Talk:Critical race theory/Archive 11

The intro to this article seems to lack objectivity
There are a number of features of this article that make it one of the poorer I've read on Wikipedia. E.g the way it's explained that "critical" is supposed to be 'academic' and 'not hurt people' - this comes accross as someone with a firm bias trying to argue their point of why something is so important. It does NOT read as an objective description.

Another example is the framing that CRT is a method that shows how XYZ. This assumes that XYZ is true, rather than sharing than "CRT has been utilised to argue that".. which would be an objective reading.

This whole article needs a review for objectivity! 139.218.99.170 (talk) 12:37, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The first part is simply a fact. “Critical” in this context means critical analysis and not criticizing people. The second part is a bit “your mileage may vary”. Dronebogus (talk) 02:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Amen! This whole article needs to be objective.  The intro of the article that critical race theory is a "social movement"? Really?  This is what happens when you let the majority edit and reinterpret a theory that was theorized and put forth by people of color. 141.126.138.40 (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

What do you suggest it be changed to? You criticize the article without offering direct changes to be made for consideration. Tyrone (talk) 09:51, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Recent reversion: deleting the term “racist” as criticism of CRT
One of the most common criticisms of CRT is that it is a racist theory so my addition of the term to other criticism is neither “lazy” nor my own point of view. If the reverter had bothered reading the Britannica article, she would have seen this reference: “Trump and other Republican leaders opted to attack CRT, which they characterized as a false, anti-American creed of radical leftists and anti-white racists.” The term is explicitly mentioned here in the last word, characterized as the creed of racists, and hence shows up in the existing reference and I believe my edit should be restored as a simple reflection of reality. Sychonic (talk) 03:27, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You are citing Trump and Republican demagogues as reliable sources? These people produce propaganda against CRT, they should not be mistaken for dispassionate sources. Dimadick (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No, this is describing the views held by Trump et al. It's important to have them expressed in neutral terms so they can be intelligently debated. Attempts to 'cancel' or 'de-platform' controversial views and those who hold them do no justice to free speech. In fact, every time I see that argument I think 'that person has no refutation of the argument they object to, or they'd use it.' It's one thing to demonstrate that one side of a question is nonsense, i.e. the question is settled. It's quite another to declare arbitrarily that a question is settled in favor of the speaker. Chrismorey (talk) 15:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "do no justice to free speech" Last I checked, there is no such thing in Wikipedia. We have Fringe theories as a content guideline. : "If discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, a theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight" Can you find scholarly sources that support Trump's silly criticisms? Dimadick (talk) 03:16, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Sychonic, people who scapegoat academic theory for fundraising will not abide by WP:UNDUE. I would be open to including a section of criticism or maybe a “non-academic” subheading that focuses how the term is using in the news (even if not wholly accurate but supported by RS). Tyrone (talk) 09:53, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Advanced Communication Theory
— Assignment last updated by Natalie750 (talk) 21:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Critical Methods -- Sec. 001
— Assignment last updated by AissiahD (talk) 00:47, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I am also apart of this group for a Wikipedia project. The overall plan for our group is to expand on two subtopics in this article for Critical Race Theory, the subtopics being "Intersectionality" and "Essentialism". We felt that these two sections/subtopics were vague, too short, and/or just needed to be expanded on in general with sources we found. We plan on making our changes the last week of November. Mimimccammon6 (talk) 23:15, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 January 2023
The sources cited don't seem to talk about resegregation in general, rather that desegregation took a decade or two to finally be removed. 35.1.215.177 (talk) 15:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. PianoDan (talk) 18:02, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Why are we citing another encyclopedia? (Criticism section)
I thought that was frowned upon. TruthByAnonymousConsensus (talk) 07:53, 26 January 2023 (UTC)


 * We do not cite any self published sources, like other open wikis and such. See WP:BLOGS. Encyclopædia Britannica has always been considered a reliable source. See WP:RS. All of its articles are peer-reviewed and can be considered a WP:TERTIARY source. What we do not allow is directly copying from any source. Do you have some objection to the content of that section? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Please give an accurate description of CRT bans!
In paragraph 4: "Since 2020, conservative U.S. lawmakers have sought to ban or restrict the instruction of CRT along with other critical education in primary and secondary schools," is egregiously inaccurate. The inuendo of this statement is that these "lawmakers" are banning something being used in schools. CRT has never been taught as far as I am aware outside of Academia. You don't need to take a political position on what these right-wing propagandists are doing, but you should make an accurate description of what they are doing. I'll give an example of how the statement could have been worded: "While CRT is an analytical construct used in Academia, the term CRT has been co-opted by Republican politicians nationwide as a catchall term to effect their preferred changes in primary and secondary school educational curiculums by using it as a descriptor of policies they disagree with. As such the term CRT has become highly politically charged."

I've made no value judgements here, only described precisely what has happened, and eliminated subtle inuendos benefitting one political view over another which have no place on Wikipedia. I've also used Republican in place of "conservative" which is itself a value judgement made by the writer. Right-wing would be more accurate, but that too could be considered a value judgement. Use the precise language please, as it is one very well defined group who are responsible for this particular action. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.39.196.158 (talk) 19:18, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Everything you said is included in the criticism section of the article, albeit worded in a much more  NPOV style. Political positions are not even a consideration, we go with the consensus among reliable sources.

The political controversy surrounding CRT also has its own article so it would be  redundant to include all of this here. The section you quoted includes a link ti this article.

As it stands, your proposal appears more biased than the existing content - I don’t see a problem with the factual accuracy, merely how it reads. I agree we maybe should add (literally) a couple of words in the intro about how public discourse on CRT is often misleading but it would have to be short, the fact is the article is not about the politicisation of CRT so going into such depth would be unwarranted and detract from the main purpose of the article. John wiki: If you have a problem, don't mess with my puppy... 10:07, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 February 2023
"and media shape, and are shaped by," What does this mean? Doesn't make sense Mauifortuna (talk) 17:04, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:57, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

New source
A new scholarly book edited by Edward Taylor, David Gillborn, and Gloria Ladson-Billings covers issues of CRT in education, with chapters that touch on the recent controversies in primary education:  --Animalparty! (talk) 22:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Intro sentence
As written:

Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity.

Suggested edit:

Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination of how laws, social and political movements, and media interact with social conceptions of race and ethnicity. 2603:7000:873B:C200:C1FC:12DC:793D:172A (talk) 22:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)


 * So, you wish to remove "by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, " and change "shape, and are shaped by," to "interact with". These seem like improvements and it simpler. Could "interrelate with" be better or not? We could also get rid of an "and" by moving "media" toward the beginning. So:
 * Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination of how laws, media, social and political movements interrelate with social conceptions of race and ethnicity.
 * Thoughts? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thoughts? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thoughts? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The intro is difficult to wrap one's head around. Misty MH (talk) 21:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Update: I edited it with easier-to-read punctuation. Misty MH (talk) 21:22, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The whole page is just a dreadful word-salad. It just  comes across as gibberish, what it really needs is a simple succinct summary in the lede to describe what the concept of CRT is. Then it can delve into detail (a lot of which seems to be conflicting). 2A00:23C8:8F9F:4801:B14A:BD53:341F:199E (talk) 18:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

"Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis?
Seem to me that there's something wrong with this sentence, but I don't see how to fix it: "Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis." First of all, it makes it sound like all scholars of CRT would agree with this. I doubt that's the case. Secondly, it is speaking about race, not racism. There are those believe that race is something that exists as a biological thing, one would think, depending on how the word "race" is used. It's a confusing topic (for many). The sentence just seems extreme or whatever. Can someone who understands this topic better reword it? Misty MH (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I think that this is accurate - race is a social construct, and that's not strictly a position held by scholars of CRT. If anything I would question its inclusion for how it zeroes in on scholars of CRT as opposed to most scholars across disciplines. Genetics studies have been especially illuminating on the subject, but if you just think about ways to separate groups of people by phenotype, there are far more options than hair type and skin tone that are more closely connected to heritability than those two markers. It's a historical accident that a genetic group on one extreme end of the skin color spectrum ("white") found themselves at the top of the resources heap, specifically in weapons, at the same that global technologies advanced to a state where it was possible to move massive populations across the world. That accident led to their dominance over other cultures in the advent of the modern era which ended up being more lasting than past epochs. If that same technology had come about in the high middle ages, the world would have middle eastern Islamic culture, west African, or Chinese culture at the top, and they would have invented a completely different set of imaginary pseudo-scientific biases to justify their place above the rest of the world. Curugh.Firetone (talk) 21:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Public controversies
False and misleading statement made - “ In early 2021, Republican-backed bills were introduced to restrict teaching about race, ethnicity, or slavery in public schools in several states” (source 181 - from cbs article https://web.archive.org/web/20210613004743/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/critical-race-theory-state-bans/). This statement accurately quotes the article, however the article is baseless as none of the things mentioned in the quote above are mentioned in Bill 377 which CBS uses as its predominant source. (Bill 377 - https://web.archive.org/web/20210613011006/https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2021/legislation/H0377.pdf) Upon reading this bill it is evident that the cbs has falsely reported on the law, and this has resulted in the misleading quote above being put under “Public controversies.” The actual bill states: “ (a) No public institution of higher education, school district, or pub- 11C school, including a puplic charter school, shal_ direct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere to any of the rollowing tenets: (1) That any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin 1s inherently superior or inferior; (11) That individuals should be adverselv treated on the basis Of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin; (iii) That individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, reli-gion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin.”

This needs to be edited to represent factually accurate information. This is one of many problems that Wikipedia seems to be continually encountering. Editors need to check the sources of their sources. This is a lazy mistake. These types of lazy mistakes are being made on a recurring basis and result in a misinformed and divided public with high levels of cognitive dissonance. 2600:6C50:B00:3927:C958:5AAD:4E70:C789 (talk) 02:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The bill itself is a primary source, not to be relied upon. There are some news sources that summarize the bill more faithfully to its content:
 * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/idaho-critical-race-theory
 * https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/us/critical-race-theory-idaho-bill-trnd/index.html
 * https://www.idahoednews.org/top-news/legislative-roundup-4-29-21-little-signs-nondiscrimination-bill-but-questions-anecdotes-and-innuendo-that-birthed-it/ Sennalen (talk) 03:03, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree. We use reliable secondary sources for interpretation of primary sources. TFD (talk) 04:33, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Peer Review
The section titled Cultural nationalism/separatism can be added on to by speaking on the reparations given to Native American tribes due to their land being stolen. They're most notably in the north near the border of Canada. I think you can find some good things [https://www.closeup.org/156-years-and-counting-reparations-for-slavery-in-2021/#:~:text=In%201946%2C%20the%20Indian%20Claims,Americans%20and%20to%20determine%20restitution.&text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,for%20176%20tribes%20and%20organizations. here]. Other than that, I think the article you've made so far makes sure to keep the integrity of the message while also adding on relevant ideas. The tricky thing about ideas that have already been presented is that it's hard to specify what should be added. I suppose adding more articles to add on to some of the emptier subtopics later down in the article would up the effectiveness. Hope this helps! Overall, good job! ASPASP09 (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Economics of Social Justice and Injustice
— Assignment last updated by Pitbulls004 (talk) 03:11, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Relevance of comment in lede
Is "rather than criticizing or blaming people" really a relevant comment? This is not included in other article uses of the term "critical"; Critical theory (which is very much related), Critical period, Critical point, etc. etc. Zilch-nada (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Contradictory? "race as a social construct with no biological basis" vs "advances the interests of white people"
The link to white people provided states "White is a racialized classification of people". It seems this article needs to be clarified to define "white people", as currently the article is saying "white people" is a racialized classification, which doesn't seem to fit with it being a "social construct". Or at least the apparent contradiction should be clarified.Jimhoward72 (talk) 18:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)


 * "Money is a social construct" and "Five dollars are worth more than five cents" can both be true and coherent at the same time. Same with social construction of race. I don't see any contradiction. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:48, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see the contradiction. American nationality is a social construct with no biological basis, yet we can speak about advancing the interests of the American people. TFD (talk) 18:40, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This seems to me to be the opposite of a contradiction: "racialization" is precisely equivalent to the social construction of race. And like most social constructs, "racialized classifications" serve reasonably clearly defined sets of social interests. Newimpartial (talk) 19:41, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Technoculture 320-01
— Assignment last updated by ACHorwitz (talk) 16:18, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

improvements to "2020s criticism" subsection
With this section probably driving the bulk of traffic to the page, I think this section needs to be as well written as possible and would like to start a discussion on that.

In particular, I think the section could benefit from more information on the history of Christopher Rufo's discovery of CRT and realization that it could be used as a wedge issue. Additionally, the differences between CRT and DEI are not demarcated enough in this section. Finally, the line "in response to CRT being taught in schools" needs a big [citation needed] because I don't believe there are any known cases of curricula that include graduate-level critical theory in k-12 schooling. Perhaps "in response to the perception that CRT was being taught in schools" or "in response to the assertion from Christopher Rufo that CRT was being taught in schools." The section on DEI probably belongs on an entirely separate page, since DEI and CRT are two different things that are wrongly conflated for one another. Mccartneyac (talk) 13:05, 18 October 2023 (UTC)