OPINION
Hello, it’s John Porter on Bay FM and today I’m talking about Critical Race Theory (CRT).
No, not heard of CRT? Well, it’s a significant issue around the world these days and seems to be becoming embedded in the thinking of certain sectors of our society.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) seeks to explain the multitude of ways that race and racism have become embedded in modern societies. The core idea is that we need to look beyond individual acts of racism and make structural changes to prevent and remedy racial discrimination.
In CRT thinking, all white people are deemed instinctively white supremacists and unconsciously racist. That seems to say that racism is not just embedded but secreted in our thinking.
CRT asserts that racism is socially constructed. This means that the social and behavioural differences we see between different racial groups are products of the society that they live in, not something biological or ‘natural’.
The theory is that there are many examples of systemic and institutional racism around the world. They become evident when a system doesn’t have anything explicitly racist or discriminatory about it, but there are still differences in who benefits from that system.
By using ‘systemic’, theorists imply something so deep and so instinctive that we’re not even conscious of it.
But surely poor white people face barriers associated with socioeconomic and cultural standing? They might not experience racial discrimination in the same way as some do, but they do encounter systemic barriers related to poverty, access to quality education, healthcare and employment opportunities. So, what label do you put on that circumstance?
Not surprisingly, CRT has grown out of academia!
One example of systemic racism often used/quoted by CRT devotees is the education system: it’s not explicitly racist, but students of different racial backgrounds have different educational outcomes and levels of attainment.
In NZ there probably any number of reasons for sub-par educational outcomes, but, all too often, the default setting for blame is colonisation.
Critical Race Theory? Or more like an excuse than theory!
And it is that sort of ideology that makes me feel CRT is becoming subliminally embedded in NZ thinking, especially around political activity and I believe it is having a deleterious effect on – not just racial or social cohesion – but the actual advancement of our country.
CRT is never mentioned, as such, but if you apply a CRT lens over the current political and social construct of NZ, I believe it is.
Look at parliament: we have the totally ideologically driven opposition and we have a National Party that is visibly divided and ostensibly reluctant to confront the race issue.
Prime Minister Luxon, presumably, sees Maori as victims of colonisation. Why else would the power of veto, conferred on Maori via Te Mana o te Wai statements, remain in Three Waters co-governance? Why else does he not challenge activists’ claim of sovereignty?
This ideological opposition is pushing forward with the He Puapua/Maori sovereignty agenda and just waiting for the next election. Or even simply awaiting the collapse of the coalition! Given the immense support given to their cause by the MSM, that is not a fanciful manifestation.
Government bureaucracy: The political mandarins. Those powerful civil servants moving chess pieces behind the scenes. As yet there has been no strategic clean out in ministries that are led by these mandarins. Matthew Hooton recently wrote, “The bureaucracy has no intention of allowing a mere government to butcher it. To the contrary, it plans to kill the government with death by a thousand cuts.”
I contend these political mandarins, either wittingly or unwittingly, are applying a CRT lens over their ministries, presumably believing inherent or even unconscious racism abounds and they must correct the injustice!
Education: This is a classic ‘mandarin’ case in point. The distortion and subversion of young minds began with this group. Education is awash with flawed ideology, contradictions and ethnic bias.
New Zealand education system is surreptitiously using CRT to promote Maori values and concepts over the broad need of everyone else. It is stepping further and beyond CRT. It is actively prioritising the rights of Maori over individual rights.
Rolling heads are sorely required.
Law and Order: This is an area that desperately needs change! In 2017 the Waitangi Tribunal found the Crown had breached its Treaty obligations by failing to prioritise the reduction of Maori reoffending and prison population relative to non-Maori. The answer: ramp up the use of home detention!
And moves are afoot to initiate law reform that “will respond to the needs and aspirations of marginalised communities most impacted by hate speech in Aotearoa New Zealand”.
Judiciary: The weaving of tikanga into common law. Is this not a Supreme Court out of control? Justices of the court have indicated that any issue of law before the courts may need to be addressed in the light of tikanga. Amazing! The Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted that the court’s role is (somehow) to divine ‘changing societal values’ and use them to ‘develop’ the common law.
As I said earlier, CRT has its roots in academia. Universities love this sort of airy fairy issue. They can proselytise the issue to the heavens, so enraptured: their language is rendered meaningless and made unintelligible by excessive use of academic word salads.
Listen to this statement on CRT by Victoria University:“Our central thesis is that scholars and activists seeking to apply a CRT framework or conduct a CRT analysis in New Zealand should be mindful of the particular circumstances of the settler-colonising state imposed by the Crown.”
Further – “It has been well established by Maori and other scholars, and advocates of colour, that the settler-colonising state of so-called ‘New Zealand’ is fundamentally racist.”
The Reserve Bank: These guys are frantically boarding the CRT band wagon. They recently announced they were hiring a principal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) adviser – offering prospective employees the chance to embed “Te Ao Maori lens across policy, processes and systems”; utilise “gender and ethnic pay gap analyses”; and communicate “with credibility the linkage between proposed DEI initiatives, organisational strategies and the benefits to organisation in a variety of forms”.
Can you believe it?
Then there is the MSM: The self-elected defenders of woke, CRT and DEI. How often do we see media enthusiastically reporting negative portrayals or circumstances of Maori? They never represent Maori as a diverse grouping and continually describe them as a homogenous group of victims, all suffering from systemic racism.
Therein lies the genesis of the victimhood industry, where self-interested proponents capitalise on the MSM narratives of victimisation to advance their agenda.
Other than Winston Peters and David Seymour, there is no attempt to rein the media in. Prime Minister Luxon still seems to believe they will eventually ‘love’ him…
CRT advocates reject democracy as a relic of the Age of Enlightenment: the late 17th- and 18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, individualism and scepticism. Now it is argued that white people use illusions like democracy and truth to oppress and dominate people of colour.
CRT advocates proclaim, ‘The only remedy to racist discrimination is positive discrimination!’
“The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
How’s that for a warped concept?
And here’s the underpinning CRT advocates fall back on: Because critical theory rejects reason, it cannot be questioned.
How’s that for expediency and cancel culture?
You may well think I’m talking rubbish, but CRT is invidious in its subversion of rights, democracy and free speech.
Take the time to read He Puapua. Then compare it to what I have alleged. There is an incremental and not so hidden transformation taking place.
So, the current issue is: How do we counter CRT? Or a worrying subsequent question could be: Is this at all possible given its roots have been allowed grow so deeply?
We need to confront and reject CRT because it is invasive and corrosive, ruining everything it touches: social justice, environmentalism, feminism, education, culture and Christianity.
Is this government up to the task?
CRT theorists are “trying to pave the road to reconciliation with good intentions and bad ideas!”