The Right-Wing Attack on Racial Justice Talk

Forces on the political right—Donald Trump and his epigones, Fox News, the Manhattan Institute, The Wall Street Journal, among others—have engaged in a fierce, concerted, and effective effort to vilify dissident thinkers who are trying to deepen, sharpen, and reframe ways in which racial matters are portrayed and discussed. Their strategy is sly. They have repurposed “critical race theory” and related thinking to demonize anyone who would challenge the right’s whitewashed fable of American exceptionalism. Much of what emanates from the embattled racial equity camp is an extravagant version of familiar left-liberal critiques of American racism. The right, however, has deployed that extravagance, along with some missteps and exaggerations, to fabricate a target useful to its aims, which include taking the country back to an earlier era of accepted white hegemony. Read Full Article »