The fight over critical race theory.⁠↗

Disagreement with their program becomes irrefutable evidence of a dissenter’s ‘white fragility,’ ‘unconscious bias’ or ‘internalized white supremacy.’ I’ve seen this projection of false consciousness on their opponents play out dozens of times in my reporting. Diversity trainers will make an outrageous claim — such as ‘all whites are intrinsically oppressors’ or ‘white teachers are guilty of spirit murdering black children’ — and then, when confronted with disagreement, adopt a patronizing tone and explain that participants who feel ‘defensiveness’ or ‘anger’ are reacting out of guilt and shame.”

I see some critical race theorists reject perfectly good ideas or arguments from White men simply because they come from White men. Political issues that are actually more about class are sometimes reduced to being about nothing but race.

The “mousetrap,” as Christopher Rufo calls it, is real: those who disagree on a point are often pegged as fragile and guilt-ridden, rather than someone who might have a good-faith, logic-based, argument. There is often very little room for pushback — so little that anti-racism workshops can functionally alienate and anger people rather than convince them of the reality of systemic racism and other issues.

In college, I got a certificate in U.S. history, and it was revelatory. It wasn’t just an extension of what I had learned in high school, it was an entirely different set of stories. And learning those stories made me a better citizen and a more self-aware American.