"Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity."
The concepts of race and racism are central to Critical Race Theory. This includes exploring how race is socially constructed, how power relations influence racial identities, and how racism operates at multiple levels of society.
Historical Context: Understanding the historical events and systems that have shaped race and racism in society, such as colonization, slavery, and Jim Crow laws.
Social Construction of Race: Understanding that race is a social construct that has been created and perpetuated by society, and that it has no biological basis.
Intersectionality: Examining how multiple forms of oppression, such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, intersect and compound to create unique experiences of discrimination and marginalization.
White Supremacy: Understanding the ideology of white supremacy and how it has played a role in shaping societal norms, policies, and practices.
Racial Bias and Prejudice: Examining how personal biases and prejudices towards different racial groups can manifest in individual and institutional discrimination.
Systemic Racism: Examining how racism is embedded in the structures and policies of society, and how it is reinforced through power dynamics and institutional practices.
Microaggressions: Examining the subtle, everyday forms of discrimination that people of color experience in the form of microaggressions, which can include verbal, behavioral, and environmental cues.
Privilege and Oppression: Understanding the concept of privilege and how it intersects with race to create unequal power dynamics.
Allyship and Anti-Racism: Learning how to become an ally to people of color and working to actively dismantle systems of racism and oppression.
Cultural Appropriation: Understanding the harmful effects of cultural appropriation, which occurs when members of a dominant culture adopt elements of a marginalized culture without proper respect or understanding.
"CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, and not only based on individuals' prejudices."
"The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming individuals."
"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."
"A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender, and disability."
"For example, the CRT conceptual framework examines racial bias in laws and legal institutions, such as highly disparate rates of incarceration among racial groups in the United States."
"Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis."
"One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals."
"CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as 'neutral' plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order."
"CRT began in the United States in the post–civil rights era, as 1960s landmark civil rights laws were being eroded and schools were being re-segregated."
"CRT, a framework of analysis grounded in critical theory, originated in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia J. Williams."
"CRT draws from the work of thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. Du Bois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s."
"Academic critics of CRT argue it is based on storytelling instead of evidence and reason, rejects truth and merit, and undervalues liberalism."
"Since 2020, conservative U.S. lawmakers have sought to ban or restrict the instruction of CRT education in primary and secondary schools, as well as relevant training inside federal agencies."
"Advocates of such bans argue that CRT is false, anti-American, villainizes white people, promotes radical leftism, and indoctrinates children."
"Advocates of bans on CRT have been accused of misrepresenting its tenets."
"Advocates of bans on CRT have been accused of... having the goal to broadly silence discussions of racism, equality, social justice, and the history of race." Note: Due to the length and complexity of the passage, not every question may have an explicit quote matching it exactly. However, the selected quotes provide relevant information related to the study questions.