Synopses & Reviews
In the past few years, a new generation of progressive intellectuals has dramatically transformed how law, race, and racial power are understood and discussed in America. Questioning the old assumptions of both liberals and conservatives with respect to the goals and the means of traditional civil rights reform, critical race theorists have presented new paradigms for understanding racial injustice and new ways of seeing the links between race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. This reader, edited by the principal founders and leading theoreticians of the critical race theory movement, gathers together for the first time the movement's most important essays.
Review
"As of the publication of
Critical Race Theory it will be unwise, if not impossible, to do any serious work on race without referencing this splendid collection."
—Toni Morrison
"A fundamental reference guide to any serious work on race."
—Amsterdam News
"Critical Race Theory is a compilation of provocative writings that challenges us to consider the relationship between race, the legal system, and society at large."
—Senator Bill Bradley
Synopsis
The foundational work on Critical Race Theory--now under fire from the Trump administration
Why did the president of the United States, in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis, take it upon himself to attack Critical Race Theory? Perhaps Donald Trump appreciated the power of this groundbreaking intellectual movement to change the world.
In recent years, Critical Race Theory has vaulted out of the academy and into courtrooms, newsrooms, and onto the streets. And no wonder: as intersectionality theorist Kimberl Crenshaw recently told Time magazine, "It's an approach to grappling with a history of white supremacy that rejects the belief that what's in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it." The panicked denunciations from the right notwithstanding, CRT has changed the way millions of people interpret our troubled world.
Edited by its principal founders and leading theoreticians, Critical Race Theory was the first book to gather the movement's most important essays. This groundbreaking book includes contributions from scholars including Derrick Bell, Kimberl Crenshaw, Patricia Williams, Dorothy Roberts, Lani Guinier, Duncan Kennedy, and many others. It is essential reading in an age of acute racial injustice.
Synopsis
What is Critical Race Theory and why is it under fire from the political right? This foundational essay collection, which defines key terms and includes case studies, is the essential work to understand the intellectual movement
Why did the president of the United States, in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis, take it upon himself to attack Critical Race Theory? Perhaps Donald Trump appreciated the power of this groundbreaking intellectual movement to change the world.
In recent years, Critical Race Theory has vaulted out of the academy and into courtrooms, newsrooms, and onto the streets. And no wonder: as intersectionality theorist Kimberl Crenshaw recently told Time magazine, It's an approach to grappling with a history of white supremacy that rejects the belief that what's in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it. The panicked denunciations from the right notwithstanding, CRT has changed the way millions of people interpret our troubled world.
Edited by its principal founders and leading theoreticians, Critical Race Theory was the first book to gather the movement's most important essays. This groundbreaking book includes contributions from scholars including Derrick Bell, Kimberl Crenshaw, Patricia Williams, Dorothy Roberts, Lani Guinier, Duncan Kennedy, and many others. It is essential reading in an age of acute racial injustice.
About the Author
Kimberlé Crenshaw is a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia School of Law in New York. Neil Gotanda is a professor of law at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California. Gary Peller is a professor of law at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C. Kendall Thomas is a professor of law at Columbia School of Law in New York.