I am sorry to have to tell you that there is no Critical Race Theory. There are Critical Race Theories. The term was originally developed in law schools as a field of study that showed how race neutral laws harmed African-American people.

The term was then picked up by scholars in other fields for their own uses. And scholars being scholars, some have come up with rather silly ideas. One of these is “intersectionality.” This is where gender and race define one’s identity.

In his book, “How to be an Antiracist,” Ibram X. Kendi says that he met one Black lesbian during graduate school. So he says that he knows what all Black lesbians are like. I have not known many Black lesbians, but I have known more than a few white ones. They are as diverse as straight women. Meeting one was does not mean that you have met them all.

Intersectionality leaves out class, religion, occupation, location and all the other things that make one person different from the other. Not only is Dr. Kendi’s psychologic theory thin, but his definition of racism is just as thin. His definition of racism is any difference between African-Americans and white people.

His example of biologic racism is African-American men having a higher rate of prostate cancer than white men. The reason for this is that African-American men have a gene in their regulatory T cells that creates an immunosuppressive environment around micro tumors. While this gene causes some harm in this case, in other circumstances, it likely has a positive effect in others.

No one reads the work of William Julius Wilson, an emeritus professor of sociology at Harvard University. His work shows that two things occurred in the 1960s. The first was that jobs for low-skilled workers disappeared in urban areas. The second is that the lawyers, doctors and business people who were the backbone of African-American communities moved away because they were now able to due to federal fair housing and other civil rights laws. Those that were left behind went into what he calls “social isolation” and developed a number of pathologies.

The problem with current African-American leadership is that they pretend these pathologies do not exist. Homicide is the main cause of death of young black males in urban areas. Child abuse and spouse/ girlfriend abuse are others. Then there is alcoholism, low educational attainment and drug abuse. The social isolation that led to these pathologies was the result of the end of Jim Crow, not the continuation of white supremacy. Until that is acknowledged, these problems can’t even start to be addressed, more less solved.

DR. HERBERT LOVELESS

Chester