Abstract
I have argued that CRT is fundamentally flawed with respect to its advocacy of ‘white supremacy’, as a generally applicable descriptor of racism in certain modern societies, and in its prioritizing of ‘race’ over social class. In this chapter, I will assess what I perceive to be some of CRT’s strengths. I will look specifically at the use of the concept of property to explain historically segregation and white supremacy in the US; the importance of voice; the concept of chronicle; the all-pervasive existence of racism in the world; interest convergence theory; contradiction-closing cases transposition and CRT and the law in the US. I will indicate where I think these strengths can be enhanced by Marxist analysis
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The online version has this sentence incorrectly translated as ‘Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted’. My thanks to Stathis Kouvelakis for pointing this out to me.
- 2.
‘Creole’ is an adaptation of the Castillian-Spanish colonial word, criolla. In the US context, the term ‘Creole’ refers to a unique group of people who reside in Louisiana, particularly New Orleans. The first Creoles were descendants from Senegambia in Africa, who were brought to Louisiana as slaves in the eighteenth century. Creoles are of mixed African and French and/or Spanish heritage (DeCuir-Gunby 2006, p. 96).
- 3.
DeCuir-Gunby (2006, p. 107) argues that the case of Josephine DeCuir ‘evokes many questions about the present-day role of mulitiracialism’, making reference to the 2000 US Census which for the first time gave individuals the opportunity to ‘identify multiracially’ (ibid., p. 108). Noting that on the surface this option seems positive, beneath the surface she suggests, ‘listing all racial groups, especially white, is an attempt to access the property rights of whiteness’ (ibid., p. 108), and that the ‘multiracial label’ has been most used by whites ‘in an attempt to transfer the property rights of whiteness to their multiracial children’ (ibid.). While the motives of people using ‘multiracial labels’ are interesting issues in the context of a racialized capitalist society, I do not think that directly relating the case of Josephine DeCuir to such issues is particularly illuminating. What I have attempted in this section of the chapter is to assess CRT’s efficacy in explaining segregation and white supremacy in their historical contexts. The case of Josephine DeCuir performs this function well.
- 4.
In Marxist theory, the capitalist state is more than mere government, and includes a range of institutions, including the hierarchy of the police, of the armed forces, the courts and so on. I am thinking here of national states. There are also local states, as, for example, the individual states of the ‘United States of America’, each of which also encompasses a range of institutions.
- 5.
This is not surprising given the fact that, in her writing in general, Ladon-Billings shows more sympathy to Marxist theory and concepts than do many other Critical Race Theorists.
- 6.
Murray’s interpretation is most interesting. First, it implies that media images are somehow objective; second, in a most racist and sexist way, it juxtaposes black men and black women—the former, criminals, the latter, inept.
- 7.
I put ‘white’ in brackets because it is possible to imagine a state, in which the ruling faction is not white, that might accommodate the interests of another non-white minority when it converges with the interests of the non-white state. Indeed, an example of this might be President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa’s delayed response to the violent racism meted out in South Africa from black South Africans to black Zimbabwean immigrants (see chapter 6 for a discussion). Mbeki was silent for two weeks before eventually breaking his virtual silence, following international coverage of these attacks ‘left more than 50 people dead and tens of thousands fleeing their homes’ to denounce them as an ‘absolute disgrace’ (McGreal 2008).
- 8.
It is also possible to imagine this scenario taking place when the none of the participants are people of color. We might just substitute a metropolitan area offering school places to white working class students in predominantly white middle class schools, and enticing middle class students to attend city schools (I am using class in a sociological rather than Marxist sense here: in terms of occupation and status rather than relationship to the mode of production).
- 9.
Delgado’s addition of ‘or the poor’ is significant and, one would assume, relates to the aforementioned fact that Delgado favours a ‘return to class’ within CRT.
- 10.
Gillborn (2008, p. 133) is careful to stress his awareness that his analysis could be seen as disrespectful to the Lawrence family’s ongoing battle for justice, and of victories won along the way. He underlines that this is neither his intent, nor, he hopes the outcome of his analysis, and lists a number of such victories (ibid., pp. 133–4). ‘The Lawrence Inquiry’, he notes, ‘has delivered considerable advances and holds out the possibility of further progress, but it is a start not an end’ (ibid., p. 135).
- 11.
- 12.
Similar hypocrisy was apparent in The Sun which, as Gillborn (2008, p. 86) points out, transposed its usual anti-Muslim sentiment into the more acceptable language of gender equity (‘face veil stops girls learning’), while on the opposite page it featured topless ‘Nikkala 24, from Middlesex’.
- 13.
Louis Althusser (1971) differentiates between what he calls the Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) (government, administration, army, police, courts, prisons) and the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) (religion, education, family, law, politics, trade unions, communication, culture). While the ISAs operate via ideology, the RSAs operate primarily by force and control. This can be by making illegal the forces and organisations (and their tactics) that threaten the capitalist status quo and the rate of profit. Thus, for example, restrictions are placed on strike action and trade union activities. More extreme versions of RSA action include heavy intimidatory policing and other forms of state-sanctioned political repression and violence by the police and armed forces. The ruling class, and governments in whose interests they act, tend to prefer, in normal circumstances, to operate via ISAs. Changing the school curriculum to make it more in line with the requirements of capital, for example, is less messy than sending in the riot police or the troops; and it is deemed to be more legitimate by the populace (Hill 2001, p. 106; see also Hill 1989, 2004, 2005). For Althusser, whereas the religious ISA (system of different churches) used historically to be the major ISA, ‘the ISA which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations … is the educational ideological apparatus …[it is] number one’ (Althusser 1971, p. 153). To what extent, Althusser might have modified his views on education as being the dominant ISA, given the current hegemony of organised religion (distortions of Christianity and Islam) is open to debate. In addition, the proliferation of the mass media in its numerous guises might have encouraged Althusser to attribute a more central role to ‘culture’. However, there is no denying the current power of education in distilling dominant ideologies. In the UK, for example, ‘education, education, education’ was, as is well known, Tony Blair’s New Labour mantra. While there is disagreement among Marxists about the precise relationship between education, privatisation and capitalist profits (e.g. Rikowski 2005; Hatcher 2006; see also Cole 2007), there is a general consensus that the education system is a very powerful force in the maintenance of capitalism.
- 14.
Gillborn (2008, pp. 34–5).
- 15.
This is the transcript of part of a real conversation; see Cole (2008b, p. 13).
- 16.
This was also really part of a real conversation; see Cole (2008b, p. 13).
- 17.
Mac an Ghaill (2000).
- 18.
The platform of the UK socialist organization, Respect is referred to in chapter 8 of this volume. Unfortunately, it has recently split, and its future is uncertain.
- 19.
This was also really said; see Cole (2008b, p. 13).
- 20.
Proyect (2007).
- 21.
See pp. 43–44 of this volume.
- 22.
Following the conviction of Lee Coleman who repeatedly used the racist term, ‘pikey’ in a drunken outburst over a nightclub entry fee, ‘pikey’ has become a ‘race’ hate word (Metro December 13, 2007). During his outburst Coleman made stereotypical racist accusations of theft.
- 23.
The fact that it does not occur to the Professor (convinced of the efficacy of CRT notions of ‘white supremacy’) that Jo might be a member of a white oppressed group, in this case a member of one of the GRT community groups, underlines the third of four problems with the concept of ‘white supremacy’ that I identified in chapter 3 of this volume, namely that ‘white supremacy’ inadequately explains non-colour-coded racism.
References
Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In Lenin and philosophy and other essays. London: New Left Books. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/LPOE70ii.html#s5. Accessed 30 May 2008.
Bell, D. (1980). Brown V. Board of Education and the interest-convergence principle. Harvard Law Review, 93, 518–533.
Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beratan, G. (2008, forthcoming). The song remains the same: Transposition and the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education. Race, Ethnicity and Education.
Campbell, N. (2008, February). When the supermodel met the potentate. GQ Magazine, pp. 56–61.
Cole, M. (2006, March). “Looters and thugs and inert women doing nothing”: Racialized communities in Capitalist America and the role of higher education. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4(1). Online. Available at: http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=64. Accessed 4 Aug 2007.
Cole, M. (2007). Neo-liberalism and education: A Marxist critique of new labour’s five year strategy for education. In A. Green, G. Rikowski, & H. Raduntz (Eds.), Renewing dialogues in Marxism and education: Volume 1—Openings. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cole, M. (2008a). Marxism and educational theory: Origins and issues. London: Routledge.
Cole, M. (2008b). Maintaining ‘the adequate continuance of the British race and British ideals in the world’: Contemporary racism and the challenges for education. Inaugural Professorial Lecture, delivered 13 November, 2006, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln, Lincoln, Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln.
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Kendall, T. (1995). Introduction. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical Race Theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: The New Press.
Dallmayr, F. (2004). The underside of modernity: Adorno, Heidegger, and Dussel. Constellations, 11(1), 102–120.
Darder, A., & Torres, R. D. (2004). After race: Racism after multiculturalism. New York/London: New York University Press.
DeCuir v. Benson. (1875). 27 La. Ann. 1 (Fifth District Court of Orleans Parish).
Decuir-Gunby, J. T. (2006). “Proving your skin is white, you can have everything”: Race, racial identity, and property rights in whiteness in the Supreme Court case of Josephine DeCuir. In A. D. Dixson & C. K. Rousseau (Eds.), Critical Race Theory in education: All god’s children got a song. New York/London: Routledge.
Delgado, R. (1995). The Rodrigo Chronicles: Conversations about America and race. New York: New York University Press.
Delgado, R. (1998). Rodrigo’s Committee assignment: A sceptical look at judicial independence. Southern California Law Review, 72, 425–454.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical Race Theory: An introduciton. New York: New York University Press.
Engels, F. (1890, September 21). The materialist conception of history: From a letter to Joseph Bloch. London. Online. Available at: www.socialistparty.org.uk/WhatIsMarxFrame.htm. Accessed 6 July 2008.
Engels, F. (1895) [1972]. Marx-Engels correspondence 1890 to J. Bloch in Königsberg. In Historical materialism (Marx, Engels, Lenin). Moscow: Progress Publishers. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm. Accessed 20 May 2008.
Gillborn, D. (2005). Education policy as an act of white supremacy: Whiteness, critical race theory and education reform. Journal of Education Policy, 20(4), 485–505.
Gillborn, D. (2006). Rethinking white supremacy: Who counts in ‘WhiteWorld’. Ethnicities, 6(3), 318–340.
Gillborn, D. (2008). Racism and education: Coincidence or conspiracy? London: Routledge.
Goldenberg, S. (2008, July 11). US election 2008: “I want to cut his nuts out”—Jackson gaffe turns focus on Obama’s move to the right. The Guardian. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/11/barackobama.uselections2008. Accessed 11 July 2008.
Hatcher, R. (2006). Privatisation and sponsorship: The re-agenting of the school system in England. Journal of Education Policy, 21(5), 599–619.
Hill, D. (1989). C harge of the Right Brigade: The radical right’s attack on teacher education. Brighton: Institute for Education Policy Studies. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.ieps.org.uk.cwc.net/hill1989.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2008.
Hill, D. (2001). State theory and the neo-liberal reconstruction of schooling and teacher education: A structuralist neo-Marxist critique of postmodernist, quasi-postmodernist, and culturalist neo-Marxist theory. The British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22(1), 137–157.
Hill, D. (2004). Books, banks and bullets: Controlling our minds- the global project of imperialistic and militaristic neo-liberalism and its effect on education policy. Policy Futures in Education, 2, 3–4. Theme: Marxist Futures in Education. http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/2/issue2_3.asp
Hill, D. (2005). State theory and the neoliberal reconstruction of schooling and teacher education. In G. Fischman, P. McLaren, H. Sünker, & C. Lankshear (Eds.), Critical theories, radical pedagogies and global conflicts. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2005). New directions in multicultural education: Complexities, boundaries, and critical race theory. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). Foreword they’re trying to wash us away: The adolescence of critical race theory in education. In A. D. Dixson & C. K. Rousseau (Eds.), Critical Race Theory in education: All God’s children got a song. New York: Routledge.
Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68.
Leonardo, Z. (2004). The unhappy marriage between Marxism and race critique: Political economy and the production of racialized knowledge. Policy Futures in Education, 2(3&4), 483–493. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/2/issue2_3.asp#4. Accessed 9 July 2008.
Luce, E. (2008, June 24). Obama under fire over Iraq troop pledge, Financial Times <ft.com>. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/292c39c0-4217-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html. Accessed 30 June 2008.
Mac an Ghaill, M. (2000). The Irish in Britain: The invisibility of ethnicity and anti-Irish racism. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Macpherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence enquiry, report of an enquiry by Sir William Macpherson. London, HMSO. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-06.htm#6.6. Accessed 27 May 2008.
Maisuria, A. (2006). A brief history of British ‘race’ politics and the settlement of the Maisuria Family. Forum: For Promoting 3–19 Comprehensive Education, 48(1), 95–101. http://www.wwwords.co.uk/rss/abstract.asp?j=forum&aid=2769
Martin, P. (2008, June 30). As war clouds gather: Democrats back covert US attacks on Iran. World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Online. Available HTTP: http://www.wsws.org:80/articles/2008/jun2008/iran-j30.shtml. Accessed 1 July 2008.
Marx, K. (1862). A London workers’ meeting. Marx and Engels collected works (Vol. 19). Online. Available HTTP: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/02/02.htm. Accessed 1 June 2008.
McGreal, C. (2008, May 26). Mbeki condemns violence as a “disgrace”. The Guardian. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/26/southafrica.zimbabwe. Accessed 3 June 2008.
McLaren, P., & Scatamburlo-D’Annibale, V. (2010). Class-ifying race: The compassionate racism of the right and why class still matters. In Z. Leonardo (Ed.), Handbook of cultural politics and education. Boston: SensePublishers.
Metro. (2007). “Pikey” is now a race hate word. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=79744&in_page_id=34.
Morris, J. (2001). Forgotten voices of black educators: Critical race perspectives on the implementation of a desegregation plan. Educational Policy, 15, 575–600.
Poulantzas, N. (1978). State, power, socialism. London: Verso.
Proyect, L. (2007). Gypsy caravan. Online. Available HTTP: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/gypsy-caravan/. Accessed 15 May 2008.
Rikowski, G. (2005). Distillation: Education in Karl Marx’s social universe. Lunchtime Seminar, School of Education, University of East London, Barking Campus, 14 February. Online at The Flow of Ideas web site: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Distillation
Rousseau, C. K. (2006). Keeping it real; race and education in Memphis. In A. D. Dixson & C. K. Rousseau (Eds.), Critical Race Theory in education: All god’s children got a song. New York/London: Routledge.
Travis. (2003, January 15). Blunkett: Racism tag is aiding racists. The Guardian.
Van Auken, B. (2005, October 3). William Bennett’s “hypothetical” on racial genocide: A spreading stench of fascism. World Socialist Web Site. Online Available HTTP: (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/benn-o03.shtml. Accessed 6 June 2008.
Van Auken, B. (2008a, June 6). Washington demands permanent bases to repress Iraqis, launch new Middle East wars. World Socialist Web Site. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.wsws.org:80/articles/2008/jun2008/iraq-j06.shtml
Van Auken, B. (2008b, July 4). Obama continues lurch to the right on Iraq war and militarism. World Socialist Web Site Online. Available HTTP: http://www.wsws.org:80/articles/2008/jul2008/obam-j04.shtml
Viotti da Costa, E. (2001). New publics, new politics, new histories: From economic reductionism to cultural reductionism—in search of dialectics. In G. M. Joseph (Ed.), Reclaiming the political in Latin American history: Essays from the North. Durham: Duke University Press.
Watts, S. (1991). The idiocy of American studies: Post-structuralism, language, and politics in the age of self-fulfillment. American Quarterly, 43(4), 625–660.
Younge, G. (2008, July/August). US elections: Is real change coming? Socialist Review, pp. 10–13. http://socialistreview.org.uk/327/us-elections-real-change-coming
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cole, M. (2017). The Strengths of CRT. In: Critical Race Theory and Education. Marxism and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95079-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95079-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95078-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95079-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)