Critics of this grotesque tactic are invariably informed that they do not actually understand what critical race theory or modern “anti-racism” really are — and, as such, that they are in no position to oppose its adoption by America’s schools. But no such confusion can be alleged in this case. In Slate last week, Kendi was called forth to “explain critical race theory” for the benefit of those who don’t “know what it is.” Kendi’s explanation makes clear that the framework Deggans used in his essay on Tom Hanks is simply the application of CRT’s core structural claims to the movie industry, along with the verbatim utilization of the “racist”/“non-racist”/“antiracist” categories that Kendi himself has made famous. Want to know what critical race theory does to a person’s mind? Look no further than to Eric Deggans.
Ultimately, Deggans’s approach is a totalitarian one, from which there is no meaningful chance of escape. Had Tom Hanks elected to stay quiet, he would have been deemed guilty of inadvertently endorsing the unequal status quo. Had he rejected Deggans’s premise entirely, he’d have been deemed guilty of explicitly endorsing the unequal status quo. Having chosen to speak up in a way that tracked neatly with what he was told was expected of him, he was deemed guilty of inadequately fighting the unequal status quo. Even if he were to follow Deggans’s advice to the letter, he would still be deemed guilty of something.
Shaming Private Ryan
NPR, man. It used to be good, though liberal, until it was taken over by woke fanatics. Now NPR’s TV critic, Eric Deggans, is attacking Tom Hanks for not being woke enough. Deggans, who is black, praised Hanks for his recent op-ed about the Tulsa race massacre, and calling on Hollywood to tell more stories like it. But now Deggans wants Hanks to do penance for having made movies about white people. I kid you not. From Deggans’s essay:
[I]t’s wonderful that Hanks stepped forward to advocate for teaching about a race-based massacre – indirectly pushing back against all the hyperventilating about critical race theory that’s too often more about silencing such lessons on America’s darkest chapters.
But it is not enough.
After many years of speaking out about race and media in America, I know the toughest thing for some white Americans — especially those who consider themselves advocates against racism — is to admit how they were personally and specifically connected to the elevation of white culture over other cultures.
But in Hanks’ case, he is no average American. Or average Hollywood star, for that matter.
Over the years, he has starred in a lot of big movies about historical events, including Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Bridge of Spies and News of the World. He has served as a producer or executive producer on even more films and TV shows based on American history, including Band of Brothers, The Pacific, John Adams and From the Earth to the Moon. He was an executive producer of documentaries such as The Assassination of President Kennedy and The Sixties on CNN.
In other words, he is a baby boomer star who has built a sizable part of his career on stories about American white men “doing the right thing.” He even played a former Confederate soldier in one of his latest films, News of the World, standing up for a blond, white girl who had been kidnapped and raised by a Native American tribe.
He’s not alone. Superstar director Steven Spielberg has a similar pedigree (notwithstanding occasional projects such as The Color Purple and Amistad). And fellow director Ron Howard. These stories of white Americans smashing the Nazi war machine or riding rockets into space are important. But they often leave out how Black soldiers returned home from fighting in World War II to find they weren’t allowed to use the GI Bill to secure home loans in certain neighborhoods or were cheated out of claiming benefits at all.
They don’t describe how Black people were excluded from participating in space missions as astronauts early in America’s space program. As the book and film Hidden Figures notes, even brilliant Black and female mathematicians faced discrimination in the space program during the 1950s and 1960s. If given better opportunities, perhaps they could have helped us get to the moon sooner, by putting our best minds on the problem, regardless of race.
Deggans is angry because these artists didn’t make the films he thought they should have made. He goes one:
For those of us who speak often on these issues, one of the toughest things to do is to go to a white person who is trying hard to be an ally and tell them they need to do more. And I’m sure there are plenty of Hanks fans out there of every stripe who will say I am expecting too much, being ungrateful toward a big star who said more than he had to.
I don’t think that Deggans is being ungrateful. I think he’s being an ideologue and a bully. He wants Tom Hanks (and others) to engage in public struggle sessions that more or less disavow their work:
If he really wants to make a difference, Hanks and other stars need to talk specifically about how their work has contributed to these problems and how they will change. They need to make specific commitments to changing the conversation in story subjects, casting and execution. That is the truly hard work of building change.
Read or listen to the whole thing.
You will never, ever do enough for wokesters like Deggans. A critic who can look at a film like Saving Private Ryan and gripe about how it failed to have a black character, and how its star — a man whose work in that film did so much to create awareness of the greatness of the World War II soldiers for a new generation — owes an apology for it? Such a critic is a hack, and this is a garbage take.
Like I said, NPR used to be worth listening to, worth taking seriously. Now it only broadcasts to fellow left-wing fanatics who are obsessed with race, sexuality, gender, and identity politics. The “nation” in National Public Radio is not the country I live in, or want to live in.
UPDATE: Charlie Cooke’s take on the Deggans piece is very good. Excerpts:
You are guilty of nothing. Throw everything back in the face of these totalitarians!
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