Greenwood County Democratic Party

It can be exhausting at times to keep track of what cultural issue of the week is being completely misunderstood, misconstrued, and irrationally outraged against.

The latest cultural boogeyman? Something called “Critical Race Theory”. 

What is it? To be honest – I’m not qualified to explain it to you completely and accurately. All I know is that it’s an academic concept that’s more than 40 years old. It’s something that PhD candidates research and write about – studying the intersection of law, economic, sociology, literature, etc to find connections between all of them that lead to built-in disadvantages for parts of our society that may not be as in-your-face obvious as segregated water fountains or discriminatory lending practices.

Opponents of Critical Race Theory don’t even know what they are opposing! Let’s take Senator Tim Scott for example. Recently he stated “America is not a racist country”.

He, and many others, would like everyone to think that there are no limitations in this county. That any obstacles to success are solely due to one’s lack of work ethic and determination. Senator Tim Scott points to his own success as an example. 

Why then why would there need to be “Opportunity Zones” – a program he LOVES to tout? By definition, Opportunity Zones are a program “to spur economic growth and job creation in low-income communities.” 

Senator Scott also touted the Trump Administration’s prison and sentencing reform with the “First Step Act”. And guess which group of American citizens are most caught up with incarceration?

Don’t we think it’s worth studying and teaching about how minority communities become economically distressed? Can’t we research and converse about how black Americans come to be so disproportionately put behind bars?

There’s been considerable chatter these past few months about a tool called the “filibuster” in the US Senate.

It’s basically a way for the minority Party of the Senate to prevent legislation from moving forward to a vote. It used to be that a filibuster was when one or more Senators could talk for as long as they wished on any subject they chose during debate – a process that could only be stopped if 60 Senators agree to close debate – but now it merely requires a threat to filibuster to hold up a vote.

So when you have a 50-50 split of the Senate, you can understand why not much gets done. We saw very recently how Republicans filibustered a bill to establish a Jan 6 commission – to fully fund an investigation into every aspect that led to one of the most appalling moments in our country’s history. Even with several Republicans on board, they couldn’t get to a 60-vote threshold needed to overcome the filibuster.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the three conservative judges recently appointed to the Supreme Court were able to do so, because the then Republican Senate Majority changed the rules to say that the filibuster rule no longer needed to be in effect. A simple 1-vote majority would be enough to confirm one of their judges. But now that they’re no longer the majority party, the filibuster is suddenly important!

Now I can appreciate the desire to give the minority party some tools to prevent them from being railroaded. Recently, “Democrat” Senator Kyrsten Sinema stated that the filibuster was “…a tool that protects the democracy of our nation.”

But is it truly a democracy that’s being saved here?