Critical Race Theory Themes Legacy of King Understand

Critical Race Theory Themes Legacy of King

• Understand the process of interest convergence from a historical sense • Be able to utilize a counter-narrative for the purpose of empowerment. • Begin to articulate how ideology situates material inequality • Develop a conceptual understanding of racism Objectives

• Idealists: • Racism and discrimination are matters of thinking, mental categorization, attitude, and discourse that is a social construction that we can unmake. • Realists/Materialists • Racism is a means by which society allocates privilege and racial hierarchies determine who gets tangible benefits, including the best jobs, the best schools and best resources. Interest Convergence, Material Determinism, and Racial Realism

• The creation and circulation of oppressive ideology happens in concert with oppressive action. • Progress and entrenchment are conditions of historical processes and needs. • Ideas become tangible when it comes to race through feelings of superiority, complacency by whites with an oppressive system, and denial of the legacy of racism rendering contemporary disparities. Materialism of Racism

• Assumptions • Materialism If material circumstances are changed, racism will abate. • Idealism If counternarratives that empower the underprivileged are consistently produced, they become the dominating images and racism will abate. Materialism v. Idealism

• Both forces are necessary for tangible change to happen. • Material and cultural advances need to be made in order for racialized ideas and material disparities to shift toward more egalitarian terms. • Holistic project of racial redemption. Middle Ground

• Desegregation was not something new to the freedom struggle. • NAACP had been fighting for desegregation for years before 1954. • Moral obligation for equality in education could not have been the rational explanation for the decision Materialist Brown v. Board.

• WWII, along with the Korean War recently ended. Black servicemen returned home from valiant service to be marginalized. • This was in service to democracy • The Cold War also brought democracy into global scrutiny. What Changed?

• Domestic denial of rights for people of color was beginning to make the center stage of global commentary. • The interests of whites and Blacks converged in 1954. • The Supreme Court responded to a flood of secret cables and memos outlining the U. S. ’ interest in improving its image in the eyes of the world.

• Tim Wise talks about White privilege being a notion of superiority whereby Whites placate the concerns of people of color. • This is done through notions of superiority and an assumption that people of color are the preeminent cause of their disparate conditions. • This is also a notion held by elite Blacks (as seen in We Count! as a process of blaming the victim—laziness). • A part of white privilege is not having to be aware of the legacy of racism, thereby causing a notion that pain is self inflicted. Public Image Over Rights

• It is a fixation on race that sees race as not contingent on creating disparities while at the same time investing in notions of superiority. • “When Katrina came through in 05, the minute when the folks from Chaumet came back was pass the blood relative renter law…you will not be able to rent land unless you were the blood relative of the land lord. ” • Redlining to keep Black people out of the parish. they petitioned to keep alive the lie The lie of white supremacy

• A part of American culture • Poverty is not enough, we have to render inhuman…almost an unrecognizable member of the species. • We want to fingerprint and drug test those who receive public assistant when there are no indicators that would indicate that they use or abuse drugs more often. • This classist agenda is furthered through the assumption that this group predominantly consists of people of color. Denigration

• 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement, we have invested in a romantic nostalgia of what was, creating a notion that is not reflective of the past. • MLK’s dream was not that we no longer see color, but color no longer inhibit equality. • Non-violence was abstracted from social justice and colorblindness abstracted from racial equality. • To be blind to race is to be blind of racial matters and to be non-violent does not necessarily effect equality. How/Why?

• The interpretation of the Civil Rights Movement is held as a biracial movement that challenged the old guard of racism to create the equality of opportunity that we enjoy today. Interpretative History

• Color-blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law do not have the ability to end the legacy or racism • An extreme version of colorblindness in the court holds that it is wrong for the law to take any note of race, as well as remedy past injustices. • This liberal outlook does not have the ability to deal with the problem of racism. Critique of Liberalism

• Only aggressive, color conscious efforts to change the way things are will ameliorate racial injustice. • In the past, gradual progressivism pushed by liberals impeded social justice. • Today, conservatism that co-opts Martin Luther King Jr. ’s language blatantly seek to minimize welfare, affirmative action or other programs vital to the poor and underprivileged.

• Blacks and Latinos with college degrees are twice as likely as whites to be without work, Asians, 30%. • The average white family has 20 tunes the net worth of the average Black family and 15 times the average Latino family. • “this is not because they work harder” Disparate Realities

• If you think that it was caused by a natural condition, you’d believe anything…unless it is natural to divert funding for levy maintainence to the construction of overpasses to get tourists to the casinos is natural…because that is what happened. • They didn’t much care if folks drowned and their property got washed away. • That disaster would have not have happened if the levies would have been constructed more properly. That was a man made disaster. Katrina

• A reexamination of American History critical of widespread interpretations of historic fact and narrative. • Framed by materialism, revisionist history examines profit, labor supply, international relations, white interests and the use of power as it relates to underprivileged marginalized groups. • This is then taken to draw an understanding of contemporary issues separate from a mythical past used to rationalize oppressive conditions. Revisionist History

• CRT is critical of rights and their procedural allocation • The Political-economic systems embrace the idea of equal opportunity, but resists programs that assure the equality of outcome under the pretense of “spending” or “preferential treatment” • Hate speech is only regarded as such when it is directed at the empowered, however, it is considered a First Amendment Right when directed at the underprivileged. • Given that rights are disproportionately distributed by race, rights can also be used to alienate. The Question of Rights

• Racism has many forms and only one word • Unconscious racism, institutional racism, systemic racism, structural racism…etc… • Because of this, it is difficult to come with adequate solutions given the complexity and the propensity for oversimplified definitions. Structural Determinism

• The way in which the interconnection of institutions create racist outcome. • Playground-prison pipeline • Ferguson police collaborating with municipal officials to create a monetary incentives for racial profiling. • The Reagan-Clinton administrations using racially coded rhetoric that sought to promote racist social-policy that was “hard on crime, ” “hard on drugs, ” and prevented “welfare queens” Structural Racism

• The historical practice and contemporary legacy of racism, reflected by micro-aggressions, institutional practices and socio-political agency that promote and maintain racial disparity. • VA Loans, along with the G. I. bill created wealth that helped to establish a white middle class at a rate that did not exist prior to WWII. These privilege were systematically denied to eligible Blacks. • When the housing market crashed in 2008, Black wealth was cut in half due to the rate of high-risk loans that were given to Blacks based on race being an implicit criteria for credit worthiness. Systemic Racism

• Institutional practices and policy that promote racial disparity. • Virginia Tech sent a representative of Student Planning and Events Services to tell marchers protesting the acquittal of the police officer that killed Eric Garner that: if they marched, they would be subject to arrest because they did not have insurance. • This attempt of silencing made the presumption that the protests could potentially lead to rioting, based on preconceived notions of Black protesters. Institutional Racism

• Racism does not require intent. It simply requires social, political, and/or individual practices that result in inequality or differential treatment. • Donald Trump does not view himself as a racist bigot, and self-identifies as smart and a good person. Intention