David Theo Goldberg (2023) The War on Critical Race Theory: or, The Remaking of Racism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Paperback (£11.48). 978-1-5095-5854-4.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has, somewhat ironically, found itself in the conservative firing line of an ever-burgeoning “culture war” that is polarising communities, shaping legislation and swaying elections. What was previously a relatively unknown theoretical framework, that had little purchase beyond the social science departments of academia is now frequently drawn upon, by right-wing politicians, journalists, think-tanks and media outlets, as a polemical soundbite, to stymie any discussions or debates vis-à-vis the permanence of structural racism. Ever since late 2020, CRT has extended its reach into the public domain by predominantly functioning as an empty signifier and acquiring numerous (yet disparaging) connotations including “wokery”, “cancel culture”, and “reverse racism”. But why? This is what David Theo Goldberg seeks to uncover in The War on Critical Race Theory.
This book comprises three substantive parts, that are each, constituted by a number of short chapters. The first substantive part (principles and principals) illuminates the individuals and institutions that are orchestrating the vociferous attacks against CRT, and what the proponents and practitioners actually take CRT to represent; the second part (fabrications) explicates what CRT’s opposers think they are opposing and their motivations behind doing so; and the third (the politics of “CRT”) examines the envisioned impacts of these attacks alongside the counters and contestations to them. In short, the raison d’etre of this book is to expose who is systematically targeting CRT, what they are saying about it and why. Or as Goldberg notes, “the politics at play in this manufactured set of campaigns” (p. ix).
The opening part introduces readers to the provocateurs responsible for co-ordinating and amplifying the incendiary (mis)representations against CRT. Goldberg identifies Christopher Rufo, an American conservative activist, as spearheading the campaign against CRT. Rufo’s many claims such as that CRT was a “cult indoctrination” that had “pervaded every institution in the federal government”, which subsequently engineered a moral panic, would have not been so widespread without the resourcing and platforming of institutions like the Heritage Foundation and City Journal who frequently published dismissive articles, by Rufo, about CRT. It was not, however, until the dwindling days of President Donald Trump’s time in the White House that Rufo’s campaign was ignited and reached greater heights after Trump was inspired by an interview given by Rufo, regarding CRT, to Fox News. Trump responded decisively, in a desperate last-minute attempt to appease voters and clinch onto his presidency, by issuing an executive order, two months before the elections, that prohibited any government department from investing in training relating to CRT.
According to Goldberg, Trump and Rufo are indebted to one another. He argues that an ideology has emerged from this unexpected yet serendipitous partnership which he describes as “Trufism” – an amalgamation of “Trumpism” and “Rufoism”. Trufism is basically, as put by Goldberg, Rufo’s rant gone national. A notable argument here is how the indispensable interdependence of the two has been the key driver behind Trufism gaining widespread traction. Goldberg argues that “Trump without Rufo would not have alighted on CRT as political fuel; Rufo without Trump would not have his national soapbox. Rufo gave Trump’s racial crassness a veneer behind which his supporters could not their support” (pp. 16–17). In short, Trufism is an ideology that is constituted by a multitude of falsehoods, fabrications and invented “truths” that serve a multitude of purposes such as the preservation of the existing state of affairs and political self-advancement.
Goldberg rightfully saw the need to present what the founders of CRT understood it to be and why they were motivated to develop it in order to lay claim that the criticisms being levelled at CRT were inherently flawed. CRT is an iteration of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) – a framework underpinned by Marxism, which argued that the American law structure was designed to uphold dominant class interests. The inception and development of the CRT oeuvre, during the late 1970s, were highly influenced by the scholarship of Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Patricia J. Williams, Mari Matsuda, Cheryl Harris, Alan Freeman, Charles R. Lawrence III and others. The purpose was to highlight that the variable of “race” required greater attention in order to understand and combat societal racial injustices. CRT is constituted by a set of theoretical propositions and methodological approaches, although, it is as much a perspective as a theory. In other words, CRT is predicated on the perspective that “race”, ethnicity and racism ought to be the foci of existing analyses in order to gain a better understanding of power relations and structural disparities in contemporary Western societies.
Goldberg notes the tenets that constitute CRT are as follows: (1) “race” is a social construction; (2) racism is endemic rather than a series of one-off aberrations; (3) any advances in racial equity may only occur if they converge with the interests of those who benefit from the status quo; (4) how the modus operandi of racism is multifaceted and cannot be reduced to a single expression; (5) that “race” does not operate in isolation and often intersects with other markers of identity including gender, class, religion and disability; and lastly, (6) how CRT privileges storytelling methodologies in order to foreground lived experience. The flexibility of this theoretical and methodological ensemble has provided others (Abdullah 2013) with a template for making claims about, arguably, the most “accepted” form of racism today – Islamophobia (Chaudry 2022). For example, Abdullah (2013) has argued in what he describes as Critical Muslim Theory (CMT) that: (1) Islamophobia is endemic and pervasive; (2) that CMT is critical towards how the dominant society views Islam and Muslims; (3) how Islamophobia is a social construct; (4) legal basis; (5) intersectionality; and (6) how storytelling methods reveal the oppression of Muslims.
The second substantive part of this book is dedicated to unpacking the characterisations (or fabrications, to be more precise) that animate Trufist doctrine about CRT; and how these differ from the version of CRT that was originally developed by its founders. Trufists argue that CRT is, in itself, a racist ideology that constructs all white people as being oppressors and all people of colour as being the oppressed. It is purported that CRT is a pernicious “left-wing” ideology that operates to further stoke racial hate and divisions within society. Goldberg identified that, in response, how the detractors of CRT often resort to neoliberalising racism and espousing the flawed rhetoric of “colour-blindness”. The former reduces racism to a set of personal beliefs and prejudices that are the preserve of a few “bad apples”. The latter attributes the obstacles or opportunities that are confronted by individuals to their personal performance, as opposed, to the (dis)advantages that accompany their identity and backgrounds. The thread that runs through these two perspectives is the deliberate obfuscation of how racial injustice is structural and systemic.
The third and final part of this book draws together the preceding arguments to provide readers with an explanation regarding the co-ordinated and vitriolic assaults on CRT. Goldberg tells readers how the public police execution of George Floyd, during the Summer of 2020, served as a stark reminder that racism was not a thing of the past, but rather, a phenomenon that was alive and kicking in the present day. The anti-racist protests, that quickly ensued, were based on the premise that societal arrangements were largely infused by racism and that drastic change was necessary for the health of a multiracial democracy. The emergence of Trufism. therefore, could be interpreted as a counter to the counter. In other words, if CRT argues that structural racism is endemic then Trufism’s response, through a variety of make-believe fabrications, is that these arguments are mere exaggerations and falsehoods. Goldberg lay claim that the envisioned impact of Trufist attacks is to deregulate racism by stripping it of its traditional charges (which he described as a contemporary form of racism, in itself) and to debunk any assertions that racism is somehow structural and systemic. The neoliberalisation of racism alongside “colour-blind” rhetoric, therefore, operates as cynical ploys to prevent any further robust scrutiny of societal arrangements whilst contemporaneously keeping power and privilege in the hands of those who have always held it – an elite white minority rule.
The only criticism that I wish to level at Goldberg is that he could have gone further in exemplifying The War on Critical Race Theory by adequately acknowledging and explicating how similar scathing attacks that have been afoot in neighbouring Western countries including Britain. For example, in 2020, the then Conservative Equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, argued on behalf of her government that CRT should be unequivocally rejected as it is “an ideology that sees … blackness as victimhood and … whiteness as oppression”. Badenoch went further by asserting that any school teaching CRT, without offering a balanced and proportionate account of opposing views, would be breaking the law. Subverting CRT (and what it represents), therefore, has not been the work of any single figurehead or administration, but rather, the co-ordinated efforts of those holding the levers of power, particularly on the right, wherever they are, seeking the dismiss the incessant accusations vis-à-vis the breadth and depth of racial injustice(s) plaguing society.
The War on Critical Race Theory is, perhaps, not the book that Goldberg wanted to write but the book that he had to write. It is, as he mentions, a product of the politics of our time. It has been written in a “post-truth” world, during times when “dog-whistle” politics are on the rise and when politicians have become even more “economical” with the truth. This is a timely exposé that compellingly makes the case that the contestations and condemnations against CRT, that are being hurled from the House of Commons and the White House, among other places and platforms, are far from cogent. Rather, the public are being “gaslighted” into believing that the spectre of CRT is emblematic of a wider existential threat that seeks to unsettle the Western modus vivendi. It would, nevertheless, be reductive to limit the current state of affairs to a war against CRT – this is a war, more broadly, against anti-racist endeavours that refuse to passively accept a racist status quo. I would suggest that this book should be particularly read by Trufists (and its adherents), as a message, to signify, that the acrimonious yet erroneous arguments that aim to distort and discredit CRT, and everything that it represents, no longer hold water – the game is up.