Critical Race Theory and Systemic Racism - with Voddie Baucham - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 24

Welcome to the Got Questions Podcast. Your questions, biblical answers. Today I have a very special guest with me,

Vodhi Bakkam. He's the Dean of Divinity at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia.

So, Vodhi, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's good to be with you. So, I've seen many interviews with you on the topics we're going to be discussing today.

I love how you explain these issues. Your recent book, Fault Lines, the social justice movement and evangelicalism's looming catastrophe, is really helpful for me in understanding the issues, what's going on in culture and society.

So, I wanted to have you on the show to explain some of these things. So, opening questions to start.

What is critical race theory and why is it important that we understand what it is and where it comes from?

Yeah, that's an opener right there, boy. Critical race theory is an ideology that comes from critical theory and critical legal studies, both of which are forms of neo -Marxism.

Critical race theory basically views reality and American culture,

American history, through the lens of race and racism as the defining characteristic.

It has some central presuppositions, really four main presuppositions.

The first one is the idea that racism is normal. The idea that racism is systemic.

The idea that America at its root, at its core, America's original sin, if you will, is racism.

Secondly, the idea of interest convergence, which is the idea that white people are incapable of righteous actions on issues of race and racism, unless their interests converge with those of people of color.

It's kind of a total depravity, if you will. The third one is anti -liberalism, and by anti -liberalism, what

I mean is not like liberal conservative, but liberalism as in enlightenment ideology, meritocracy, objective truth, so on and so forth.

The fourth one is this idea that we ascertain and understand truth through narratives and counter narratives.

You have to elevate the voices of minorities in order to understand truth within the context of this

Marxist oppressor, oppressed paradigm. That's kind of a $5 answer to a 10 -second question, but you got to understand those basic presuppositions if you want to understand what

CRT is, especially since people have run around saying things like, well, no, CRT is just about having honest discussions about America's history of racism.

No, CRT is about having discussions rooted in certain presuppositions and premises.

Yeah, so obviously we could do a whole show on each of the points you just went through, but practically speaking, so if critical race theory is implemented in our schools, government institutions, what would it look like?

How would American society, and it's not just an American thing, this is being pushed in other countries, other cultures as well, but what would it look like?

What would the change be? Yeah, well, critical race theory is a very American thing. The broader category of critical theory, and so critical theory gets you to a bunch of other ideologies like queer theory, feminist theories, and things like that, post -colonial studies and things of that nature, but critical race theory is a very

American concept. It's a very American discipline, partly because America is one of the most diverse countries in the world and has very unique history in that regard.

What it looks like in terms of schools is teaching from a very specific perspective, from an anti -American perspective, and from a perspective that really gets into racial essentialism.

In the name of not being racist, we reduce everybody to racial stereotypes, and we say, for example, that white people are incapable of righteous actions in the area of race, which is incredibly racist, by the way, based on their whiteness.

It really is a divisive ideology, and it really is an outgrowth of some other ideologies.

It's not surprising that this is happening in our schools. The public school system is really the 10th plank in the communist manifesto.

Mandatory government education is, in many ways, a Marxist idea, so people shouldn't be surprised that a neo -Marxist idea like critical race theory would be taught in the

Marxist government education system. We've got so many issues tied together with this, but summarize for us, again, a whole episode could be done on this question itself, but how and in what many ways is critical race theory incompatible with a

Christian and biblical worldview? Well, critical race theory and the critical social justice movement, let me say this.

My book is not about critical race theory. My book is about the social justice movement, and critical race theory is a small part of the social justice movement.

Critical social justice, that word there, critical, connects it to critical theory, which is this neo -Marxist ideology that comes to us from the

Frankfurt School and from Gramsci and neo -Marxism.

I want to make sure that we're clear. My book is not about critical race theory. My book is about the social justice movement.

I know everybody's talking about critical race theory right now, but that's just a small piece of the puzzle.

If you get bogged down on critical race theory, then you miss the bigger picture, which is where critical race theory comes from.

It comes from critical theory. It comes from neo -Marxism, this neo -Marxist ideology.

And so this neo -Marxist ideology is antithetical to biblical

Christianity in a number of ways. First of all, when it divides the world into the oppressor, oppressed categories, for example, critical social justice movement sees the oppressive hegemony as white, male, heterosexual, cis -gendered, able -bodied, native -born, all the way down to Christian.

So according to critical theory and according to critical social justice, Christianity is the boogeyman.

Christianity is the hegemonic power that oppresses other people.

And so we have to understand that this is not just about race. The critical social justice movement is about an ideology that is rooted in neo -Marxism that divides the world up into categories of oppressor and oppressed, just like Marx and Gramsci is incredibly anti -Christian.

It sees, in Marx's case, religion as the opiate of the masses. And in Gramsci's case, it sees socialism as that ideology that must supplant

Christianity. So one of the reasons that this is antithetical to biblical

Christianity is because it's rooted and grounded in an ideology that sees

Christianity as inherently oppressive and as the enemy.

Christian worldview is seen as the the basis, the root of the oppression of people within the context of especially

American culture, but really even broader than that in Western culture. Aside from that, this whole ideology, for example, of anti -racism is an ideology that uses religious terminology like original sin and like redemption and restitution and reconciliation and things of this nature.

It uses them in a very different way than Christianity does. There is no ultimate forgiveness.

There is no salvation, for example, in anti -racism. You have to do the work of anti -racism forever.

Also, the work of anti -racism is about structures and systems. That's why we talk about structural racism and systemic racism.

It's not about the hearts of men being transformed. It is about the usurpation of power and overturning power structures so that power can be wrested from oppressors and given to the oppressed so that systems can then be revolutionized and equitable outcomes can be achieved.

That's not the gospel. Yeah. You mentioned two things, structural racism and systemic racism.

I've learned a lot about those from your book and some other reading I've done. What confuses me is, and confusion is not the right term, but I'm hearing a lot of mixed messages even from Christian leaders who speak on this whether structural racism or systemic racism even exists.

Some will say it exists to a certain point. Others will say it's all just a mythical boogeyman.

In your opinion, in your expertise, do structural racism and systemic racism exist?

If so, what would be the proper Christian response in dealing with those things? No.

No. Not in the way that they're being communicated. There have been times when we've seen racism that was systemic and that was structural when we saw slavery and Jim Crow and where it was written into laws, when it was written into systems.

We don't have that today. That doesn't exist today. When people say systemic racism today, when they say structural racism today, what they're arguing is that disparities are proof, that disparities are evidence that the system and structures are racist.

They don't look for other explanations. For example, if you see a greater household wealth or if you see a disparity in dropout rates, a disparity in income, these disparities in and of themselves are the evidence of systemic racism.

They are, as someone put it, the racial injustices that we see.

In that sense, no, I absolutely reject the idea that disparities are prima facie evidence of discrimination, that they're evidence of racism.

A great example of this is the George Floyd case. This was a tipping point.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back and everybody says, see, there it is.

There's the smoking gun. Well, what's interesting is

Derek Chauvin went to trial and they didn't throw the book at him. They threw the whole library at him.

But guess what he wasn't charged with? He wasn't charged with a racial crime. Why? Because there's zero evidence that what happened to George Floyd had anything to do with his race or his ethnicity.

Zero, none. So when people say that the George Floyd incident was an incident of racial injustice, what they're arguing is that because there are disparities, apparent disparities in the percentages of people who were killed by police, that that proves racism in policing, even though there are myriad studies now that demonstrate that we don't have racism as a factor in police shootings, police killings, so on and so forth.

There's much work out there, Roland Fryer's work and other, to indicate that that's absolutely not the case.

But because they say, well, Black people are 12 % of the population, but they're greater than that percentage of the people who care about police, therefore it proves that the killing of Black people is racism.

It's systemic racism. And with a situation like that, you can have, as the literature says, racism without a racist.

All you have to have is a disparity. That dog won't hunt.

Yeah. So I've read Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and several of the other books.

And to me, what it seems like they're taking the term racism, which everyone or virtually everyone is strongly opposed to, and then attaching it to something that's really not racism in order to, well, of course

I'm opposed to systemic racism, structural racism, because it's racist. Well, it doesn't fit how the term racist has been used for the entire history of the word.

So it's a very deceptive ploy, but it's effective in that of, well, of course

I need to oppose all these things you're saying is systemic racism because it's racist. Well, and DiAngelo brings another piece to the puzzle.

She has a term she calls aversive racism. Now, aversive racism happens when you look at a disparity and ascribe as a reason anything other than racism.

So for example, if you look at dropout rates, graduation rates, or incarceration rates, and you just mentioned the fact that out -of -wedlock birth rates and fatherlessness actually has some correlation with that, not necessarily cause and effect, but there is a correlation there, right?

Well, the minute you start talking about those sorts of things,

DiAngelo says, no, no, no, that's aversive racism because you're trying to explain this disparity away by something other than racism.

So, I mean, it's really this sort of catch 22. I mentioned in my book, the movie,

The Wiz, and there's the scarecrow in The Wiz, everybody's introduced with a song.

The scarecrow's introduced with a song and the song is called You Can't Win. And the tagline of that song is, you can't win, you can't get even, and you can't get out of the game.

That's Robin DiAngelo's white fragility. White people, when it comes to racism, you can't win, you can't get even, and you can't get out of the game.

You just are racist. And even if that phrase offends you, it just offends you because of your racism.

Yeah. So, a couple of questions I really, really wanted to get to.

Again, your book Fault Lines came out just a couple of months ago and it's tremendous.

We will include links to it both on our podcast .gotquestions .org page and also in the description field on YouTube.

I cannot recommend this book more highly, hugely helpful for me. But very practically speaking with these last two questions

I want to hit you at first. So, we all agree that racism does exist, that racism still is a problem.

So, Voti, what would you say, what is the biblical solution to racism? Yeah. I think the biblical solution to racism is repentance and faith.

It's the same biblical solution to all sin. And first we have to understand that racism from a biblical perspective is about, to borrow a classic book title, pride and prejudice.

On the one hand, it's pride in one's own race to the extent that we believe that we're superior to other people because of our race or ethnicity.

And prejudice against people of other races, believing that they are inherently inferior because of their race or ethnicity.

It's showing partiality when the scripture tells us very clearly that we're not to show partiality either to the rich or to the poor.

And certainly we're not to show partiality based on anybody's ethnicity.

And the Bible's answer to this is a couple of things. Number one, we recognize that in the cross,

Christ reconciles us. He reconciles us vertically to God and he reconciles us horizontally to one another.

The other thing is he makes us a new people so that, Paul says in Galatians 3, that there is no more

Jew or Greek or slave or free or male or female. We also no longer recognize one another according to the flesh.

We don't recognize one another in those ways. We recognize ourselves and we recognize one another as members of, first of all, one human race, right?

Because God created man in his image and he created us in Adam, right?

And we all come from Adam. The other thing is we recognize that as believers, we're part of one body, the one body of Christ.

These theological realities leave no room for and stand in direct opposition to ideas of racial prejudice, racial pride.

And so these are the things that we have to proclaim and press into and hold on to if we have any hope of dealing with the sin of racism.

JS That's excellent. I mean, I've been doing a lot of studying and like you said, Galatians or even in Romans 12, 1

Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ and how ethnicity, race isn't a factor.

There's diversity of gifts, but those passages don't even go into race. We're all one in Christ, one body and one body that glorifies

God and ministers to each other and to the world best when we're serving together. So it's a hugely powerful reminder.

KB And we have to look, again, there's this new phrase that people are using, black and brown bodies.

And they talk about the abuse of black and brown bodies and we have to acknowledge black and brown bodies and how offensive.

I'm not a black body. I'm a soul. I'm a person.

How dehumanizing is it to talk about people as black and brown bodies?

That's absolutely ridiculous. And again, we don't see or judge one another according to the flesh.

And that phrase, black bodies, brown bodies, goes directly against the scriptural admonition.

And it also dehumanizes and devalues people and separates people based on their melanin count.

It's absolutely horrible. RG So my final, or you just gave me another question

I might want to ask if we have time. But final question, and a wise friend has already given me a little advice, but I would love your input on this as well.

And you mentioned it earlier, whether we call them points of intersectionality or whatever. I'm white,

I'm male, I'm heterosexual, cisgender, no major disabilities, although some might disagree with that.

But sometimes I struggle with how can I even speak about issues of race in the current culture?

The advice I received is truth is colorblind, that we're all called to speak the truth in love and being of a certain skin color does not exempt us or require us necessarily to speak on certain issues.

But give me some advice here. How can I, as a white male, speak on these issues, recognizing

I'm already behind the eight ball, but what are some pointers on speaking the truth and love on these race -related issues?

Because I'm the last person the culture and society wants to hear from on this.

Yeah. Well, number one, we speak as ambassadors, right? There is no truth that God calls me to preach because I'm qualified.

That's the first thing. We're all twisted up on this, right?

And we're making some false assumptions. And first of all, I don't preach about anything.

I don't speak for anything or against anything because I'm qualified to do so.

I preach because I'm compelled and called to do so by the one who is qualified to speak to and about all things, right?

If that was the case, how could I preach? If we go down that rabbit hole, right?

I don't have the authority to speak about X, Y, and Z because I'm not X, Y, and Z. Well, now all of a sudden, the

Bible is insufficient to speak to women because we don't have female authors, right?

I mean, if we follow that to its logical conclusion, that's where we end up.

So first we have to reject that thinking. And secondly, we have to press these issues based on the authority of Scripture because we speak from the authority of another.

And then thirdly, when people take offense, we've got to push back against that.

For example, by pointing out the fact that the

Bible can't speak to women, right? The Bible can't speak to modern people because we don't have

Scripture written by modern people. Again, it's absolutely ridiculous.

We can't get there from here. So I think we have to recognize that reality.

We have to operate from that reality. And then when we engage with people who are offended, we have to press that and force them to recognize that the argument that they're making is really, again, if you follow it to its logical conclusion, it ends everything.

It destroys everything in terms of communication and authority. Mm -hmm. So my final question,

I mean, thank you again for that encouragement there because it's something that I struggle with. And so the people have told me that they feel so uncomfortable even talking about race -related issues because they feel like no one wants to hear from them.

But one of the previous guests I had introduced me to your skin folk but not kin folk concept, even

African -Americans, that if you don't tow the party line on these issues, well, you're not even eligible to speak.

And I'm sure you have experienced this. And I love in your book, there's an entire chapter dedicated to explaining your background and how you are.

I know you already talked about not being qualified to talk about something, but you've had an experience which makes you an expert on this topic and multiple things.

But tell me what it's for you just as a Black man to, in a sense, be told that you can't even speak because you aren't,

I guess, towing the party line on it. Yeah. I'm the Black guy who hates

Black people so much that I've been living and serving for the last six years in an African country.

It's ridiculous. Ultimately, I've just had to develop a thick skin.

And when these things happen, when I experienced these things in other areas,

I'm not new to controversy. But when you say things that people don't like and they call you names, a couple of things happen.

Number one, after the sting goes away, you realize, hey,

I'm okay. And then the second thing you realize is they never answered my argument.

They just called me a name, right? And so, I'm not saying that that makes the sting go away forever and that you never feel that again.

But I've gotten used to this idea of people coming against me in that way and dismissing me in that way.

And I recognize that it actually makes my point. That's quite racist.

Also is that I'm not really Black because I'm arguing for ideas that don't fit within the paradigm of Blackness.

Well, that means you have a limited, racist, stereotypical paradigm of Blackness.

So, you're the racist, right? If that's you, if you're arguing that I'm not really

Black because I'm not toying an ideological line, then you have put all

Black people into a box. And you're saying that anybody who does not fit into that box is not really

Black. That is the ultimate in racial stereotyping. Yeah.

That's powerful. Again, Voti, thank you so much for being on the show. Again, the book Fault Lines, highly recommend it.

It's available on Amazon. We'll include some links to where it can be purchased and also include some links to where you can follow

Voti learn more about his ministry, learn more about African Christian University and the other things that he's got going on.

So, again, Voti, thank you for being on the show. Oh, you're very welcome. It's been my pleasure. And thank you for your expertise, your words of wisdom and your words of encouragement to me.

Much appreciated. So, this has been the Got Questions podcast. Got questions?