Kerby Anderson

Yesterday I talked about critical race theory and summarized some of the analysis by Dr. Doug Groothuis in his article on “America, Critical Theory, and Social Crisis.” One of the key points he makes is that the claims of critical race theory are unfalsifiable. “It becomes impervious to counter-evidence and thus cannot be rationally defended.”

In a recent article by James Lindsay, he argues that “For Racial Healing, Reject Critical Race Theory.” He starts with a thought experiment that shows how unpractical and confusing this theory becomes in everyday life.

He says we should imagine we own a small shop (perhaps a tailor shop) where you have to assist each customer individually. You are the sole proprietor and can only serve one customer at a time. Now imagine two people enter your store at exactly the same time. One is white, and the other is black. Which customer do you help first?

If you choose to serve the black person first, critical race theory would argue that you did so because you don’t trust the black person to be in your shop unattended while you help the other customer. That means you are acting according to racist stereotypes and chose poorly.

If you choose to serve the white person instead, then you are also demonstrating your racist bias. Choosing to help the white person shows that you favor white people and consider them first-class citizens. Once again, you have chosen poorly.

By now, I hope you can see the dilemma created by the philosophy of critical race theory. It is a classic “heads I win, tails you lose.” There is no right choice in this example. No matter what you do, you will always be wrong and thus be condemned as being racist. I think this illustration provides one more reason why critical race theory will not promote racial healing.