Christopher F. Rufo  ⚔️

It's also the official ideology of the San Diego public school district. Don't worry, though—"critical theory" isn't actually being taught in schools, everything's fine.

Yeah they’re dumb af for this

This is why, although I take your points about the right’s misunderstandings of critical theory, I think they miss the forest for the trees. When a conservative says “critical theory is taking over,” this is what he means. It may be a mislabeling, but it still captures something.

They’re capturing *something* no doubt. The claim that it’s “taking over” is a stretch to say the very least

Depends on the domain in question. It has a serious foothold in education, foundations, and various bureaucracies. It does not have a serious foothold in courts or legislatures, except maybe in California and Seattle. Conservatives and their critics both overlook this.

Mmmmm sure, a serious foothold, I guess. The extent to which it exists in public K-12 education seems very marginal to me (seems to be a problem among only the most overly eager SJ-minded school boards). Its role in bureaucracies is clearly higher, and much less pernicious.

I would say: it is perfectly reasonable to say that some concepts—white privilege, systemic racism, etc. (not invented by CRT)—are taking over bureaucracies/HR departments/university orientation programs. It sounds silly to say that CRT itself is taking over; it’s clearly not.

Wesley Yang calls it "the successor ideology" for a reason. It's a recognizable but inchoate pidgin of various vocabularies, only some of which derive from CRT.