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Critical Race Theory

I'd never heard of it. I read the links then looked up a site critical to it. I'm not sure I believe a lot of the claims made by that site. They claim it is more or less re-branded Marxism. I wouldn't know. The article mentioned "radical left" after a few paragraphs and my opinion of it was lowered a bit. It was definitely one-sided.

I'd need an honest and thorough explanation of CRT so I will step aside and read what others here have to say.
 
The sum total of my formal study would consist of what wikipedia says. That is probably not sufficient to form an opinion on it.
 
Ranb said:
What is your opinion on critical race theory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criti...r35Gso8w8e7gg5xwLakOXQoVL7Dc17S6L-P3UoIAQqvCY

https://criticalrace.org/what-is-cr...oOFjMmFfCugHG1M0FLjYi7qb35NFATzm8T6XBtGcQB5G0
Click to expand...

The wikipedia article (which was the only one I read) contains a lot of scary stuff in it. CRT itself is kind of scary. Legislatures who pass laws against CRT are scarier.

Apparently, CRT is very critical of liberalism. No wonder I don't like it. I like liberalism.
 
Going by the Wiki it seems to contain a lot of things that are difficult to dispute. If the Wiki is accurate. It's not something that would scare me though it probably misses out important things it certainly contains some ideas worth listening to as one voice of many.
 
I think of CRT similarly to the thought experiment the publishers make in Foucault's Pendulum : what if everything can be explained by X?

Thinking along these lines can be very productive, if for nothing else but coming up with convincing counterexamples.

So far, I have seen little that would outright disqualify CRT.
 
The general tenets of CRT are interesting and may be of some value.

As actually applied in many cases, though, it appears to promote regarding individuals as necessarily contributory to or complicit with various socioeconomic ills, solely by virtue of their race or ethnic origin. That notion doesn't exactly have a positive historical track record.
 
The criticalrace.org website seems overly concerned with countering the 1619 Project, which
“aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.”
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with the core belief that
The central premise is that America was not founded in 1776, or in the early colonies, or when the Constitution was ratified. According to this new interpretation, the functional founding of America occurred when the first enslaved Africans arrived on the North American continent. Further, the authors claim, the colonists fought the Revolutionary War primarily to protect the slave trade.
Click to expand...
 
Right wing boogie man that has very little real importance other than ginning up the fears of reactionary conservatives.
 
Ranb said:
What is your opinion on critical race theory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criti...r35Gso8w8e7gg5xwLakOXQoVL7Dc17S6L-P3UoIAQqvCY
https://criticalrace.org/what-is-cr...oOFjMmFfCugHG1M0FLjYi7qb35NFATzm8T6XBtGcQB5G0
Click to expand...
CRT is loosely unified by two common themes:
  • First, that white supremacy (societal racism) exists and maintains power through the law.
  • Second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, and also achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly, are possible.
Critics of CRT argue that it relies on social constructionism, elevates storytelling over evidence and reason, rejects the concepts of truth and merit, and opposes liberalism
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It doesn't sound like anything that would interest me.
 
arthwollipot said:
From the very little I have read of it, it seems to me to be a right-wing dogwhistle.
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Derrick Bell and Kimberlé Crenshaw (among a host of others) were serious scholars doing thoughtful work. We shouldn't toss out the big picture they provided us because of a crude Fox News caricature.

ETA: Found a more detailed description of CRT than the one from the wiki:
The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.
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From the introduction of this book, which begins on PDF page 24.

ETA 2: From the same introduction (pg. 7-8) here is a passage worth mulling over:
A third theme of critical race theory, the “social construction” thesis, holds that race and races are products of social thought and relations. Not objective, inherent, or fixed, they correspond to no biological or genetic reality; rather, races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient. People with common origins share certain physical traits, of course, such as skin color, physique, and hair texture. But these constitute only an extremely small portion of their genetic endowment, are dwarfed by that which we have in common, and have little or nothing to do with distinctly human, higher-order traits, such as personality, intelligence, and moral behavior. That society frequently chooses to ignore these scientific facts, creates races, and endows them with pseudo-permanent characteristics is of great interest to critical race theory.
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The broad tenets, as I understand them, seem trivially and obviously true. I don't know enough about the specifics to comment on the theory as advocated for by proponents, the arguments used in favour or against, nor even the proponents themselves.
 
The category is a little too broad to know where to start.

I do have some issues with certain dogmas of CRT, such as that only white people can be racist.
 
I guess that this is as good a place as any to start:

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

I think I first heard this idea back in the early 90s. It may have originated earlier than that, but that's around the time when I first became aware of it.

The twin themes “only whites can be racist” and “all whites are racist” appeared at the University of Delaware in 2007. The “sustainability” dorm-based indoctrination program at UD offered this aperҫu:

A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. ‘The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination….’​

This formulation was adopted by UD after consultation with Dr. Shakti Butler, a consultant who goes around advising colleges and universities to this effect. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), whose spotlight on UD led to the end of the residence program, archived a database of materials from it, including Dr. Butler’s “Diversity Facilitation Training.” Dr. Butler, incidentally, lists Boston University as one of her clients.

She is a popularizer, not the originator of these conceits. But the thing to note is that there is a whole sub-industry within the diversity industry that is devoted to advancing the idea that only whites can be racist. Dr. Grundy is just repeating a widespread meme that circulates among the radicals of the diversity movement.

In January 1987, Socialist Worker published the article “The Fallacy of Reverse Racism,” in which the author wrote, “Blacks cannot be ‘racists.’ They are not in a position to oppress anyone—certainly not the majority white population of the U.S.” In 1991, Spike Lee said in a Playboy interview, “Black people can't be racist.” In 2013, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson, who had previously said black people do not have the capacity for racism, said white people needed to die in numbers equal to black people in order for racism to end.

The idea that “black people can't be racist” is just a meme, not a coherent argument. It is easy to see why it appeals. The programs these folks want to defend and, if possible, advance, are inherently racist. That is, they divide people into primary groups by race; treat race as “essential”; and distribute public goods according to racial group identification and affiliation. This is purely and simply racism. Because it is so patent, its supporters must reach for excuses and work-arounds.
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One thing it does is it redefines racism and white supremacism as the same thing. While white supremacism certainly is one kind of racism, this school of thought suggests that it's actually the only kind of racism, and so anything other than white supremacism is not racism but something else. It also says that all white people living in the United States are racists. It also redefines white supremacism from being something particular to the people in the pointy white hoods to all white people. The whole society it is claimed is based on white supremacy.

I don't think these are helpful ideas.
 
Darat said:
Is there a published work akin to Marx’s Das Kapital that is the foundational text?
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I don't think so, but the book linked at #13 does have a handy list of the most influential early authors. I'd say start with Derrick BellWP (he's the acknowledged godfather of the field) but Richard Delgado is high up the list as well.

ETA: Speaking of Delgado, he put together a reading list for CRT (PDF link).
 
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Puppycow said:
The category is a little too broad to know where to start.

I do have some issues with certain dogmas of CRT, such as that only white people can be racist.
Click to expand...

See, this is exactly the kind of thing where I need to know more. Is this a core tenet that you have to subscribe to in order to buy in to critical race theory, or is it something that some or most people who subscribe to it believes to be true? And does it have that lack of nuance? Is it actually saying that only white people can be racist, or is it saying that only white people under certain systems (i.e. in majority white countries) can perform actions which take advantage of an inherently biased system in a way which causes them to benefit from the biases within that system, for example?

In any case, this is a big part of the reason why I don't like attaching labels to myself or saying that I agree with or adhere to any particular set of beliefs, unless it's something simple like saying that I'm an atheist which just means that I lack a belief in any gods, or that I'm a sceptic which just means that I try to apply critical thinking to things. But once you start getting in to things like various philosophical schools of thought then there are far too many moving parts for me to feel comfortable saying "I subscribe to x" or "I am a y". At best it means that you have to explain exactly what you mean by x and y and what parts of x and y you identify with, and if that's the end result then the label isn't useful and you might as well simply skip a step and start off by explaining what your actual beliefs are.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
See, this is exactly the kind of thing where I need to know more. Is this a core tenet that you have to subscribe to in order to buy in to critical race theory, or is it something that some or most people who subscribe to it believes to be true? And does it have that lack of nuance? Is it actually saying that only white people can be racist, or is it saying that only white people under certain systems (i.e. in majority white countries) can perform actions which take advantage of an inherently biased system in a way which causes them to benefit from the biases within that system, for example?
Click to expand...

Good question. I don't know whether it is a core tenet or something that all Critical Race Theorists would subscribe to. But it seems that at least some of them do, and in my follow-up post I cited a specific example.

And probably Critical Race Theory has some fair points to make too. It's just too broad a category to meaningfully discuss on a forum like this, without getting a bit more specific.

For example, pick a particular argument advanced by a particular person and we could discuss it. But the whole thing as a category? Maybe it's a mixed bag.
 
BobTheCoward said:
If it is true, does it matter if it is or isn't helpful?
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No, but I don't think it's the sort of thing that we can say is objectively true, like the Pythagorean Theorem or Natural Selection. Something that we can use science to investigate and test whether it is true or false.

So if it's not true in some sort of objective, testable or falsifiable (or demonstrable) way, then the question of whether it is helpful is more relevant.
 
Puppycow said:
Good question. I don't know whether it is a core tenet or something that all Critical Race Theorists would subscribe to. But it seems that at least some of them do, and in my follow-up post I cited a specific example.
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about the author, the publication, or any of the people mentioned in the article. I have no idea whether anybody involved would describe themselves as a proponent of critical race theory, but I do know that that phrase doesn't appear in the article.

So I have no idea whether it's actually got anything to do with critical race theory or not, although I can see that the idea that only white people can be racist draws on at least one element of critical race theory - that of systemic racism existing. But that doesn't mean anything in and of itself. For a start, I don't think that that idea is unique to critical race theory. But, furthermore, even if it was that wouldn't mean that anything that referenced it could be lumped in as part of critical race theory. The idea of eugenics builds off the theory of evolution by natural selection, but that doesn't imply that the theory of evolution by natural selection is the same thing as eugenics.
 
We know that discrimination and oppression occur among other ethnic groups. The Japanese are critically viewed as thinking other Asian groups are inferior... India has been notorious for it’s caste system (and still is), Hispanics have a history of division along the lines of Spanish descent as opposed to “Indio” descent.... Etc, etc.

So the notion that “only white people can be racist” seems a bit far-fetched.

Personally, I see racism as an extension of a basic facet of human nature... That of “fear of the other”.
 
I concede that the term Critical Race Theory does not appear in that article.

Still, if we go back to the Wikipedia article linked in the OP, there is this:
CRT is loosely unified by two common themes:

First, that white supremacy (societal racism) exists and maintains power through the law.[6]
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The Wikipedia article on White Supremacy does mention critical race theory.
The term white supremacy is used in some academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred.
. . .

This and similar definitions have been adopted or proposed by Charles W. Mills,[77] bell hooks,[78] David Gillborn,[79] Jessie Daniels,[80] and Neely Fuller Jr,[81] and they are widely used in critical race theory and intersectional feminism.
Click to expand...

In this material too (linked from the article I posted above) various terms are defined. Under the definition for Racism, the author says that it is a synonym for white supremacy. And under the definition of "A Racist", it says that all white people residing in the United States are racists under the definition, and that people of color cannot be racists, under the definition of the term. She also mentions a book by Derrick Bell (one of the originators of critical race theory) in her list of "Further Reading" at the end.

None of that proves that it is a "core tenet" of CRT but it does seem that Dr. Butler was influenced by someone who clearly was one of the originators of the theory.
 
Bikewer said:
We know that discrimination and oppression occur among other ethnic groups. The Japanese are critically viewed as thinking other Asian groups are inferior... India has been notorious for it’s caste system (and still is), Hispanics have a history of division along the lines of Spanish descent as opposed to “Indio” descent.... Etc, etc.

So the notion that “only white people can be racist” seems a bit far-fetched.

Personally, I see racism as an extension of a basic facet of human nature... That of “fear of the other”.
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aka tribalism?
 
In other words, it sounds as if CRT is the name applied to an academic theory which has developed into multiple differing and sometimes conflicting ideas, some of which are controversial and some of which have been reported in a half-assed way in the media and distorted for political reasons by various parties. It sounds intellectually unsafe at best and outright dishonest at worst to ascribe any simplistic position taken for or against CRT to the entire thing, and if a soundbite appears in the media mentioning CRT it is most probably being misused--either the theory or the claim made about it.

In conclusion, CRT by name is likely best left in academe, while in the "real world" people should concentrate on taking actions to bring about desired goals without fighting too hard about the labels attached to theories. One doesn't need a philosophical framework and a manifesto to decide improvements in the current state of things are desirable.
 
TragicMonkey said:
In other words, it sounds as if CRT is the name applied to an academic theory which has developed into multiple differing and sometimes conflicting ideas, some of which are controversial and some of which have been reported in a half-assed way in the media and distorted for political reasons by various parties. It sounds intellectually unsafe at best and outright dishonest at worst to ascribe any simplistic position taken for or against CRT to the entire thing, and if a soundbite appears in the media mentioning CRT it is most probably being misused--either the theory or the claim made about it.

In conclusion, CRT by name is likely best left in academe, while in the "real world" people should concentrate on taking actions to bring about desired goals without fighting too hard about the labels attached to theories. One doesn't need a philosophical framework and a manifesto to decide improvements in the current state of things are desirable.
Click to expand...
A philosophical framework is kind of essential in determining what changes constitute "improvements" though, no?
 
Bikewer said:
We know that discrimination and oppression occur among other ethnic groups. The Japanese are critically viewed as thinking other Asian groups are inferior... India has been notorious for it’s caste system (and still is), Hispanics have a history of division along the lines of Spanish descent as opposed to “Indio” descent.... Etc, etc.

So the notion that “only white people can be racist” seems a bit far-fetched.

Personally, I see racism as an extension of a basic facet of human nature... That of “fear of the other”.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's the claim being made. The claim translated as 'only white people can be racist' I believe only applies to the US. It's related to power structures and as far as that claim goes has nothing to do with Japan or India or anywhere else.
 
Can't tell what to make of this. The theory seems all over the map, and vague when describing itself. One of the quotes from its proponents in the OP links says that for a 'the question is not whether racism is a factor, but rather how racism manifested in this particular case'. Proponents seem to redefine racism capriciously to make it a white-only position, which is patently stupid. There is a comment fron a 7th circuit appellate judge who was apparently presented with this that it is anti-skeptical, valuing anecdotes over data, and that there is a built-in assumption of intellectual inferiority in POC.

On the surface, it looks like a parody of foolish anti-white stereotypes, like the FSM of racial relations. This theory also popped up on another thread. Is this something that is gaining traction lately?
 
TragicMonkey said:
In other words, it sounds as if CRT is the name applied to an academic theory which has developed into multiple differing and sometimes conflicting ideas, some of which are controversial and some of which have been reported in a half-assed way in the media and distorted for political reasons by various parties. It sounds intellectually unsafe at best and outright dishonest at worst to ascribe any simplistic position taken for or against CRT to the entire thing, and if a soundbite appears in the media mentioning CRT it is most probably being misused--either the theory or the claim made about it.

In conclusion, CRT by name is likely best left in academe, while in the "real world" people should concentrate on taking actions to bring about desired goals without fighting too hard about the labels attached to theories. One doesn't need a philosophical framework and a manifesto to decide improvements in the current state of things are desirable.
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Seems pretty accurate to me.

But I haven't applied postmodernist deconstruction methods to your post to be able to fully evaluate it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
In other words, it sounds as if CRT is the name applied to an academic theory which has developed into multiple differing and sometimes conflicting ideas, some of which are controversial and some of which have been reported in a half-assed way in the media and distorted for political reasons by various parties. It sounds intellectually unsafe at best and outright dishonest at worst to ascribe any simplistic position taken for or against CRT to the entire thing, and if a soundbite appears in the media mentioning CRT it is most probably being misused--either the theory or the claim made about it.

In conclusion, CRT by name is likely best left in academe, while in the "real world" people should concentrate on taking actions to bring about desired goals without fighting too hard about the labels attached to theories. One doesn't need a philosophical framework and a manifesto to decide improvements in the current state of things are desirable.
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That sounds very reasonable.
 
Distracted1 said:
A philosophical framework is kind of essential in determining what changes constitute "improvements" though, no?
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Not always. "Let's have better roads", for example, doesn't require debate. You may argue over how to achieve it, or what makes a road better, but anybody who wants to wrangle over whether roads are good can be excluded from the planning.
 
TragicMonkey said:
In other words, it sounds as if CRT is the name applied to an academic theory which has developed into multiple differing and sometimes conflicting ideas, some of which are controversial and some of which have been reported in a half-assed way in the media and distorted for political reasons by various parties. It sounds intellectually unsafe at best and outright dishonest at worst to ascribe any simplistic position taken for or against CRT to the entire thing, and if a soundbite appears in the media mentioning CRT it is most probably being misused--either the theory or the claim made about it.

In conclusion, CRT by name is likely best left in academe, while in the "real world" people should concentrate on taking actions to bring about desired goals without fighting too hard about the labels attached to theories. One doesn't need a philosophical framework and a manifesto to decide improvements in the current state of things are desirable.
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As far as I can tell, critical race theory is, in reality, mostly an academic thing.

The right wing has started accusing everything they don't like of being CRT. There's lots of pearl clutching among the right that public schools might start teaching the less rosy version of American history that includes all the nasty racism and other unpleasant realities, but that has very little to do with CRT. Reactionary freaks will complain that explaining the grim reality of chattel slavery or segregation or lynching or native american removal, etc is "critical race theory" as opposed to just the true history of the country.

The Trump admin made a big show of fighting against "critical race theory", mentioning it explicitly in their "1776 Report". This report was widely mocked as being white-washing piece of revisionist propaganda.

If you see CRT being mentioned in the news, more likely than not it has nothing to do with academic theory and is simply right wing culture nonsense.
 
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Distracted1 said:
A philosophical framework is kind of essential in determining what changes constitute "improvements" though, no?
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I'm honestly not sure that a formal philosophical framework is required for much of anything, other than discussing philosophy. And if philosophy is defined more broadly than that so that, for example, any discussion of anything to do with ethics is automatically defined as philosophy, then it seems to me that the difficulty would be in finding some kind of discussion that couldn't be defined as philosophy.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
As far as I can tell, critical race theory is, in reality, mostly an academic thing.
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The well-thought-out bits are, but like so much else in academia, there is money to be made in popularizing the ivory tower ideas, even when done in a slipshod way.

Puppycow said:
Good question. I don't know whether it is a core tenet or something that all Critical Race Theorists would subscribe to.
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Here is a list of ideas promulgated by most theorists by an authority in the field. Scroll down to the highlighted bits in the book intro.

Puppycow said:
In this material too (linked from the article I posted above) various terms are defined.
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I'm not sure how far to trust Shakti Butler as an authority on CRT. Her definitions appear to draw a sharp line between people of color and people of European descent, even though she is both.

Bikewer said:
So the notion that “only white people can be racist” seems a bit far-fetched.
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It is far-fetched even on its own terms, since there is nothing in the human mind which ensures individuals cannot become prejudiced against people of their own ethnicity, given the right cultural conditioning.
 
It seems to me that the prevailing opinion of thread participants is that we are not sure what critical race theory is, but we are certain it is the other guys' fault.
 
Thermal said:
Proponents seem to redefine racism capriciously to make it a white-only position, which is patently stupid.
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If we are talking about the US or other predominantly white 'Western' nations then it's certainly not 'stupid'. It's not the full story but when you look at cops killing black people in the street, black people being disenfranchised in different ways by the GOP, the entire reaction to BLM, fascists marching in the streets, invading the Capitol, and a million other things I would say that a theory that the USA is institutionally racist and that most people in power are either working actively to promote that or doing nothing to prevent it is a lot closer to the truth than the opposite view.

You had a racist President leading a racist judiciary with a racist police force enforcing racist laws. Most of that hasn't gone away.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
If we are talking about the US or other predominantly white 'Western' nations then it's certainly not 'stupid'. It's not the full story but when you look at cops killing black people in the street, black people being disenfranchised in different ways by the GOP, the entire reaction to BLM, fascists marching in the streets, invading the Capitol, and a million other things I would say that a theory that the USA is institutionally racist and that most people in power are either working actively to promote that or doing nothing to prevent it is a lot closer to the truth than the opposite view.

You had a racist President leading a racist judiciary with a racist police force enforcing racist laws. Most of that hasn't gone away.
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Agreed, there is a huge problem with racism in the States and elsewhere. But that's not what I (or CRT proponents) are saying. They take it a massive and unwarranted leap forward, saying all whites are racist and that a POC can't be. Black men can be virulently, hatefully racist, and certainly are, and by the truckload. Its stone dumb to deny this by redefining terms.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I'm honestly not sure that a formal philosophical framework is required for much of anything, other than discussing philosophy. And if philosophy is defined more broadly than that so that, for example, any discussion of anything to do with ethics is automatically defined as philosophy, then it seems to me that the difficulty would be in finding some kind of discussion that couldn't be defined as philosophy.
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I made no assertion that it need be "formalized", only that to have an idea of what constitutes "better" or "an improvement" one will almost axiomatically be arguing from their own philosophical framework.

I need not be able to list all the muscles of my legs in order to walk- but I must have legs in the first place.
 
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