Critical race theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is a term that refers to two different ideologies that analyze the role of race and racism in the United States. The original form of CRT is materialist and sees racism as a tool of the ruling class to allocate power and wealth to its supporters. The idealist school of CRT, which has been dominant since 2000, believes that racism is solely a result of discriminatory ideas or language. The realist school does not ignore racist language but sees it as a less influential factor.

Realist school

Derrick Bell, the founder of critical race theory, was inspired by Paul Robeson, Frantz Fanon, and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1973, he published Race, Racism, and American Law, which was the first textbook describing the racial effects of U.S. law. This original form of CRT is materialist and believes that racism had an economic foundation. It believes that "racism is a means by which our system allocates privilege, status, and wealth."

Bell believed that racial progress occurred when the interests of New Afrikans overlapped with the interests of the white ruling class; for example, the Supreme Court's ruling against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education helped industrialize the South and gain some Black support for the Cold War. As an anticolonial activist, Bell saw the Black bourgeoisie as neocolonial compradors who are used to protect the predominantly white ruling class from accusations of racism.

The realist school of CRT lost popularity to the newer idealist school in the 1990s.

Idealist school

In the late 1980s, An idealist and liberal form of CRT later emerged in opposition to the original materialist school. Idealist CRT believes that racism is a result of psychological deficiencies and that eliminating racist language, ideas, and stereotypes is capable of ending racism as a whole.

This school of CRT relies on support from reactionary white elites who only fund the least radical scholars who pose no threat to their power. Support for idealist CRT goes up to the highest levels of the empire. The idealist school is also more reformist and claims to support "American values" instead of questioning the colonialist history of the USA.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, the leader of the idealist school, defends liberalism as a way to advance Black freedom. She believes that "symbolic subordination" causes material subordination and not the other way around, as Bell believed.

Intersectionality

Crenshaw developed the theory of intersectionality, which defines feminism, realist CRT, and Marxism as "single-axis" theories focused on gender, race, and class respectively.

Misrepresentation

The term "critical race theory" is often misused to describe any theory that examines race.

Liberals portray all forms of CRT as radical in an attempt to trick leftists into supporting the Democratic Party, which supports the de-radicalized idealist form of CRT.

Conservatives also portray mainstream CRT as more radical than it is in order to fearmonger to their reactionary audiences and equate Democrats with leftists.