The Racial Equity Fallacy (Part 2): Determinism, Dogma, and the Denial of Moral Agency

In part 1 of my Racial Equity Fallacy series, I addressed a few of the conceptual and practical problems associated with this growing movement in law and public policy circles. In particular, the issues discussed were the problematic and improper exchange of equality to equity resulting in Constitutional incoherence, the influence of Socialism through egalitarianism, and an overall defective and diluted Constitution due to the rejection of equality practically and conceptually. Not to mention, Racial Equity's threats to the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause result in a serious crisis by directly attacking the integrity of the Constitution. Collectively, these challenges combine to make Racial Equity a fundamentally flawed strategy that is legally and politically hazardous to not only race relations, but polarizing to national unity and the national interest as well.

Core to the Racial Equity argument is the assumption that American society is racially biased and systemically structured against African Americans. Racial Equity advocates argue that these structural disadvantages have created a pattern of inequitable outcomes that are historically driven, pervasive, and can only be overcome by redistributing benefits and burdens with race being the decisive factor overriding all other considerations.

One of the most common problems in the history of ideas is determinism. From psychology to biology to economics, the problem of determinism is rooted in two complex issues, causation and moral agency. Under causation, all acts, mental states, and choices are the result of some preceding cause. Hence, for example, even economic activity is explained through the lens of determinism by suggesting that everything from recessions to bull markets to poverty is caused by predetermined forces. Determinism construed in this manner cancels moral responsibility and true moral knowledge given that moral knowledge and moral truth are eliminated if there's no such thing as moral choice due to determinism. If Racial Equity Theory asserts structural determinism as the primary cause for pervasive racial disadvantage, then the conceptual issues just mentioned above will significantly challenge the efficacy and validity of this position.

Racial Equity is an outgrowth of social justice, systemic racism, and Critical Race Theory (CRT), all three of which are social critiques of policies, institutions, and cultural practices that CRT defenders argue have interlocked to create historical disparities for marginalized communities, particularly African Americans. When it comes to Critical Race Theory and systemic racism, theirs is a highly deterministic approach that makes racism ubiquitous and, in essence, baked into society and the primary or sole cause for societal disadvantage and conflict. As such, it's very much akin to the problem of original sin wherein human evil is imputed through the Adamic curse and is an inescapable reality for humanity without exception. Racism, for CRT, is a predisposition endemic to society and whiteness, and as some would argue, is constituted in the DNA of White people universally. Not only is this offensive and fallacious, it defies logic, science, and reasonableness. By reducing all instances of racial and social disadvantage to the lone issue of racism, all other considerations are ignored without rigorous intellectual scrutiny or challenge. Again, CRT's approach is irrational, anti-intellectual, and antithetical to the pursuit of truth and must therefore be rejected.

An additional problem with determinism is that it is incompatible with freedom and invalidates moral agency. By relying on a deterministic approach to race and racism, Racial Equity Theory fails to allow for human agency and the ability for any group or individual to overcome the preexisting problem of racism. You can't impose a perverse predisposition on an entire race (i.e. determinism) and then expect them to be free moral agents capable of making racially responsible choices just the same; racial determinism refutes freedom and denies moral agency and rational racial responsibility.

Perhaps Racial Equity Theory's biggest failure, when it comes to freedom, is ascription without action. In other words, Racial Equity advocates ascribe noxious racist beliefs and attitudes to an entire demographic group based on racial history and stereotype without evidence of individual racial wrongdoing. Before you can even commit racial wrongs, Racial Equity advocates have already declared Whites to be racist without proof of wrongdoing whatsoever. Racism is grounded in race rather than racist behavior, and the presumption that whiteness is predisposed to wrongness is ascribed purely on the basis of racial grievance, animosity, and stereotype.

Again, CRT's overly deterministic model is irrational, intellectually irresponsible, hostile, and unapologetically discriminatory. To argue that we live in a white supremacist society that is systematically racist is an argument that recklessly rides the rails of determinism and denies basic human agency and dignity. Without freedom, our fate results in relentless racial conflict thus making all notions of and efforts for equality and reconciliation meaningless and moot. In so doing, CRT defenders have denied a legitimate pathway to racial progress because racial injustice becomes a permanent threat to society that simply cannot be overcome because whiteness is synonymous with racism and is automatically guilty of and morally responsible for all social injustices.

As I think through this trifecta of epistemic intolerance that fuels Critical Race Theory (Social Justice, Racial Equity, and Systemic Racism), the term Dogma quickly comes to mind. Dogma is an expression usually applied to matters of religion and is often associated with sectarianism, which refers to a narrow set of "inspired" teachings that thrive on tensions between inferior and superior groups. Dogma is the handmaiden of zealots, who typically become intolerant of challenge or rebuke, especially when their belief system is attacked externally or questioned internally by disaffected followers. When something is believed through explicit indoctrination because the goal is to both explain and change the world (i.e. ideology), and this belief is grounded in a doctrinaire set of proofs, narratives, or principles that are used to sanction objectors or skeptics, devotees become dogmatic in what they believe, how they impose their belief system on others, and why they are hostile to competing truth claims. Thus is the case with CRT, where ideology and dogma go hand-in-hand, and racial determinism quickly degrades into racial dogma with little to no room for disagreement. Challenge a defender of Racial Equity on the merits and demerits of what they believe, and you will quickly be reduced to accusations of being a racist simply for using rational argument and critique. A recent story of a hit-list in Loudon County, Virginia is a perfect example of CRT dogma in action.

In the article Virginia parents threatened after criticizing critical race theory, CRT defenders turned "zealots" are highlighted and shown to be employing tactics not seen since McCarthyism. The article states,

Critical Race Theorists believe that people who they claim benefit from ‘systemic racism,’ which they declare to be the ordinary state of affairs in society, want to maintain it, which is why Critical Race Theorists say virtually everyone is racist,” writes scholar and political commentator James Lindsay.

“Regarding the anti-CRT movement, we’d like to compile a document of all known actors and supporters,” she wrote. “Please comment below with legal names of these individuals, area of residence and or school board Rep known, known accounts on social media, and any other info that you feel is relevant.”

These revelations are both appalling and alarming and are proof-positive of the dogma that is now defining the CRT movement. Here you have alienation that leads to annihilation simply because objectors publicly questioned the local school system's commitment to Critical Race Theory.

The hazards of Critical Race Theory highlighted above demonstrate how far astray we have moved from our accepted and foundational understandings of America's founding principles. Conferred by Creator God, these timeless truths are to be preserved and embraced by both government and the governed so as to further the great American experiment. These principles are hallmarks that make America exceptional among all nations.

Critical Race Theory, as I have argued, violates these very principles. Lost is any appreciation for freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the benefits that derive from these truths, collectively and individually. By rejecting Critical Race Theory, we ensure that freedom, truth, and self determination as free moral agents define humanity as created by God thus ensuring that racism does not and will not define America. Without question, we acknowledge the wrath of racism in our history, but we MUST affirm that humanity’s inherent value is centered on the eternal truth that we are beings created in the image of God and that this essence is inviolable and incompatible with any notion of racial superiority or the derogatory treatment of racial difference whatsoever. We must affirm that through God’s grace, sovereignty, and authority, we are empowered over the evils of racism to reconcile with one another to create better realities whereby humanity can truly prosper and flourish, but we can only survive and flourish together as one race, the human race, whereby we see beauty in our uniqueness and redemption through His atonement. Critical Race Theory and all its derivatives (Social Justice, Racial Equity, and Systemic Racism) are incompatible with the ideals expressed above because these are flawed systems that thrive on and inspire the failures of determinism, dogma, and the denial of moral agency to the detriment of equality and justice before the law.

Democrats and Immigration: Racism, Rhetoric, Recklessness, & Responsibility

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, psychosis is defined as:

The word psychosis is used to describe conditions that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. When someone becomes ill in this way it is called a psychotic episode. During a period of psychosis, a person’s thoughts and perceptions are disturbed and the individual may have difficulty understanding what is real and what is not.

Having worked in the mental health field for a number of years before re-careering to politics (and If you want to classify politics as mental illness I'd be fine with that just the same), I am very familiar with those who experience impaired and distorted thinking as evidenced by an inability to relate to and understand what's true and real for the norm versus the incoherent and otherworldly reality they experience firsthand. Simply put, theirs is a world of profound confusion, conflict, inner-turmoil and inexplicable terror that is hard to share and make understandable to others.

This brings me to President Joe Biden and the Democrats, who seemingly are caught between two polarizing Americas: one is the racist America they remind us about all too often with claims that racists are lurking around every corner and behind every policy that's authored by anyone White, conservative, and Republican. The other "reality" liberals and Democrats promote is an America steeped in egalitarianism, utopian ideals, openness, acceptance, and government largess. When it comes to the latter, they frequently reference the words enshrined at the Statue of Liberty, which read as follows:

"...A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The poem is by Emma Lazarus, and it was written before the Statue of Liberty was built. It was eventually inscribed at the base in 1903, seventeen after its completion and opening in1886. And while it continues to be used to assert a false immigration narrative that's not supported by the poem's meaning or intent, it echoes the "immigration dream" espoused by the majority of Democrats(1). Thus, we have two competing Americas promoted by one party, the Democrats, who together with their newly elected President seek to expand immigration like never before; Reuters News states that Biden's goal calls for125,000 new refugee admissions who will call America home starting October 1 of this year(2). This push drastically conflicts with "America the land of the racist" imagery promoted by Democrats through-and-through. Such was the case in February 2020 at the Democratic Primary debate, where Democratic dogma was on full display for all to see. One after the other, Democratic candidates perpetuated American racial antipathy without hesitation or qualification. Here's a snapshot from a New York Post post-debate article:

About an hour into the debate, they found their message: America, Bernie Sanders said, is “a racist society from top to bottom.”

One by one, the candidates echoed the message that “systemic racism” characterizes America.

“We can’t legislate away racism,” said Andrew Yang, because racism runs so deep in the American soul.

Joe Biden, verbatim (poor Joe): “The fact is that we in fact there is systemic racism.”

Elizabeth Warren even declared that “we need race-conscious laws in education, in employment, in entrepreneurship to make this country a country for everyone.”(3)

Again, the above is just a sample of a chorus of "racist America" rants that dominated the scene that night. But here's the rub: Democrats can't have it both ways. If America is so racist, then why is the Biden Administration set to flood America with 120,000 immigrant refugees starting October 1, 2021, the very country Biden and the Democrats scorned and professed to be systemically racist? Not only is this contradiction, it is political psychosis. To speak contradiction out of both sides of your mouth destroys credibility and defies common sense politically. To speak with a distorted sense of reality is not only negligent, it is morally reckless if what you believe about America is true and will jeopardize the safety of thousands of new arrivals. On the other hand, if you also speak of the utopian America, then your "racist America" rhetoric will have recklessly and irresponsibly tainted your new arrivals' views of America over which you obviously are conflicted. This also conflicts with the immigrants understanding of America because all they've heard and believe is America, the land of opportunity, which is why they migrated over many miles and at great risk to their lives in the first place.

Rhetoric or reality, Democrats should be held accountable for their double-talk and the confusion and harm they do to America's reputation and the psyche of newly arriving immigrants, who we all want to see flourish and embrace America for all its greatness, past, present, and future. Democrats would be well served to read one of Frederick Douglass's most famous speeches for a proper perspective on America, this from a man who truly saw and experienced unfathomable horrors for an entire race of people under the systemic brutalities of chattel slavery. HIs speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, is truly remarkable and a testament to his convictions about America, her ideals, flaws, and the essence of freedom. After a scathing rebuke of American slavery, Douglass concludes the following, a conclusion truly lacking from Democrats today given the rhetoric and political psychosis recklessly repeated ad nauseum from the mouths of their so-called leaders:

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.

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1. For an excellent and concise treatment of this poem, See Stephen Miller is right: Lazarus’ immigration poem is not US Law at https://www.aei.org/articles/stephen-miller-is-right-lazarus-immigration-poem-is-not-us-law/

2. Biden set to accept more refugees after years of Trump Restrictions, Reuters, Ted Hesson and Steve Holland, February 4, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-biden-refugees-order/biden-set-to-accept-more-refugees-after-years-of-trump-restrictions-idUSKBN2A50C6.

3. Trashing America as racist won't help Democrats beat Trump, NY Post, John Podhoretz, February 7, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/02/07/trashing-america-as-racist-wont-help-democrats-beat-trump/

The Racial Equity Fallacy (Part 1)

On January 26, 2021, President Joe Biden spoke to the nation in an address titled Remarks by President Biden at Signing of an Executive Order on Racial Equity. Just as the title states, it was a speech devoted to the issues of race, racism, and more specifically, racial equity. He called on the nation, starting with the federal government, to overcome economic inequity by confronting systemic racism. Early in his speech, he states:

Across nearly every faith, the same principles hold: We’re all God’s children; we should treat each other as we would like to be treated ourselves. And this is time to act — and this time to act is because it’s what the core values of this nation call us to do. And I believe the vast majority of Americans — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — share these values and want us to act as well.

We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives. And it’s time to act now, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because if we do, we’ll all be better off for it.

Biden's commitment to equity is loud and clear, but notice that equity is now associated with our founding principles and is being elevated above equality, which, up to now, was the standard when it comes to American justice as fairness. But in the last paragraph above, the language also suggests that Biden and the Democrats have given up on equality because equity, for them, is better able to deliver the outcomes necessary to close the economic divide between the races.

From the Racial Equity Institute, they define and describe the issue of racial equity as follows:

Racial Equity: Racial equity refers to what a genuinely non-racist society would look like. In a racially equitable society, the distribution of society’s benefits and burdens would not be skewed by race. In other words, racial equity would be a reality in which a person is no more or less likely to experience society’s benefits or burdens just because of the color of their skin. This is in contrast to the current state of affairs in which a person of color is more likely to live in poverty, be imprisoned, drop out of high school, be unemployed and experience poor health outcomes like diabetes, heart disease, depression and other potentially fatal diseases. Racial equity holds society to a higher standard. It demands that we pay attention not just to individual-level discrimination, but to overall social outcomes.

For racial equity advocates, this belief and its growing social movement center around redistributing society's benefits and burdens so that racial outcomes are more equitable. Notwithstanding the Socialism implications, which are very real anytime the economic formula for wealth creation and class stratification are altered to comport with the Marxist principle, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," racial equity is a flawed approach to overcoming racism by improving racial outcomes. As a result, racial equity is conceptually incoherent and thus runs afoul of the Constitution, the premier gatekeeper of equality, justice, and fairness; utilizes a flawed approach to racial disparities; and lacks historical compatibility with African American historical thought leaders like Frederick Douglass.

Racial equity's conceptual incoherence stems from its advocates' willingness to compromise and sacrifice equality and fairness for all as safeguarded by the Constitution in order to advance racially equitable outcomes that are purely driven by internal policy reforms and commitments to social justice for the few. This is well captured in Montgomery County, Maryland's 2018 Resolution to Develop an Equity Policy Framework in County Government. Item (7) of the Background section states:

As part of the Govermnent[sic] Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a growing number of jurisdictions are undertaking the work needed to operationalize equity, and integrate it into the decision-making process. These include the use of an "equity lens" to determine who benefits from public policies, regulations and practices and the development of equity tools and plans to inform local decision-making.

Just like the racial equity statement from the Racial Equity Institute highlighted above, "equality" has been exchanged for "equity" wherein the principle force behind equity is the use and redress of historic injustices and disparate outcomes. Again, from the Montgomery County Resolution, the equity-disparity connection figures prominently and is indispensable with virtually all policy prescriptions that advocate for racial equity:

Eliminating disparities by promoting equity - the fair treatment of individuals and diverse groups - is an economic imperative. The Urban Institute's Racial Inequities in Montgomery County, 2011-15 report shows that a more equitable Montgomery County would increase the number of immigrants, Latinos, African Americans, and Asians with some college education, and would also increase employment and homeownership rates among people of color. A more equitable Montgomery County would enhance opportunities for all residents, thereby improving the economy.

By eliminating disparities through equitable outcomes, benefits and burdens are redistributed thus making for a more just society, at least that's what the racial equity advocates want us to believe. The reality is, however, that equitable outcomes for X necessarily create unequal outcomes for Y, and this tramples over everything the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution stand for and mandate when it comes to justice, fairness, and equality before the law. Because equity replaces equality, the Constitutional requirements delineated under the Fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause are now rendered mute, moot, and meaningless under this flashy new arrangement. This troubling exchange creates a portentous legal situation of incalculable claims and harms as equity becomes the policy preference at the local, state, and federal levels of government.

Racial Equity is nothing more than repackaged egalitarianism with racial justice veneer. In short, egalitarianism is the belief that between law and public policy, everyone is rightfully entitled to all social benefits, and these are to be distributed equitably. From politics and economics to health care and education, there's to be no difference in societal treatment. In so doing, egalitarianism violates its own rules of valuing the individual by imposing the weight of government over human agency, individual autonomy, and self fulfillment. Under egalitarian systems, individual accomplishments that result in "excesses" over that of others is frowned upon. Again, harkening back to Marx, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," achievement, enrichment, and advantage are inherently incompatible with the ideals of equity because this creates social disadvantage (i.e. inequity). Tibor Machan fleshes this out masterfully in his timeless article, The Errors of Egalitarianism upon which my egalitarian critique is based. Machan exposes the egalitarian flaws and fallacies in the following:

Egalitarianism is thus both a political and moral crusade, demanding that people do the right thing via their political institutions and, when it comes to their personal conduct, demanding that they give away all of their own wealth beyond whatever is deemed subsistence level.

The Declaration of Independence tells us that "all men are created equal." Ever since, critics of the idea of the free society have argued that this is nonsense because, in fact, we are quite evidently not all created equal. Indeed, they stress, the truth is we ought to be equal--it is only fair and just but we are not. Nature bungled. Accordingly, force should be deployed in society not primarily to combat criminal conduct but to make us all equal in al important aspects.

Of course, the Declaration was referring to equality of rights, equality of legal status in society. Men are said to be "created equal" in the respect of possessing unalienable rights to, among other conditions, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, we are all rights possessors. That does not mean we are--or should be--equal in our heights, fortune, intelligence, looks, or talents.

Despite all the clear and undeniable differences among human beings, there are some basic principles we ought to respect and protect, namely, our fundamental rights as agent of our choices. Any kind of broader egalitarianism is both impossible, and, to the extent that its incoherent program is coercively imposed, blatantly unjust.

Machan's treatment is very powerful, compelling, and a necessary corrective to the errors of the liberal worldview that has resurfaced under a new identity. Equally, his critique applies to the fallacies of racial equity in that this emerging theory is unjustifiably hostile to the fundamentals of liberty and equality as defended in the Constitution. In the end, it cannot deliver what it sets out to accomplish and should be rejected and redirected toward advancing and protecting the virtues of racial equality that were spearheaded by the civil rights movement, a tradition that gave us enormous historical successes politically, legally, socially, and economically despite ongoing challenges and hardships that must be overcome in the interest of the African American community, specifically, and the United States of America, collectively. In part two, I will examine the issue of disparities more closely and how racial equity theory distorts and misapplies this important concept with reckless disregard.