Essay On Critical Race Theory

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Pages: 3

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group, and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law (Delgado, 2006). Derrick Bell, professor of law at New York University, was the movement’s intellectual father figure. Until his death in 2011, Bell taught, wrote occasional law review articles and memoir-type books, …show more content…
Critical Race Theory was created in the hopes of changing the oppressive legal system and power structure in US society. All six of these tenets work together to make up and define Critical Race Theory. By examining the tenets of CRT we can now apply the theory to the Native American injustices and oppression (Greek, 2015). According to Jones (1997) the development of critical race theory points to a new direction taken by civil rights activist in the wake of civil rights setbacks in the 1970’s and 1980’s when official government policy no longer supported an expansive civil rights agenda. The United States Supreme Court began limiting and eviscerating precedents that once promised full equality of African Americans under the law. Critical race theorist who fought against this declension from civil rights began storytelling, in which they gave voice to the contemporary civil rights struggle. They explained the situation of people of color disposed by the