Critical Race Theory and African American Critical Lens Mr. Whitener

What is it?  CRT is born out of a postcolonial relationship which superimposes an intersection between race, the law, and the powerful (Yosso).  CRT promotes a “radical” pushback against the majority by the marginalized.

The lens  The African American critical lens’ chief concern is the relationship between the arts and developing the nature of AA culture.~Bressler  Music, theatre, poetry, WRITING  Derrick Bell wanted to show the importance of Blackness in everything that is American culture.  Rooted in idea that blacks have been excluded from the narrative of history in a positive way.

Major themes:  The “other” has significant issues that are a result of the construction of society as a whole. Can you think of any problems you have with society?  This system of problems reverberates within its own culture confines.  For example, Native Americans and casinos.  If you’ve never been taught anything different than why should you know/care?  If you have been taught differently, how does it positively/negatively change your community or culture?

Theory Tenants “America is inherently a “white” country: in character, in structure, in culture. Needless to say, black Americans create lives of their own. Yet as a people, they face boundaries and constrictions set by the white majority.”

Michael Foucault  Folks are expected to talk, act, and walk a certain way.  The internalized gaze creates a disciplined “people” fearful of the powerful.  Behavior becomes panopticon, a vigilance of intersecting gazes.  Our story is observed and rated to see if we fit into the preferred story of the disciplined employee. Deviations and differences are noted in our records.  This networking of story assessment mechanisms turns panoptic when we do not quite know for sure if our story is being gazed and evaluated or not.

Cont’d  AACL assumes the story is observed and rated to see if it fit into the preferred story of the disciplined majority. Deviations and differences are noted in the records of “the Other.”  This networking of story assessment mechanisms turns panoptic when we do not quite know for sure if our story is being gazed and evaluated or not.

Recap  CRT focuses on culture; assumes that people with influence define culture  Cultures clash, specifically one deems itself superior  Marginalized groups have not been able to define their culture  They are stakeholders

Cont’d  Out of postcolonial lens, many things are left behind from the majority, i.e. culture  Some things are good some are bad.  Marginalized groups were a part of that culture formation but were not molders.  AA CL assumes that blacks have a huge stake in American culture which they wish to express in their own way, but it can never be separated from their history.

W.E.B. Dubois  Double Consciousness: The term originally referred to the psychological challenge of reconciling an African heritage with a European upbringing and education.  An individual whose identity is divided into several facets with a premise of otherness as its backdrop.  Difficult for AA to unify their black identity with their American identity

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history o9f this strife- this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face” (2-3). Cont’d

“Language has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture” (Thiong’o 13)-1981.

Cont’d Microagressions Is He Black Enough? ial-microagressions-you-hear-on-a- daily-basis Storytelling Is He an American?

Permission to change our outlook…

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