Friday, Feb. 6, 2015 Introduction to Critical Race Theory
Sidenote on History of Cultural Studies • Pioneered by working-class scholars in the UK after WWII (1950’s and 1960s) • Reaction to “highbrow,” elite idea of culture (i.e., the only “real” culture is Shakespeare, ballet, opera – everything else junk) • Asserted that current popular/mass culture contained knowledges worth studying
Origins of Critical Race Theory • Offshoot of Critical Legal Studies (law schools) • 1970’s and 80’s: students and scholars frustrated with the Civil Rights Movement – too slow, not enough being done (reliance on changing the law to produce equality) • Began to question how the law may actually be producing and sustaining inequality
What is Critical Race Theory? • Note use of the word “critical”
What is Critical Race Theory? • Note use of the word “critical” • Other forms of “race theory”: phrenology, eugenics, biological determinism [all “science”-based], racial hygiene [“purity”]
What is Critical Race Theory? • Note use of the word “critical” • Other forms of “race theory”: phrenology, eugenics, biological determinism [all “science”-based], racial hygiene [“purity”] • Critical Race Theory takes from Cultural Studies in that it asks, “How do we know what we know?”
Keywords for Critical Race Theory • Race, racism, racialized, racialization, racial formation, white, whiteness, white privilege, white supremacy, black, blackness, Latino/a, Asian, Asian American, Native American, indigenous, First Peoples, Arab, Muslim, mestizo, hapa, mixed-race, people of color, structure, liberalism, capitalism, capital, identity, embodiment, material, the body, minoritized, minoritization
Key Questions for CRT • What is race? How race is constituted legally, culturally, socially, economically, etc?
Key Questions for CRT • What is race? How race is constituted legally, culturally, socially, economically, etc? • What are the origins and implications of the way we think about race?
Key Questions for CRT • What is race? How race is constituted legally, culturally, socially, economically, etc? • What are the origins and implications of the way we think about race? • How does “race” mean different things in different contexts, times, and places?
Key Questions for CRT • What is race? How race is constituted legally, culturally, socially, economically, etc? • What are the origins and implications of the way we think about race? • How does “race” mean different things in different contexts, times, and places? • How does race interact with other forms of identity and embodiment?
Key Questions for CRT • What is race? How race is constituted legally, culturally, socially, economically, etc? • What are the origins and implications of the way we think about race? • How does “race” mean different things in different contexts, times, and places? • How does race interact with other forms of identity and embodiment? • What creates the conditions for inequality?
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure.
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure. • Race is not biological; it is socially constructed, yet it is real (race is a fiction with material consequences).
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure. • Race is not biological; it is socially constructed, yet it is real (race is a fiction with material consequences). • Example: housing – redlining
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure. • Race is not biological; it is socially constructed, yet it is real (race is a fiction with material consequences). • Example: housing – redlining • Whiteness as a form of property
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure. • Race is not biological; it is socially constructed, yet it is real (race is a fiction with material consequences). • Example: housing – redlining • Whiteness as a form of property • Intersectionality
Axioms (starting points) • Racism is not an event (or a feeling), it’s a structure. • Race is not biological; it is socially constructed, yet it is real (race is a fiction with material consequences). • Example: housing – redlining • Whiteness as a form of property • Intersectionality • Ignoring the role of race in society will not make racism go away.
Why ask these q’s? What’s at stake? • Social justice. Outcomes for health, wealth, academic achievement, upward mobility, all indexed by race (and class, too).
Why ask these q’s? What’s at stake? • Social justice. Outcomes for health, wealth, academic achievement, upward mobility, all indexed by race (and class, too). • Ruth Wilson Gilmore defines racism as “the state-sanctioned or extra-legal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death” (Golden Gulag 28). [race is the production of differential outcomes]
Case Study: the United States • Citizenship tied to race; race tied to citizenship
Case Study: the United States • Citizenship tied to race; race tied to citizenship • Naturalization Act of 1790 (jus soli or jus sanguinis) – free whites (men)
Case Study: the United States • Citizenship tied to race; race tied to citizenship • Naturalization Act of 1790 (jus soli or jus sanguinis) – free whites (men) • 1870 – persons of African nativity or descent
Case Study: the United States • Citizenship tied to race; race tied to citizenship • Naturalization Act of 1790 (jus soli or jus sanguinis) – free whites (men) • 1870 – persons of African nativity or descent • Petition to be white (why not black?)
Case Study: the United States • Citizenship tied to race; race tied to citizenship • Naturalization Act of 1790 (jus soli or jus sanguinis) – free whites (men) • 1870 – persons of African nativity or descent • Petition to be white (why not black?) • Rationale: legal precedent, scientific evidence, or common sense
Racial Prerequisite Cases • List of cases: http ://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White0 5. htm
For more, see Ian Haney Lopez’s book White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race
Readings • What did you not know before that you know now? • Did any of the articles cause you to reconsider an already-held stance? • What did you find difficult or troubling? Please refer to specific examples from the text
For Further Discussion… • Last class we asked, “why study media”? Now we’re asking, “why study race”? • How do you define race? Why do people have different understandings of the term? • What, in your understanding, is the difference between “race” and “ethnicity”? What does it mean when someone claims ethnicity instead of race (i.e., identifying as Irish instead of white)? • How do you define racism? • How does the media usually talk about race and racism, in your experience? How does the media frame what is considered racist/not racist? How does it suggest we should combat racism?