The True Story of Critical Race Theory

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is racism a permanent fixture of society? Host Kai Wright is joined by Jelani Cobb, staff writer for The New Yorker, to unravel the history of Derrick Bell’s quest to answer that question and how it led to our present debate over critical race theory. Companion listening for this episode: The Method to Tucker Carlson’s Madness (5/3/2021) History suggests we shouldn’t laugh off what’s happening in right wing media right now. Plus, profiting off of racism is a business model as old as the news. “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at anxiety@wnyc.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever heard of critical race theory or the debate about it? I haven't, unfortunately.
0:06.0	And have you heard about Derek Bell?
0:08.0	No, I haven't, but definitely if I could write down his name, I'll Google him.
0:12.0	Because I think critical thinking is very important.
0:15.0	Critical thinking or critical race theory?
0:18.0	Critical race theory?
0:19.0	Or it's critical race theory?
0:21.0	Critical race theory?
0:22.0	Have you ever heard of that?
0:23.2	No, what happened?
0:24.7	Have you heard of Critical Race Theory?
0:26.5	Who?
0:27.5	Critical Race Theory?
0:28.5	Have you ever heard of that transfer?
0:29.5	What is it? What is it?
0:30.5	I don't know. Like, I feel so silly because I know there was a point where I knew what it was.
0:35.0	Isn't it just kind of examining like your actions are kind of like what you see through like a race conscious lens?
0:42.0	Maybe. Maybe not. through like a race conscious lens maybe.
0:44.0	Yeah I'm not sure how I would like define it like I feel like I kind of know what it is
0:48.8	but I really don't know how to like put it into words properly. Yeah. This is the United States of anxiety. I'm Kai Wright and you know what? It's totally understandable if you cannot define critical race theory.
1:05.4	Honestly, if you've not been to law school or had some form of graduate education in the humanities,
1:11.5	it's really unlikely you would have even heard the phrase before this spring.
	...

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