I believe there was systemic and structural racism in America’s past. Such can be seen in objective ways like slavery, discriminatory practices, and laws during reconstruction and post-slavery agreements, unions, and segregation–Jim Crow laws. I do not believe ubiquitous systemic and structural racism exists in America today. Those who promote that it does, do so to demonstrate America is inherently and hopelessly racist. They contend that all disparities between blacks and whites are a result of systemic racism. No other probable reasons are allowed. Any progress in race relations in America and the success of countless black people is rejected or downplayed.
Resultantly, America and capitalism, if structurally racist, need to be replaced with Marxian socialism. Structural racism is the idea that racism governs or irresistibly influences the institutions and structures of American society. These institutions include all in America, such as government, the constitution, the law, and the social institutions, such as family, education, media, and religion, which includes the Christian church. Structural racism would mean that America, as she is so constituted, has racism in her DNA. Therefore, she is irredeemable (unsalvageable) and must be totally replaced. She must be destroyed and replaced with Marxian socialism. Whether mentioned or not, Marxism’s plan and progress always eliminate religion and Christianity.
In an uncomplicated manner, I will seek to explain how Marxism views the structure of a non-Marxist society. This is true whether in times past or today in America. Here, I am attempting to present the related Marxist structure and operation without all of the terms, language, and embedded dialectic theory that complicates everything; although I limit their complicated vocabulary and manner of speaking, I am presenting an accurate picture of the general view and functioning of Marxian socialism. I do this so that Christians and all Americans can recognize Marxism’s presence even when the promoters seek to hide their commitments. This requires seeing society in three interrelated parts. There is the top, middle, and bottom.
At the top of the societal structure is what was called the bourgeoisie. They represent the capitalist, which includes owners of all sizes of businesses and properties. At the bottom of the structure is what was called the proletariat and the peasants–in the USSR. Now the bottom would include the non-property-owning lower working class and the poor. In neo-Marxism, in countries like America, the top can include or be called the majority and the bottom the minority or minorities combined. This conflict categorization makes the majority the oppressor and the minority the oppressed. In modern neo-Marxism, the majority is almost always seen as the oppressor of the minority.
Thus, if whites are the majority, then the minority black people are labeled as racially oppressed. If English is the majority language, then those who speak different languages are considered linguistically and culturally oppressed by those who speak the dominant language. Heterosexuals make up the majority, which means that as a minority, homosexuals and transgenders are oppressed. This new aspect of majority/minority always being cast as oppressor/oppressed does not allow minorities such as homosexuality or transgender to be considered innately abnormal and sinful. But that is something Christians must maintain when a given minority is based upon a biblical immorality.
That means there is no longer an ordinary non-sinister understanding of majority/minority relationships. In other words, privileges that the majority has simply because they are the majority are now considered evil or oppressive. Typically, in every association or country, without sinister prejudice, the minority is expected to adopt the basic ideas of the majority in order to strengthen and continue producing a functioning society. Such things can include learning the majority’s language and some of the customs of the majority, which have probably become the common culture over time as more minorities desire to enjoy being a participating and vital part of the culture or country.
Other experiences of the majority and minorities that are non-sinister or do not establish an oppressor vs. oppressed dynamic are that most of the people will look more like the majority than the minority, and they will express views that will, by their very volume, often be more dominant than the minority perspective. Also, quite frequently, the minority’s religious faith may differ from that of the majority. Resultantly, the majority’s language, religion, values, manners, and family structure will be more prevalent, and more people will look like the majority than the minority. That is the natural expression of countries.
If I, a white person, moved to Mexico, I would expect to look different than the majority, and I would feel the need to learn to speak the dominant language of the land. That does not mean the Mexican people are racist oppressors. They may be, but that cannot be decided by comparing the privileges inherent in being the majority with some of the challenges faced by minorities. But Marxism uses these natural and unavoidable differences to divide people into Marxist conflict categories of oppressor and oppressed. This is equally true of Marxism’s offspring critical race theory (CRT).
Historically, America was considered the great melting pot, made up of races, ethnicities, and cultures from all over the map coming together to embrace and strengthen the American culture, which, although it was not one group or look, clearly had dominant traits because of the majority. People came from everywhere, not to change America to be like the country they left but to adjust and become full participants in America, their adopted homeland.
They were excited and felt privileged to be here. They wanted to be fully Americanized. For example, Gina’s (my wife) grandparents came from Belgium, and their name is Didier. Wanting to be Americans, they changed the pronunciation of their name from the more French-sounding pronunciation of Did-e-a (emphasis on the long a) to the American pronunciation Did-e-er (emphasis on the er). Many from various parts of the world did this same thing with their native language. They worked hard to learn English because they wanted to be Americans, which is not the same as losing one’s ethnic identity. But it is reflective of a person coming to America, at a significant cost, to be an active part of this great country. The image of a great melting pot was and is loathed by Marxists and critical race theorists; the latter either being outright Marxists or those whose admiration of Marxism and orientation to the goals and methods of Marxism are easily identifiable and extolled by them.
Multiculturalism rejects America as the great melting pot and the belief that the melting pot idea is great. Multiculturalism is not merely something so benign as learning about and appreciating other cultures, although some viewed it and taught it that way. Instead, it has mostly been about deconstructing America by demanding that she see all cultures as equal and, as a result, deemphasize America’s own culture and uniqueness. This is to the point of emphasizing only the evil traits of America and normalizing the mindset that requiring immigrants to learn English and other such American norms is oppressive. All of which is the Marxist beginning of undermining a distinctly American way of life.
Isaac Gottesman is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Iowa State University. He is a leftist, critical Marxist, critical race theorist, and a critical educational theorist.[1] Gottesman quotes Christine Sleeter from her book, Multicultural Education as Social Activism, saying, “I argue that multicultural education can be the understood as a form of resistance to dominant modes of schooling, and particularly white supremacy.”[2]
Seeing culture through the lens of Marxism, which places those with capital and majorities at the top and their workers and the minorities at the bottom, raises the question, how do the ones at the top and those at the bottom relate? Particularly since, according to Marxism, America, as founded and operating, is not a natural or desirable state of affairs but an unjust society of oppressors and oppressed, which must be overturned. What I have described is a picture of the top and the bottom of American culture and why they are there–according to Marxism. The question is, does Marxism seek to change society with an understanding that these two groups relate like a king and his subjects or another form of a dictatorship, or is it a relationship in which the oppressors hold the oppressed in subjugation by brutal force, say by militarily subjugating the oppressed? No! Each group relates to the other by what we will call the center.
Antonio Gramsci was, at one time, head of the Communist Party in Italy. He is one of the most influential neo-Marxists of the past century. Consistent with a Gramscian perspective, the center houses what Gramsci called the “common-sense” concepts of the complete structure. According to Gramsci, “These conceptions . . . are . . . lived uncritically.”[3] That is to say, the common-sense concepts are basically what both the top and bottom consider, or have come to consider, to be natural and inevitable. They become the unchallenged views of the day. Common-sense concepts need no defense or further explanation because they are what everyone considers obvious, i.e., common sensical–something everyone knows is true, the way things are supposed to be. They only need to be taught and reinforced in schools and culture.
They originate at the top, and in time, they are embraced by the bottom. And in that way, they eventually become the common sense of the whole structure–society. Accordingly, Americans would say there is no need for a revolution to replace capitalism with Marxism because things are as they should be; even common sense tells everyone that. Students only need to be taught how to thrive in our Christian-influenced, constitutional-based, capitalist society. They need to be taught the positives of the way things are, and, therefore, they are taught to embrace the common-sense values of the culture, such as Christian values of marriage, traditional family, personal responsibility, and hard work, which are commonly expressed in American culture. This was the historical purpose of schools. I am not presently addressing the enormous erosion of these in American culture over the last one-hundred and twenty years but only demonstrating how culture operates and how Marxists view it in order to destroy it.
This present state of society, what makes the society what it is (the common sense of the day) that makes the status quo seem natural and inevitable, is known in Gramscian language as a hegemony–the powers that be. Any modification requires a hegemonic change, which replaces these current powers (hegemony) and all that sustains them with new ones. This requires counter-hegemonic forces that undermine the current common sense and replace it with a new common sense.
That is to say, replace what everyone believes makes up this natural and inevitable culture or country with a new way of viewing the world. Accordingly, rather than teaching students to accept the way things are and how to appreciate and thrive in the present culture, students are taught the way things are is not natural and inevitable but wickedly flawed and evil. Rather than focusing on the good, the strength, and the blessing of being an American, the focus turns to only what is wrong with America and what America has and does that is wrong. The context of the failings in America is not presented realistically, compared with other existing cultures, both past and present. Instead, she is compared to an idyllic Marxian utopia that possesses only good with no failings. The idyllic culture is presented as the way things should be, and only Marxism can bring it about.
Marxists believe the elements necessary to bring in this new common sense, hegemony, are not foreign to the current state of affairs. Rather, they are present in the common sense of the day, although in a contradictory relationship. David Forgacs, the editor of The Antonio Gramsci Reader, summarizes Gramsci’s understanding of how Gramsci seeks to bring in Marxism. Forgacs says, “It is important to see that Gramsci does not think of Marxism in this process as imposing itself mechanically from the outside, but rather as drawing out and elaborating elements of critical awareness and ‘good sense’ which are already present within people’s ‘common sense’“[4] (italics added). Neo-Marxists Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse contend that the “stuff” needed for a confrontational or long revolution (peaceful revolution to change the current society to a Marxist society) already exists in a capitalist society. Horkheimer says, “The . . . judgment is typical of prebourgeois society: this is the way it is, and man can do nothing about it . . . Critical theory maintains: it need not be so; man can change reality, and the necessary conditions for such change already exist“[5] (italics added).
To wit, there are true and good elements within the present American system, but there are also bad elements that contradict one another. Therefore, the Marxist strategy of problematization of society is to point out these contradictions (flaws and weakest points) in capitalism and offer a way to eliminate them by setting up a Marxist structure–society. Problematizing society does not include presenting it in the context of the good in American society or in comparison with other flawed societies but only includes highlighting the weaknesses, and this is against the promised utopic vision of Marxism.
The method of problematizing everything is based on critical theory (CT). Neo-Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer systematized CT. Unlike traditional social theories that seek to explain societies, CT seeks to change societies from what they are to a Marxian socialist society. In America, that means focusing only on the bad and even creating deficiencies where none exist or exaggerating a flaw via ignoring the corresponding good associated with the downside–the negative of fossil fuels without mentioning the benefits. While CT focuses only on the imperfections of society to make Marxism look like a savior, CT is above being judged. Horkheimer says, “There are no general criteria for judging the critical theory as a whole, for it is always based on the recurrence of events and thus on a self-reproducing totality.”[6] Critical race theory follows the same reasoning that, like CT, they can judge everyone and everything, but they are above judgment.
Always be mindful that when Marxists talk of making things better, giving man liberty, humanizing man, challenging the status quo, and getting rid of societal contradictions, they are not talking about making a better America, improving her capitalist economy, enhancing religious freedom for more people, or making her form of government better, which is something we should welcome and work toward.
But that is not what Marxists mean by such goals. They are talking about improvement in life by replacing America and all the good that it contains and stands for with Marxian socialism. Resultantly, speaking against Marxism (and critical race theory or social justice) is not the same as opposing changes to improve America. Without keeping this difference in mind, it is easy to miss the evil of Marxism, which many do, thereby becoming unwittingly complicit in advancing Marxism.
Some examples of what Marxists refer to as contradictions are: the US guarantees individual rights, but this is contradicted by the fact that those rights get trampled on at times. That poor people do not have the same rights to good housing that wealthy people do (rights in Marxism means equality of results, not equality of opportunity). According to Marxism, there is no equality if the results are different. Our system of education, in which the teacher teaches the students who are learners and not teachers, is a contradiction because, according to Marxism, they should both be teachers and learners. We say we are a country of freedom and value freedom, yet we require people to learn English rather than cater to their native language. To Marxists, that is a contradiction. We say everyone is equal, but the boss is over the employees–another Marxist contradiction.
We say all humans are “endowed by their creator,” yet many live on the streets–a contradiction. We value family, yet we do not value all family structures (homosexual, transgender), a contradiction. Now you get the idea. None of these are actual contradictions, but that is the way Marxism casts them and describes them. Because we do not live in a perfect world, everything and everyone can be shown to have some deficiencies. But they always compare America, not to existing cultures with flaws, but to their idyllic Marxist utopic vision that exists only in their ideology. It has never existed and never will. History and a Christian view of human nature tell us that in their theorized utopia, things have and will get worse, far worse.
According to Gramsci’s idea of common sense, “Many elements in popular common sense contribute to people’s subordination by making situations of inequality and oppression appear to them as natural and unchangeable.”[7] The common sense of capitalism being good, with employers and employees, property owners, and non-property owners, is a major subordination idea to be replaced with a new common-sense idea. According to Gramsci, the new common sense needed to bring about the necessary change from what America is to Marxian socialism is not forced on people from the outside or some external force.
As seen earlier, Gramsci believes there are some “elements of critical awareness and ‘good sense’ which are already present within people’s ‘common sense’“[8] (italics added). Part of changing society is done by drawing these out and elaborating on them. Accordingly, there is some truth in the current common sense; therefore, common sense is not the same as a false consciousness in Marxism, wherein there are no positive elements. A person who thinks he is happy and free in capitalism has a false consciousness because he is really enslaved. When he realizes he is not free and happy but enslaved in an evil system, he has come to have true consciousness; then he can help bring in a Marxian-socialism.
With this understanding of Marxism, we can see that it includes all structures, such as governmental, political, constitutional, and social such as familial, educational, legal, media, and religious. What I have summarized and tried to express in a manner that is truly reflective of Marxism but in a more understandable manner is what we call structure. Hence, whether it is structural inequity in class, economics, or race, it means the system not only has some of these traits, but the system itself is structurally unequal or racist–the problem is systemic.
Therefore, society must be seen for what it is through the critical theory process of problematization (pointing out and even exaggerating all the flaws and failures and replacing them with a Marxist utopic vision of how things should and can be). This change can come about through a forced violent revolution or the long, mainly peaceful revolution (slower change) through counter-hegemonic forces, replacing the present common sense with a new common sense. These changes can happen to a large degree within the current cultural structure (system) by helping people come to a true consciousness.
In a capitalist system, Marxists insist that people think they are free and happy (because they have a false consciousness), but they are not. Marxism can make them realize they are not by helping them gain a true consciousness, which leads them to understand that freedom and happiness reside in Marxism. This rhetoric is what fuels the concept that America is a structurally racist country. America must be toppled and replaced with a new structure of equity without contradictions, which is only found in a Marxist idyllic utopia. Marxism is the savior that falsifies Jesus’s words, “For you always have the poor with you” (Matt 26:11). Walter Williams points out how they always compare an existing culture like America’s capitalism against Marxism’s utopia, and in such comparison, the real working system with all its flaws will always lose.[9]
According to Gramsci, what holds society together, is the belief that the top (bourgeoisie) promoted and the bottom (proletariat, poor, working-class, minorities) bought into so that the whole society believes that the way things are (people at the top and people at the bottom) is natural and inevitable, the common sense of our culture (the middle). That common sense has to be destroyed and replaced with a Marxian socialist view of the world–a new common sense. This change can happen over time through a peaceful counter-hegemonic revolution (also known as the long march through the institutions) or abruptly in a violent revolution. This Marxist belief lies at the basis of the depiction of America as thoroughly evil, racist, oppressive, and scientifically totalitarian.
[1] Critical Marxist is a specific designation some Marxist use, and critical race theorist and critical educator means that he employs critical theory in each; in this case, it is done according to critical Marxism. “The term ‘critical education’ is relatively new, emanating largely from the recent scholarship
of Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, Ira Shor, bell hooks, Joe Kincheloe, and
others. Put briefly; it focuses primarily on helping students ‘to become critical agents who
actively question and negotiate the relationships between theory and practice, critical
analysis and common sense, and learning and social change’ (Giroux, 2007, p. 1). It is a form of counter-socialization (Stanley, 2007) that seeks to make transparent the connections.” Kenneth Teitelbaum, “Restoring Collective Memory: The Pasts of Critical Education,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education,” edited by Michael W. Apple, et. al., (New York: Routledge, 2009), 312. Accessed 9/10/22.
“The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education is the first authoritative reference work to provide an international analysis of the relationship between power, knowledge, education, and schooling. Rather than focusing solely on questions of how we teach efficiently and effectively, contributors to this volume push further to also think critically about education’s relationship to economic, political, and cultural power.” Book description, The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education,” edited by Michael W. Apple, et. al., (New York: Routledge, 2009) found online at https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-International-Handbook-of-Critical-Education/Apple-Au-Gandin/p/book/9780415889278 accessed 7/2/22.
[2] Isaac Gottesman, The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race (New York: Routledge, 2016), 120. The source he refers to is Christine E. Sleeter, Multicultural Education as Social Activism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1966), 2.
[3] Antonio Gramsci, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 421,
[4] Antonio Gramsci, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 323.
[5] Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell et. al. (New York: Continuum, 2002), 227, footnote 20.
[6] Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell et. al. (New York: Continuum, 2002), 242.
[7] Antonio Gramsci, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 421.
[8] Antonio Gramsci, The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 323.
[9] Walter E. Williams, Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2008), 25.
