Neoliberalism
Academic repression
Critical Race Theory History
Fig. 1. “Re-enactment of the moment Booker T. Washington and his family was emancipated at Booker T Washington National Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom,” Photograph credited to National Parks Service, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
[I]n a display of either ignorance or lying, right-wingers have been trying to cite critical race theory as the origin of “wokeism.” But critical race theory is not what they say it is. Critical race theory is in fact a niche tradition created in the academy in the late 1960s by Black law professors who needed to make sense of the post-civil rights movement era. Legal victories were notched but racial inequality remained. So, these scholars started focusing on systems, rather than just on the bigot shouting slurs or the KKK mailing threatening letters. They argued that it was not enough to make public racism taboo if housing law, the criminal legal system, job discrimination, a poor tax base and poor schools all combine to create and recreate structural racism.
Old concepts were discarded. Critical race theorists realized the liberal idea of “color-blindness,” where one doesn’t see race, went from being a tool of progress to one of conservatism. If you didn’t see “race,” you didn’t see how the violence of the past creates violence now. You chose not to see how segregation and redlining sunk whole neighborhoods into poverty. You chose not to see how the ideal of meritocracy means rich white kids can get subsidized by parents to go for prized internships, while Black kids can’t afford to work and not get paid.
New concepts were created. In her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the idea of intersectionality to describe how many forms of oppression can tie up one’s life like a sticky, poisonous spiderweb.[1]
Nicholas Powers, “This Juneteenth, We Are at War Over Our Right to Teach Black History,” Truthout, June 19, 2023, https://truthout.org/articles/this-juneteenth-we-are-at-war-over-our-right-to-teach-black-history/
Gilead
Donald Trump
Coup attempt
Fig. 2. Department of Justice photograph of seized materials, reportedly partially redacted, via the Washington Post, August 31, 2022,[2] public domain.
Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, “FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year,” Washington Post, June 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/06/19/fbi-resisted-opening-probe-into-trumps-role-jan-6-more-than-year/
Tori Otten, “Federal Judge Orders Trump to Shut Up About Classified Docs,” New Republic, June 19, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/post/173778/federal-judge-orders-trump-shut-classified-docs
Tori Otten, “Why Did the DOJ Resist Investigating Donald Trump’s Role in January 6?” New Republic, June 19, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/post/173774/doj-resist-investigating-donald-trumps-role-january-6
- [1]Nicholas Powers, “This Juneteenth, We Are at War Over Our Right to Teach Black History,” Truthout, June 19, 2023, https://truthout.org/articles/this-juneteenth-we-are-at-war-over-our-right-to-teach-black-history/↩
- [2]Devlin Barrett, “Justice Dept. says Trump team may have hidden, moved classified papers,” Washington Post, August 31, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/31/trump-documents-removed-storage-room/↩