Wednesday, February 1, 2023

And We All Got a Little Dumber That Day

 


This hearing was supposed to be something to do with the waste of Trump-era Covid-19 spending, so I don't know how we got here, but I think it has to do with MTG being an astonishingly stupid bubblehuman who does not have any information outside of culture war propaganda. And for a person who received a PPP loan and got forgiveness, she seems stupid as hell about how funds were wasted since it literally looks like she has first-hand experience. But no, Marge, the large sum of money you think went to CRT didn't and why do you think that, and why do you think that's even what CRT is? 

Critical Race Theory is a college-level legal conversation about how laws can be made to disadvantage populations based on their legal definition. Race is a social construct that can be codified into law--that is to say, people can write words to define the way certain people get to be oppressed. It can be based on immigration status, it can be based on assumed ethnicity, it can be based on religious affiliation--basically people can be told who they are by law, and they don't have a say about their identification. Being "one of the good ones" doesn't even legally save you. 


It holds that laws are made by the same people who can legally construct race, and they did that for the express purpose of excluding some people from a just legal treatment. It goes on to suggest that the laws put in place are remediable-- communities can stop being racist anytime they want to make their laws more just and enforce their laws in a less discriminatory way. CRT most certainly is not about saying white people are less than--it gives people perceived as white a place to step up and support non-discriminatory practices and to not participate in a system that would result in "white guilt".

I'm pretty goddamn white, and I don't feel white guilt. This is because I reject race essentialism, realize human quality is nothing to do with ethnicity, and want to work for a more equitable future for all of us. I respect the lived experiences of other people as wisdom about how people are treated by our various social systems and want them to be fairer and more equitable. So how easy it is to relieve yourself of white guilt? Just click the opt out button and behave decently to everyone. 

Marge wants to see CRT as stigmatizing whiteness. You don't bear stigmata if you aren't trying to be a martyr for the "white cause" which is supremacy and wow--clocking some Confederate vibes here. 

CRT doesn't deserve demonization, it isn't an elementary-level thing, MTG certainly is elementary level, and I think she should be held back because we are all dumber when we have to correct the nonsense of people who don't know what everyone educated should. Because it won't improve her, and in the meanwhile we've been once again distracted by a lower-level farce. 

And yet I don't know how we could convey to the district that-re-elected her, all her flaws laid open, that she is , in fact, an entire moron. Or even be certain that sending an entire moron to DC wasn't their intention. 

UPDATE: And I don't think she understands how underfunded schools really are--sheesh!

3 comments:

Mr XD said...

Thank you for your concise and cogent description of CRT-the best I have seen.
I got over white guilt a long time ago but I still suffer from white embarrassment when subjected to ooga-booga rants and lies from creatures like MTG.
I check in on your Strangeness most days and I like the way you think.
Best regards and carry on~

Vixen Strangely said...

Thanks so much for the feedback! I am disturbed that the opponents of things like CRT or really anything on the right: drag shows, environmental regulations, Black, Queer and Feminist history, um, fact-checking, are steeped in the desire to not understand the argument. It's like arguing against flat-earthers or creationists--the point of their "argument" is to be Horatius on the bridge defending the existence of their territory and win a sinecure--not to engage in an actual give and take of ideas, but to be in a territorial mind-war.

The internet meme of "I believe (thus and such) Change my mind!" with a supposed right-winger at a table supposedly looking for engagement is the entirety of the conversation: All one has to do to win is never confess one's mind could be changed. Their criticisms are the depiction of bogeymen and the spiritual taboo of cursed subjects, shibboleths. They are defending endarkenment--the opposite of empiricism and critical thought. And that closing of the mind, the twisting of the mental capacity to imagine--to seek out blame and demons rather than to objectively see issues and solutions, is genuinely embarrassing to me as well. We could be reaching for the stars and the SOBs have us snuffling in the dirt. We could be working to understand one another as we raise each other up and make a fairer and better world, and they would prefer to stoop to hold others down.

Their minds are filthy and their necks are unclean and it would be better to argue with the walls than with a person who isn't about to be led to water let alone drink it no matter how dehydrated they might seem. And this is my opinion of MTG and her mulishness.

Bridgette said...

Go Vixen. Tell us how you really feel. I agree whole heartedly.

Happy St. Pats to Everyone but RFK Jr.

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