Leadership in a Crisis: Racism as an Existential Problem

Racism as an ideology, as the assertion of “white” supremacy and “black” inferiority as if it were a natural and incontrovertible condition, has to be completely deconstructed to its roots in order to see clearly its destructive intent and consequences. The very idea of “race” has a contradictory and confusing origin, as well as an inconsistent and highly variable application, even in the contemporary world. “Racial” classifications and hierarchies are named as the evasive constructions they are, the product of racism and its racist imaginations. Contradictions are exposed, and confusion illuminated, in order to show how racist ideology, born of the need to justify oppression, torture, enslavement, and death, creates the idea of “race.” This idea has no scientific, biological, or genetic foundation, and as such must be rejected as a legitimate way to see ourselves and other human beings. Yet it is a schema and framework that our world is saturated with, making it inescapable at the same time. Use of critical race theory, properly understood, can assist in clarifying this situation and its contradictions and setting up a foundation for further efforts.