OPINION: CRT - truth or paradox?

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Critical Race Theory? In the Eyes of a Korean American, it’s more like “Critically Restricted Truth.”

Aiming to “teach the truth,” Critical Race Theory, often referred to as CRT, is one of the most controversial topics in America. Founded by a group of Harvard Law school professors, its goal is to bring a way of thinking about America’s past through the lens of racism, primarily focusing on the African American minority and the progression of civil rights in the 1960s. However, CRT inadequately explains and acknowledges the diversity including other minorities, such as Asian Americans. In other words, what CRT fails to acknowledge is the same thing it aims to accomplish: to tell the whole story.

Our Story and Why it Matters

Since the mid-1800s, East Asian groups have immigrated to Hawaii, and were used to fill in labor demands. Primarily in the west coast, Asian immigation heightened in the 1850s, and so did their use as cheap labor, with notable examples such as the Gold Rush and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroads. Moreover, tensions grew as nativist hostility to the immigration of Asians to the US, and caused the formations of groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League. Considered as “yellow perils,” Asian immigrants received severe hate and fury from natives, and suffered from discrimination and violence. In addition, lynching of Asian immigrants was a common practice. Furthermore, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was established in order to cease all immigation from China, which eventually was repealed in 1943. However, Asian immigrants continued to fight for their rights, and prompted the landmark decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which determined that all subjects born in the United States, including Asian Americans, are to be granted U.S. citizenship.

Fast forwarding to the 1990s, the Korean American population in Los Angeles faced heaping amounts of violent attacks and opposition as a result of growing tensions with the African American minority. The attack, in conjunction with the African American minority’s frustration for poor law enforcement in Los Angeles, sparked what is known as “Saigu,” or the LA riots prominently in Koreatown, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles occupied by a large number of Korean Americans. Over a span of six days, the riots prompted numerous assault cases against Korean Americans, not to mention an extreme amount of looting and arson in that region. As a result of the riots, more than 1,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed. According to the University of Southern California, the riots left 50 people dead and more than 2,000 injured. The riots accounted for $1 billion in damage.

Our history is what defines us and what shapes us to be who we are today, as well as affecting us how we live. Our history is a truth that matters and is to be heard.

Critical Race Theory Doesn’t Seem so Critical

The definition of racism and white supremacy is quite broad when it comes to CRT. Regarding these two terms, CRT states that assigning stereotypes to members of minority groups “benefit white people” and furthers racial oppression. Furthermore, while civil rights activists, one of the prominent ones being Derrick Albert Bell Jr., suggests that alleged improvements or advantages geared towards people of color tend to satisfy the interests of white-dominant groups, the rise of minorities that happens to be as successful as whites (mostly academically and economically), perhaps through these advancements, prompted the birth of what is now widely known as “white-adjacency.” According to CRT supporters, Asian-Americans, for example, are a top white-adjacent minority. The concept of white-adjacency is that it puts minorities as equivalents to the white group due to their success and privilege in the United States. The enormous success of Asian Americans derived by having the highest per-capita income and higher rates of education puts the minority as a white-adjacent one. However, while that may sound like a rewarding label, this belittles the many ways in which Asian Americans, regardless of their socioeconomic status, lack privilege, as well as the many other problems that they face while living in the states. Regarding the rise of “whitening” Asian Americans and other targeted affluent minorities, CRT fails to adequately acknowledge the diversity of other minorities and specifically ensure the prevention of “white adjacency” in their curriculum.

A research briefing published by the Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA in June of 2017 stated that although Asian Americans were historically involved in the success of liberties and civil rights regarding such as immigration and citizenship, their “experiences and perspectives were rendered invisible among early Critical Race scholarship.” Furthermore, it describes the framing of CRT as “black-and white binary,” which makes it even harder for the movement to adequately acknowledge the diversity and the political, economic viewpoints of Asian-Americans. That being said, while a sub-ethnic group that is part of the CRT curriculum exists, it fails to acknowledge the “unique” conflicts that they face, and have faced.

History is history. It has already happened, and it’s all behind us now. The current problem is how that truth will be delivered and educated to our future generations, and how our nation is divided on doing so. The truth doesn’t just come from some of us. It comes from ALL of us.