Excerpt From the Preface to the Book:
Putting It All Together
“The term used to describe this way of thinking about knowledge is that knowledge is… reflective of the values and interests of those who produce it.”9 But this is only half the puzzle. The word “theory” can be used in two ways in the social sciences: as an abstract noun (as in “I have a theory about that”) or as a proper noun, as in Critical Theory. According to the New Discourses Encyclopedia:
Theory—treated as a proper noun and thus capitalized—is an appropriate catch-all term for the thinking behind Critical Social Justice, especially at the academic level. It is the set of ideas, modes of thought, ethics, and methods that define Critical Social Justice in both thought and activism (that is, theory and praxis). In a meaningful way, Theory is the central object—the canon and source of further revelation of canon—of Critical Social Justice. That is, Theory is the heart of the worldview that defines Critical Social Justice.10
In other words, Critical Theory is not just an analytical tool, as some have suggested; it is a philosophy, a worldview.
Critical Race Theory
Perhaps the most important concept to grasp for the purposes of this book is Critical Race Theory (CRT). “Critical Race Theory is an outgrowth of Critical Legal Studies (CLS), which was a leftist movement that challenged traditional legal scholarship.”11 There has been much debate over CRT within evangelical circles recently. Some have accused those of us who are leery of CRT of creating a straw man and labeling everything we disagree with or that makes us uncomfortable as CRT. Therefore, it is important that I allow CRT to define itself in order to demonstrate that when I refer to this ideology, I am not making things up, taking them out of context, or building a straw man. I am merely taking its founders and practitioners at their word.
According to the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs:
CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy. Legal discourse says that the law is neutral and colorblind, however, CRT challenges this legal “truth” by examining liberalism and meritocracy as a vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege.12
Many discussions of CRT have referenced this definition, and with good reason. First, it is as clear and succinct a definition as you will find. Second, it captures the essence and major tenets of CRT. Third, it comes from a source that has led the charge for CRT in recent years, which means, fourth, that it is a case of proponents of CRT defining themselves. Note also that this definition, without using the word “worldview,” describes precisely that. One way to define a worldview is “an analytical lens one uses to examine the world.” According to Richard Delgado, the worldview of CRT is based on four key presuppositions:
Racism is Normal:… the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country.13
Convergence Theory: “Racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class whites (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it.”14 This means whites are incapable of righteous actions on race and only undo racism when it benefits them; when their interests “converge” with the interests of people of color.
Anti-Liberalism: [CRT] questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.15
Knowledge is Socially Constructed: Storytelling/Narrative Reading is the way black people forward knowledge vs. the Science/reason method of white people. Minority status, in other words, brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism. The “legal storytelling” movement urges black and brown writers to recount their experiences with racism and the legal system and to apply their own unique perspectives to assess law’s master narratives.16
While this is a well-established summary, Tara Yosso, one of the most-cited academics on Critical Race Theory, expands Delgado’s fourth tenet with a very important dimension:
The centrality of experiential knowledge. CRT recognizes that the experiential knowledge of People of Color is legitimate, appropriate, and critical to understanding, analyzing and teaching about racial subordination.…17
Intersectionality
If Derrick Bell is the father of CRT, then he is the grandfather of Intersectionality. The idea was popularized by Bell’s Harvard Law School protege, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and is best summed up in her two seminal papers: “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” published in 1989, and “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” published in 1991. I offer the full titles as they give a glimpse into Crenshaw’s worldview. Put simply, Intersectionality is about the multiple layers of oppression minorities suffer. For instance, if a black person has one layer of oppression, a black woman has two, a black lesbian woman has three, etc. The Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice offers a helpful summary:
Our experiences of the social world are shaped by our ethnicity, race, social class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and numerous other facets of social stratification. Some social locations afford privilege (e.g., being white) while others are oppressive (e.g., being poor). These various aspects of social inequality do not operate independently of each other; they interact to create interrelated systems of oppression and domination. The concept of intersectionality refers to how these various aspects of social location “intersect” to mutually constitute individuals’ lived experiences.18
There are volumes written on these concepts, and I commend them to you. I have benefitted greatly from the work of people like Neil Shenvi, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, and a host of others. Their work is thorough, insightful, and much-needed in these times. I also recommend diving into the sources I have cited here and throughout this book for an inside look at what CRT and Intersectionality say about themselves.
WACMM Highly Recommends Voddie's book
(As always WACMM receives no remuneration or compensation for its recommendations)
Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe
