The whole problem with the notion of institutional racism (a concept born of the post-Marxist ideology of critical race theory) is that it assumes that institutions have feelings and are sentient. An institution has no emotions — nor does it think. It is an entity. A thing. It has no heart, no will, no focus, no brain. It is merely infrastructure. A tool for people.
It is people who act, not institutions. If one observes racism, one would never condemn the building in which the person lives or works as being racist because that would be nonsensical. Rather, one would condemn the person’s ideas, words, or acts as being unjust and racist.
To the extent that a tool, such as a governmental, educational, or religious institution, is used with malevolent intentions, it is either the people who formed the entity or the people who are working in the institution who may be faulted.
If proper use or work within the institution is consistent with the stated purposes of the entity and it produces a malignant result, then the people who created it were either purposefully malign in their intentions or careless in how they created their institution.
For example, there are some who decry all American institutions as being unjust and racist. They attack the judicial system, the economic system, and society in general as being inherently racist.
When pressed, some will say the Founding Fathers were racist, economic oppressors — self-interested egoists. This is a first-order complaint on our institutions. When they say our institutions are racist, what they really mean is that the people who designed our society evilly crafted our systems and institutions to exclude certain races and classes of people and created a jumble of additional societal pathologies along the way.
In other words, any evil they see is ultimately produced because the structure of our government was conceived with malevolent designs from the beginning. To them, that includes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the federalist system, the separation of powers, representative republicanism, the electoral system, the economy (the free market system with the only intervention by government making sure that the playing field is fair to all to prevent fraud and unfairness), and judicial systems (allowing everyone access to the courts).
This is critical race theory, the Howard Zinn version, the neo-Marxian philosophical interpretation of American history and the essence of their critique of America today.
Unfortunately, this skewed and decidedly wrong interpretation has been indoctrinating college students for at least the last 60 years. This is the ”America was never good, always evil” dogma that is now so plainly on display in institutions of the Left: the media, post-secondary education, and the Democratic Party.
The contrary view is that people are flawed and imperfect. We have been made in the image of God, but we have not attained the perfection of God. While the institutions and infrastructure of our society may not be perfect, they allow us to become better.
That is why America has been the beacon of hope for the world for the last 230 years. We understand that each of us can choose who, how, and what we will be. Our institutions are designed to protect our freedom.
That’s what our government is supposed to do — protect our freedom. Our free market system is supposed to allow us the opportunity to buy and sell what we want, to succeed, and sometimes fail, in pursuing our economic dreams. Our judicial system is supposed to grant access to courts to seek relief from wrongs done and punish those who criminally encroach on another’s freedom.
The purposes of our institutions have often been attained. Where they have been misused, we have often seen corrections.
For those who are aggrieved today, the examination must be on the people who administer our institutions and on the people who have the power of governance — the people.
I need to be better. I suggest that perhaps we, as a people, can be better too. But our institutions have largely done their jobs.
It is we the people who sometimes misuse and abuse those institutions for our purposes. We can root out the imperfections, make changes today, without emasculating the institutions that have made our nation the freest, the most prosperous, and the most compassionate nation in the history of the world.
The question is whether the anarchists, the rioters, and the violent are correct that we need to scrap the institutions of freedom — or are the peaceful protesters right in urging a course correction and justice in hearts and minds?
There are still better days ahead for those who believe and understand that it is people who can change and who can be better.
Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican, represents Arizona’s 5th Congressional District. He is chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. You can follow him on Twitter: @RepAndyBiggsAZ.
