Critical Race Theory Essay

According to the authors, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is no longer new, but it continues to thrive. It has expanded from a subspecialty of jurisprudence to the use in department of education, cultural studies, English, sociology, comparative literature, political science, history, and anthropology. CRT treats race as central to the law and policy of the United States. CRT also looks beyond the belief that getting rid of racism means simply alleviating ignorance, or encouraging everyone to get along. CRT looks at many faucets of racism. Microagression are small acts of racism consciously or unconsciously perpetrated; these are absorbed from the assumption about racial matters most of us absorb from the cultural heritage in which we come of age in the United States. The CRT movement is a collection of activist and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. CRT questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

CRT race theory sprang up in the 1970s, as a number of lawyers, activist, and

legal scholars across the country realized, more or less simultaneously, that the heady advances of the civil rights era of the 1960s had stalled and, in many respects, were being rolled back. CRT builds on the insights of two previous movements, critical legal studies and radical feminism, to both of which it owes a large debt. From critical studies, the group borrowed the idea that not every legal indeterminacy the idea that not every legal case has one correct outcome. Derrick Bell, is the movement’s intellectual father figure. Alan freeman wrote a number of foundational articles, including one documented how the U.S. Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence, even when seemingly liberal in thrust, nevertheless legitimized racism. Today many in the field of education, political scientist, women’s studies professors, ethnic studies courses, American studies department, and even health care specialist use critical race theory and its ideas. Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it; it set out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies but to transform it for the better.
Intersectionality means the examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination plays out in various settings. For example a Black Woman. Individuals like these operate at an intersection of recognized sites of oppression. Categories and subgroups are just matters of theoretical interest. How we frame them determines who has power, voice, and representation and who does not. Perspectivism, the insistence on examining how things look from the perspective of individual actors, helps us understand the predicament of intersectional individuals.
The black-white binary, effectively dictates that nonblack minority groups must compare their treatment to that of African Americans to redress their grievances. The black-white binary is said to operate in everyday culture. Exceptionalism holds that a group’s history is so distinctive that placing it at the center of analysis is, in fact, warranted. Like other paradigms, the black-white one allows people to simplify and make sense of a complex reality. The risk is that nonblack minority groups, not fitting into the dominant society’s idea of race in America, become marginalized, invisible, foreign, and un-American. The black-white or any other binary paradigm of race not only simplifies analysis dangerously, presenting racial progress as a linear progression; it can end up injuring the very group. Binary thinking, which focuses on just two groups, usually whites and one other, can thus conceal the checkerboard of racial progress and retrenchment and hide the way dominant society often casts minority groups against one another to the detriment of all. The pitting one minority group against another, binary thinking can induce a minority group to identify with whites in exaggerated fashion at the expense of other groups. Contextualism and critical theory teaches us that we rarely challenge our own preconceptions, privileges, and the standpoint from which we reason.
The legal definition of whiteness took shape in the context of immigration law, as courts decided who was to have the privilege of living in the United States.

As many ordinary citizens did judges defined the white race in opposition to blackness or some other form of otherness. Whiteness, thus, was defined in opposition to non-whiteness an opposition that also marked a boundary between privilege and its opposite. One aspect of whiteness, according to some, is its ability to seem perspectiveless, or transparent. Whites do not see themselves as having a race, but simply, people. They do not believe that they think and reason from a white viewpoint, but from a universally valid one; “the truth” what everyone knows. By the same token many whites will strenuously deny that they have benefited from white

privilege.
Reading this text has opened my eyes to a few things. I like others have the feeling that ending racism is a simple process. A lot of it has to do with how I was raised and where I was raised. I’m not ignorant to the fact that racism does not exist, however whenever I was exposed to it I didn’t realize it for what it was. The way my husband explained it to me is that I have been exposed to it, instead of thinking that it was because I was a black woman or young black girl, I just thought people were being rude or having a bad day. As I reflect back, I can see it now. When I was little I came in second place in a talent show that everybody thought I should have been first place in. When I was on the patrol in elementary I was the lieutenant, when the Captain moved away, a Sargent was bumped up to Captain. When I was in Jr. High I was elected President of the I club (An Athletic club) and there was a recall of votes. I still won. In all of these events it was only explained to me that sometimes life is not fair. I was not told that it was because I was a black girl.
The reading talks about micro aggression and that at times it is unconsciously done. Armed with that knowledge, I’m sure I will be able to pick up on more discrimination that I misunderstand for other excuses. My question is, do I really want to know? Can that change my perception of the world and in turn change the way I raise my grandchildren? I strongly believe that history is very important. I believe that history is a good indicator of what will or can happen in the future. But at the same time if we don’t take personal responsibility to change attitudes now the future will be the same as the past. At points in the reading I feel that society makes blanket statements about black people and as we know all black people aren’t the same. But if a white person does or says something and they claim not to be racist, why can’t they just be awful people period, as we have awful black people. Why does the color of their skin indicate that it is racial discrimination? I do believe that there is great racial discrimination in the police force. In saying that I don’t believe that every white cop that shoots a black person is racist. I think some of them are either poorly trained or just bad cops. Black cops shoot people outside their race every day. Why don’t we paint them as racist? The text says that white people see themselves as simply people. I can attest to one black woman who sees herself simply as a person too. That would be me. I see myself as a person who just happens to be a black woman. I feel that labels separate us more than our ethnicity.
Affirmative action? Does that really make things fair? Is it really okay to pass over a qualified person because of their race? I get the idea of leveling the playing ground for minorities and women, however, is it not just as unfair to a privileged white person to be passed over just because of their status? Just like anybody else white people are stereotyped too. I know some white people who have come from money, but by the same token they have studied hard and worked hard for what they have.
Counter Storytelling does put a new perspective on myths about certain situations. Just as it is effective with law, it a good thing that it has been incorporated into research. Researchers are able to get a better picture on social issues. Even though the premise is aimed to help see the big picture in the lives of minorities, wouldn’t it be just as effective to apply it to all people? For example, there are future implications written about how to improve awareness about racism and programs in place for educational tools to improve the quality of life for minorities. What type of programs are in place that are colorblind that can enable society to move past labels and just live together as a human race? I see children books that address why other kids don’t look like me. Children can look at each other and see they are different. I think that these books pointing out the difference is why racism is carried on. I can remember when a little girl asked my son what color was his girlfriend, he responded purple. I later found out it was because the little girl liked the color purple and that what she wore all of the time. He had no idea what she meant.