Black and White

Abstract

Critical Race Theory dreams in black and white. No rhapsody of color, only charred history and pale hope. Yet the dreams stamp hard, inspiring a jurisprudential movement of diverse scholars and earning an uneasy place in the postwar scholarship of the American legal academy. Having waged both theoretical and practical battles to gain that place, Critical Race theorists are loath to surrender it, a tribute of remembrance to the "barbaric century” of their shared racial oppression. Nor should they yield. Without the pain of memory, there is no struggle. And without struggle, there is no progress.

In this Essay, I consider the progress of Critical Race Theory ("CRT") symbolized by two inaugural collections of accumulated movement scholarship: Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge and Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. Both collections represent important, indeed path-breaking work in American law. Parsing works of this magnitude-together the collections comprise some 77 articles and 1,075 pages-poses uncommon challenges. Chief among these is the summons of inclusion. The articles represent a wide range of scholarship that spans doctrinal, jurisprudential, and interdisciplinary subjects. Such far-reaching coverage defies comprehensive, even-handed treatment. No less of a hurdle is the demand of relevance. The instant scholarship charts the intellectual history of a movement still in development, advancing from an early vanguard period to a middle period of internal fracture and external siege. Granting each period an equal claim of relevance invites summary treatment, which risks diminishing the full texture of the movement's evolution. A predominantly retrospective focus, as here, reduces the risk of loss.

Keywords: Critical Race Theory