Why Teaching Critical Race Theory Is the Wrong Approach. The Right Approach Is Teaching the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the World History of Human Rights Violations.
We have seen that proposals to teach high schoolers a course on critical race theory and White privilege as the best way to combat racism and right historical wrongs are acutely divisive, even inflammatory. They go so far as to partake in the spirit of biblical generational guilt, which is itself a violation of human rights. That makes them politically ineffective and counterproductive. Such proposals give fuel to Trump, Trumpists, the “White grievance” movement, and stimulate fascistic tendencies among large groups of White Americans. Therefore, the only workable strategy is a strategy that manages to discredit racism through intellect and emotion without being divisive and inflammatory, without seeming to target a particular group, the subsector of White Americans who feel aggrieved and resent preferential treatment for any other group.
Fortunately, a very effective non-divisive strategy exists in plain sight: having a high school course on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights accompanied by the world history of human rights violations. Such a course would delegitimize all human rights violations, not just racism and other types of discriminations such as religious, gender, and sexuality discrimination, but also other categories of human rights violations such as restrictions on human freedoms. Of crucial importance, the focus would not be exclusively on the United States, it would be diffused geographically and chronologically. It would focus on many other countries and start with human rights violations in biblical times. That way, the blame for racism and other discriminations and injustices will not be focused mainly on White Americans, as though they alone had unique, exceptional generational guilt.
Most importantly, such a course would show that human rights violations are part of the sad history of practically all humanity, not of just one particular group, national, or racial, or religious. It would show that many human rights violations originated in antiquity and were actually validated and legitimized by the Bible, including slavery, as well as racial, national, and religious discriminations and persecutions. It would show that human rights violations have largely been the result of historical indoctrination. Understanding the historical origins of human rights violations is essential for their delegitimization. In other words, human rights violations can only be eradicated through education, removing primitive, indoctrinated, narrow-minded and illogical ways of thinking. Since the world history of human rights violations is unfortunately filled with innumerable egregious injustices and tragedies, its study illuminates intellectually and affects emotionally.
Regarding slavery in the United States, the source of today’s critical race and White privilege controversy, the real blame should be put on the Bible which validated and institutionalized slavery in the Old Testament through Moses’ laws. Then, in the New Testament, Jesus Christ did not reject slavery. On the contrary, his only reference to slavery was in the Gospel of Matthew, where he described the terrible punishment which would befall disobedient slaves (Matthew 24.45–51). Had Jesus instead repudiated slavery, there would never have been slavery in Christian America. The thinking among indoctrinated American Christians must have been, if slavery was OK with God, Moses, and Jesus, then it must be OK for them as well. At first blush, all this may well be objectionable among today’s Christian fundamentalists, but objective, empirical truth must not be ignored if progress is to be made against human rights violations, many of which were institutionalized and commanded by the Bible in the Old Testament.
Inexplicably, or perhaps shockingly, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not taught in any school in the United States and probably not in any other member nation of the U.N., even though the Universal Declaration itself requires all U.N. member nations to teach it to all their citizens. No wonder human rights violations persist in many, if not most, parts of the world. The only way to end that sad state of affairs is to teach the citizens of the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the world history of human rights violations. When the United Nations does not enforce its requirements, it loses credibility, and tacitly validates non-observance of its mandates. For its part, the United States should not wait for U.N. enforcement. Without further delay, it should require all public high schools to teach the Universal Declaration along with the world history of human rights violations.
© Edward Sonnino 2021
August 30, 2021
Independent, Self-Funded, Write-In Candidate for New York City Mayor 2021
