The Barbershop: What’s up Socrates, how you doing? I knew you were due for a cut and was hoping you’d come through today ‘cause we been talking about some things all day and some of these Brothas asked, “When is Socrates coming thru,?” ‘cause they wanted to hear from you on a couple of things.
Socrates: I’m still a day ahead of the posse on a good horse, so it’s all good! What y’all got going today?
Barbershop: There are two things we been kicking around, Critical Race Theory (CRT), 1619 and why crazy white folks so riled up about it.
Socrates: See that’s why I love coming here, because you can never predict what the conversation is gonna be about. I thought I was gonna get a haircut and argue about the NBA playoffs and y’all down hear trying to make sense outta white America. Where you wanna start?
Barbershop: Let’s start with CRT, ‘cause I think that’s at the heart of a lot of this but we’re not sure what it is.
Socrates: That’s a good place to start and don’t sweat not being sure what it is because crazy white Republicans talking all that smack ain’t got a clue either. In fact, they wouldn’t recognize CRT if it walked up and slapped them.
But I’ll give the short stroke on CRT, and even roll 1619 up in it, so it makes walking around sense, and not get y’all all tangled up with some academic BS.
Barbershop: Come on with it!
Socrates: Some of y’all have probably heard this before, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” All that means is how you understand history is a function of who is writing or telling it. The lion and the hunter would both agree about the fact that there was a hunt, but they got completely different versions about who the hunt benefitted or glorified. CRT and the 1619 Project is just us understanding and telling the history of America from our prospective. We are just the lions taking exception to the hunter’s version of history.
See white America believes this myth (or lie really, you decide), about who it is and how it came to be, and they want everybody to co-sign the story. The way white Americans tell it, the country was founded on freedom and economic opportunity, which may even be true if you’re white and European. In their story, genocide of the Indigenous People and our enslavement was just an accident or unfortunate by product.
But when they look at the overall result, as it turned out for them, slavery and genocide were just a necessary price for this white greatness they call America.
It’s this last point where CRT catches these crazy white fascist Republicans tripping. CRT explains why the history of race in America is relevant today. Rather than look at the behavior of individual white people, it looks at the structure of American society, the legal system, government policy, education system, healthcare and the whole social system of American society.
You see the United States is really built on the assumption that the natural order of things is white male supremacy. So, from the very beginning, starting with the Constitution, every law, every social institution is designed to support and maintain white male privilege, and those systems are still operating. It’s how this place works.
As W.E.B. DuBois pointed out way back in the day, “A system cannot fail those who it was never meant to protect.”
Barbershop: So CRT, and even the 1619 Project then, are a paradigm change you’re always telling us about?
Socrates: You got it! When how you understand reality changes, then the physical reality actually changes because you begin operating based on your new understanding which as the effect of actually changing reality. It’s a case where the perception of the new reality becomes the new reality.
Barbershop: It’s like rich white folks been running a con on us, and CRT has peeped their hole card and pulls the cover off, calling them out, threatening their money and power. I get it!
Socrates: Facts!
Barbershop: But what I don’t get, is why is ordinary white folks, who really ain’t got nothing coming either, support this kinda stupid?
Socrates: DuBois got something to say about that too! But it’s Lyndon Johnson who really breaks it down, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t know you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Which is why average white people are the real target of all this Republican madness, because if they ever get a true understanding of America, they’ll realize how rich white people been pimping them out, the last 250 years.
Barbershop: Damn, all that’s pretty messed up and looks kinda hopeless. One thing for sure, it’s probably gonna get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.
Socrates: If we’re done with crazy white folks, who y’all like in the playoffs?