Critical race theory

Overview

Critical race theory (CRT) is an intersectional academic movement focused on examining how the concept of race impacts society at the structural level. As a general framework, it holds above all that race is a social construct and that racism against people of color is deeply embedded in society through systemic means, regardless of individual prejudices or beliefs. After it developed in the late twentieth century, critical race theory gained considerable influence among scholars in many disciplines. Yet it earned much more public attention in the 2020s as widespread racial justice protests gripped the United States and other nations. Some of the tenets of CRT, such as the problem of systemic racism, gained mainstream visibility and support. However, there was also significant backlash, as many conservatives vilified CRT as a form of liberal indocrination and attempted to ban or limit its teaching, especially in public schools. Scholars noted that such attacks tended to misrepresent CRT in order to stir White resentment and amplify the conservative-liberal culture war—which, ironically, underscored many of the actual points made by CRT.

History

Critical race theory developed in response to the mid-1970s conservative, reactionary attack on the achievements of the civil rights struggle and the failure of liberalism to stave off this attack, both ideologically and in public policy. This response was initially led by scholars of color such as Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, as well as White theorist Alan David Freeman.

Critical race theory argues that White racism is a hegemonic, socially and historically constructed cultural force in American society. This racism expresses itself in popular culture by believed myths, stories, legal rules, and the institutional disposition of prestige and power via the concept of Whiteness. Critical race theorists use popular culture to deconstruct this hegemony (ideological, cultural, and political domination) by developing a broader, alternate reality through writing fiction and nonfiction. They also combine critical legal theory with an analysis of how law constructs race and gender and thus reveal how liberal legalism (rule of law/equal protection) advances White domination and interests at the same time that it purports to advance the civil rights of Black people, Indigenous people, other people of color (BIPOC), and women. In fact, Bell and Freeman argue that White power is solidified by the narrow constraints of civil rights law as it has been interpreted by the courts. According to critical legal theory, too many justices in black robes, either consciously or unconsciously, subscribe to myths of White supremacy, and in this context fact-sensitive evidence makes formal equality a mask that hides how “Whiteness,” both unintentional and intentional, contours legal doctrine.

Critical race theory’s major goal is to be antithetical to both liberal and conservative scholarly assumptions about neutral and objective, discursive, detached intellectual inquiry. Critical race theorists reject these values and see themselves as politicized, counterinsurgent scholars who create oppositional worldviews aimed at the liberation of all oppressed societal groups. For example, these “race crits” argue that the concept of meritocracy is fallacious—that whether discrimination is intentional or unintentional is immaterial in a society in which wealth, education, and power are distributed and affirmed by the workings of a hierarchy of White over Black. By revealing, through a process called “internal critique,” the internal contradictions of the concept of meritocracy, race crits hope that this clarification will create a “crisis of logic,” or demonstrate the lack of logic in treating rich and poor alike, as both can be potentially prosecuted for violating a neutral/objective law against begging for bread in the streets.

In demonstrating the intersectional contexts of race, class, and gender, race crits seek to challenge the legitimacy of White supremacy and its most potent tactic of using the powerful ideology of “color blindness.” This idea is powerful because of its varied sources. Two entrenched examples are Justice John M. Harlan’s dissent in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case (in which Harlan touted the ideal of a color-blind society) and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s often-quoted clarion that one should be judged by the content of one’s character and not by the color of one’s skin. Race crits argue that race consciousness is so hegemonic that to ignore what one’s optic processes immediately perceive and automatically connect to value judgments is actually to perpetuate White supremacy. The perpetuation of this myth is effected by ignoring the fact that every BIPOC individual is forced by Whiteness into a dual consciousness. The social and historical context of this duality is faced every day by BIPOC people, such as when they must decide whether to buy “flesh-colored” bandages or when they are recognized as the “first” Black, Chicano, female etc. to achieve something. The falsity of color blindness is exposed in such situations.

The development of critical race theory has experienced some major turning points. In 1980, students of color at Harvard University confronted the administration over the teaching of an alternative course on race and law; future race crits, including Lawrence, Matsuda, Crenshaw, and others, were involved in this incident. Another turning point was the rise of critical legal studies conferences and the insurgency by feminist crits and race crits within this movement by the 1986 and 1987 conferences. The 1987 conference, coordinated by a consortium of Los Angeles area law schools, was entitled “The Sounds of Silence.” The unsilenced voices of the race crits were heard in a plethora of workshops at this conference, and selected papers presented were published in a special edition of the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Review (spring, 1987). Another major event was a critical race theory conference at Mills College in Oakland, California, 1993, where various scholars met to discuss critical race theory. Out of this conference two different volumes on critical race theory were produced: Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge (1995), edited by Richard Delgado, and Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (1995), edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas.

Critical race theory developed further in the subsequent decades, and individual thinkers established a diverse array of perspectives within the broader movement. For example, while founding critical race theorists often focused on Black Americans, related branches were formed by scholars of Latino, Native American, Asian American, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities. Critical race theory also increasingly influenced, and in turn drew on, theory in other fields such as education, gender studies, and sociology. However, critical race theory as a whole remained largely focused on a few core concepts: race as a social construct; the normalized, systemic presence of racism in society (particularly in the United States); intersectionality of identity; the way legal systems reinforce White interests even when seemingly advancing rights for people of color; the negative stereotyping of BIPOC individuals and communities; and the concept that BIPOC voices are especially valuable in discourse on race and racism.

In the 2010s and 2020s, critical race theory saw a fresh wave of attention in the United States as the public eye was drawn to racial issues through current events. For many, the 2016 US presidential election—in which Republican candidate Donald Trump prevailed with a campaign that repeatedly invoked racially divisive sentiments—was seen as a turning point. Trump's continued use of racially charged language while in office aided a resurgence of overt White nationalism, while a series of high-profile deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police generated widespread civil unrest. The emerging Black Lives Matter movement brought many elements of critical race theory out of academia and into grassroots activism. Mass protests for racial justice beginning in 2020 further thrust debate over systemic racism into the headlines.

The heightened societal focus on racial issues generated considerable backlash, and many conservatives latched on to the term "critical race theory" as a catch-all buzzword to attack. In September 2020 Trump directed all US government agencies to end any anti-bias training or other programs involving critical race theory or the concept of White privilege, claiming that such ideas were divisive, racist, and un-American. He also directly criticized CRT in speeches. Republicans and other CRT opponents often argued that the framework blamed all White people as inherently racist while simultaneously casting all Black people as helpless victims of racial oppression; sanctioned racial discrimination against White people as a way to achieve racial equity; and rejected the ideas central to the formation of the United States. Such arguments used fear to fuel a movement that aimed to prevent what they (often falsely) characterized as CRT and concepts they associated with it, such as systemic racism, from being taught in public schools. However, critics of the conservative backlash noted that CRT was almost exclusively taught in academia—with only a few minor examples of it influencing primary or secondary school curricula—and that bans in fact often served to simply quell any discussion or acknowledgement of racism.

Although President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's ban on diversity training in federal agencies after taking office in January 2021, the crusade to ban so-called CRT in schools continued to gain momentum. Many US state governments introduced legislation that banned or restricted discussions of racism and sexism in public schools and/or enabled parents of students to review and limit such discussions, and in several cases these laws were passed. Opponents of such bans and restrictions continued to argue that educators were not teaching CRT in public schools to begin with, and that by limiting discussions of racism such legislation made it harder to achieve racial equity. Many free speech and civil rights advocates also worried that anti-CRT legislation would be interpreted too broadly and would thus prevent honest discussions about US history and the ongoing impact of racism in American society. Several of the anti-CRT laws passed in the early 2020s were challenged in court for violating educators' freedom of speech and equal protection rights. Nevertheless, prominent anti-CRT laws continued to go into effect in states such as Florida and Georgia, while at the local level there were increased reports across the country of people calling for school districts to ban books dealing with race and related topics from school libraries and curricula, sometimes successfully. Many observers suggested that conservatives used dubious attacks on CRT to intentionally stoke the culture wars in hopes of rallying their base of White voters and distracting the public from the real intentions of racial justice movements.

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