Civic Forum - Structural Racism & Repair 2022
Sunday, Oct 30, 2022 1:00 PM-3:30 PM
If anything is clear in 2022, it is that we are a deeply divided nation. A key driver of these divisions is structural racism and the changing demographics in the United States. And these are coming to a head today in the wars around teaching critical race theory. So what are the implications of all of this for our lives as informed, engaged citizens and future voters in the United States in 2022? We were fortunate to be led in this exploration by Dr. Steven Becton, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at Facing History and Ourselves.
For this month’s Civic Forum, we stepped back to look more closely and more deeply at what structural racism is, how it manifests, and what we--as the rising generation of civic leaders--can do about it. Structural racism is, obviously, a huge and complex topic. And it’s not something we can dismantle overnight. It’s also an incredibly important concept to understand and consider in relation to, well, just about everything, and it’s something that we will continue to explore over the course of our Civic Forums and our lives. We talked about the 4 Is of oppression, white supremacy culture, how racism manifests, and levers for combating it at individual, communal, and system levels. Read on for more.
So what is Structural Racism?
So what IS “structural racism?” As defined by The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, structural racism in the U.S. is the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, economic, institutional, and interpersonal – that routinely advantage white people while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. It is a system of hierarchy and inequity, primarily characterized by white supremacy – the preferential treatment, privilege and power for white people at the expense of Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Arab, and other racially oppressed people. It is a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. The structural racism lens allows us to see that, as a society, we more or less take for granted a context of white leadership, dominance, and privilege.
The dominant consensus on race is the frame that shapes our attitudes and judgments about social issues. It has come about as a result of the way that historically accumulated white privilege, national values, and contemporary culture have interacted so as to preserve the gaps between white Americans and Americans of color. Structural racism is not something that a select individual or institutions choose to practice out of their own individual, conscious racism but rather something that we are all embedded within. Addressing it entails analysis of systems in order to understand why changes in multiple sectors are necessary to make genuinely sustainable progress towards racial equity in any particular sphere, such as education, health, or economic security.
How does Critical Race Theory figure into this?
Critical race theory (CRT) and how it is taught in classrooms is at the center of current debate nationwide. Since January 2021, 42 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Videos of tense debates over CRT at school board meetings have gone viral.
There's a significant partisan divide not only on applying the theory, but also on how it evolved over time, what it represents, and how it could influence students. Supporters of critical race theory being taught in schools say it's a necessary academic tool for "examining how racism is embedded in America’s laws and institutions" and argue that attempts to suppress it represent a "Republican scare tactic and disinformation campaign." Opponents of critical race theory in schools argue that it trains people to only "see everything through the lens of racial group identity and inherited guilt"; some called for "more grassroots involvement in ensuring that schools teach American history and values with fairness and accuracy." CRT supporters often describe it as a positive after-effect of the civil rights movement; opponents often say it has Marxist roots and is anti-American.
So what IS Critical Race Theory?
Critical race theory (CRT) is a body of legal scholarship and an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the intersection of race and U.S. law and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the United States.
CRT originated in the mid 1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars. It emerged as a movement by the 1980s, reworking theories of critical legal studies (CLS) with more focus on race. CRT is grounded in critical theory and draws from thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, as well as the Black Power, Chicano, and radical feminist movements from the 1960s and 1970s.
While critical race theorists do not all share the same beliefs, the basic tenets of CRT include that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices in individuals. CRT scholars also view race and white supremacy as an intersectional social construction, which serves to uphold the interests of white people at the expense of marginalized communities. In the field of legal studies, CRT emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways. A key CRT concept is intersectionality, which emphasizes that race can intersect with other identities (such as gender and class) to produce complex combinations of power and disadvantage.
Academic critics of CRT argue that it relies on social constructionism, elevates storytelling over evidence and reason, rejects the concepts of truth and merit, and opposes liberalism. Since 2020, conservative lawmakers in the United States have sought to ban or restrict critical race theory instruction along with other anti‑racism programs. Critics of these efforts say the lawmakers have poorly defined or misrepresented the tenets and importance of CRT and that the goal of the laws is to silence discussions of racism, equality, social justice, and the history of race.
Our Upcoming Civic Forum
So what are the implications of all of this for our lives as informed, engaged citizens and future voters in the United States in 2022? We were fortunate to be led in this exploration by Dr. Steven Becton, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at Facing History and Ourselves. We talked about the 4 Is of oppression, white supremacy culture, how racism manifests, and levers for combating it at individual, communal, and system levels. Check it out!