Critical race theory emerged from legal scholars critiquing critical legal studies’ neglect of racism
Evidence
Critical race as a theoretical paradigm was first developed by legal scholars of color, such as Mari Matsuda, Kimberle Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and others, with the goal of decolonizing critical theory in legal studies (or critical legal studies in the United States) during the 1980s. This group of scholars argued that critical legal studies failed to acknowledge the “role of [race and] racism in American law” (Matsuda, 1991: cited by Yosso et al., 2004, p. 2), and the “lived experiences and histories of those oppressed by institutional racism” (Yosso et al., 2004, p. 2). Since its inception in legal studies, critical race theory has been embraced by various disciplines such as education, sociology, history, ethnic studies, women’s and gender studies, and has branched out into multiple areas of specialization such as FemCrit, LatCrit, AsianCrit, and WhiteCrit (Huber, 2008, p. 160). Some of the basic tenets of CRT across these various disciplines and areas of specialization have included an examination of race as a social construction and an understanding of racism as structural and institutional. In these interdisciplinary scholarly conversations, CRT has emerged as a social justice project that centers the lived experiences of communities of color within the intersecting ideologies and structures of racism, sexism, and classism (Huber, 2008). — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 482
Categorization
- DEFINE: Crisply establishes CRT’s disciplinary origin (1980s legal scholars responding to CLS) and its branching specializations (FemCrit, LatCrit, AsianCrit, WhiteCrit).
- XREF: Complements the definition of critical legal studies as a radical legal theory strand the reader has curated from CLS literature. — connects to: Reading law oppositionally reveals how contested ideas harden into normalized racial commonsense — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 364
Broader Connections
- Reading law oppositionally reveals how contested ideas harden into normalized racial commonsense
#expands(0.75) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 364