Q&A with Erec Smith | A critique of anti-racism

Erec Smith, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania, said he fought two fronts while growing up. He was among a few Black kids in his neighborhood and his peers had "no intention of letting me forget that." But when he attended a more diverse high school, he was "vilified" for "acting too white." 

"Both groups wanted me disempowered, but for very different reasons," he told Colorado Politics. 

Smith, who authored "A Critique of Anti-racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment," spoke at a roundtable discussion in Denver early this month. The organization behind the discussion, The Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism, billed the discussion as an opportunity to "reject any attempt at flattening people into stereotypes and reducing individuals into interchangeable members of identity groups."   

Colorado Politics: First, tell me why you came to be a critic of anti-racism?

Erec Smith: Well, I used to think I was all for anti-racism until I realized that anti-racism was an insidious manifestation of actual racism. The general ideology of anti-racism and general social justice in academic and activists circles focus on a victim narrative and quasi-Marxist theory and practice that has taken its toll on my life since I was a child, though I didn’t have the terminology for it at the time.

As a child, I found myself fighting a war on two fronts. I was one of the few black kids in my neighborhood, and my grade school peers had no intention of letting me forget that. On the other hand, when I attended a much more diverse regional high school (about 50% black), I was vilified by many of the black students for acting too white.

I learned two things from this collective experience. First, I learned from my grade school peers’ racism that they wanted me to feel like a victim with little to know power. Second, my black high school peers seemed to resent me for not embracing victimhood and an “underdog” disposition. Both groups wanted me disempowered, but for very different reasons. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this planted the seeds of my current academic interests and my choice to become a professor of rhetoric; they wanted similar outcomes but used different rhetoric to say the same thing: “How dare you feel empowered? Don’t you know you’re black?”

I can honestly say things have improved since those days in the 80s. However, I notice that anti-racist activists do not want to acknowledge this. In fact, quite often they insist that things are just as bad or worse than they were 40, 50, or even 60 years ago. This truly saddens me. In my adulthood, the racist white kids have diminished, although they are by no means gone. Racism is still here, but not nearly to the extent I experienced in my youth. However, those black high school peers seem to have grown up to people the academic and activist circles championing what they call social justice.

I agree that problems plague parts of the “black community,” and many are caused by either current racism or the residual effects of past racism. However, the mainstream mode of dealing with those exigencies—a mode that embraces victimhood, us/them logic, and nihilism—is not something I can accept or tolerate. The disempowerment I see, often called empowerment by scholars and activists, prompted me to write my last two books. I have resolved to be a loud and frequent voice against this disempowerment.

CP: How would you define anti-racism?

Smith: I would like to provide two answers to this question: the popular definition and my preferred definition.

The popular definition is what I would call Critical Social Justice (CSJ), which is a more extreme and more blatantly Marxist-oriented mode of social justice activism. Although Critical Race Theory (CRT) is unabashedly critical of classical liberalism, it has ideas that I deem quite reasonable. Intersectionality, for instance, is a reasonable concept. No person is one demographic, and many people have a mixture of “privileged” and “underprivileged” democratic categories. However, with CSJ, the concept of intersectionality goes from prompting a consideration of nuance in identity formation to a marker of ethos that determines who can and cannot speak when it comes to matters of oppression. According to this logic, a black, straight male would be expected to yield to a black straight female, and a black straight female would have to yield to a black queer female. This was not the original intent for the concept of intersectionality, but this is how it too often manifests in contemporary activist circles.

The most telling tenet of CSJ is: The question is not, “Did racism take place?” but rather, “How did racism manifest in that situation?” This tenet implies that racism is omnipresent and that the primary framework of society is that of oppressor/oppressed. This is why the “critical” in Critical Social Justice does not denote critical thinking as it is commonly understood. Critical thinking works to analyze a situation to discover if there are any unseen factors that need to be addressed. If not, the critical thinker moves on. A critical thinker within the paradigm of CSJ, however, has already determined that something is wrong—specifically regarding social justice—and one just has to figure out what it is. Most egregiously, if one cannot find something clearly amiss, one must reinterpret innocuous happenings as “racism.” This is where concepts like microaggressions get the most traction. Saying “the most qualified person should get the job,” is a racist statement in the realm of CSJ. In essence, CSJ abides by a methodology that is actually antithetical to critical thinking.

My definition of anti-racism is more traditional in nature. It abides by the ideology of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, which, itself, abides by classical liberal values. Anti-racism, then, is allowing people of all races to enjoy the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

CP: Can you summarize your criticism of anti-racism?

Smith: Besides its inherent disempowerment, this form of anti-racism is a blatant attack on classical liberal values, especially individuality. As I’ve already mentioned, contemporary anti-racism is a manifestation of Critical Social Justice (CSJ), which is inherently antithetical to critical thinking and, well, actual anti-racist sentiments. In fact, it is racist in that is essentializes people, based on skin color, as either oppressor (i.e., white people) or oppressed (e.g., black people). This is the erasure of individuality that is a foundational aspect of contemporary antiracism. This erasure is not incidental; it is a primary tactic of Marxist thought. Individuality weakens the tenets of Marxism and, by extension, CSJ substantially. Individuals have individual experiences that may not align with the experiences said to be shared by whole groups. Thus, if various individuals exist that do not fit the stereotypical—or strategic—conception of a racial group (e.g. a successful, middle-class black person who does not feel like a victim and is not bothered by the idea that, say, the most qualified person should get the job), then the idea that all black people are oppressed—an idea imperative to CSJ ideology—is seen as the paper tiger it is.

Of course, along with my critique of anti-racist theory, I have evaluated anti-racist praxis in higher education and, to some extent, K-12 education. “Neo-abolition,” as some call this praxis, is devoid of nuance and manifests in ways put forth by Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago. For Lenin, education in a communist regime should be primarily about communism. That is, educators do not teach math for its own sake; they teach it insofar as it can support communism. The same goes for all other disciplines, especially history and social studies. We are seeing something similar in anti-racist education. For example, in my field of rhetoric and composition, anti-racist writing pedagogues teach writing insofar as it promotes anti-racist social justice. Thus, movements like “black linguistic justice” have emerged that put forth the idea. (They would say it’s a fact.) that having black students learn standardized (i.e., “white”) dialects of English is inherently racist and harmful. This critical pedagogy, derived from the Marxist paradigm of critical theory, directly descends from Lenin’s aforementioned sentiments.

CP: How does an anti-racist approach affect young people's thinking? 

Smith: Again, I am not a K-12 scholar in an official capacity, but one can see that anti-racist pedagogy instills nihilism as the correct frame through which to see the world and blinds students to other, more practical ways of addressing racism. What’s more, there is a religious zeal that seems to drive this movement. Teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) or even Critical Social Justice (CSJ) alongside other lens through which to see the world is not an option. The correct way to look at things is through a CSJ lens; all else is white supremacy. Because of this, math has become Math for anti-racism, put forth famously by a white paper titled The Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction. History is taught only in a way that justifies counter-hegemonic sentiments, exemplified by the infamous 1619 Project. Social Emotional Learning has been revamped to become Social Emotional Learning insofar as it is used for social justice, which can be seen by the Collaborative on Social Emotional Learning’s coining of the term “Transformational SEL” to distinguish it from its traditional meaning, now downgraded to “white supremacy with a hug” because it does not focus primarily on race.

None of this is speculation. Marxist pedagogues from Henry Giroux to Asao Inoue will openly and confidently admit that they want to indoctrinate more than educate.

CP: Racism has been described as America's original sin. Do you agree? Why or why not?  

Smith: I do agree that racism was an early ignobility in the creation and initial maintenance of this country; I do get framing that in terms of “original sin.” However, the concept of “original sin” implies a vice that cannot be overcome. This I don’t believe. Putting forth racism as original sin, then, works to create a nihilistic framework unconducive to improving race relations. If racial harmony is the goal, couching historical racism in terms of original sin is just bad rhetoric.

CP: What is your advice to younger folks who are exploring these narratives? Any books or thinkers they should be reading?

Smith: I know of several books people should read. However, because I am in higher education, I think “younger folks” as those in the 18-22 age range. Initially, I would suggest the Journal of Free Black Thought, which publishes ideas on race not covered by the mainstream media and not beholden to the common narrative on race in America. I would also recommend my op-eds on race.

Regarding books, I would suggest the following.

For autobiographical takes on race:

• Cant Hurt Me by David Goggins
• Authentically Black by John McWhorter
• Black Victim, Black Victor by Adam Coleman
• Self-Portrait in Black and White, by Thomas Chatterly Williams
• For books on the general issue of race relations:

Beyond Racial Division by George Yancey

• Please Stop Helping Us by Jason Riley
• The Content of Their Character, by Shelby Steele
• The Lure of Disempowerment, by Erec Smith and Matthew Abraham