Constructing a Positive Intrasection of Race and Class for the 21st Century

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos R. Mccray

This article attempts to provide some transparency with regard to how the intersection of race and class negatively affects African Americans in their effort to fight for social justice with regard to classism. Based on the explicit historical attempt to definitively make race and class synonymous, such a manufactured intersection is powerfully ingrained within the American psyche, and it has successfully created a quagmire with middle-class Blacks in their effort to fight against class injustice—specifically, those who are discriminated against in our society because of their lack of educational pedigree, economic standing, and job occupation. Thus, this article attempts to infuse sociological theoretical concepts with strands of critical race theory to provide insight into the potential barriers of middle-class Blacks’ amalgamation with African Americans of lower-wealth communities.

Author(s):  
Nadine George-Graves

The cakewalk represents one of the most important sites of competition in African-American dance history, as indicated in one of its original names, the prize walk. An examination of the cakewalk, along with tap, disco, and breaking, for example, reveals crucial insight into the development of race and class in the United States. Using primary and secondary historical sources, as well as critical race theory, this chapter analyzes the significance of competition in a number of salient cakewalk settings and argues that the political economy that develops around cakewalk competition alters our definitions of terms such as currency, value, and worth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Barnes ◽  
Emily Germain ◽  
Angela Valenzuela

We read and analyzed 165,000 words and uncover a series of counter-stories buried within a textual corpus, authored by Teach For America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp (Kopp, 1989, 2001; Kopp & Farr, 2011), that offers insight into the forms of racism endemic to Teach For America. All three counter-stories align with a critical race theory (CRT) framework.  Specifically, we answer the following questions:  What evidence of institutional and epistemological racism is exposed by a CRT textual analysis of TFA’s founding document and later works by Wendy Kopp?  To what extent has TFA appropriated the language of culturally relevant pedagogy, while advancing an uninterrogated neoliberal ideology? And, to what extent does TFA’s contribution to a “culture of achievement” (Kopp & Farr, 2011) constitute an actual “poverty of culture” (Ladson-Billings, 2006a) that enacts real harms on communities of color? 


Author(s):  
Lisa Pace Vetter

Frances Wright makes several major contributions to political theory. She served as an essential transitional figure from republicanism to early American socialism. Wright outlined a comprehensive system of reform based on an epistemological method of inquiry. Although Alexis de Tocqueville is credited with anticipating aspects of what would become critical race theory, her devastating critique of slavery in America precedes his by several years and includes elements of critical race theory as well. Unlike Tocqueville, Wright also applies those principles to the plight of American women, which prefigures aspects of critical feminist theory. Wright presents an early version of intersectionality by portraying the oppression of women, the enslavement of African Americans, and the injustice of economic inequality as intertwined through institutionalized corruption.


Author(s):  
Todd M. Michney

By the mid-1970s, upwardly mobile middle-class African Americans were increasingly departing neighbourhoods like Glenville, Mount Pleasant, and Lee-Harvard for a number of nearby bona fide suburbs. As a result, such former “surrogate suburbs” began to lose their lustre, although a core (generally elderly), home-owning black middle class still remains in these outlying city neighbourhoods to this day. Starting in the 1990s, Cleveland experienced a wave of predatory lending that culminated in the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Although middle class blacks in Cleveland as elsewhere have been disproportionately impacted by this trend, they have continued their historic strategy of outward geographic mobility in search of acceptable living conditions, even to the farthest metropolitan limits.


2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Vasquez Heilig ◽  
Keffrelyn Brown ◽  
Anthony Brown

In this article, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown offer findings from a close textual analysis of how the Texas social studies standards address race, racism, and communities of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, the authors uncover the sometimes subtle ways that the standards can appear to adequately address race while at the same time marginalizing it—the “illusion of inclusion.” Their study offers insight into the mechanisms of marginalization in standards and a model of how to closely analyze such standards, which, the authors argue, is increasingly important as the standards and accountability movements continue to grow in influence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-299
Author(s):  
Felicia M. Mitchell ◽  
Cindy Sangalang ◽  
Stephanie Lechuga-Peña ◽  
Kristina Lopez ◽  
David Beccera

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