With Natives, there was genocide, cultural erasure, forced relocations, "re-education" centers (where untold numbers died), and even today remain among the most economically disadvantaged groups in the country. Asians have had it bad as well. Laws specifically written against them, lynching, segregation" Then the Japanese being put into detention camps for WW2, simply for being Japanese"
In the 19th century, this was particularly true because of anti-Irish prejudice, which was based on anti-Catholic sentiment, and prejudice against the Irish as an ethnicity. This was especially true for Irish Catholics who immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-19th century; the large number of Irish (both Catholics and Protestants) who settled in America in the 18th century had largely (but not entirely) escaped such discrimination and eventually blended into the white American population.
The 20th century saw discrimination against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (notably Italian Americans and Polish Americans), partially because of anti-Catholic sentiment (as well as discrimination against Irish Americans), partially because of Nordicism. The primary spokesman for Nordicism was the eugenicist Madison Grant. His 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History about Nordicism was highly influential among racial thinkers and government policy makers in the U.S. An advocate of the U.S. immigration laws that favored Northern Europeans, the Klansman Lothrop Stoddard primarily wrote about the alleged dangers which "colored" peoples posed to white civilization, with his most famous book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in 1920. Nordicism led to the reduction in Southern European, along with Slavic Eastern European and Russian immigrants in the National Origins Formula of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, whose goal was to maintain the status quo distribution of ethnicity by limiting immigration of non-Northern Europeans. According to the U.S. Department of State the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity".
I haven't even scratched the surface (Latin, South Asian, Arab, Iranian, Indian, Jews") Historian Matthew White estimates that 3.3 million more non-white people died from 1900 up to the 1960s than they would have if they had died at the same rate as white people. Sounds like not only systemic racism, but genocide to me. And that number only spans 60 years, imagine the number when you take into account the total of the almost 250 years this nation has existed, then take into account before that"
Given a history of racism in the US, is it any wonder why CRT talks about Institutional racism so prevalent in aspects of the existing social structure, pervasive attitudes, and established institutions in society disadvantage some racial groups, but not with an overtly discriminatory mechanism. Today, we see it in Law Enforcement, our general Judicial system, our education system, housing (According to a 2019 analysis by University of Pittsburgh economists, blacks faced a two-fold penalty due to the racially segregated housing market: rental prices increased in blocks when they underwent racial transition whereas home values declined in neighborhoods that blacks moved into.),
Healthcare (A 2019 review of the literature in the Annual Review of Public Health found that structural racism, cultural racism, and individual-level discrimination are "a fundamental cause of adverse health outcomes for racial/ethnic minorities and racial/ethnic inequities in health), labor (A 2020 study revealed that discrimination not only exists against minorities in callback rates in audit studies, it also increases in severity after the callbacks in terms of job offers.), media (A 2017 report by Travis L. Dixon (of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) found that major media outlets tended to portray black families as dysfunctional and dependent while white families were portrayed as stable), voting laws (see an earlier article of mine about voting laws), wealth (A 2014 meta-analysis of racial discrimination in product markets found extensive evidence of minority applicants being quoted higher prices for products.), and all the hate crimes"
Given the GOP likes to brag saying "We ended slavery (begrudgingly)", and as often as they claim to be anti-racist, they seem to be really against something pointing out racism.
First, CRT has been around for decades. It is not new at all. But many Republicans and right-wing media have co-opted this term, and they are using it as a catch-all way of describing basically any conversation about race or racism that makes white people uncomfortable. So, conversations about white privilege, having dialogues about anti-racism - these have all been branded falsely as critical race theory. The overall argument is that talking about race and racism leads to more division in an already very divided country.
You will also hear some Republican lawmakers and media outlets say, you know, this theory is unpatriotic. It tells white people that they are racist, you know, just for being white, when, of course, the actual theory itself is about institutions, not individuals. It is about the systems that are in play and how that has created more difficulties for Black and brown people. But there is an actual legislative movement on this. It is not just people talking about critical race theory.
Why is the American Right so set against something that seeks to undo centuries of slavery-induced racism? Well, for one, CRT is an effective weapon against white supremacy. Seeing as the GOP has never denounced the open support from Neo-Nazi groups and individuals"
The ideological group who wants to erase CRT booed a Black congresswoman, Cori Bush, when she recently denounced white supremacy on the House floor, is the same group whose supporters breached our Capitol with Confederate flags on January 6, 2021. This should tell you everything you need to know.
Because so many Americans do not know what CRT is, it is the perfect tool for scaring White conservative voters with made-up problems for mobilizing them against the racial awakening of the past year.
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