Throughout 2021 and still into 2022 Critical Race Theory, or CRT, has been a very controversial topic. It seems that half of Americans think it’s racist and makes white people feel inferior and the other half think it’s a good thing and will “un-whitewash” history.

Is CRT really racist? Short answer, no. Long answer, absolutely not.

CRT is a concept that is over 40 years old. It’s main idea is that race is a social construct and that racism isn’t just personal bias or prejudice but that it’s also systemic and in the legal system.

The core idea isn’t wrong nor racist. The idea of racism being embedded within the U.S. legal system is not an opinion up for interpretation but a fact.

Instances of systemic racism can be seen in everyday life. Take redlining for example.

Redlining is a practice in which certain services and resources are withheld from neighborhoods that are considered “hazardous” to invest in. The neighborhoods that are classified as “hazardous” almost always have a large majority of the population being a racial or ethnic minority.

Redlining is most prevalent in larger cities that are very densely populated with high amounts of poverty. Examples include, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc. Really, any big city in the U.S. you can think of, there is redlining.

In the legal system people of color are targeted much more often than white people.

Only 5% of African Americans use drugs yet they represent 29% of drug arrests and 33% of incarcerations.

While in prison many inmates are forced to do prison labor. Many large corporations currently profit or used to profit on this, until they got caught, such as McDonalds, Wendys, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, Walmart, Sprint, Verizon, JCPenney, and American Airlines.

With prison labor inmates are forced to gather resources or make products for these corporations. The inmates may be paid as little as 2 cents per hour.

Even though this is basically an improvised form of slavery, it’s completely legal. The 13th amendment states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Along with this convicted felons, even if innocent which many African Americans have been exonerated for, lose the right to vote. 

The motive to disproportionately charge African Americans in the U.S. seems pretty clear. 

If the racist practices that are ongoing in the U.S. are hidden in the education system and teachers are fired for speaking out, they will continue to happen.

Even without mentioning current discrimination, the American education system still has many problems. For example, the whitewashing of past history.

In school you may have learned that George Washington used wood or even animal teeth to make his dentures. But did you learn that he also used slaves teeth?

If you live or lived in the South, due to the Daughters of the Confederacy, you may have learned that the Civil War wasn’t started over race but over states rights. This is wrong.

The Confederacy Constitution is almost the same as the American Constitution except for one big difference. Slavery is permitted.

Many states that succeeded such as South Carolina and Mississippi stated that slavery was their main reason for succeeding.

With CRT this whitewashing would not be allowed to continue in schools. The American education system would finally teach real and accurate history.

With all that considered, even if some may think that CRT is racist, it really is quite the opposite. It is trying to show the injustices that took place and are still taking place in the US and by schools censoring it, they become the racists.