A theoretical framework or paradigm that seeks to uncover the ways that institutional, structural, and systemic racism operate and manifest in people’s lives and in society is Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Solorzano and Yosso, 2000; Delgado and Stefancic, 2001; Gillborn, 2008).
CRT is a social scientific approach that ‘offers a lens through which to make sense of, deconstruct and challenge racial inequality in society’ (Rollock and Gillborn, 2011). It ‘endeavours to expose the way in which racial inequality is maintained through the operation of structures and assumptions that appear normal and unremarkable’ (Rollock and Gillborn, 2011). CRT developed from Critical Legal Studies in the US (see Bell, 1992 and Crenshaw, 1995) to examine how national legislation expanding civil rights in the US post-Civil Rights Era (1950s and 1960s) did little to improve the material and social lives of Black Americans and other non-White racial and ethnic groups, as well as slow or limited change in social and economic conditions for the LGBTQI communities and immigrant communities. CRT affirms the centrality of race and racism in society such that racism is endemic and ‘normalised’ (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Gillborn, 2008), and the very ‘ordinariness makes racism hard to recognize much less address' (Delgado and Stefancic, 2007). CRT emphasises how political, social, and economic arrangements are structured by racial hierarchy (Bonilla-Silva 1997). Importantly, CRT ‘does not imagine that racism is the only social problem and thereby erase issues of class, gender, disability and other forms of discrimination’ (Lander and Gillborn 2020, italics in the original). CRT is encompassing of and sensitive to ‘intersectionality’ (Crenshaw, 1989; 1995). ‘Intersectionality’ is a concept and analytical framework to analyse how aspects of a person's social and political identities/social characterisations, such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability/disability, among others, combine to create different modes of privilege/discrimination and advantage/disadvantage.
Recently, CRT has become a controversial theory and approach in the UK. The Department for Education has opposed the teaching of CRT in schools (September 2020) and the current UK government debated the teaching of CRT in schools in the House of Commons declaring itself ‘unequivocally against’ it. Proponents of CRT have critiqued the backlash from the government as a misinterpretation of the framework and its central tenets and has provided evidence and counter arguments to clarify the ontological positions, assumptions of, and utility of the sociological theory. Perhaps a more balanced and clear explanation of CRT is provided by the University of Birmingham:
CRT is a thoughtful and multi-faceted approach to understanding how racism operates across society, including through both individual actions and through structural processes that shape the everyday reality in education, the health service, the criminal justice system and politics.
CRT may provide avenues to interpret and understand how racism is operating in policing organisations and new ways to address and change structures and processes that perpetuate institutional and individual racism.
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