Why teach critical race theory
Iteach at Queensboro Correctional Facility, LaGuardia Community College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Last year, my co-investigator John R. Chaney and I received a Department of Justice grant to teach college credit-bearing classes to those behind bars.
As I reflect on my teaching and on the differences between incarcerated and non-incarcerated college students this Black History Month, I realized there really is little difference except when I teach critical race theory (CRT): my incarcerated students understand it immediately for they have lived it. My other students not so much.
I remember one of my students, Nelson Cruz, who maintains his innocence after 22 years in prison beginning at the age of 16. Cruz was a victim of the notorious Detective Louis Scarcella who was responsible for the wrongful conviction of several poor, young men of color. Cruz is still fighting for exoneration and maintains his innocence.
The experiences of incarcerated students of color like Cruz confirm that CRT is a useful lens for understanding injustice in America’s criminal legal system. For formerly incarcerated students, CRT is what they have lived; it gives language to their experience.
As a white female professor, I have utilized CRT in my teaching of undergraduate and graduate students for 20 years. I view assaults on CRT not only as attacks upon academic freedom but also attacks upon opportunities for all students to understand how race is shaping America. We do not live in a colorblind society. Race matters.
My non-incarcerated students are grappling to comprehend race in the U.S. Some are fearful of talking about it, and others are seeking the language and perspectives needed to make sense of racial dynamics that keep rearing their heads, whether the topic involves policing practices, gentrification, or health care disparities.
For my students in prison, it is these very same topics that have played a role in their incarceration. They understand that bad actors like Scarcella are not an anomaly, but rather part of a system that disenfranchises and disproportionately incarcerates Black and Brown bodies.
From a CRT lens, counter-stories of the Black experience work to decenter standard white historical narratives and offer multiple and nuanced perspectives. Discussions on slavery, Jim Crow, and Black Wall Street support their learning about the role race plays in today’s world. CRT provides a lens to better analyze the past’s continued presence in current American policies impacting criminal justice, housing, health care, and education.
Students like Nelson benefit from the theory as it explains how policy, laws, sentencing (mandatory minimum sentencing, the war on drugs, harsh punishment for non-violent crime, etc.) disproportionately impact people of color.
But my white students benefit the most. They need the conceptual learning that CRT provides to demystify white supremacy and white privilege while providing a deeper, broader perspective of race beyond individual racist acts. Contrary to claims that learning this theory will make white children feel guilt or blame, my own experience and those of my students is relief and increasing comfort with conversations around race.
Astute students embrace the understanding of their privilege and comprehend that with privilege comes responsibility. If truth be told, their enlightened comments reveal healthy amounts of shame about events and eras in American history that can be translated into anti-racist action.
During Black History Month, a time to celebrate Black achievement and progress, misguided parents have conflated CRT with the month’s celebrations. CRT is a lens to understand U.S. history; it is not Black history. Any assault on CRT and Black History Month is an assault to intellectual integrity that harkens to past bans on the teaching of foreign languages, and prohibitions to the science of climate change. Except this time, it is about race and arguably more dangerous.
Whether from ignorance or malice, fraudulent acts in terms of education policies, book bans, and divisive rhetoric attacking CRT are rampant. Fraud is what is happening, and our children are the ones who will be swindled.
The ongoing, institutionalized backlash to CRT legislatively and legally supports the central premise of CRT — race is endemic and deeply rooted within the fabric of U.S. society. CRT is a good theory, and as we celebrate Black History Month, we are reminded that the work of racial justice is not done. CRT is a proven tool that enlightens our way forward. Schwartz-Chaney is an adjunct professor in CUNY John Jay’s graduate program & professor of Humanities at CUNY LaGuardia. Chaney’s latest book, “Critical Faith: What It Is, What It Isn’t & Why It Matters” examines CRT and the organized church and will be released by Fortress Press on April 23.