Critical racial theory has lapsed into a reflexively repeated clichéd vocabulary.
Evidence
Racial theory of late has grown awfully weary. It has come to trade in and on a clichéd vocabulary repeated uncritically in journal articles and books, colloquia and classroom seminars, convention panels and collegial conversations. Those of us engaged in critically theorizing racial concepts and racist expressions, formations, and practices should know we’re in trouble when the language of analysis assumed all too reflexively turns up unself-consciously on Ted Koppel’s Nightline and CNN’s Larry King Live. — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 140
Categorization
- SEED: Essay angle: when academic vocabulary crossing into mainstream TV signals a field’s own conceptual exhaustion rather than its success at reaching the public.