You might've seen a good deal of outraged right-wing bloviating about "critical race theory" lately. So what *is* critical race theory, actually?

Here's a very brief breakdown of how to understand "CRT," what it is, and why it actually makes a ton of sense. #ncpol

This is taken from @Transliberalism's excellent breakdown, which you can read in full below.

"Critical race theory has no canonical definition. However, most critical race theorists share a few themes in common..."
https://transliberalism.substack.com/p/critical-race-theory-a-brief-introduction #ncpol

"(1) A viewpoint that racism is not an aberration, but is the typical way society works; the view that white people as a class benefit from racism, and so there is a major force disincentivizing them, the dominant racial class, from ending institutional racism." #ncpol

"(2) the view that race is a socially constructed series of relations, not a natural biological fact; (3) focus on differential racialization, how races are differentiated from each other and from themselves over time; (4) interest in anti-essentialism & intersectionality" #ncpol

"(5) the belief that, in general, racial minorities are more competent to speak about racism than white people, again in general."

That's pretty much it. Race is a social construct and systemic racism exists. CRT is about dealing with those obvious, basic facts of life. #ncpol

Right-wingers make up a lot of nonsense about CRT not only because they don't understand it (and don't bother to try), but also because their latent racial resentment make them defensive about the entire enterprise of grappling with racism itself. #ncpol

The problem with a lot of critical race theory discussion is that it's extremely academic and theoretical. When talking about it with normal people, don't make them read a PhD thesis. Meet them where they are. It's just about understanding and dismantling racism. #ncpol