Critical Race Literary Theory

Question 1

White Privilege

Answer 1

Various social, political, and economic advantages white individuals experience in contrast to non-white citizens based on their racial membership

Question 2

Social Construction

Answer 2

Race is a product of social thought and relations. It suggests that race is a product of neither biology nor genetics, but is rather a social invention

Question 3

Intersectionality

Answer 3

Recognizing that individuals are capable of claiming membership to a variety of different (and oftentimes contradictory) categories and belief systems regardless of the identities outsiders attempt to impose upon them

Question 4

Institutional Racism

Answer 4

“the systematic distribution of resources, power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who are white and the exclusion of people of color.

Institutional racism has been responsible for slavery, settlement, Indian reservations, segregation, residential schools, and internment camps. While most of these institutions no longer exist, they have had long-term impacts on our society. As a result of institutional racism, racial stratification and disparities have occurred in employment, housing, education, healthcare, government and other sectors.

Question 5

Microaggressions

Answer 5

A microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group.

Question 6

Colour-Blindness

Answer 6

Racial “color-blindness” is the idea that ignoring or overlooking racial and ethnic differences promotes racial harmony. Instead, Colour-blindness winds up denying the lived experiences of other people

Question 7

Meritocracy

Answer 7

Meritocracy is the idea that people get ahead based on their own accomplishments rather than their race, gender, or social class etc. And the moral intuition behind meritocracy is that it creates an elite that is capable and effective and that it gives everybody a fair chance at “success”

Question 8

Attempts to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected

Answer 8

by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice.

Question 9

Examines the appearance of race and racism across

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dominant cultural modes of expression.

Question 10

CRT scholarship traces racism in America through the

Answer 10

nation’s legacy of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and recent events (ex. Black Lives Matter)

Question 11

Confronts the beliefs and practices that enable racism to persist while

Answer 11

also challenging these practices in order to seek liberation from systemic racism.

Question 12

CRT scholars do not only locate an individual’s identity and experience of the world in his

Answer 12

or her racial identifications, but also their membership to a specific class, gender, nation, sexual orientation, etc

Question 13

There is an emphasis on social activism and transforming

Answer 13

everyday notions of race, racism, and power.

Question 14

Critics locate how texts develop in and through the cultural contexts that

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produced them, further demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is

Question 15

A central component of CRT is acknowledging that racism is a permanent component of

Answer 15

American/Canadian life; it takes on institution and individual forms; has a conscious and unconscious element (ex. microaggressions), and has a cumulative impact on individuals and groups

Question 16

CRT challenges the claims of neutrality of the

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law, objectivity, color-blindness, and meritocracy in society

Question 17

Another central component of CRT is it

Answer 17

asserts that the experience of people of colour are appropriate, legitimate, and an integral part of analyzing and understanding racial inequity

Question 18

Also examines the concept of Whiteness and how

Answer 18

it is decided by the state and correlates to who has access to power

Question 19

CRT is a framework that is committed to a social

Answer 19

justice agenda to eliminate all forms of subordination of people.