Critical Race Theory comes to the UK: A Marxist response

Critical Race Theory (CRT), which was birthed in the United States, has been gaining a foothold in the United Kingdom. In this paper Mike Cole offers a critical Marxist response to CRT. According to Cole, CRT asserts that race should play a central role in any legal, educational, or social policy analysis and is defined by the following two tenets: 1) "the concept of 'white supremacy' better describes oppression based on 'race' in temporary societies than does the concept of "racism"; and 2) "the belief in 'race' rather than social class as the primary contradiction in society." Cole outlines four problems he sees with the CRT's term 'white supremacy': 1) it diverts attention away from modes of production; 2) it "homogenizes" all white people; 3) it fails to take into consideration "non-colour coded racism"; and 4) it is "counter productive as a political unifier and rallying point against racism." In terms of CRT's second tenet that race is a more significant variable than class in today's society, Cole, while acknowledging the racialized and gendered nature of social class, defends social class as the primary variable impacting society today by stating that it is the "system upon which the maintenance of capitalism depends." To conclude, Cole looks to Venezuela as a model of anti-racism/anti-imperialist Marxism which has created a Marxist-informed pedagogy in education. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]