Critical Race Theory came out of a time in the 1970s United States during which a number of legal scholars, lawyers, and activists decided that the advances of the civil rights era the decade before were no longer progressing forward, or were even being pushed backward. They saw a need for new theories and strategies to combat racism. More people and disciplines soon joined the movement. 

Origins of Critical Race Theory

- Critical Race Feminism
- Critical Race Masculinism
- Queer-Crit theory
- Lat-Crit Theory
- Asian-Crit
- Critical White Studies

Spin-off Movements from Critical Race Theory

While not universally supported by every critical race theorist, these are the basic propositions uniting the movement:

- Racism is ordinary
- Racism serves the dominant group
- Race is socially constructed

Basic Tenets of Critical Race Theory

These are specific actions studied and promoted within Critical Race Theory.

- Legal storytelling
- Revisionist history

Methods within Critical Race Theory

These are theoretical framworks that conflict or are positioned at odds with each other within the Critical Race Theory movement.

- Racial Idealism vs. Racial Realism

Divisions within Critical Race Theory

These are terms that were created within Critical Race Theory or are necessary to understand some of the theories within Critical Race Theory

- Intersectionality
- Color blindness
- Racial Idealism
- Racial Realism

Key Terms within Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory is an interdisciplinary movement made up of activists and scholars working to understand and change the relationships between race, racism, and power. 

Georgetown University

This theory examines and critiques societies and cultures and looks at social issues and structures that lead to inequality. It identifies the people who can suppress this inequality and outlines the steps needed to reach human liberation. 

Critical Theory

Socially constructed groupings of people that are defined by shared physical or biological characteristics. 

Race (as a Social Identity)

Critical social theory is a group of approaches, most prominently including critical race theory, critical legal theory, and critical disability studies that comes from theorist at the Frankfurt School in the 1930s who theories that the convergence of capitalism, bureaucracy and science was restricting the development of a critical consciousness and ability to critique societal functioning. The heart of more modern critical social theory - along with post-Marxist, post-structuralist, postmodernists, and post-positive theorizing - is the idea of problematizing issues including the terms we are using, or the assumptions given to us, understanding society and culture as something much more dynamic than can be captured purely quantitatively, and a focus on the linking of theory and liberatory praxis. 

Critical Social Theory

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2nd ed.). NYU Press.

Critical Race Theory: An Introduction 

The process of listening and considering ideas from as many perspectives as possible to reason a conclusion and inform an strategic academic plan. 

Critical Inquiry Theory in Education

Learning science an interdisciplinary field that works to further our understanding of learning as well as to engage in the design and implementation of learning innovations. Contributing fields include cognitive science, computer science, educational psychology, anthropology, and applied linguistics. 

Learning Science

Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that can include different meanings, but most broadly referes to a lens that centers the abnormal (the queer) in order to demonstrate the socially constructed boundaries of the normal. 

Queer theory

Critical Practices in Literature 

Cultural Studies analyze the political dynamics of contemporary culture, such as "pop culture" and its historical basis. Cultural studies researchers review how cultural practices connect to wider systems of power associated with or operating through, social phenomena, including ideology, class structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and generation.

Cultural Studies

A major critique of the current disability studies discipline relates to its essentialist and binary approach to understanding disability and the subjective disability experience. 

Disability Studies and Intersectionality


The critical perspective emerged in the 1970's with roots in Black Feminism. 

History of Critical Perspective in Disabillity Studies

Black feminist thought understands race to play a role in whether society labels an individual as a woman. Thus, the term intersectionality was coined in 1989 to explain how power and status contribute to social organization and understanding. 


19th Century Black Feminist History Influenced the Inception of Intersectionality 

Intersectionality examines the experiences of people who are experiencing discrimination on the basis of two or more marginalized identities at the same time, and how this differs from experiencing discrimnination on the basis of these identities individually.  Because of this depending on context, we all have areas where we experience privilege, as well as areas of oppression

For example, the stereotypes or preconceived notions held about black women are not merely a combination of those held about black people and those held about women, but a unique intersection of racism and sexism that black women experience differently from either black men or white women.

Intersectionality

Disability studies resaerch often neglects the presence of an individual's identity which can have major influence over their subjective reality and reinforces oppressive systems. 

Critical Perspective of Disability Studies

The poverty rate is two times higher for African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans than it is for White people and Asian Americans; Unemployment plays a huge role, especially in a pandemic since many Black workers are more likely to lose their jobs

Race (as a Characteristic of the Poor)

The social construction of race refers to how the concept and categories of race, as well as the meanings given to them, are not innate, but instead formed by society. While there are real physical traits that humans have, such as skin color, these traits do not exist in the format of clearly defined boxes that the concept “race” is structured as, nor do they correspond to any personal traits or values, a false belief that racism is built upon.

The Social Construction of Race

On average, African Americans are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police. They are also 1.5 times more unlikely to be unarmed. As such, people of color, particularly African Americans are most likely to experience the negative effects of his violence. This can be seen in mental health trends.

Police Violence and Its Effect on People of Color

A legal movement which challenges liberal interpretations of the law, instead asserting that the law is not neutral, there is not always a single correct ruling to every case, and rights are not of the most vital importance.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After