I’m really pissed off about the thumping that critical race theory is taking from its enemies. Funny thing is, about a year ago few people outside of academia had ever heard of critical race theory (CRT). Now, almost everyone has, because the conservative right wing has labeled it subversive and threatening (Threatening to what? White supremacy).
CRT got its start around 1980 when researchers and academics were searching for a way to understand why in the United States stark racial disparities have persisted despite decades of civil rights reforms. They posited that racial hierarchies are systemically enforced by laws and social systems, even among people with good intentions—people who do not engage in overt acts of racism.
I’ve been reading a lot about CRT and still can’t properly articulate my feelings on this subject, but this article does it just right: “The Far Right’s Manufactured Meaning of Critical Race Theory.”
The article appeared on fair.org, a national media watch group that isn’t afraid to call out both the left and the right. I have Owen to thank for introducing me to fair.org.
I highly recommend this article to everyone, as long as you can stomach the hypocrisy and white supremacy. From the article:
But if racism is understood as a structural, systemic problem, that’s a direct threat to the white supremacy that the US far right has staked its future on. That’s why it needed to devise a bogeyman to replace the actual arguments of critical race theory. The far right has incited its followers to fight not actual CRT, but a monstrous caricature with the same name. For them, that’s good enough.
Olivia Riggio, “The Far Right’s Manufactured Meaning of Critical Race Theory”
