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In recent years, I have observed a rapid increase in news articles* about courses in US schools and US enterprises that are allegedly "based on" Critical Race Theory, and these articles usually only contain very brief and sometimes contradictory explanations of what Critical Race Theory is. The term also seems to be used in an academic context in the US, but I don't know if the meaning is the same as in those articles.

In the context of such articles, what does Critical Race Theory actually mean, and is that meaning identical with the meaning of Critical Race Theory in an academic context?

*I intentionally don't give examples, because I don't want this to be about a specific article, and there are so many of these articles that people who are knowledgeable enough to answer will likely have encountered at least dozens of these articles themselves. If I misjudged and it is indeed unclear what I'm referring to, please ask for clarification in a comment.

NoDataDumpNoContribution
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Peter
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    I am going to preemptively protect this question and add a "controversial post" notice to it. We all know how just mentioning this subject incites certain people. I really don't want to have to moderate endless comment threads of people shouting at each other again. – Philipp May 11 '21 at 10:05
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    It's actually not terribly clear what you're asking. You seem not be asking what CRT is in an academic setting but in an unspecified "flood" of articles. I'm betting the "flood" in a right-wing medium would be different than the "flood" elsewhere, so the question doesn't have a clear answer, as you phrased it. If your question is "how does Fox News define CRT" (or thereabout), make that explicit. – the gods from engineering May 11 '21 at 17:03
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    @Fizz I'm most interested in "middle of the road" sources. So if Buzzfeed or Fox News use a significantly different definition than more objective sources, I don't mind if you ignore Buzzfeed's or Fox News' definition in your answer. – Peter May 11 '21 at 17:19
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    I am also kicking this question from the hot network question list. The last thing we want on the answers to this question are votes based on political approval. – Philipp May 11 '21 at 19:38
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    To clarify the OP's question, “What is CRT?” in a 1-2 sentence answer, like other definitions. For example: Communism is "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Capitalism is "the rule of the law of supply and demand." The big bang theory is a theory in astronomy that the universe originated billions of years ago in a rapid expansion from a single point of nearly infinite energy density. Contract theory is a theory that holds …. Well, you get the idea. Perhaps like the OP, I have yet to see a clear, concise definition of CRT, in dictionaries, or anywhere. – Vekzhivi Aug 11 '21 at 12:56
  • @Vekzhivi "...I have yet to see a clear, concise definition of CRT..." What would be wrong about: "Concepts that address and critique the relationship between race, racism, and its entrenchment in social, political and legal structures in the US."? I think that hits the nail quite well. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jul 04 '22 at 11:50

4 Answers4

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First, some background on where the academic/sociological concept of Critical Race Theory comes from, then I'll address CRT's current invocations directly.

Critical Theory and it's descendants (in this case Critical Theory->Critical Legal Studies->Critical Race Theory) is a sort of methodological approach to talking about sociological, economic, political, and cultural phenomena.

At its core, Critical Theory is about not taking the status quo as a given. Frequently in economics, sociology, psychology, political science, et cetera, a speaker will evaluate propositions based on how much they deviate from a baseline - usually the circumstances going on. E.g. "How much will it cost to forgive $10,000 of student loans per borrower in the United States?"

Critical Theory backs up a step and would approach this same question thusly: "Why is student debt even a thing?" Or perhaps, "What is the cost of allowing students to be burdened with debt?"

In part because of its roots in Marxist thought, but also because it's a useful cognitive tool, Critical Theory's objective is to demand an examination of the status quo - and because human systems are never perfect - this exercise always yields a laundry list of things that are wrong with that status quo and descriptions of the systems that contribute to those flaws. This leads to the dominant common theme in the bodies of work done in Critical Theory, Critical Legal Studies, and Critical Race Theory:

The status quo benefits someone, and that person has a vested interest in maintaining it.

(It should be fairly apparent why this framework was the best available foundation for Marx's philosophy.)

Critical Race Theory examines the structure of society and focuses on the flaws that contribute to consistent, systematic differences in the socioeconomic and political outcomes for citizens that correlate with race. It gathers evidence of the systems and structures that produce those differences in outcomes and classifies them as "White Supremacism."

In popular language, the shorthand to describe Critical Race Theory is to say that it is the school of thought that begins with:

White Supremacy exists, benefits someone, and that person has a vested interest in maintaining it.

In scholarly reality, there's huge tracts of nuance in there - some structures of White Supremacy are intentional and deliberate (slavery, segregation), some are merely deliberate (SAT scoring - yes, really. I worked for a time as an SAT Prep instructor for The Princeton Review, it's a widely understood phenomena in the industry), and some are vestigial or otherwise unintended side effects of something else. But in common conversation and media where every word has a cost to it, that nuance is universally elided. White Supremacy, in common media, is Nazis, Skinheads, the KKK, etc.

Well intentioned people can try to describe racial disparities in systemic outcomes as "racist systems" - a term which is not inaccurate, but as a term is open to be misunderstood by a listener or reader. What tends to follow is the Fallacy of Division where the listener assumes that if a given societal structure or system is racist, everyone who participates in it must therefore also be equally, and concomitantly racist - and therefore they are being called racist. And since racism is held as a moral failing in a person, they disengage from the conversation's merits and respond defensively to a perceived insult.

That's an agonizingly complex enough situation. Now enter the ill-intentioned.

I won't name names, but it is an empirical fact that Neonazis, the KKK, and other militantly white supremacist organizations and ideologies exist. Moreover, they exist on a spectrum ranging from the prototypical synagogue shooter, through political opportunists who see value in courting people through appeals to their sense of having been cast as morally defective ("racist"), to people chanting slogans with no understanding of the context or history of what things like "you will not replace us" actually mean.

Trolling has evolved from a malevolent internet hobby to a toolkit of deliberate, rhetorical tactics employed even at the institutional level by whole media entities for the purpose of interfering with discourse that might lead to political, social, or behavioral shifts away from a status quo that they desire to support. (Similar to how tobacco companies and oil companies produced bodies of bogus research to ward off science's discovery that their products had powerfully negative impacts on people.)

To answer the question "What does 'Critical Race Theory' mean?" in a given context, therefore, we would need to know the exact context, exact speaker, and if possible their rhetorical intentions. But it exists somewhere on the spectrum from an academic talking about systemic disparities that attach to race, through someone tossing in a buzzword while they decry police brutality, all the way to an actual trolling attempt in order to discredit the term 'Critical Race Theory' so as to eliminate it as a possible avenue to discuss those systemic disparities mentioned in the first case.

NoDataDumpNoContribution
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William Walker III
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    The answer is good but seems unbalanced in that it implies the ill intentioned only exist on the side of white supremacy on this issue. – Peter May 11 '21 at 15:20
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    @Peter You asked about common media uses of "Critical Race Theory" which, at least to the extent I can determine, is - in fact - lopsided in its abuse, especially recently. Leftwing trolling uses other terms (e.g. 'Capitalism'), which makes strategic sense because eroding the usefulness of language that is purpose-built to support their cause is counterproductive. – William Walker III May 11 '21 at 15:22
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    @WilliamWalkerIII Being counterproductive has never stopped people from doing things. There is a significant contingent of people who follow the logic "system is racist -> everyone in the system is individually racist" and then proceed to start calling people racists. – eyeballfrog May 14 '21 at 12:35
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    I think the recent context that needs to be discussed is the education departments and school boards are trying to prohibit teaching CRT in public schools, on the grounds that it will teach the white students that they're inherently racist. – Barmar Sep 13 '21 at 15:58
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    @Barmar That is the rationale they are using for their efforts, yes. It is not, however, what CRT is or does. I felt the answer was getting long enough without having to dive into that pile of brambles. – William Walker III Sep 13 '21 at 16:44
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    @WilliamWalkerIII But isn't that the whole point of the question? What does CRT "really" mean, verus how is it being used in recent rhetoric that attacks it? – Barmar Sep 13 '21 at 16:45
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    @Barmar It is, that's why I covered what CRT is, objectively. And noted that, because the term is being bandied about quite loosely, there's essentially infinite possible use-cases for it that are all going to have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that trying to nail down a specific instance (without the OP asking for that) is going to make the answer age poorly. – William Walker III Sep 13 '21 at 16:48
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    I am quite confused from reading this. It seems to me that CRT can be anything the speaker wants it to mean. Is there a more succinct way of putting it - within say a couple of short paragraphs? – WS2 Jul 04 '22 at 09:19
  • @WS2 It seems a critical theory is something that takes nothing for granted and looks especially at the fundamental stuff and critical race theory is a critical theory especially about race. Now the question is if critical race theory is used rigorously or not. What we would need is a critical theory of critical race theory, and I guess that is what the critics of critical race theory are trying to achieve. ... But they are probably not critical enough and what then would be needed is a critical theory of the critical analysis about critical race theory. This question tries to do that, I guess – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jul 04 '22 at 10:50
  • @Trilarion Thanks for the effort - but I'm little wiser! – WS2 Jul 04 '22 at 21:16
  • @WS2 In other words: is there still a systematic bias against people based on their race? Are there rules or customs or laws that make it harder for you if you belong to a minority race? Surely you have heard of segregation or slavery in the US in the past. This is officially over but maybe something still persists and could still be improved. It's kind of likely given that a society cannot change completely over night and that majorities probably even without knowing tweak the rules towards their own advantages, but it also needs examples and evidence to be convincing. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Jul 05 '22 at 05:29
  • @Trilarion Right - that paragraph tells me far more than the acres of text that preceded it. – WS2 Jul 05 '22 at 07:06
  • @WS2 In many respects that's true, and especially as the term is/was being used in the media and by politicians, they were playing fast and loose with the definition. – William Walker III Jul 05 '22 at 17:29
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Critical Theory is a subset of social theory. In general, It analyses societal norms and institutions, bringing unspoken assumptions within a society into explicit language, where the assumptions can be examined and redressed. For example, a typical critical theoretical thread would be to examine the general assumptions of economic fairness and equality that run through and inform liberal societies — making the implicit explicit — and then to analyze those now-explicit assumptions in terms of practical implementations, behaviors, and experiences. In other words, if we believe that a market economy should treat all participants equally and fairly based solely on their merits and abilities, and we see that women are consistently paid three-quarters of equivalent men in equivalent positions, then we have a paradox (or contradiction, or hypocrisy) between our beliefs and our practices that ought to be resolved.

Critical Theory is usually considered Left-wing, though it isn't explicitly so. Critical Theory is merely more interested in examining where we've failed our sociocultural ideals than where we have succeeded in achieving them. Part of the reason many people dislike Critical Theory that it is expressly critical of the failures of the status quo; it forces people to look at what they would rather not, which tends to spur emotional resistance.

Critical Race Theory is the principles of Critical Theory applied to race, exposing various ideals about what we believe race relations ought to look like, and contrasting it with the reality of race relations in the world. That is particularly problematic in the US, where we tend to inflate our self-conception of just and virtuous equality and deny a long and sordid history of actual injustice and brutality. The facts of slavery and Jim Crow; of KKK lynchings and racially-charged policing; of segregation, white flight, and minority disenfranchisement... These are particularly unpleasant for any of us to 'own', but an essential part of who we are as a people that must be taken into consideration.

Ted Wrigley
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The current answers are overly sympathetic to the application and implications of CRT, and neither answer the specific question:

In the context of such articles, what does Critical Race Theory actually mean, and is that meaning identical with the meaning of Critical Race Theory in an academic context?

Presumably the OP is asking about articles which are critical of Critical Race Theory or its implications, and a fair answer would require a right of center perspective. In the context of such articles, CRT is effectively a pseudo-scientific justification for anti-white racism and discrimination.

Within CRT as practiced in the United States, all power structures are viewed through the reductive lens of race, and there is an unspoken presumption that any differences in equity can only be the result of deliberate institutional bias, referred to with purposely loaded terms like "white supremacy" - the connotation of which conveniently primes cheap dismissals of any criticism with accusations of "racism".

The existing answers, much like articles critical of anti-CRT political machinations0, use rhetorical sleight of hand to conceal the fundamentally racist sort of policies that are justified by the underlying assumptions behind and implications of CRT, which the articles in question allude to - the reasoning is that because whites were a majority when these institutions were built, and because whites seemingly benefit disproportionately from them (patently false, there are a multitude of ethnic groups which are on average more successful than whites), they need to be reformed to implicitly or explicitly penalize whites (e.g. affirmative action, criminal-friendly police reform, modifying/removing "discriminatory" standardized tests) in order to correct for their supposedly deliberately unjust outcomes.

Referring back to the second part of the question:

is that meaning identical with the meaning of Critical Race Theory in an academic context?

The disingenuous rhetoric employed by those in support of CRT manufacture an illusion that the meaning in articles critical of CRT is not equivalent to the meaning of CRT in academia, that CRT is merely misrepresented or misunderstood, but make no mistake, this is the logical conclusion of the identity-politic driven CRT, as it makes no allowances for cultural or other reasons for disparities in outcome. Admitting as much overtly would justify and galvanize so called "white supremacy" (the only group who's self-advocacy is slandered with the cardinal sin of racism within the framing of CRT) and so these implications are swept under the rug.

Incidentally this also places CRT squarely within the realm of leftist/progressive political theory, though a number of comments on this page claim otherwise. It is a pseudo-scientific foundation and framework for toxic identity politics.

Glorfindel
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user2647513
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    While I disagree with some elements of your answer, particularly the loaded language, assigning motive (e.g. "and referred to with purposely loaded terms"), and lack of important sourcing for very controversial claims, still +1 because it complements the existing answers with a perspective that, while not necessarily objective (again, lack of sourcing), is still relevant to the topic. – Peter May 12 '21 at 18:56
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    +1 Specifically, it is important to note institutions CRT proponents consider to be “white supremacist” have propelled Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and Indian-Americans significantly further beyond white Americans in many areas, including income, education, crime, and health, and it has been this way for awhile. – Just Some Old Man Jul 05 '22 at 19:52
  • Do you have any academic sources showing that, "Within CRT as practiced in the United States, all power structures are viewed through the reductive lens of race, and there is an unspoken presumption that any differences in equity can only be the result of deliberate institutional bias"? This statement seems like a) something that should be visible in a meta-study, and b) the kind of thing someone might incorrectly say about a field they don't know particularly well. – cjs Jan 10 '23 at 08:00
  • @cjs I feel like asking for a "meta-study" is disingenuous when we're discussing logical (but unspoken because of political bias) implications of core tenets of CRT. Can you explain how demographic inequity is explained within the context of CRT, outside of externalizing all blame onto discrimination and [white] power structures? Your comment sounds like the kind of thing someone might incorrectly say if they were still in denial about certain truths about how culture shapes collective outcomes for ethnic groups. – user2647513 Jan 12 '23 at 00:25
  • @cjs if you trust wikipedia's definition (which is generally accurate on subjects near and dear to the hearts of progressives): "Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity." Can you point out where in that definition an allowance is made for cultural and genetic variations that influence population statistics? – user2647513 Jan 12 '23 at 00:27
  • @cjs this isn't even a criticism of CRT per se. As a tool CRT explicitly designed to probe only external factors in demographic inequity. And further it seems like the notion that "race is a social construct" is baked in to CRT as well. This is a very specific tool which cannot be used to guide policy because it explicitly carves out at least half of the variables that explain demographically unequal representation - which leads to nonsensical policy interventions and, naturally, anti-white sentiment (since a central tenet is that US power structures are white supremacist in nature.) – user2647513 Jan 12 '23 at 00:29
  • There's a big difference between an approach claiming "this can explain many things about inequality" and "this must explain everything about inequality." Chemistry views matter "through the reductive lens" of the relationships between atoms, ions and molecules, yet we don't dismiss it as a discipline because it basically ignores certain aspects of biology and physics that explain things chemistry doesn't cover. Microbiologists consider chemistry to be a very useful discipline, even as it ignores the core of their field. – cjs Jan 12 '23 at 01:31
  • So what I am asking for is not evidence that CRT doesn't investigate certain other factors, such as genetic and non-"racial" cultural ones, but evidence that its practitioners believe that these other factors also don't contribute, and the CRT explanations supersede all those from other sociological and other specialities that claim they may provide part of the explanation. (Such belief would be rather unusual in the academic world, but probably not unknown.) – cjs Jan 12 '23 at 01:39
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    @cjs I don't think your analogy of chemistry is valid, because chemistry does not seek to upend the very epistemological foundations of the academic institution by "elevating storytelling" and "emphasizing lived experiences" and other such postmodernist nonsense which is diametrically opposed to an objective, data-driven pursuit of truth. The interventions recommended by CRT, namely an anti-meritocratic push for equity, are only logically sound if you presume that all inequity is due to discrimination. – user2647513 Jan 12 '23 at 17:05
  • @cjs I don't have a reference that "its practitioners...don't contribute", but logically, is there any way within the frame of CRT to accept that demographic inequality is an acceptable outcome of meritocracy when different social/ethnic groups are better or worse predisposed for a particular field of work? Do you have a source that suggests factors other than discrimination are considered by practitioners? In any case, this question isn't about the totality of what CRT practitioners believe, it is about what CRT is and what its inevitable conclusions are. CRT is a narrow single purpose tool. – user2647513 Jan 12 '23 at 17:14
  • For an academic to say, "let's look at this from the point of view of elevating story-telling and emphasising lived experiences" does not automatically say "and not doing so is now invalid." It's perfectly reasonable to try different approaches that are apparently "not rational," and that has in other disciplines produced solid results. (For example, while the expected value of 50% chance to gain $1000 is less than 100% chance to gain $450, people tend to prefer the latter.) – cjs Jan 12 '23 at 17:34
  • Your question, "[i]s there any way within the frame of CRT to accept that demographic inequality is an acceptable outcome of meritocracy when different social/ethnic groups are better or worse predisposed for a particular field of work?" is very telling, because CRT is simply asking "is it really the case that different social/ethnic groups are better/worse predisposed," and you've skipped right past that and gone on to looking for value judgements ("is an acceptable outcome") that CRT doesn't even make, as far as I can tell. – cjs Jan 12 '23 at 17:35
  • You clearly have something you want to believe about CRT because some of the implications of it lead you to believe that it conflicts with your value system, and then you start riffing on this rather than just going and finding evidence for what they're really saying. If you really want to figure out CRT, start by setting aside your values, saying that for the purposes of your investigation you don't care what the value implications of it are, and then see what it says, rather than getting it all tied up in your feelings about things. – cjs Jan 12 '23 at 17:38
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    @cjs this isn't about my "value system". This is about the fact that influences other than discrimination are not considered within the context of CRT, which is not merely asking "is it really...better/worse predisposed"; it is implicitly assuming that the answer is false, that all differences in outcomes are externally caused. From the wiki: "CRT is also used in sociology to explain social, political, and legal structures and power distribution as through a "lens" focusing on the concept of race, and experiences of racism". – user2647513 Jan 15 '23 at 01:10
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    When an academic says "let's look at this from the point of view of elevating story-telling and emphasising lived experiences" they are saying "lets look at this from the point of view of purely individually subjective anecdote" and such a perspective is antithetical to objective science, which is why it is unique to grievance studies, which have misleadingly adopted the banner of social "sciences". It seems that YOU are the one who is unable to view CRT critically because it is one of many sacred cows in the current sociopolitical zeitgeist. CRT assumes racism a priori. That's problematic. – user2647513 Jan 15 '23 at 01:13
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    And I'd like to add further, "let's look at this from the point of view of elevating story-telling and emphasising lived experiences" is carte blanche to manufacture any desired conclusion or consensus, which is exactly how CRT is used by power mongers to browbeat citizens into going along with D&I discrimination - after all, how could you rationally contradict someone's claimed "lived experiences"? Effectively an entire academic discipline built on top of a thought terminating cliche - you can't argue with someone's claimed lived experience. Completely anti-scientific. – user2647513 Jan 15 '23 at 01:22
  • Sigh. Once again, "Let's study the influence of discrimination" is not the same thing as saying, "We reject the influence of anything other than discrimination." Scientific and engineering studies focus on certain things all the time; that rocket scientists use Newtonian mechanics to calculate their trajectories does not mean that they believe Einstein was wrong. To find evidence to support your point, you can't point to studies that say, "We studied X"; you need to point to a pattern of studies that explicitly say, "We believe that anything outside of X has no influence." – cjs Jan 15 '23 at 02:26
  • As for your claims that lived experiences can't be studied scientifically because you can't "rationally contradict" them, that's simply nonsense. We also can't rationally contradict "I prefer to eat a smaller piece of cheese now than a larger one later," but we can still study, using a scientific process, why some people might have that preference and others not. Racism is, in the end, about how people feel about other people, so you'd expect that the data under study would also include what people say about how they feel. – cjs Jan 15 '23 at 02:32
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    "Let's study the influence of discrimination" tacitly assumes that it exists wherever CRT looks. When "lived experiences," i.e. anecdote, are elevated above data and statistics, a one sided weapon like CRT will find discrimination even where it does not exist, in addition to exaggerating its effects where it does. What they define as "story telling" is antithetical to objectivity as well. That's the core issue, the theory is designed to be subjective. This is a very disingenuous game. – user2647513 Jan 17 '23 at 18:56
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    CRT is not merely about "studying the influence of discrimination", and it is dishonest to imply such. The wikipedia page reads like a political movement. This is not merely an academic theory. "Goals include challenging all mainstream and "alternative" views of racism and racial justice, including conservative, liberal, and progressive." This is academia weaponized for partisan activism. – user2647513 Jan 17 '23 at 19:01
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    @cjs You clearly have something you want to believe about CRT because some of the implications of it lead you to believe that it concords with your value system, and then you start riffing on this rather than just going and finding evidence for what they're really saying. If you really want to figure out CRT, start by setting aside your values, saying that for the purposes of your investigation you don't care what the value implications of it are, and then see what it says, rather than getting it all tied up in your feelings about things. – user76284 Mar 01 '23 at 08:53
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Critical Race Theory is a tool to spot potential problems. It's a tool for analysis.

The problem with "news articles about courses in US schools and US enterprises that are allegedly "based on" Critical Race Theory" is that these articles are usually about actions - proposed/attempted solutions (e.g. anti racism) to problems spotted with CRT, and such articles don't always highlight the difference. Depending on the news source, it might even be fair to say they never highlight the difference.

Due to this persistent pattern, the proposed solutions to the problem (the most extreme of which tend to get reported on) get associated with the method used to spot the problem.

Some of the proposed solutions are controversial, and that unfortunate association makes CRT controversial as well, which is then exploited in politics.

Peter
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