Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a framework of theory that examines race and racism and how they are expressed within society. According to Purdue OWL, CRT scholars “attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice” (OWL). In my opinion, the second part of that sentence is tremendously important because to many people, CRT would seem like self-victimization. It is important to both recognize systems of oppression and also recognize how to fight back against them. In my last blog post, I wrote about how critical race theory is commonly used in social work (my major), so I pulled in a quote from a social work article to show the connection between the two. The article states that CRT “can provide a theoretical approach to social work practice that allows us to understand that the issues that a client presents have less to do with the client themselves and just as much, if not more, to do with institutions and systems.” In social work, CRT helps social workers understand the impact systems and have upon a person based on race. It also seems that while CRT has an agreed upon definition, how to represent it and use it has no consensus. Derrick Bell writes: “The answers to what is critical race theory are fairly uniform and quite extensive. As to what critical race theory ought to be, the answers are far from uniform…” However, I imagine this happens among all theoretical frameworks and not just CRT.
Casting White Actors to Play POC
I grew up watching Spy Kids but I never heard about an animated Spy Kids movie until now. I don’t know how I missed this controversy, I guess it’s because no media outlets really talked about it except TMZ. I also think that no one really heard about the movie, so no one heard about the controversy. I hate to agree with TMZ but they make really good points in their video interview and article about Travis Turner, a white man who voiced a black male character for the Spy Kids animated movie. After TMZ asked Turner about possibly receiving backlash for his role, he dug himself into a deeper grave by saying “If they want they can say whatever. I actually come from an urban background. I lived in motels. What I’m trying to say, I relate to the urban community.” YIKES. Living in an urban area and living in motels makes it okay for him to voice a black character? I’m genuinely curious as to whether this actor aligns himself with being black because of how he was raised. TMZ writes “But it gets worse, he also said he worked with Snoop Dog and ‘sponsored Black kids.’ Oh, and he grew up all Chris Rock and Chris Tucker. Yep, Travis has all things Black figured out.” Travis, my man, why do you have to make me agree with TMZ? Do you know how low you have to go for me to side with TMZ? Being friends with black people does not grant you certain rights or privileges or a “I’m not racist” card. I’m curious, does Turner also think it’s okay for him to say the n-word since he grew up in an urban community and has black friends? Additionally, TMZ makes a good point, which is where my mind had gone before I even saw the video: Why did the studio hire the actor? The blame shouldn’t just be on the actor, but also the studio, which is Netflix. The problem with casting a white actor to play a black character is that it takes away opportunities from actually black actors (note: by “actually black”, I am excluding white guys who have simply lived out of motels). It seems Netflix was woke enough to have a black animated character, but not woke enough to cast a black actor. It seems like Netflix was just trying to thoughtlessly crowd please. Now that’s what I call fake wokeness.
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