Critical Race Theory

Race is a Social Construction

• Race is not a matter of biological difference (race is understand differently across societies)

• Societies often define “racial identity” in terms of positive and negative stereotypes.

Whiteness

• White is a “racial” category (thus “race” is present even in all-white films).

• Whiteness is defined in opposition to other racial categories.

• White privilege (the power and advantages that come with having white skin in the U.S.)---See http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html

Racism vs. Prejudice

• To be prejudiced is to have an individual dislike for a group of people.

• To be racist is to have the power to deny opportunity to another group of people.

• Racism is often committed by institutions (corporations, the legal system, schools)

Digital Divide

• Unequal access to digital technologies (race, class, gender, geographic location)

• Gap in United States is narrowing, but inequalities remain.

Race and the Gaze

• Visual texts often implicitly assume a white spectator.

• Nonwhite people often depicted as “exotic” and nontechnological.

• Nonwhite characters less likely to be heros (more likely to be villains or comic sidekicks)

Historical Legacies

• European colonialism• Slavery• Native American Conquest / Genocide

(Depends in part on visual tropes that

position whites as civilized and nonwhites

as “primitive,” whites as “explorers” and

nonwhites as “objects” to be found)

Questions to ask about race…

• Is the camera’s gaze a racialized gaze? Who is the implied spectator?

• How does the text reinforce or subvert racial stereotypes?

• How does the text portray black, white, asian, latino, and indigenous identities in relation or opposition to one another?

• Does the text challenge or reinforce/ignore structures of institutional racism?

• How does the text (implicitly) reference tropes of colonialism, conquest, and/or slavery?