a day of digging, poetry, CRT, and prayer...

On what appears to be the last genuinely warm day of autumn - a high of 71F - I: dug two more garden beds, read a collection of poetry by Scott Cairns, prayed for my brother's surgery, and wrote an honest and respectful critique of a colleague's concerns about critical race theory. By my modest standards, it's been a satisfying day.

+ I wanted to get the two additional beds started before the ground froze. We had such great luck with potatoes this year that one 4 x 8 bed will be devoted to spuds as befits this Scots-Irish gardener. Truth be told, however, it was my beloved Anglo-German-Huguenot partner who brought those tasty little suckers to life. The other bed will try to build on this years pumpkin and bean crop; at least two of the original three sisters will be returned to this once Algonquin/Mahican land. The existing three beds will be given to tomatoes, peas, wild flowers, and probably green leafy vegetables.

+ I wanted to reread Cairns to expand my "Small is Holy" poetry connection. While watching one of the countless European mystery shows we take-in after Di is finished teaching and I've prepared an evening meal, a very secular family found themselves confronted with having to hold a memorial service for a complicated relative. With no clergy available, and no defined spirituality, they turned to poetry and let deep speak to deep. It reminded me of what Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel lecture re: Dostoevsky's assertion that it is beauty that will save the world:

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through – then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

+ I prayed for my brother simply because I love him. He's been hurting for some time and needs a break. So does his dear wife. My prayer is both for his healing short term and over the long haul.

+ And I wrote my reflection on a critique of Critical Race Theory because I am committed to civil discourse. It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. It is important to live tenderly and passionately into the truth even when that is uncomfortable. And in this fantastically frantic time of polarization, where opinion is treated like fact and incendiary words are always in search of an argument or fight, I have chosen the road less traveled. Not that I am always right. Far from it. But I want to advance my concerns with love and respect as well as reason an evidence. Here's what I came up with...

REFLECTIONS ON CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND ITS CRITICS
Once again in the United States, a social corrective is being portrayed as a force of national disintegration and mind control. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an analysis of America that highlights the empirical effects race hatred has built into our institutions and worldview since before the founding of our nation. It strives to balance the dominant “color blind” approach to political, economic, social, and spiritual realities that have defined US historiography.

+ CRT focuses on what is often overlooked, misunderstood, or intentionally excluded from traditional American histories: the pain, obstacles, policies, and injustices created by foundational racial discrimination. At its best, CRT avoids demonizing individuals while documenting the staggering costs that white privilege has inflicted upon people of color.

+ To be sure, some advocates paint with a broad brush and create ugly and untrue caricatures along with a shallow and divisive analysis. This is, per-haps, a natural consequence of leveling the playing field, but still deplorable and dangerous. History and social analysis are complicated, nuanced, endeavors as the best scholars – mainstream and alternative – affirm. Mainstream scholars like Arthur Schlessinger, Richard Hofstadter, David Halberstam, Perry Miller, and David Garrow know this as do intellectuals documenting the forgotten or shadow side of our history including Eric Foner, Dee Brown, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Isabelle Wilkerson, William Appleton William, and Howard Zinn. NOTE: I choose not to use the terms “revisionist” historians because it is divisive, inflammatory, and smacks of an implied communist agenda.

+ Demonizing white people, however, is neither the goal nor the desire of CRT and its proponents. Rather, like the young activists who gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement, it is to accurately document human truths that have long been denied and intentionally omitted from our self-understanding. It is to redress what is broken in America and form a more perfect union where equality is normative.

My daughter teaches in the NYC school system where a careful approach to inclusion rules the day: theirs is not the inflated charges of mind-control suggested by the City Journal article, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites.” (Please read it here 2 https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites?) But an age-appropriate introduction to the study of First Nations history and culture before 1492. Or the legacy of Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction. It is a corrective to the sanitized histories I grew up and incorporates the wisdom but not the style of James Loewen’s, Lies My History Teacher Told Me. My takeaway from the City Journal article is not positive. It is well-written albeit with a subtle snark that I find deceitful. Specifically, three things trouble me. 

+ First, it is shaped by the conservative ideology of the foundation who publishes it: The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. They are clearly bright and creative; they are entitled to their own analysis, too. I fundamentally disagree, however, and want to state that from the outset. 

+ Second, the author implies communist motives to CRT advocates which is not only untrue, but a manipulative red herring often used by social conservatives to discredit those they oppose. 

+ And third, the article is only mildly empirical while caustically anecdotal. I was reminded of how Ronald Reagan used this ploy to great advantage when facts did not support his narrative. To be sure, I grasp the discomfort that can be evoked among white elites when learning about what is at stake in repairing the historic wounds of American racism. But I trust the analytical integrity of these articles from mainstream sources more:

· Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/

· Why Conservatives Really Fear Critical Race Theory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/26/why-conservatives-really-fear-critical-race-theory/

· The Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory
https://time.com/6079716/conservative-case-against-banning-critical-race-theory/

One last point re: spirituality: St. Paul said it best in Romans when he observed “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” He, of course, included himself in this judgment. He also celebrated the superiority of grace over judg-ment – or as Bono put it: “Grace trumps karma.” I cannot see how CRT denies grace nor am I able to grasp how shining the light on social and institutional sin prohibits change. To be sure, I comprehend the discomfort and even the grief. But such is a part of becoming a new being by God’s love: we must all repent – change direction – let go of self so that we might be filled with God’s healing presence. So, that is my take on this thus far. Like St. Paul notes elsewhere: “now I see as through a glass darkly, later I shall see face to face… Three things endure: faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.” Thank you for sharing with me your insights with care, intellectual honesty, and love.