Soledad's Expertise on Critical Race Theory from… Wikipedia

Soledad's Expertise on Critical Race Theory from… Wikipedia

Remember when Soledad O’Brien attacked Harvard Law School grad Joel Pollak on CNN this morning? She accused him of a “complete misreading of Critical Race Theory” after Joel suggested that Critical Race Theory was founded on the notion that the American legal and constitutional system was based on white supremacy. She said that Critical Race Theory had nothing to do with white supremacy. Joel challenged her to come up with her own definition. After an awkward pause, in which she looked briefly like a squirrel on a highway with a tractor-trailer bearing down on her, she smoothly explained:

            Critical Race Theory looks into the intersection of race and politics and the law.

That’s about as vague as it’s possible to get – math, under this definition, looks into the intersection of numbers and stuff. But, oddly, she gave almost verbatim the exact definition of critical race theory from … Wikipedia, as RebelPundit points out:

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.

How did she get the definition? Here’s a clue – near the end of the interview, she couldn’t hear what Joel was saying because “someone was talking in my ear, so I couldn’t hear what you said.”

And, by the way, if Soledad had read a few more lines, she would have read, “First, CRT has analyzed the way in which white supremacy and racial power are reproduced over time, and in particular, the role that law plays in this process.” So, oops.

But wait, it gets better.

According to Ace of Spades, somebody went to Wikipedia and scrubbed the references to white supremacy. The original definition looked like this:

Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry. First, CRT has analyzed the way in which white supremacy and racial power are reproduced over time, and in particular, the role that law plays in this process.

The new definition looked like this:

Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry. First, CRT has analyzed the way in which racial hierarchies are reproduced over time, and in particular, the role that law plays in this process.

Soledad – perhaps you should do your research before pretending to be a legal expert, and then relying on the first line of Wikipedia.

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