The last part of this quotation is highly significant: institutional racism “originates in
the operation of established and respected forces in the society” (emphasis added).
This is vital, because CRT amounts to more than a perspective on institutional racism,
it involves a critical perspective on the nature of US politics and society. For example,
among the other defining features that William Tate identifies are:
CRT reinterprets civil rights law in light of its limitations, illustrating that laws to remedy
racial inequality are often undermined before they can be fully implemented. (Tate, 1997,
p. 234)
CRT portrays dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and
meritocracy as camouflages for the self-interest of powerful entities of society. (Tate,
1997, p. 235)
These perspectives, of course, are not unique to those identifying with CRT. Indeed,
as Tate notes, CRT “borrows” from numerous traditions and is frequently
characterized by a readiness to cross epistemological boundaries. This theoretical
eclecticism is so strong that Tate includes it as one of his key characteristics of the
approach (1997, p. 234). What is most important, however, is the way that these
various “insights” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000, p. xvi) are brought together in a new
and challenging way. These perspectives, of course, raise deeply troubling questions.
Indeed, CRT is frequently misinterpreted as taking a dismissive stance on the
advances achieved by the Civil Rights movement in the US, advances achieved at
enormous human cost. This criticism, however, misreads CRT. As Kimberle:
Crenshaw and her colleagues argue:
Our opposition to traditional civil rights discourse is neither a criticism of the civil rights
movement nor an attempt to diminish its significance ... we draw much of our inspiration
and sense of direction from that courageous, brilliantly conceived, spiritually inspired,
and ultimately transformative mass action. (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiv)
CRT’s critique of liberalism springs from its understanding of racism (as wide
ranging, often hidden and commonplace) and its frustration with the inability of
traditional legal discourse to address anything except the most obvious and crude
versions of racism. As already noted (above) CRT’s principal concern is with “the
business-as-usual forms of racism” that are “normal” and ingrained in the fabric of US
society not the few exceptional cases of obvious discrimination “that do stand out”
(Delgado & Stefancic, 2000, p. xvi). CRT not only criticizes the inability of
traditional legal discourse to deal with such complex and comprehensive racism, it
goes further, by viewing legal discourse as one of the prime means by which such a
critical perspective is denied legitimacy and the status quo is defended:
Racial justice was embraced in the American mainstream in terms that excluded radical
or fundamental challenges to status quo institutional practices in American society by
treating the exercise of racial power as rare and aberrational rather than as systemic and
ingrained. . [This perspective] conceived racism as an intentional, albeit irrational,
deviation by a conscious wrongdoer from otherwise neutral, rational, and just ways of
distributing jobs, power, prestige, and wealth. . liberal race reform thus served to
legitimize the basic myths of American meritocracy. (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiv)
As this quotation helps to explain, CRT’s criticisms of meritocracy, and related
notions such as objectivity and colour-blindness, are not a rejection of them in
principle but a criticism of their raced effects in practice. It is simply and
demonstrably the case that these notions, despite their apparent concern for equity and
justice, operate as a mechanism by which particular groups are excluded from the
mainstream (be it in relation to legal redress, employment or educational
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