Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the 'Critical Race Theory' Controversy
Saved in:
| Title: | Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the 'Critical Race Theory' Controversy |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Applebaum, Barbara |
| Source: | Educational Theory. Dec 2022 72(6):689-702. |
| Availability: | Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 14 |
| Publication Date: | 2022 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative |
| Descriptors: | Hermeneutics, Critical Race Theory, Teaching Methods, Political Attitudes, Disadvantaged, Social Justice, Communications, Controversial Issues (Course Content) |
| DOI: | 10.1111/edth.12553 |
| ISSN: | 0013-2004 1741-5446 |
| Abstract: | In this article, Barbara Applebaum examines "the inability to disagree claim" as it arises in objections made by those who want to ban "critical race theory" from being taught in schools and universities. Employing insights from the recent scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance, she discerns the important role that marginalized conceptual resources play in conditions of just and constructive dialogue. When such resources are misinterpreted and denied uptake, the resulting harm impedes the epistemic agency of marginally situated knowers. Applebaum claims that many high-profile anti-"critical race theory" arguments put forth by politicians, scholars, and others are a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance, and she concludes by showing how more just communications, in which disagreement is distinguishable from dismissal, can be achieved. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2023 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1368311 |
| Database: | ERIC |
|
Full text is not displayed to guests.
Login for full access.
|
|
| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwHBhzOH_nLWEIFhbG4GE7I8AAAA4jCB3wYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHRMIHOAgEAMIHIBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDDcuRyU7IrTn_6JmewIBEICBmvF-ar6ubCqdw46035NaVkfDRLpgqGL-fB7ee608uhndJHAEipni4Md5rduPMVNe_D5qPR-_vcoLaQnOipSJJdZwdyISgDPaqD0RtbmJMSZqtZ7a4IGbNNqXu7-KcDiuAYtzhQ9IgwX_YLVy6Cz_67D4ArHOaCPSBl-LK1k7_cC2wiLO4Ozrz3v8PW1Sk2t9g8cUg6kmV8XVIg8= Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0162088667;ety01dec.22;2023Feb28.05:35;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0162088667-1">Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the "Critical Race Theory" Controversy </title> <p>In this article, Barbara Applebaum examines "the inability to disagree claim" as it arises in objections made by those who want to ban "critical race theory" from being taught in schools and universities. Employing insights from the recent scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance, she discerns the important role that marginalized conceptual resources play in conditions of just and constructive dialogue. When such resources are misinterpreted and denied uptake, the resulting harm impedes the epistemic agency of marginally situated knowers. Applebaum claims that many high‐profile anti–"critical race theory" arguments put forth by politicians, scholars, and others are a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance, and she concludes by showing how more just communications, in which disagreement is distinguishable from dismissal, can be achieved.</p> <p>Keywords: critical race theory; hermeneutical injustice; willful ignorance; democratic dialogue; disagreement</p> <p>If diversity of opinions has been the bulwark of democratic societies and dialogue is the alleged bridge of divisiveness, the conditions required for constructive dialogue are of vital importance to democracy. In the United States today, there is an upsurge of public discord between those who are attempting to transform the ways in which racial injustice is understood and those who disagree with these efforts, the latter often referring to the former as <emph>radical</emph>, in a pejorative sense.</p> <p>This is not to imply that such acrimonious schisms are new in the history of the United States but, instead, to highlight a particular accusation that I will refer to as "the inability to disagree claim." This claim has been surfacing repeatedly in the debates around what is called "critical race theory" (which I will distinguish here from the actual positions of Critical Race Theory, or CRT) as well as in discussions about banning books and curriculum from schools that spread the ideas this approach has pioneered. The inability to disagree claim raises a crucial question about the role of disagreement in democratic dialogue and the ways in which disagreement may both distort, and be weaponized against, marginalized hermeneutical resources.</p> <p>This paper aims to closely examine the inability to disagree claim as it arises in the objections made by those who want to ban "critical race theory" from being taught in schools and universities. Employing insights from the recent scholarship around epistemic injustice, I show the important role that marginalized conceptual resources can play in conditions of just and constructive dialogue, and I critically scrutinize when those conceptual resources are being misinterpreted and denied uptake. I argue that disagreement can serve as a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance. The inability to disagree claim may be not only about disagreeing but may also function to prevent marginalized resources from being given serious consideration within mainstream epistemological frameworks.</p> <p>The first part of the paper offers a brief overview of Critical Race Theory (CRT), highlighting how this theory offers alternative conceptual resources for understanding the experience of marginally situated knowers. In this section, I also draw out some of the main anti–"critical race theory" arguments,[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>] underscoring the charge that "critical race theory" is indoctrinatory and that it silences dissent. Concepts that attempt to expose how systemic racism and white supremacy are maintained, the critics allege, <emph>inherently</emph> preclude disagreement. If a concept does not allow one to disagree with that concept, according to this charge, then the concept or idea lacks validity and should not be taught in schools. This is what I mean by "the inability to disagree claim," and I will sharpen the focus of this accusation through the recent writings of John McWhorter.</p> <p>The second part of the paper begins with a review of some of the scholarship around epistemic injustice and willful hermeneutical ignorance. While some may attribute opposition to "critical race theory" to white fragility, I contend that a focus on white fragility ignores the more devastating consequences of "the inability to disagree claim." After outlining some of the scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance, I demonstrate not only how it offers a more useful understanding of the anti–"critical race theory" controversy but also how it accentuates the ways in which "the inability to disagree claim" hides and dismisses the meaningful impact of the hermeneutical resources that marginalized communities develop and advance to explain their experience.</p> <p>In the final section, I return to the "inability to disagree claim" and show how the scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance provides an outline for distinguishing between disagreement and dismissal. Because the scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance makes explicit the role played by marginalized hermeneutical resources in the conditions of epistemically just communication, these insights suggest ways for better discerning when disagreement need not be a form of dismissal.</p> <hd id="AN0162088667-2">What Is Critical Race Theory? Why Should It Be Banned in Schools?</hd> <p>Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged from critical legal scholarship in the 1960s, in response to the perceived inadequacies of civil rights legislation. Derrick Bell, the late Harvard law professor who is considered one of CRT's original founders, argued that legal precedents such as <emph>Brown v. Board of Education</emph> operated to maintain systemic racism instead of dismantling it.[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>] More provocatively, through his concept of interest convergence, Bell argued that it is white people who have actually been the main benefactors of civil rights legislation. CRT scholars aimed to understand why civil rights reforms have not resulted in the racial justice they promise.</p> <p>The solution to understand the stalling of racial justice, CRT scholars argued, was that racism is not merely a set of hateful and retrograde attitudes but is in fact central to the way institutions in the United States work. Racism, they maintained, is not only about individual prejudice or personal ideology but involves a pervasive system of privilege and oppression (in other words, that racism is not aberrational but inherent). These scholars revealed how color‐evasive policies were not only deficient but blocked genuine progress toward racial justice. Moreover, they advocated a shift away from the exclusive emphasis on intention in legal policymaking and toward a stronger focus on outcomes. CRT scholars such as Alan Freeman[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref3">3</reflink>] and others[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref4">4</reflink>] exposed how seemingly progressive liberal laws that purported to be race neutral are not. Instead of ignoring race, or seeking to promote a race‐neutral future, CRT scholars advocated a race‐conscious approach that takes the vantage point of those who experience racism seriously, accentuating the value of counter‐storytelling. Consequently, the central idea of CRT is that racism is not an ugly remnant of the past but instead is foundational to how ongoing dominance is maintained through institutions, laws, and policies that purport to be race‐neutral but are really steered by white norms.</p> <p>Recently, "critical race theory" has been appropriated by some conservative lawmakers and right‐leaning media as an umbrella term to cover any discussion of race or racism that challenges the belief that racism is a thing of the past, that contests merit as an unqualified criterion for success, that interrogates the consequences of color‐evasiveness, and that questions the exclusive focus on individual "bad apples" as a principal source of racism. In fact, the hostility of this very reception illustrates the foundational belief of CRT exposing systemic racism as a normalized feature of American society.</p> <p>In the intensifying opposition, we can also observe a conflation over what CRT means and how it is related to other terms like antiracism and social justice. The term "critical race theory" is often used to represent all forms of diversity and inclusion efforts regardless of their connection with CRT as an academic theory. Moreover, the opposition often mischaracterizes these ideas in ways that bear little resemblance to the academic discipline they originate from. <emph>Education Week</emph> reports that the Heritage Foundation, for example, uses the term "critical race theory" to encompass a host of issues such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ clubs in schools, diversity training mandated in government organizations, and more.[<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref5">5</reflink>]</p> <p>Christopher Rufo at the Manhattan Institute is one of the most prominent voices in the fight against "critical race theory." Incensed about diversity training mandates initiated by the Seattle municipality to promote sensitivity to and a deeper understanding of issues of diversity, Rufo proclaimed, "I call on the president to immediately issue this executive order and stamp out this destructive, divisive, pseudo‐scientific ideology at its root."[<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref6">6</reflink>] Not long after, then‐President Trump issued an executive order barring the federal government and its contractors from mandating or even offering such training, which Trump, echoing Rufo, described as "divisive and harmful sex and race‐based ideologies"[<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>] that thwart Americans' ability to take pride in their country.</p> <p>While the campaign against "critical race theory" gathered momentum in right‐wing media and through the words of Republican politicians,[<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref8">8</reflink>] these efforts metastasized and spread to local school boards that called for bans on curriculum that refer to antiracism initiatives. These critics blamed this type of curriculum for exposing youth to uncomfortable ideas that make white students feel guilty about themselves and make all students incapable of developing a patriotic love for the country they live in.</p> <p>As this opposition spread to K‐12 schools, hundreds of parents took this campaign to social media and protested at school board meetings, demanding that the teaching of "critical race theory" be halted while superintendents disavowed that "critical race theory" played any significant role in the curriculum.[<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref9">9</reflink>] Critics also charged that the ideas behind "critical race theory" divide people into oppressed and oppressor groups, essentialize all white people as oppressors, and encourage intolerance. In large part because of this campaign, Republican‐controlled state legislatures have more recently invoked laws to restrict how race and racism can be taught in schools.[<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref10">10</reflink>] The laws are rationalized by the erroneous belief that talking about race and racism exacerbates difference, when we know from time‐honored studies that <emph>not</emph> talking about race and racism obscures the real effects of systemic racial injustice.[<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref11">11</reflink>]</p> <p>I highlight here the arguments of Parents Against Critical Theory (PACT) because this group of parents maintain that "critical race theory" delegitimizes dissent.[<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref12">12</reflink>] These opponents of "critical race theory" claim that students are being indoctrinated by being compelled to believe specific claims about race, sex, or religion without being able to disagree. PACT members insist, for example, that concepts such as white fragility and white privilege self‐referentially make dissent impossible. A white person, they maintain, cannot voice disagreement, since such disagreement will be dismissed as a product of white fragility or white privilege. As Jesse Lile puts it,</p> <p>Herein is the larger overarching problem: a discussion doesn't appear to be the goal. Discussions are mutually and voluntarily engaged in and involve input from and consideration for all parties involved. This concept of white fragility is designed to secure one‐way lectures, not discussions.[<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref13">13</reflink>]</p> <p>PACT supporters claim that concepts centered in antiracism obliterate the possibility of racial dialogue to which the advocates of antiracism profess to aspire. I refer to this accusation as "the inability to disagree claim."</p> <p>A more sophisticated version of "the inability to disagree claim" can be found in the recent work of John McWhorter, a Black professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and a media commentator. While some Black intellectuals support the anti–"critical race theory" movement,[<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref14">14</reflink>] McWhorter, who for years has been railing against Black victimhood and white guilt, has been prominently featured in the media. His recent book, <emph>Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America</emph>,[<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref15">15</reflink>] articulates a difficult to defeat version of "the inability to disagree claim." McWhorter does not deny the existence of racism but maintains that the discourse around racism has gone too far.</p> <p>As a representative of the anti‐wokeness establishment, he equates being "woke" — that is, acknowledging systemic racial injustice and its oppressive consequences — with a religion. McWhorter insists that he does not mean woke antiracism is <emph>like a religion</emph>, but, rather, that <emph>it is a religion</emph> with requisite priests, whom he refers to as "the Elect": Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah‐Jones, Ta‐Nehisi Coates are just some of those anointed (and the main targets of his criticism). They rule, according to McWhorter, by inflicting terror on those who dare speak contrary to their views. In reference to education, McWhorter cautions, "Make no mistake, these people are coming for your kids."[<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref16">16</reflink>]</p> <p>McWhorter rejects "Third Wave Antiracism," his term for those who advocate and teach that</p> <p>racism is baked into the structure of society, whites' "complicity" in living within it constitutes racism itself, while for Black people, grappling with the racism surrounding them is the totality of experience and must condition exquisite sensitivity toward them, including a suspension of standards of achievement and conduct.[<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref17">17</reflink>]</p> <p>In McWhorter's view, certain aspects of antiracist discourse demean and dehumanize Black people and take attention away from more urgent problems like crime and poverty in the Black community.</p> <p>McWhorter's work is an example of "the inability to disagree claim" because he maintains that Third Wave Antiracism "has white Americans muzzled, straitjacketed, tied down, and chloroformed for good measure."[<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref18">18</reflink>] According to him, the problem here is not only that white people are frightened of disagreeing with the tenets of "critical race theory" because they may be "canceled," but that such approaches to antiracism are, like religion (in his view), beyond rational discussion, close‐minded, illogical, and backward. While Robin DiAngelo's notion of white fragility has been the target of many constructive critiques, McWhorter denounces DiAngelo's circular logic that indicts all white people as racist.</p> <p>Robin DiAngelo defines white fragility as</p> <p>a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress ... becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress‐inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, reinstate white racial equilibrium.[<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref19">19</reflink>]</p> <p>In my view, DiAngelo's work has been helpful in providing white people with a way to recognize specific discursive patterns of white defensiveness that arises in discussions about racism. These patterns include silence, argumentation, certitude, and other ways of avoiding acknowledging one's own contributions to racism. McWhorter, however, maintains that</p> <p>DiAngelo's White Fragility seeks to convert whites to a profound reconception of themselves as inherently complicit in a profoundly racist system of operation and thought. Within this system, if whites venture any statement on the topic other than that they harbor white privilege, it only proves that they are racists, too "fragile" to admit it. The circularity here — "You're racist, and if you say you aren't, it just proves that you are" — is the logic of the sandbox.[<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref20">20</reflink>]</p> <p>McWhorter's critique of efforts by "the Elect" to stifle debate is one of the most interesting arguments in his work, and it bears due consideration.</p> <p>One of the responses to the opposition to "critical race theory" has, in fact, been to attribute such opposition to white fragility.[<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref21">21</reflink>] From this standpoint, the anger of the anti–"critical race theory" movement has been the result of feeling threatened by a recognition of systemic racism and one's part in it. Yet given that DiAngelo's work has not escaped constructive critique — among which is that white fragility centers white people and their needs for confession, thereby eschewing sustained antiracist activism[<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref22">22</reflink>] — reference to white fragility as the key factor in explaining white responses to antiracism may be inadequate. I want to make a stronger argument here, that the "white fragility" argument is often misdirected and obscures how "the inability to disagree claim" actually works.</p> <p>I contend that willful hermeneutical ignorance rather than white fragility offers a more expansive explanation of what is occurring in the controversy over "critical race theory" in general, and how "the inability to disagree claim" more specifically, functions to dismiss marginalized knowers' hermeneutical resources. While white fragility centers white people and their desire to avoid the discomfort in engaging ideas that challenge white beliefs, willful hermeneutical injustice draws attention to the epistemic agency of marginally situated knowers, and it also recommends ways in which more just communication can be achieved. The insights from the body of scholarship reviewed in the next section highlight the crucial significance of hermeneutical resources that marginalized communities develop to explain their experiences with racism and how these insights can provide some guidance as to what more epistemically just conditions of communication might look like. These conditions begin to shape a context in which disagreement is not precluded but, yet, where disagreement does not risk becoming merely a form of dismissal. This is, of course, a crucial question for critical educators.</p> <hd id="AN0162088667-3">Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the Conditions of Just Communication</hd> <p>In her 2007 book, <emph>Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing</emph>,[<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref23">23</reflink>] Miranda Fricker addresses a distinctively epistemic type of injustice in which someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. One of the types of epistemic injustice that Fricker details is hermeneutical injustice, which occurs when the collective hermeneutical resources are exclusively shaped by the experiences of dominantly situated knowers, resulting in a lacuna or gap in the collective conceptual resources.</p> <p>Hermeneutical injustice, Fricker explains, is the injustice of "having some significant area of one's social experiences obscured from collective understanding owing to a structural identity prejudice in the collective hermeneutical resource."[<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref24">24</reflink>] When marginalized knowers are denied the status of knowledge producers, the ensuing gap in the collective hermeneutical framework, according to Fricker, makes it is difficult <emph>for the marginalized</emph> to understand their experiences. While the conceptual deficiency affects both dominantly situated and marginalized knowers, Fricker contends that only the marginalized are harmed by the lack of conceptual resources.</p> <p>Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., in contrast, corrects and expands upon Fricker's assessment of the harms of hermeneutical injustice when she introduces the concept of willful hermeneutical ignorance.[<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref25">25</reflink>] Willful hermeneutical ignorance describes the situation in which marginally situated knowers develop suitable epistemic resources to identify and explain their experiences but where dominantly situated knowers <emph>willfully refuse to acknowledge</emph> these new epistemic resources by ignoring them, minimizing them, mocking them, or otherwise disregarding their importance.</p> <p>Following feminist standpoint theorists, Pohlhaus argues that the idea of the situated knower points to how power operates around one's social position in ways that affect what one has the potential to know. One's positionality creates challenges, or a lack of challenges, in one's lived reality that can over time lead to habits of attention, or inattention. In this way, willful hermeneutical ignorance is not just about an individual person's sustained and protected lack of knowledge. Social relations within the context of power hierarchies affect what one is likely to know.[<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref26">26</reflink>]</p> <p>Positionality alone, according to Pohlhaus, is not sufficient to explain how epistemic resources work. Pohlhaus emphasizes interdependence that highlights how only through <emph>available collective resources</emph> does it becomes possible <emph>both to know and to communicate knowledge to others</emph>. Knowers are interdependent, Pohlhaus explains, "insofar as the epistemic resources or tools with which we know operate collectively, not individually."[<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref27">27</reflink>] Epistemic resources, thus, are crucial for epistemic justice because they are the cognitive and linguistic tools (i.e., the concepts and words, the meaning‐making instruments) that are used to understand the world and communicate with one another about it.</p> <p>Immediate experience, Pohlhaus stresses, is always interpreted and given meaning by available conceptual frameworks of intelligibility. If epistemic resources that marginally situated knowers develop to explain their experience are blocked from gaining credibility in dominant epistemological frameworks, then marginalized groups will not receive uptake or affirmation regarding what is happening to them. Marginally situated knowers will know that there are parts of the world that dominantly situated knowers do not understand, but they will expect that when they try to explain this, dominantly situated knowers will refuse to listen.</p> <p>Willful hermeneutical ignorance covers cases in which the resources have been introduced but have failed to become part of the pervasively shared epistemic resources because of the epistemic exclusion of their originators. It is a failure of circulation rather than a failure of creation, which is due to the refusal of dominant groups to acknowledge epistemic injustices that prevent the integration of these conceptual resources into dominant epistemic schemes.</p> <p>As a compelling example of the harmful effects of willful hermeneutical ignorance, I turn to Kristie Dotson's analysis of silencing.[<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref28">28</reflink>] Although Dotson is focused on testimonial injustice, Fricker's first type of epistemic injustice, whereby a marginally situated knower's credibility is dismissed because of identity‐based prejudice, I contend that what Dotson addresses has implications for hermeneutical injustice, as well.</p> <p>Dotson begins by introducing the idea of epistemic violence, defining it as "a refusal, intentional or unintentional, of an audience to communicatively reciprocate a linguistic exchange owing to pernicious ignorance."[<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref29">29</reflink>] Building on Jennifer Hornsby's work, Dotson points out how the success of a speaker's communication is dependent on one's audience. A condition of being "heard" is that the audience must not only understand the speaker's words, but also understand those words <emph>as the speaker means them</emph>. In other words, an important aspect of epistemically just interpersonal communication is the requirement of <emph>reciprocity</emph>, a concept that gets fleshed out in more detail in Dotson's argument.</p> <p>For Dotson, pernicious ignorance refers to a "reliable ignorance or a counterfactual incompetence that, in a given context, is harmful."[<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref30">30</reflink>] Epistemic violence occurs when there is a failure to give a speaker uptake, which involves a dual dynamic. First, there is a reliable and harmful ignorance, a refusal to take up the concepts that the speaker is using. Second, there is a counterfactual incompetence to recognize the truth. Counterfactual incompetence, according to Dotson, entails a consistent and reliable failure to recognize truths, which results from an <emph>unwillingness to acknowledge that one does not know</emph>.</p> <p>Furthermore, Dotson suggests two additional related conditions of just communication: accurate intelligibility and testimonial competence. Accurate intelligibility suggests "an audience's ability to understand the content of proffered testimony along with her/his ability to detect a failure to understand."[<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref31">31</reflink>] Accurate intelligibility is not only about the ability to understand what the speaker is saying but also about <emph>the ability to know when one does not know</emph>. Dotson illustrates this latter point with the example of a layperson listening to a lecture on nuclear physics. The person might understand some parts of the lecture but will be sensitive to the fact that there will be parts of the lecture that will not be intelligible to non‐experts. The person, however, may clarify what they do not know by seriously engaging with the presenter. The point is that one knows when one is "not getting it."</p> <p>Testimonial competence denotes another condition of just communication: the speaker's "positive assessment of an audience's ability to find potential testimony accurately intelligible."[<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref32">32</reflink>] When an audience demonstrates to the speaker that one's testimony will not be intelligible to them and when the audience makes evident to the speaker that they are not even willing to discern when they do not know, it is a case of testimonial incompetence. The upshot of this account is that just communication that eschews epistemic violence requires humility, reciprocity, <emph>and</emph> that the audience must demonstrate to the speaker accurate intelligibility and testimonial competence. If these conditions are not realized, various forms of silencing may result.</p> <p>Employing the framework of epistemic injustice and willful hermeneutical ignorance, the opponents of "critical race theory" can be understood as willfully rejecting marginalized epistemic resources in a way that violates the conditions of epistemically just relations. In effect, they perpetrate epistemic violence, as described by Dotson. When dominantly situated knowers are invested in ignoring certain parts of the world, as Pohlhaus notes, they can "maintain their ignorance by refusing to recognize and by actively undermining any newly generated epistemic resources that attends to that part of the world."[<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref33">33</reflink>]</p> <p>Willful hermeneutical ignorance is an important lens through which to understand the controversy over "critical race theory." If the original CRT, as well as many aspects of antiracist education, aim to expand the hermeneutical resources in mainstream frameworks of intelligibility so that the experiences of marginally situated knowers are acknowledged, then stifling, distorting, and willfully rejecting such resources is a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance. Furthermore, I argue that understanding willful hermeneutical ignorance provides a better starting point for intervention than the allegedly inherent inability to dissent or disagree.</p> <hd id="AN0162088667-4">Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and "The Inability to Disagree Claim"</hd> <p>In the "critical race theory" controversy, we observe a conscious and pernicious effort to <emph>prevent</emph> concepts developed by marginalized communities to explain their experiences from influencing the dominant framework of intelligibility. Moreover, there is an active and coordinated distortion of the meaning of these marginalized concepts so that they appear to cause grave danger if they are mainstreamed. In coordination with others who have similar investments in ignoring and dismissing marginalized knowledge, the anti–"critical race theory" movement fosters epistemic, and consequently social, injustice.</p> <p>The perspective of racism that the anti–"critical race theory" movement wants to ban would eliminate the possibility of understanding how policies and practices in schooling (for example, the underfunding of Black and Latino school districts, the disproportionate disciplining of Black students, selective admissions policies, and curricula that reproduce racist ideas, just to mention a few) contribute to persistent racial inequalities in education and our society at large. The failure to name the cause of injustice can impede the possibility of social justice. Censoring the ideas that critics of "critical race theory" want banned in schools can thwart the ability of teachers to help students to identify and critique the causes of social injustice in their own lives and how they may be unwittingly perpetuating social injustice themselves. While controversial, and uncomfortable, these ideas need to be understood as educative and contributing to a more just society.</p> <p>With this background, I return to the accusation that the ideas emanating from "critical race theory" do not allow for dissent or disagreement. What does the charge that "one cannot disagree" mean? What are its effects? In fact, there are vigorous, and often constructive, criticisms of many of the ideas that the opponents of "critical race theory" want to ban. None of the Elect that McWhorter disparages lack for antagonists, even among themselves. For instance, numerous progressive writers criticize DiAngelo as engaging in some of the same patterns of behavior that she purports to contest.</p> <p>Moreover, McWhorter fails to consider the critiques of white privilege from such scholars as Sara Ahmed,[<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref34">34</reflink>] Zeus Leonardo,[<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref35">35</reflink>] Timothy Lensmire et al.,[<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref36">36</reflink>] Lawrence Blum,[<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref37">37</reflink>] and others who point out the limitations of the concept without totally dismissing antiracism efforts. Each of these theorists offers constructive critiques that deepen our understanding of antiracist education. McWhorter's critique of white privilege as a stain that one must confess, therefore, is not new — but he writes as if other critiques are nonexistent. Clearly, an inability to dissent is not the problem.</p> <p>More than this, using McWhorter as an illustration, it is important to distinguish disagreement from dismissal because "the inability to disagree claim" can function <emph>to invalidate the concept that is said to brook no dissent</emph>. The accusation may be just another way of shutting down what one does not agree with without seriously engaging with it.</p> <p>McWhorter's views have a long history in the thought of African American assimilationists who believe that hard work, good grammar, and respectability will overcome 400 years of slavery and oppression. One can agree or disagree with the view that cultural pathology (an inability to pull oneself up by their bootstraps) and not structural racism is the cause of the achievement gap, and that Black people should develop an individualist ethos focusing on a rededication to education, an improved work ethic, and a commitment to personal responsibility. One can agree or disagree with the view that Black people should be grateful for the progress that has been made in terms of recognizing their civil rights.</p> <p>Where we can see disagreement sliding into dismissal is not only in McWhorter's tone (which he admits is "snarky," occasionally outraged, and mocking), but in the way he demeans both the ideas of antiracism and the idea of religion as an instance of proselytizers of a belief system engaged in an "obsessive, self‐involved, totalitarian, and utterly unnecessary kind of cultural reprogramming."[<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref38">38</reflink>] McWhorter creates a hollow caricature of antiracist thought, generating a purportedly unified, all‐purpose strawman that he calls "the Elect" and then undermines his own argument by the speedy pace with which he rejects their views without sustained examination or complicating what they say. As Eduardo Peñalver argues in his review of <emph>Woke Racism</emph>, "when an enemy like McWhorter's Elect is described as so sinister, so devoid of logic, so all‐encompassing, it skirts dangerously close to demonization."[<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref39">39</reflink>] Because there is no deeper discussion of the scholarship around concepts such as systemic racism, unconscious bias, white privilege, and white fragility in the anti–"critical race theory" position, it looks more like willful hermeneutical ignorance than mere disagreement. While I agree that within the context of academic debate no theoretical position is exempt from criticism, we must first be clearer regarding when disagreement is genuine disagreement and when it might function instead as preemptive dismissal.</p> <p>Finally, lines like "they are coming for your children" are not just descriptive but border on fearmongering — especially when the "they" is not clearly identified. Even the word "woke" in the title of McWhorter's book, a term that has been popularized by conservative media at just the moment when it has already long been abandoned by progressive scholars, is unnecessarily provocative. This is an illustration of "the inability to disagree claim" serving to dismiss anything worthwhile in the approaches one disagrees with. In his review of McWhorter's book, Elie Mystal summarized this point succinctly:</p> <p>[T]he argument McWhorter advances undermines justifiable claims of injustice by reflexively ridiculing those who make them, thus precluding taking what they say at face value. Thus, McWhorter and others like him, lauded by white folks who praise them for standing up against "wokeness," defend the status quo whether they mean to or not.[<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref40">40</reflink>]</p> <hd id="AN0162088667-5">Conclusion</hd> <p>From the scholarship reviewed here, we can gain important insights about how to disagree in ways that minimize epistemic violence and willful hermeneutical ignorance. As educators, we can encourage dominantly situated students to ask themselves the following questions when they disagree with a marginalized epistemic resource that they are being introduced to:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> What can it mean to disagree when one fails to enter into a cooperative, interdependent relationship with knowers who are outside one's own experienced reality?</item> <p></p> <item> Is it <emph>disagreement</emph> if one does not perceive the speaker as a credible contributor to knowledge? Or something else?</item> <p></p> <item> How can one disagree when one does not have the humility to discern what one does not know or understand?</item> </ulist> <p>I have argued that the question of "ability to disagree" can only surface when one is willing to use the tools necessary to understand what one is disagreeing with and when one has the humility to discern what it is one does not know. It is one thing for there to be a gap in dominant hermeneutical resources, another to know that there is a gap, and still another to appropriately use the resources that would fill that gap.</p> <p>The original aims of Critical Race Theory were introduced as a form of resistance to hermeneutical injustice by pioneering ideas and concepts that explained why civil rights legislation was stalled, and often ineffective even when passed. The backlash to "critical race theory" is a form of white hermeneutical ignorance that obstructs radical (in the positive sense) critique and social change that has the potential to lead to a more just world. When a group is invested in ignoring certain realities, and when this group has the power to promulgate such ignorance, however, then the criticism of not being able to dissent rings false — because honest disagreement and dissent is not what is being sought. The accusation functions not to enrich our knowledge of the social world but to suppress it. Encouraging truly cooperative interdependent relations, on the other hand, and treating as knowledge the epistemic resources that marginally situated communities have developed to explain the oppression they experience contribute to the type of radical social change that all educators who are committed to social justice should want to support.</p> <ref id="AN0162088667-6"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> I want to thank the students in my Epistemic Injustice and/in Education course for raising questions that helped me to clarify the structure of my argument and, especially, Cassie Guzman and Chelsea Bouldin.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Derrick Bell, <emph>Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism</emph> (New York: Basic Books, 1992); and Derrick Bell, "<emph>Brown v. Board of Education</emph> and the Interest Convergence Dilemma," <emph>Harvard Law Review</emph> 93, no. 3 (1980): 518–533.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref3" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Alan David Freeman, "Legitimating Racial Discrimination through Anti‐Discrimination Law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine," <emph>Minnesota Law Review</emph> 62 (1978): 1049–1119.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref4" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, "Unmasking Colorblindness in the Law: Lessons from the Formation of Critical Race Theory," in <emph>Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines</emph>, ed. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 52–84.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref5" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Stephen Sawchuk, "What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?," <emph>Education Week</emph> 40, no. 34 (2021), https://<ulink href="http://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref6" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> David Krayden, "Journalist Tells Tucker Carlson that the Government Must Stop 'Destructive' Critical Race Theory Indoctrination," <emph>The Daily Caller</emph>, September 1, 2020, https://dailycaller.com/2020/09/01/christopher-rufo-tucker-carlson-critical-race-theory-indoctrination-government/.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Ibid.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref8" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> As one example, see this tweet posted by Tennessee state senator Brian Kelsey (@BrianKelsey): "Critical Race Theory teaches that American democracy is a lie. It teaches that the rule of law does not exist &amp; is instead a series of power struggles among racial groups. It is harmful to our students &amp; is antithetical to everything we stand for as Americans &amp; as Tennesseans," https://twitter.com/BrianKelsey/status/1390102620484866054.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref9" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Tyler Kingkade, Brandy Zadrozny, and Ben Collins, "Critical Race Theory Battle Invades School Boards — With Help from Conservative Groups," <emph>NBC News</emph>, June 15, 2021, https://<ulink href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/critical-race-theory-invades-school-boards-help-conservative-groups-n1270794">www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/critical-race-theory-invades-school-boards-help-conservative-groups-n1270794</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Caitlin O'Kane, "Nearly a Dozen States Want to Ban Critical Race Theory in Schools," <emph>CBS News</emph>, May 21, 2021, https://<ulink href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/critical-race-theory-state-bans/">www.cbsnews.com/news/critical-race-theory-state-bans/</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> See, for example, George Yancy, <emph>Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race</emph> (Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2008); Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva, <emph>Racism without Racists: Color‐Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States</emph> (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); and Amanda Lewis, "There Is No 'Race' in the Schoolyard: Colorblind Ideology in an (Almost) All White School," <emph>American Educational Research Journal</emph> 38, no. 4 (2001): 781–812.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> For more about this organization, visit the PACT website at https://stoplcpscrt.com/. The "About PACT" page provides a clear statement of the group's purpose.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Jesse Lile, "'White Fragility' Is a Racist Idea that Should Be Retired Immediately," <emph>The Federalist</emph>, June 18, 2019, https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/18/white-fragility-inherently-racist-idea-retired-immediately/. See also the description of "white fragility" on the PACT site, https://stoplcpscrt.com/what-is-crt/what-is-white-fragility/.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Glenn Loury, "Critical Race Theory in U.S. Schools, with John McWhorter," <emph>The Glenn Show</emph> (podcast), May 21, 2021, https://glennloury.substack.com/p/critical-race-theory-in-us-schools?utm%5fsource=url; Wilfred Reilly, "Parents Are Sick of Critical‐Theory Apologists' Lies," <emph>New York Post</emph>, October 13, 2021, https://<ulink href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/parents-are-sick-of-critical-theory-apologists-lies;">www.manhattan-institute.org/parents-are-sick-of-critical-theory-apologists-lies;</ulink> and Manhattan Institute Forum: The Parent‐Led Challenge to Critical Race Theory, with Christopher F. Rufo, John Yu, and Coleman Hughes, February 18, 2021, event transcript available at https://<ulink href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/parent-led-challenge-critical-race-theory">www.manhattan-institute.org/parent-led-challenge-critical-race-theory</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> John McWhorter, <emph>Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America</emph> (New York: Penguin, 2021).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 22.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 5.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> John McWhorter, "The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility," <emph>Atlantic</emph>, July 15, 2020, https://<ulink href="http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/dehumanizing-condescension-white-fragility/614146/">www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/dehumanizing-condescension-white-fragility/614146/</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Robin DiAngelo, "White Fragility," <emph>International Journal of Critical Pedagogy</emph> 3, no. 3 (2011): 54.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> McWhorter, <emph>Woke Racism</emph>, 31.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> LaKeshia N. Myers, "White Fragility Fuels Fear of Critical Race Theory," <emph>Cap Times</emph> (Madison, WI), guest column, June 12, 2021, https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/lakeshia-myers-white-fragility-fuels-fear-of-critical-race-theory/article_d4a7be42-c297-508d-ab75-bd52e48f1d23.html.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> See, for example, Lauren Michele Jackson, "What's Missing From 'White Fragility'," <emph>Slate</emph>, September 4, 2019, https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/09/white-fragility-robin-diangelo-workshop.html; and Matthew Legge, "Why Is White Fragility So Popular?," Open Democracy, August 9, 2020, https://<ulink href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/why-white-fragility-so-popular/">www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/why-white-fragility-so-popular/</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Miranda Fricker, <emph>Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing</emph> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 155.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., "Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of <emph>Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance</emph>," <emph>Hypatia</emph> 27, no. 4 (2012): 715–735.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> This is not automatic but a potential. Moreover, the intersecting of both systemically privileged and marginalized identities complicates this claim.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Pohlhaus, "Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice," 718.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Kristie Dotson, "Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing," <emph>Hypatia</emph> 26, no. 2 (2011): 236–257.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 238.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 242.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid., 245.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Ibid.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Pohlhaus, "Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice," 728.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Sara Ahmed, "Declarations of Whiteness: The Non‐Performativity of Anti‐Racism." <emph>Borderlands</emph> 3, no. 2 (2004).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Zeus Leonardo, "The Colour of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of 'White privilege,'" <emph>Educational Philosophy and Theory</emph> 36, no. 2 (2004): 137–152.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Timothy Lensmire, Shannon McManimon, Jessica Dockter, Mary Lee‐Nichols, Zachary Casey, Audrey Lensmire, and Bryan Davis, "McIntosh as Synecdoche: How Teacher Education's Focus on White Privilege Undermines Antiracism," <emph>Harvard Educational Review</emph> 83, no. 3 (2013): 410–431.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Lawrence Blum, "White Privilege: A Mild Critique," <emph>Theory and Research in Education</emph> 6, no. 3 (2008): 309–321.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> McWhorter, <emph>Woke Racism</emph>, 15.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Eduardo Peñalver, "What's a 'Woke Racist'?," <emph>Chronicle of Higher Education</emph>, December 30, 2021, https://<ulink href="http://www.chronicle.com/article/whats-a-woke-racist">www.chronicle.com/article/whats-a-woke-racist</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Elie Mystal, "At War with the Woke: A Fresh Perspective Makes the Same Tired Argument," <emph>Washington Post</emph>, November 26, 2021, https://<ulink href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/at-war-with-the-woke-a-fresh-perspective-makes-the-same-tired-arguments/2021/11/24/7dcd37d8-38e7-11ec-91dc-551d44733e2d%5fstory.html">www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/at-war-with-the-woke-a-fresh-perspective-makes-the-same-tired-arguments/2021/11/24/7dcd37d8-38e7-11ec-91dc-551d44733e2d%5fstory.html</ulink>.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Barbara Applebaum</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> <p></p> <p>BARBARA APPLEBAUM is Professor in the Department of Cultural Foundations of Education at Syracuse University, 350 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244; email. Her primary areas of scholarship are critical whiteness studies, feminist theory, and philosophy of education.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref15"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref22"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref23"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref24"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref25"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref28"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref30"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref32"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref33"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref34"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref38"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref39"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref40"></nolink> |
|---|---|
| Header | DbId: eric DbLabel: ERIC An: EJ1368311 AccessLevel: 3 PubType: Academic Journal PubTypeId: academicJournal PreciseRelevancyScore: 0 |
| IllustrationInfo | |
| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the 'Critical Race Theory' Controversy – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Applebaum%2C+Barbara%22">Applebaum, Barbara</searchLink> – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Theory%22"><i>Educational Theory</i></searchLink>. Dec 2022 72(6):689-702. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 14 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2022 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hermeneutics%22">Hermeneutics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Critical+Race+Theory%22">Critical Race Theory</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teaching+Methods%22">Teaching Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Political+Attitudes%22">Political Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Disadvantaged%22">Disadvantaged</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Justice%22">Social Justice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Communications%22">Communications</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Controversial+Issues+%28Course+Content%29%22">Controversial Issues (Course Content)</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1111/edth.12553 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0013-2004<br />1741-5446 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: In this article, Barbara Applebaum examines "the inability to disagree claim" as it arises in objections made by those who want to ban "critical race theory" from being taught in schools and universities. Employing insights from the recent scholarship around willful hermeneutical ignorance, she discerns the important role that marginalized conceptual resources play in conditions of just and constructive dialogue. When such resources are misinterpreted and denied uptake, the resulting harm impedes the epistemic agency of marginally situated knowers. Applebaum claims that many high-profile anti-"critical race theory" arguments put forth by politicians, scholars, and others are a form of willful hermeneutical ignorance, and she concludes by showing how more just communications, in which disagreement is distinguishable from dismissal, can be achieved. – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2023 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1368311 |
| PLink | https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1368311 |
| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1111/edth.12553 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 14 StartPage: 689 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Hermeneutics Type: general – SubjectFull: Critical Race Theory Type: general – SubjectFull: Teaching Methods Type: general – SubjectFull: Political Attitudes Type: general – SubjectFull: Disadvantaged Type: general – SubjectFull: Social Justice Type: general – SubjectFull: Communications Type: general – SubjectFull: Controversial Issues (Course Content) Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance and the 'Critical Race Theory' Controversy Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Applebaum, Barbara IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 12 Type: published Y: 2022 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0013-2004 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1741-5446 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 72 – Type: issue Value: 6 Titles: – TitleFull: Educational Theory Type: main |
| ResultId | 1 |
