What is critical race theory?
Learn more about the basic tenets of critical race theory.
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Transcript
What is critical race theory?
Officially organized at a 1989 workshop, critical race theory (CRT) isn’t the diversity and equity training that you may see in a school or workplace.
It’s a way of thinking about the world, especially the social norms and legal practices that govern society.
CRT asks why these practices feel so natural—and who is harmed when their ubiquity isn’t questioned.
Critical race theory has six main tenets:
1. Race isn’t a biological difference between human beings. Rather, it’s a socially invented category used to oppress and exploit people of color.
2. Racism in the United States is normal, not aberrational.
3. Legal “advantages” for people of color tend to serve the interests of dominant white groups. Racial hierarchy is typically unaffected or even reinforced by alleged “improvements” to the legal status of people of color.
4. Members of minority groups are assigned negative stereotypes, which benefits white people.
5. No individual can be adequately identified by membership in only one group; people belong to multiple identity groups and are affected by assumptions about more than one group.
6. The experiences people of color have with racism provide insights into the nature of the U.S. legal system.
Though critical race theory originated in the legal field, scholars of all kinds have employed it in their own areas of study.
And outside of universities and academic journals, people use the tenets of CRT to make sense of the world around them— a world that includes poverty, police brutality, voting rights violations, and other issues influenced by the many different ways race is understood (and misunderstood) in the United States.
Officially organized at a 1989 workshop, critical race theory (CRT) isn’t the diversity and equity training that you may see in a school or workplace.
It’s a way of thinking about the world, especially the social norms and legal practices that govern society.
CRT asks why these practices feel so natural—and who is harmed when their ubiquity isn’t questioned.
Critical race theory has six main tenets:
1. Race isn’t a biological difference between human beings. Rather, it’s a socially invented category used to oppress and exploit people of color.
2. Racism in the United States is normal, not aberrational.
3. Legal “advantages” for people of color tend to serve the interests of dominant white groups. Racial hierarchy is typically unaffected or even reinforced by alleged “improvements” to the legal status of people of color.
4. Members of minority groups are assigned negative stereotypes, which benefits white people.
5. No individual can be adequately identified by membership in only one group; people belong to multiple identity groups and are affected by assumptions about more than one group.
6. The experiences people of color have with racism provide insights into the nature of the U.S. legal system.
Though critical race theory originated in the legal field, scholars of all kinds have employed it in their own areas of study.
And outside of universities and academic journals, people use the tenets of CRT to make sense of the world around them— a world that includes poverty, police brutality, voting rights violations, and other issues influenced by the many different ways race is understood (and misunderstood) in the United States.