People ban the things they fear.
Some fears are justified as in fear of AR-15s, or lethal drugs. Banning those types of tangible things is logical because evidence-based bans such as these can lead to the saving of many lives. So not all bans are bad.
Banning ideas because you fear them is a whole different thing.
If there is a fundamental and founding principle of American democracy it is the free flow of ideas within society. Ideas and facts are not meant to be banned, controlled, hidden, or banished. Banning ideas from being discussed, taught, or considered in a public arena is fundamentally anti-democratic.
Imposing such bans further entrenches white supremacy. That is what is going on with state-level bans on teaching concepts about racism and non-white history.
Unfortunately, one of the legacies of the first Trump administration, in addition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade leading to bans on abortion which threatens the lives of pregnant women, is the banning of these ideas. Specifically, the Trump administration went after “Critical Race Theory.”
In September 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13950. The core intent of this order was to prevent diversity training that included any idea that implicit bias or systemic racism exists. Order 13950 identified the following topics as “off-limits” for federal agencies or contractors to engage in training:
For the purposes of this order, the phrase:
(a) “Divisive concepts” means the concepts that
(1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;
(2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist;
(3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
(4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex;
(5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex;(6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex;
(7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;
(8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or
(9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.
The term “divisive concepts” also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating.
(b) “Race or sex stereotyping” means ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of his or her race or sex.
(c) “Race or sex scapegoating” means assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex. It similarly encompasses any claim that, consciously or unconsciously, and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist or are inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others.
Somebody is deathly afraid of the truth.
Fortunately, President Biden rescinded this Executive Order shortly after entering office in 2021. Unfortunately, the text, intent, and momentum of Trump's order only picked up speed in 2021 in state houses around the country where there were Republican majorities.
For instance, if you lay the text of Executive Order 13950 against the Iowa anti-CRT House File 802, passed in 2021, you would find a non-accidental, almost verbatim language in the Iowa law. This is true in several other states. Trump’s Executive Order provided the fodder, template, and framework for not only Iowa’s anti-CRT law but many states.
From 2021 to 2024, no less than sixteen other states have passed similar laws using the same or similar language from Trump’s order. Additionally, twenty other states have a law of this nature pending in their state legislatures. This chart identifies the respective states.
Nine or ten of the pending states will likely pass such a law, bringing the total of states banning CRT to 25 or 26. Only the states of California, Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Hawaii have no such legislation pending. There are six states where this legislation has failed to pass: Rhode Island, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Maine. It is hard to see how states like New Jersey, New York, Michigan, and Minnesota would ever pass such anti-democratic laws so it is likely that in 2024, approximately 50% of the states will have anti-CRT legislation enacted.
The main point is that the impetus or trigger for this round of banning ideas about racism and our nation’s past originated with President Donald Trump. So, in addition to putting the lives of women at risk by overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump’s influence on our society also goes to overturning the documented and established truth of history for entire groups of people…African Americans, Indigenous nations, and Latinx.
People ban ideas they fear. So, what are they afraid of?
To put it bluntly, they are afraid of losing their position in the white supremacist hierarchy that has been in place for many centuries.
The attack on the facts and reality of Black American history is like the Holocaust denier phenomenon. To deny the existence of the Holocaust is no more tenable intellectually than to promote a flat earth. “Critical Race Theory” is the short-hand, lazy person’s shortcut term for ideas they don’t like or, ideas that threaten white supremacy. And there is the source of the fear.
White supremacy is alive and well in the United States. It has never gone away but is now in resurgence like never before. White supremacy acts like a script in the mind of every white person and only by a conscious effort to fight against it, can it be eradicated.
Here is how the script of white supremacy is driving the current raft of anti-CRT legislation:
White supremacy hates when someone else’s story is made the center of the plot. Allowing topics such as enslavement, racism, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement to have a central role in American history threatens white status.
White supremacy believes in hierarchy and putting Black history in the middle of the American story overturns the hierarchy. That is the backlash to the 1619 Project. It isn’t that the history is wrong…it supplants white people as the main characters in the story.
White supremacy doesn’t believe that white people can do anything wrong and their misdeeds must be covered up. White behavior is always considered to be pure and without guilt or complicity. Black history challenges that type of factual manipulation.
White supremacy believes in a zero-sum game so any focus on the history of non-white people (they believe) diminishes the history of white people. Any negative retelling of white history is considered unpatriotic.
White supremacy constantly works to marginalize the “other” and squelching their history is one of the fastest ways to diminish a group of people. White-washing history keeps marginalized people…marginalized.
White supremacy will not let white people believe they carry any unconscious bias, despite evidence to the contrary. (see: The Royal Society and The National Library of Medicine).
White supremacy wants people to believe that there is an even starting line in American society and economy. The “meritocracy” included in the legislation is designed to keep the blame on those who have a different starting line. (see: Princeton University Press).
White supremacy instills the fear that non-white people are coming for their jobs and way of life. This is part of the zero-sum mentality. No such threats exist.
White supremacy wants to continue to define an American as white, Christian, and conservative. Despite huge demographic changes approaching, white supremacy wants to continue its reign even as whites are shrinking as a proportion of the population.
White supremacy defines “divisive concepts” as anything that challenges or undermines white superiority. They are playing a “bait-n-switch” game where they blame non-white people for division because they bring the topic up.
White Supremacy will fight against honest reckoning with America’s racist past to keep from having to take responsibility for dealing with inequities. It is easier to pretend the inequities don’t exist, or that they exist because of the character failures of non-white people.
White supremacy in the United States doesn’t necessarily come under a white hood with a burning cross. Most of the time it comes in formal shirts and ties in the halls of state government and Congress. Sometimes it comes carrying a Bible.
Make no mistake that Trumpism is the current driver for white supremacy and if re-elected, it will bring this insidious sickness further into the mainstream. But here is a dirty little secret. White supremacy has always been in the mainstream, but until Trump came along, it was ignored and not given public agency. Trump has made it his brand because that is what he does. He is a marketer, and he understands enough about American society and its ties to white supremacy to capitalize on it to gain political clout.
People will ban anything they fear…especially ideas. That defines the essence of Trumpism.
Good article Dan. Sadly, very true.