Critical Race Theory (Third Edition): An Introduction (Critical America, 20)

You probably discovered Critical Race Theory recently, like I did, through the news. For some reason, in the late summer of 2020, right-wing media pundits rapidly coalesced around Critical Race Theory as a major force undermining stable American government, threatening to throw society into hasty disarray. As often happens with media-driven moral panics, the great spokespeople never defined the monster they inveighed against. They just screamed bloody murder until their complaints seemed mainstream and commonplace.University of Alabama law professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic wrote the first edition of their introductory textbook during the Clinton Administration, when CRT (as they abbreviate it) was emerging from the scholarly circles which created it. The third edition dropped as the Obama years transitioned into Donald Trump, which presumably isn’t coincidental. But calling it a “textbook” makes it seem falsely imposing and threatening: it’s little more than a pocket-sized pamphlet with discussion questions.“Critical theory” carries the whiff of philosophy and important literature. But CRT originated in law schools in the 1970s, and by the 1980s it spread rapidly throughout the social sciences. It dealt specifically with the interaction between law, as an ideal of social order, and the ways ordinary Americans lived their lives. (Its origin was specifically American, though it eventually spread internationally.) That interaction, CRT’s proponents insist, is often harsh, lopsided, and laden with friction.Delgado and Stefancic trace CRT’s origins to Derrick Bell, the Harvard Law School professor who influenced both Barack Obama and Ian Haney López. Bell asked pointed and timely questions about how the law, an abstract and theoretical entity, interacted with non-White citizens at ground level. Then, having asked such questions, he began proposing answers. His solutions remain often controversial, partly because they involved forms of direct action that had fallen on disfavor by the 1980s.However, anybody who’s ever studied critical theory knows that no theory is ever unitary and self-contained. Just as Professor Bell proposed important interpretations of law, others, including Haney López, and even Delgado himself, identified other interpretations, valuable inconsistencies, and questions beneath questions. Therefore, this text doesn’t present a list of closed debates and clearly defined right answers. It describes the controversies which define CRT, and the interaction between race issues and the law in general.Our authors give very brief summaries of what they call CRT’s “hallmark themes,” which largely orbit two questions: how ingrained is racism in American law, and what policy-based remedies should America undertake? In later chapters, they delve into issues like how personal empathy, despite its well-meaning, doesn’t address underlying structural issues, and how the narratives which minority citizens provide can steer policy debate. They also question how to address the partisan backlash CRT has received.Right-wing opposition to CRT probably derives from two points which Delgado and Stefancic explore. First, CRT assumes that racism is fundamentally constructed into American social structure, and therefore cannot be expunged by persuading individuals to not be bigoted. In other words, racism isn’t an individual behavior or character failing, it’s written instrumentally into American law. Fixing American racism will mean major structural alteration to American law— and exactly what structures need altered isn’t necessarily clear.Second, CRT is fundamentally deterministic. Yes, our authors use the word “determinism” frequently, a term pinched from philosophy, though they cite legal scholarship to justify it. That is, our authors believe, as CRT does, that human will is circumscribed, and our choices are determined by economics, social pressures, and other external forces. Therefore, people cannot simply choose to obey the law, especially when the law opposes the external forces which determine your scarce available choices.Again, the authors intend this book for classroom application, though it’s written in non-specialist English and reasonably priced. Therefore, they include discussion topics and classroom exercises. Unlike the main text, the classroom exercises seem more pointedly partisan, written to steer participants toward a determined outcome. As a sometime teacher, I feel squeamish about these exercises, and would probably write my own. However, the provided exercises provide a useful jumping-off point for self-scrutiny and personal study.CRT isn’t only one subject, our authors remind us. It’s a rubric for historical questions from the latter Civil Rights era, and a guidepost into important burgeoning questions about the differing needs of different races, for instance, or where LGBTQIA+ concerns overlap race. As the title implies, this brief ledger only introduces a more complicated topic. However, for anyone interested in the friction between power and people, it provides a compelling synopsis for future studies.

This is a very good introduction to CRT. Summarizes many aspects of a somewhat complex theoretical perspective in easy to understand language. Shouldn’t take an average reader very long to read the entire book. You’ll come away realizing what you heard on TV is inaccurate and incomplete at best.

Review of Critical Race Theoryby Richard Delgado and Jean StefancicMLK is MIAAn explanation on the ranking of three stars. Should you read this book? 5 stars. Most definitely. Don’t dismiss the most crucial topic of our times because you think you won’t agree. OR because you are sure you will agree. On the other hand, do I agree with what the authors said? 1 Star. Thus, the final three-star ranking.Make no mistake- Critical Race Theory is not your grandparents civil rights movement. Martin Luther King is mentioned twice. WEB Dubois once. Paul Robeson, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Jesse Jackson not at all. CRT, according to the authors, refutes King’s call for color blindness and stands it on its head by calling for one’s racial, ethnic, and gender attributes to always be considered. This is because the system, be it governmental or business, is rigged in favor of the majority. The authors cite some compelling historical evidence and you should know their perspective on this issue.A central tenet of CRT, according to the authors, is that advances for Blacks are frequently done for reasons that favor whites. They cite Derrick Bell’s work that asserts Brown V. Board was to advance US interests internationally. But what about President Lyndon Johnson’s break through legislation on civil rights in the 1960’s? It cost the Democrats the south for 50 years and still counting. What of the white freedom riders that accompanied their Black brethren in securing voting rights in the same decade at the cost of their lives? Hardly seems like self-interest.The authors conveniently cherry pick their facts to make their case. Another example is their citing Anthony Greenwald being admitted as an expert witness on implicit bias in the case of Samaha v. Wash. St. Dept of Tran. as proof that implicit bias has legal standing. However, they do not mention that Greenwald was rejected to testify on the same subject in Jones v. National Council YMCA of the USA.But by far the author’s most egregious error comes from their assertion that the SAT college entrance exam is biased in that it has questions on polo mallets and regattas. This is an urban legend that has been around for at least fifty years. I originally heard this allegation of bias on the SAT as a question on silverware settings. I have been a high school counselor for over thirty years and I have never seen a SAT question on polo mallets and regattas. There is no footnote for this “Fact” (there are no footnotes at all in the entire work). It is disappointing that people with the intellect and education of the authors would stoop to a level this low.Along these lines, the authors talk of white privilege “the myriad of social advantages, benefits, and courtesies that come with being a member of the dominant race.” I am sure that the Appalachians from Kentucky and Tennessee I worked with as a VISTA volunteer would wonder what exactly these privileges were.The authors go beyond what is reasonable to make some preposterous proposals. Amazingly, they think the American criminal justice system should be reconstructed along hip-hop values (One must ask if it is the advocation of violence or the degradation of women). They also think that people who are guilty of a crime should possibly be set free based on their demographics.If we do away with individual responsibility, then we are truly lost. We all have a personal responsibility to do something about the current undesirable state of racial relations rather than abandoning that responsibility by yelling back and forth about systemic racism, white privilege or blue lives matter. In 1881, high school principal Frank Hosmer stepped forward on behalf of one of his students. Because he did, WEB Dubois went on to Fisk University instead of reform school. Martin Luther King once said he had a dream. Yes, that dream is elusive and will remain elusive. It will take much from all of us to achieve that dream. To the authors I say, I still dream.

Written by two Ivy League law professors but for all that quite accessible.It's a good overview and includes a bit if intersectionality, too.If you're hearing about CRT and are a thoughtful person, then this is a good reasonably priced text by two influential intellectuals/academics/activists.I see some bad reviews but they're not truthfully about the quality of the book or its writing, more just people who've got too used to unearned privilege and feel any challenges to their position ire-inducing.

This book is very clearly set out, and is therefore an ideal guide for those who despise 'critical' theory and identity politics in general. Read this and you will discover exactly the kind of groupthink you are up against.

I did not like the writing style of this book at all. For somebody who started with zero knowledge of critical race theory I have come away not knowing much more than I did at the beginning. The book does not follow an easy to read easy to understand structure. Explaining clearly and concisely what critical race theory actually is, where is it comes from and give several real life historical examples of critical race theory at work, comparing it to other theories and narratives around race and racism. I would have found the book much easier to follow and understand if the book had followed this structure, instead of a informal writing style and few examples of the theory at work and giving the reader exercises to do at the end of each chapter; which I found pointless. This book could and should have done a better job of explaining to the newcomer what the theory is and applied the theory to real examples and explaining how systematic and ingrained racism and racial inequality is within the United States and elsewhere.

The book is a good read if one wants a good story unencumbered by facts. If you want to check up on the premises you will find no references, no footnotes, no bibliography, just a bunch of readings at the end of each chapter. Assertions such as “most scholars agree that” are made with no indication of who these scholars are, or how many the are. Opinions are stated as fact. Compare books on similar topics by Thomas Sowell, which have extensive footnotes, references, data, and reach opposite conclusions.The book is also a good read if you want to know what ideology underpins a lot of the current victim mentality. Fortunately, it is not convincing to people who have struggled in the real world to be successful.The idea that the rest of the world owes you a living is a seductive one, but it does no one any good, except the well paid professors and activists who are pushing the “Theory,” and getting paid for it. It certainly does not help minorities.

As a book written by two of the founders of Critical Race Theory, I expected a high level of clarification of a complex and at times confusing topic that is bedevilling the education scene in the US and now the UK. Sadly, I am now wondering if the widespread confusion is due to some of the originators. The book is academically weak, confused, poorly researched and obfuscating. For those of us who are against any form of racism, this book is of little help, it only generates problems where none existed before and does not address the real problems of racism. It is not surprising that CRT has become such a divisive topic in the US, I hope this does not take ground in the UK.