Thread by @DrRJKavanagh

That's a central tenet, but it is so much more. It's a school of jurisprudence, founded by Derrick Bell, which says that the law isn't a neutral arbiter of fact, as law schools traditionally teach, but rather functions to uphold white supremacy

https://twitter.com/AlanWorsley1/status/1389278231581265921

One of the key concepts is something Professor Bell called interest convergence: the idea that Black people only make progress when their interests converge with White Americans, the classic example being Brown v. Board of Education.

He saw that decision as arising out of a need to shore up America's reputation abroad during the cold war, when, proclaiming it represented democracy and freedom, while have legally segregated school system was starting to become problematic.

(The same way, incidentally, one could argue, police shootings are now.)

But, despite the US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 50 then 60 years later, he would note, schools remained more segregated than ever.

So in this way the law functioned to perpetuate white supremacy.

Anyway, this is just one part of a very complex theory - so many other amazing scholars, like Cheryl Harris, Kimberle Crenshaw, Patricia Williams.

Ideas like intersectionality are fundamental.

Also key for Professor Bell was the way race functioned to divide poor people - Cheryl Harris wrote Whiteness as Property.

Anyway, it's so much more than that one thing.

I don't know what age the children are supposed to be who are being taught critical race theory, but it's pretty complex, like I still find it a lot to grapple with, so there's that part.

Point being, when people talk about critical race theory being taught in schools, I am pretty sure this is not what they're talking about.

PS. I had the very good fortune to have Derrick Bell supervise my doctoral dissertation. He was my mentor and became like a surrogate father to me. Every time I read about "critical race theory" the way it is used now, I think how it would blow his mind.