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How Critical Race Theory Molded Obama
PJ Media (Archives) ^ | 10-29-2008 | Mary Grabar

Posted on 03/08/2012 9:19:01 AM PST by smoothsailing

How Critical Race Theory Molded Obama

Mary Grabar

October 29, 2008

That intellectual thugs now rule the hallways of academe and threaten our civil liberties was perhaps nowhere more dramatically illustrated than in the Duke lacrosse rape case two years ago. The humanities professors who persecuted Duke lacrosse players had acquired their jobs through force — through protests and demands that began in the 1960s. By the 1980s, Duke University had succeeded in filling its ranks with professors of dubious credentials, but who fit the new gender, race, and left-wing ideological categories. These professors began their work in indoctrinating their charges towards a Marxist view by castigating such foundational notions as truth, universal rights, rule of law, and due process into a category of “patriarchal white hegemony.” As on campuses across the country, anyone who disagrees is kept out of the club of the tenured.

Critical race theory” is one label for such an anti-Western notion of justice; its ideas seep into the humanities, including my field, English. Its promulgators, like Derrick Bell, insist that long-held beliefs that underpin our legal system be replaced by a “justice” that takes into account past and current racial discrimination — however subjectively determined it may be. In short, critical race theorists believe that standards of justice should vary from group to group and situation to situation.

The lacrosse players’ presumed guilt, based on their white race, their male gender, and their class, followed lock-step. It was this view that rationalized the persecution of the innocent lacrosse players inside the classroom and spurred on violent mobs who threatened their safety.

As an example of how accepted such a view is in the insular academy, none of the group of 88 faculty members that signed a published statement condemning the lacrosse players within days after the false accusation was made has been punished. Nor have they been punished for clearly violating university policies regarding faculty conduct toward students. In fact, many of them, like Houston Baker, have been invited to endowed chairs at other universities. Duke President Richard Brodhead, who presided over the travesty of justice and suggested that the players needed to be “proven innocent,” recently received a 15% raise.

Indicating a receptive attitude to such a view of justice, at least by his teaching and academic background, is presidential candidate Barack Obama. While at Harvard, Obama joined his professor, critical race theorist Derrick Bell, in mob pressures to hire a black female. Obama, during his richly remunerated stint as a part-time professor at the University of Chicago Law School, relied on his former professor’s writings, as his syllabus shows. (Issues of race seem to have been a specialty during Obama’s tenure, as I’ve described in previous columns.) The media points to his inclusion of a reading by conservative jurist Robert Bork, but the preponderance of far-left readings, as well as other evidence, like Obama’s contribution of a chapter to a volume devoted to the writings of radical socialist Saul Alinsky and his close ties to the New Party, strongly suggest that Obama as professor used the tactic of most left-wing professors: throw in one token conservative as a whipping boy. Obama’s academic associations and writings show him favoring theories of justice based on race, class, and gender. These have their roots in a socialist doctrine — and not in Western notions of equal and universal rights.

It takes a regular Joe (the Plumber) asking an innocent question to reveal the Democratic candidate’s ideology, which, in faith to Marxism, is to “spread the wealth.” Joe the Plumber has likely been alienated by his schooling and the double talk reigning in the classroom. He, instead, relies on his God-given reason, just the way the Founding Fathers intended. Professor Obama on the campaign trail, however, mocked John McCain’s reference to him during the third debate.

Obama has garnered the support of Christopher Buckley, who seems to have forgotten his late father’s prescient words in his book about his college years, God and Man at Yale:

Marx himself … envisaged two broad lines of action that could be adopted to destroy the bourgeoisie: one was violent revolution; the other, a slow increase of state power, to a point where a smooth transition could be effected from an individualist to a collectivist society.

Our founding principles are based on the idea of natural law, clearly expressed in such language that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.” The Marxist and critical race theory notions espoused by Obama and by those in positions as intellectual opinion-makers are diametrically opposed to our democratic foundations.

Joe rightly feels threatened by a double standard of justice. He knows that he is endowed with reason by his Creator — and not the professors.

The only response that the professors have left to give to Joe, the aspiring small business owner, is ultimately the one Chairman Mao espoused in his 1949 speech, “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship”: “Communists the world over are wiser than the bourgeoisie.” Indeed, the professors, like Mao, have simply declared themselves smarter and excluded those who disagree with them. Unchallenged by the public or administrators, they have promulgated their ideology in the classrooms.

It is a plumber and not a Ph.D., though, who recognizes what Obama’s ideas mean for him, a small business owner, a member of the bourgeoisie: famine as a result of an ideology of “spreading the wealth” and guilt until proven innocent as a result of class-based justice.

Mary Grabar earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia and teaches in Atlanta. She is organizing the Resistance to the Re-Education of America at www.dissidentprof.com. Her writing can be found at www.marygrabar.com. Subscribe to dispatches here.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
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This commentary was originally posted on Free Republic October 29, 2008, just days before the 2008 Presidential Election.
1 posted on 03/08/2012 9:19:04 AM PST by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing

The most narrow-minded people in the world are leftist academicians.


2 posted on 03/08/2012 9:23:47 AM PST by PGR88
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To: smoothsailing

Thanks to quotas, African-Americans who hold professorial positions are most probably not regarded highly by folks...due to the justly earned reputation for stupidity.

Clarance Thomas, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell et all are obviously excepted...they are d*mn good all know it (which is why the liberal establishment likes to denigrate them).

Liberals like dummies in academic positions, and they have been massively successful in attaining their goals.


3 posted on 03/08/2012 9:24:18 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: PGR88

The most narrow-minded people in the world are leftist academicians.


And the most intolerant as well!


4 posted on 03/08/2012 9:33:03 AM PST by Hotlanta Mike (TeaNami)
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To: smoothsailing

More on Bell’s Critical Race Theory;

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4783.html


5 posted on 03/08/2012 9:35:20 AM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: smoothsailing

bttt


6 posted on 03/08/2012 9:45:14 AM PST by Matchett-PI ("Andrew loved the battle and he knew the stakes." ~ Mark Levin 3/2/12)
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To: All

b


7 posted on 03/08/2012 9:53:52 AM PST by Maverick68
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To: smoothsailing
Critical Race Theory

If Danica Patrick doesn't win at Darlington she's toast?
8 posted on 03/08/2012 9:54:21 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: smoothsailing
Thanks!

Professor Grabar has published, both on her own web site and others, many articles which can contribute to informed discussion and debate in this election year.

The article cited here from 2008, as well as an archive of articles on similar topics, as well as on a wide range of subjects, can be found here .

9 posted on 03/08/2012 9:55:00 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra
More on Bell’s Critical Race Theory;

I trust you find Twyman to be a questionable source who speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

From your link:

"To their credit, some African-American law professors rejected the siren call of the pied pipers at Harvard and UCLA. Professor Stephen Carter at Yale became a well-respected scholar of constitutional law with an emphasis on Separation of Powers and Religion.....Professor Barack Obama at Chicago focused on public service and became U.S. Senator from Illinois. The African-American community has been well served by their work."

"After graduating with High Honors from the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School, W. F. Twyman, Jr. worked at a major New York law firm, served on the staffs of Congressmen Barney Frank and Henry B. Gonzalez, and taught as a law professor for seven years."

10 posted on 03/08/2012 10:04:04 AM PST by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing

This is a great article. Thank you for posting. I don’t remember seeing it before.

I hope that someone from Breitbart.com gets hold of this article. It deserves widespread distribution, now that the issue has been joined.


11 posted on 03/08/2012 10:10:20 AM PST by Piranha (If you seek perfection you will end up with Democrats.)
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To: loveliberty2
There is also some more recent observations and commentary from Mary Grabar available at this link.
12 posted on 03/08/2012 10:14:45 AM PST by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing

For a year before the 2008 election, the media trumpeted the lie that Barack Obama was a “professor of constitutional law” at the University of Chicago. I looked at the syllabus reprinted in the NYT and it looks like nothing but race-based readings and history. This puzzles me...


13 posted on 03/08/2012 10:32:01 AM PST by astounded (Barack Obama is a clear and present danger to the USA)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Wow. Your link actually mentions Barack back in 2005 as one of the black law professors who has broken away from Critical Race Theory!!! Which is why I love this place... you get insights like no other place on the Internet. Thanks for this fascinating article.

Normally I end my posts saying “God help us.” In this case, I’m lifted up by the knowledge that there are others out there who understand the beast that we’re confronting and giving us the ammo to fight it. Be well, wherever you are.


14 posted on 03/08/2012 10:44:23 AM PST by redpoll
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To: astounded
...the media trumpeted the lie that Barack Obama was a “professor of constitutional law” at the University of Chicago.

And they will continue to, even though all available evidence makes it clear that Obama was teaching social justice and Marxist ideology.

15 posted on 03/08/2012 10:48:36 AM PST by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing; MestaMachine

I found his comments on Critical Race Theory interesting.


16 posted on 03/08/2012 11:30:42 AM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: smoothsailing; All
Excellent article by Mary Grabar.

Derrick Bell, the Duke 88 and thousands of other liberals in academia looking down their noses at the little people are at least brought to task once in a while by honest writers and truly intelligent people such as Grabar, Sowell, Williams, etc.

As an aside here's a link to a thread on FR of just who the pathetic Duke 88 are and their total disgrace:

The Disgrace of the Duke 88

17 posted on 03/08/2012 11:44:35 AM PST by jazusamo (Character assassination is just another form of voter fraud: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Interesting until you realize that he is indeed PRACTICING what he SEEMS to be disparaging. In other words, he is a hypocrite.
ocramit, himself, described this as “not scaring white people” by talking quietly and soothingly while never revealing your own loathing for them.


18 posted on 03/08/2012 11:58:57 AM PST by MestaMachine (obama kills)
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To: MestaMachine

-——ocramit, himself, described this as “not scaring white people” by talking quietly and soothingly while never revealing your own loathing for them-——

This is the beginning, middle, and end of the secret of Obama’s success.

The first time I heard him speak, I thought, “oh sh—.” My instinct was correct.

His delivery is hypnotic. No one says nothing like Obama. He actually beat Alan Keyes in a debate —not substantivey, but in fact, in terms of winning audience approval.


19 posted on 03/08/2012 12:07:58 PM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas (Viva Christo Rey!)
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the link, Obama would feel right at home in that crowd. What a disgusting bunch.


20 posted on 03/08/2012 12:55:16 PM PST by smoothsailing
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