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Critical Race Theory Analysis

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Critical social theorists have a desire to influence and change social problems occurring in society and inform disciplines including human services practice, and guide practitioners through critical social theories to explain and understand social phenomenon (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2015, p. 130). Past sociological theories were created in a different era where Eurocentric ideologies were favoured to explain social issues and inform human services practice. However, since progression of evolution, globalisation and racial activism, theorists are presenting new social theories to inform disciplines of new developments and applying these theories to social problems. Critical race theory (CRT), acts to provoke change from macro structures by advocating …show more content…
Scholars Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman, have been largely credited as being the originators of critical race theory (CRT) which seeks to analyse, deconstruct and transform societies understanding of the relationships among race, racism and official power (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). The theory originated out of legal scholarship in the 1970s after the failure of Critical Legal Studies (CLS), to focus sufficiently on racial issues in America (Litowitz, 2009), where a number of lawyers, activists and scholars viewed civil rights as being stalled and negated, thus providing a critical analysis lens of race and racism from a legal point of view based on race and racism in America (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Critical race theorists and practitioners identified six tenets in the framework being; (1) Endemic racism, views racism is an ordinary everyday occurrence for people of colour through structural functions in society; (2) Race as a social construction; (3) Differential racialisation, meaning dominant social discourses and people of power can radicalise groups in different ways and times; (4) Interest convergence/materialist determinism, when racism brings material ad psychic advantage to the majority race; (5) Voices of colour, occurs when the dominant group’s recollection of historic events excludes racial and other minority perspectives to justify and legitimise its power; and (6) Anti-essentialism/intersectionality, occurs when critical race theory recognises the intersectionality of various oppressions and suggests a primary focus on race can obscure other forms of exclusion (Abrams & Moio,

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