<\/p>\n
Practices always have a meaning, and meanings organize practice and produce real effects.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Stuart Hall, Familiar Stranger <\/em>(2017)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The next social revolution in America, then, must involve the utter abolition of racial prejudice in all its institutional forms.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Manning Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction,\u201d Social Text<\/em> (1981)<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The George Floyd protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were the largest protests in American history, with between 15 to 26 million people participating, remarkably, during a time of heightened concern about public gatherings following the first deadly wave of COVID-19. The movements for Black Lives\u2014and on its heels the election of President Joe Biden\u2014sent the Right into a tailspin. The storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was one response, among the most extreme, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and their fellow travelers. The failed coup by Donald Trump and his enablers, Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani among others, was another reaction.<\/p>\n
Yet another response has been the all-out war on race consciousness in this country\u2014more specifically, the nationwide campaign to undermine the intellectual and cultural framework that made possible the movements for Black Lives. This attack has taken the form of a brutal assault on \u201cCritical Race Theory,\u201d the 1619 Project, antiracism and intersectional theories, and all of the ways of thinking critically about race relations, systemic racism, and race consciousness in this country. It is a campaign for the hearts and minds of Americans to whitewash the way they experience and view their society; and every term or framework that I could use to denounce the effort\u2014white supremacy, anti-Blackness, race, class, caste, etc.\u2014are precisely the concepts that the Right has targeted and is trying to eliminate from our vocabulary.<\/p>\n
This new phase\u2014this ideological<\/em> phase\u2014of what amounts to an American counterrevolution is not covert. It seeks a transformation of the way Americans think and view the world\u2014a revolution, in effect, that could \u201cnot be televised,\u201d as\u00a0Gil Scott-Heron said<\/a>.\u00a0But it does so openly, explicitly, and, in that sense, it is<\/em> being televised and broadcast. In a manifesto titled \u201cThe Courage of Our Convictions: How to Fight Critical Race Theory,\u201d published in City Journal<\/em> on April 22, 2021, one of the most vocal ideologues on the Right, Christopher F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute, publicizes the strategy:<\/p>\n
To borrow a phrase from the Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, [Critical Race Theory] is fast achieving cultural hegemony in America\u2019s public institutions. It is driving the vast machinery of the state and society. If we want to succeed in opposing it, we must address it politically at every level.[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
To \u201caddress it politically\u201d means, among other things, to recover the language and discourse, to conquer the ideational space, to regain cultural hegemony. \u201cIn terms of principles,\u201d Rufo writes, \u201cwe need to employ our own moral language rather than allow ourselves to be confined by the categories of critical race theory.\u201d[2]<\/a> The battlefront now is over that language\u2014the everyday words we use and ways of seeing the world. The conflict is also, as Kendall Thomas will argue, over the question whether these are moral or political questions<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In a bold article titled \u201cThe Third Reconstruction: Black Nationalism and Race in a Revolutionary America<\/a>,\u201d Manning Marable sketched the blueprint for a transformation of American society that would eradicate racial prejudice. In the process, Marable compared the first Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War to the second reconstruction period of the Civil Rights era. He emphasized what he called \u201cone pivotal difference\u201d: the second reconstruction, Marable wrote, \u201cwas fought on the terrain of public policy and electoral politics, over cultural and social relations rather than on the battlefield<\/em>.\u201d[3]<\/a> Marable referred the reader to Antonio Gramsci\u2019s distinction between a \u201cwar of movement\u201d (also translated sometimes as a \u201cwar of maneuver,\u201d in other words, physical warfare) and a \u201cwar of position\u201d (what we might think of as counter-hegemonic cultural warfare).[4]<\/a> Along these lines, critical theorists now face a war of position without ever having achieved hegemony.<\/p>\n
The Assault on Critical Race Theory<\/h1>\n
Most of the attacks have crystalized around the term \u201cCritical Race Theory,\u201d which has become the vessel for any and all progressive or radical thought on race, as well as on gender and sexuality\u2014in effect, for any and all forms of race, gender, transgender, or sexuality critiques. This comes through again, explicitly, in the words of Rufo:<\/p>\n
We have successfully frozen their brand \u2014 \u2018critical race theory\u2019 \u2014 into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think \u2018critical race theory.\u2019[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The concerted attacks have turned Critical Race Theory, or now simply \u201cCRT,\u201d into a household name\u2014and national punching bag. (In another essay, \u201cA New Phase of the American Counterrevolution<\/a>,\u201d I recount in more detail the assault on Critical Race Theory).<\/p>\n
Until recently, the field of Critical Race Theory received attention predominantly in the academy. It was not really part of the national public discourse. In the legal academy, where the term \u201cCritical Race Theory\u201d[6]<\/a> originated, its aura and influence reached a zenith in the 1990s. It produced brilliant new insights throughout the early twenty-first century related to racial capitalism, neoliberalism, intersectionality, sexuality, and more\u2014interventions that are crucial and essentials for critical thinkers like me. But relatively few scholars were paying attention until now, not to mention the public at large. I recall hearing one of my most respected colleagues in a faculty meeting mid-2000s arguing that there was no point hiring in the field of Critical Race Theory because the paradigm was exhausted. That was how most (non-critical) legal scholars\u2014including liberal and many Left thinkers\u2014felt about Critical Race Theory before the pandemic. When they discussed it, they tended to treat it as a historical episode in legal theory (after the \u201cCritical Legal Studies\u201d movement and before \u201cQueer Theory\u201d).<\/p>\n
Today, you can be driving down a remote road in middle America, reach a stop sign, and see \u201cCRT\u201d scratched underneath the red enamel paint: \u201cSTOP CRT.\u201d In the middle of nowhere. Far from the ivory towers. Beyond the reach of the New York Times<\/em>. Republican legislators have introduced over a dozen bills in state legislatures and in the U.S. House of Representatives seeking to ban CRT and antiracism training in employment or educational settings. In New Hampshire, the proposed legislation targets \u201cdivisive concepts,\u201d \u201crace or sex scapegoating,\u201d or the idea that the country or state is \u201cfundamentally racist.\u201d[7]<\/a> In Arkansas, it forbids training programs that encourage \u201cdivision between, resentment of, or social justice for\u201d marginalized groups.[8]<\/a> Idaho and Louisiana have introduced similar types of legislation. Conservative politicians around the country have been running campaigns on their opposition to CRT. Local school boards<\/a> have erupted in curricular struggles over CRT.<\/p>\n
Now, it is important to understand that the moniker \u201cCritical Race Theory\u201d or simply \u201cCRT\u201d as used by its opponents is the placeholder for a much more diffuse constellation of basic ideas than originally formulated in the legal academy\u2014a constellation that both intentionally stretches the meaning of CRT to become entirely banal (essentially, it now includes any mention of race that is \u201cdivisive\u201d) and at the same time requires a lot of theoretical work to understand what it is doing and how it functions. In the ideological assault, the term CRT points to any form of non-white race consciousness; for example, the idea that there is systemic racism against persons of color in America, or that there are ongoing legacies of slavery or Jim Crow in this country. It effectively covers any form of non-white racial identity politics or any claim about power that could be considered divisive from the perspective of a supposed white person.<\/p>\n
I am being careful to exclude white racial identity politics because the attack on CRT is blind to that; so, for instance, it does not consider the \u201cblue lives matter\u201d American flag as having anything to do with race or racial identity, even though that symbol is, at its core, a racialized marker intended to confront and combat #BLM. In this sense, the label \u201cCRT\u201d is not just about any form of race consciousness, but about consciousness of antiblackness or white supremacy or racial discrimination against persons of color. As you can tell, it is theoretically complex, even though intentionally pedestrian. This requires a lot of unpacking. But for now, it is important to recognize that the marker \u201cCRT\u201d in the public discourse today has outgrown the strictly disciplinary term Critical Race Theory that was originally coined and developed in American law schools. It is not literally the writings, books, or articles of the legal scholars\u2014Derrick Bell, Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, Kendall Thomas, Patricia Williams, and others. Their theoretical work infuses the common meaning, but the term has been instrumentalized and redefined to cover, essentially, anything related to Black consciousness.<\/p>\n
The Present Political Conjuncture<\/h1>\n
We are in the midst of a fierce political assault today. At the time of the storming of the Capitol, I described it as the culmination of an American Counterrevolution<\/a>.[9]<\/a> Hindsight has, if anything, confirmed my opinion. But with that failed coup, the counterrevolution has pivoted to a new front and entered a new phase: a phase of (renewed) ideological struggle, a war of position as Gramsci would have said. It has burrowed down on the cultural formations<\/em> of progressives today: antiracism, critical race theory, anti-xenophobia, trans* and non-conforming sexualities. It has reengaged, in a newly invigorated way, the culture wars.[10]<\/a> The main battle right now is no longer the street, but words, language, ideas. Of course, the two have always worked in tandem. \u201cPractices always have a meaning, and meanings organize practice and produce real effects,\u201d Stuart Hall reminded us. Together, they become, as Hall put it, \u201cracism\u2019s two registers.\u201d[11]<\/a><\/p>\n
What then is to be done? Should critical theorists reclaim the discourse of Critical Race Theory and take back CRT, in the way in which, perhaps, the term \u201cqueer\u201d was reclaimed by Queer Theory? Or should critical theorists shift semantic fields and let go of the term in order to invent other new ways of speaking and seeing the world? Should they confront the assault or rather ignore it and instead keep theorizing?<\/p>\n
These are the questions I would like to explore at Revolution 6\/13 and I can think of no one better to guide us than my brilliant colleague Kendall Thomas<\/a>, the Nash Professor of Law at Columbia University. Professor Thomas is one of the founders of Critical Race Theory and co-editor of the seminal collection Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement<\/em><\/a> (New York: New Press, 1995). He has been instrumental in helping push Critical Race Theory into new areas of gender and sexuality, racial capitalism and neoliberalism, cultural studies, and poststructuralism.<\/p>\n
Kendall Thomas has been a leading voice in response to the assault on Critical Race Theory. He recently delivered the 2020 Equality and Diversity Lecture at Oxford University<\/a> and penned an essay arguing that these questions of racial justice are political, rather than moral questions.<\/a><\/p>\n
Our discussion at Revolution 6\/13<\/a> will be guided in part by the writings of two other remarkable worldly revolutionary philosophers, Stuart Hall and Manning Marable. Much of Stuart Hall\u2019s work focused precisely on the intersection of practice and culture, discourse, ideology. An early member of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University and founder of British Cultural Studies and The New Left Review<\/em>, Hall\u2019s writings are particularly pertinent in these times of ideological counterrevolution. For many years now, they have inspired Kendall Thomas\u2019s work at the center that he founded and directs, the Columbia Center for the Study of Law and Culture. We will read Hall\u2019s article \u201cCulture, Resistance, and Struggle<\/a>,\u201d which, Hall explains, \u201cfocus[es] on cultural and ideological rather than political forms of resistance,\u201d as well as on his political writings and his memoir, Familiar Stranger<\/em>.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n
Manning Marable, late professor of history and African-American studies at Columbia University and the founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, provides another beacon to guide us. Marable was a model of the engaged worldly philosopher who brought together critique and praxis. Marable helped found and give early direction to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and later chaired the Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS); at the same time, he also wrote the Pulitzer-prize winning biography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention<\/em> (Viking 2011). We will be focusing on his article \u201cThe Third Reconstruction: Black Nationalism and Race in a Revolutionary America<\/a>,\u201d where he sketches a radical blueprint for transformation along the lines of dual sovereignty between a Black nation and a predominantly-white postcapitalist society. In a brilliant work of imagination and ambition, Marable charts a radical vision for the future.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n
We cannot hope for the revolution and the Third Reconstruction within our current century. Socialism is not \u201con the agenda\u201d in our country, but the battle in civil society for socialist or capitalist ideological hegemony wages daily. As we prepare ourselves and others for the next American civil war, we might consider what we would do with state power if it was truly ours. This is a speculative but hopeful contribution toward the foundations of that socialist society\u2014the new cultural democracy.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Manning Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction,\u201d Social Text<\/em> (1981)[14]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Welcome to Revolution 6\/13!<\/p>\n
Notes<\/h1>\n
[1]<\/a> Christopher F. Rufo, \u201cThe Courage of Our Convictions: How To Fight Critical Race Theory,\u201d City Journal<\/em>, April 22, 2021.<\/p>\n
[2]<\/a> Rufo, \u201cThe Courage of Our Convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n
[3]<\/a> Manning Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction: Black Nationalism and Race in a Revolutionary America<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Social Text,<\/em>\u00a0no. 4 (Autumn, 1981): 3-27, at 5 (emphasis added).<\/p>\n
[4]<\/a> Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction,\u201d\u00a05. E. Colin Ruggero provides an excellent explanation of these terms on his website, War of Position<\/a>.<\/p>\n
[5]<\/a> Christopher Rufo tweets (https:\/\/twitter.com\/realchrisrufo\/status\/1371540368714428416<\/a> and https:\/\/twitter.com\/realchrisrufo\/status\/1371541044592996352<\/a>); see also Marisa Iati, \u201cWhat is critical race theory and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?,\u201d Washington Post<\/em>, May 29, 2021, https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2021\/05\/29\/critical-race-theory-bans-schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n
[6]<\/a> See generally <\/em>Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement<\/em>, ed. Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, Kendall Thomas et al. (New York: New Press, 1995).<\/p>\n
[7]<\/a> Adam Harris, \u201cThe GOP\u2019s \u2018Critical Race Theory\u2019 Obsession: How Conservative Politicians and Pundits Became Fixated on an Academic Approach,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>, May 7, 2021.<\/p>\n
[8]<\/a> Harris, \u201cThe GOP\u2019s \u2018Critical Race Theory\u2019 Obsession.\u201d<\/p>\n
[9]<\/a> The American Counterrevolution refers to the American mode of governing, at home and abroad, through a counterinsurgency warfare paradigm (what was called la guerre moderne <\/em>or la guerre r\u00e9volutionnaire <\/em>originally in France). Herbert Marcuse discussed it in his book Counterrevolution and Revolt <\/em>(Boston: Beacon Press, 1972). Since 9\/11, the American Counterrevolution has gone through different phases, from the more brutal form associated with torture and indefinite detention with President George W. Bush, to the more legalistic form associated with targeted drone strikes and total information awareness with President Barack Obama, to the white supremacist, New Right form associated with the Muslim Ban and child separation at the Southern border with President Donald Trump. See generally<\/em> Bernard E. Harcourt, The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens <\/em>(New York: Basic Books, 2018).<\/p>\n
[10]<\/a> The counterrevolutionaries have learned their lessons well\u2014from Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, as they explicitly recognize. See generally<\/em> \u201cCritique & the Alt-Right,\u201d available here https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/4-13\/<\/a>; read introduction here: https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-critique-the-alt-right\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n
[11]<\/a> Stuart Hall, Familiar Stranger <\/em>(Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), <\/em>105.<\/p>\n
[12]<\/a> Stuart Hall, \u201cCulture, Resistance, and Struggle<\/a>,\u201d in\u00a0Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History<\/em>, ed. Jennifer Daryl Slack\u00a0and\u00a0Lawrence Grossberg (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 180; Hall,\u00a0Familiar Stranger<\/em>.<\/p>\n
[13]<\/a> Note that although Marable was a brilliant and radical visionary, he was by no means a PIC abolitionist! In the article, he proposes up to life imprisonment as punishment for racist behavior. Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction,\u201d 17.<\/p>\n
[14]<\/a> Marable, \u201cThe Third Reconstruction,\u201d\u00a026.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bernard E. Harcourt Practices always have a meaning, and meanings organize practice and produce real effects. \u2014 Stuart Hall, Familiar Stranger (2017) The next social revolution in America, then, must involve the utter abolition of racial prejudice… Continue Reading