The subject of a right-wing media frenzy, a blazing topic at the front of political conversation and the topic of recent news coverage is Critical Race Theory, also known by its acronym, CRT. There's been a movement that surrounds the quote-unquote "indoctrination” of children (NBC, 2021). But what exactly IS Critical Race Theory? 

Critical Race Theory (hereafter CRT) argues that racism is endemic to society. At its essence, CRT, founded by legal scholars such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw and others,  builds on disciplines from all across academia and studies racism’s pervasive impact on society (NBC, 2021). The Black Lives Matter movement over the past decade, starting from protests in 2014 about the murders of Black bodies such as Michael Brown and Tamir Rice all the way to protests in 2020 and beyond about the murder of George Floyd has started national conversations about the generational trauma of slavery, the school-to-prison pipeline, power, and positionality. 

The crackdown on CRT isn't about CRT itself. It's about ideology. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what CRT is, in addition to white fragility–that is, discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice–that lead to these common misconceptions (Oxford English Dictionary). Another misconception is that CRT divides race into a Black and white dichotomy.

Tribal Critical Race Theory (hereafter TribalCrit) is the brainchild of National Education Policy Center Fellow Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, President’s Professor in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University.



His posit is that not only is racism endemic to society--colonization is endemic to society, as well. He lays out 9 core tenets for TribalCrit (Brayboy, 2005):

1. Colonization is endemic to society
2. U.S. policies toward Indigenous peoples are rooted in imperialism, White supremacy, and a desire for material gain.
3. Indigenous peoples occupy a liminal space that accounts for both the political and racialized natures of our identities.
4. Indigenous peoples have a desire to obtain and forge tribal sovereignty, tribal autonomy, self-determination, and self-identification.
5. The concepts of culture, knowledge, and power take on new meaning when examined through an Indigenous lens.
6. Governmental policies and educational policies toward Indigenous peoples are intimately linked around the problematic goal of assimilation.
7. Tribal philosophies, beliefs, customs, traditions, and visions for the future are central to understanding the lived realities of Indigenous peoples, but they also illustrate the differences and adaptability among individuals and groups.
8. Stories are not separate from theory; they make up theory and are, therefore, real and legitimate sources of data and ways of being.
9.Theory and practice are connected in deep and explicit ways such that scholars must work towards social change.

All position indigenous bodies at the center of the CRT narrative. TribalCrit also, according to Dr. Brayboy, provides a theoretical lens for addressing many of the issues facing American Indian communities today, including issues of language shift and language loss, natural resources management, the lack of students graduating from colleges and universities, the overrepresentation of American Indians in special education, and power struggles between federal, state, and tribal governments. TribalCrit must be taught in K-12 schools, because we sound decolonial futures by making strategic moves to change a colonial present.

Sources

Brayboy, Bryan McKinley Jones. 2005. "Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education" The Urban Review 37(5): 425-446.