‘To break asunder along the lesions of race’. The Critical Race Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois

Abstract

In addition to its beginnings within legal scholarship, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is intimately aligned with the long tradition of African American social critique, which sought to interrogate the intractable nature of racism and White supremacy. Within this intellectual tradition, the works of W.E.B. Du Bois are of critical significance. Du Bois' critique of racism, in addition to his theories of education, anticipate many key aspects of CRT. Additionally, Du Bois illuminates fruitful spaces that are of great relevance to contemporary scholars engaged in a critical analysis of race and racism in their global and domestic contexts, within both education and the broader society.

Toward a DuBoisian theorization of school curricula

“…Resultingly, he critiqued purely vocational curricula because schools treated students as singular laborers, people to be placed within the cog of the industrial system while neglecting students' agency to critically examine and transform present and future work, industry, and capitalism (see Pierce, 2017). Thus, Du Bois argues that schools taught students to work but not think, limiting (Black) students' capacity to imagine and make better futures for themselves and their communities (Ladson‐Billings, 1995; Rashid, 2011).…”

All Around the World Same Song: Transnational Anti-Black Racism and New (and Old) Directions for Critical Race Theory in Educational Research

“…However, it is not just process and condition that allows us to disrupt regional and rigid national frames to view the common ground for Black subjectivities diasporically through CRT. Contrarily, "projects of affinity and liberation" (Laó-Montes, 2005, p. 123)-which CRT is inherently concerned with (Bell, 1987(Bell, , 1992Rashid, 2011)-also constitute the diasporic universalities of Black subjectivities that are instead grounded in a politics of resistance.…”

“…Although critical race theory is understood as emanating from the legal field, the traditions that inform the inner workings of CRT are both inter/trans-disciplinary and rooted in a rich history of critical Black Diasporic thought (Berry, 2015; Crenshaw, 2011; Leonardo, 2013; Rabaka, 2013; Rashid, 2011). CRT scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (2011) noted that “many of the basic insights of CRT grew out of other disciplinary traditions” (p. 1257) and cited the works of W. E. B. DuBois, Oliver Cox, and Toni Morrison as examples of Black thought that created the conditions for CRT’s racial critique.…”

“…Laó-Montes (2005, p. 122) suggests that “the Afro-American diasporic subject should be conceptualized as translocal because even though it is necessarily connected to nationality, it is also inscribed within larger historical constellations (the Atlantic, the Americas, global blackness, the modern/colonial capitalist world system).” However, it is not just process and condition that allows us to disrupt regional and rigid national frames to view the common ground for Black subjectivities diasporically through CRT. Contrarily, “projects of affinity and liberation” (Laó-Montes, 2005, p. 123)—which CRT is inherently concerned with (Bell, 1987, 1992; Rashid, 2011)—also constitute the diasporic universalities of Black subjectivities that are instead grounded in a politics of resistance.…”

“…In doing so, we stress the need to understand CRT as a Black Diaspora theory capable of informing how educational researchers conceptualize anti-Blackness as global and transnational. The argument itself highlights the negation of CRT’s origins in Black Diasporic social thought (Rashid, 2011), which partially explains why CRT is conceptualized as U.S. centric in educational research. CRT—along with its kin studies such as Marxist and Whiteness studies—fails to integrate the full reach of racism and White supremacy in educational research (Gillborn, 2006a, 2006b; Leonardo, 2002, 2013, 2014).…”