The Black Lives Matter Movement has proven its eight-year history that we are living in a new dawn of this ever-changing world. It’s become evident that we live in a time where a modernist perspective is slowly diminishing. The post-modernist view is starting to uproot; the collective work of all involved with this movement is beginning to end the systemic issue we are accustomed to seeing/ oversee. With that said, the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery have also brought many racial and ethnic groups together recently in big metropolitan cities to protest for racial inequality and voicing their outcry — enough is enough. However, despite the gatherings, some people are yet to fully understand the Black Lives Matter Movement’s purpose and why people are joining in on the movement. Seemingly so, much of the individuals seemed to follow and believe ultra-nationalist propaganda and are ignorant to the statistics that back the Black Lives Matter Movement’s reasoning. We as a society need to push for education reform and begin introducing race theory in the classrooms.
We as a society need to understand that the Black Lives Matter Movement was originally founded in 2013 after George Zimmerman’s acquittal for Trayvon Martins’s murder (Black Lives Matter). It was then when the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation took off and became an issue on a global perspective that highlighted such a prominent issue — racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual inequality — primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada (Black Lives Matter). The Black Lives Matter Movement is nothing new and isn’t only ‘popular’ — as ultra-conservatives may say — every four years. The movement’s mission is to eradicate white supremacy and better the local powers that can intervene in violence-afflicted situations with the Black Communities (Black Lives Matter).
By introducing critical race theory in classrooms, it will bring a better understanding of movements like the Black Live Matter Movement and better our society and community as a whole, reducing hate crimes and other forms of discriminatory actions towards racial and minority groups. Critical race theory is an academic movement made up of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States. These scholars and activists seek to critically examine the United States laws regarding the current intersectional issues on gender and race issues. However, critical race theory primarily challenges the mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice.
With critical race theory being introduced in the classrooms, the sometimes-uncomfortable conversations of race can be made and help broaden one’s perspective and possibly make a new perspective when hearing others out on their views. Some may also argue that the conversations on critical race theory don’t necessarily have to start in the classroom and can be done elsewhere and amongst friends. As valid as it is, this argument is not strong enough if the individual leading the conversation is not well informed (i.e., trained/ studied such topics) or informed by biased sources. This develops a colorblind ideology and denies negative racial experiences, and rejects cultural heritage. One must truly have a considerable amount of time studying and experiencing such topics to truly validify what critical race theory is about.
In an academic article published with the London Review of Education, Professor of Psychosocial Studies at Thomas Coram Research Unit., UCL Institute of Education, and other major/ prominent institutions, Professor Ann Phoenix discusses the Black Lives Matter movement with three newly graduated students from different racialized groups and reflects on the reproduction of social inequalities in key institutions and on what decolonization means for the nation, not just for education (Ann Phoenix). In this journal, she not only highlights interesting points, like how it’s become evident that media and university are still producing social inequalities but proposes a better way to discuss crucial issues that ensure that current debates and disagreements do not give way to life as normal but lead to real change in the direction of social justice (Ann Phoenix). By having these difficult conversations and recognizing the multiplicity of racism, we are able to make that stand against this oppression/ grand systemic issue we are facing/ seeing in today’s world. Professor Ann Phoenix puts it best when she states:
“We are living in unprecedented times, and we must, in such pivotal moments, reflect on our worldview and everyday practices in their social contexts. This reflection can only occur through candid and open conversations. Recently we have been involved in such conversations with people, including close friends and university academics. These have caused us to reflect deeply on the power of narrative, of sharing rarely spoken stories with people who stand in different power relations to us (Ann Phoenix).”
One can only imagine the impact such action may do if we as a society would implement appropriate levels of critical race theory in primary and secondary grade schools and how future generations would benefit from it collectivelyy.
Critical Race Theory covers many of the same studies conventional (i.e., Civil Rights and Ethnic Studies) curriculums cover. Critical race theory broadens one’s perspectives on topics like economics, history, and group/ self-interest and questions the foundations of our current curriculum we have set in place for students. Such topics derived in critical race theory include equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law (Stefancic and Delgado).
To introduce critical race theory into classrooms, we must remove the politics in our educational system and present individuals with the facts and history of the systemic issues the United States has faced since it was founded. Former President Donald Trump denounced critical race theory in the first general election debate against Vice President Joe Biden, saying:
“Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory… This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families (Lang)”
Former President Donald Trump failed to realize the benefits to society critical race theory holds and utilized his platform as a means to continue to divide the nation and maintain power — he did not have a clear understanding of what critical race theory is and where it derived from. John Powell, the director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the UC Berkeley, puts it best when he states:
“What critical race theory has done is lift up the racial gaze of America… It doesn’t stay within the law, it basically says ‘look critically at any text or perspective and try to understand different perspectives that are sometimes drowned out (Lang)”.
By addressing critical race theory in the classroom, academics can have those ‘difficult conversations with their students and acknowledge racism and discrimination. Colorblind conceptions of equality will eventually be addressed across all spectrums and will eventually see a decline in discrimination (Stefancic and Delgado).
One should also consider how social construct holds race and races as products of social thought and relations to another. As Stefanic and Delgado state in their Critical Race Theory: An Introduction paper:
“This not only means that it is not objective nor inherent, do not correspond to no biological or genetic reality; rather, races are categories of social invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient. People with common origins share certain physical traits…society frequently chooses to ignore the scientific truths… endows them with pseudo permanent characteristics (Stefancic and Delgado)”
Critical race theory can also help how dominant societies draw attention to other minority groups. United States history has proven itself to differentially racialize minority groups depending on the need of the minority group and how they do/ do not benefit the country. Popular stereotypes and images can be seen across all forms of media in the past and even today, constantly shifting as years go by. Prime examples would be how Americans perceived the Africans when they were sold into slavery, Japanese in the mid-twentieth century, and middle easterners post-911. These images stood/ stand as a form of repression towards these groups and still need to be closely monitored.
Coexisting in the past/today has been seemingly uneasy and fills one up with a lot of tension. However, people, activists, politicians, and scholars need to continue the fight to implement critical race theory into classrooms to continue bettering our society and grant future generations a better society; a society where all can coexist with one another with no fear of racism or discrimination towards any group or individuals.
By introducing critical race theory in the classrooms, it won’t only provide a simple and straightforward understanding of the themes and characteristics of critical race jurisprudence but give the United States a chance to start bettering society as a whole and continue the means of granting future generations a better coexistence amongst other minority and oppressed groups. Studying and applying critical race theory concepts to everyday lives will help individuals recognize the history, critique of liberalism, and structural determinism the United States faces on a day-to-day basis (Stefancic and Delgado). This will also help decline the colorblind ideology many Americans tend to have when dealing with race theory and concepts.
Critical race theory highlights the fact that many Americans tend to have an implicit black and white binary when it comes to an understanding intersectional beliefs and cultural nationalism (Stefancic and Delgado). Social scientists have been studying cultures of many minority groups in the United States — this including intelligence, motivations, familial arrangements, music, and more (Stefancic and Delgado). Social scientists have also applied the same studies to white people and coexist with one another (Stefancic and Delgado).
Ultimately, the individuals with the power to implement critical race theory in the classrooms would be the politicians that Americans put in office. With the current political times, both Left and Right need to make the bipartisan decision to implement critical race theory in the classrooms and leave their ego elsewhere. The history and facts do not lie and should not be overlooked any longer. Critical race theory also exposes how racism is implicitly or explicitly hidden in terminology like “mainstream”, “normal”, “traditional values”, or “neutral” policies (Stefancic and Delgado).
In a recent study conducted by several professors at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Philology, they examine how the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, May 25, 2020, had given momentum to the Black Lives Matter movement and its activists in different parts of the world and their outcry to remove/ deface monuments to historical figures associated with racism, slavery, and colonialism (Borysovych, Chaiuk and Karpova). These professors analyze these events on a social construct and semiotic level and find how these events are actually a common theme in social justice movements by which have encoded messages of new cultural and social norms to come (Borysovych, Chaiuk and Karpova). In simpler terms, as they put it:
“. . . laws, institutional discourse, media discourse are used by dominant groups to keep control over social and political realities and thus maintain their prevailing ideology. To follow this logic, white groups’ oppression and subjugation of black and other ethnic minorities were aimed at enhancing white supremacy. If discourse is used to control, modify, and change events, the counter racist discourse implemented by the BLM movement should be understood as a call to create a new social reality opposite to the one the blacks have endured throughout the American history. Hence, this study aims to shed light on the discursive practices employed to deconstruct exclusionary ideologies (Borysovych, Chaiuk and Karpova).”
Such a discourse may not have had to happen; rather, be better understood if critical race theory was already implemented in our American education system.
Americans need better representation and no more misrepresentation of racial and minority groups. Americans need more diversity and representation in order for critical race theory to thrive. Although some progress has been made, when it comes to people in power and social justice movements, time will truly tell when the impact of the power of critical race theory when and if it is implemented in the American education curriculum.
Works Cited
Ann Phoenix, Afiya Amesu, Issy Naylor and Kafi Zafar. “Viewpoint: ‘When black lives matter all lives will matter’ − A teacher and three students discuss the BLM movement.” London Review of Education(2020): 519–523.
Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. 2013. 22 January 2021. <https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/>.
Borysovych, Oksana V., Tetyana A. Chaiuk and Kateryna S. Karpova. “Black Lives Matter: Race Discourse and the Semiotics of History Reconstruction.” Journal of History, Culture & Art Research 9.3 (2020): 325–340.
Lang, Cady. President Trump Has Attacked Critical Race Theory. Here’s What to Know About the Intellectual Movement. 29 September 2020.
Stefancic, Jean and Richard Delgado. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction . Alabama, 17 July 2010.
