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Founded by the late Derrick Bell, critical race theory is an
academic discipline which maintains that society is divided along
racial lines into (white) oppressors and (black) victims, similar to
the way Marxism frames the oppressor/victim dichotomy along class
lines. Critical race theory contends that America is permanently
racist to its core, and that consequently the nation's legal
structures are, by definition, racist and invalid. As Emory University professor Dorothy Brown puts it, critical race theory "seeks
to highlight the ways in which the law is not neutral and objective but
designed to support white supremacy and the subordination of people of
color." A logical
derivative of this premise, according to critical race theory, is
that the members of “oppressed” racial groups are entitled—in
fact obligated—to
determine for themselves which laws and traditions have merit and are
worth observing. Further, critical race theory holds
that
because racism is so deeply ingrained in the American character,
classical
liberal ideals such as meritocracy, equal opportunity, and colorblind
justice are essentially nothing more than empty slogans that fail to
properly combat—or
to even acknowledge the existence of—the
immense structural inequities that pervade American society and work
against black people. Thus, according to critical
race theorists,
racial
preferences (favoring blacks) in employment and higher education are
not only permissible but necessary as a means of countering the
permanent bigotry of white people who, as Bell put it, seek to
“achieve a measure of social stability through their unspoken pact
to keep blacks on the bottom.”
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