“[R]acism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice”
“(Education Week sensibly describes CRT this way: ‘Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.’)”
David Corn, This Land newsletter, Mother Jones
“[R]ace is a social reality, not a biological one”
“What exactly is critical race theory?
“Rather than a single concept, critical race theory refers to an intellectual movement founded by legal scholars of color in the 1970s and 1980s. It is premised on the belief that race is a social reality, not a biological one, race is a social reality, not a biological one, and that racism continues to be a pervasive part of our society despite substantial gains in civil rights over past decades.
“For critical race theorists, racism is not limited to isolated incidents of individual prejudice. Rather, racism is embedded in the very structure of the United States and its foundational institutions, like the law and the government.
“Other distinctive features of critical race theory include its recognition of the interconnectedness of various social identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class — and its emphasis on the lived experiences of people of color.
“But the ‘heart’ of critical race theory ‘is to shed light on the unfair and inequitable ways that racial power has been woven into the fabric of our institutions,’ said Kendall Thomas, a professor at Columbia Law School who coedited the book ‘Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.’”
Camille Caldera, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/16/metro/some-lawmakers-want-ban-critical-race-theory-schools-so-what-is-it/
“Kimberlé Crenshaw, executive director and cofounder of the African American Policy Forum, defines CRT ‘as a way of seeing how the fiction of race has been transformed into concrete racial inequities. It’s an approach to grappling with a history of white supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it.’”
Renee Graham, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/15/opinion/how-white-supremacy-weaponizes-ignorance/
See
Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement
Edited by: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil T. Gotanda, Gary Peller, & Kendall Thomas
The New Press (1996)
