Who’s afraid of ‘Critical Race Theory’? Jews should embrace the right’s latest bogeyman

 https://forward.com/opinion/459785/whos-afraid-of-critical-race-theory-why-jews-should-embrace-the-rights/

 Critical Race Theory has become the latest misunderstood academic bogeyman in politics. From Donald Trump to Senator Josh Hawley to Jewish publications across the nation, everyone seems to think that the greatest threat facing our nation is a rather obscure academic discipline that examines systemic racial inequality in America.

It’s no surprise that conservative politicians want to paint anything addressing the impact of racism as somehow “evil” or divisive. Unfortunately, the deliberate demonizing and misconstruing of an important academic methodology is affecting the general public’s view of this work and driving a wedge between marginalized groups like Black and Jewish Americans. “We live in a world in which everyone is being told to side either with the ‘racists’ or the ‘anti-racists’” wrote the writer Bari Weiss in Tablet Magazine recently. “Jews who refuse to erase what makes us different will increasingly be defined as racists, often with the help of other Jews desperate to be accepted by the cool kids.”

As a Jewish scholar who uses Critical Race Theory in my work, let me assure you: This take is wrong. Jews have nothing to fear from Critical Race Theory.