On page 2 of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction authors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic write:
The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. [my emphasis in bold]
In a way I could end the post here but lets not.
For a snapshot into CRT versus it critics this was quite something:
CRT in the UK, is coming some day iS hEre! …
Love it or loath it Critical Race Theory (CRT) is here. Crossing the Atlantic 20 years ago CRT found an enclave within British academia and a focus on education – first at London’s Institute of Education (IoA) and later at the University of Birmingham. And of course, you may have noticed that with BLM as its superspreader CRT ideas have gone mainstream as of June 2020. CRT concepts – white privilege, white supremacy, white fragility, whiteness…microaggression; its own version of ‘systemic’ or ‘structural’ racism; phrases like allyship and lived experience – floated into institutions piecemeal slowly invoking a new language of anti-racism. UK local authorities, Whitehall departments, universities, charities, corporations…organisations of all kinds have morphed into these concepts often without knowing that they are speaking the vocabulary of CRT. Indeed, those dry words “critical race theory” usually take a back seat to the buzz-phrases it has spawned (now de rigueur when projecting a righteous social justice attitude).
The success of CRT is that its concepts have been adopted by people who assume that this is simply the evolution of common-sense anti-racism. In my own city of Brighton, recent conversations with a councillor and a couple of council employees made it clear to me that they and their colleagues regarded the sudden emphasis on anti-racism ‘white privilege’ training as straightforward; it simply reflected June’s global wake-up call following events in Minneapolis. Their view of Floyd’s killing symbolising endemic racism in America and in Britain too was strange. But not in their circles – they felt, as many others feel, that the great awakening for Brits means all must bow to BLM UKs view of racism-UK and accept that it must be “a black-led” (i.e BLM) movement. Too young to know much about past anti-racism struggles or appreciate how far society had progressed, it seemed none of that mattered to these BHCC people. To them the past was a place of racism denial whereas 2020 was to be a new dawn – a time for action. ‘It’s like climate action’, said one, ‘no more debate, it’s got to be done’.
‘Will-o’-the-wisp’ = a person or thing that is difficult or impossible to reach or catch.
There has been a lot of criticism of CRT. This essay from Joanna Williams – Critical race theory: a ruling-class ideology – represents one example – well argued, well reasoned but very likely to be regarded as a caricature of CRT by its true-believers. Critical race theorists, I suspect, eschew all attempts to describe what their scholarly field is. What follows then, is my attempt to provide insight into CRT by using the descriptions of two of its eminent UK academics.
I will quote from English CRT scholars David Gillborn and Paul Warmington as both have commented on what they see as the failure of critics to understand their field.
First, their explanations of what CRT is
Warmington writes: ‘Since the early 2000s CRT has become a significant intellectual space for race-conscious scholars and activists in England’. Whilst his paper Critical Race Theory in England: impact and opposition (2017) takes aim at critics described in terms reminiscent of the religious describing non-believers, his concern to set the record straight is helpful. For example, the description of critical race theorists as ‘race-conscious scholars’ indicates a familiar binary: consciousness (they ‘get it’) versus the rest who don’t get it and therefore exhibit false-consciousness. Critics of CRT (and they range from Marxists to the conservatives who regard CRT exponents themselves as Marxists) are characterised as a rag-tag set of tribes waging war against a newly enlightened trend that threatens them. In his abstract Warmington summarises the paper as an examination of the ‘discourses of derision voiced by its antagonists, arguing that much of this antagonism has an atavistic quality, being rooted in longstanding antipathy towards race-conscious social analyses‘ [my emphasis in bold]. His phrase ‘race conscious scholars’ swaps back and forth with ‘anti-racist scholars’. In contrast to decades of liberal anti-racists (including Martin Luther King himself) to be anti-racist CRT-style is a far cry from being anti-race. CRT agrees that race is a social construct but regards it as so baked-in to white dominated society its a construct anti-racists can’t ignore. The existence of ‘race’ as defined by skin colour is, in effect, reinstated.
You have to hand it to Dr Warmington though. Writing his paper in 2017, he couldn’t have imagined how 2020 would take shape, yet his description of CRT as ‘a significant intellectual force among anti-racist scholars and activists in England, particularly in the sociology of education’ was prescient. Not in predicting 2020 but in the steady progress Warmington, Gillborn et al (and a growing cohort of young CRT-trained academics) had made in establishing their ideas. This was the kind of progress that, in hindsight, amounted to the construction of a landing site for the BLM juggernaut soon to arrive. One small example of this state of readiness came in the form of a BAFTA winning Channel 4 documentary broadcast in July 2020. Powerfully on-topic, The School That Tried to End Racism had been filmed in March 2019. Although its CRT approach to an in-school Year-7 experiment wasn’t described as CRT, the programme makers star academic (playing a central role in the 2-part documentary) was Gillborn’s protégé Dr Nicola Rollock. Rollock was already a rising star in UK CRT circles – and very much in demand. By 2015 CRT had achieved extraordinary success influencing enclaves within the state political class. By then ‘anti-racist’ activists had established various initiatives inside a host of organisations and institutions – including the civil service. A talk given by Nicola Rollock on “microaggressions” apparently converted the MoJ’s Permanent Secretary to CRT, who then set up ‘Project Race’ with the mission of “normalising the conversation about race” by having “facilitated discussions about white privilege, about white fragility”, and “the origins of bias”. (You can read about this in more detail here)… But I digress…
It seems likely that UK CRT academics worry far less about critics in 2020 than they did 3 years earlier. Warmington in 2017 says this of CRT ‘antagonists’: ‘[they] continue to regard CRT as an ‘unwelcome guest’ [ ] CRT has been derided as an ‘intellectual affectation’ (Parsons, 2015: 1) and as teaching students to ‘think racially’ (Hayes, 2013: unnumbered). That last reference is to my friend Professor Dennis Hayes whose short and snappy take-down in 2013 clearly riled Warmington. Its not hard to see why. Hayes starts with this:
‘The critical race theory perspective is devious. First, racism is held to be endemic in society, and a catalogue of examples is used to prove this, while counter-examples are ignored. Second, racism is declared to be complex – so complex, in fact, that any clear views on the subject are dismissed as white or liberal prejudice. Third, refuge is taken in relativism, and the ‘theory’ is declared to be a perspective that is both academic and a political or social-justice project’.
Like Brighton’s very own socialist academic (and one-time city councillor) Professor Dave Hill, critics of CRT are scolded by Warmington for being ‘principally white academics who defined themselves as radical social democrats or Marxists’. For those of us who sit outside of the academy it can seem strange that an academic like Warmington would take cheap shots at critics of CRT. Criticism of CRT (or, as Warmington puts it ‘the demonisation of CRT’) is rounded up into caricature that infers what later became dubbed ‘white fragility’. Described as ‘testerical’ critics like Hayes are quoted thus:
‘…critical race theory boils down to one simple claim: ‘If you are white you are racist!’ …Critical race theorists will dismiss my claim as absurd, but that is because they avoid saying what they really think.‘
Quoting Gillborn, Warmington writes ‘[CRTs position] is not to argue that White people are uniformly powerful’. He goes on to say ‘to treat white supremacy as a marginal extremist activity, as opposed to being integral to the social and political formation, is a category error in the first place’. When Hayes says they avoid saying what they really think he captures something fascinating about 2021. Guru-like, CRT academics can loop the loop and spin explanations that shoot down criticism (their own PhD students are doubtless corrected all the time) but the mainstreaming of CRT in the era of Black Lives Matter and the clamour of organisations to ‘get it’ has released a new layer of ‘race conscious’ experts and consultants into the world who are happy to say what they really think. Intriguingly, many avoid saying out loud that what they think is rooted in CRT.
If there is one schism that’s plain to see in all this (and agreed by both CRT thinkers and critics) it situates around the term Warmington uses again and again – ‘Race Conscious’. Whereas 21st century liberal humanists disavow ‘race’ as a biological reality (CRT does this too) it also disavows the claim that UK society can in any way be accurately described as endemically racist. We can back-up our opposition to this claim too. Numerous surveys testify to a decades long ebbing away of racial prejudice in social attitudes. They point to an exponential explosion of ‘mixed race’ relationships and offspring; to a discernible pendulum swing away from racism as a social force as favoured by ruling elites. The decade – spanning the turn of the new century – saw elites jostling to denounce the bad old days that had culminated, horrifyingly, in 1981. With some quietly accepting that the dividend they once received from divide and rule racism had been replaced by growing public revulsion, UK society entered the era of official anti-racism.
It was within this sphere (triggered by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report of 1999) that CRT gained traction. The report had offered an extraordinary boost to the idea of unwitting and unconscious racism. Liberal humanists making pleas to the palpable existence of racism’s decline collided head-on with a new top-down anti-racism industry which argued the opposite.
In parallel with the rise of identity politics, to be ‘race conscious’ meant valuing racial identity. That ‘race’ was a fiction wasn’t in question. However, so long as racism was an ingrained social problem, said the increasingly CRT orientated industry, ‘race’ was a necessary construct to reinstate in anti-racist struggles. Thus, to be ‘race conscious’ was to recognise that appearances can be deceiving, that Britain is ‘dripping in racism’ as a Guardian writer put in in 2007:
‘This is not in the least surprising. For the best part of two centuries, we British ruled the waves, controlled two-fifths of the planet, and believed it was our responsibility to bring civilisation to those who allegedly lacked it… But these attitudes live on in new forms, constantly reproduced in each and every white citizen of this country.’
To be ‘race conscious’ was to recognise that the liberal-humanists are fools who just can’t understand that racism is illusive – if its invisible look for its footprints. When liberals push-back at this, frankly, creepy idea they display fragility. Lately black intellectuals have begun to noticeably push-back but they are denounced as worse fools – infused with the ideology of white supremacy.
There follows a series of extracts from David Gillborn:
EXTRACT 1 – David Gillborn: Critical Race Theory: a short primer
CRT began in the 1970s and 1980s as a movement of radical scholars, mostly people of minoritized backgrounds, working in US law schools. It was introduced into educational studies in the mid 1990s (Ladson-Billings & Tate 1995). There is no single canonical statement of CRT but certain elements have emerged as central themes that characterize the movement. The first of these is the central role accorded to racism, which is seen as a subtle and pervasive force in society that is so deep rooted as to appear ‘normal’ to the majority. Hence CRT does not limit its understanding of racism to crude and violent acts of obvious race hatred; it highlights forms of racism that constitute ‘business-as-usual’ for the majority but which actively close down opportunities for minoritized people (Delgado & Stefancic 2000)
CRT is also characterized by a radical critique of liberalism, which points to the failure of notions such as ‘merit’, ‘neutrality’ and ‘color-blindness’. These ideas masquerade as fair and just but, because of the uneven playing field of contemporary racist society, actually function to ensure the continuation of race inequality.
Building on a long tradition of oral histories and subversive counter-storytelling, CRT writers sometimes adopt a narrative approach and, distinctively, they give particular prominence to the experiential knowledge of people of colour (Delgado 1989). This has been a point of controversy with the academic mainstream but reflects CRT’s constructivist view of knowledge and its determination to challenge the common-sense assumptions that often encode majoritarian interests. This deep commitment to promoting real change in the position of minoritized groups is a central tenet of CRT and fuels its disenchantment with traditional notions of civil rights progress. Critical race scholars draw inspiration from their activist predecessors but they are far from content with the scale of changes that have been won to date. Indeed, a central concept is the ‘interest convergence principle’ which notes the hidden benefits to White people at the heart of even the most celebrated civil rights cases (see Bell 1992).
CRT is a vibrant and changing movement. It is characterized by the development of a range of off-shoot perspectives, such as Latina/o CRT (‘LatCrit’) and Critical Race Feminism (Delgado & Stefancic 1998; Wing 1997; Yosso 2005). Each perspective reflects key aspects of foundational CRT but also adds distinctive elements of its own. The interchange between these perspectives is frequently unpredictable, often highly productive and, almost always, respectful and grounded in a firm grasp of the work that has gone before. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of all critiques, especially those that over-simplify and caricature CRT itself. For readers who wish to explore CRT in more detail there are several books and articles that provide an accurate and informative overview of the approach (Delgado & Stefancic 2001; Gillborn 2006, 2008; Ladson-Billings 1998; Lynn & Parker 2006; Solórzano & Yosso 2002; Tate 1997) in addition to edited collections that pull together the foundational texts in legal CRT (Crenshaw et al 1995; Delgado & Stefancic 2000, 2007), Critical Race Feminism (Wing 1997) and CRT in education (Taylor et al 2009).
EXTRACT 2 – Paul Warmington. Conclusion to Critical Race Theory in England: impact and opposition.
CRT is a vibrant and changing movement. It is characterized by the development of a range of off-shoot perspectives, such as Latina/o CRT (‘LatCrit’) and Critical Race Feminism (Delgado & Stefancic 1998; Wing 1997; Yosso 2005). Each perspective reflects key aspects of foundational CRT but also adds distinctive elements of its own. The interchange between these perspectives is frequently unpredictable, often highly productive and, almost always, respectful and grounded in a firm grasp of the work that has gone before. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of all critiques, especially those that over-simplify and caricature CRT itself. For readers who wish to explore CRT in more detail there are several books and articles that provide an accurate and informative overview of the approach (Delgado & Stefancic 2001; Gillborn 2006, 2008; Ladson-Billings 1998; Lynn & Parker 2006; Solórzano & Yosso 2002; Tate 1997) in addition to edited collections that pull together the foundational texts in legal CRT (Crenshaw et al 1995; Delgado & Stefancic 2000, 2007), Critical Race Feminism (Wing 1997) and CRT in education (Taylor et al 2009).
EXTRACT 3 – Davide Gillborn, White Supremacy: fact and fiction (from ‘a reply to Dave Hill)
Although Critical Race scholarship differs in object, argument, accent, and emphasis, it is nevertheless unified by two common interests. The first is to understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained .
. . The second is a desire not merely to understand the vexed bond between law and racial power but to change it (Crenshaw et al., 1995: xiii).
The notion of ‘White supremacy’ occupies a central role in CRT but the term is used in a particular way that differs from its usual understanding in mainstream writing. Whereas the term commonly refers to individuals and groups who engage in the crudest, most obvious acts of race hatred (such as extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis), in CRT the more important, hidden, and pervasive form of White supremacy lies in the operation of forces that saturate the everyday mundane actions and policies which shape the world in the interests of White people:
[By] ‘white supremacy’ I do not mean to allude only to the self-conscious racism of white supremacist hate groups. I refer instead to a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings (Ansley, 1997: 592).
Within CRT, therefore, White supremacy is a complex and nuanced phenomenon. The interests and attitudes of White people occupy centre stage but not in an obvious, crude and monolithic fashion (see Mills 1997, 2003). For example, CRT scholars have examined the operation of ‘model minority’ myths which systematically misrepresent the achievements of certain minoritized groups as a means of both denigrating less successful groups and arguing that such success demonstrates the eradication of racism (see Delgado & Stafancic 2001; Gillborn 2008). Similarly, neither myself nor any CRT scholar whose work I know, asserts that all White people are equally privileged simply on the basis of their assumed racial identification. I have made this point explicitly in several places:
All White-identified people are implicated in these relations but they are not all active in identical ways and they do not all draw similar benefits – but they do all benefit, whether they like it or not (Gillborn 2008: 34 original emphases, see also Gillborn 2009a: 128).
One of the core concepts in CRT demonstrates a sensitivity to both the historic and contemporary intersections of class and race politics: the ‘interest-convergence principle’ suggests that advances in race equality only come about when White elites see the changes as in their own interests. It is important to note that interest-convergence does not envisage a rational and balanced negotiation, between minoritized groups and White power holders, where change is achieved through the mere force of reason and logic. Rather, history suggests that advances in racial justice must be won, through protest and mobilization, so that taking action against racism becomes the lesser of two evils for White interests because an even greater loss of privilege might be risked by failure to take action. CRT, therefore, recognizes that White supremacy is sometimes advanced through moves which appear, superficially at least, to set back White interests. Furthermore, Derrick Bell, who created the concept, has always been clear that lower class White interests are likely to be the first to be sacrificed; indeed, Richard Delgado has described the interest-convergence principle as a theory that ‘explains the twists and turns of blacks’ fortunes in terms of the class interests of elite whites’ (Delgado 2007: 345 emphasis added):
Read Gillborn’s whole essay here.