tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/race-theory-113132/articlesrace theory – The Conversation2022-03-08T16:35:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1761252022-03-08T16:35:43Z2022-03-08T16:35:43ZWhy does critical race theory make people so uncomfortable?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447318/original/file-20220218-37276-1sl93li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C3982%2C2830&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People protest critical race theory outside the offices of the New Mexico Public Education Department in November 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-does-critical-race-theory-make-people-so-uncomfortable" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/04/war-critical-race-theory-virginia-is-really-war-critical-thinking/">war on critical race theory</a> (CRT) ramps up across the United States, it has become one of the most politicized schools of thought, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/14/critical-race-theory-teachers-fear-laws/">sparking debate in both private and public spheres</a>. While debates surrounding CRT are not new, it has gained increased attention <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">following George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter Movement</a>. </p>
<p>Proponents of CRT argue that it is <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479802760/critical-race-theory-third-edition/">an analytical tool for unearthing and interrogating the pervasiveness of systemic racism</a> and the myriad of ways it is embedded in society, institutional policies, processes and practices. </p>
<p>But critics of CRT assert that it is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/how-trump-ignited-fight-over-critical-race-theory-schools-n1266701">divisive anti-American discourse</a> that villainizes white people and indoctrinates young minds. </p>
<p>Parents and politicians express <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/yes-critical-race-theory-is-being-taught-in-public-schools">ongoing outrage and denounce the use of CRT in elementary and secondary school curricula</a>. Similarly, as colleges and universities commemorated Black History Month in February, some parents <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/04/alabama-black-history-month-crt-schools/">contend that Black History Month programs and events reflect CRT principles</a>. </p>
<p>The rage among white nationals and extremists has transpired into <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/02/04/bomb-threats-hbcus-education-fbi/6653014001/?gnt-cfr=1">inciting violence and issuing bomb threats</a> at approximately 16 historically Black universities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-diversity-is-not-the-solution-dismantling-white-supremacy-is-163398">Critical race theory: 'Diversity' is not the solution, dismantling white supremacy is</a>
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<p>Given the moral panic that has erupted, some argue that much of the backlash surrounding CRT is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">politically manufactured or engineered</a>. Criticisms about CRT largely stem from individuals who misunderstand and misconstrue CRT’s key tenets. </p>
<p>According to historian and co-editor of <em>Critical Race Studies Across Disciplines</em>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/how-trump-ignited-fight-over-critical-race-theory-schools-n1266701">Jonathan Chism</a>: </p>
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<p>“Many that are condemning critical race theory haven’t read it or studied it intensely. This is largely predicated on fear: the fear of losing power and influence and privilege. The larger issue that this is all stemming from is a desire to deny the truth about America, about racism.”</p>
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<h2>Defining CRT</h2>
<p>Critical race theory emerged in the mid-1970s as a response and opposition to colour-blind discourses <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479802760/critical-race-theory-third-edition/">that failed to consider how race and racial inequality are deeply rooted in the legal system</a>. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda, Patricia Williams, along with many other racialized scholars and activists, played a pivotal role in advancing CRT as a social and intellectual movement. </p>
<p>CRT is guided by several tenets, one of which is recognizing that race is a socially constructed phenomenon that has historical and contemporary significance. A CRT analysis acknowledges how the legacy of slavery, segregation and the social construction of a racial caste system denigrates racialized people. </p>
<p>It also acknowledges that <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479802760/critical-race-theory-third-edition/">race is ingrained and normalized in social structures and laws</a>. CRT rejects dominant ideologies of <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5441df7ee4b02f59465d2869/t/5d8e9fdec6720c0557cf55fa/1569628126531/DELGADO++Critical+Race+Theory.pdf">objectivity, colour-blindness and meritocracy</a>. Issues around race and racism are central to understanding power imbalances. </p>
<p>Rather than challenge systemic racism, ideologies of objectivity, colour-blindness and meritocracy blame racialized people, both individually and collectively for their own oppression. </p>
<p>Centering the perspectives and lived experiences of Black and racialized people is often emphasized through storytelling, counter-storytelling and collaboration. CRT also examines the ways in which people’s intersecting and overlapping identities of race, gender, class and other axes of oppression <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039">contribute to differential experiences</a>. It is action-oriented and is committed to advancing a social justice agenda.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A critical race theory explainer.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Relevance to Canada</h2>
<p>Discussions of CRT have largely taken place in the U.S. However, the political polarization of CRT <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/what-is-critical-race-theory">has significance in the Canadian context</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast to the U.S., Canada is often characterized as welcoming and accepting of people from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Therefore, it could be argued that racism in Canada is not as pervasive as it is in the U.S. But Canada has a violent colonial history that has and continues to denigrate and exploit Indigenous, Black and racialized people. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-and-indigenous-protesters-are-treated-differently-than-the-convoy-because-of-canadas-ongoing-racism-176653">Black and Indigenous protesters are treated differently than the 'convoy’ because of Canada's ongoing racism</a>
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<p>The rise of the so-called “freedom convoy” that has infiltrated Canadian soil raises many questions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-canadas-crisis-has-trumpism-arrived-or-are-people-just-tired-of-pandemic-restrictions-177207">Canada’s implicitness in these discussions</a>. </p>
<p>Although disguised as opposition to government restrictions around COVID-19, the protests and blockades reflect <a href="https://theconversation.com/whose-freedom-is-the-freedom-convoy-fighting-for-not-everyones-176336">white entitlement and the insidious effects of white supremacy</a>. </p>
<p>The bold display of <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/02/12/opinion/white-supremacy-convoy-can-leave-it-will-be-back">swastikas, confederate flags and other hate symbols</a> with minimal repercussions, points to the stark contrast between white supremacist tolerance and the ways in which Black, Indigenous and racialized people are violently policed for merely existing in a so-called “<a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/february-2022/so-called-freedom-convoy-is-a-symptom-of-a-deeply-unequal-society/">multicultural society</a>.” </p>
<p>Canada’s lack of accountability of the indoctrinated violence of white rage emphasizes the imminent veil of white supremacy dominating Canadian society.</p>
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<h2>Unpacking the discomfort of CRT</h2>
<p>CRT has become the subject of contention and heavily condemned because of its bold and unapologetic approach to disrupting power imbalances and systems of oppression. While CRT moves beyond individual or interpersonal acts of racism, much of the debate around it focuses on the ways in which CRT interrogates race, racism, dominant ideologies and implicates white people. </p>
<p>Eurocentric ideologies position white people as the dominant race, <a href="https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/preserve/museums/files/White_Supremacy_Culture.pdf">establishing white supremacy as a universal reflection of humanity</a>. Consequently, anything that challenges <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/887646740/me-and-white-supremacy-helps-you-do-the-work-of-dismantling-racism">the dominant white norm causes discomfort and resistance</a>. </p>
<p>Some white people may be defensive or resistant to these types of conversations, as they trigger a range of emotions or reactions from shame, discomfort, anxiety, disbelief, fear, anger, confusion, remorse or grief. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race">British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge</a>, white people “never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white, so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact, they interpret it as an affront.” </p>
<p>The power and privilege white people hold has shielded many from having to grapple with the possibility that they could be contributing to the problem. In response to perceived indignities, some cling to the myth of reverse racism, while others resort to retaliation or violence. </p>
<p>Scholars use various terms <a href="https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116">like white fragility</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/white-rage-9781632864123/">white rage</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/ISGKonidUpY">and white lash</a> to conceptualize and articulate how white people impose, maintain and recreate whiteness, racist ideologies and white supremacy. </p>
<p>According <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1757743819871316">to critical race scholar Sean Walton</a>, by interrogating racism and white supremacy, CRT “emphasizes the prevalence and insidiousness of racism,” highlighting how “overwhelmingly detrimental” it is to racialized people and the myriad of ways in which it operates to maintain the racist status quo.</p>
<p>A CRT framework de-centres whiteness and offers a lens through which to understand the prosperity of institutionalized and systemic racism. </p>
<p>Erroneous claims about the purpose and foundational tenets of CRT strategically deflect attention from dominant ideologies that uphold and reinforce the status quo. </p>
<p>Rather than condemn, misrepresent and misconstrue CRT’s key principles, opponents of CRT should make a concerted effort to increase their knowledge of its theoretical underpinnings and undertake deep and complex analysis of racial and structural disparities. </p>
<p>A vital step in achieving the kind of action and change that CRT proposes is for each of us to be intentional and steadfast in our convictions to dismantle racist and oppressive power structures that thwart progress towards a just and equitable society.</p>
<p><em>Keisha Smuk, a research assistant and bachelor of social work student from the University of Calgary, contributed to the production of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrina Duhaney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A vital step in achieving the kind of action and change that CRT proposes is for each of us to be intentional and steadfast in our convictions to dismantle racist and oppressive power structures.Patrina Duhaney, Assistant Professor, Social Work, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1730012022-01-06T17:21:53Z2022-01-06T17:21:53ZMultiracism: why we need to pay attention to the world’s many racisms<p>Racism is being called out across the world – and not just in the usual places. The word “racism” has been taken up by <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/world-left-yazidis-to-suffer-says-nobel-winner-nadia-murad-5fr7h2lfl/">Yazidis in Syria</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/people-will-rise-up-uyghur-exile-foresees-end-of-chinas-ruthless-rule/">Uyghurs in China</a>, and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/16/black-lives-matter-papua-indonesia/">Papuans in Indonesia</a> and used to describe their experience of discrimination. </p>
<p>Expressed very simply, racism is prejudice and discrimination by a more powerful in-group against a minority group or individual based on their ethnic background. Yet in both public and academic debate in the west, racism is routinely represented as uniquely western, European and white. It’s a chain of association that reflects the history and power of western racism. </p>
<p>Racism in the west is an enduring and shameful problem. But in a multi-polar world, where the relationship between power and prejudice is shifting, a more universal approach is needed, too. Racism has a diverse history with multiple roots – and needs to be called out <em>wherever</em> it is encountered.</p>
<p>The past 20 years have witnessed numerous acts of mass racist violence. The recent conviction of an Islamic State fighter in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/yazidi-genocide-landmark-guilty-verdict-for-is-jihadi-could-transform-how-atrocities-are-brought-to-justice-173043">German court for genocide</a> was welcomed by Yazidi rights advocate and Nobel peace prize winner Nadia Murad, who <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/world-left-yazidis-to-suffer-says-nobel-winner-nadia-murad-5fr7h2lfl">tells us</a> that her community has been “subjected to ethnic cleansing, racism and identity change in plain sight of the international community”. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/yazidi-genocide-landmark-guilty-verdict-for-is-jihadi-could-transform-how-atrocities-are-brought-to-justice-173043">Yazidi genocide: landmark guilty verdict for IS jihadi could transform how atrocities are brought to justice</a>
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<p>Reports of one million Muslims <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un-idUSKBN1KV1SU">held in “re-education camps”</a> in Xinjiang province in China appear credible. And in 2019, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24187&LangID=E">UN human rights experts</a>, detailed “the deeply entrenched discrimination and racism that indigenous Papuans face” in West Papua from the Indonesian police and army, pointing to “numerous cases of alleged killings, unlawful arrests, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.</p>
<p>There are many such cases. We might add the bloody pogroms targeting <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26918077?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Muslims in India</a> and <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/hazaras-afghan-state/">Hazaras in Afghanistan</a> and the widespread maltreatment of black Africans in North Africa. In 2017, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/11/13/libya-migrant-slave-auction-lon-orig-md-ejk.cnn">CNN aired footage</a> of black African migrants auctioned as slave labour for as little as US$400 (£300) in a clandestine market outside Tripoli.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">CNN report on migrants being sold as slaves in Libya.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The facts are there: the racism is stark and ongoing. Yet these examples rarely feature in journals in the academic field of ethnic and racial studies. It is a typical oversight that serves the interests of those who wish to bury discussion of the topic and deny the existence of racism in their country.</p>
<h2>Growing debate</h2>
<p>A new generation of activists and many scholars across Asia and Africa don’t want to forget or be silent. In part, their choice to use the term “racism” comes from the knowledge that this is a word the international community listens to. But mostly it stems from the fact that racism is an accurate description of the hatred they have witnessed. It’s a hatred that leads to ethnic and racial minorities facing attack, eviction, impoverishment and – sometimes – enslavement and genocide.</p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=multiracism-rethinking-racism-in-global-context--9781509537310">Multiracism</a> I draw on these new voices to understand the diversity of racism and make the case that the modern world cannot continue to view racism in the traditional, rather monolithic, way.</p>
<p>Thus, for example, in <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-05357-4">Discourses of Race and Rising China</a>, Yinghong Cheng depicts racism in China as “an independent variation rather than an imitation or reflection of western racism”. In <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=8250">Ethnic Nationalism in Korea</a> Gi-Wook Shin writes that “nationalism based on common blood and shared ancestry” has been “a key feature of Korean modernity”.</p>
<p>Critical studies from many different sources are opening up the question of who gets to define racism. The Indian activist for the rights of the Dalit or “Untouchable” caste, <a href="https://www.rawatbooks.com/sc-st/caste-race-and-discrimination-discourses-in-international-context">Teesta Setalvad</a>, asks: “is it not time that we fill and feed such terminology with our own histories and thereby deepen their meanings?” She goes onto explain: </p>
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<p>Within political science and sociology circles, racism has come to typify and describe systems of inequality and discrimination. The condition of the 160 million Dalits more than fulfils the description of the conditions used to describe racism.</p>
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<p>A caste is something that one is born into and, for many, it defines pretty much all aspects of their lives. The social exclusion of Dalits in India has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/28/india.mainsection">depicted as a form of apartheid</a>. The Indian government has no sympathy for this kind of conceptual expansion and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/08/17/india.caste/">points out</a> that Dalits are defined by caste – not ethnicity or race. But “racism” is not a fixed signifier – it is being adopted but also adapted. It is being put to work in fast-changing societies in new ways that help people organise and resist discrimination.</p>
<h2>Speaking out</h2>
<p>In many countries, writing about racism can result in harassment, imprisonment or worse. Disappearances of activists and scholars critical of discrimination are common, while other researchers are forced into exile. The Eritrean social critic <a href="https://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-643-90332-7">Abdulkader Mohammad</a>, writing in exile, explains that “speaking about ethnicity and ethnic conflicts has been a risky issue and a taboo” in his country.</p>
<p>The topic of racism is held by numerous governments to be a direct political challenge and an unpatriotic affront. Even in democratic countries such as India, Turkey and Malaysia, research is increasingly difficult and risky. <a href="https://merip.org/2018/12/turkeys-purge-of-critical-academia/">Anti-racist scholarship can be dangerous</a> but it is happening anyway and, despite the risks, academics and activists are asking the world to listen and learn.</p>
<p>If we do, we will hear a profound challenge to the idea that the history of racism can be framed solely or simply in terms of western action and non-western reaction. Chouki El Hamel in his groundbreaking <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/african-history/black-morocco-history-slavery-race-and-islam?format=PB&isbn=9781107651777">Black Morocco</a> shows that North African patterns of racism do not simply mirror Euro-American racism.</p>
<p>El Hamel’s intervention, along with others, takes issue with the defensiveness and evasion that has marked debate in the past, in which the severity or importance of anti-black racism in North Africa was downplayed or simply ignored. The telling title of a report published in 2020 by the Arab Reform Initiative on anti-black racism in Morocco is <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/ending-denial-anti-black-racism-in-morocco/">Ending Denial</a>.</p>
<p>There is a nascent debate on racism in Morocco. It is a debate that demands to be acknowledged and taken seriously, along with those many other voices from beyond the west that are today studying, challenging, and reimagining racism. Yet a final point must be made. For this is a topic where silence and denial can be more telling than public controversy. The fact that racism is now being talked about in some circles in Morocco does not mean that Morocco is “where the problem is”. </p>
<p>Far from it – it is where the silence endures, where it is impossible to speak out, that racism is likely to be taking its heaviest toll.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Bonnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The west has long defined racism as a function of colonial domination and discrimination. But in a changing world this definition must be challenged.Alastair Bonnett, Professor of Geography, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713562021-11-30T13:28:17Z2021-11-30T13:28:17ZWhat the public doesn’t get: Anti-CRT lawmakers are passing pro-CRT laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432483/original/file-20211117-25-12qb47i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C31%2C2982%2C1962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An even mix of proponents and opponents to teaching critical race theory attend a Placentia-Yorba Linda school board meeting in California.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yorba-linda-ca-tuesday-november-16-2021-an-even-mix-of-news-photo/1236621349?adppopup=true">Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the final months of the Trump administration, the Republican Party has waged a sustained assault on critical race theory. Otherwise known as “CRT,” this academic framework offers tools to illuminate the relationship among race, racism and the law. Through calculated caricature and distortion, right-wing <a href="https://popular.info/p/the-obscure-foundation-funding-critical">think tanks and media</a> have <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anti-critical-race-theory-movement-will-profoundly-affect-public-education/">weaponized CRT</a> to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/19/critical-race-theory-rufo-republicans/">manufacture a culture war</a> that recasts antiracism as the new racism.</p>
<p>This campaign employs <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-critical-race-theory/">a well-worn script</a> designed to sow racial division, galvanize voters and shield economic elites – and the systems they enable – from <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/mcaufliffe-defeat-public-education/">meaningful critique</a>.</p>
<p>This campaign appears to be working. Anti-CRT messaging has emerged as a signature – and potent – GOP political talking point. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, for example, repeated a common refrain when she <a href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/7/rubio-introduces-bill-to-protect-students-from-racially-hostile-school-environments-caused-by-critical-race-theory">asserted</a> the falsehood that “critical race theory teaches people to judge others based on race, gender, or sexual identity, rather than the content of their character.” More recently in Virginia, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin closed his campaign with a pledge to “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/virginia-republicans-see-education-curriculum-fears-path-victory-n1281676">ban critical race theory on Day One</a>.” </p>
<p>Pundits may have <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/11/4/22761168/virginia-governor-glenn-youngkin-critical-race-theory">overstated</a> CRT’s impact in Virginia and beyond. But Youngkin’s success cemented CRT as a favorite foil in the Republican playbook. </p>
<p>On the legislative front, between January and September 2021, Republicans invoked similar anti-CRT rhetoric to justify <a href="https://pen.org/report/educational-gag-orders/">54 bills</a> across 24 states. At least 11 are now law.</p>
<p>The mainstream media keeps characterizing these laws as “CRT bans.” This framing is understandable and inviting. But often it distorts reality by mischaracterizing the laws themselves. Most of these bills – if you take seriously their actual text – call for more CRT, not less. </p>
<h2>Banned concepts</h2>
<p>Consider a <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/ab411">bill</a> recently passed by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-wisconsin-education-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-dc73ee7fd8962ea52f56eae2319055d5">Wisconsin’s Republican-dominated Assembly</a>. The bill, which tracks legislation across the country, prohibits teachers from “teach[ing]” a series of banned “concepts.” This includes a ban against teaching that “[o]ne race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.” </p>
<p>Now imagine a 10th grade social studies class begins a unit on corporate America. The teacher opens with <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html">basic facts about Fortune 500 CEOs</a>: 92.6% are white, 1% are Black, 3.4% are Latinx and 2.4% are Asian. These disparities exist against a backdrop in which <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html">roughly</a> 60% of the U.S. population is white, 14.2% is Black, 18.7% is Latinx and 7.2% is Asian. </p>
<p>The teacher shares two additional facts. White men – <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html">roughly 35% of the population</a> – hold 85.8% of CEO posts. Of the 83 women who have become CEOs since 2000, 72 were white, thereby comprising <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html">86% of all female CEOs this century</a>. </p>
<p>The statistics invite an inescapable question: Why do such glaring disparities exist? </p>
<p>One answer assumes today’s CEOs are the product of fair and unbiased systems that reward talent and hard work. This response implies that white men, relative to everyone else, and white women, relative to women of color, are simply more talented and harder workers. </p>
<p>In effect, this story suggests that white men are inherently superior – the precise message that Wisconsin’s bill prohibits. </p>
<h2>Explaining advantage</h2>
<p>A different answer might explore whether the systems that produce CEOs are, in fact, fair and unbiased. </p>
<p>This is where CRT enters. <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">Roughly 40 years ago</a>, a group of legal scholars confronted a similar question: Why do profound racial disparities persist even when the law prohibits racial discrimination? </p>
<p>Four decades later, these scholars – who would name their project critical race theory – have offered varying answers. These answers, many grounded in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory">seminal work from professor Derrick Bell</a>, have exposed the myriad ways that race and sex remain powerful determinants in America – even when laws prohibit race or sex discrimination. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Harvard Law profesor Derrick Bell is credited with originating critical race theory" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432485/original/file-20211117-9381-1wzwx5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell is largely credited as the originator of critical race theory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-first-tenured-african-american-professor-of-law-at-news-photo/527936972?adppopup=true">Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The teacher in our example could bring this robust literature into her classroom. Doing so would comply with the Wisconsin bill and, importantly, enrich her students’ learning. She could, for example, assign writings from acclaimed critical race theorist <a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/1993/06/whiteness-as-property/">Cheryl Harris, who exposed</a> the often-invisible benefits whiteness can confer, even to poor white people. </p>
<p>Our teacher could then draw on professor <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">Kimberlé Crenshaw, a CRT co-founder, whose pathbreaking work</a> urges us to explore how racism interacts with sexism, classism and homophobia – among other dimensions of identity. </p>
<p>She could also turn to legal scholar Jerry Kang, who has outlined why <a href="https://youtu.be/9VGbwNI6Ssk">implicit biases</a> often lead individuals and institutions to discriminate – even when we hold earnest egalitarian commitments. </p>
<p>Though the specifics differ, the above scholars – and the collective CRT canon – offer a consistent insight: CEO white/male overrepresentation cannot be explained by some “inherent superiority” enjoyed by whites and men. Rather, contemporary disparities result, in large part, from <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/essay/women-are-advancing-in-the-workplace-but-women-of-color-still-lag-behind/">race</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/14/opinion/gender-bias.html">gender</a> – and often class – advantages and disadvantages embedded within the systems through which CEOs must pass.</p>
<h2>CRT’s political reality</h2>
<p>For <a href="https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/jonathan-feingold/">educators like me</a> who have witnessed the benefits of a CRT-rich curriculum, it’s welcome news that anti-CRT lawmakers are proposing and passing pro-CRT laws – even if unintentional and counterintuitive. </p>
<p>But in reality, these laws are unlikely to yield more CRT in classrooms – regardless of their actual language. </p>
<p>The GOP’s anti-CRT crusade, as with related campaigns targeting trans youth and mask mandates, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast/war_on_trans_youth">has never been about facts</a> – let alone concern for legal text. This is about power, and “anti-CRT” laws empower <a href="https://patch.com/new-hampshire/salem-nh/moms-liberty-bounty-offer-adds-crt-tensions">private and public actors to target</a> teachers who engage in even basic conversations about race and racism. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://pen.org/report/educational-gag-orders/">recent report</a> from the free-speech advocacy group PEN America captures this dynamic. After reviewing all 54 bills, PEN concluded: “These bills appear designed to chill academic and educational discussions and impose government dictates on teaching and learning. In short: They are educational gag orders.” </p>
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<p>PEN further explained that even when bills do not become law, they “send a potent message that educators are being watched and that ideological redlines exist.” </p>
<p>In today’s toxic political climate, this translates to less CRT in the classroom, even when the law – and sound teaching – demands more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Feingold has engaged in advocacy work with the African American Policy Forum. </span></em></p>Critical race theory is often distorted by GOP politicians and pundits to stir up its Trump base. But CRT is needed more, not less, argues one legal scholar, to explain American racial disparities.Jonathan Feingold, Associate Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.