Connecting the Dots, and Levers

Growing Up #5

   Little did we know in the 1990s that we participated in critical race theory.

   Our 20-member public relations team at the Savannah River Site, a 300-square-mile government facility that produced nuclear material for bombs, had an off-site training day. This was during the Clinton administration, and Hazel O’Leary was secretary of energy, the "authority." 

   Our supervisor, following “orders from headquarters,” lined us across the yard and presented statements. This had nothing to do with our mission. If we were white or otherwise, children of two parents or otherwise, etc. we would take one or two steps forward, or backward. On it went.   

   I grew up thinking less of myself and more of others – naturally, not for biblical reasons - and that hadn’t changed much by my mid-50s. So, it shocked me when the game left average me well ahead of most others.

   How could this be, I asked another employee as we sat down on the door steps. Now we learn that critical race theory had its origins in the 1990s. Bingo!   

   White privilege? NO! White advantage? Maybe. Two good parents. Safe neighborhood. Good schools. Community more or less believing in God, and certainly patriotic. Yes. 

   There is privilege in wealth and power, and it isn’t limited to race. Behavior has more to do with advantage. How about stronger, nuclear families and teachers. Truth about black-on-black crime, which would be even worse without law enforcement. What might be if black babies didn’t suffer the great majority of 60 million abortions?

Ephesians 4 – Be humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

    One day Secretary O’Leary toured SRS, in particular one of the two mammoth “canyons” where "spent" nuclear fuel rods from our five reactors were processed. For protection, operators used levers on one side of a glass wall, connected to other levers exposed to radiation, to accomplish the work. A level-3 manager – I knew him – told her that one lever was a “master” and the other, a “slave.”

   EXPLOSION! The secretary laid into him, it was said, for five minutes, after which he was concerned about keeping his job. I don’t know if they found better names for those tools, but WOKE has its own tools. The first is race; the connection is power.  

         Jimmy