Critical Race Theory School of Thought

To fully understand Critical Race Theory you may dip your toe, a small toe, into Critical Theory, a concept developed in pre-WWII Germany. But, a toe is all you get.

What is Critical Theory?

Critical Theory was first known as the Frankfurt School. “The Frankfurt School, known more appropriately as Critical Theory, is a philosophical and sociological movement.” It was originally located at the Institute for Social Research, an attached institute at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The Institute for Social Research was founded in 1923 with a “generous donation by Félix José.”

Félix José was from a wealthy Jewish family in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is of German-Argentine-descent. He became interested in socialism and Marxism while studying at the University of Tübingen and the University of Frankfurt. His doctoral thesis topic was “Socialization: An Attempt at a Conceptual Foundation, with a Critique of the Plans for Socialization”. One could make the educated guess how James Lindsay formed his Twitter handler (ConceptualJames). José goal was to develop Marxist studies in Germany.

To understand why this would interest him, one must study post-WWI Europe. Germany had been devastated by the war. The Ottoman Empire also fell. Therefore, the European and Middle-Eastern map looked much different than before WWI. The feeling of desolation among the German people after their defeat in the war helped fuel German Nationalism. This created an environment ripe for someone like Adolf Hitler to capture the imagination of the despondent, which led to the rise of Nazism and the horrors that followed.

To put the Institute for Social Research into perspective closer to home; we can think of it like The Charles Koch Foundation donating $25 million to Jon M. Huntsman School of Business and the Huntsman Foundation, after which they opened the Center for Growth and Opportunity at the Utah State University. Same concept.

Critical Theory is a school of thought the same way Neoclassical, Keynesian and Classical Economics are Economic Schools of Thought. We attribute Keynesian Economics to British economist John Maynard Keynes, Neoclassical and Classical Economics to Adam Smith, and Austrian Economics to Carl Menger. We attribute the Frankfurt School to German Philosopher Max Horkheimer. Like all schools of thought, the Frankfurt School ended up in universities around the world.

When the Nazis gained power in Germany, they began to kill and expel intellectuals. In 1933, they closed the Frankfurt School. Its thinkers moved first to Switzerland and then found a home at Columbia University in the United States. It was there that the intellectuals associated with the school produced much of their work. After the Nazis were defeated, the Institute for Social Research re-opened in Frankfurt, Germany in 1951.

Marxism, Socialism, Communism and the Movement for Civil Rights

While often used interchangeably Marxism, Socialism, and Communism are not the same things and each seek different outcomes.

Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after the 19th-century German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. Marx examined the flaws in capitalism and sought to identify an alternative to capitalism. He came up with a system he called, “utopian socialism.”

Utopian socialism is socialism that is achieved through the moral persuasion of capitalists to surrender the means of production (land, labor and capital) peacefully to the people. This belief holds that, through conscience and morals, people could work together in society and live together communally without the need for money or class. Think of it as Star Trek’s Deep Space Nine.

Marxist theories were influential in the development of socialism.

Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production (land, labor and capital), distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Socialist theory focuses on equality of wealth (eg. similar wages, housing, education, healthcare).

Communism is a philosophy based on the equitable distribution of wealth among a nation’s citizens and common ownership of all property. The goal of communism is a classless society. Communism calls for the control of the means of production (land, labor and capital) by the working-class. In a pure communist society, there’s no necessity for a government.

“Socialist programs and policies can exist alongside capitalism in a society. However, socialist programs would be less likely found in a true communist system.” (The above taken from https://www.investopedia.com/)

There are no known true communist states that exist today.

Conservatives trip over themselves attempting to link Black civil rights leaders to Marxist ideology and communism, because

1. They seek to upend the status quo of white supremacy
2. They insist upon racial, social, and political equality
3. They advocate against wealth inequality
4. They ‘may’ seek reparations for unpaid labor or race discrimination

There were Black civil rights leaders who became communists. Actor Paul Robeson was a known communist and lived in Russia for many years. W.E. B Dubois joined the Communist Party towards the end of his life. Activist Angela Davis was as member from 1969 to 1991. There were also many more Black leaders such as the late Thurgood Marshall working to keep communists and communism out of the black community.

Former FBI Director J Edgar Hoover was convinced communists and Russia had infiltrated the Civil Rights Movement. He had most of the movement’s leaders wiretapped as part of his COINTELPRO covert and illegal operation. Ezra Taft Benson (who would become President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) believed Martin Luther King had been affiliated with communists. Benson wrote [of King], “The man who is generally recognized as the leader of the so-called civil rights movement today in America is a man who has lectured at a Communists training school, who has solicited funds through Communist sources, who hired a Communist as a top-level aide, who has affiliated with Communist fronts, who is often praised in the Communist press and who unquestionably parallels the Communist line. This same man advocates the breaking of the law and has been described by J. Edgar Hoover as ‘the most notorious liar in the country.’ . . .

“Would anyone deny that the President [Lyndon Johnson], the chief law enforcer in the United States, belies his position by playing gracious host to the late Martin L. King who has preached disobedience to laws which in his opinion are unjust?”” (Ezra Taft Benson, “It Can Happen Here,” in An Enemy Hath Done This, Jerrold L. Newquist, comp. [Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1969], pp. 103, 310)

Lyndon B Johnson, himself had once joked that the Senate’s Judiciary Committee Chairman, Mississippi Senator James Eastland — an ardent and unabashed racist, was so obsesses with outing communists that Johnson had said [of Eastland], “If the Mississippi River flooded, Eastland would say, “the niggers had caused it, and helped out by Communists.””

Long story short, it’s an old trope.

Any movement that critiques modern social structures and aims to change them is accused to having roots in Marxist ideology. The very idea of challenging the current power structure absolutely infuriates conservatives who are hellbent on maintaining a system of which they control and thus benefit.

Critical Theory vs Critical Race Theory

There are at least three generations of Critical Theory. American universities and the scholars of Critical Theory are primarily linked to the third generation, which incorporated research.

When looking into the history and foundation of Critical Race Theory, it’s preposterous to start with the Frankfurt School because race, as a social construct, didn’t exist. No generation of Critical Theory incorporates racial identity (later to include Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, etc).

The concept of race began in the United States in the 17th century. Likewise, the concept of race was started to determine who was not white. This was important in the transition to race-based slavery, which was determined by the status of the mother. This ensured that children born to Black women were also slaves, while children born to White women were not. Therefore, Critical Race Theory is not a derivative of Critical Theory School of Thought, but it’s own school of thought separate from the Frankfurt School.

The framework for this study wouldn’t even be created until after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision that overturned the Court’s 1896 Plessy v Ferguson decision. And still, it wasn’t until civil rights activist, attorney and law professor Derrick Bell came along and begin to ask questions about segregation and race in a very different way.

When the Court ruled against segregation, stating that Separate is not equal, a legal scholar named Herbert Wechsler believed the court overstepped. Known for his Constitutional law scholarship, Wechsler argued that the Court overstepped in its decision because the decision denied individuals the freedom of association. He argued that “If the freedom of association is denied by segregation, integration forces an association upon those for whom it is unpleasant or repugnant.” And Derrick Bell agreed with him!

This thought became the foundation of the concept developed by Bell called, Interest Convergence. Interest Convergence contends that, “Freedom of association would be sacrificed only when these racialized groups found that, at a certain point in history, the cultural, political, or social context allowed for their interests to converge.”

Dayton Board of Education. v. Brinkman 433 U.S. 406 (1977), is a school desegregation case that went to the Supreme Court. In its decision, the Court found that petitioner Dayton, Ohio, School Board had engaged in racial discrimination in the operation of the city’s schools. The Court stated that, “In a case like this, where mandatory racial segregation has long since ceased, it must first be determined if the school board intended to, and did in fact, discriminate, and all appropriate additional evidence should be adduced; and only if systemwide discrimination is shown may there be a systemwide remedy.”

The key concern for Derrick Bell in the post-Brown era and what would become the thesis statement for Critical Race Theory contends — “that some actions are racist by consequence even if by intention they are not.”

This is the genesis of Critical Race Theory. This thought would become the subject of numerous books and articles published by Derrick Bell and would include his book, Race, Racism and American Law. Derrick Bell’s academic writings and lectures inspired law students such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado and Patricia J. Williams to pick up where he left off.

Any study of Critical Race Theory must start after the Supreme Court’s Brown v Board of Education decision and must begin with Derrick Bell. It did not begin at the Frankfurt School. It doesn’t follow Karl Marx or Max Horkheimer, and it does not have roots in or leads to Marxism.

What is a Thesis Statement?

“A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.”

Critical Race Theorists seek to prove through evidence and analysis...

“that some actions are racist by consequence even if by intention they are not.”

And that concept did not exist in the Frankfurt School. Full Stop.