Claim 2: “Critical Race Theory is Marxism”
One of the most common criticisms leveled by some conservatives against critical race theory, or CRT, is that it’s Marxism by another name.
“CRT is simply identity-based Marxism, based solely on the color of one’s skin,” Rep. Matt Lockett (R-Nicholasville) told a state legislative committee in early July. Lockett is a primary sponsor of a bill that would limit discussions about racism in public schools and universities.
Anti-critical race theory activists point to what many scholars see as an important antecedent of critical race theory: critical legal studies, which in turn draws on the writings of Michel Foucault, Max Weber and—yes—Karl Marx.
According to the authors of Critical Race Theory: Key Writings That Formed The Movement, critical race theory formed in the 1980s, when a group of scholars of color broke off from their white, leftist colleagues in critical legal studies.
“Critical race theory sort of breaks off from critical legal studies, because critical legal studies didn’t really conceptualize race,” University of Louisville Law School professor Cedric Powell said.
Where critical legal theorists saw laws as primarily reflecting and sustaining class interests, critical race theorists argued that laws construct and maintain a racial power hierarchy.
“It sort of draws upon this underlying notion of class, this underlying notion of power and social control, and takes that and critiques the criminal law, which is supposed to be neutral, but looked at its impact on subordinating people of color,” Powell said.
For example, Powell said, a critical race theorist may look at the overrepresentation of Black people in jails and prisons as evidence that criminal laws are “deeply implicated in sustaining racial subordination.”
But does the fact that critical race theory draws on the writings of Karl Marx make it Marxism?
Powell says no.
“To say that it is totally Marxist is absolutist. I think any academic discipline draws on different theories,” he said.
Furthermore, highlighting critical race theory’s ties to Marxism is a familiar scare tactic, says Nikki Brown, history professor at the University of Kentucky.
“If you’re a historian of the civil rights movement, that sounds eerily familiar because many civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King, were accused of being Communists because they wanted equality.”
Critical race theorists are not calling for a violent overthrow of the government, as has been suggested by some conservatives.
“Critical race theory calls for the dismantling of structural inequality,” Powell said. “Critical race theorists believe in the government. They just believe that if the government is making all of these promises, it should certainly keep them. And they haven’t kept them.”
