A helpful commentator, Ice Blerd Ben, asked if I was (at least trying to) be honest about how I describe CRT, so I gathered up a couple quotes to clarify the definition.
My Definition: CRT is an attempt to use anecdotes to create a new social narrative about America, so we can dismantle the current system, which is based on the enlightenment and Western-style democracy.
Here are a few references explaining where I come by my definition.
Richard Delgado (CRT founder) writes: “Virtually all of Critical Race thought is marked by deep discontent with liberalism, a system of civil rights litigation and activism, faith in the legal system, and hope for progress.” So CRT’s new narrative is going to be about how the American system does not and cannot provide progress for Black people.
Delgado also writes: that “[E]nlightenment-style Western democracy is… the source of black people’s subordination” and must be dismantled. So the goal is to tear down the existing democratic structure.
Also, Derrick Bell writes: that CRT “is an experientially grounded, oppositionally expressed, and transformatively aspirational concern with race.” Meaning that the dismantling of enlightenment, democratic ideals is to be done “experientially:” by conveying anecdotes about oppression to re-create the experience of oppression.
So as I said, CRT is about “centering” race to create a new “experiential” narrative that dismantles “Enlightenment-style, Western democracy” (tears it all down).
I’m really not making any of this up. If someone told you that CRT was just teaching history accurately, they are misleading you, and I’m only here to help.
A Great (old) Paper about CRT
But don’t just take my word for it. This year, CRT is a political hot-button issue and the discussion is politicized. Let’s go back twenty (20!) years to when the academics were discussing CRT and people were not yet screaming at each other at school board meetings:
What’s Wrong with Critical Race Theory: Reopening the Case for Middle Class Values — by Daniel Subotnik (1999)
Developing and then applying new methods for the purpose, and scouring the broad landscape of American life, [Critical Race Theory Activists] have found race and racism implicated in a terrifying array of institutions and practices. African-Americans will never fare well in America, in this view, until the spirit behind such cultural phenomena, largely blocked from the view of whites, is destroyed. This spirit can be thought of as white middle-class values. Whites, then, stand accused…
