How Critical Race Theory Became a Political Target

Fights about how to understand America’s racial history are nothing new, and neither are moves by politicians to dictate what schools teach. The two strands merge in the current debate over critical race theory as state legislatures and school boards rush to determine what students hear about it. The theory’s detractors say they are trying to protect children from anti-White indoctrination; their opponents argue that they are attacking a caricature of the concept to frighten or enrage White voters.

Critical race theory, or CRT, proposes that any analysis of American society must take into account its history of racism and how race has shaped attitudes and institutions. It often overlaps with discussions of systemic racism — the ways policies, procedures and institutions work to perpetuate racial inequity even in the absence of personal racial animus. The theory can be used to understand, for example, the fact that the typical White U.S. household has seven times the amount of wealth of the average Black one. That gap can be traced back to, among other things, the U.S. government’s practice starting in the 1930s of marking Black neighborhoods in red ink on maps, ostensibly as a warning of credit risk to lenders. Four decades of mortgage discrimination are still felt today, as home ownership has been the biggest source of wealth accumulation for the middle class.