Title
Historicizing Critical Race Theory’s Cutting Edge: Key Movements that Performed the Theory
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
January 2002
Abstract
Its opponents call it part of "the lunatic fringe, " a justification for "black separateness, " "the most embarrassing trend in American publishing." "It" is Critical Race Theory. But what is Critical Race Theory? How did it develop? Where does it stand now? Where should it go in the future? In this volume, thirty-one CRT scholars present their views on the ideas and methods of CRT, its role in academia and in the culture at large, and its past, present, and future. Critical race theorists assert that both the procedures and the substance of American law are structured to maintain white privilege. The neutrality and objectivity of the law are not just unattainable ideals; they are harmful fictions that obscure the law's role in protecting white supremacy. This notion -- so obvious to some, so unthinkable to others -- has stimulated and divided legal thinking in this country and, increasingly, abroad. The essays in Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory -- all original -- address this notion in a variety of helpful and exciting ways. They use analysis, personal experience, historical narrative, and many other techniques to explain the importance of looking critically at how race permeates our national consciousness.
Recommended Citation
Sumi Cho with R. Westley, Historicizing Critical Race Theory’s Cutting Edge: Key Movements that Performed the Theory, in Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory 32 (Frank Valdes, Jerome Culp and Angela Harris, eds., Temple University Press, 2002)
