Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how people who are marginalized due to their race or ethnicity are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice.
Closely connected to such fields as philosophy, history, sociology, and law, CRT scholarship traces racism in America through the nation’s legacy of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and recent events. In doing so, it draws from work by writers like Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others studying law, feminism, and post-structuralism. CRT developed into its current form during the mid-1970s with scholars like Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, and Richard Delgado, who responded to what they identified as dangerously slow progress following Civil Rights in the 1960s.
Prominent CRT scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams share an interest in recognizing racism as a quotidian component of American life (manifested in textual sources like literature, film, law, etc). In doing so, they attempt to confront the beliefs and practices that enable racism to persist while also challenging these practices in order to seek liberation from systemic racism.
As such, CRT scholarship also emphasizes the importance of finding a way for diverse individuals to share their experiences. However, CRT scholars do not only locate an individual’s identity and experience of the world in his or her racial identifications, but also their membership to a specific class, gender, nation, sexual orientation, etc. They read these diverse cultural texts as proof of the institutionalized inequalities racialized groups and individuals experience every day.
More recently, CRT has contributed to splinter groups focused on Asian American, Latino, and Indigenous racial experiences.
Typical Questions for Critical Race Theory
What is the significance of race in contemporary American society?
Where, in what ways, and to what ends does race appear in dominant American culture and shape the ways we interact with one another?
What types of texts and other cultural artifacts reflect dominant culture’s perceptions of race?
How can scholars convey that racism is a concern that affects all members of society?
How does racism continue to function as a persistent force in American society?
How can we combat racism to ensure that all members of American society experience equal representation and access to fundamental rights?
How can we accurately reflect the experiences of people who experience racism?
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