbering actual racist incidents.
Typically, in such an incident, racist graffiti appears. The campus goes into shocked trauma. The university management responds with mea culpas, hair shirts, self-flagellation and promises of draconian action including instant expulsion of the culprit. Then the perpetrator is found to be a black student. Things go quiet. And, despite the woke mantra about intent being irrelevant, and only impact being important, the student gets anonymity and counselling.
As for racial discrimination by universities, nowadays that is strongly in favour of black students, who get admitted with much lower grades. The actual racial discrimination by universities these days is against Asians. Harvard and others (grudgingly but) openly admit to this.
But then, if an instructor should unwisely lament that their black students — admitted with a weaker academic profile — tend to cluster in the bottom half of class lists, then they get fired. That’s the sort of thing one is not supposed to notice or speak about. Indeed, even omitting to vocally disagree with an instructor making such a remark is enough to get one fired!
Things have gone beyond affirmative action of admitting students from some groups with much lower grades. Nowadays, the demand is that they must also be graduated at equal rates. (And if grades and test scores suggest otherwise, well then those grades are racist, and should be ignored in favour of “lived experience”.)
If one thinks through the consequences of this for subjects where competence actually matters (medical school, aero-engineering, etc) it’s perturbing. Again, ideology takes precedence over evidence and science.
So that’s why I care about it — and we’ve got to the point where we can’t even talk about such things in a reasonable, evidence-based way.
I agree with Tim. There is no reason to assume that racial inequities are caused by institutions and policies; where they are, that’s “systemic racism”, but they might be from other causes. It does not follow that, just because these inequities exist, they were caused by institutions and policies.
If you take the term “system” to mean “anything and everything”, that’s a problem with what you are considering as the “system” part of “systemic”, not in the definition of “systemic racism”.
To make a weak analogy, a poor diet may stunt growth, but the evidence that a poor diet exists is not simply that people are shorter than others; they may have stunted growth for other reasons than diet, or they may simply be shorter to begin with. The shorter stature is reason to suspect and investigate diet, but is not proof.
@Sackbut:
Exactly, I agree. And that is contrary to CRT ideology that says that anything that results in racial inequity is “systemic racism”. Note that the above linked-to definition is not limited to “institutions and policies”, it also includes “culture”, “social systems” and “other norms”.
And, as I’ve said, see also their definition of “racial equity”, under which it does not matter how any inequity arises.
@Tim:
That’s not a rebuttal.
Thank you, Sackbut. There is a difference between ‘systemic racism’ or ‘institutional racism’ as defined by the Macpherson Report, as well as in the CRT definition he quotes, and what Coel is proposing. Coel is in fact mirroring what he likes to accuse others of doing. There may well be factors other than ‘systemic’ or ‘institutional ones’ in racial disparities (what are they?), but from the CRT’s own definition that Coel has provided, from the evidence he says he has provided but which consist mainly in his own assertions, and from his logic, such as it is, I find little to suggest that what he alleges in his responses to me about CRT is correct. Having said that, I sympathise with his anger about the horrid examples he provides in his latest passionate outpourings for I, too, have small time for ‘woke’ victimhood – though I should be interested to know which university he is attending, how prevalent these examples actually are, and to what extent, and, more importantly, how, they genuinely derive from CRT, as he alleges they do. A fine passion about things is all well and good, but doesn’t necessarily make what you say correct, though it may be correct in some respects, and tends rather to exhibit the same kind of victimhood that the writer affects to despise.
Tim, I’m not “angry” and I’m not claiming “victimhood”. It won’t be me who is negatively affected by this stuff, honestly I’ll be fine. And it’s precisely because I can challenge these ideologies that I think I ought to. Too often the ideologues in universities try to shut down any dissent, even any discussion that they cannot control. Just ask Kathleen Stock.
Indeed, I enjoy arguing. At a recent “diversity training” session I argued that, of course sex is biologically real and binary, and that the contrary view is anti-scientific loonery of QAnon proportions. The diversity trainers really, really did not like that. It was fun though. And I could argue the science way better than they could, they could only spout ideology and slogans.
At another such session I argued that of course there were lots of other possible explanations for racial disparities other than “racism”. Again, the diversity trainers really, really did not like that. Again, though, they had no argument, they just spouted mantras. You think such people are ok with other explanations? No they are not.
Arguing such things in a US university could get you fired. Seriously. Luckily the UK is not nearly as bad (partly thanks to such as Stock). But it’s necessary to challenge ideology to stop it getting as bad.
Those two items aren’t really comparable though. I get what you mean, but in practice the difference matters. Sure, there are other possible explanations for racial disparities other than racism, in the sense that there are always other possible explanations for anything. Whether there are other convincing or well-founded explanations is another question. But in the right here right now we haven’t eliminated racism itself yet, to put it mildly, so how urgent is the need to cast about for other explanations until we have?
I ask that because in practice what the “other explanations” turn out to be is that the people who just happen to be descended from slaves are…not good enough in some way. See Sam Harris, passim.
@Ophelia:
First, one can never really eliminate “racism” as an explanation. People will just argue that it is more and more “systemic”, indeed so “pervasive” that it’s not noticed (the fish/water argument). If the claim is made general enough it can’t be refuted.
For example, the whole concept of “micro-aggressions” seems to have been invented because the evidence of actual racism today is rather meagre (obviously it was very different in the past). There is no literature that supports the claim that “micro-aggressions” are at all significant. (The literature consists of people citing other people making assertions who cite other people making assertions, with no substance at the bottom of the rabbit hole; see reviews by Lee Jussim for example.) Yet, someone can always claim (indeed they do) “micro-aggressions are the cause …”.
Indeed, on micro-aggressions, Wilfred Reilly has done the following. Each year he asks cohorts of students (he’s at Kentucky State) to report how often they have had mildly unpleasant interactions with other people. When asked that, his white and his black students report much the same rate.
Then he asks them, what fraction of the incidents do they interpret as having had a racial-bias element on the part of the other person. The white students (as expected) go for a very low fraction. The black students say about half.
Which means that black students are routinely ascribing incidents to racial bias when that is not so (since, if half were racial, then their overall rate would be twice that for whites). This shows that attributing motive to others is error prone, and eliminating “racism” as a possibility would be hard.
@Ophelia:
One other possible explanation is group culture. According to the woke, everything is a social construct, and yet they’re very reluctant to accept that differences in culture can be significant in group outcomes, even though they obviously are.
To quite an extent (generalising, obviously), African-American kids’ peer-group culture tends to deprecate doing well at school, seeing it as “acting white”. Peer-group status goes to those rebelling against school authority. Role models are sports stars and entertainment-industry stars. If a kid knuckles down to work hard, and tries to do well, he’s derided by his peers.
In contrast, Asian-American kids’ peer-group culture is very much to comply with school requirements and work hard. Status in that peer group is the academically successful kids. Their role models and aims are targeting the well-paid professions. These attitudes are reinforced by parents. And the attitude is, whatever barriers there may be, it’s their task to work hard as individuals to overcome them and attain their desired career path.
The problem is that the CRT/Woke then come along and tell the black kids, yes, you’re right, maths and exams and SATs and all the rest are indeed racist, they are indeed part of the white supremacy system. You shouldn’t be trying to do well in them; we should instead be changing the system to reward those who are “authentically black”. And really there’s little point striving anyhow, there’s not much you can do about it, since the system is rigged against you. Just ask for reparations.
This is not a recipe for equal outcomes when it comes to school-leaving exams. And, of course, the outcomes are not equal.
Now, interestingly, kids of recent African immigrants, though “black”, tend not to be part of the above-described culture. Their culture is different. And, the evidence is, those kids actually do pretty well in terms of school success.
Yes, and thus the above explanation is called “victim blaming” and so disallowed. You’re not allowed to ascribe any degree of fault to blacks. Under CRT, the blame has to be placed on whites. So, even if the above explanation is important to outcomes (and the evidence is that it is), then you’re still not allowed to advance it.
But if can’t ascribe to them any degree of fault or blame, then nor can you ascribe to them any agency or responsibility. And stripping people of any responsibility for their life’s trajectory is, again, not a recipe for equal outcomes. Because success requires motivation, hard work and taking responsibility. The people who will end up most harmed by CRT/woke attitudes are the blacks. The Asian-Americans will be fine. The whites are likely to end up pretty much fine, whatever, also.
Yes, I think there’s a lot to the culture argument, but I also think the systemic problem is bound to have had a great deal (perhaps everything) to do with it. Multiple generations of absolute poverty, forced labor, and abysmal education if any education at all can do that. But yes, I agree with you that to the extent that programs influenced by CRT tell kids hatred of learning is their culture, they’re monstrous. I despise that whole line of thought, which is also one branch of feminism.
@Ophelia:
With biology being Darwinian rather than Lamarkian, kids are born anew each generation. So, yes, there has been a long history of slavery and grossly inequitable treatment, but if today’s black kids are being harmed by that then it is through the medium of black culture. And yes, it would be entirely understandable if, owing to that history, black culture had come to reject anything associated with “whiteness”, including maths, school, and academic achievement.
But, if that is the case, then the remedy is not “society should stop being racist”, it has to be “fix black culture”, such that black kids value maths and academic achievement as much as Asian-American kids. I have no idea how to do that, but it illustrates that correct diagnosis of the ills is vital. And that’s why we should reject glib attributions to “systemic racism”.
[Actual, evidence-based findings of systemic racism, yes, such should be fixed.]
Kids are born anew each generation, or rather each minute – but the world they’re born into isn’t new every minute or every generation. The thing is, black children specifically are born into a history in which their parents’ parents’ parents were slaves. I think white people don’t really reckon with that fact, because we can’t as well as because we don’t want to. It’s not a small thing. It seems to me it could easily shape a child’s whole outlook on schooling, the justice system, white people, and much more. I’m guessing that that fact has a lot to do with the culture of “being good in school is a white thing,” and if so it is entangled with systemic racism. I agree that that culture (and all cultures that bully the smart kids, the swots, etc) should become obsolete, but I don’t think it’s inextricable from CRT.
So I dispute your “the remedy is not “society should stop being racist”, it has to be “fix black culture”, such that black kids value maths and academic achievement as much as Asian-American kids” by asking: shouldn’t it be both? Wouldn’t the stopping being racist, and in the process really acknowledging the harm done to many generations of black people, be a key part of fixing the anti-school culture?
Coel, thank you for your response, though I hardly think that the Boris Johnsonian three-word slogan ‘fix black culture’, as though the culture of African-Americans were something existing in some sublime independence of the rest of society and its history, is a recipe for anything worthwhile. You rehearse the trope that I have heard time and again about Asian-Americans and people of African descent who were not born American doing better educationally than African-Americans, but it doesn’t seem to occur to you to consider why this should be the case. You say we should reject ‘glib attributions’ to ‘systemic racism’, and yet resort to the glib & condescending ploy of suggesting that the virtually only real thing wrong is ‘black culture’ and it should be ‘fixed’, as though black culture were some simple mechanical device that has gone wrong and might be repaired by some skilled mechanic or deus ex machina (who?); though I am glad you have the humility to say that you have no idea how that might be done. I doubt very much that according to (I note that you delicately write the vague and ambiguous ‘under’ rather than ‘according to’) CRT blame has to be placed on whites.
@Tim:
Why do you always twist things? What I actually said was: “it would be entirely understandable if, owing to that history, black culture had come to reject anything associated with “whiteness”, including maths, school, and academic achievement.”
Does that suggest that I think that black culture is “something existing in some sublime independence” of history?
Your twin tactics seem to be misrepresenting what I’ve said or just labelling it “infantile” or “ludicrous”. Is this because you feel out of your depth in intellectual discussion?
@Ophelia:
Yes, but more precisely, that culture, arising out of that history, is entangled with past systemic racism. That matters a lot, since we can’t change the past, we can only change racism acting today.
Yes, to the extent that society today is still racist, it should be a priority to fix it.
But if (that’s an “if”) it were the case that systemic racism was nowadays at low levels, and that much bigger factors today include: (1) economic disparity as a legacy of the past, and (2) anti-school black culture (also as a legacy of the past), then “fixing systemic racism” is not going to achieve much.
That’s why I’ve argued for a proper evidence-based assessment to give a proper diagnosis of the state of things today.
Serious black intellectuals that I’ve referenced (Reilly, Loury, McWhorter, etc) consider that today’s emphasis on “systemic racism” is counter-productive for the above reasons, and because it glosses over the actual issues today it doesn’t point to proper remedies. We should listen to them more than to Kendi and the CRT crowd.
Coel, your words: ‘But, if that is the case, then the remedy is not “society should stop being racist”, it has to be “fix black culture”’ — having, yes, previously suggested that it is ‘owing to that history, that black culture had come to reject anything associated with whiteness…’. What you are constantly intimating while not coming out and actually saying it is that racism is something that belongs to the past and does not exist in any important way in the present. Though things are obviously better than they were in the past, that is simply false. Present racism is an important factor, and if more were done to ‘fix’ it, we might see changes for the better in all respects.
@Tim:
There’s some evidence of present-day racism, yes. The degree of it, however, needs to be properly evaluated. What would you say are the clearest and most important evidence-based prevalances of racism today? (Either in the US or the UK.)
‘There’s some evidence of present racism today’. Well, yes, there is, Coel: just look around you. Find out for yourself. It really is not difficult. There is an obvious pattern to the way you argue: a Gish gallop, a throwing out of pseudo-logical nonsense, a bit of lip-service such as ‘Yes, to the extent that society today is still racist, it should be a priority to fix it’ when you are put on the spot, and then straight back to your pet theme which amounts to denying that institutional or systemic racism exists in any important way in the present. For all your talk about evidence, you have presented little other than bald assertions, and what you have presented as evidence, such as the definitions provided by CRT, you have wilfully misinterpreted it. I note also that when I asked you about attempts to suppress minority votes in the USA and the UK you refrained from answering them, despite all the noise you make about the importance of argument and debate. I find your procedures, I am sorry to say, disingenuous and unworthy of respect.
.
To my mind, the fact that no reparations whatsoever have been paid to the descendants of slaves to this day in and of itself means that the racism of the past is continuing into the present.
I have to say, the only other times I’ve seen this statement made have been by either openly avowed racists or those who openly support them. I’ve bitten my tongue ever since reading this, but enough. Coel, I don’t know you. You may not be racist, but I do regard that as a racist thing to have said, especially in the context of the rest of your posts which boil down to ‘racism is a thing largely of the past with no obvious racism of any scale or importance now; it’s up to black people to get over it and be more white.”
I’m not going to enumerate all the examples of serious cultural, institutional and systemic racism in western society. Any reasonable person just needs to open their eyes to see the ocean we swim in. CRT was initially adopted by law schools as a tool for analysing the effect of laws (past and present) and the way their application affected people coming into contact with the legal system (police, courts and prisons). Remember this isn’t just kumbaya singing hippies at universities, but hard headed lawyers from a wide ranging political and social spectrum. You can find plenty of non-academic lawyers and prosecutors online who give meaningful and specific examples of current systemic racism in the ‘law’ and a number who write about the racist background of specific laws and classes of law that still exist, but were designed to target black people.
Let’s not get started shall we on on the number of States in the US that are actively gerrymandering their Districts to disadvantage black voters, and who are also changing their voting procedures to specifically disadvantage not all Democratic voters, but overwhelmingly those of black or latino background.
Even if, for arguments sake, we say that there is only historical racism, that still doesn’t remove the consequences of generations of past active racism. Multigenerational disadvantage and poverty – laws around redlining, the ability to work (or refuse work), violent destruction of black wealth, refusal to allow loans on an equal basis, underfunding of public utilities, healthcare and education. That’s what creates ‘black’ culture.
NZ, as I’ve said before, has its fair share of racists (and racism deniers), but as a society we have been making a conscious effort for the last generation to redress some of the inequalities that exist. That has included reparations to Iwi groups, some of whom have invested wisely and created employment and wealth for their people and some not. Recognition of language, incorporation of cultural values and consultation into Government policies. Even so, we still have much worse outcomes for health, education, housing, imprisonment for Maori compared to non-Maori. A recent large study of health outcomes found, as an example, that when a particular subset of patients’ case files were examined (late middle aged obese male smokers with heart conditions), if you were white you were more likely to be referred by your doctor for further tests, medication and treatment. if you were Maori you were more likely to be sent home and told to quite smoking and exercise more. Maori are more likely to rearrested, and imprisoned, for the same crime than white people. Dysfunctional Maori families are far more likely to have their children ‘uplifted’ than non-Maori similarly situated.
There are rays of sunshine. These things are part of national debate and there is wide acceptance at Government and within many professions that things need to change. Schools that have made even token changes to adopt elements of Maori language and culture have found that students become more engaged and outcomes improve.
The best evidence that there is a systemic issue is that when people do try to change the system, the very structures and practices themselves make shifting outcomes slow and difficult and easily eroded. I don’t believe that NZ is unique and I don’t believe we are the worst country in the world with respect to these issues.
[…] a comment by Rob on Systemic v […]
Coincidentally, there is an article in today’s Guardian entitled ‘Indigenous Americans demand a reckoning with brutal colonial history: From Canada to Colombia, protests erupt against legacies of violence, exploitation and cultural erasure.’
A book I recommend: ‘Return to Uluru: a killing, a hidden history, a story that goes to the heart of the nation’, by the Australian historian Mark McKenna. It concerns the killing in 1934 by a white Australian policeman of an Aboriginal man at Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) and explores its implications in both past and present. .
@Rob:
Very interesting that you would regard doing well at school — which is what I’ve been talking about — as “acting white”. Are you sure you’re not part of the problem?
In today’s knowledge-economy world, a strong education (particularly in STEM) is the primary route to a well-paid career. Telling black kids that that’s not for them is a recipe for perpetuating disadvantage.
So, yes, I think we should tell black kids (indeed all kids) that school success is the foundation of career success and adult-life success, and that they need to take individual responsibility for trying hard and attaining the best outcome they can (even if they encounter unfair hurdles on the way).
I make no apology for that attitude. What do you want, a school system where the Asian-Americans ace maths exams and the African-Americans make rap videos? Or do you want a land where black kids are fully competitive on maths exams and win advancement on individual merit? I do. But you don’t have that outcome without youths taking individual responsibility for their personal trajectory.
And I didn’t say that there’s “no obvious racism of any scale or importance now”, I said we should evaluate it on the evidence. I do, however, regard it as lower than the CRT ideologues claim.
And my remark was not racist, since I’d say exactly the same about any races. Kids are born anew (biology being Darwinian, not Lamarkian). They are not damaged by trauma that past generations suffered — though they may be born into disadvantaged circumstances, as a result of that past, and the past will have affected their current culture.
There is no such thing as “inherited trauma” (except as it propagates through culture). So I stand by what I said. It’s not “racist” to say that, it’s true, and I’d say the same about all humans. Plenty of other ethnic groups have also suffered huge oppression, without it affecting their grandchildren’s ability on maths exams (Jews being an obvious example).
‘But you don’t have that outcome without youths taking individual responsibility for their personal trajectory.’
Here’s a good book for you to read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Steele#Whistling_Vivaldi
@guest #58:
“Stereotype threat” has been largely debunked, as part of the wider “replication crisis” in psychology. “Stereotype threat” started with papers claiming that, for example, girls performance on maths exams was reduced by stereotypes. The same effect was then claimed in the racial context.
The trouble is that these studies don’t replicate. They are part of a wider pattern in psychology of low-quality studies showing low-significance effects getting established in the literature through p-hacking and publication bias, and because the results fits the experimenters preconceptions.
The current state of play is that, if stereotype threat is a real effect at all, it’s a rather weak one of little significance.
Coel, you’re now arguing that the past has all but zero influence on the present, which is just absurd. With a different past the present would be different. It’s not about “inherited trauma,” that’s a silly strawman. It’s about all the countless roadblocks placed in the way of the Delegated Despised Race, and how that shapes each generation, in the sense of where people live and if they own real estate and how much that real estate is worth compared to real estate in parts of town where NOBODY WILL SELL TO THEM, and so on for other categories. We’re not talking airy-fairy nonsense about inherited trauma, we’re talking about material conditions. We keep telling you there are fine books on these subjects (The Color of Law, Worse Than Slavery, Whistling Vivaldi), but you show no sign of paying the slightest attention, let alone reading them.
Here’s a link about stereotype threat and replication.
“This blog post examines the strength of the empirical evidence for stereotype threat effects in the seminal article by Steele and Aronson (1995). This article is currently the 12th most cited article in the top journal for social psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2,278 citations so far).”
[…]
“As noted in the abstract, neither the inquiry about race, nor about gender, had a significant effect on test performance. In short, this study failed to replicate Study 4 of the classic and widely cited article by Steele and Aronson.”
I’ve achieved tangible results in my own classrooms using Steele’s findings, which is the evidence I require to keep using them in practice.
@Ophelia:
No, I’m not, I really, really am not. The idea is indeed absurd. Past racism quite clearly has had a large effect on how things are today. That’s obvious. So startlingly and blatantly obvious that it hardly needs saying.
But distinguishing between “results of past racism” and “racism acting today” is crucial because what to do about it would be very different.
As a comparison, what’s the best way today of reducing effects of “long covid”? That would be vaccination, masks, social distancing (so that people don’t get covid and so don’t get long-covid).
Now imagine that, 10-years hence, there is no active covid virus, but that large numbers of people are still suffering from “long covid”. What to do about that? Well, the recipe “vaccination, masks, social distancing, lockdowns” would then be utterly useless in reducing long covid.
@guest #62:
Anecdote and “lived experience” above properly controlled trials and proper statistics?
Well, that’s not a good analogy, because systemic racism and a virus aren’t similar enough for it to work. And you now say “Past racism quite clearly has had a large effect on how things are today” but you’ve repeatedly underlined the fact that racism isn’t inherited as if that means it’s no longer relevant. You now say emphatically that it’s obvious that past racism has had a large effect on how things are today, but you’ve been appearing to argue that the effect is in the past. I don’t think that’s an obtuse or tendentious reading of your comments.
Sorry for saying the same thing twice. I’m kind of befuddled by your reply.
@Ophelia:
The conclusion is not that it is no longer relevant. The argument is that the effects of past racism will not necessarily be manifest as present racism, but will instead be manifest today as economic disparity, or effects on black culture, or other things — and that it is important to recognise that if we are prescribing remedies.
Well, it’s not that simple though. The disparities and impacts on culture and all that do tend to perpetuate racism. Of course they do. We take cognitive shortcuts all the time, even if we intend not to, so we link poverty and race, crime stats and race, prison stats and race – you get the idea.
@Ophelia:
I will readily agree that the whole topic is “not that simple”, which is partly why I’m against simple-minded, single-lens attributions of everything to “systemic racism”.
@64 I’d call it ‘testing an idea and evaluating the results’ myself. I’m not as wedded to the scientific method in the abstract as probably everyone else who reads this blog; I determine my own stance toward the ideas I encounter based on whether and to what extent they match up with my experience (including, in a wider sense, the experience of people I know and have read about) and my understanding of reality. I’m old enough now to believe I’ve accumulated enough experience and understanding to do this. I care about my students, and want them to succeed, so I’ll use whatever I’ve found helps them do so.