A Return to Racial Realism: Lessons from and Applications to Black Education Theory and Practice

• In Event: Theoretical Constraints in Teacher Education

Abstract

Black scholars from various disciplines have begun to critique the widespread adoption and use of CRT by liberal scholars by arguing that what gets touted as CRT is in fact a diluted, integration-oriented distortion of the original intent of its founder Derrick Bell. This tendency has grafted a continual push for a post-racial humanism and a thrust toward racial amelioration into the very foundation of CRT. In this presentation, we intend to challenge this pervasive articulation of CRT and deconstruct the dominant integrationist and multicultural educational metanarratives that have accrued around it. Highlighting Bell’s Racial Realism thesis, we invoke Black educational philosophy, theory, and practice to argue against the strategy of integrating Black children into anti-Black spaces. Instead, we seek to offer real world examples of Racial Realism that have created their own thriving and affirming Black educational spaces.

Authors

• E. Anthony Muhammad, Georgia Southern University

• Andre Benito Mountain, Gwinnett County Public Schools