Is Critical Race Theory of concern in Canada? 

On May 22, the State Senate for Texas passed a bill prohibiting the teaching of a quasi-Marxist ideology in public and open-enrollment charter schools. The prohibition against teaching that one race is inherently superior or that individuals are inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive by virtue of their race or sex seems to be a stab at Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Canadian lawyer, Sheldon Wood, says “parents are seeking ways to block the spread of [CRT] in schools where they send their children. They see the doctrine as a culprit in creating a toxic environment and exacerbating problems it claims to ameliorate. School officials have been responding with denials or silence. CRT has been spreading throughout academia, entertainment, government, schools and corporations.”

But what is this Critical Race Theory and how is it being expressed in Canada? Should followers of Jesus be concerned on how their children are being impacted or is this more fad and bluster that will quickly pass? How do we manage the pressure on biblical and parental authority? How do we manage the tsunami of social media newsfeeds pressuring conformity and shaming non-conformity in a world where we want to be liked and accepted?

Ghanaian-Canadian, Samuel Sey, in his Slow to Write blog (May 17), says CRT is a reaction to the American civil rights movement and was founded by Harvard law professor Derrick Bell as a rebuke against the idea of colour-blindness. He sees it as the offspring of Marxism, postmodernism, critical theory, feminism and critical legal studies. It is based on “Marxist concepts of conflict theory and cultural hegemony.” He adds that “Postmodernist intellectuals like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard suggested that Western society oppresses marginalized groups by convincing them that reason, truth, and reality are meaningful…These postmodernists also inspired second-wave feminism, which prioritized abortion, opposition to the traditional family, and the sexual revolution.”

Jordan Peterson, and other social commentators, have been calling attention to the agenda of the progressive movement for several years now, branding postmodernism as neo-marxism in a new skin. Classical Marxim focused its political agenda by theorizing a class conflict with a power imbalance which could only be solved by revolution. Wood says that CRT “defines America’s history as a struggle between ‘oppressors’ (white people) and the ‘oppressed’ (everyone else), similarly [sic] to Marxism’s reduction of human history to a struggle between the ‘bourgeoisie’ and the ‘proletariat’. It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as ‘systemically’ or ‘structurally’ racist. CRT’s entry into schools is dressed up as ‘equity,’ ‘anti-racist,’ or ‘culturally responsive’ initiatives.”

Apologist Neil Shenvi says he has noticed a theological drift among some Christians after their engagement with social justice issues. Some left the faith altogether. He says the book Race, Class and Gender by Margaret Anderson and Patricia Collins alerted him to the cause. “People were not merely adopting a few new beliefs [such as Marxism, feminism, critical race theory and queer theory] about politics. They were adopting a new worldview, which was gradually eroding their Christian worldview.” The connection with Marx isn’t about his view on economics but rather on his view of “how power circulates and functions in society to reproduce inequality and exploitation.” Modern thinkers have focused on how “domination is produced by things like culture and mass media.” Critical theory now encompasses “entire disciplines like postcolonialism, critical pedagogy, postmodernism, feminism, black feminism, queer theory, and critical race theory.”

Government, the RCMP and now schools are being put under the analysis of ‘experts’ determined to dismantle traditional styles of operation. As a pastor of a multi-ethnic church with 65 nations represented, in a land where ‘the church’ has been castigated for its image and role in residential schools, sex scandals, financial privilege and elitism, I wonder how this trend is impacting the generations starting to fade away to the fringes of faith? Fighting injustice for missing and indigenous women, Asian discrimination, homelessness, addiction, poverty and other issues are being swept up into the middle of the CRT whirlwind.

American policy researcher, Chris Rufo, advocates for action on three fronts – government, grassroots and principle. Canadian Christians, as a whole, are not known to be strongly active on any of these levels. Parents would have to mobilize against curriculum promoting ideas like race essentialism, collective guilt and neo-segregation. Rufo shares a story about how a grade one teacher separated her students into white oppressors and the rest as oppressed. We need to guard the good in terms like diversity and not allow redefining of key truths which we have embraced to channel the truths of God’s creation of all persons in his own image; his love for his creation; his desire for reconciliation and a regenerated relationship with his own.

There is no question that our nation is rife with inequities against First Nations, South Asians, Chinese, Jews and others for which appropriate apologies need to, and in most cases, have been given by appropriate government representatives. Reconciliation is about moving forward together rather than being sucked back into the quicksand of past wrongs. CRT would take us backward, not forward.