“What they’re trying to say with this is that the actions of the past aren’t affecting the present,” said Robinson, the 8th grade history teacher in Dallas.“They want us to act like slavery and Jim Crow have no bearing on the issues in our society right now. And if that’s the case, then they should cancel my class.”
What it isn’t: Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not about diversity, equity and inclusion training. It’s not simply acknowledging that racism exists. It’s definitely not about ‘special treatment’ for minorities. It’s also not being taught in K-12 public schools in Canada and the United States; in fact, it’s not about teaching kid at all. But maybe it should be.
Instead, CRT is a dynamic, evolving strategy for understanding how racism in North America has shaped public policy and the law, and how people of colour encounter the world through racial hierarchies. Think of it as a set of tools for understanding legal, financial and educational systems, and government policies.
CRT first emerged as ‘a movement in the law’ in American universities. Legal scholars Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Howard Winant, Derrick Bell and others realized that new theories and strategies were needed especially in law schools to understand why racism continued to exist in the 1970s and 1980s, decades after Jim Crow laws had been overturned in the US and Canada. They also wondered how to deal with ongoing racism because superficial policies about ‘colour blindness’ were just not working. CRT strategies are now being used in STEM, law, arts and humanities programs at colleges and universities across North America.
CRT basics: We know biologically we are all part of one human race that has many ethnicities. We realize that the idea of race is a very real social construct that continues to be powerful here and now. We also know that race has been defined, understood and constructed in very different ways throughout history, and that legacies of colonialism, slavery, segregation and forced acculturation tied to our ideas about race still impact our nations and our daily lives to this day – they continue to create an uneven playing field that strengthens white economic and political interests at the expense of Indigenous communities and people of colour.
As Crenshaw told the New York Times, CRT “is a way of seeing, attending to, accounting for, tracing and analyzing the ways that race is produced, the ways that racial inequality is facilitated, and the ways that our history has created these inequalities that now can be almost effortlessly reproduced unless we attend to the existence of these inequalities.”
CRT is also about intersectionalism —- a way to think about how race, class, gender identity, physical abilities, and sexual orientation “intersect” with one another. None of us has a single identity: we may be male, female, or nonbinary; Jewish, Christian or atheist; able bodied or in a wheelchair; a first generation Canadian or an Indigenous person; bilingual or monolingual.
In her analysis of legal cases, Crenshaw pointed out what should be obvious: that Black women are both Black and female, and therefore subject to discrimination on the basis of ideas about race, gender, and often, a combination of the two. In short, there are “overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage” within our legal and other institutions.
We also see how connections among race, class and gender have been made very clear during the recent pandemic. Across North America, BIPOC people – especially women – have had disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19 because of their overrepresentation among low income workers who weren’t able to work from home.
COVID-19 also became a significant threat for Indigenous peoples around the world who have already suffered from a lack of access to healthcare and to essential services such as clean water. In 2015, there were drinking water advisories in 126 First Nations in Canada. Although the federal government committed to resolving these issues by March 2021, there are still water advisories in 33 First Nation communities over eighteen months into the pandemic, more than that experienced by any other community in Canada.
Another key idea: racism is structural. Racism and bigotry aren’t just a matter of individual choice or one person’s prejudice or bigotry; instead, they are baked into our systems of law, government, finance, health and education.
- They are apparent in Canada, where less than 1% of corporate leaders are Black.
- You can find them in school policies where students of color are punished at much higher rates than white students.
- Around 25% of Indigenous people living in Canadian urban areas live in poverty, compared to 13% of non-Indigenous population in these areas.
- Institutional racism is glaringly evident in Canada’s criminal justice system, where Indigenous women now account for 42 per cent of women in federal custody, although they only make up about 4 percent of the female population in this country.
We recognize that layers of historical and contemporary factors have contributed to where we are now in terms of institutional racism and the prison system- including centuries of genocide, colonialism and cultural erasure, the residential school system and the Sixties scoop. And we’re only one of many organizations reporting on this truth. The Truth and Reconciliation Report Calls to Action #30 and #38 call for the federal government, territories and provinces to commit to reducing the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in custody over the next decade, and to provide detailed annual reports on government progress in achieving this goal. This hasn’t happened yet.
We also know that existing openly as LGBTQ+ people in some countries may be punishable by death. In the UK and the US, where federal laws safeguard being queer to some extent, legal protections for trans kids especially concerning sports, education and healthcare are regularly being challenged by conservative media and politicians. In the US, thirty-three states have introduced more than 100 bills designed to curb the rights of transgender people since the beginning of 2021 alone. And in Canada, there is a comparable rise in the number of anti-transgender organizations and social media posts calling for a repeal of rights and laws protecting the full LGBTQ2S+ community.
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Asking tough questions can make people uncomfortable. In response, some politicians have misrepresented or demonized Critical Race Theory, suggesting that it’s unpatriotic even to acknowledge that racism and intersectional bigotry exist. In the US, at least seven states have now banned or restricted teaching CRT in public schools (where in fact, it is already not being taught), while new bills or state education policies would restrict teaching about racism in 17 other states. At a local level, opponents seek to flip school boards supporting equity initiatives.
In contrast, CRT is expanding its footprint in Canadian law schools; both the University of Saskatchewan and Lakehead University are introducing new courses on CRT and law this fall. But in a settler colonial state like Canada, systemic racism is deeply rooted. There’s even pushback at a university level, as experienced by the Canadian Historical Association when it recognized that Canada had participated in the genocide of Indigenous nations on this continent. And issues of racism and intersectional bigotry are unevenly addressed in K-12 curricula across Canada’s provinces and territories.
How all of this affects your organization: As employers, administrators, students, educators, healthcare staff or government officials, you may face challenges in addressing what diversity, equity and inclusivity comprehensively mean for your organization, or how to develop effective policies and evaluative mechanisms to ensure that DEI is embraced by your communities.
All of us have to address the need for systematic and sweeping organizational, institutional and culture change that strategies like CRT make clear.
- We know that working through these issues is challenging, but it’s worth the effort – change only comes from confronting difficult realities honestly and directly. And change isn’t about creating shame – it’s about changing policies, political and economic approaches. It’s about reaching hearts and minds whether through corporate workshops, cultural and economic mapping, federal and institutional policy reviews or legal challenges.
- We know that one way to ensure better knowledge and understanding is by decolonizing information, by holding ourselves accountable to each other and to under-represented communities, by ensuring that all our histories are accessible through updated school curriculum, sociocultural analysis and oral histories, exhibits, comprehensive databases, and effective media coverage.
At inclusiv, we don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we understand the value of positive, sustainable change, and ways to achieve it. We’ll work with your community and corporation to find answers for you.
References
Canadian Historical Association, Recognizing Genocide in Canada, https://cha-shc.ca/news/recognizing-genocide-in-canada-2021-08-20
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Demarginalizing the Intersections of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and AntiRacist Policies, University of Chicago Legal Forum, Volume 1989, Issue 1
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory – an Introduction. New York University Press, 2001. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5441df7ee4b02f59465d2869/t/5d8e9fdec6720c0557cf55fa/1569628126531/DELGADO++Critical+Race+Theory.pdf
Fortin, Jacy. Critical Race Theory: A Brief History. New York Times July 27, 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html.
Shekon Neechie, Open letter to the Council of the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Public, Aug 13 2021, https://shekonneechie.ca/2021/08/13/open-letter-to-the-council-of-the-canadian-historical-association-and-the-canadian-public/
Zalnack, Matt. Critical Race Theory Tracker, District Administration (June 2021), https://districtadministration.com/critical-race-theory-tracker-banned-schools-education/
Zou, Isabel. What is Critical Race Theory? Explaining the discipline that Texas’ governor wants abolished, Texas Tribune June 22 2021 https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/22/texas-critical-race-theory-explained/
