What are the core claims of critical race theory?

This is from Education Week. 

Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.

A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05

That's it. It is true that people go from the idea that racism can be systemic and institutional to other kinds of conclusions, but this part of it seems to be just true. Racism is not just individual, and not a matter of being a bigot. The idea is that just going color-blind is an insufficient response to the problems posed by racism. If  you don't use the n-word, you don't support segregation, you have friends in minority groups, etc., you can still be supporting institutionalized racism. 

It doesn't seem to be adequate to answer the problem of racism by saying "We're all  individuals," while denying racial identity.  If all you need for critical race theory is to deny individualist race theory, count me in. Objectionable conclusions might spin out from critical race theory, but this is not a reason to deny the central claim. 

Facts and ideology

 There are no right-wing facts and left-wing facts, there are just, well, facts. Alternative facts are what is known in logic as falsehoods. 

C. Everett Koop, an icon of the pro-life movement, who was Reagan's Surgeon General, remembered this when he refused to state that getting an abortion is traumatizing to the women who get them. 

People on both sides of the political aisle can learn from his example. 

Here. 

Is it necessary for a superintendent of public instruction to learn how to read?

 You would think so. Tom Horne, who actually held the position a few years ago, is running for the post again in the State of Arizona on the Republican ticket. His principal campaign is directed against Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project which emphasizes the history of slavery in America. 

Here is what Horne says that the 1619 project asserts: 

1. The American revolution was not fought for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but because American slave owners feared a threat of abolition by the British authorities.

Here is what Nikole Hannah-Jones actually says:

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. By 1776, Britain had grown deeply conflicted over its role in the barbaric institution that had reshaped the Western Hemisphere. In London, there were growing calls to abolish the slave trade. This would have upended the economy of the colonies, in both the North and the South. The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at just 33, and the other founding fathers to believe they could successfully break off from one of the mightiest empires in the world came from the dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery. In other words, we may never have revolted against Britain if some of the founders had not understood that slavery empowered them to do so; nor if they had not believed that independence was required in order to ensure that slavery would continue. It is not incidental that 10 of this nation’s first 12 presidents were enslavers, and some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy.

This doesn't actually say that the Founders were PRIMARILY motivated by the preservation of slavery. 

Underpopulation

 

u  In most societies historically people have been concerned about underpopulating since people historically depended upon children (particularly males) to take care of them in their old age, and because a strong male population was needed to protect the people from attack and to do the manual labor needed to keep everyone fed. Underpopulation, not overpopulation, was feared. 

Fess up or cover up: Does it always pay to be ethical?

 It seems easy to imagine situations in which it doesn't pay to be ethical. This is particularly true if you have already done something unethical  Then you have to fess up or cover up. Fessing up might be very costly, whereas you can at least delay the ill effects of wrongdoing if you cover up (and by the time it's caught, you  might be gone). 

God exists but isn't worthy of worship

 This is what this person believes.