Up To Date Entry 17: Critical Condition

 Up To Date With Ethan Callender Entry 17: Critical Condition

Once again, I can’t fathom how long it has been since the last blog entry. However, I have recently started posting political memes on the blog’s official Instagram. I created this page back in September to promote the blog to who I hoped would be a new audience. Sadly, I haven’t found the time for many consistent entries since then, but perhaps the memes will make the waits between entries more worth it. Pictured below is the most recent, and by far the least partisan, example, with Sen. Joe Manchin getting called out for effectively keeping the filibuster intact.

Recently, however, an issue so complex that memes won’t do it justice has inspired me to write my first blog entry in two whole months. That issue is not voting rights, and not related to the filibuster. Rather, it is about critical race theory, an established school of thought long present in higher education. And now, as America’s younger and/or more liberal demographics come to terms with the nation’s objectionable past treatment of minorities, the theory is going mainstream, as well as into lower levels of education. This, understandably, has many older and/or more conservative demographics shaking in their boots. After all, no one wants their perspective challenged by the very institutions that once defended it. Now, as a white male, I can never know firsthand the struggles and hardships that our system can enable. However, what I can do is educate myself and others about the flaws our society has in this area.

The definition of critical race theory is as follows, according to Britannica: It is a theoretical framework that holds beliefs based on the theory that race is entirely a social construct. This means that people came up with the idea of race, and that its defining difference, skin color, should not impact a human’s status in society. In short, it calls race a man-made idea that is used to distinguish and oppress minority groups. This in and of itself is a bold stance to take, even in 2021’s America, but this theory seriously lives up to the ‘critical’ part of its name. It straight-up calls out America’s institutions as they stand as inherently racist, particularly against African-Americans. 

It is worth nothing that the belief that our institutions are racist is only as they stand, meaning that with significant reform, that factor could be eliminated or reduced significantly. That said, I don’t see any reason why these claims are wrong, because while we are all equal under the law, there are various idiosyncrasies in our system that have an unfortunate tendency to be harsher towards minority groups. The most enduringly well-known of these is our legal system, via prisons, police, and poor-quality judicial rulings. All three of these factors came together and to a head in the story of Kalief Browder. 

Browder was only 16 years old when he was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack, and had to spend nearly three years in New York City’s Rikers Island prison, and nearly two whole years of that time in solitary confinement, all while still pending trial. He was barely even an adult at the time, and his experiences left him a broken man. To make matters worse, the charges were eventually dropped due to a lack of evidence. After his release, he would tell his story to the world through a riveting documentary, and unfortunately, his past experiences became too much for him to bear. He took his own life in 2015 at the age of 22.

There are countless other stories similar to Kalief’s. There’s George Floyd’s tragic murder at the hands of police, and Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of a wannabe vigilante, and those are only the best-known examples. There are many tragic incidents that the general public may never know about because of our present systems. This is what makes recent attempts by Republican politicians to ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools outright insidious. These politicians know that what they are doing is going to blind students to the ugly side of our country’s past. They know this will only lead to more tragedies in minority communities, and they know that this will prevent their constituents from caring about injustices. These injustices, murders, and wrongful arrests would be called human rights violations anywhere else in the world. But to certain Americans, it’s all well if it happens here. Hate like that has no place in a truly free society, and it is past time that we extinguish said hate in the name of liberty and justice for all.