Should the Left Defend Critical Race Theory? w/ Freddie deBoer & Irami Osei-Frimpong

Subscribe at Patreon for $5 a month to listen to the full episode now

Republicans are big mad about Critical Racial Theory, liberals are arguing about the definition of CRT, and the left is mostly sniping about how much they hate Robin DiAngelo. But should we be responding more substantively?

Christopher Rufo, the man who started the war on CRT knows exactly what he's doing. And it's no casual project: "‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore... The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain," he told the New Yorker.

Conservatives realize that CRT is the perfect cultural war distraction. It avoids the issue of how little Republicans are working to improve the lives of their voters, while also taking aim at a Marxist academic approach that shines light on the fact that our legal and political system is rigged in favor of elites. But liberals seem not to realize quite what they're up against, or how powerful anti-CRT arguments based in individualism are to social conservatives of all races. This week, we spoke to writer Freddie deBoer & host of The Black Athenians Irami Osei-Frimpong about whether the left should defend CRT, how to devalue the wages of whiteness, and how much money it would take for Freddie to give up being white.

Subscribe at Patreon for $5 a month and get an extra episode per week and access to a backlog of premium content including interviews with Killer Mike, Andrew Yang, Ice Cube, Boots Riley, Ralph Nader, Marianne Williamson, Heather McGhee, Eddie Glaude, & more