CRT: the cutting edge

"One of the most characteristic and ubiquitous features of the world as experienced by oppressed people is the double bind – situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation…One can only choose to risk one’s preferred form and rate of annihilation.

"Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would gave trouble going past the wires to get anywhere…It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon."

- from "Oppression" by Marilyn Frye

When I first encountered Frye's birdcage analogy, it was presented to me as an analogy for patriarchy. It wasn't until I reread it a couple of years ago in preparation for teaching an Intro to Gender Studies class that I realized, whether Frye intended it to be or not, that it is in fact both an analogy for the way that multiple hierarchies interact, and an explanation for much of the reasoning behind legal and governmental policy decisions that further hierarchical structures. The introduction to Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge notes that one of the premises of CRT is that "racism is normal, not aberrant, in American society." If we expand this premise to argue that oppression overall is normal in American society, and thus any form of oppression "looks ordinary and natural to persons in the culture," then the birdcage treatment of oppression is understandable (xvi). When all forms of oppression are treated as aberrant, then the idea of an interlocking system of oppressive hierarchies is simply inconceivable.

This becomes apparent in "A Hair Piece: Perspectives on the Intersection of Race and Gender," in which Paulette M. Caldwell discusses the case of Rogers v. American Airlines, where the courts upheld employers' bans on braided hairstyles in the workplace. As she analyzes the decision, Caldwell points out that the court assumed that racism and sexism "are fundamentally unrelated phenomena" (279). Similarly, Darren Lenard Hutchinson argues in "A Racial Critique of Gay and Lesbian Legal Theory" that police treatment of the Rivera case as a drug-related death, rather than a hate-crime murder based on both homophobia and racism, despite the fact that the perpetrators were white supremacists, one of whom directly stated that they "killed Rivera because he was gay," was due to the "broader social context of racial, class, and sexual subordination" (327).

If we consider Juan F. Perea's discussion of paradigms in "The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race," it becomes clear that the primary paradigm is that American society is perceived as fundamentally equal, with a few aberrant situations in which people are treated on unfairly on the basis of race or gender. This paradigm includes the assumption that race and gender are both binary and essential categories: In any case of racial discrimination, it is perpetrated by a white person upon a person of color (and is largely only recognized when reminiscent of Jim Crow), while in any case of sexism, it is perpetrated by a man upon a woman (and is largely only recognized when reminiscent of coverture).

As Perea notes, "Paradigms define relevancy" (344). Thus, with the above two paradigms for understanding racism and sexism, it is irrelevant if a rule, ordinance, or custom such as banning braided hairstyles specifically negatively affects black women, because there is no clear "racism" in the way that racism is recognized in that paradigm—it's not "no blacks allowed." Nor is there "sexism," because women are not being told "you can't work here" or "you must look pretty." Teachers who ignore children of Asian descent in classes because of the stereotype that "Asians girls are quiet by nature" are not engaging in racism, because they are not banning children from the classroom, and many (white) people might well see such stereotyping as "positive."

Another element lies within these paradigms, however. Returning to the idea of the binary and essential categories, the courts have only consistently ruled against discrimination when it was based on immutable, essential characteristics. Skin color and gender are presumed to be immutable, determined at birth, and essential. A person is female or male, and everyone is able to identify what "male" and what "female" mean. A person is black or white, and everyone is able to identify what "black" and "white" look like. One effect of this is that ambiguity is neither acknowledged nor tolerated, because it is irrelevant to the paradigm. Transgendered or bisexual people are not part of the male/female gay/straight binaries. Latina/o or American Indian people are difficult to fit into the black/white binary. The solution is that Latino/as are instead placed into the American/foreign binary, while American Indians are made invisible. To make an argument against oppression, it is necessary to find a binary to place oneself in—and a clear parallel to Jim-Crow-type policies.

The other significant effect of these paradigms requires returning to the part of the paradigm that characterizes oppression as unnatural and infrequent in American society. Because "society as usual" consists of a series of methods for perpetuating oppression, it is difficult for anyone who views oppression as an aberration to identify it when it is not a clear case of segregation. In many cases, however, oppression takes the form of forcing people to conform to the norms of dominant culture and painting any nonconformity as a question of "choice." By this rationale, non-English speakers are not discriminated against, because they "choose" not to learn English. People who are beaten to death for not conforming to gender roles are not victims of hate crimes because they "choose" to be "different." Black women who are labeled "unprofessional" for wearing their hair naturally or in braids are not victims of discrimination because they "choose" how to style their hair. Immigrants who live in poverty are not worth worrying about because they "choose" to be in the United States, and if they don't like it, they can "choose" to go home. Those who are different from the norm are the ones who are at fault if they receive different treatment.

What this paradigm never asks is: Who sets the standards? Why do the standards exist? What function do they serve? Instead, it says: If you want to be treated like everyone else, you have to be like everyone else—and thus makes invisible the entire system of oppression which simultaneously creates the standards for what "people" are like. One wire of the birdcage seems innocuous, so the paradigm acts to ensure that only one wire is focused on at a time, while those who have the power of the oppressors say, "Why can't you just walk around the wire?" But buying into the paradigm is not a solution, even if it were both possible and desirable to change integral aspects of identity, because attempting to conform does not result in equality, just as passing does not result in ending racism. The best this paradigm allows for is getting a nicer birdcage.