FirstSearch: Display (Staff View) Page | of 2 © InProcess DEFAULT =] In.uselon loan = T Print Shipping Labels No Remon For No @ Conditional ending Notes ave7es 3 2008 Alert © Future Date| FrrrMNoD OD Update | Reset | T Print Book Straps Staff View | Display R Article Exchange | My Statistics Home Databases Searching "Sha | My Account | Options | Policies Directory Sharing | Comments | Exit | 19s Request Manager Blank Workform Printing Batch ~My Requests [CEXEF A | @OoGE& PENDING - Lender kann Ue Ema Pant Help Unk Upiste TL Generat Recono InroRMaTion Request Identifier: 87153877 Request Date: 20120210 ocic Numbers 251216156 Borrower: TXA Status: PENDING 20120210 Source: ILLiad Need Before: 20120311 Renewal Receive Date: Requests New Due Date: “CGA, SUR, UHC, SHH, IET Copy Due Date: Lenders: Request Type: ALERT: BroLiocRAPaic INFORMATION Call Number: Title: ISBN: Impri Article Tith Date: Pages: Encyclopedia of race and orime / 9781412950856 (cloth) Los Angeles : SAGE, 2009 Tommy J. Curry: Critical Race Theory 2009 166-169 http://firstsearch.ocle.org/WebZ/SageSummarizeCategory 2next=: pp5-361 2/10/2012166 Critical Race Theory There have been cases in which White offenders have used fear of the Black male to their advantage by creating a racial hoax in which they accuse a Black male of committing the crime in order to deflect suspicion. Stereotyping and fear of the Black ‘male can result in the authorities believing that there was a Black perpetrator when in fact the individual providing the description actually committed the crime. A 1994 example of a racial hoax involved Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman, who reported that a Black man stole her car and her children who were still in the car. For several days, she spoke in front of television cameras pleading for their safety. She later confessed to murdering her children. Stereoryping and treatment that leads to the myth of the criminalblackman may be outwardly insignificant in any one area of society; itis rather an accumulated result of history, politics, media, and social policies. Within the legal system, racism begins with police surveillance focused primarily ‘on poor minority youth and culminates with sentencing that is harsher and disproportionately applied to this stereotyped class. Media coverage and society's fear further contributes 0 the myth of the criminalblackman. Patricia L. Brougham See also Consumer Racial Profiling; Media Portrayals of ‘African Americans; Powell v. Alabama; Profiling, Racial: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives: Racial Hoax; War on Drugs Further Readings Barlow, M. (1998). Race and the problem of crime in “Time” and “Newsweek” cover stories, 1946 to 1995, Social Justice, 25(2), 149-184. Kappeler, V., & Potter, G. (2005}. The mythology of crime and criminal justice (4th ed.). Long Grove, I: Waveland, Merlo, A., 8 Benekos, P. (2000). What's werong with the criminal justice system: Ideology, politics, and the media, Cincinnati, OH: Anderson. Petersilia, J. 2004). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system: A summary. In B. Hancock & P. Sharp (Eds.), Public policy, crime, and eriminal justice {pp. 80-95}, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Russell-Brown, K. (1998). The color of crime: Racial hoaxes, White fear, Black protectionism, police harassment, and other macroageressions. New York: New York University Press. Tonry, M. (1995). Malign neglect: Race, crime, and punishonent in America. New York: Oxtord University Press Walker, . (2006). Sense and non-sense about erime and drugs (6th ed). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, Welch, K. (2007). Black criminal stereotypes and racial profiling, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 2313), 276-288, Zate, M, (2000). The convergence of race, ethnicity, gender, and class on court decisionmaking: Looking toward the 2st century. In Criminal justice 2000: Vol. 3. Policies, processes, and decisions of the eriminal justice system (pp. 503-52). Washington, DC: US. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. CrimicaL Race THEORY Despite the relatively recent appearance of critical race theory (CRT) in academia, it has become an indispensable perspective on race and racism in’ America. CRT launched what many race scholars now take as a commonsense view: the view that race, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is socially constructed. However, unlike some views that argue that aspects of race should be eliminated from everyday speech, thought, and scholarship, CRT maintains that race, as a socially constructed concept, functions as a means to, maintain the interests of Whites who construct(ed) it and is an indispensable lens from which to view the problem of racism. According to CRT, racial inequality emerges from the social, economic, and legal differences Whites create between “races” to maintain elite White interest in labor markets and politics, and as such create the circumstances that give rise to poverty and criminality in many minority communities. In this regard, CRT holds that the laws and policies in the United States will always be geared toward people of color’s detri- ment and as such have focused their scholarship on the ways in which people of color are punished by White legal institutions. CRT is interested in both in how the actions of White institutions cre- ate and maintain the conditions of “racial crimi- nality,” and, more important, how White structures and governing entities punish and persecute these constructions of “racial criminality” on the gen- dered bodies of racialized people. Though the intellectual origins of the move- ment go back much further, the movement officially organized itself in July 1989, marking its separation from critical legal studies (CLS). Instead ‘of drawing theories of social organization and individual behavior from continental European thinkers like Hegel and Marx or psychoanalytic figures like Freud as its theoretical predecessors (CLS and feminist jurisprudence), CRT was inspired by the American civil rights tradition through figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and W. F. B. Du Bois, and from nationalist thinkers such as Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and Frantz Fanon, Being steeped in radical Black thought and nationalist thinking, critical race theory advanced theoretical understandings of the law, politics, and American socio- logy that focused on the efforts Whites have historically used to maintain colonialism and White supremacy against people of color. Given the ways in which race is defined and contoured by the interests of Whites in American society, CRT exposes a sociocultural component ‘of the American race problem and the rampant incarceration of people of color. CRT holds a guarded pessimism about the racial conditions in the United Stares; even though Whites seek to maintain power and keep America a White repub- lic, people of color, especially Blacks, are demon- ized as criminals and victimized by the courts, the police, and the everyday stereotypes of White America. Critical race theorists maintain that rac- ism in America is normal, not aberrant, and as such, the laws, policies, and justice system are all built to maintain the power and historical stature of Whites. Though crime and criminal justice com- prise a relatively small portion of CRT scholar- ship, critical race theorists have introduced novel claims that range from arguments maintaining the criminal justice system is fundamentally racist to positions that contend that White male experi- ences form the basis of the actions committed by a reasonable person under duress. This entry briefly discusses the origins of CRT and outlines some of its major theoretical contributions to analysis of race and crime. Origins of the Movement: Bell’s Interest Convergence and Racial Realism The foundational writings of critical race theory began in the late 1960s from the legal scholarship of Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman. These writings, Critical Race Theory _ 167 focused specifically on the reduction of gains of the civil rights era thought to be won in 1964 and the rollback of the integrationist agendas set forth in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In Derrick Bell’s earlier works (throughout the 1970s), Bell argued the gains of Blacks were inextricably wed to the temporary alignment of the self-interests of elite Whites and the interests of Blacks or the interest convergence between White interests and Black aspirations. This body of work led to a critical examination of integration, school deseg- regation, and the newly instilled privileges of the civil rights era and maintained that integration was a political consequence of U.S. attempts to maintain soft power legitimacy against commu- nism during the cold war. This argument, however, was mild in contrast to the thesis Bell introduced in the early 1990s. In 1992, Bell authored “Racial Realism,” an article in which he argued that equality was both impossible and illusory in the United States; he argued that Blacks must accept that racism and Black subordi- nation is a permanent and integral part of American society. In two subsequent articles titled “The Racism Is Permanent Thesis” and “Racism Is Here to Stay: Now What?” published the same year, and his 1993 book titled Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, Bell reinforced his argument over the nature of anti-Black racism and urged Blacks to resist the idea that automatic progress in race relations accompanied the civil rights era. Though this view does not explicitly attend to a specific analysis of crime and criminality, it ays the foundations for the perspectives many criti- cal race theorists hold co be the philosophical underpinning of their perspectives that link the sociocultural to institutional and structural rac- ism. In the years to follow, many of the theories articulated by Derrick Bell were used in the per- spectives of emerging critical race theorists in looking to the legal aspects of the criminal justice system, Critical Race Theories of Crime Building on the normalness of racism, critical race theorists have taken various approaches in the analysis of criminality that seek to investigate how minority populations in the United States become majority populations in the criminal justice168 Critical Race Theory system. According to Richard Delgado’s 1994 article “Black Crime, White Fears—On the Social Construction of Threat,” Black crime is con- structed to be a problem by Whites. While it is undeniable that some Blacks, Latina/os, and other minorities commit crimes, it is not the case that this crime is race specific. CRT wants to point out that there is a sociocultural construction that cre- ates the ideas of Black crime, Hispanic crime, and so on, and the mythology of race-specific crime ., Black crime) is a means by which Whites justify the historical vulnerability people of color suffer at the hands of dangerous Whites. By con- structing crime as race specific, American society and its White beneficiaries make crimes involving Blacks or other minorities seem natural and endemic to that group, making punishment a far more likely course of action than rehabilitation, Under these conditions, judges, lawyers, and law enforcement agencies would be more likely 10 treat various racial groups differently based on the prevalent racial stereotype playing out in the national imagination and justify their actions on that constructed threat. Given this sociocultural construction of racial criminality, some authors have asserted a particu- larly nationalist or separatist analysis of race and crime. These authors claim that the dereliction of the US. government in protecting Black com- munities, and the lives of people of color both from White violence and violence within their communities, justifies pushing “The Second Amendment: Towards an Afro-Americanise Reconsideration.” While very few authors have pursued Robert Cottrol and Raymond Diamond's course of action, which argued for a radical inter- pretation of the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution that justifies Blacks to take up arms. to protect their communities, subsequent writings in CRT have continued to confirm the unchanging reality of racism in the criminal justice system, In Paul Butler’s infamous 1995 article “Racially Based Jury Nullification: Black Power in the Criminal Justice System,” he argues that it is ber- ter for some nonviolent Black offenders to stay in the Black community rather than be sent to prison. Accepting that the criminal justice system is fundamentally racist and will seek unjust means, of punishment rather than rehabilitation, Butler argues that jury nullification, or the practice by which a jury acquits an offender they believe ig guilty for political or racial considerations, ig the best way to challenge the White supremacy of the criminal justice system. By making reha- bilitation rather than punishment the focus of Black deviance, Butler argues that Blacks can begin to protect their own communities without dependence on or interference from White intervention. Other scholars like Cynthia Lee and David Harris have discussed the actions that Whites take against people of color they perceive as threats, In Lee’s work, she discusses the overt privilege White male reactions, some of which included murder, have in determining reasonable actions in criminal cases involving people of color, while Harris focuses on the irrationality and myth making that sustains racial profiling. Gender Analyses of Crime in CRT ‘As an analytical perspective, CRT is primarily housed in the legal academy, and as such the analysis of gender and race in questions of crimi« nality is largely dictated by the effects the law and other legal entities have on particular people of color, both male and female. Despite the predomi- nant effects that the criminal justice system has on African American and Hispanic males, most CRT scholarship on gender focuses on the critical race feminist perspective, Kenneth B. Nunn’s article titled “Race, Crime and the Poo! Surplus of Criminality: Or Why the War on Drugs Was a War on Blacks” is a classic work that articulates a gendered reality of racial criminality. Nunn argued that the War on Drugs is in reality a political program designed speci cally to incarcerare African American males. Borrowing from the work of Michael Tonry, Nunn argues that the U.S. government knowingly instituted a War on Drugs despite the overall decrease of drug use in the United States and the drastic decline of drug use in White middle-class communities. According to Nunn, the choice of the U.S. government to focus on supply reduction (those who sold the product) over demand reduc~ tion (those who produced and wanted the prod- uct) was the consequence of a specific anti-Black cultural and racist political regime. As such, racial profiling became a surefire way to increase the presence of Black and Hispanic males, since the political climate presupposes they deal drugs. As CRT, Nunn’s work exemplifies the structural analysis of crime, Nunn focuses on the structure and intent of the criminal system and then the effects that system has on people of color by enforcing racial bias. Other CRT analyses speak directly to the expe- riences of women of color and have included femi- nist perspectives in their analysis of race and crime. In Kimberle Crenshaw’s groundbreaking essay on intersectionality titled “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color,” Crenshaw argues that racial politics overlook the role of sex in antiracist strategies. In domestic violence and rape cases, Crenshaw argues that Black women’s identities are measured up against the experience of White women, In such cases, Crenshaw argues that reme- dies to reduce the occurrence of domestic violence and rape in minority communities are ineffective because they do not address the intersection of race and sex in battery. Crenshaw’s work argues for a unique Black female perspective that should be used when investigating Black women. Following the success of intersectional analysis in CRT, Dorothy Roberts wrote Killing the Black Body: Race Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty. Expoundingon herargumentin “Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies,” Roberts argued that Black female sentencing in the criminal justice system frequently involves some type of birth con- trol and in some cases forced sterilization. According to Roberts, Black women are often encouraged to relinquish their reproductive liber- ties in exchange for reduced jail times and lesser offenses. Continuing the argument from her earlier work, Roberts also contends that Black pregnant mothers found to be on drugs were blamed for the cycle of poverry in Black communities, and as such, long-term birth control contraceptives such as Norplant were seen as a remedy to Black eco- homie woes. Current Trends Recent scholarship in CRT has failed to attend to the structural and sociocultural explanations of crime, poverty, and Black victimization. Recent scholars like Reginald Robinson have argued for Critical Race Theory 169 psychoanalytic and existential positions that hold that Blacks are the root cause of their own suffer- ing. Robinson maintains that Blacks’ marriage to racial identity is the root cause of poverty. CRT has adamantly maintained the involve- ment of White institutions and White political and cultural interest in defining the relationship between race and crime. Rather than abandoning the rich racial realist tradition that defined more than 2 decades of CRT scholarship, future work in CRT could expand on the constructive ways in which people of color can adequately challenge the per- manence of racism in America. Tony Curry See also Conilict Theory; Domestic Violence; Jury Nullfication; Racism Further Readings Bell, D. (1980). Brown v, Board of Education and the interest convergence dilemma, Harvard Law Review, 93, 518-533, Bell, D. (1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24, 363-379, Bell, D. (1992), Racism is here to stay: Now what? Howard Law Journal, 35, 79-93, Bell, D. (1993), Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York: Basie Books. Butler, P. (1995). Racially based jury nullification: Black power in the criminal justice system, Yale Laue Journal, 105, 677-725. Butler, P. (2004), Much respect: Toward a hip-hop theory of punishment. Stanford Law Review, 56, 983. Control, R., & Diamond, R. (1991). The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist reconsideration. Georgetown Law Journal, $0, 309-361 Delgado, R., 8 Stef 2001). Critical race theory: ‘An introduction. New York: New York University Press. 1K. (2002). Race, crime and the pool surplus of criminality: Or why the War on Drugs was a war on) Blacks. Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice, 6, 381-445, Robinson, R. (1991). Punishing deug addicts who have babies: Women of color, equality, and the right of privacy. Hareard Law Review, 104, 1419-1482. Rohinson, R. (2000). Expert knowledge: Introductory comments on race consciousness, Boston College Thitd World Law Journal, 20, 145-182.