Critical Racial Theory

Assurance in equal justice remains as an overwhelming political principle of American culture. Yet withstanding unbelief exists among numerous racial and ethnic minorities. Their doubt comes as no surprise, given a past filled with differential treatment in the arrangement of criminal equity, an issue particularly clear in police misconduct. Researchers have investigated police responses to racial and ethnic minorities for quite some time, offering sufficient confirmation of minority burden on account of police. These examinations raise doubt about different police techniques of coercive control, maybe none more so than police brutality. Its use exemplifies the pressures between police and minorities that exist in America today.

December the 6th, 1865 marks the end of slavery and white supremacy. A glance at the 21st century America manifests otherwise. Racism is an ongoing issue that contributes largely to class boundaries within significant aspects such as economy, education and society of the United States, making people of color inferior to white people. The key components that construct a country into greatness are economy, education and society. The inequality and injustice present in these interlinked components, bound by social class hierarchy, can lead to desisting the full potential to be a globally respectable nation.

African Americans have systematically been deprived of equal opportunities and fundamental rights in America since the establishment of slavery. Although the Civil Rights Act banned the implementation of segregation and racial inequality over 40 years ago, the overall concept of racial and cultural hierarchy still lingers at the forefront of today’s society. White America’s history of racially oppressing, isolating, and segregating African Americans have led to present-day issues surrounding the political and economic forces that intentionally limits Blacks access to and opportunity from social, economic, educational, and political advancement through the institution of structural racism.

In her book, The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander who was a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, reveals many of America’s harsh truths regarding race within the criminal justice system. Though the Jim Crow laws have long been abolished, a new form has surfaced, a contemporary system of racial control through mass incarceration. In this book, mass incarceration not only refers to the criminal justice system, but also a bigger picture, which controls criminals both in and out of prison through laws, rules, policies and customs. The New Jim Crow that Alexander speaks of has redesigned the racial caste system, by putting millions of mainly blacks, as well as Hispanics and some whites, behind bars

In the introduction, Michelle Alexander (2010) introduces herself and expresses her passion about the topic of how the criminal justice system accomplishes racial hierarchy here in the United States.

In this book, author Tara J. Yosso demonstrates how institutional power and racism affect the Chicano/a educational pipeline by weaving together critical race theory and counterstories. Critical race theory is a framework used to discover the ways race as well as racism implicitly and explicitly shape social structures, practices, and discourses(Yosso, pg.4). Counterstories refer to any narrative that goes against majoritarian stories, in which only the experiences and views of those with racial and social privilege are told. The counterstory methodology humanizes the need to change our educational system and critical race theory provides a structure for Yosso to base her research. This results in a beautiful hybrid of empirical data, theory, and fascinating narratives that works to analyze how forms of subordination shape the Chicana/o pipeline, while also exposing how institutions, structures, and discourses of education maintain discrimination based on gender, race, class and their intersections.

Al Sharpton radio host, and minister once said, “We have defeated Jim Crow, but now we have to deal with his son, James Crow Jr., esquire.” (cite) He then goes on to say that his “son” is smarter, slicker, and more cunning than him. This metaphor describes that even though the Jim Crow Laws have been ratified, there is a new racial discrimination in America that is growing and is harder to defeat than the last. The Jim Crow Laws were the set of laws that set the whites and blacks separate from each other in the 1900s, although they have been defeated, America today may be equal lawfully but not on an individual level. With the beginning of the Jim Crow Laws in the 1900s to their abolishment in 1965, and even today, America has yet to resolve the issue of “separate but equal.”

Race has always been a problem in America and other countries. But developments such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) has helped challenge race and racial power and its representation in American society. Articles such as Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic; White Privilege, Color, and Crime: A Personal Account by Peggy McIntosh have helped CRT develop further. Along with the documentary White Like Me by filmmaker Tim Wise. These articles and film explore the race and racism in the United States, along with critical race theory. In this paper, I will be critiquing these articles and films in order to evaluate the purpose of these readings and how they have helped further develop race in America. But most importantly, whether the author has achieved its purpose to inform readers about CRT, whiteness, and racial inequality.

In Andrea Smith’s article “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”, Smith argues from three different perspectives on how different people are oppressed and are victimized together. She presents three scenarios involving people of color and how they can modernize to become unified. The three pillars she uses to try to understand white supremacy describe the logic behind: slavery and how it deals with capitalism, genocide in the United States colonialism, and orientalism during wartime.

The major thesis in this book, are broken down into two components. The first is how we define racism, and the impact that definition has on how we see and understand racism. Dr. Beverly Tatum chooses to use the definition given by “David Wellman that defines racism as a system of advantages based on race” (1470). This definition of racism helps to establish Dr. Tatum’s theories of racial injustice and the advantages either willingly or unwillingly that white privilege plays in our society today. The second major thesis in this book is the significant role that a racial identity has in our society. How we see others have an impact on how we create laws and access to quality education, financial and social resources. Furthermore, how

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts stated this on the Supreme Court case of Ricci v. DeStefano. This case, which was on the issue of discrimination of African American firefighters in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, isn’t the only one of its kind. Brown v. Board of Education, Korematsu v. U.S., and Batson v. Kentucky are just a few of many. Cases like these, the situations in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, and Sanford, Florida, have all occurred because of racial discrimination.

In the past twelve months various incidents have sparked a contentious debate amongst American citizens concerning the issue of race and its place in society today. A poll conducted by PewResearch after the grand jury decisions in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown

Over the past year’s different Afrocentric theorist have formed theories of what black history should represent. One philosopher that I feel we should pay attention to is Alain Locke for his work, “The New Negro”. Alain Leroy Locke was an educator, a philosopher and a writer. Locke publicized the Harlem Renaissance to a wide audience. Alain Locke Charter Academy is named after him in Chicago, Illinois. If we were to design a philosophy-based curriculum for Black Studies, it would be based on several things; knowledge, misconception and ethics.

“I think Jim Crow law should have never happened”, says Mitchell Drumright of my class. I agree with him. Just because Jim Crow is long gone,does not mean that laws of segregation don’t affect us today. Jim Crow’s laws still affect us in the forms of racism, systematic racism, and stereotyping. Though we try to deny it, everyone is affected by systematic racism. Jim Crow either influenced, or started everything in this essay. I hope that you have gotten the gist of the valuable things in this

As we reach the 21st century we would think that racial inequality has completely ended yet we continue to see much discrimination. Racial inequality continues to exist in the world and here in the United States it is a very controversial topic. Today, we watch the television and almost everyday we hear news about some type of crime or situation which regards race issues. In other words, racism is still a topic that we experience in a daily basis and continues to haunt this country. By analyzing some recent racial inequality news we can find out what continues to make this issue such a controversial topic. Two recent news regarding racial discrimination is the controversial Mr. Donald Trump and his comments regarding Mexicans and also a recent strike held at many Universities around the United States protesting about discrimination at their schools.