Critical Racist Theorems

Who Replaces What

“Replacement Theory” is the idea that those “liberal, progressive, socialist Democrats” (like me) want to bring People of Color into the United States in order to replace those “original” white people living here now.  By bringing in People of Color, either legally or illegally across the southern border, “them Democrats” are trying to “win”, because Peoples of Color will vote for them instead of Republicans.  

“Replacement Theory” is being pushed by the right-wing media, particularly Tucker Carlson on Fox News.   It amplifies the whole “threat at the border” routine, the idea that thousands, perhaps millions of Central Americans are poised to overrun the United States, taking all the jobs, and then “outvoting” the “original white” Americans.  It might seem laughable, like the non-existent “migrant caravans” that showed up only during elections, but it became deadly serious last weekend in Buffalo, New York. Ten people of color were shot down in the grocery store for being “replacements”.

Just because:  unless you can claim to be a Native American, there “ain’t no” original white Americans.  We are all descended from migrants:  mine came from Alsace, France in the 1870’s (they were Jewish, too), and London England in 1946.  So the very idea of being an “original white” American doesn’t really work.  And if there’s some sub-definition of “original”, like someone who immigrated in the early 1800’s, well that would disqualify most white Americans today as well.

And “Replacement Theory” is coupled with more “traditional” anti-Semitism.  People of Color are at the border, but Jews are somehow orchestrating this.  That’s how we ended up with Charlottesville and the Nazi-like torchlight march of sports-shirt and khaki clad men yelling “Jews will not replace us”, or the “Camp Auschwitz” T-Shirt at the Insurrection.

Theorem One

So here’s a Government teacher doing simple math.  This sounds like one of those “theorems” I vaguely remember from junior year geometry. (What I really remember is my teacher, Mr. Parker, dipping his fingers in the chalk tray, then licking them clean).  

1. People of Color tend to vote Democrat
2. If there are more people of Color, then there would be more Democrats
3. Democrats are in favor of more migrants coming to the United States
4. Migrants are mostly People of Color
5. Therefore, more migrants means that there will be more Democrats.

Of course there’s one major flaw in the logic between ‘D’ and ‘E’.  Migrants, legal or illegal, are not citizens of the United States.   They can’t vote.  (Of course, then you throw in the “Big Lie” of election fraud, saying that migrants are voting to “fix” that problem).

Theorem Two

1. There are migrants illegally crossing the Southern Border
2. Illegal migrants are coming to the United States to look for work
3. Illegal migrants take jobs that don’t pay as well
4. Therefore, Illegal migrants are taking jobs from “Legal Americans”. 

A, B, and C are definitely valid.  Most migrants (legal or illegal) do take jobs that don’t pay as well.  But the unemployment rate in the United States is just over three percent, as low as it’s been for years.  And there’s an obvious shortage of workers at the lowest wage levels.  In restaurants, the lawn service industry and other low-wage service jobs, you constantly hear the refrain, “There’s not enough workers, no one wants to work”.  But if that were true, why would the unemployment rate be so low?

And, by the way, if you need more workers – there’s thousands waiting right across the Southern border, ready to come to America to fulfill their dreams.  American citizens aren’t being “replaced” on the job market.  There is a labor shortage in the United States, which has allowed many Americans to take better paying jobs. Where’s the kid flipping burgers for $10/hour at McDonalds now?  She’s at Amazon, making $17/hour “fulfilling” orders.

Entitlement

So what’s really going on that causing people, particularly white males, to fall for this “Replacement Theory” nonsense?  There are two root causes to this.  The first is the loss of white “entitlement”.  

White entitlement was the “American Way” through the mid-1960’s.  White boys got into college, white men got the management jobs, white men were Mayors and  Congressmen and Governors.  It wasn’t just People of Color who were denied the opportunities, it was most women as well.

Then things began to change.  The Civil Rights movement drew attention to the fact that Black people were denied educational opportunities because of their race and the women’s right’s movement made the same claim.  So instead of white men getting ninety percent of the enrollment in colleges and jobs in business, the “opportunity pool” was divvied up among different categories.  Now white men (and boys)  competed with Black men and boys, and white women and girls, and all the other categories of human backgrounds.

And for some of those white men, it just wasn’t “fair”.  Their fathers and their older brothers got their “ticket” (schools, jobs) so much easier.  And instead of rising to the competition, some just took the loss, and looked to blame someone else.  They placed that blame on the someone else that “replaced” them.

History

The second cause is a false sense of history.  This is American education’s fault to some extent.  A traditional high school history can make it seem like there were only white men influencing the course of the United States since the Mayflower landed at Plymouth (but not on the “rock”).  That’s not a valid premise:  women, People of Color, Jews, Native Americans all played a vital role in American development.  But if you’re not taught that, there’s no reason for you to think differently.  And that creates another false sense of entitlement, as if “white men” were the only ones who earned the right to be “Americans”. 

That’s what makes the current nonsense over “Critical Race Theory” so dangerous.  It’s being used to literally “white-wash” school curriculums, so that the “white man’s place” in American history is secured.  It simply prolongs the false sense of “entitlement”.

A Truth

America is changing.  Within the next decade, the majority of the United States will not be “white”.  White people will still be the biggest racial group, but they will no longer be more than fifty percent.  We, the People of the United States, are becoming more diverse.  We are Black, we are Asian, we are Pacific Islanders, we are Latino, we are Hispanic, we are Islamic, we are Jewish, and we are White.  And like a lot of our kids today, many of us are mixes of many of those races and cultures.

And that truth can’t be changed.  It can only be denied, by those who are trying to keep old, unfair, and undemocratic ways alive.

Big Lies

To get people to believe propaganda, you get a “believable” lie, and you tell it over and over again with absolute sincerity.  It’s what the Nazi’s did so effectively in Germany, it’s what Orwell wrote about in 1984, and it’s what Putin’s trying to do in Russia now about his disaster in Ukraine.   The United States is not immune to big lies.  

We are living in an age of Big Lies today.  There’s the named “Big Lie”, that the election of 2020 was somehow stolen by the Democrats.  More than thirty million Americans BELIEVE that it’s true.  There’s the “Big Lie” of the so-called Critical Race Theory crisis.  There’s this Big Lie” of Replacement Theory.  And there’s the old lies of anti-Semitism – that’s somehow Jews really run the world.  

All of these would be laughable if they didn’t have such serious consequences for America.  Democracy depends on an educated electorate.  It’s why the Founding Fathers provided for public education even before the Constitution was written.  But educated means understanding reality, not seeing things through the prism of lies.  If we allow those lies to replace the truth, the loss of our Democracy may be the true “replacement”.