Kimberlé Crenshaw on Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality & the Right's War on Public Education

We speak with renowned legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw about right-wing efforts to curtail the teaching of African American history, queer studies and other subjects that focus on marginalized communities. The College Board, the nonprofit group that designs AP courses for high school seniors, recently revised a curriculum for a course in African American studies after criticism from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who maligned it as "woke indoctrination." The new curriculum removes Black Lives Matter, slavery reparations and queer theory as required topics, and drops many major writers, including Crenshaw, from the reading list. "Anybody who's concerned about our democracy, anyone who's concerned about authoritarianism has to wake up and pay attention to this, because this is how it happens," she says. Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" to study the overlapping or intersecting social identities and systems of oppression, domination or discrimination people experience.

#DemocracyNow

[ripadipaflipa]

I was in a charter school in the 1970’s and wanted to learn more about native Americans when I was 17. I was able to go out and find an elder to learn from writing my curriculum. It made me a better person, mother and citizen.

[gypsyart]

AP Courses are College level courses CHOSEN freely to be taken by Seniors in High School who wish to earn duel credit, High School credit and College credit at the same time. A student CHOOSES which AP Courses they wish to take. They are in no way REQUIRED to take any particular AP course or AP Courses at all. The have CHOICES! You can CHOOSE to just stick with your regular High School courses also.

We need to STOP the FEW Extreme Right parents from stripping our children of a well rounded education! The MAJORITY of parents don't want these book bans and course bans etc. So why are the MAJORITY allowing the FEW to choose what our children do and don't learn?! It is the PUBLIC SCHOOL system! If you want Private education then pull your children out of the Public School System and place them in Private schools that cater to your Extremism or better yet Home School them! The rest of us want our children to be taught HISTORY & SCIENCE!

WOKE means 'to be informed' so Hell yes I guess I prefer Wokeness! Because our children deserve to be INFORMED and knowledgeable of TRUTH! Because if we do not know our History we are in eminent danger of REPEATING it!

[neatneat]

I am a 57 yr old African American woman and I learn something new about my own history even today. PBS, Democracy Now, AARP, etc. have done an excellent job during Black History Month.

[shawnleveston]

This shit is truly the MATRIX. Try to wake others up and see if you don’t get ATTACKED !!!

[Souldier]

We in the black community do not want our kids learning anything about queers. Why is that even associated with black history. That's disrespectful.

[katieakin]

You don’t even have to take AP courses, sad that College Board folded so quickly for something that is elective

[kimhart]

Please black Americans teach your children please don't wait on a debate or a system that's been built against us for 400 plus years!!!! I teach my children everyday is black history month not just for them but myself and my husband our history is full of so many twists and turns so much to be proud of and so much pain at times for myself and my family but it's our calling from God to know who we are the more we learn the more we love our GOD ourselves and our people 🥰💞🥰💞🥰

[tracygreen]

Native, Mexican, Asian and Black history needs to be in ALL history books

[abby-usivemonopoly]

Those who claim _(implicitly or explicitly)_ that being against "why†e-supremacísm" is the same as being against "why†e people, " are why†e-supremacís†s. _(No matter which party they belong to.)_

[MrIAMTHESIR]

History MUST be told COMPLETELY...

The TRUTH will ALWAYS prevail...

[michaelmorrissey]

She worked hard to graduate from Cornell and Harvard. Maybe we should encourage young people to do that instead of telling them they’re oppressed victims.

[RichieuAI]

This is so tragic. This woman is insane. Thank god you guys still have normal logic minded republicans to save your children.

[firstghost]

What about the intersectionality of Black boys raised by single Black mothers with their intersectionality?

[Happy-uywc]

Ron Desantis is heading a new program in Florida schools called, "Fahrenheit 451"

[meteorbaby]

CRT and intersectionality werent the only issues. Queer theory is NOT African American history. Woke history is not African American history. If they would just teach history without all their ideologies mixed in then DeSantis wouldnt have had an issue.

[cooltuber]

Teaching the truth about racism and individual rights is one thing but bias for political gain or for other means through ideological indoctrination is something entirely different. BTW what does Queer Study have to do with African American History ?

[RaycurtakaFIDDLA]

All the legislation against CRT proves the obvious points of the theory 🙂 thanks for the extra promotion

[SuperGhettoBob]

What a softball interview. Goodman did not ask any challenging questions of a highly controversial speaker. Nor did Goodman ask her to clarify her comments when she spoke in vague, pseudo-academic gibberish.

[tomfullery]

CRT and African American History are two completely different topics. No one's trying to ban African American history. But some people ARE trying to sneak CRT into African American History courses where it doesn't belong.

[jameslong]

Soon this evil will cancel itself, but not before it destroys many.