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A review by colin_cox
Critical Race Theory, An Introduction by Richard Delgado
4.0
Before writing this review, I read several negative reviews for Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. They were, on the whole, illuminating.
One reviewer, for example, claims that CRT is legal propaganda intertwined with activism that attempts to change the world instead of asking if the world needs change. Here is what the book's authors write: "Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it, setting out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies but to transform it for the better" (7). This reviewer's criticism of CRT is muddled for a few reasons. First, CRT concludes that change is necessary by analyzing laws, legal precedents, institutions, institutional assumptions, and yes, at times, lived experiences. To claim that CRT fails to ask if society needs change misses the rudimentary trajectory of analysis itself. Second, phrases such as "some academic disciplines" suggest that other legal and academic disciples do, in fact, have and celebrate activist dimensions.
But the better question is this: What is legal activist scholarship? What does legal activist scholarship do? Here is David C. Yamada's description of legal intellectual activism in his peer-reviewed essay, "Intellectual Activism and the Practice of Public Interest Law," originally published in The Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice: "In the legal context, intellectual activism involves conducting and publishing original research and analysis and then applying that work to the tasks of reforming and improving the law, legal systems, and the legal profession" (127). Now, why does this sound so scary? This sounds like what scholarship does, right? The point is this: All scholarship, legal or not, attempts to affect change. For example, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia championed an originalist or textualist approach to legal interpretation. Does anyone think he embraced this position as a lark? Of course not. He did it, in part, to provoke change. Therefore, most if not all scholarship is, to some degree, activist scholarship. Activist scholarship only becomes a problem when non-white folk do it.
But the book itself is, well, just fine. At times, it lacks depth, but by design. To its credit, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction cites many important pieces of CRT scholarship for anyone interesting in actually reading the scholarship itself. Furthermore, the book has an entire section on flaws, problems, and limitations to CRT. This act of intellectual honesty is something most of the book's detractors fail to mention.
There are many productive and relevant ways to critique and challenge CRT (again, this book does some of that work itself). However, claims that CRT is activist propaganda or, if implemented (what does that mean?), would trigger the end of the First Amendment, are not productive, relevant, or useful. If anything, those critiques demonstrate the very point Critical Race Theory at large tries to make.
One reviewer, for example, claims that CRT is legal propaganda intertwined with activism that attempts to change the world instead of asking if the world needs change. Here is what the book's authors write: "Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it, setting out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies but to transform it for the better" (7). This reviewer's criticism of CRT is muddled for a few reasons. First, CRT concludes that change is necessary by analyzing laws, legal precedents, institutions, institutional assumptions, and yes, at times, lived experiences. To claim that CRT fails to ask if society needs change misses the rudimentary trajectory of analysis itself. Second, phrases such as "some academic disciplines" suggest that other legal and academic disciples do, in fact, have and celebrate activist dimensions.
But the better question is this: What is legal activist scholarship? What does legal activist scholarship do? Here is David C. Yamada's description of legal intellectual activism in his peer-reviewed essay, "Intellectual Activism and the Practice of Public Interest Law," originally published in The Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice: "In the legal context, intellectual activism involves conducting and publishing original research and analysis and then applying that work to the tasks of reforming and improving the law, legal systems, and the legal profession" (127). Now, why does this sound so scary? This sounds like what scholarship does, right? The point is this: All scholarship, legal or not, attempts to affect change. For example, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia championed an originalist or textualist approach to legal interpretation. Does anyone think he embraced this position as a lark? Of course not. He did it, in part, to provoke change. Therefore, most if not all scholarship is, to some degree, activist scholarship. Activist scholarship only becomes a problem when non-white folk do it.
But the book itself is, well, just fine. At times, it lacks depth, but by design. To its credit, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction cites many important pieces of CRT scholarship for anyone interesting in actually reading the scholarship itself. Furthermore, the book has an entire section on flaws, problems, and limitations to CRT. This act of intellectual honesty is something most of the book's detractors fail to mention.
There are many productive and relevant ways to critique and challenge CRT (again, this book does some of that work itself). However, claims that CRT is activist propaganda or, if implemented (what does that mean?), would trigger the end of the First Amendment, are not productive, relevant, or useful. If anything, those critiques demonstrate the very point Critical Race Theory at large tries to make.