Thread by @MedleyTrey

@RedeemedRags I will try to be brief, but I will likely fail because a) I'm pretty verbose and b) there's a lot of variety and nuance within it:

@RedeemedRags CRT, like many Critical Theories, came out of Academic Legal studies. Essentially wanting to know why the gains made in the 1960s in Civil Rights did not continue at the same pacing as during the Civil Rights

@RedeemedRags As a Critical Theory, it roots present conflict in material historical causes (and thus is technically Marxist, but only in the way all Social Sciences are). The cause, here, being slavery and Jim Crow as uniquely distinct from other social ills

@RedeemedRags The current conflict is presented largely in data points regarding the disparate outcomes and treatment of BIPOC, but especially Black Americans, with the root of these causes traced historically. Generally speaking, most CRT advocates hold to a few conclusions:

@RedeemedRags 1) Racism following the 1960s is primarily institutional/societal and not individual. For instance, housing discrimination/redlining led to Black communities having less generational wealth than white communities, this also impacts education (schools are funded by property taxes)

@RedeemedRags 2) Gains that were made for racial equality were largely due to convergence: the interests of dominant culture (white people) were the same as those of black people at the time those gains were made.

@RedeemedRags Future gains, it is hypothesized, will only occur if convergence can again be reached. I'll group another point together with this one, which is that white people, as the dominant culture, have therefore been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation

@RedeemedRags 3) Races are a social construct (i.e. that there are certain traits or characteristics beyond physical appearance that belong to ethnicities based upon genetics or similar factors). This has been used to categorize people and maintain white dominance in American/European contexts

@RedeemedRags 4) The idea that racism has been the standard MO in American (and European) society, not the deviation. Think, for instance, the idea of those who say "this is not who America is" and others who say "This is exactly who we are." This brings us to the final point

@RedeemedRags 5) Counter-story telling. This is the idea that the as the dominant society has controlled the narrative and history taught to all individuals, a powerful tool to fight societal racism is counter-story telling.

@RedeemedRags That is, relaying the stories that undercut "great man" narratives or narratives of white dominance. Think, for instance, about the recent resurgence in the awareness of the Tulsa Massacre. Most white people never heard of it before two years ago.

@RedeemedRags Now it is somewhat ubiquitous, but a majority of Black people have heard about before hand. Or the fact that Alexander Dumas was Black (meaning that, in all likelihood, the main character in the Count of Monte Christo, a hallmark of European literature, was also Black).

@RedeemedRags Most CRT advocates take an activist approach to Social Sciences and counter-story telling is understood as particularly effective. That's as much of a nutshell as I think I can do.