New Directions in Critical Race Theory and Sociology: Racism, White Supremacy, and Resistance

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (13) ◽  
pp. 1731-1740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Christian ◽  
Louise Seamster ◽  
Victor Ray

Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a highly generative perspective for studying racial phenomena in social, legal, and political life, but its integration with sociological theories of race has not been systematic. However, a group of sociologists has begun to show the relevance of CRT for driving empirical inquiry. This special issue (our first of two on the subject) shows the relevance of CRT for sociological theory and empirical research. In this introduction, we identify primary concerns of CRT and show their sociological utility. We argue that CRT better explains the long-standing continuity of racial inequality than theories grounded in “progress paradigm,” as CRT shows how racism and white supremacy are reproduced through multiple changing mechanisms.

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Reece

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110540
Author(s):  
Jeremy Hau Lam ◽  
Katrina Le ◽  
Laurence Parker

This article emerged from undergraduate students in an Honors College class on critical race theory at the University of Utah during the spring semester 2020 during the pandemic. The counterstories evolve around critical race theory/Asian American Crit and the historical and current violence against the Asian American community in the United States. Given the recent anti-Asian American backlash which has emerged through the COVID-19 crisis, to the March 2021 murders of the Asian American women and others in Atlanta, we present these counterstories with the imperative of their importance for critical social justice to combat White supremacy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 134-145
Author(s):  
Aeriel A. Ashlee

This chapter features a critical race counterstory from an Asian American womxn of color about her doctoral education and graduate school socialization. Framed within critical race theory, the author chronicles racial microaggressions she endured as a first-year higher education doctoral student. The author describes the ways in which the model minority myth is wielded as a tool of white supremacy and how the pervasive stereotype overlaps with the imposter syndrome to manifest in a unique oppression targeting Asian American graduate students. The author draws inspiration from Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs, which helps her resist the intersectional oppression of white supremacy and patriarchy present within academia. The chapter concludes with recommendations to support womxn of color graduate students.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Novak

Brief introduction to critical race theory in education with examples from gifted education. Context of the piece is a response to an article in GCQ by S.Peters, all information is provided on the opening page.


Author(s):  
Lee E. Ross

Critical race theory (CRT) concerns the study and transformation of relationships among race, (ethnicity), racism, and power. For many scholars, CRT is a theoretical and interpretative lens that analyzes the appearance of race and racism within institutions and across literature, film, art, and other forms of social media. Unlike traditional civil rights approaches that embraced incrementalism and systematic progress, CRT questioned the very foundations of the legal order. Since the 1980s, various disciplines have relied on this theory—most notably the fields of education, history, legal studies, feminist studies, political science, psychology, sociology, and criminal justice—to address the dynamics and challenges of racism in American society. While earlier narratives may have exclusively characterized the plight of African Americans against institutional power structures, later research has advocated the importance of understanding and highlighting the narratives of all people of color. Moreover, the theoretical lenses of CRT have broadened its spectrum to include frameworks that capture the struggles and experiences of Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans as well. Taken collectively, these can be regarded as critical race studies. Each framework relies heavily on certain principles of CRT, exposing the easily obscured and often racialized power structures of American society. Included among these principles (and related tenets) is white supremacy, white privilege, interest convergence, legal indeterminacy, intersectionality, and storytelling, among others. An examination of each framework reveals its remarkable potential to inform and facilitate an understanding of racialized practices within and across American power structures and institutions, including education, employment, the legal system, housing, and health care.


Author(s):  
Paula Groves Price

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Please check back later for the full article. Race has historically been, and continues to be, a significant issue in all aspects of American society. In the field of education, racial inequality is prominent in the areas of access, opportunity, and outcomes. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a framework that offers researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers a race-conscious approach to understanding educational inequality and structural racism to find solutions that lead to greater justice. Placing race at the center of analysis, Critical Race Theory scholars interrogate policies and practices that are taken for granted to uncover the overt and covert ways that racist ideologies, structures, and institutions create and maintain racial inequality. In the field of education, CRT is a helpful tool for analyzing policy issues such as school funding, segregation, language policies, discipline policies, and testing and accountability policies. It is also helpful for critically examining the larger issues of epistemology and knowledge production, which are reflected in curriculum and pedagogy. As education is one of the major institutions of knowledge production and dissemination, CRT scholars often push the field to critically examine the master or dominant narratives reproduced in schools and the counter-narratives that are silenced. CRT is a theoretical framework that provides education researchers, policy makers, and practitioners with critical lenses to deconstruct oppressive policies and practices and to construct more emancipatory systems for racial equity and justice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Eleanor K Jones

Abstract Since the earliest days of European expansionism, Africa has held a dual place in the Western imaginary, cast as a space of futurelessness even as white futurities were predicated on its exploitation. Appropriations of the future have persisted post-liberation, revealed in the divestment of futurity from bodies marked as queer or disabled. Drawing on historical moments and literary texts from Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and on insights from queer theory, critical race theory and disability studies, I seek to demonstrate that the logics of white supremacy can be seen at work in these mechanisms of exclusion, even where whiteness itself is displaced – but that literary invocation of queerness and disability can thus be used to mobilize critique of this continuity. In centring the circumscription of futurity at the heart of colonialism, heteronormativity and ableism, then, I underscore the critical value of reading these as reciprocal and inextricable systems of power.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (13) ◽  
pp. 1776-1788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

The election of 45 brought significant questions about race (and race-class) that merit theoretical consideration. My goal in this article is to discuss how racial theory applies to three main themes that followed the 2016 election: (a) dealing with the “racists”?, (b) the anxieties of the poor and white working class, and (c) hegemonic racism in Trumpamerica. I also briefly outline where I think racial theory needs to develop to combat racism in Trumpamerica.


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