What is “Critical Race Theory”? A Meditation on Several Answers. (Part I)
Note
This is the first meditation of a multipart series considering different proposals of what constitutes Critical Race Theory’s common themes (or, for some, central tenets). Enjoy!
Les Oigo/I hear y’all
Lately, many people are asking me the same question: “What are the main tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT)?”
For most, their interest in CRT arises from recent civic and ecclesiastical condemnations of/divisions over it. And for most, CRT is something they’ve just started hearing about. Since I work on CRT, they’re hoping I can catch them up to speed.
Inevitably, I disappoint these inquirers. Here are five reasons why.
There is an enormous variety of opinion under the CRT banner. It is not an ideological monolith. This was true back in 1999, when the CRT movement was but ten-years old. As one of CRT’s founders Kimberlé Crenshaw wrote, “the notion of CRT as a fully unified school of thought remains a fantasy of our critics.” Diversity of belief, method, and concerns among the things that, in one sense or another, are CRT has markedly increased the past twenty-one years. Hence, as we’ll see, it isn’t easy to identify the central tenets of “CRT.”
I hold that CRT in its historically original and proper sense is a legal movement aimed at understanding, resisting, and remediating how US law and legal institutions such as law schools have fostered and perpetuated racism and white supremacy before and after Brown v. Board I & II (I’ll explain latter). But, like CRT theorists including Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, Tommy Curry, and Francisco Valdes et al., I also affirm that scholars and activists have brought CRT into disciplines and domains that are beyond law or legal studies. As Valdes et al observe, “CRT is crossing both national and disciplinary boundaries, as scholars from other disciplines and countries begin more and more actively to engage our accumulated record.” Likewise, Curry writes, “Critical Race Theory has not only exceeded the limitations of law, but achieved a transdisciplinary reach whose conceptualizations and configurations of American racism influence scholarship in sociology, history, and education.” And Delgado and Stefancic, when discussing what they call “spin-off movements” from CRT, explain that “although CRT began as a movement in law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline. Today, many scholars in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas…”
The last quotation is striking and instructive. Note that Delgado and Stefancic use rhetoric that’s fails to unequivocally deem these spin-off movements CRT. Moreover, they hardly mention them again in the rest of their Introduction. The only clear case I’ve found comes about one-hundred pages later—in a glossary! For the entry “Education, Critical Race Theory In,” Delgado and Stefancic write: “Scholarly movement that applies critical race theory to issues in the field of education, including high-stakes testing, affirmative action, hierarchy in schools, tracking and school discipline, bilingual and multicultural education, and the debate over ethnic studies and the Western Canon.” Delgado and Stefancic again have used rhetoric that distances CRT in education from what they deem to be CRT proper. Another glossary entry makes this clear, too. For the entry “LatCrit (Latino-Critical) Theory” they write, “Branch of critical race theory that considers issues of concern to Latinos, such as immigration, language rights, and multi-identity.” For Delgado and Stefancic, LatCrit is a branch of CRT; Critical Race Theory in education isn’t, though it applies CRT insights that come from CRT’s branches. Another introduction to CRT presents a similar take. In a chapter on education, Khiara M. Bridges devotes twenty-one pages to “Lawyers on education” and about fourteen pages to “Educators on Education.” In the latter section, Bridges speaks of educators such as Gloria Ladson-Billings as those who “have brought the insights and critiques generated by legal scholars operating within the CRT framework to the field of education”; but she also speaks of this application work as “the development of CRT in the field of education.” Indeed, throughout “Educators on Education,” Bridges uses the phrases “CRT in education,” which leaves one unsure how she thinks CRT relates to education. Is “CRT in education” part of “CRT proper”? Is it, to use Delgado’s and Stefancic’s metaphor, a branch on the CRT tree? Or is “CRT in education” CRT in the sense that it’s an instance of people applying CRT proper? I’m uncertain that Bridges offers a definitive answer.
Returning to Delgado and Stefancic, we should note that they also employ distancing language when speaking of CRT’s place in fields other than education. The second paragraph in the section “Spin-off Movements” reads:
”Political scientist ponder voting strategies coined by critical race theorists, while women’s studies professors teach about intersectionality—the predicament of women of color and others who sit at the intersection of two or more categories. Ethnic studies courses often include a unit on critical race theory, and American studies departments teach material on critical white studies developed by CRT writers. Sociologists, theologians and health care specialist use critical race theory and its ideas. Philosophers incorporate critical race theory ideas in analyzing issues such as viewpoint discrimination and whether Western philosophy is inherently white in its orientation, values, and method of reasoning.” (emphasis added)
For Delgado and Stefancic, CRT’s is applied in but distinct from these other disciplines and fields.
Taking stock: The distancing language of Delgado and Stefancic and Bridge’s ambiguous phrases such as “CRT in education,” are instructive, because they reveal the need to speak of the varying senses in which things are and perceived to be CRT. Noting these distinctions also requires we’re cautious and circumscribed when making claims about “CRT’s” central tenets (e.g., CRT in what sense?).
To be clear: I affirm that what Delgado and Stefancic call “spin-off movements” such as CRT in education are instances of CRT. But I currently distinguish these forms of CRT from what I take to be the proper from/definition I offered above.
One more thing before I discuss the next reason. Not all CRT scholars agree with Delgado and Stefancic rendering LatCrit a branch of CRT (more complications, I know). Kimberlé Crenshaw, for example, questions if “LatCrit or QueerCrit are turns, spinoffs, or splinterings of CRT.” When even CRT founders disagree—Delgado and Crenshaw are CRT founders—we’ve reason to tread carefully.Another reason I disappoint inquirers is that I want to do justice to the early CRT folks who emphasized the importance of not offering a set of abstracted central tenets to the movement. As Tommy Curry writes, “the originators of Critical Race Theory held that CRT could not be understood as an abstract set of ideas or principles.” Curry continues, citing Mari Matsuda, a CRT founder: “among [CRT’s] basic theoretical themes is that of privileging contextual and historical descriptions over transhistorical or purely abstract ones.”
Matsuda’s previous statement highlights that CRT folks often distinguish “themes” or “elements” from “ideas” “principles” or “tenets” of CRT. It seems that some CRT scholars find “themes” sufficiently capacious and flexible and requiring further unpacking in terms of historical context, whereas they don’t find the same holds about “ideas,” “principles,” or “tenets.”
Lastly, even when I offer some scholar’s list of CRT’s central tenets, I repeatedly say things such as, “But, of course, you must ask what they mean by ‘racism,” and “But not all CRT folks endorse this claim.” My qualifications (understandably) leave inquirers with even more questions (it’s like they’ve talked to a philosopher).
Break!
I’ll stop here. We’re already over a 1,300 words in and, if you’re like most looking for clarity about CRT, you may need a drink (or two!) right about now.
Saludos.
PS: The next post will consider two early discussions of CRT’s central “themes” and “elements”—but not tenets—by two of CRT’s founders, Richard Delgado and Mari Matsuda. Thanks for reading through this entire post!
