According to the critical race theorists, "True blacks" do not oppose affirmative action or vote Republican.  They blame the man.

Positive thoughts matter.

Writers as diverse as Napoleon Hill and Julia Cameron underscore the importance of positive thought to success.  Certainly, positive thinking includes the ability to change one’s thoughts. Changing course in pursuit of better opportunity is a common refrain in Black success. Reginald Lewis gave up dreams of professional football to become an outstanding leveraged buyout specialist. John Risher turned away from parental expectations of medical school to become a pioneer black partner at an elite law firm. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said “no” at the last moment to law school and “yes” to a career in foreign relations. And the list goes on and on . . ..

Out of curiosity, I decided to read the latest Critical Race Theory musings for signs of thoughtful change. Had CRT scholars released their obsession with the Hunt for Black Identity? Did the “struggle for black liberation” continue to stir the CRT heart like never before? Were we closer to the day when eminent African-American law professors had authored treatises on, say, Bioengineering and the Law, Internet Law, or The Developing Law of Nanotechnology?

I wanted to know.

To begin my hunt for signs of intelligent change, I did a quick search of the most recent law reviews. I came across this gem, Undercover Other, 94 California Law Review 873 (May 2006). I do not know much about the author, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, although she is marketed by U.C. Davis as an expert on Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Pause.

I could have selected any number of CRT pieces to assess whether the “exciting” genre remained mired in negative thought. Professor Onwuachi-Willig’s piece intrigued me for several reasons. The essay is less than three months old, so we can assess the cutting edge of CRT thought. She has the obligatory opening line to hook the reader. And her surface thesis is non-racial, a situation that allows us to dig down to the vein of negative thinking. 

Onwuachi-Willig begins her essay with an approach that seems more memoir than law:

Every now and then, I find myself passing. Not passing in the conventional sense as white, though. After all, I have what most people would refer to as a chocolate complexion, African features, and kinky hair dreaded into locks. I am clearly black in appearance, and yet I sometimes feel that I need more than my appearance to confirm my membership and acceptance within the black community. To earn this acceptance, there are ways in which I am required to “pass” to fit within my own racial identity group.

While she turns the traditional notion of passing on its head in an intriguing way, I found myself wondering, “where is the law?” Participants at People of Color conferences joke about the lack of law in their work. I have heard the one-liners. At that time, I felt stunned. Now I understand how including the law can be an inconvenience. The careful reader will sense assumptions about Onwuachi-Willig’s world — that “membership” and “acceptance” within the black community drives the author’s feelings and that this “acceptance” must be earned. I am reminded of the Black Table in junior high school all over again.

As Onwuachi-Willig develops her argument, we can see how core negative beliefs buttress her worldview. Within 20 minutes, I pulled out 20 negative thoughts that the author presents/cites in either the text or the footnotes:
 
1. “Society imposes identities on people . . ..”
2. “A minority professor might cover by not writing scholarship that addresses race . . ..”
3. ‘People may . . . adopt certain roles to deceive others within the identity groups to which they belong . . ..”
4. “Conservative Blacks, such as black Republicans, are often de-blacked in the eyes of the black community . . ..”
5. “True blacks are not conservative”
6. “True blacks . . . do not vote Republican”
7. “True blacks . . . do not oppose affirmative action.”
8. “As many black leaders, including Professor Derrick Bell, have declared, Justice Thomas ‘looks black,’ but ‘thinks white.’”
9. “A black conservative may find it most convenient to hide her political viewpoints in order to in-group pass as black . . ..”
10. “One may also de-black himself or herself through his or her choice of residence.”
11. “Blacks who live in almost exclusively white neighborhoods are often viewed by other Blacks as wannabes — people who want to be white.”
12. “After all, who else would want to live in a community where they are surrounded by whiteness, where their children are the only black children, and where they do not see themselves mirrored in their own neighbors?”
13. “Additionally, one risks destabilizing his or her racial identity as a black person by marrying a non-Black, especially a White.”
14. “You’re married to a white man! I never would have guessed. You don’t seem like the kind of person who would marry a white person.”
15. “Blacks often view other Blacks who intermarry with deep suspicion.”
16. “We expect people to act out their apparent racial identities; indeed we become disoriented when they do not.”
17. “Personal acts such as dressing, listening to music, speaking, and dating were politicized as markers of black identity.”
18. “One must learn to be ‘black’ in this society, precisely because ‘blackness’ is a socially produced category.”
19. “Authentic blackness ‘is characterized by an anti-conservative bent.’”
20. “Quoting Christopher Darden, who said, ‘I was branded an Uncle Tom, a traitor used by the Man.’”

To paraphrase Dorothy Boyd from Jerry McGuire, Professor Onwuachi-Willig, you lost me at hello.

Where do these negative thoughts come from? I place the blame on the shoulders of Professors Derrick Bell and, representing the West Coast posse, Kimberle Crenshaw. While these constrained views of life might play well for tenure, imagine the harm inflicted on college students who read this stuff and believe it. Consider how these sentiments from the legal academy might dampen self-confidence. 

What are positive alternatives to these negative beliefs?
 
1. One chooses one’s identity.
2. A minority professor can write about whatever he wants to write about without some hidden message or meaning.
3. Identity is a personal choice lacking some sinister design.
4. Conservative blacks like moderates and liberals are part of a constructive force in black intellectual life.
5. True blacks are anything under the sun.
6. True blacks can vote Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or anything that reflects their free choice.
7. True blacks can support, oppose, or not care about affirmative action.
8. Some people hold minority views within minority groups.
9. A black conservative can be outspoken, reticent, or any place in between.
10. Choice of residence is a personal choice bearing no relationship to black identity.
11. Any choice may be saluted or scorned by others. That is life.
12. Lots of people choose neighborhoods because they like the area, the parks, or the distance from work.
13. If you marry someone and someone else takes offense, that’s their problem, not yours.
14. Black women in interracial marriages share nothing in common save for their race and the different race of their spouse.
15. See nos. 11 and 13.
16. Live and let live. Life is short.
17. Black identity is as definable as the color of ice or the sound of one hand clapping.
18. You must learn to know thyself.
19. Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder.
20. You must be doing something right if people are squawking.
 

I do not have the space or time to examine each positive alternative at length.  Suffice it to say that African-Americans would achieve more in life if these positive thoughts were followed. Why? Because positive thinking generates self-confidence and enthusiasm about one’s pursuits. The moment you allow others to define who you are, you give up responsibility for your choices in life — “It’s out of my hands.” “The Man won’t let me get ahead.” Etc. etc.

As the godfather of Critical Race Theory, Professor Derrick Bell, has written:

Black people will never gain full equality in this country. Even those Herculean efforts we hail as successful will produce no more than temporary “peaks of progress,” short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance. This is a hard-to-accept fact that all history verifies. We must acknowledge it and move on.

Those are the thoughts of failure before trying. Those are the thoughts of poverty. Those are thoughts at the bottom of the well.

And so the core beliefs of CRT theorists remain mired in fatalism. Professor Onwuachi-Willig’s piece bears no evidence of change.

We hold the key to our liberation in our minds.  Aspire to be great. Accept responsibility. And don’t make excuses. These are lessons I learned from my mother and grandmother, both African-American women, survivors of the Jim Crow South.

Change your thoughts, and you will change your world.