Critical Race Theory


​W.E.B. DuBois, grandfather of critical race theory exposes his racist beliefs in the official newsletter of the NAACP:

Black people are "the best bred race on Earth... It takes extraordinary training, gift and opportunity to make the average white man anything but an overbearing hog, but the most ordinary Negro is an instinctive gentleman.”

President Obama invites you to open your hearts and minds to the words of  Derrick "I lives to harass white folk" Bell, whom far-Left activist-scholars celebrate as the father of critical race theory:


​From Harvard University [with straight dope translations in brackets]:

Critical [i.e., cynical] race theories combine progressive [i.e., intersectional socialist] political struggles [i.e., violent campaigns] for racial justice [i.e., group-based equality of outcome regardless of average group differences in behavior, relevant qualifications, or objective measures of competence for occupying particular leadership or high status positions in American society] with critiques of the conventional legal and scholarly norms [i.e., Enlightenment rationality, modernism, post-positivist science, classical liberalism] which are themselves viewed [i.e., by a militant minority of communists and perpetually aggrieved identitarian radicals from historically non-dominant groups (HNDGs)] as part of the illegitimate hierarchies [i.e., inequality of outcomes produced by non-communist, constitutional democratic institutions] that need [i.e., that intersectional socialists want] to be changed [i.e., forcibly revolutionized through perpetual discrimination against individuals from "oppressor groups" and the granting of special privileges and entitlements for Left-aligned members of HNDGs who are already rich and privileged in comparison to most people in the world, past and present].

Scholars, most of whom are themselves persons of color [i.e., a radical subset of people of color that consists of anti-white, bigoted identitarian chauvinists from historically non-dominant groups and their ethno-masochist "white allies"], challenge the ways that race and racial power are constructed by law and culture [i.e., challenge any system or structure that produces group-based inequality of outcome as irredeemably racist and oppressive, even in the absence of racist or oppressive policies or practices].

One key focus of critical race theorists is a regime of white supremacy [i.e., any country where whites are the majority and/or in which they are "overrepresented"  in positions of power and/or high status] and privilege [i.e., living in a country in which one's group is the majority; benefitting from cultural dividends of Western civilization - reaping the rewards of being a part of a cultural tradition that progressively made the world wealthier, less violent, and less oppressive over the last 500 years; enjoying the benefits anyone would have from growing up in a stable family, waiting until marriage to have children, and taking advantage of the many historically and globally remarkable opportunities enjoyed by Americans of all races in 2020] maintained despite the rule of law and the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws [i.e., assuming that all group-based inequality of outcome results solely from ubiquitous oppression regardless of average group differences in behavior or relevant qualifications associated with the high status social positions people of all races compete with one another to occupy].

Agreeing with critical theorists and many feminists that law itself is not a neutral tool but instead part of the problem [i.e., Wut? No one knows what this means, yet it is posted on Harvard's official website. Do critical race theorists really believe the absence of laws would somehow make violent crime go down? Would anarchy make people of color better off than liberal democracy and the rule of law? Come on, man!], critical race scholars identify inadequacies of conventional civil rights litigation [i.e., they constantly complain about laws that prevent them from violating the civil liberties of white men and are perpetually aggrieved that liberal democracy and gradual social change fail to satisfy their radical, revolutionary impulses or magically produce their desired utopian ends].

Critical race theorists nonetheless fault critical legal scholars [i.e., inadequately subservient white Marxists] as failing to develop much to attract people of color [i.e., for failing to fully elevate everyone else's narrow, subjective identity group interests above their own; failing to adequately pander to the demands of militant identitarian, self-appointed spokespersons for every non-white racial or ethnic group] and for neglecting the transformative potential of rights discourse in social movements [i.e., totally incomprehensible nonsense that somehow made it through the editing process], regardless of the internal incoherence or indeterminacy of rights themselves [i.e., the failure of universal, classical liberal conceptions of rights to produce the radically egalitarian outcomes that communists and identitarians of color say they desire].

Critical race theorists thus try to combine pragmatist [i.e., militant activist] and utopian [i.e., neo-Marxist/ethno-chauvinist] visions; they draw upon a variety of critical strategies [e.g., postmodernist deconstruction/sophistry, identity politics, hyperbolic rhetoric, ethos, pathos, anecdotal evidence, poetic letters, emo-cognitions, snarky, bigoted dismissals of reasonable challenges, ad hominem insults and other logical fallacies, etc.] to expose how law constructs [i.e., ignores] race to disadvantage persons of color [i.e., how ignoring race makes it more difficult to obtain the special privileges CRT assumes black, Hispanic, Native American, and other historically non-dominant groups require to obtain group-based equality of outcome] while joining larger struggles [i.e., forming temporary, fragile "enemy of my enemy" alliances with other militant identitarians who despise conservative, middle class, straight, white men] for social transformation [i.e., using explicit or implicit threats of mob violence in aggressive pursuit of intersectional socialist revolution] and counter-mobilization against right-wing retrenchment [i.e., violent assaults against anyone who dissents from social justice orthodoxy] in struggles for racial justice [i.e., perpetual redistribution of wealth, income, power, status, etc.].

Not a set of abstract principles [i.e., not a principled, internally or externally coherent philosophy] but instead a collection of people struggling [i.e., to produce propaganda, effective rhetorical tools, and creative activist strategies] inside and outside legal scholarship, critical race theorists [i.e., ethno-chauvinist militants] are engaged in building a movement to eliminate [i.e., obtain power by any means necessary and then perpetually reverse] racial oppression, and other forms of group-based oppression [i.e., any inequality of outcome that, on average, favors straight, white men and disfavors HNDGs].

The scholars pursue individual routes, methods, and ideas [i.e., they have the selectively-granted privilege of using logically inconsistent and incoherent theoretical frameworks that make it easier for activist pseudo-scholars to blatantly contradict themselves and/or jettison appeals to objective or normative principles whenever politically convenient].

Nonetheless, they converge around the [faith-based] belief that racism is endemic, not aberrational, in American society [i.e., despite having a standard of living way better in majority white, liberal democratic societies than any non-white people have ever had anywhere else in the world or at any time in history, embracing an irrational, ahistorical, counter-factual rhetoric of 'white male oppressor causes all social problems']; that liberal legal ideals of neutrality and color-blindness [i.e., fairness, equality under the law, equal rights and responsibilities, etc.] have replicated rather than undone racism [i.e., that 50 years of overt "systemic" discrimination against straight white men in our social institutions has somehow failed to produce the group-based equality of outcomes desired by communists and identitarian chauvinists from other groups, so clearly we must double down on our faith-based, authoritarian, bigoted, discriminatory neo-Marxist horseshit!]; that analysis should be informed by personal experience [i.e., the self-reported interpretations and sweeping generalizations made on the basis of lived experiences of any Left-aligned member of a HNDG should be arbitrarily elevated above all other forms of evidence; that is, personal experiences of straight, white, males, statistics, and rational arguments don't matter a damned bit because they are potential impediments to the intersectional shakedown] and contextual, historical studies [i.e., deflecting attention from present or future considerations to hyper-focus on decontextualized, cherry-picked historical phenomena that support their 'omnipotent, omnipresent, group-based oppression, -isms, and -phobias cause all forms of inequality' metanarrative]; and that pragmatic and eclectic strategies [i.e., "any means necessary"] should be pursued in the struggle for racial and social justice [i.e., perpetual revolution in pursuit of intersectional socialist ends].

Critique of Liberal Antiracism

Derrick ["I lives to harass white folk"] Bell, for example, wrote a controversial critique of the desegregation litigation strategy of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) for failing to put quality of education ahead of racial mixing of students [i.e., failing to endorse racial segregation + government subsidies for anti-white, anti-American, black chauvinist indoctrination]. Neil Gotanda, Kimberle Crenshaw, Gary Peller, and Alan Freeman [i.e., intersectional socialist all-stars] demonstrated the [perceived] failure of struggles for race-blindness [i.e., that produced the historically remarkable Civil Rights Act, which legally guaranteed protections of basic human liberties and equality under the law for all citizens] to dislodge white supremacy [i.e., to perpetually, legally discriminate against straight, white men].

Liberal law reform tends to treat racism as irrational, aberrational, and intentional [i.e., it requires evidence of arbitrary race-based discrimination to prove accusations of institutional racism or systemic white supremacy]; accordingly, race consciousness in any form [i.e., for white people] is bad, even when advanced by people of color [i.e., very few mainstream voices on the Left have criticized any black or brown person for being "race conscious" in 50 years]. Affirmative action can be defended by conventional liberal lawyers only as a short-term, limited remedy that departs from the ideals of objectivity and merit [i.e., they believe endless group-based discrimination against straight white men in pursuit of radical egalitarian ends is immoral and won't produce the desired utopia.]. 

In contrast, critical race scholars identify and embrace a radical [i.e., intersectional socialist/neo-Marxist/postmodernist/identitarian] tradition of race-conscious mobilization [i.e., militant rhetoric and violent revolution; discriminating (in)tolerance of rightwing activists and any other dissent from social justice orthodoxy] as an empowerment strategy for African-Americans, Latinos, Asians (nope; not any more; for disagreeing with black nationalists, Asians have been banned from the oppression Olympics), and other persons of color [i.e., a fragile "enemy of my enemy" political coalition of militant identitarian members of HNDGs].

Affirmative action is a wedge [i.e., a euphemism for group-based discrimination against straight, white men] allowing a broader inquiry [i.e., changing the norms of scholarly inquiry so that any dissent from social justice orthodoxy faces an impossibly high standard of proof, while any faith-based conspiracy theory that furthers intersectional socialist revolution is granted automatic, uncritical affirmation from groveling white leftists] into why wealth, education, power, and employment are distributed as they are [i.e., suppressing studies that help to accurately address these questions; uncritically affirming anything that suggests omnipresent and omnipotent "systemic oppression" against HNDGs causes all forms of inequality except for those in which HNDGs are out performing HDGs] and also a way to re-invigorate nationalist [i.e., identity politics and freedom of association for everyone on Earth except straight, white, men], rather than integrationist [i.e., sustainable, realistic, principled, mutually beneficial, liberal, democratic, reasonable, etc.], approaches to racial justice [i.e., equality under the law; equal rights; procedural fairness].

They oppose apparently neutral [i.e., fair; reciprocal] rules, such as color-blindness [i.e., not explicitly racist and discriminatory], and one-person, one-vote [i.e., actual democracy], because they have helped to produce [i.e., failed to eradicate the historically unremarkable formation of] school systems, employment settings, mass media outlets, and housing arrangements that are racially segregated [Didn't they already imply a desire for racial segregation/non-integration within "oppressive"/ majority white, liberal democratic institutions?] or vehicles for white domination of persons of color [i.e., liberal, democratic institutions in which African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans do not attain the exact same socially-valued, group-based outcomes in every single sphere of life as their European American and Asian American counterparts].

Selection practices for highly sought after educational opportunities and jobs [i.e., status and credentials without regard to interest, competence, performance, or relevant qualifications] should include proportional representation, lotteries, and other methods that reject the pretense of merit and objectivity [i.e., policies that protect people from the logical consequences of behavior].

Critique of Whiteness

Critical race theorists reject the idea that "race" has a natural referent [i.e., except when they say that their groups are naturally superior; whites naturally inferior in some way]. Instead, it is a product of social processes of power [i.e., except for in the comparatively dysfunctional societies, communities, and institutions in which their groups are in power].

People do not have a race, writes Kendall Thomas; they are "race-d." Unveiling the legal, social, and cultural operations by which people are assigned and invested with races is one central project of critical race theory. They urge re-cognizing race not as an inherent characteristic of people but instead a product of social practices [i.e., because it is easier to gain resources by blaming white people for everything than considering that cosmic injustice and group-based differences in biologically-influenced behavior, interests, characteristics, and abilities].

Because unconscious as well as intentional practices construct racial status, stereotypes, and practices, legal reforms must address unconscious practices as well as intentional ones [i.e., white people should be psychoanalyzed using pseudoscientific bullshit, told that they are the problem, and bullied into submission; HNDGs, of course, have no unconscious biases, delusional beliefs, or unrealistic expectations].

Exposing and dismantling the usually invisible privileges of white people is a related major focus of critical race scholarship. Ian Haney Lopez traced how unspoken assumptions about whiteness informed crucial Supreme Court decisions in immigration and citizenship cases and defined who would be eligible for whiteness and who would not.

​Richard Delgado exposed how criminality tracks images of the nonwhite, despite statistical evidence that crime by whites is more serous, more common, and more hurtful. Richard Ford explored the use of the colored line to demarcate urban and suburban spaces in property, land-use, local government, and voting laws. Cheryl Harris developed a conception of whiteness as property, a resource of considerable value and investment receiving massive legal protections. Derrick Bell suggests that law schools resist hiring professors of color beyond token numbers in order to maintain the white character of the institutions.[12]

Re-envisioning Race and Society

Because critical race theorists argue that the imperial, objective voice of law so often veils the perpetuation of racial hierarchy, many of these scholars celebrate personal, passionate voices in their voices and teaching. Narratives infuse their works: autobiographical, fictional, and allegorical. Critiques of popular culture and contributions to it also characterize critical race writings. 

Patricia Williams juxtaposes analyses of judicial opinions with reflections on campus struggles over racism, her own encounters with prejudices on the basis of race, and her observations about how a person undergoing a sex-change observation was shunned by persons of all kinds. Derrick Bell spins powerful parables through allegorical dialogues with an imaginary civil rights activist. Kimberle Crenshaw criticizes both the criticisms of a Black rap group and the group itself.

Anthony Cook draws upon the theological and political practices of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to elucidate a reconstructive vision of community, which links rights to socially conscious and egalitarian duties. Drawing on inspirational figures in African-American history and literature, Charles Lawrence urges professors in law schools to reject the false neutrality of the conventional scholar and teacher, and instead to embrace storytelling and the personal voice with efforts to transpose "feelings and experience into language as a political discipline." In these and other works, critical race scholars propose compelling visions alongside their critiques of racial and cultural dominance by whites.

Intersectionality and Division

Rejecting the idea of race as a natural category, critical race scholars join feminists and queer theorists in the project of unearthing the social, cultural, and legal constructions of identities. They study the inflection of racial identities by gender, call mistaken the assumption that race and gender can simply be analogized, expose the social receptiveness to negative images of Black women, and identify the failures of liberal law reform to address the complex features of oppressions experiences especially by poor women of color. Even progressives tend to erase [i.e., fail to uncritically, universally endorse and affirm] the situations of women of color in their analyses and proposals or else require those very individuals to pick one group—defined either by race or gender. Here, critical race theorists join some feminist theorists in emphasizing the potential fluidity and latitude for contest over gender, racial, and sexual identities. Mari Matsuda, for example, urges new kinds of law to accommodate "multiple consciousness" framed by conflicting and intersecting group experiences of oppression.

Recently, subgroups of Lat-Crits and Asian-Crits have organized their own conferences and symposia, seeking to articulate distinctive applications of critical approaches to the histories and aspirations of their groups. As rich and original as these efforts may be, they threaten to further fragment the critical legal studies movement that is already considerably fragmented.

Examples of Critical Race Analysis: Hate Speech Regulation and Legal Education

Several critical race theorists became mobilized in the 1980s by incidents of hate speech on college campuses and elsewhere. They developed analyses of the injuries experienced by students of color who were targets of such incidents and critiques of the prevailing First Amendment/freedom of speech approach taken by the campus administrators. Words do wound, they argued. They worked to articulate codes for regulating campus speech and defended those codes against First Amendment challenges offered by both theorists and plaintiffs in courts.

​Noting that freedom of speech is never given absolute protection, they argued that curbs on hate speech would have much in common with existing defamation and obscenity laws and the doctrines excluding fighting words and threats from First Amendment protection. They argued that law, and the First Amendment, could be interpreted to fight subordination. They also argued that the First Amendment’s values of self-fulfillment, knowledge, and participation are undermined, not served, when hate speech gains legal protection. Although no court upheld hate speech codes against First Amendment challenges, the critical race theorists’ effort altered the terms of the debate and taught many about the kinds of injuries tolerated in the name of the First Amendment.

Critical race theorists afford law students and lawyers materials with which to challenge conventional notions of the intent requirement in equal protection analysis with contrasting studies of structural and unconscious racisms. They point out ways to remake the scope of basic law school courses in property, contracts, and torts by locating slavery, Indian law, and racial harassments as crucial topics for study. 
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Opponents of critical race theory argue that the work substitutes emotions for reason and self-dealing for fairness. Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that critical race theorists manifest anti-Semitism and anti-Asian tendencies in their attacks on conventional notions of merit-based selection by schools and employers. Randall Kennedy specifically responds to critical race theorists who have argued that law reviews and law schools silence people of color. Instead, argues Kennedy, the relative paucity of legal scholarship by people of color and the low numbers of law professors of color reflects low productivity, poor quality work, and failures to work hard enough. Critical race scholars have responded that Kennedy wrongly presumes that academic discourse is open to any scholar of merit; instead, these scholars maintain that law schools, like other places of power, reflect and reinforce traditional hierarchies of racial power.
CRT-Oriented National Museum of African American History & Culture
​on "Whiteness" & "White Culture" in the United States:
Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. Whiteness is also at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America's history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.

This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Persons who identify as white rarely have to think about their racial identity because they live within a culture where whiteness has been normalized.

Thinking about race is very different for nonwhite persons living in America. People of color must always consider their racial identity, whatever the situation, due to the systemic and interpersonal racism that still exists.  

Whiteness (and its accepted normality) also exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color. Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages.
In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. 

TONI MORRISON 

White Privilege
Since white people in America hold most of the political, institutional, and economic power, they receive advantages that nonwhite groups do not. These benefits and advantages, of varying degrees, are known as white privilege. For many white people, this can be hard to hear, understand, or accept - but it is true. If you are white in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin.

Stop and Think!How does being white grant certain privileges? How might white people experience oppression through other social identities, e.g., class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, etc.?

White people can possess other marginalized parts of their identity, but their race is not one of these. To learn more about how race intersects with our other identities, check out the section titled systems of oppression. 

Being white does not mean you haven’t experienced hardships or oppression. Being white does mean you have not faced hardships or oppression based on the color of your skin. We need to be honest about the ways white people have benefited from racism so we can work toward an equitable, fair and just society.
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In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” scholar Peggy McIntosh writes, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.” Here are some examples she gives on what white privilege looks like in day to day living:
  • I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
  • I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
  • If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
  • I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
  • I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed
  • I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
  • When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
  • I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
  • If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
  • I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
  • I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race
White Dominant Culture
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White dominant culture describes how white people and their practices, beliefs, and culture have been normalized over time and are now considered standard in the United States. As a result, all Americans have all adopted various aspects of white culture, including people of color.

White supremacy is an ideology where white people are believed to be superior to nonwhite people. This fallacy is rooted in the same scientific racism and pseudo-science used to justify slavery, imperialism, colonialism, and genocide at various times in throughout history. White supremacist ideologies and their followers continue to perpetuate the myth of white racial superiority.

The belief of white superiority has been part of the United States since its inception. The white European imperialists who settled here believed they were inherently superior to nonwhite groups. These beliefs justified atrocities like the genocide of Native Americans and nearly 250 years of African slavery. After slavery, white supremacist ideologies manifested into a series of laws that would limit the freedom of African Americans, known as Black Codes and Jim Crow. White supremacy and its legacy can still be found in our legal system and other institutions through coded language and targeted practices. 

Direct and violent forms of racism that promote white supremacy have been on the rise in recent years. These acts are more directly linked to white nationalism. White nationalism is a concept born out of white supremacy. A key difference is a focus on nationhood. White nationalists in the United States advocate for a country that is only for the white race due to feelings of entitlement and racial superiority. They also believe that the diversity of people in the United States will lead to the destruction of whiteness and white culture - hence, the correlation to white supremacist ideology.

Internalization of Whiteness and White Dominant Culture 

Racism is perpetuated by deeming whiteness as superior and other racial and ethnic groups as inferior. The prevalence of white dominant culture and racism leads to an internalized racial superiority for those who adhere to it. This internalized dominance "describes the experience and attitudes of those who are members of the dominant, privileged, or powerful identity groups. Members of the [dominant] group accept their group's socially superior status as normal and deserved." [as defined by CARED: Calgary Anti-Racism Education(link is external)]
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When people of a nondominant group (people of color) are discriminated against, targeted or oppressed over time, they often believe the myths and misinformation about their group. Known as internalized racism, it happens when an oppressed group believes the racial views that society communicates are true, and they act as if they were true.
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Stop and Think! How does white dominant culture leave others out?
Reflect

What are some of the disadvantages of not being sensitive or supportive of cultures and lifestyles of different ethnic and racial groups?

How can we begin to normalize cultural practices that are not related to white-dominant culture?

Confronting Whiteness

If you identify as white, acknowledging your white racial identity and its privileges is a crucial step to help end racism. Facing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear. Dr. Robin DiAngelo coined the term white fragility to describe these feelings as "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves." Since white people "live in a social environment that insulates them from race-based stress," whites are rarely challenged and have less of a tolerance to race-based stress.

For those of us who work to raise the racial consciousness of whites, simply getting whites to acknowledge that our race gives us advantages is a major effort. The defensiveness, denial, and resistance are deep.

ROBIN DIANGELO“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism”The feelings associated with white fragility often derail conversations about race and serve to support white supremacy. While these feelings are natural human reactions, staying stuck in any of them hurts the process of creating a more equitable society. The defensiveness, guilt, or denial gets in the way of addressing the racism experienced by people of color.

For white people doing anti-racist and social justice work, the first meaningful step should be to recognize their fragility around racial issues and build their emotional stamina. “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo breaks it down(link is external).

Besides your own internal reflection, processing, and daily commitment to anti-racist work, try participating in affinity groups, or caucuses. These groups are people sharing common interests(link is external), backgrounds, or experiences, coming together to support each other.

Take a moment to reflect. Let's Think

Reflect
Let's Talk
  1. For Concerned Citizens: Whiteness operates in covert and overt ways that affect all of us. It can appear as practices within an institution or accepted social norms. Since whiteness works almost invisibly, we may not always be aware of how it manifests in our daily lives. Thinking critically about your social conditioning and the values you have adopted as fact, ask yourself:
  • What are some aspects of whiteness you’ve internalized?
  • How can these be hurtful to you and others?
  • What are some ways you plan on combating them?

Let's Act
  • For Parents: How often do you talk to your child(ren) about the noticeable racial differences in society as well as your own race? To learn more on how to teach your child about the ways whiteness is prevalent in society, watch this video with concrete examples and suggestions:
Stop and Think! What are some misconceptions about whiteness that DiAngelo or McIntosh have helped you unveil?
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Why does understanding white privilege matter?