Just a moment to consider critical race theory

I’m surprised to see people in politics and the media utter the phrase “critical race theory” at all, let alone with the frequency we are hearing it in this moment. When I used to be in academia, critical race theory was at the heart of my thinking and research, and those were small stakes that really couldn’t get noticed. Odd how things change for all the wrong reasons.

I just want to note a couple things about CRT. If I was using it, it’s hardly the freshest of innovations. After all, my days as an academic were likely past their best. If young activist are using it and finding it helpful, then I feel as if maybe my teaching actually did inspire some people to do something worthwhile with the content of my classes.

That people seem to by outraged and attacked by critical race theory is actually quite humorous. One of the great innovations of CRT was to talk about racialized differences in the country as arising NOT from individual prejudices, preferences or personal moral failures. Rather, CRT talks about how we ALL are shaped by much broader social currents that are beyond the control of any single person. Racial differences beliefs about them are NOT personal decisions. They become part of how we view the world because they had been deeply embedded in law, custom, and culture in ways that we tend not even to notice. The point of CRT is not to point out individual “failures” but to illuminate and explicate how and why racial distinctions seem “natural” to us and, therefore, tend to remain unexamined. CRT wants to move away from blaming a person for having a “bad character” and, therefore, locating racial tensions as the fault of any one individual. CRT is about all of us as a collective, not one of us as a “bad apple.”

One way to imagine CRT is that it’s as if you are reading along right now and I ask you to notice the air you are breathing. Were you noticing it before I said that? Most likely not. Are you noticing it now? Yes. I’m not condemning you for breathing. I’m not judging the quality of the air. I’m just asking you to take notice of the act and material of your breath. From there we can go on and talk about whether you are happy with what and how you are breathing or not and how and why you came to be breathing this particular air at this particular moment in this particular place. CRT just wants us to notice our air. Now, should you be upset with me for pointing out the fact of breathing? I don’t think so, but I suppose there are people who might be. Maybe I interrupted some fantasy they had of them being breathless wonders. Perhaps they are now tuned into their sense that their surroundings don’t smell particularly pleasant right now. But it wasn’t an attack on my part. I didn’t ask anyone to notice the air out of a sense of malice. I just asked people to notice, and how they evaluate what they notice is their business. And any yoga or meditation instructor can tell you that there might be benefits for become aware of how we breathe.

That people feel attacked by being asked to notice is telling in a way that critical race theory is great at exploring. Feeling attacked by CRT is actually a great reason to USE CRT. CRT is great at teaching us how and why we might personalize broadly social distinctions which we didn’t even create. This is called exploring the questions of privilege. This is called showing that our sense of nature is not, in fact, natural, but rather ideological. Recognizing that doesn’t make you a bad person; it just makes you aware. But since being “woke” has become a pejorative in some circles, I’m glad we have CRT to help explain to us how and why the desire to be uninformed plays such a large role in our lives.

Finally, if you want to think about the beautiful and powerful things that critical race theory can do, I want to recommend a book to you. This is not a book that is directly formulating CRT or thinking about it on a theoretical level. I’m not even sure that the author would say she is engaged in any direct way with CRT, but in my opinion she is certainly informed by it. Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello (2008) is one of the more affecting works of history I have read in a long time. It’s not a story of good and evil, heroes and villains, though good and bad things do happen. Instead, it asks us to consider the world — not of their own making — in which the Hemingses and Jeffersons lived. When you read the history of America in that context, I would argue that you end up with satisfying and illuminating knowledge and not an unabashed triumphalism that leaves your head in the sand. And that is true whether you are inclined to see either the Jeffersons or the Hemingses as the heroes of history.

As for how this relates to prison, ask yourself why so many of the incarcerated are people of color. It there a reason for that aside from individual more failure and “personal responsibility.” Of course there is. Now ask yourself what the consequences are of embracing either an entirely structural or entirely individualistic approach to criminal justice are. Now we can have a better conversation. Thanks, CRT.

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