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I have become alarmed at the pace at which my family and friends are taking up belief in Critical Race Theory.  CRT has an equation for determining who can be racist: Racism=Prejudice+Power.  This means that racism can only flow downhill from more to less powerful groups, meaning that white people can be racist to black people but not vice versa.  More extreme versions of this view say that only white people can be racist.  Furthermore CRT says that black people cannot be racist by definition.  To claim that a black person was racist to a white person is “reverse racism” which CRT claims is one of the worst things white people can do.  More terrible claims of CRT are that all white people are racist or even that all white people are white supremacists.

CRT believers I have spoken to have said that black people can be prejudiced against whites but not racist.  Is being prejudiced not as bad as being racist?  This looks like a “Distinction Without Difference” fallacy to me.  In my view a good understanding of critical thinking will prevent racism.  No one can be racist to anyone.  If someone is racist it means they have poor critical thinking skills.

I understand the logic of CRT, but I believe it to be bad logic.  The idea is to train all white people to call themselves racist with the hopes that this will lead to lesser racism overall.  This is too much means end reasoning in my opinion.  Perhaps it works but it does so with too much irrational behavior.    There must be a better way.  I say we get rid of CRT and replace it with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Humanist Manifesto III.

The other day I spoke with someone who said they were a humanist who said that humanists do not have an official stance on racism.  I think he was mistaken so I wanted to ask in this forum.  It is my understanding that racism is both irrational and unscientific.  Humanists embrace science and reason.  Therefore a racist cannot claim to be a humanist.  Do I have this right?

I should leave with specific questions.  Do humanists believe the parts of CRT which I have described?  Are humanists ideals sufficient to combat racism?