Critical race theory

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Critical Race Theory is the school of thought that holds that race lies at the very nexus of American life. It is an academic discipline that challenges its readers, whether proponents or dissenters, to consider the relationship that exists between race, the justice system, and society.

Contents

1 Thought & Influence
2 History & Origins
3 Major Contributors
4 Other Contributors
5 Offshoot Fields
6 Conclusion
7 Bibliography
8 Further reading

Thought & Influence

"The founding absurdity of "race" as a principle of power, differentiation, and
classification must now remain persistently, obstinately, in view."
—Paul Gilroy, Against Race, p. 42

Critical Race Theory has its roots in the more established fields of anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, law, and politics. The notions of the social construction and reality of race and discrimination are ever-present in the writings of known contemporary critical race theorists, such as Derrick Bell, Mari Matsuda, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Crenshaw, and William Tate, as well as in the writings of pioneers in the field, including W.E.B. DuBois and Max Weber.

Critical Race Theory is also linked to the development of African American thought in the post–civil rights era. CRT theorists and legal scholars such as Bell, Lawrence, Delgado, and Crenshaw challenged the traditional liberal civil rights philosophical position of endorsing a colorblind approach to social justice.

This field has its roots firmly planted in American soil, mainly due to the racial makeup of the country.

History & Origins

The historical origins of Critical Race Theory provide a contextual understanding to contemporary legal debates concerning the effectiveness of past civil rights strategies in the current political climate. The earliest writings on Critical Race Theory can be traced to Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman in the mid-1970s. According to Delgado, both Bell and Freeman were deeply concerned with the ‘snail's pace’ progress of racial reform in the United States. Concerned and dismayed that any gains made by civil rights laws of the 1960s were quickly being eroded in the 1970s, Derrick Bell, a lawyer who served as the executive director of an NAACP branch, began to fashion arguments that were designed to change existing laws.

CRT is a body of legal theory (stemming from Critical Legal Studies) which is based on at least six premises:

1) Storytelling is a significant part of the law, and disenfranchised people(s) have different stories and different ways of telling them than enfranchised people(s).

2) Racist behavior is not an aberration; it is normal practice.

3) Elites act against racist behavior in society only when it serves them.

4) Race is a social construct, not a biological one.

5) Characteristics ascribed to a particular race will change. (For example, African American people were most commonly called "happy-go-lucky and childlike" in the slavery era to rationalize slavery, but now are most commonly called "threatening and criminal" to rationalize increased police intervention.)

6) People have intersecting identities; i.e., they belong to more than one demographic group and are consequently affected by disenfranchisement or inequality in more than one way. We all have multiple lenses through which we experience the world (and through which we are experienced by others).

Major Contributors

Bell is arguably the most influential source of thoughts critical of traditional civil rights discourse. Bell’s critique represented a challenge on the dominant liberal and conservative position on civil rights, race, and the law. Derrick Bell employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: Constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies.

For instance, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest. Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status. Each of the arguments presented shed a different light to the traditional racial discourse.

Critical Race Theory is philosophically connected to two other movements which share overlapping literature: Critical Legal Studies and Critical Theory.

Other Contributors

Other significant contributors to the Critical Race Theory discourse in the 1980s to the present are Delgado and Crenshaw. Delgado, in defense of Bell’s storytelling or narrative style, argues that people of color speak from an experience framed by racism. Delgado argues that the stories of people of color come from a different frame of reference, and therefore give them a voice that is different from the dominant culture and deserves to be heard. Critical race theorists believe that in order to appreciate their perspective, the voice of a particular contributor must be understood.

Crenshaw argued that little difference existed between conservative and liberal discourse on race-related law and policy. Crenshaw identified two distinct properties in anti-discrimination law: expansive properties and restrictive properties. The former stresses equality as outcome relying on the courts to eliminate effects of racism. The latter treats equality as a process. Its focus is to prevent any future wrongdoing. Crenshaw argues that expansive and restrictive properties coexist in anti-discrimination law. The implication of Crenshaw's argument is that the failure of the restrictive property to address or correct the racial injustices of the past simply perpetuates the status quo.

Offshoot Fields

"This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again."
—James Baldwin, "Stranger in the Village"

No longer content with accepting whiteness as the norm, critical scholars have turned their attention to whiteness itself. In the field of Critical White Studies, numerous thinkers, including Toni Morrison, Eric Foner, Peggy McIntosh, Andrew Hacker, Ruth Frankenberg, John Howard Griffin, David Roediger, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Noel Ignatiev, Cherríe Moraga, and Reginald Horsman, attack such questions as:

How was whiteness invented, and why?
How has the category of whiteness changed over time?
Why did some immigrant groups, such as the Irish and Jews, start out as nonwhite and later become white?
Can some individual people be both white and nonwhite at different times, and what does it mean to "pass for white"?
At what point does pride in being white cross the line into white power or white supremacy?
What can whites concerned over racial inequity or white privilege do about it?

Within Critical Race Theory, culturally specific subdivisions began to develop, including:

Latino Critical Race Studies or LatCrit.
Asian American Critical Race Studies or AsiaCrit.
American Indian Critical Race Studies or TribalCrit.

Conclusion

Critical Race Theory is partly meaningful in its increasing application to scholarship in education in the 1990s. Tate employed Crenshaw’s view of expansive and restrictive properties in evaluating certain educational policies and concluded that the restrictive interpretation of anti-discrimination laws inhibited African American students.

More generally, CRT is relevant to people who are looking for ways of dealing with questions regarding race and identity, in ways that move beyond civil rights era activism.

Bibliography

Bell, D.A. (1993) Remembrance of Racism Past: The Civil Rights Decline. In Hill & J. E Jones (Eds.) Race in America: The Struggle for Equality (pp. 73-82). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Crenshaw, K.W. (1988) Race Reform, Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Anti-Discrimination Law. Harvard Law Review, 101. 1331-1387.
Crenshaw, K.W. et al (1995). Introduction. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.) Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New York: New Press
Delgado, R (1995) Legal Storytelling: Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative. In R. Delgado (Ed.) Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Delgado, R (1995) The Imperial Scholar Revisited: How to Marginalize Outsider Writing, Ten Years Later. In R. Delgado (Ed.) Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Delgado, R (1995) Affirmative Action as a Majoritarian Device: Or, Do You Really Want to Be A Role Model? In R. Delgado (Ed.) Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press
Tate, W. F. (1996) Critical Race Theory: Review of Research in Education, 22, 201-247