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Understanding Critical Race Theory: A (M.O.R.E) Nuanced Discussion

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Children holding protest signs saying 'I am not an oppressor'

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There is a growing national debate over the teaching of Critical Race Theory. States are passing laws driven by fears of this theory, and locally, in July of 2021 at Sewickley Academy, four school administrators and one teacher who were supportive of a strategic diversity plan to boost equity, inclusion, and social justice initiatives at that school were accused of teaching CRT and ousted. Conservatives have latched onto CRT as a wedge issue and new patriotic rallying cry. Yet, progressives and people in favor of diversity initiatives are often hesitant to enter this conversation, as Critical Race Theory is a complex subject.

The aim of this document is for members of M.O.R.E and our allies to develop a deeper understanding of Critical Race Theory in order to enter national, statewide, and local conversations on this topic with a solid foundation. This document was compiled by the Anti-Racism Education Subcommittee of M.O.R.E.

This article is divided into three sections:

  1. Context and Definition of CRT
  2. Critiques of CRT You May Read or Hear
  3. Ways to Combat the Lies and Fear Mongering about CRT

If you are unfamiliar with CRT, consider reading these two pieces as a starting point:

  • CRT: The Culture Wars Over Schools – a short overview from The Week
  • How Racist is America? This piece by David Brooks (New York Times, July 23, 2021) provides a number of examples of inequality persisting through the present, which can be used to show why we still need to confront injustice. As Brooks is prone to do, he blends in examples of hope and progress in the second half.

Context and Definition of Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Context

It is generally agreed that CRT grew out of reflections first by Derrick Bell and then was given its name by Kimberlé Crenshaw (also known for giving us the term intersectionality).

CRT emerged out of frustration with the seeming inability of the legislative victories won by the Civil Rights Movement to address the social and economic manifestations of racism and with the unexpected consequences of integration, such as the loss of Black teachers in the aftermath of Brown v the Board of Education.

The modern Civil Rights Movement contained a welter of often competing for voices as Americans debated the best ways to combat Jim Crow segregation. At the risk of drastically oversimplifying the story, the movement initially coalesced around a common desire to dismantle segregation laws and to pursue integration. These goals required a somewhat gradualist approach to change and relied on the “awakening” of White moderates. As the movement grew in power and the nation’s laws changed, some Whites began to shift their views on race; others resisted and pushed back in an effort to maintain their status and prevent further social and political changes.

White resistance led Black activists and their allies to question both their tactics and goals. This development echoed previous efforts designed to advance Black freedom and rights. In pre-Civil War America, Black and White abolitionists who stressed the value and utility of moral suasion clashed with those who called for the immediacy of militant action. This clash was seen in writings and speeches of Black activists David Walker and Henry Highland Garnett, while the more well-known John Brown proclaimed: “talk, talk, talk. Talk will never free the slaves. What we need is action – action.” As the modern Civil Rights Movement grappled with similar issues, Black Power and a Black Nationalist approaches to freedom emerged, echoing 19th-century demands for autonomy, self-control, and immediate action and justice.

Definition of Critical Race Theory

(Sources: EdWeek & The Washington Post)

Not all CRT scholars share the same views or definitions, but they broadly argue that race is a social construct and that the law helps perpetuate and bake racism and existing social hierarchies into the fabric of American social thought and institutions. In effect, racism is banal, common, and systemically intrusive. Under this framework, George Floyd’s killing and Black Americans’ higher mortality rate from COVID-19 are not aberrations and reflect the invidious impact of unexamined racial constructs.

CRT argues that racism is systemic, and its power extends beyond the actions and utterances of individual people with prejudices. “Critical race theory is an effort to move beyond the focus on finding fault by impugning racist motives, racist bias, racist prejudice, racist animus, and hatred to individuals, and looking at the ways in which racial inequality is embedded in structures in ways of which we are very often unaware,” said Kendall Thomas, co-editor of “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.”

The theory holds that racial inequality is woven into legal systems and negatively affects people of color in schools, doctors’ offices, the criminal justice system, and countless other parts of life.

Beyond this, advocates of CRT often:

  • Critique liberalism’s faith in legal equality under the Constitution and gradualism to bring lasting change; instead, CRT argues that deeper, more systemic approaches are needed and, rather than a gradualist approach, a more revolutionary one is needed;
  • Critique the classic Civil Rights Movement for its incrementalism and integrationist approach(es);
  • Reject classic liberal (and conservative) promotion of color blindness and perception of America as a meritocracy;
  • Believe that storytelling, counter-storytelling, and “naming one’s own reality” help reveal lived experiences of oppression, often better than “book learning;”
  • Assert standpoint epistemology, which is the view that members of marginalized groups have greater authority to speak on oppression; and
  • Promote non-white cultural nationalism/separatism

Critiques of Critical Race Theory You May Read or Hear

Children holding protest signs saying 'I am not an oppressor'

Opposition to CRT has appeared in city streets, school board meetings, and legislative chambers. As of July 15, twenty-six (26) states have introduced bills or taken other steps to challenge “CRT.” Legislators have acted to place the authority of the state behind opposition to CRT for a variety of reasons, and many of these same issues have drawn opponents to schools, libraries, and the streets.

Key claims made by those opposed to CRT:

  1. “Black Scholars reject it.”
    • Randall Kennedy, a well-regarded Black legal scholar questioned how widely the theory could be applied. In a paper titled “Racial Critiques of Legal Academia,” Kennedy argued that White racism was not the only reason so few “minority scholars” were members of law-school faculties.
    • Conservative scholars argued that critical race theory is reductive—that it treats race as the primary and often the only factor in social identity. Thomas Sowell; a fairly legendary, conservative Black scholar, has been cited for his rejection of CRT, a position in line with his earlier opposition to multicultural education and affirmative action.
  2. CRT falsely claims that all Whites are inherently racist and the US is irredeemably racist.
  3. CRT underpins identity politics and denies individual identity and responsibility. It is “an ongoing effort to reimagine the United States as a nation riven by groups, each with specific claims on victimization.”
  4. CRT is part of an effort to smuggle a Marxist analysis, with its anticapitalist portrayal of the oppressors and the oppressed, into unsuspecting school-age children.
  5. Christopher Rufo is perhaps the most prolific organizer of “grassroots” uprisings against CRT.
    • According to Rufo, in the Wall Street Journal on June 27, 2021: CRT “maintains that America is an irredeemably racist nation and that the constitutional principles of freedom and equality are mere “camouflages,” in the words of scholar William F. Tate IV, for white supremacy. The solution, according to prominent exponents of critical race theory such as Ibram X. Kendi, is to abolish capitalism and install a near-omnipotent federal bureaucracy with the power to nullify any law and silence political speech that isn’t “antiracist.””

Critical race theory is an academic discipline that holds that the United States is a nation founded on white supremacy and oppression, and that these forces are still at the root of our society. Critical race theorists believe that American institutions, such as the Constitution and the legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere “camouflages” for naked racial domination. They believe that racism is a constant, universal condition: it simply becomes more subtle, sophisticated, and insidious over the course of history. In simple terms, critical race theory reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of White and Black. But the basic conclusion is the same: in order to liberate man, society must be fundamentally transformed through moral, economic, and political revolution.

— Christopher Rufo in “Critical Race Theory Briefing Book”

Others have noted Rufo’s role in generating opposition to CRT and the political appeal of his efforts. On this matter, please see:

Organizations to be aware of, particularly those involved in K-12 education:

  • Parents Defending Education (National “grassroots” organization)
    • Collecting stories and filing complaints with DOE for Civil Rights
    • Funding help from Americans for Prosperity
  • No Left Turn (Founded in eastern Pennsylvania)
    • Motto: “Education Not Indoctrination”
    • Its Mission: “To revive in American K-12 education the fundamental discipline of critical and active thinking based on facts, investigation, logic and sound reasoning.”
    • Goal: “To elevate the rights of parents and center the family in education.”
    • No Left Turn asserts that CRT is creating racial tension:
      • From their “Origin” Statement: “We are vocal. We are loud. We are tenacious. We must be heard. But we are civil. We respect the rules of society and legitimate authority. We will not stand down. We are the majority – patriotic Americans who believe that a fair and just society can only be achieved when malleable young minds are free from indoctrination that suppresses their independent thought.”
    • The organization claims that DEI and Social and Emotional Learning are coded language for CRT.

It is important to note that CRT is not the same as Culturally Relevant Teaching, which emerged in the 1990s and was designed to affirm students’ diverse experiences and, in the process, make schools safer places. That said, both approaches share the common aim of helping students identify and critique the causes of social inequality in their own lives.

6 Ways to Combat the Lies and Fear-Mongering about Critical Race Theory

1 .Speak to the theoretical underpinning of opponents

As noted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the three primary developers of CRT, critical race
theory is a way to talk openly about how America’s history continues to influence and shape contemporary society and institutions. Drawing from these deep historical roots, different forms of discrimination (such as, but not limited to, sexism and racism) can overlap and compound one another.

We need to pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened is continuing to create differential outcomes, so that we can become the democratic republic we say we are…We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can get there if we confront and talk honestly about inequality… The idea that anti-racism is racism against white people has got to be the oldest talking point in their playbook. There is not a thing happening today that we have not seen before, including the ascendance of racial demagoguery on the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and nationalist impulses of a population mobilized through the discourse of aggrievement… We saw this in the backlash against emancipation. We saw it in the successful effort to disenfranchise African Americans and purge them entirely from public life, and we saw aggressive and even violent actions justified as self-defense.

—Kimberlé Crenshaw

The United States is not in the midst of a “culture war” over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren’t divided. The American people are being divided.

—Ibram X Kendi

Note some of the not-so-subtle ways in which racism influences contemporary society
and institutions. Consider:

2. Point out the crass, political (and not educational) nature of CRT concerns as part of an ongoing effort to create wedge issues and deepen division in the US

  • A year ago it was BLM. Trump called the largely peaceful demonstrators “THUGS” then “anarchists who hate our country.”
  • Next, “Cancel Culture” was targeted. Trump blasted “cancel culture” as seeking to coerce Americans “into saying what you know to be false and scare you out of saying what you know to be true.”
  • Then, Trump attacked the 1619 Project.
  • After it was cited 132 times on Fox News shows in 2020, Critical Race Theory became a conservative obsession this year. In 2021, Fox referenced CRT:
    • 51 times in February
    • 139 times in March
    • 314 times in April
    • 589 times in May
    • 737 times in just the first three weeks of June

3. Challenge the concept of “color blindness”

From the American Psychological Association: “ evidence shows that children identify race and other differences very early, regardless of parents comments and child-rearing strategies.”

  • 3-month-olds prefer faces from certain racial groups
  • 9-month-olds use race to categorize faces
  • 3-year-old children in the U.S. associate some racial groups with negative traits
  • By age 4, children in the U.S. associate Whites with wealth and higher status, and race-based discrimination is already widespread when children start elementary school

In this short video, poet Marshall Gillson delivers a stirring message with everything that needs to be said about what’s wrong with a “colorblind” approach. (source).

4. Stress the danger posed to free expression and civil liberties by efforts to squelch “CRT” in the classroom and elsewhere:


GOP Bills do not present legitimate definitions and contain vague language. In Arizona, it is possible for teachers who discuss racism to be fined $5,000. Others prohibit anything that would make “a student at school feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

Northampton Area School District in PA recently witnessed a debate over whether to accept books donated to the school library. Parents voiced concern about the books, “which are geared toward elementary and middle school students and tell the stories of a diverse array of people. Those against the donation said they weren’t against the books themselves but rather were concerned about the group that donated them; The Conscious Kid Foundation. The books, which were donated by The Conscious Kid after a kindergarten teacher applied for them, were slated for the elementary and middle school libraries and the guidance office.”

According to the Lehigh ValleyPress, some of “the books donated to the NASD elementary school libraries were ‘I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark,’ ‘Dreamers’ and ‘The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family.’

Among the books donated to the Northampton Area Middle School library were ‘Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up To Become Malcolm X,’ ‘It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way’ and ‘We Are Water Protectors.’

A book placed in the guidance office was ‘Missing Daddy.’

Kim Bretzik, of Moore Township, was the first to speak during the meeting’s approximate one-hour public comment portion. She, and most of the nearly one dozen residents who spoke, voiced opposition to the board accepting the book donations from The Conscious Kid Foundation.

‘’The Conscious Kid uses Marxist critical race theory. Northampton Area School District is accepting free books from The Conscious Kid. Just like the free No Place for Hate program, Conscious Kid is not an ally for all”, Bretzik said.

Critical race theory, which originated in the 1970s, is generally defined as an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who examine law as it pertains to race.

Bretzik urged the school board to take three steps: refuse the donation from Conscious Kid, organize a parents team and detail the curriculum for the school year, ‘so citizens can inspect what the curriculum team is teaching.’”

5. Deepen your understanding of Critical Race Theory

Read and share articles from this library of CRT articles.

6. Finally, hammer home the utility of facing a painful past squarely and forthrightly

There ARE moments in American history, as with all other countries, that are painful and emotionally troubling. Only by wrapping our collective minds around these moments can we bend the moral arc of the universe in the proper direction. Those who oppose a full retelling of the past also place limits on our ability to imagine possibilities and to see our way forward to a more just future. On this point, please see: Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice | TED Talk [23:25]

Ask others to consider what we gain when Americans know all of our history including…

  • The Trail of Tears, and the Massacre at Wounded Knee
  • The racist views of the US states who joined the Confederacy and some US
  • Supreme Court Decisions, such as:
    • Ordinances of Secession – many of the articles adopted by succeeding US states explicitly proclaimed that state’s belief in White supremacy.
    • Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which held that African Americans could not be considered citizens as they:
      • “[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it.”
  • The 1904 World’s Fair placed human beings (from Africa) in cages to be viewed like animals in a zoo.
  • The Tulsa Race Massacre
  • US Historic Events with Present Day Impact
    • Sundown Towns and attacks on Black Property
    • Neighborhood Redlining and Restrictive Covenants
    • FHA and Banks – local control allowed unequal access/opportunity
    • Social Security – originally did not cover farm work, or domestic labor (disproportionately Black).
  • Minimum wage, 1938 – excluded restaurant workers, farmers and domestics (disproportionately female and Black).
  • The internment of 120,000 Japanese during WWII, two-thirds of whom were American citizens.

This article is a result of the research compiled by members of the Anti-Racism Education Committee of the Mt. Lebanon Organization for Racial Equity (M.O.R.E) in August of 2021. Any questions or comments can be addressed to SteeringCommittee@LeboFightsRacism.com.

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