De-sensationalizing Critical Race Theory

By Giselle Garcia '23, Legal Fellow for the Aoki Center for Race & Nation Studies.

Critical Race Theory has been the subject of sensationalism aimed to discredit its value as a framework for legal and sociopolitical analysis. Politicians and social commentators have weaponized CRT to discredit critiques of social institutions and their role in perpetuating racism and inequality. These critics intentionally misrepresent CRT as an anti-democratic, anti-white project. But CRT is not a threat to white people or democracy; it is a threat to oppressive power structures and ideologies. And at its core, is redemptive since it seeks to repair the flaws in our legal and social institutions and create an expansive vision of justice.

Critical Legal Studies & CRT Origins

Like most intellectual and social movements, the development of CRT cannot be attributed to a singular moment or founder. It was born out of a history of struggle against white supremacy, passionate intellectual discourse, and responded to the social needs of its time. Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw reflects on the social context surrounding the development of CRT in her article, “Twenty Years of Critical Race Theory: Look Back to Move Forward.” She provides insight into the underlying motivations of CRT, by setting the scene in the 1970s during the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement and alongside the emergence of Critical Legal Studies (CLS). Critical Legal Studies is a Marxist framework of legal analysis focused on challenging the law’s neutrality, situating the individual within structures of power, and contesting sources of illegitimate power through a lens of economic class hierarchy. It was a radical school of thought within the legal field during this time and afforded minorities a space for passionate discourse. Gender analysis slowly became introduced into CLS where FemCrits began to analyze the law in reference to gender, family, work, and patriarchal norms. As feminist critical theory reached wider acceptance, Black scholars and scholars of color attempted to incorporate race into CLS spaces but were met with resistance.

Much of this resistance can be attributed to how the materiality of the “law’s role in constituting class relations, […] was beyond contestation,” meanwhile a shared framework of analysis making this connection between the law and race was missing. This became the project of CRT. In the Summer of 1989, 24 Black scholars and scholars of color, including Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Angela Harris, Mari Matsuda, Patricia Williams, Derrick Bell, and Richard Delgado, convened at a workshop held in Wisconsin titled, “New Developments in CRT.” This was the first time the term Critical Race Theory was used, and it represented a project of possibility. Soon after, CRT flourished into a more cohesive field of scholarship which addressed root causes of racial subordination embedded within the law and dominant social structures through a shared frame of reference to validate their claims.

CRT’S Intersectionality

One of these frameworks of analysis is intersectionality. Professor Crenshaw used the term intersectionality to provide the necessary frame of analysis for examination of a Black woman’s multi-dimensional experience with discrimination and how injury can be inflicted because of both her identity as a Black individual and her identity as a woman. Intersectionality is the point where the power dynamics connected to multiple identities collide, the question is no longer about only race or only gender but becomes multi-layered. Professor Crenshaw provides a simple application: if a court is addressing a Black woman’s claim than an employer has discriminatory hiring practices against Black women, you would not dismiss her claim simply because the employer hires Black men or white women. Instead, an intersectional analysis understands that a Black woman’s experience is unique and cannot be divided by race or color, it is one.

Prominent CRT theorist, Professor Emeritus Angela P. Harris enriched the foundation of intersectionality through her seminal essay critiquing feminist essentialism with a call for the inclusion of multi-consciousness in feminist theory. Because the experience of white women has long been centered within feminist theory, Professor Harris argued this monolithic, abstract categorization of “the woman’s experience” erases the experiences of women who face multiple forms of oppression due to their multi-layered identities which can include race, gender, sexual orientation, and more. Intersectionality expanded CRT into a discipline that explores the multi-conscious way oppressive power operates leading it to outgrow CLS’ focus on class.

Intersectionality naturally led to the development of Latino/aCrit, QueerCrit, and APA Critical Theory, all which pursued an in-depth examination of the nuanced power dynamics specific to each of these subordinated communities. The Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies was named in honor of late Professor Keith Aoki, a distinguished CRT scholar dedicated to championing the progression of LatCrit and APA Critical Theory. Together with renowned CRT scholar, Aoki Center Co-Director and UC Davis School of Law Dean Kevin R. Johnson, they passionately advocated for LatCrit's development into a “deep and enduring scholarship” that expanded its approaches to combating anti-subordination into an expansive, focused and materially relevant one, not just theoretical. LatCrit “expanded the scope of critical studies to include much more than race including nationality, [and] immigration status.” In fact, a powerful contribution to critical theory was provided by Professors Keith Aoki and Robert S. Chang. They argued that analyzing local political power was essential to understanding the pervasive social construction and operation of subordination, as well as politics behind coalition building between minority groups in resistance of this subordination. It was an expansive intersectional approach that gave room to the development of precise methodologies—like this one—that helped cement critical theory into an enduring scholarship.

Today, intersectionality converges the experiences of an individual who holds multiple protected characteristics and identities involving class, race, nationality, immigration status, gender, disability, neurodiversity, and LGBTQ+ identity to provide a more adequate analysis of how structures of power operate in that person’s life on micro and macro levels. This holistic framework of analysis prevents CRT from promoting reductionist views such as, “all white people are racist” or “America is irredeemable.” Instead, its multi-dimensional analytical lens allows for the continuous evolution of CRT as our understanding of systemic oppression deepens.

Evolving Solutions to Combat Systemic Oppression

Contrary to popularized beliefs, CRT discourse did not originate as a call for dismantling law as we know it. In fact, this very point of contention between CLS and CRT entrenched their differences. CLS scholars contended that the reliance on rights discourse reinforces the legal system as a valid institution and further alienates people from achieving connection and collective action. Conversely, early CRT scholarship embraced a radical critique of law with an objective for its reconstruction. For decades, advocates have relentlessly fought to materialize these universal rights through litigation and policy reform. Unfortunately, reformist approaches to combat racism embedded throughout our laws and institutions have been met with resistance and institutional adaptation to support the persistence of racism. For example, a nationwide movement calling for police defunding and reinvestment in communities in the wake of George Floyd’s death was instead met with a multi-billion federal funding plan to support policing initiatives.

Just like CRT was a project born to meet a need for the creation of shared language and frameworks to understand and combat racism, the ineffectiveness of reformist approaches has raised questions and a need to explore new solutions for change. CRT theorist, Aoki Center Co-Director and Professor of law Raquel E. Aldana challenges the limits of reformism and invites us to practice CRT as a project of abundant possibility—that same endless possibility believed in during its inception—and embraces the need for bolder strategies to achieve its goals:

At its core, CRT is a project that moves beyond reformist approaches to law and instead seeks to root out racism or other types of pernicious “-isms” from their core. This is a project of reallocating power, redistributing resources, redefining values, and even abolishing in order to rebuild a more just society.

The evolution of CRT scholarship and advocacy is following what seems to be a natural line of progression toward bolder, necessary solutions like prison and border abolition to eradicate those “pernicious ’-isms’ from their core.” Unfortunately, CRT’s race-centric approach and call for transformational change might cause individuals from dominant racial groups who have benefited from racism to feel alienated by the project, but dismantling racism requires all of our collaboration.

On Anti-Racism and Allyship

Allyship calls for individuals who occupy dominant intersections of identity to use their position in support of equity within spaces or during conversations where it is being threatened. Allyship does not call for white guilt or subordination. In his book, “How to be an Anti-Racist,” Dr. Ibram X. Kendi argues white people are central to undoing racism and that this movement calls for anti-racist action through constant intentional decision-making to support anti-racist policy, in small and large spaces. It is a call for reflection, action, and accountability to the project of anti-racism. Regardless of race or class, we all have opportunities to show up for those who need it precisely because of our diverse make-up of multi-layered identities. Although none of us will get it right every time, we must give one another grace.

Professor Angela Harris calls upon compassion to unify us in this project to rebuild our world. She recognizes that the “challenging of power relations, as critical theorists love to do, means provoking anger, disquiet, anxiety, and even fear in those with a settled understanding of who they are and where they belong.” Consequently, she cautions critical theorists to also provoke compassion—not pity—but a desire to relieve another’s suffering through action. This is a call for you to see us, to share our pain and outrage deeply enough to drive your desire for action, to understand that the trajectory of history, and power’s never-ending adaptation to reform has left us searching for the fragments of our humanity which have been denied, stripped from us. It is a call to action.

 Conclusion

CRT scholarship has long delved into the work of articulating racial oppression and inequity itself, identifying its sources, critiquing its impact, and crafting recommendations for resolution. Through the creation of shared language and frameworks of understanding, it empowers marginalized communities in their advocacy for transformational change. However, just as CRT was born as a project of possibility in response to a need for Black people and people of color to address race and racism in ways that honor their unique experiences, it must continue to evolve in response structural oppression’s adaptation to reform and develop bolder strategies to combat it. By grounding Critical Race Theory and appreciating its origins, objectives, and evolving strategies we see through sensationalism and see it for what it is—a project of compassion for all.