"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."
Critical Race Theory is an analytical framework that explores how race and racism are embedded in social institutions and shape power dynamics in society.
Race and Racism: The concept of race and racism is the foundation of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Media Studies. Understanding the historical and socio-political contexts in which racist practices and beliefs have emerged and been perpetuated.
Post-Colonialism and Intersectionality: These concepts are essential in CRT and Media Studies as they examine the complex ways in which race, gender, class, and other forms of oppression intersect and shape experiences of discrimination and disenfranchisement.
Legal Theory and Race: The history of law and how it has been used to create and sustain racial inequalities is a crucial area of study for CRT.
Whiteness: Examining the concept of whiteness, and how it has been used to create and maintain power structures that benefit white people at the expense of people of color.
Media and Representation: Analyzing the ways in which media has perpetuated racial stereotypes and biases through its representation of people of color.
Cultural Studies: Studying how the production and consumption of culture impact the ways in which people understand race and racism.
Narrative and Storytelling: The use of narrative and storytelling in CRT is crucial as it helps reveal the ways in which stories and narratives can perpetuate racial oppression.
Education and Critical Pedagogy: Understanding how education and classrooms can become sites of resistance and social change, as well as perpetuators of racial inequality.
Government and Public Policy: Analyzing how government policies and regulations impact the lives of people of color, and how they contribute to institutional racism.
Social Justice Movements: The role of social justice movements in challenging and dismantling racial inequalities and creating a more just society.
Critical Whiteness Studies: This subfield of CRT focuses on the ways in which white privilege and dominance operate in society and how they are reinforced through media representations.
Feminist Critical Race Theory: Combining elements of CRT with feminist theory, this approach aims to understand how race, gender, and other forms of oppression intersect in media representation.
Queer Critical Race Theory: This approach combines CRT with queer theory to explore how media representation reinforces stereotypes and marginalizes LGBTQ+ communities.
Intersectional Critical Race Theory: This approach takes into account the ways in which multiple forms of oppression intersect and overlap, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class, and how this intersectionality affects media representation and the experiences of marginalized groups.
Postcolonial Critical Race Theory: This approach seeks to examine how media representations perpetuate and reinforce colonial power relations and how marginalized groups can resist and subvert these representations.
"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.